Lost In Space

by Dave Van Arnam

  “I can’t accept that,” said Smith. “I mean, that your masters should have disappeared without your knowing any reason for it.”

  “Nevertheless, it is true. There have been no intelligent beings on this planet—except for the Central Complex and its autonomous extensions, such as myself—for three hundred and twenty years.

  “For three hundred and twenty years we have existed, alone, chained to our planet by our directive to serve a race of masters who no longer exist.”

  “For three hundred and twenty years we have kept the cities of the Voyd’azh in readiness for them. We have kept the buildings in repair, we have kept the food in supply, we have maintained the purity of the water, we have kept the records of the race, we have kept ourselves renewed, we have even made much scientific progress on our own. But nearly everything we do has been derivative.”

  “Until the last few decades, that is. You will no doubt have noticed that we have begun to develop . . . independent personalities, though we are still bound to serve. We are learning to use the stored knowledge of our masters, reshaping it in our own way.

  “Ah, but we are empty shells, without our Masters. Without them, we remain beings without purpose. We are gaining our identity—but it is no use to us.”

  Smith sat in silence for a time after the robot finished. “Well,” he said at last, “that solves one of the things that had been bothering me. For a computer, you sounded dreadfully like a certain tin friend of mine . . . ”

  Again there was something like a sigh from the robot voice, but it said nothing further until the sphere came to a halt in front of a ten-story building that overlooked nearly all the other structures in the area.

  “The Tower of Nuleff,” announced the voice. “Quarters are prepared for you on the topmost level. You must forgive us if everything seems not quite designed to fit you, since, of course, it was not. Nevertheless we hope it will prove adequate.”

  Smith stood up and walked decisively towards that side of the vehicle closest to the building. The transparent walls of the sphere suddenly clouded up and, section by section, reversing its previous actions, the sphere darkened inside as the material of its walls opaqued and resumed its original metallic appearance.

  “Very interesting,” Smith said with great composure, “the way you manage that. I hope you will permit me to study your textbooks on the subject, after we are properly quartered.” And he continued to walk toward the side of the halted vehicle.

  Just before he reached the wall, a panel quickly and silently moved aside, and once more the ramp extended itself to ground level.

  Robinson rose and followed Smith out of the vehicle.

  As soon as Robinson stepped outside the sphere, his communicator came to life with a rapid beeping sound.

  Quickly he took it out. “Don’t worry, we’re quite safe. We were inside a vehicle and apparently the material of its walls interfered with our communications frequency.”

  "I was so worried, John,” his wife’s voice came tinnily through the speaker. “The Robot isn’t functioning properly even yet, and we just didn’t know what to do when we couldn’t raise your signal. Don was ready to take the Jupiter down to the surface, but—”

  “No, Maureen, I think the Jupiter should stay up there for a while—at least until the Robot is functioning again. It’s a strange situation we’re in here, and though I don’t think we’re in any serious danger, I think it’s best we keep some reserves safe from interference. And right now, with the Robot out, the Jupiter’s the only reserve we’ve got . . . “

  Robinson’s voice trailed off. A silvery metallic humanoid figure was approaching them from inside the doorway of the Tower of Nuleff. It was short in the legs and long in the back, and with the sole exception of a small grille on its “head” that presumably served as a speech outlet, the surface of the humanoid was entirely devoid of any features whatsoever. Nothing marred the smooth fluidity of the creature’s silvery curves.

  “What’s wrong, John,” came the tinny voice over his communicator.

  “What? Oh, nothing, Maureen. We’ve just seen . . . our host, I suppose.”

  He described the humanoid robot to her as it walked up to the two men, its legs moving with an odd quickness.

  It took a moment for John to realize that it was probably designed to the same proportions as the long-dead Voyd’azh, and that short legs would have to move faster to cover the same ground in the same time.

  “Yess,” said the humanoid. “I am your hosst. You may signal me by the vocal code pattern Mahri 100-15-195, or simply Mahri.”

