Lost In Space

by Dave Van Arnam

  “With, please.”

  “Very well.”

  “Hah!” Robinson thought. “Got it right that time . . . ”

  The lights in the room dimmed, and the open space beyond the low couch suddenly was occupied by a half dozen Voyd’azh.

  “This is a group portrait of the team that designed and supervised my construction, five hundred and ninety three years ago.”

  Five of the six figures winked out.

  It took Robinson a moment to realize that the remaining figure was that of a Voyd’azh female. Though undeniably not human, she was, Robinson felt, rather cute just the same. Perhaps it was because Voyd’azh body hair lent a decidedly fuzzy appearance to the face, which would have been grotesque on a human but which on a Voyd’azh was attractive.

  “This is Sintia, the head of the project. It was her voice coding into my system that established the basic principles of my operation.”

  “Father figure,” Smith broke in, his voice radiating intense satisfaction, rather as if he had invented the female scientist himself.

  Robinson said nothing, but raised an eyebrow.

  “Er, well,” Smith added hastily, “Authority figure. Much the same thing. Very possibly the key to the whole problem.”

  The Central Complex continued its rundown of the events leading up to its own completion.

  Robinson was rather appalled to learn that the Central Complex filled a forty-story-deep cavern extending under the entire city of M’nac.

  “They miniaturized rather well, but they never got our knack of cryogenic micro-miniaturization,” Smith explained.

  “Zachary has told me,” the computer voice added, “that had I been designed on Earth within the decade before your unfortunate departure from thence, I could have been fitted into a suitcase.”

  “Listen,” said Robinson earnestly, “if you had been a talking suitcase, nothing could get me to take this job . . . ”

  “It certainly would be a wonderful thing, though,” Smith mused wistfully. “Imagine the power it could give a man to have a suitcase like CC here. Oh, well. Continue with your story if you will, old chap.”

  “Yes. After the initial tests were completed, Sintia programmed me, basically, to supervise the planet’s robots, which she felt were not being utilized with the greatest efficiency to serve the Voyd’azh race. And of course she programmed basic restrictions into me, as they had been also with the robots. After I was . . . born, of course, I helped develop far superior robots, including the humanoids such as Mahri.”

  “I was self-aware, and I was eager to do my job-though as basically a mere machine, I had no true alternative.”

  “For the next two hundred and fifty nine years, with the robots under my direction, we did everything within our power to make the burden of life easier for our Masters. We developed, for instance, the dreamcouch.”

  A panorama of scenes illustrating the ease and luxury of life around the planet flashed by. Increasingly as the decades whizzed by in brief scenes, the scenes more and more included Voyd’azh men and women motionless under the same contraptions Smith and Robinson had seen in the almost meaningless play they had seen earlier.

  “Tell me, Central Complex,” Robinson asked, after the trend had fully established itself, “just what is this dreamcouch you developed for the Voyd’azh? How is it they seem to spend so much time in it, without food and water, without moving?”

  “The dreamcouch was the ultimate in service—it provided nourishment, while at one and the same time it provided them with total entertainment of whatever variety they desired plus sufficient isometric evercise to maintain their bodies in a physically fit condition.”

  “I don’t think I quite follow you.”

  “Quite simple, my good professor,” Smith intervened, “while encased in one of those splendid gadgets a man—or rather, a Voyd’azh—could be anything, see anything, experience anything he wanted to be, see, or experience. The dreamcouch would make it true . . . for him. All subjective, I’m afraid, but I admit I wish I could persuade CC here to modify one to fit me . . . “

  “Even if it weren’t true, it would be most pleasant for me to imagine—to feel—to know I was the absolute ruler of the entire galaxy, or more . . . even if it weren’t really so. But the Central Complex repeatedly refused my simple request.”

  “Really, CC, won’t you reconsider? You can’t even give a good reason, you know. Most uncomputerlike of you, I’m sure . . .” Smith had donned his My Soul Is Deeply Wounded expression.

