Lost In Space

by Dave Van Arnam

  He silenced her protests by flicking off the voice transmission, and turned his attention to the alien construct on their screens.

  “It looks like a miniaturized model of the Empire State Building or Grand Star Port, but without any concrete—just the bare girders,” Dr. Smith observed sourly. “If anybody’s in it, they must be pretty small. There’s only that one area—you see, down there in the bottom comer—that’s shielded. It must contain an awfully small lifeform . . . ”

  “Or a weapon,” Robinson said. Smith winced. “Come on, help me get the door-hatch clear, Smith. We’re going outside.”

  “While that thing’s there?”

  “Does it look like it’s going to move away? Come on, we’ve got work to do.”

  Smith shook his head determinedly. “I was very well suited for my environment back on the Jupiter. It is my own personal feeling—based upon my sound scientific judgment and training—that the smartest thing we could do is to just turn right around and return—”

  “Well, Dr. Smith, I’m going out there and see what that thing out there is up to. You can take the flyer back to the Jupiter if you wish. I don’t think Don and the rest will be too happy with you, but. . . . “

  Smith shuddered, as Robinson disengaged himself from his safety harness and stood up, stretching unconcernedly. Then he squeezed past his seat, his back tight against the bulkhead, and began working on the rear hatch.

  Smith sighed a martyr’s sigh and unbuckled his harness. “I don’t know why I bother giving advice. My vast fund of scientific, cultural, philosophical, and, um, other knowledge is almost invariably ignored in moments of crisis when sensible men might well draw upon it.”

  He stood and reached inside his right hip pocket, drawing out a small hand weapon designed to discharge a bolt of electron energy. He tested its settings as he continued talking. “It is my duty, nonetheless, like a Cassandra in burning Troy, a prophet ignored, to warn where I see danger.”

  “No,” said Robinson, spinning the wheel that withdrew the airlock’s hidden bolts, “it may surprise you, Dr. Smith, but we pay very close attention to your warnings.”

  Smith looked up from the energy pistol, startled. “You do?”

  “Oh, yes,” Robinson continued, gravely, as the bolts clicked and the hatch started to open. “When you’re worried, you worry enough for all of us. So we relax. When you’re not worried, we start worrying. As you can see, we do consider you quite a prophet . . .”

  Smith started to smile, then realized what Robinson meant, and frowned.

  As the hatch swung outwards, Robinson turned and saw the energy pistol in Smith’s hand.

  “Put that away,” he snapped. “We come to this planet in peace. I won’t have us making an initial appearance with guns in our hands.”

  Smith started to protest, then gave in and pocketed the small weapon.

  A swirl of alien air breezed into the small cabin of the scoutcraft, bringing a touch of chill.

  “Brrr,” Smith said. “It’s a good thing we wore the insulated suits.” He sniffed a couple of times, then hastily closed his breathing helmet. “As for the air, I don’t care whether it turns out to be harmless—it smells bad. Like ammonia and . . . and sauerkraut.”

  Robinson chuckled. “One way or another, Smith, I don’t think we’re going to be here long enough for that to be important. Now let’s get out of here.”

  Robinson hunched down and hauled himself through the open hatch, clinging to the outside handholds for leverage. Then he began the ten-foot descent down the ladder brazed to the ship’s hull.

  Smith stood inside the hatchway for a moment, muttering to himself as he looked out and towards the alien construct, some thirty yards distant. “I’ll never know how I allow myself to get into these situations. All I ever wanted out of life was peace, contentment, relaxation, and absolute power . . . and how much of any of these am I likely to get from stumping about on a lot of misbegotten, misshapen, useless, alien planets.”

  He sighed and hauled himself out through the constricting hatchway. The alien air tingled on his bare hands.

  He was halfway down the ladder when there was a shout from Robinson.

  “Smith—look at what’s coming towards us!”