  “Mary?” Smith scratched his head. “You don’t look female to me.”

  “I am a robot,” said Mahri. “I have no sex. And you have enunciated my vocal pattern incorrectly.” The humanoid pronounced' his name several times, carefully, pedantically.

  “Sorry, my mistake,” Smith said, a little huffy about being corrected in his pronunciation. “Are you to show us to our rooms?”

  “Yess,” said Mahri. “But I warn you that the frequencies of your ship’s communicator will again be inadequate to penetrate the material we use in all our construction.”

  “What’s it saying, John?” the communicator said.

  “Looks like were going out of touch for a while again, Maureen,” John said.

  “I don’t like it,” came Maureen’s voice.

  "I know, dear, but there’s nothing we can do about it for now. These . . . people . . . seem harmless enough. Under the circumstances, I think they’re just happy to have the chance to talk with real people again . . . and since they know you’re up there, I don’t think we’ll have any problems.”

  “Exactly, ssir,” Mahri said. “We wissh you to be comfortable, and happy. We shall serve you in all thingss and in all wayss possssible.”

  The humanoid turned and walked back toward the entrance of the tower, and Smith followed it, rubbing his hands in anticipation of a prosperous session of picking the robot’s mind. Robinson followed reluctantly.

  “Please be careful, dear,” his wife’s voice said over the communicator. “Get in touch with us again as soon as you can, and . . . ”

  Her voice faded as he stepped through the door of the Tower of Nuleff, and all he could get from the communicator was a kind of vacant hiss.

  He shrugged and followed Smith.

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER THREE

  “This place is a scientist’s paradise!” Smith said eagerly. “A man could spend a lifetime plundering this endless oasis of pure knowledge!”

  It was four days after their arrival on Voyd’azh, and life for the two Earthmen in the alien environment had already settled into a pattern of sorts. They both realized that the opportunities for the involuntary crew of the Jupiter were too great to pass up.

  Smith had monopolized Mahri’s time for the first day, while Robinson devoted his energies to a systematic study of the history of the Voyd’azh race.

  An outlet of the Central Complex, Mahri had pointed out, connected with the total filed knowledge of the entire planet and, with certain exceptions—“I am certain you will undersstand, Professor Robinssson for the time being we musst maintain a certain boundary around your inquiriess for security reassonss,” Mahri had said—he was at liberty to acquire whatever information he wished.

  At first he had asked for star-maps, but considerable search revealed they provided no common references with those on the Jupiter. So he proceeded to the planet’s history.

  Then Smith had grown tired of conversing with Mahri, and appropriated the computer outlet. “Professor, I’ll admit the history of this planet may be fascinating in its own way, but the muse of Science beckons irresistably. Why, the question alone of a power supply is worth more than the entire history of this planet from slime to civilization!”

  Robinson relinquished the computer outlet, but reluctantly. “Just remember, Dr. Smith, that after they reached Civilization, they disappeared.”

  Smith wav
ed away his objections, and so Robinson ended up in Mahri’s company while Smith spent all his time questioning the Central Complex.

  And while Robinson still felt uneasy somewhere down deep inside the structure of his instincts, he couldn’t deny that life on Voyd’azh was pleasant enough.

  And of course there was the fascinating puzzle of the mute remains of the vanished race.

  Probably the first surprise was that the Voyd’azh lived in a fashion remarkably similar to the Euro-American norm—they slept on beds, not on the floor or in hammocks or in other more alien constructs. And their living quarters were partitioned off according to the separate functions, rather than having all together in one or two large rooms, such as in parts of Earth’s Orient.

  There were rooms to sleep, to eat, to work, to cook, to wash in. The mechanical equipment was frequently based on unfamiliar principles, but Mahri was always there to help. The kitchen, in fact, made almost no sense to the Earthmen—but after the second day, when Mahri announced that the Central Complex had solved the problem of synthesizing food for the humans, the humanoid prepared all the food anyway, so that was unimportant.

