The Best of Lester del Rey

by Lester Del Rey

  brown, pinkish orange, white, or what; the records they had seemed to disagree on this.

  “We’ll know when we get an intelligent animal with instinct,” he said at last. “It won’t matter exactly whether he is completely like Man or not. At least it will give us a check on things we must know. Until then, we’ll have to go on trying. You might as well know that the last experiment failed, though it was closer. But in another hundred years…”

  “So.” Arpeten’s face became bland, but he avoided the look of Senthree. “I’m afraid not. At least for a while. That’s what I came about, you know. We’ve just had word of several new planets around Arcturus, and it will takfr the major allocation of our funds to colonize these. New robots must be built, new ships—oh, you know. And we’re retrenching a bit on other things. Of course, if you’d succeeded… but perhaps it’s better you failed. You know how the sentiment against reviving Man has grown.”

  Senthree growled bitterly. He’d seen how it was carefully nurtured—though he had to admit it seemed to be easy to create. Apparently most of the robots were afraid of Man—felt he would again take over, or something. Superstitious fools.

  “How much longer?” he asked.

  “Oh, we won’t cut back what you have, Dr. Senthree. But I’m afraid we simply can’t allocate more funds. When this is finished, I was hoping to make you biological investigator, incidentally, on one of the planets. There’ll be work enough…. Well, it was a pleasure.” He shook hands again, and walked out, his back a gleaming ramrod of efficiency and effectiveness.

  Senthree turned back, his new body no longer moving easily. It could already feel the harsh sands and unknown chemical poisons of investigating a new planet—the futile, empty carding of new life that could have no real purpose to the robots. No more appropriations! And they had barely enough funds to meet the current bills.

  Four hundred years—and a ship to Arcturus had ended it in three months. Instinct, he thought again—given life with intelligence and instinct together for one year, and he could settle half the problems of his race, perhaps. But robots could not have instincts. Fifty years of study had proven that.

  Beswun threw up a hand in greeting as he returned, and he saw that the dissection was nearly complete, while the antique robot was activated. A hinge on its ludicrous jaw was moving, and rough, grating words were coming out. Senthree turned to the dissecting bench, and then swung back as he heard them.

  “Wrong… wrong,” it was muttering. “Can not live. Is not good brain. No pineal. Medulla good, but not good cerebrum. Fissures wrong. Maybe pituitary disfunction? No. How can be?” It probed doubtfully and set the brain aside. “Mutation maybe. Very bad. Need Milliken mike. See nucleus of cells. Maybe just freak, maybe new disease.”

  Senthree’s fingers were taut and stiff as he fished into his bag and came out with a set of lenses. Beswun shook his head and made a waiting sign. He went out at a run, to come back shortly with a few bits of metal and the shavings from machining still on his hands. “Won’t fit—but these adapters should do it. There, 324MD2991. Now come over here where you can look at it over this table—that’s where the—uh, rays are.”

  He turned back, and Senthree saw that a fine wire ran from one adapter. “He doesn’t speak our bio-terminology, Senthree. We’ll have to see the same things he does. There—we can watch it on the screen. Now, 324MD2991, you tell us what is wrong and point it out. Are your hands steady enough for that?”

  “Hands one-billionth inch accurate,” the robot creaked; it was a meaningless noise, though they had found the unit of measure mentioned. But whatever it meant, the hands were steady enough. The microprobe began touching shadowy bunches of atoms, droning and grating. “Freak. Very bad freak. How he lived? Would stop tropoblast, not attach to uterus. Ketone—no ke-tone there. Not understand. How he live?”

  Ceofor dashed for their chromosome blanks and began lettering in the complex symbols they used. For a

  second, Senthree hesitated. Then he caught fire and began making notes along with his assistant. It seemed to take hours; it probably did. The old robot had his memory intact, but there were no quick ways for him to communicate. And at last, the antique grunted in disgust and turned his back on them. Beswun pulled a switch.

