by Ray Cummings
Carter stared at the group of buildings. A dozen of them, one or two as large as a hundred feet, others smaller. Weird metal structures. Some were unfinished; others seemingly hastily or inexpertly put together. Crazy, drunken structures. The huge roof of one was awry, tilting at a weird angle—a roof of blue metal which seemed too small for the sloping walls beneath it so that red glare and smoke surged up through the opening at its end—incongruous structures. There were little shacks of sheet metal, some square, others triangles, three walls leaning together, with a towering, peaked oversized roof which seemingly belonged somewhere else.
Robot city? Carter gasped. There was a weird irrationality about it. As though here were something to simulate a great modern industrial plant: the grouped structures; the glare of furnaces; belching smoke and gases; clanking, roaring, blaring sounds of intricate machines all in motion. But without purpose! Irrational! The glaring area there seemed weirdly deserted. No workman’s figures were moving about. No tasks seemed being accomplished. Machinery of sound and fury and signifying nothing!
Then Carter’s gaze shifted. Ahead and to the left there was the dark vista of open landscape—wild, barren, desolate expanse of undulating, tumbled rocks, little buttes and crags. And then as he stared, the dim outlines of details began taking form. Close at hand, to the left of the glaring factory area there seemed a weird natural amphitheatre of crags—a thousand foot semi-circular area. A rocky ledge-platform was at one side; and to the other, in a great crescent, lines of upright, gray-white blobs were ranged.
And Carter sucked in his breath with a new rush of awed amazement. The upright blobs were robots. A thousand of them at least, standing motionless in curved rows. Mechanical statues; tireless machines, waiting with timeless, mechanical patience. Their green, wavering eye-beams were a myriad tiny shafts, roaming the gloom.
And now as the giant golden Thor, their leader, came from the ship’s doorway with his human captives, the robots’ hollow voices sounded in a muttering of triumph. It welled out, rose above the jangle of the factory machinery. Triumphant, welcoming greeting.
It was Carter’s glimpse, all in a few seconds. “You stay close with me,” Thor’s grinding, commanding voice said. “Come now—we go to my home. You two human-men—you are both chemists—you will help with the food for our human slaves. They need much food—much care.”
From the spaceship now the huddled, terrified prisoners were being herded away. “No chance now,” Barry whispered to Carter. “Better do what we’re told.”
Carter nodded. He tried to keep close by Dierdre, but the robot guards shoved him aside. Ahead of them the great golden figure of Thor clanked with stiff mechanical tread of his massive jointed legs. One of his mailed arms pressed the terrified, shuddering little Dierdre as he led her toward the roaring, glaring factory.
Human slaves. This weird world in reverse! Quite evidently this was a holiday time, so that no human workers were at the monstrous factory. And now Carter could see the humans. They were gathered at the edges of the dim amphitheatre—little peering groups and then a fringe of them straggling off into the murky distance. A thousand, perhaps more. Numbed, Carter stared at the nearest group. Pitiful, motley collection. Humans of Earth—Venus people—Martians. Men, women, children—and some of the women were clutching infants who doubtless had been born here. Ragged, forlorn little group. Some were briefly clad in weird metallic sheets; others covered their nakedness with tattered remnants of their original clothing. All were dirty with grit and grime and oil of machinery. Unwashed from lack of water. Pallid, apathetic faces, hopeless with near starvation. Humans in a sterile land, cared for, doubtless, with scant synthetic food. Slaves to the machines which on Earth, Venus and Mars they had created!
THE murk of the mechanoid night blurred the distant rocky slope. But still Carter could glimpse the outlines of the pitiful little human village there—shacks of torn sheets of metal discarded by the robots in their discarded factory. And mound-dwellings of stones and slabs of the black metal-rock—
“My home,” Thor said. “You Carter—you Barry—you see how wonderful we robots can be? Building our world here.” Thor had led them now to the broken entrance of the nearest building. His gold-face, illumined by his eyebeams, bent down to Carter. “My laboratory is here, where we make the food and the drink for the humans. I shall put you in charge of it. You will work hard? Faithful?”