  Smith turned awkwardly on the ladder and stifled a scream. Across the ground in the direction of the roadway trundled what looked to Smith like nothing so much as a huge orange ball—a pumpkin on wheels, he thought. It was about half the size of the scoutcraft, and the surface of the sphere was covered with lights, winking and blinking in what seemed a completely random pattern.

  “It doesn’t appear to be a military vehicle. I think it’s approaching us in friendliness, Smith,” called Robinson.

  Smith looked up at the alien sky and the alien sun. “I hate all this—oh, how I hate all this. Is there never to be a letup from these unending and stomach-wrenching surprises? Can’t things just go along peacefully for a while?”

  He unclenched his hands from the rungs and completed his descent just as the orange ball reached the stationary construct. It paused, its lights flickering in a different pattern, then moved closer to the flier.

  The construct began closing itself up, girders folding up against each other from the top down. As the girders met, with a loud ‘slap,’ they seemed to shrink, until as the folding-up process reached the ground, nothing was left but the small opaque cube Smith had pointed to when the construct had first completed itself. After a second, it began rapidly disguising itself once more as a shrub.

  Smith realized he was sweating, and cursed the helmet, wondering at the same time how he could be sweating when it was so chilly.

  The orange ball jounced up to them and stopped a few feet away. The lights continued to blink in an apparently random pattern.

  There was a ‘beep’ from Robinson’s portable communicator. He took it out and listened—a swirl of sound poured out, half-patterned, half-random, tearing at their ears. Robinson tried to turn it off, but, though the button clicked off, the wavering screeches continued.

  Abruptly the sound from the communicator ceased. From the ball issued a siren-like ululation.

  “Do you suppose that thing is simply trying to say ‘Take me to your leader’?” Smith said.

  Robinson thought a moment, then smiled wryly. “I hardly think so. We’re the visitors, not it. Or him. I presume there’s somebody inside.”

  Smith shrugged. “Then it’s up to us.” He stepped forward, hesitantly, then stood in front of the ball with an air of bravado.

  “Take us to your leader,” he said firmly.

  All the lights on the ball lit up at once, then went out. The siren became louder still, then fell silent.

  Smith and Robinson looked at each other in the silence.

  “Did . . . did I do something wrong?” Smith asked plaintively.

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER TWO

  “No,” said Robinson, “I think it just wants to communicate with us.”

  “Then why doesn’t it say so?”

  “Well, I think it has. When you walked up to it, though, you answered it in a different manner. I think it’s just thinking it over.”

  Smith shuddered. “If it doesn’t recognize conversation when it hears it, it must really have an alien mind.”

  “Mmmm. Listen, why don’t you get back in the scoutship and tie the Jupiter’s computers directly into our communicators. Maybe they can work out a translation—they’ve done it before. I hope Don’s got the Robot working again.”

  Smith snorted with indignation. “What! A Smith retreat? I prefer to face the dangers inherent in this round menace, down here with you, like a man and a Smith.”

  Secretly amused, Robinson started to say he could stay, just to see how he’d react, but Smith interrupted him.

  “—however, since it seems the only way out of our little problem here, I will follow your orders, however much it may go against my grain.”

  Robinson grinned as Smith m
oved with alacrity back to the ship’s ladder and hauled himself up to the round hatchway, disappearing within the scoutship.

  There was a pause. Then Smith stuck his head out of the hatch and shouted down to Robinson, “I shall keep close watch on events down there, Professor Robinson—never fear, Smith is herel”

  Robinson couldn’t contain a chuckle as Smith hastily ducked his head back inside the ship.

  Then Robinson approached the sphere.

  “Uh, I know we can’t understand each other just yet, but if we both stand here and make intelligent noises at each other, I’m sure we can work things out eventually. We have really a rather sophisticated computer system on board our home ship upstairs. I tell you what—I’ll talk for a while, then you talk for a while. Okay?”

  Robinson paused.

  A queer sequence of mechanical speech-sounds emanated from the sphere. Occasionally Robinson spotted a similarity to English, but most of the time it was incomprehensible gibberish.