  “He expects to be discharged when not in use. Crazy, isn’t it?” the physicist explained. “Look, boss, am I wrong, or isn’t that close to what we did on the eleventh couple?”

  “Only a few genes different in three chromosomes. We were close. But—umm, that’s ridiculous. Look at all the brain tissue he’d have—and a lot of it unconnected. And here—that would put an extra piece on where big and little intestines join—a perfect focal point for infection. It isn’t efficient biological engineering. And yet—umm—most animals do have just that kind of engineering. I think the old robot was right—this would be Man!” He looked at their excited faces, and his shoulders sank. “But there isn’t time. Not even time to make a zygote and see what it would look like. Our appropriations won’t come through.”

  It should have been a bombshell, but he saw at once that they had already guessed it. Ceofor stood up slowly.

  “We can take a look, boss. We’ve got the sperm from the male that failed—all we have to do is modify those three, instead of making up a whole cell. We might as well have some fun before we go out looking for sand fleas that secrete hydrofluoric acid and menace our colonies. Come on, even in your new body I’ll beat you to a finished cell!”

  Senthree grinned ruefully, but he moved toward the creation booth. His hands snapped on the little time field out of pure habit as he found a perfect cell. The little field would slow time almost to zero within its limits, and keep any damage from occurring while he worked. It made his own work difficult, since he had to force the probe against that, but it was insulated to some extent by other fields.

  Then his hands took over. For a time he worked and thought, but the feeling of the protoplasm came into them, and his hands were almost one with the life stuff, sensing its tiny responses, inserting another link onto a chain, supplanting an atom of hydrogen with one of the hydroxyl radicals, wielding all the delicate chemical manipulation. He removed the defective genes and gently inserted the correct ones. Four hundred years of this work lay behind him—work he had loved, work which had meant the possible evolution of his race into all it might be.

  It had become instinct to him—instinct in only a colloquial sense, however; this was learned response, and real instinct lay deeper than that, so deep that no reason could overcome it and that it was automatic even the first time. Only Man had had instinct and intelligence—stored somehow in this tiny cell that lay within the time field.

  He stepped out, just as Ceofor was drawing back in a dead heat. But the younger robot inspected Senthree’s cell, and nodded. “Less disturbance and a neater job on the nucleus—I can’t see where you pierced the wall. Well, if we had thirty years—even twenty—we could have Man again—or a race. Yours is male and mine female. But there’s no time…. Shall I leave the time field on?”

  Senthree started to nod.

  Then he swung to Beswun. “The time field. Can it be reversed?”

  “You mean to speed time up within it? No, not with that model. Take a bigger one. I could build you one in half an hour. But who’d want to speed up tune with all the troubles you’d get? How much?”

  “Ten thousand—or at least seven thousand times! The period is up tomorrow when disbursements have to be made. I want twenty years in a day.”

  Beswun shook his head. “No. That’s what I was afraid of. Figure it this way: you speed things up ten thousand times and that means the molecules in there speed up just that much, literally. Now 273° times ten thousand—and you have more than two million degrees of temperature. And those molecules have energy! They come busting out of there. No, can’t be done.”

  “How much can you do?” Senthree demanded.

  Beswun considered. “Ten times—maybe no more than n
ine. That gives you all the refractories would handle, if we set it up down in the old pit under the building—you know, where they had the annealing oven.”

  It wasn’t enough; it would still take two years. Sen-‘ three dropped onto a seat, vagrantly wondering again how this queer brain of his that the psychologists studied futilely could make him feel tired when his body could have no fatigue. It was probably one of those odd circuits they didn’t dare touch.

  “Of course, you can use four fields,” Beswun stated slowly. “Big one outside, smaller one, still smaller, and smallest inside that. Fourth power of nine is about sixty-six hundred. That’s close—raise that nine a little and you’d have your twenty years in a day. By the time it leaked from field to field, it wouldn’t matter. Take a couple of hours.”