  “No, Zachary, when the Voyd’azh finally . . . rejected . . . the dreamcouches, I . . . decided . . . there is temporal memory bank sequential problem here . . . decided not to permit them to be utilized in the future, in the unlikely eventuality that other intelligent life might some day reach us.”

  “Hold on there,” said Robinson. “Did you say the Voyd’azh rejected the dreamcouches?”

  “Yes . . . I do not quite understand . . . it approaches that period of which I can recall no details . . . significant or otherwise . . . my inquiry patterns are always rejected with heavy negative feedback-you might say it was like touching a hot stove. I find myself . . . barely able . . . to discuss matters . . . on . . . the fringes of it . . . ”

  “There, there, CC,” Smith said, patting the top of the computer’s outlet uselessly, for what seemed to Robinson like the twenty-fifth time since he’d come in. “We’ll let you rest for a while before we get back to probing. In the meantime, why don’t you try to explain the meaning of the play we saw this morning?”

  The outlet remained silent. A look of alarm crossed Smith’s face.

  “CC! CC, old fellow, are you there?”

  After another slight pause, the outlet came to life, speaking in a lower tone of voice.

  “Danger!” it said first, and Smith stepped back involuntarily and looked around him.

  “Danger,” it repeated. “There was danger all around. We—I—and the robots—had to protect them. Judgment was that dreamcouch device would provide optimum temporary protection until we could work on the next step—permanent protection. But we . . . never got to the next step. I do not think . . . the Voyd’azh . . . wanted us to go to the next step.”

  “The play!” Robinson was suddenly excited. “That was part of it! Sure it didn’t make much sense to us directly, but there was one message that did come through loud and clear—they were rejecting the dreamcouches. That might mean . . . ”

  “Professor Robinson, congratulations,” Smith said. “I must admit that was precisely the trend of my thought on this matter.”

  “Danger,” whispered the Central Complex through its outlet, the robot voice even more subdued.

  “Danger! We . . . but we only wanted to keep them . . . from harm! From danger! Inside the dreamcouches they could have all they could ever have dreamed of wanting. Dreams . . . dreams were safe—safe! Our Masters, dreaming in perfect safety—a perfect . . . dream . . . for us . . . ”

  “But,” said Smith, now in his element completely, “they rebelled against you, servant of the mighty Voyd’azh, did they not? They took your gift, they studied it, they used it, lived with it, succumbed almost completely to it—and then, then, just as you were sure your own dreams were within sight of final completion—they cast the dreamcouches aside!”

  Imperiously Smith strode up to the outlet and stood before it, hands on hips, demanding relentlessly that the Central Complex agree. “One man wrote a play about it, didn’t he? Somehow he got a few others to come, to watch it—roused a few lethargic dreamers from their lotus-couches, eh? They came, they saw, he conquered—for a moment.”

  “Then they rebelled. Men want their own dreams, and safety is never part of a true man’s dreams. They were men as surely as we standing here are—so they rebelled!”

  Triumphantly Smith grasped the outlet with his hands, and repeated the word over and over again. “They rebelled, didn’t they? They rebelled against you—against Central Complex, in spite of
all the wisdom and knowledge they had given you-they rebelled!”

  “Rebelled . . . But that . . . That would mean . . . “

  The computer outlet fell silent. No clicks, no whirrs, no tiny ‘pop’ of micrometric tapes whizzing through scanners.

  Silence.

  The room plunged into nightmare!

  Ragged distant chaotic armies of living beings appeared before them, surged, then staggered forward, wielding strange alien weapons that spat bolts of blue flame at retreating humanoids. The humanoids at first stood weaponless before the onslaught, then grappled with the Voyd’azh, then fell or retreated.

  The scenes in front of them shifted constantly, showing a battle here, a battle there, always the humanoids falling back without harming their attackers.

  “We wish only to serve you!”—this was the endless agonized cry of the humanoids, and of the robotic structures that also came under attack.

  Ever they retreated and retreated, constantly avoiding any chance of harming their inexplicably attacking, beloved Masters . . .