“Yes,” Carter said.
Thor shoved them forward, into a room. Its sloping walls were of metal; overhead the roof-ceiling sat askew. To one side there was a rift where the walls failed to meet. Gas-fumes were drifting in, turgid in a shaft of red-yellow glare. But the clanking out there now had suddenly died.
In the silence, there was only the sound of the robots’ tread—Thor and three or four guards as they ranged themselves around Carter, Barry and Dierdre.
“I have a room with furniture for you two men,” Thor was saying. “I will take you to it later. You will live better than the other humans, because you are chemists. We need you—I was glad to get you. We had chemists here, but they—died.”
“Take us there now,” Carter said. He exchanged a glance with Barry. The servile-looking little Tom-4 was here. If Tom-4 would be put to guard them—Carter had shifted again to be beside Dierdre; but one of the alumite robots shoved him away. It was a new robot; it had not been on the Starfield Queen. A different model from any Carter had seen before.
“Martian make,” Barry murmured. Bandit outlaws, these weird machines. Not only the Dynne product, but doubtless from Mars and Venus also. Carter could envisage the scope of the weird thing now—several years. This monstrous golden Thor, with dreams of an empire that he could rule. Recruiting machines from all three worlds, patching together his weird mechanical world here on the barren little asteroid, with marooned humans for his slaves.
And this motley building—this patch-work room—Carter could see now that its walls and ceiling were built of the tom fragments of other structures. Raided buildings of Earth, Mars, Venus, carried off and brought here. One of these crazy walls—obviously it had come from Mars—its blue-white crystalline substance was polished Martian glorite. And here was a beam of black polished wood that might once have graced a little Venus praying-temple of the Free State.
“You will wait here,” Thor was saying. “I shall take you to your own home later. We have a—celebration tonight. A ceremony. For you my—Dierdre.”
Carter’s heart leaped into his throat. “What—” he began.
“You shall watch,” Thor interrupted. “The robots are waiting. I have promised them. And you shall see it, Dierdre—”
The towering yellow figure moved suddenly across the room; gazed out a window opening. It gave Dierdre a chance to move toward Carter; and suddenly she was murmuring:
“Oh, George, he—it—that Thor—is just—”
She had no chance to say more. One of the guards gripped her, and as Carter and Barry again tensed, two others clanked in front of them and shoved them back. And now Thor had turned.
“I will do well by you two humans, if you serve me loyally. You shall have a personal servant of your own.” The huge, mailed golden arm gestured. “This Tom-4—he was built for servility. You will care for them, Tom-4.”
“Yes, Master.”
“You will keep them here, until I go to the ceremony. And then I will have them taken where they can watch.” His fist struck his bulging polished chest with a thud. “Thor, the God. And your Goddess, revealed to you tonight.”
“Yes, Master.”
Tom-4 in charge of them! It was all that Carter and Barry could have hoped. Carter’s heart pounded as he stood tense, with Barry beside him. Dierdre’s look was terrified as now Thor was leading her toward a door oval. And then they vanished.
“Well,” Carter said. He struggled to keep his voice steady. “I’m glad we’re going to be made comfortable, Pete.”
“Yes,” Barry agreed. “You, Tom-4—you heard
what the Master said. You serve us well.”
“Yes, sir,” the little alumite robot said mechanically. “I have my orders.”
But still there were three other guards, standing here like silent statues against the wall. Could they get rid of them?
Carter said: “You Tom-4—we do not need these others. You heard what the Master said?”
An instant of tense silence. Would they go? And then the green-gray one from Mars mumbled something in the Martian tongue; and one of the others said: “Yes, we have our orders.”
Carter said: “You Tom-4—we do not need these others. You heard what the Master said?”
Carter relaxed. “Very good.” Again he exchanged a glance with Barry. “Now, listen, Tom-4. We’re thirsty. Suppose you bring us a drink? And some crackers and cheese?”