  “Not if you get your materials together and build each shell inside the other—you’ll be operating faster each step then,” Ceofor shouted. “Somebody’ll have to go in and stay there a couple of our minutes toward the end to attach the educator tapes—and to revive the couple!”

  “Take power,” Beswun warned.

  Senthree shrugged. Let it. If the funds they had wouldn’t cover it, the Directorate would have to make it up, once it was used. Besides, once Man was created, they couldn’t fold up the bio-labs. “I’ll go in,” he suggested.

  “My job,” Ceofor told him flatly. “You won the contest in putting the cells right.”

  Senthree gave in reluctantly, largely because the younger robot had more experience at reviving than he did. He watched Beswun assemble the complicated net of wires and become a blur as he seemed to toss the second net together almost instantly. The biochemist couldn’t see the third go up—it was suddenly there, and Beswun was coming out as it flashed into existence. He

  held up four fingers, indicating all nets were working.

  Ceofor dashed in with the precious cells for the prepared incubators that would nurture the bodies until maturity, when they would be ready for the educators. His body seemed to blur, jerk, and disappear. And almost at once he was back.

  Senthree stood watching for a moment more, but there was nothing to see. He hesitated again, then turned and moved out of the building. Across the street lay his little lodging place, where he could relax with his precious two books—almost complete—that had once been printed by Man. Tonight he would study that strange bit of Man’s history entitled Gather, Darkness, with its odd indications of a science that Man had once had which had surpassed even that of the robots now. It was pleasanter than the incomprehensibility of the mysteriously titled Mein Kampf. He’d let his power idle, and mull over it, and consider again the odd behavior of male and female who made such a complicated business of mating. That was probably more instinct—Man, it seemed, was filled with instincts.

  For a long time, though, he sat quietly with the book on his lap, wondering what it would be like to have instincts. There must be many unpleasant things about it. But there were also suggestions that it could be pleasant. Well, he’d soon know by observation, even though he could never experience it. Man should have implanted one instinct in a robot’s brain, at least, just to show what it was like.

  He called the lab once, and Ceofor reported that all was doing nicely, and that both children were looking quite well. Outside the window, Senthree heard a group go by, discussing the latest bits of news on the Arcturus expedition. At least in that, Man had failed to equal the robots. He had somehow died before he could find the trick of using identity exchange to overcome the limitation imposed by the speed of light.

  Finally he fell to making up a speech that he could deliver to the Director, Arpenten, when success was in his hands. It must be very short—something that would stick in the robot’s mind for weeks, but carrying everything a scientist could feel on proving that those who opposed him were wrong. Let’s see….

  The buzzer on the telescreen cut through his thoughts, and he flipped it on to see Ceofor’s face looking out. Senthree’s spirits dropped abruptly as he stared at the younger robot.

  “Failure? No!”

  The other shook his head. “No. At least, I don’t know. I couldn’t give them full education. Maybe the tape was uncomfortable. They took a lot of it, but the male tore his helmet off and took the girl’s off. Now they just sit there, rubbing their heads and staring around.”

  He paused, and the little darkened ridges of plastic over his eyes tensed. “The time speed-up is off. But I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Let them alone until I get there. If it hurts them, we can give them the rest of it later. How are they otherwise?”

  “I don’t know. They look all right, boss.” Ceofor hesitated, and his voice dropped. “Boss, I don’t like it. There’s something wrong here. I can’t quite figure out what it is, but it isn’t the way I expected. Hey, the male just pushed the female off her seat. Do you think their destructive instinct…? No, she’s sitting down on the floor now, with her head against him, and holding one of his hands. Wasn’t that part of the mating ritual in one of the books?”

  Senthree started to agree, a bit of a smile coming onto his face. It looked as if instinct were already in operation.

  But a strange voice cut him off. “Hey, you robots, when do we eat around here?”

  They could talk! It must have been the male. And if it wasn’t the polite thanks and gratitude Senthree had expected, that didn’t matter. There had been all kinds of Men in the books, and some were polite while others were crude. Perhaps forced education from the tapes without fuller social experience was responsible for that. But it would all adjust in time.