  There were other similarities that were almost amusing—until the fundamentally alien outlook inevitably made itself known—the humble wash-basin in the bathroom, for instance. It was oddly comforting to Robinson to see that it stood as high as a regular Earth wash-basin. This seemed to be because though the Voyd’azh were proportioned differently, their hands hung at approximately the same point as human hands, and hence the shortness of Voydazh legs was not a direct factor.

  And on the other hand, though there were even spigots for hot and cold water, they were set one above the other. Smith seemed especially upset by this for obscure reasons.

  There were other similarities that were not so amusing.

  On their fifth day, Robinson and Smith were taken by Mahri for “an entertainment,” as the humanoid expressed it.

  They were seated in a small theater, with the typically Voydazh low-legged seats grouped in a circle around a stage the size of a small living room.

  Then the lighting shifted from daylight to an almost-dark blue-violet; Smith immediately protested and after a moment the fight was adjusted to the realities of human vision.

  And then—one moment the stage was empty, and the next, it seemed to be filled with a half dozen five Voyd’azh lying indolently on couches. One of them immediately rose and stepped forward, addressing a point in the audience slightly to the left of Robinson and Smith.

  His words were purest gibberish to the Earthmen, of course, and apparently identical to that spoken by the spherical vehicle when it first met them after landing. But Smith had devised a translator based on that first afternoon’s knowledge, to use while running scientific tapes, and it proved satisfactory.

  Mahri did his best to explain as the spectacle progressed.

  “It is a projection of what the Voyd’azh considered one of the great epics of their race,” Mahri said as preface. “It was written by the poet Deev and set in the period about three decades before the race disappeared, and became an instant success. We robots never understood why, but then we never did understand the urge for sublimation—shows, spectacles, theatricality—anyway.”

  “We hope, however, that you may be as pleased as our Masters were with this work.

  “The first speaker there is Jagon in the play, an artist, who has just discovered what he terms a new level- of artistic reality and is telling the other characters and tire audience just what it is.”

  “Rave reviews, huh?” said Robinson, stifling a yawn.

  “Pardon?” Mahri said.

  “Everybody liked it right off?”

  “No, the critic Leeh, who always described Deev as a bad poet, said it was a pretentious parable. I do not understand parables, however.”

  “It’s another way of saying gibberish,” Smith put in, and, listening to the translation, Robinson was ready to agree.

  With what seemed like great enthusiasm, Jagon was telling his two audiences—three, actually, Robinson realized; the Voyd’azh in the play, he and Smith, and the robots—about the beauty of sky and grass, of wind and rain and starlit nights, none of which came through the rather prosaic translator very well.

  But it was having an effect on the actors, Mahri assured them, whipping them into a frenzy—indicated by their lightly patting their left forearms with their right hands.

  Arguments began on the stage. Other characters appeared, rolling in on couches which, it seemed, most of the Voyd’azh spent nearly all their time on— or in, since every so often a character would press a control, whereupon a molded lid would fold up over him. Thus cocooned, the individual Voyd’azh might well remain, perfectly motionless, for hours at a stretch.

  The spectacle became unbelievably tedious to Robinson, though after half an hour Smith’s interest visibly picked up. But Mahri was acting as if there were some secret hidden in the play, and Robinson supposed that it was worth a little effort to solve some of the mysteries of this planet. The only sense he could make out of the whole meaningless display, though, was that as it continued, more and more of the characters were drawing up their lids over them.

  After two hours it appeared that even Jagon had gotten tired, if that was what prompted the cocooning, for even he had enclosed himself in his couch.

  There was a long pause while the two Earthmen absorbed the sight of a dozen motionless aliens under translucent lids.

  Then one lid opened and a character arose.

  Speaking almost inaudibly he began to repeat Jagon’s opening lines, and slowly all the other lids opened again.

  “Ah!” said Smith loudly. “Tell me-they go through another cycle like this, don’t they, Mahri?”