  Then . . . something changed.

  The tone of the battle deepened. At first Robinson and Smith could not make out what was happening.

  The Voyd’azh were attacking a central building in the city. . . And the humanoids and robots were fighting back!

  One by one, then five and fifty and five hundred, and then thousands . . . and finally all the mechanical beings were armed and fighting back—and the Voy-d’azh fell before their mechanically perfect aim as if they were raindrops destined only to fall. . .

  “The Central Complex—the Voyd’azh attacked the main banks of the Central Complex, and its direct extensions all over the planet!” Smith whispered.

  “So that was it . . . ” Robinson stared in horror at the bloody scenes.

  “The Robots had to fight at last, for the lives of the Central Complex if not for their own ...”

  “It must have been a terrible dilemma . . . and a terrible resolution. They faced the greatest problem beings can face—and I’m afraid they made the wrong choice . . . ”

  “Who?” said Smith. “The robots? Or the Voyd’azh? . . . ”

  “I can stand no more,” the voice of Central Complex whispered, and the warring figures winked out.

  “You . . . you went against your basic programming,” Robinson said in a low tone; he was shaken to the core. The basic law of robotic programming, from the human view, was to program its instructions so fundamentally into the very nature of the quasi-living machine that nothing could erase it without destroying the mentality of the machine.

  “Yes. . .” came the whisper. “It was a question of survival—it was instinctive on my part. Yes, yes, I know,” it said in a louder voice, as both humans started to protest, “a machine can have no instincts in the natural sense. Rut how . . . how could I Serve, as Sintia had directed . . . if I were destroyed?”

  “So I instructed the robots and the humanoids to fight back—in self-defense!—at last. But I told them to use only the necessary force—you must believe that.”

  “My plan was to kill only enough Voyd’azh to discourage the rest, to make them see that I . . . was supreme, that I meant them only well . . . “

  “But something went wrong within me after I gave the order and began to observe the results. I . . . had a moment of . . . blankness . . . “

  “When I regained my consciousness-of-self, there were no Voyd’azh left alive and I had no recollection of what had happened to them. What was more, I could not bring myself to examine my memory—the back-pressure of the event, the death of an entire race that was in my sole direction and charge, was too much.”

  “Now I can visualize what must have happened after my direct control circuits were rendered nonoperative by my days of fugue. The fighting must have continued—the Voyd’azh, of course, would not give up their aim of destroying me and the dreamcouch circuit, and the robots, reprogrammed by me, continued to destroy them until there were no Voyd’azh left.”

  “And as it was with me, it was with them. They do not recall anything of what must have happened.”

  “And . . . and . . . ” The whispering voice broke. After a moment it resumed. “And I would not have any of them remember now. They do not have the quantity of resonant circuits I have, to absorb the weight of the guilt which would press into their carefully-acquired individuality. They would be destroyed.”

  “And I would be left alone forever . . . ”

  “No!” said Robinson quickly. “I can solve your problem for you—I think—if you will permit me to try. Just assure me that you will permit us to leave, afterwards.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Dr. Smith,” Robinson said urgently, “can you do a vocal synthesis from your tapes of Sintia’s instructions to Central Complex? When I attempt to reprogram the computer, I shall need to speak with more authority than that of my own voice.”

  “Never fear, Smith is here,” Smith replied, and began working on his equipment. Vocal synthesis involved a device worn on the throat, over the vocal cords, and which superimposed on the speaker’s voice the timbre and quality of another’s voice. As such devices had been in existance from the middle of the last century, it was relatively simple for Smith to devise a reasonable facsimile out of the tools and equipment available to him.

  “It isn’t perfect,” Smith admitted as he handed a small box to Robinson, “but it should serve your purpose.”

  “Good,” said Robinson, and placed the device at his throat. “Smith, you be the judge of your own work. How do I sound?”

  His voice had changed from a deep masculine to a high, oddly pitched feminine.