  He started to turn back to Ceofor, but the younger robot was no longer there, and the screen looked out on a blank wall. Senthree could hear the loud voice crying out again, rough and harsh, and there was a shrill, whining sound that might be the female. The two voices blended with the vague mutter of robot voices until he could not make out the words.

  He wasted no time in trying. He was already rushing down to the street and heading toward the labs. Instinct—the male had already shown instinct, and the female had responded. They would have to be slow with the couple at first, of course—but the whole answer to the robot problems lay at hand. It would only take a little time and patience now. Let Arpeten sneer, and let the world dote on the Arcturus explorers. Today, biochemistry had been, crowned king with the magic of intelligence combined with instinct as its power.

  Ceofor came out of the lab at a run with another robot behind him. The young robot looked dazed, and there was another emotion Senthree could not place. The older biochemist nodded, and the younger one waved quickly. “Can’t stop now. They’re hungry.” He was gone at full speed.

  Senthr.ee realized suddenly that no adequate supply of fruit and vegetables had been provided, and he hadn’t even known how often Man had to eat. Or exactly what. Luckily, Ceofor was taking care of that.

  He went down the hall, hearing a tumult of voices, with robots apparently spread about on various kinds of hasty business. The main lab where the couple was seemed quiet. Senthree hesitated at the door, wondering how to address them. There must be no questioning now. Today he would not force himself on them, nor expect them to understand his purposes. He must welcome them and make them feel at ease in this world, so strange to them with their prehistoric tape education. It would be hard at first to adjust to a world of only robots, with no other Man people. The matter of instinct that had taken so long could wait a few days more.

  The door dilated in front of him and he stepped into the lab, his eyes turning to the low table where they sat. They looked healthy, and there was no sign of misery or uncertainty that he could see, though he could not be sure of that until he knew them better. He could not even be sure it was a scowl on the male’s face as the Man turned and looked at him.

  “Another one, eh? Okay, come up here. What you want?”

  Then Senthree no longer wondered how to address the Man. He bowed low as he approached them, and instinct m
ade his voice soft and apologetic as he answered.

  “Nothing, Master. Only to serve you.”

  Superstition

  1

  The sepelora crawled along at her maximum eighty light-years an hour, as she had done for the four months since she’d left the university planet of Terra. The space-denial generators hummed on monotonously, maintaining the field around the ship where space almost ceased to exist. The big viewing panel and ports were blanked out by the effect, forming perfect mirrors. There was a steady wash of slightly stale air through the control cabin, and the pseudo-gravity on the decks was unvarying. With less than a day of superspeed left, Captain Derek should have been content.

  Instead, he sat slumped loosely over the control board, staring with unfocused eyes at his image in the panel, while his fingers doodled black aces, hangman’s knots, and all the other symbols of doom for which his culture had no real referents. His deep-set eyes and the -hollows in his cheeks gave him an almost cadaverous look, borne out by the general angularity of his body. At forty-five he looked fifty, with gray speckles around his temples and lines of worry etched deeply into his face.

  Abruptly a small speaker came to life with the voice of his aide, Ferad. “Psych Siryl to see you, sir.”

  Derek sighed, letting his eyes focus slowly as his fingers came up in the ancient sign against evil, pointing at his own image. The physicist, Kayel, must have sent her; the man had been eyeing Derek all during the orders for instrument alert. But now that she was here, there was nothing to be done about it. “Send her in,” he acknowledged, and turned slowly to face the door that began opening.

  Siryl’s bearing was more military than his, in spite of her civilian blouse. Her feet tapped across the deck precisely, her hips swayed just enough in the split skirt, and her face bore the impersonal warmth of all psychologists on duty. Under her professional pride lay the curious overdeveloped consciousness of being female possible only to women who wanted to be men. She was ten years younger than Derek and only slightly shorter, but her features and body were good, as near beauty as grooming and care could make them. Only her hair was wrong, and its black severity was deliberate.