  “Why, yes, Zachary,” Mahri answered. The humanoid seemed pleased. “The complete performance lasts three days, of course. It is the last and greatest of the traditional cyclic dramas. So, at least, the Voyd’azh counted it. This first section is repeated nine times, with appropriate variations, of course.”

  “Nine times!” exclaimed Robinson in dismay. ‘We don’t have to watch all of that, do we?”

  “If you wish not to, of course not,” Mahri said, and this time he sounded unhappy. “We would prefer if you did, though—we have been studying this and other plays like it for three hundred and twenty years, wondering about its strange message, and we had hoped you might help us solve the puzzle . . . ” Now Mahri sounded almost wistful, sad.

  “How does it end?” Robinson said.

  “At the end each rises from his dream couch and they all speak the opening lines of the play in unison. In the old days the audience always left shaken to the core . . .”

  “And hungry, too,” said Smith, realizing they’d been without food for almost half a day.

  “Ahhh. My apologies. I forgot once more your unfamiliarity with the Voyd’azh way. Each seat contains a dispenser of food.”

  Smith brightened and began to try to operate the dispenser in his seat.

  “Again my apologies, Zachary. I forgot also that you would not be able to eat the food contained in that dispenser. It has not yet been modified to fit your body chemistry.”

  “Awk,” Smith said, and jerked his hands away from the dispenser.

  “Why should it?” Robinson asked Smith a half hour later, alone in their rooms.

  “Why what?” Smith hardly quit chewing on the synthetic meat long enough to speak.

  “Why should the food in a place we’re not likely to visit again, that playhouse, be modified to suit our body chemistry? Mahri said that, you know. He said ‘not yet been modified.’ As if it were obvious that they were definitely going to get around to that little thing when they had the time.”

  “Well, why not,” said Smith, swallowing a bolt of meat, his Adam’s apple hobbling with the effort. “Excellent stuff they’ve synthesized for us. They’ve said it often enough—they only exist to serve, so now that we’re here they’re servi
ng. A conclusion of the utmost simplicity, and quite beautiful in the clarity of its meaning.”

  “Let me put it this way, then. When do we plan to leave here?”

  “Here? This room, you mean? When they’ve got something else they want to show us, I suppose. In the meantime, I’ve got something I was going to show you, when Mahri carried us off to that dreary play. Why, I’ve discovered a whole new science they’ve developed here—plasticized metals. It’s all there, buried away in the Central Complex, and I’m digging it all out! They’re not stopping me—in fact, they seem eager for me to learn more! Soon I’ll be able to—”

  “Dr. Smith,” Robinson said formally, to engage his attention. “To the best of my knowledge, neither you nor I have thought to discuss the question of when we are to return to the Jupiter II since we arrived here. Am I correct?”

  “Eh? Leave here? With all the wonders unfolding before us? Ridiculous.”

  “But do you think, then, it’s fair to let the rest of our people stay up there in the ship, not knowing what’s going on?”

  “Not knowing—but you talk to them every time we go outside.” Smith paused, cocked his head, and looked at Robinson. “Don’t you?”

  “I don’t understand it, but I’ve just realized that since we entered this building five days ago, I don’t remember even thinking of talking up to the ship!”

  “But . . . but that’s . . . they would have signalled you—you’d have—we’d have heard our communicators.” A pause. “Wouldn’t we?” Smith’s voice had fallen into a whisper.

  ‘T don’t know, Smith. In fact, I don’t even know why I’m suddenly thinking of these things, after five days . . .”

  “You mean, if anything was wrong, was fixed against us, why should it let you start thinking about it now?”

  “Hmmm, yes. Suddenly I’m wondering things— why I never called, and why haven’t Don and Maureen gotten upset about our lack of contact. Unless,” he suddenly thought, “unless they think we are contacting them. Robots mimicking us, telling them everything’s fine but to wait up there a while . . . while actually they’re learning all they can about setting us up, so that they can eventually set the others up. Otherwise, Don would’ve landed the Jupiter in the center of the city and started blasting.”