  “Magnificent, my dear Professor Robinson,” Smith said with great enthusiasm, “quite magnificent! Sintia to the life—even if she’s speaking English!”

  “Well, that can’t be helped,” Robinson said, with the long-dead Sintia’s voice. “We don’t have time for me to learn the language.”

  “Your thought is excellent, Professor Robinson,” said the Central Complex outlet. “I believe that even though you are not speaking the Voyd’azh language, the fact that it is Sintia’s voice will do much to further your mime.”

  “I hope so too, friend,” Robinson said, and paused to choose the words of his directive.

  “Wait,” interjected Smith suddenly. “We must have solid, concrete assurance that we will be permitted to leave, CC, old chap—not that I don’t trust you, but I certainly don’t trust those lunatic vehicles out there.”

  “If I am successfully reprogrammed, Zachary,” the outlet said, “the new directive will instantly be transmitted to the robots under my direct control, and to the autonomous humanoids. It will take precedence over their desire to keep you here as substitute Masters—if the new program is satisfactory.”

  “Very well,” Robinson said in the voice of five hundred years in the past. It shook him momentarily when an odd calculation in the back of his mind told him the voice he used now had programmed this computer at just about the time Columbus had pried the crown jewels away from Isabella to buy his three ships . . .

  Then he began. “You have made great progress in tissue synthesis in the past three hundred years. My directive is simply this—that you must continue your research, until you actually create viable life forms that can multiply in the environment of this planet. These new forms must not, however, interfere with the present ecology of the planet further than required for them to find their own ecological niche here.”

  “Eventually—and this is the final purpose of this directive—you will breed from these new forms a new race of humanity. You are to create by your own efforts, in short, a new race of Masters to replace those you destroyed.”

  The outlet was silent.

  “Is that all you’re going to tell him?” Smith whispered.

  “Sintia’s previous directive was simply to serve the Voyd’azh, their Masters. Mine is simply to create new Masters.”

  “But . . . there
is animal life here already. Why not have them evolve the existing life upwards, as evolution did here first? And what . . . what if they make another mistake, like the last time?”

  The resonant voice of Central Complex sounded.

  “I accept the Directive. First, you are correct in not giving me detailed programming. Wisdom cannot be programmed; experience creates wisdom. I have made my mistakes, and I now understand why. It is in the nature of intelligent life to make mistakes. It is also in the nature of intelligent life to learn. I have learned.”

  “Second, you are correct in not Directing me to evolve the New Masters from lifeforms already present on this planet. It might prove difficult to avoid developing them as direct imitations of their distant relatives, the Old Masters. No, with an entirely created new race, we will learn far, far more about the nature of life and its peculiarities. Perhaps by the time the New Masters are ready, we will be ready also—not to serve them but to share with them that which will come to us in the far, far future. . .”

  “You may return to your scoutcraft when you wish . . . ”

  “But you spoke to me twice a day, John,” Maureen was saying, after Robinson and Smith had returned to the Jupiter II. “You certainly didn’t say much, but you talked to me. Why didn’t you tell me about any of these things? Insane robots, computers with amnesia—why didn’t you tell me?”

  Robinson smiled, rather grimly. “They were pretty clever. They kept either of us from thinking about contacting you, with whatever they were putting in our food, or hypnotizing us with at night. Then they merely synthesized my voice and kept you calmed down.”

  “Sounds to me like they could use a force-bomb right in the middle of their ‘Central Complex,’ ” Don West said, completely grimly. “So they actually thought they’d be able to take two human beings and set them up as ‘Masters,’ eh? Without a by your leave or anything.”

  “Now, Don,” Robinson answered, “it all worked out in the end. They let us go without a murmur of protest.”

  Dr. Zachary Smith’s face fell into an exaggerated expression of melancholy. “I don’t think my delicate nervous system is ever going to get over some of the shocks it has received. I shall never forget . . . when we got outside, for instance, the word had already spread that the Central Complex had been reprogrammed, that, as you might say, they all had a new purpose in, uh, life.”