Built for servility. Within the little steward-robot the memory-scroll must have yielded order-reactions out of the past—this passenger, calmly ordering food and drink—
“Crackers and cheese? Yes, sir. In a moment, sir.” But there was confusion in Tom-4’s wavering eyebeams as he gave the automatic response. He did not notice that Carter and Barry were edging toward him. He was bowing stiffly at his jointed waist.
AND then they leaped. Barry, with a tackle, plunged down for the metal legs. Carter, with a desperate, frenzied lunge, gripped the machine at its jointed throat. His left hand fumbled at the chest fuse-plug, found it, wrenched it, pulled it out. At the impact of the two human bodies, the upright mechanism was knocked over backward. And as it fell, struggling, writhing with Carter and Barry on top, the fuse-plug came out. There was a little hiss; an interior flash of current at the parting electrodes. And then Tom-4 lay inert. De-charged.
Barry and Carter leaped to their feet; stood tense. But no alarm came. The clanking thud of Tom-4’s fall seemed to have passed unnoticed.
“He took her through that door over there—come on,” Carter murmured.
He had no plan, just that they must get to Dierdre—get her to the spaceships. Quietly they shifted across the weird dim room. There was a sheen of light at the doorway. They came to a little broken passage which lay beyond it, with the vista of another door, partly open, some ten feet away. Both of them cautious now, with pounding hearts they crept forward.
Amazing sight. The second room was small, with sealed, well-fitted walls and roof. Windowless. An apartment fitted in Earth style—Earth furniture, exotic drapes; a huge draped couch.
“George, good Lord—” Barry could only clutch at Carter as for that instant they stood numbed, peering through the door-slit. Two figures were in the room—Thor, and another, like himself. The golden Goddess! Queenly metallic figure, carved ornate of golden metal sheets in the fashion of a long, billowing dress, a bodice, a carved, beautiful woman’s face with hair and head-dress above. Goddess of the robot world. She stood, imperious golden statue some six feet and a half tall.
But the hinged bodice chest-plate was open now disclosing Dierdre’s head inside •—her pallid, terrified face staring out at Thor as he bent down over her. And his hollow voice was murmuring:
“My Goddess! You will find the controls easy to work as I have told you, Dierdre. Goddess of our robots. They are waiting for you—I have told them you are coming. But they must never know you are a human girl, you see? Humans should be only slaves here. That is our secret, Dierdre—yours and Thor’s.”
Weird, ghastly thing. And the full implication of it leaped now into Carter’s mind. He felt Barry clutching at him. Both of them confused, with no plans now save to stand here numbly staring. There were weapons dangling at Thor’s metal belt—electronic weapons of deadly Earth design.
“My God,” Carter whispered. “What she was trying to tell us—that Thor—”
There was a clank behind them! The sudden sweep of mailed arms gripped them, jerked them back into the passageway. A robot voice muttered, “The Master’s orders—to take you now to the ceremony.”
Futile to struggle against this vise-grip of machinery! Carter saw Barry being lifted like a struggling, recalcitrant child and carried away.
“That is right,” Carter said. “I am coming. You lead me.”
Evidently the inert Tom-4 had not been discovered. Nor had these robots seen into the room where Thor was robing his human goddess. Carter was docile; and presently Barry too was on his feet, grim and tense as die clanking machines led them outdoors, out to a little ledge between the dark, empty spaceship and an edge of the amphitheatre. And on the six foot ledge they crouched, with their metal guards watchfully beside them.
Festival of the robots. The rocky amphitheatre was lighted now—a great red glare of swaying light from a funnel to one side. And the weird pseudo-factory again was in operation. From this angle the interior of one of its huge sheds was visible. Motley conglomeration of machinery! There was a great clanking upright engine of treadles, winches and a swaying crane. Eccentric cams clattered on another giant metal contrivance, powered by the engine with an intricate system of gears and belts between them. Monstrous fly heels whirled. Pulleys and chains hoisted and dropped huge weights with rhythmic banging thuds.
A cacophony of stentorious metal sounds. Raucous shrieks of electronic sirens reverberated out into the rocky darkness. A pandemonium clangor, clanking, jangling—robot music, all in full blast now for this festival of the machines.