  “Hm,” Robinson said, after the sphere had fallen silent, “I suppose that means you’ve guessed my terms. Now all I have to do is to think of something to talk about . . . “

  It took about half an hour, with Robinson saying whatever he could think of, and the sphere replying in sounds which grew increasingly closer to understandable speech.

  He had just about run out of things to say, and was running down a list of American Presidents, when the break came.

  “-Coolidge, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Kennedy, Lindsay, Taft, Kennedy, Boardman—” Robinson shook his head and came to a stop. “We’ve been gone too long,” he muttered half to himself. “I don’t know who comes next!”

  Smith poked his head out of the hatchway once more. “Ha! I told you not to fear—Smith is here, and I’ve nearly got the answer! Another transmission from the sphere and I should have it!”

  “That is fine,” said the orange sphere.

  Smith blinked stupidly.

  “Drat! And I almost had it worked out . . . ”

  “Well,” said Robinson, “you might as well come down from there, I suppose. We’re ready for a little conversation in earnest, it seems!”

  Smith seemed unwilling to leave the comfort—and safety—of the flier, but presently he was slowly climbing down the ladder once more.

  “We of the city M’nac, on the planet Voyd’azh, welcome you,” announced the sphere.

  A man-sized section of the orange spherical surface slid aside, revealing a hollow interior, and a short ramp was extended to the ground.

  “Come. I shall take you to M’nac, where we shall receive you with honor. We have not had . . . visitors . . . for a long time.”

  Smith came up to Robinson and said in a whisper, “Notice how it sounds like our Robot, only lower in pitch? I don’t think there’s anyone in that contraption at all—just a machine!”

  Robinson walked up to the opening in the sphere and peered inside. There was nothing inside the sphere but a pair of rather awkward-appearing seats, too long in the back and too short in the legs.

  He turned to Smith. “It looks like you’re right. Those seats weren’t constructed for human beings, but there are no other beings inside.”

  “You are right,” said the sphere. There was a slight pause.

  “Perhaps I should tell you,” it continued, with frequent hesitations, “that our . . . beloved masters . . . make no more voyages these days. You understand. The Voyd’azh were already an ancient race when we were developed, and settled in their ways. But . . . I would prefer to show rather than to tell our history.”

  “So may I suggest you enter this vehicle? I will take you to the city of M’nac. The Tower of Nuleff has been prepared for you in anticipation that you will consent to grace our city with your presence for . . . a few days.”

  Robinson was astounded when Smith stepped forward eagerly, but kept his peace.

  “Yes, very well,” said Smith. “Let us be off, by all means. I, for one, am eager to get warm—er, to see your city and to meet your esteemed masters.”

  Smith entered the sphere, and Robinson followed him.

  As Robinson’s foot cleared the entranceway, the panel slid quickly and silently shut behind him—so silently that neither of the men noticed it until Smith, walking around the circular interior, reached a spot where he subconsciously expected to see the door again.

  Smith gave a little noise of alarm, and Robinson looked around him, also expecting to see the door.

  Not only was it closed—they couldn’t even see where it had been!

  Then there was a slight shock, and their knees bent.

  “Are . . . uh, are we moving?” gulped Smith.

  “They seem to be quite efficient, these Voyd boys,” Robinson observed, as calmly as he could. Underneath, he felt rather nervous. “Let’s raise the Jupiter II and let them know what’s going on,” he suggested.

  Smith and Robinson both attempted to communicate with the ship—to no avail. Static was all they heard. Robinson removed the cover on his communicator and began examining it.

  “Well,” Smith said, with a disgusted sigh, “that’s all we need.”

  He threw himself in disgust onto one of the lowlegged chairs—and screamed in terror.

  “What’s the matter now, Smith,” said Robinson, still intently tinkering with his communicator, and getting exasperated with his nervous companion.

  “L-l-l-look!” Smith finally managed to get out.

  Smith was pointing to the blank metal walls of the interior of the sphere. Robinson looked up at last—and barely choked off a cry of alarm himself.

  In yard-wide increments, the walls of the sphere were vanishing—or so it seemed to him at first glance. In segments, like an orange viewed from its center, the walls of the sphere silently whisked chunk by chunk into invisibility, and the two Earthmen saw the roadway speeding past them at a rate neither of them could immediately estimate, but which was obviously quite high.

  “We’ll be killed!” shouted Smith, gripping the oddly lumpy arms of the nonhuman chair and shutting his eyes.

  “Nonsense,” said Robinson, observing that the sphere had now become completely transparent. “It’s perfectly obvious that this is simply being done so that we can observe our surroundings.

  “Am I correct? Is that the purpose of the invisible walls?” He had raised his voice a trifle, unconsciously, then realized that the vehicle’s computer—if that was what they had spoken to—could hear him easily . . . if it wanted to.

  “You are right,” said the synthesized voice. “I sense uneasiness on your part. Please do not concern yourself with unusual events. You will not be harmed. We are robots with computerized brains, but we are not perfect, and we are programmed basically to serve our own race. Forgive us if we occasionally forget and treat you as if you knew precisely what we are doing and why. You are and will be quite safe. We could not allow you to be other than safe.”

  Smith grumbled and said, “We would appreciate it if you could give us some warning, in the future.”

  “Your request has been noted. We shall try to comply. But until we obtain a more complete pattern of you for accurate programming, we can make no promises. I repeat, however, that we shall not permit you to come to harm. We exist only to serve—and serve we must.”

  “Very well,” said Robinson. “You can serve us best by assuming we know nothing.”

  “That is an excellent directive. I see you understand the nature of programming.”

  “Yes, well, what I don’t understand is why we cannot communicate with our home ship, currently in a stable orbit around this planet.”

  “That is simple,” the robot vehicle replied. “The alloy of which we, and our buildings, are constructed tends to inhibit the propagation of waves on the bands I note that you utilize. But you will have no difficulties whenever you are outdoors.”

  “Swell,” said Robinson, rather bitterly.

  “I wish we had the ship’s Robo
t with us,” Smith observed suddenly. “Though my own knowledge of computers is quite extensive, he can process his observations much faster than I. And something’s making me uneasy.”

  Smith hunched down deeper in his chair and watched the green-tinted roadway speedily unrolling before them, gashing through the low uninteresting hills.

  The city of M’nac appeared after some ten minutes.

  It throbbed with activity-mechanical activity. Its streets were empty of human life, but robot carriers hauling material vied with other, less obvious mechanized robots, scurrying here and there with no discemable purpose.

  The low buildings of the city, nearly all made of a dull lustreless metal, seemed ancient but in reasonably good condition; where they weren’t, robot workers could be seen at work carrying out repairs.

  The robot sphere glided swiftly and noiselessly among the moderate traffic.

  “All that you see around you,” the synthesized voice said, “is entirely automatic. The Central Complex directs the constant work of maintaining the city.”

  “But—but there are no people,” said Smith. By now he had become quite nervous.

  “No,” said the robot voice, after a pause. “There is no life on this planet above the plant and animal stage.”

  “What!” Smith’s voice was a whisper.

  Robinson stood up. “I think you had better explain everything to us now.”

  The robot voice emitted what could almost have been described as a sigh.

  “The Voyd’azh were an accomplished and intelligent race with great scientific capabilities. They built us to serve them, and we served them. They built their cities to protect themselves from the elements, and their cities protected them. They were a race of great accomplishments.”

  “And now they are gone.”

  “But why?” Robinson began to feel the same uneasiness that had attacked Smith. And since he couldn’t put his finger on the precise thing that bothered him, that made him twice as uneasy.

  “I do not know why,” said the robot voice with finality. “We are nearing the Tower of Nuleff.”