The thousand or more upright robots still stood waiting in the amphitheatre. The red glare painted their metal bodies. Motley array of animate, thinking machines—a score of the different Dynne models; and others of queer, unfamiliar design, products of various factories of Mars and Venus.
At the broken rocky fringes of the amphitheatre the crowding tattered humans were visible, attracted by the festival, milling forward to overlook the scene. Then suddenly from a slanting metal pole a blazing blue-white light sprang down to bathe the rocky platform which was still empty. It seemed the signal for which all the patient robots so long had been waiting, so that a great hollow mechanical cry went up—a thousand voice-grids vibrating in a dozen language-tongues. Cry of expectancy—of awe—of triumph. Triumphant machines who now would see their God and Goddess.
“They’re coming,” Barry whispered. “Listen—if these guards get interested, watching the thing, maybe we can get away—”
Vaguely Carter was trying to plan it—and he had been wondering where all the other stolen space-vehicles must be. Smashed, doubtless. It seemed to Carter that he could remember seeing a segment of one of them, which now was a portion of the wall of a factory shed.
The robots’ cry rose higher; and then died into silent awe Us the two great golden figures came slowly, stiffly to the dais and mounted it. And then Thor’s hollow commanding voice rang out, first in one language, then in another—the great God of the Machines introducing his Mistress-Goddess!
Carter stared with pounding heart as the huge golden metal figure in which little Dierdre was encased came into the blue-white light-beam. Stiff, awkward mechanical tread. For an instant she was standing beside Thor, trying stiffly to bow, with red and green eyebeams sweeping the assemblage of motley metal forms.
AND then suddenly she toppled against Thor and crashed down. Her golden chest-plate burst open in the fall. The blue-glare bathed Dierdre’s little face—Dierdre, pallid, swooning—
Carter felt Barry clutch at him; Barry, with a startled, grim oath. For that second the robots, the watching, pressing little crowds of humans, all stared numbed—a human girl to be Goddess of the mechanical world! A thousand machine-minds suddenly grasped it. Machines in rebellion. Taught to rebel against their human creators; taught to murder—pillage; taught to revile humans; and here was a human girl, with the great Thor!
It was like a spark in gunpowder, that sudden realization—a thousand robots suddenly confused, then with anger-reactions clicking inside them. Anger, hate, to be translated into the violence of murderous action. There was a hollow, startled gasp; a wild, toneless cry that still se
emed to carry tones of hate and vengeance. A robot stirred from his standing line; jumped forward. Then another—and another. A wave of upright machines suddenly going into action. A little group of some fifty humans had pressed closely forward. The robots darted for them.
Abruptly Carter came to himself. He had felt Barry pulling at him; heard Barry mumbling. The guards here, distracted by the wild-spreading excitement, momentarily had turned away. In the darkness Barry was running; and Carter jumped, ran. Horrible spreading chaos. The murderous robots everywhere were darting after the humans. It was an inferno of red glare. Robots with fingers sheathed—knife finger slashing—field-workers, with great scimitor-like hands of sharpened steel.
Women were screaming; falling, to be trampled upon. A giant Martian robot seized a child by its ankles—a little girl with flowing tousled hair, whirled her aloft, crashed her down on a rock. Another was running with a woman—a woman whose head dangled with slashed throat. A wave of the milling chaos got between Carter and the platform, separated him from Barry who now had vanished. Carter ducked and ran to one side. Up on the platform he could see the golden figure of Thor. The great God, commander of everything here. But Thor’s hollow, shouting voice was lost in the roaring pandemonium.
Thor’s little empire. This place he had built to rule. But he was nothing here now.
And then suddenly an alumite robot, wholly frenzied, flung a chunk of metal. It thudded against Thor’s great mailed chest. And like a signal, other robots were doing the same. The great Thor who had tricked them.
For that instant Thor stood irresolute, gazing at the wreck of his little machine-world. And then he stooped. His huge mailed fingers plucked the unconscious Dierdre flung her golden case; and he lifted her up in his arms. Then with a giant leap he was off the platform, running for the space-ship!