Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction

by Leigh Grossman

HELENA: How?

  ALQUIST: Something like this: “Oh, Lord, I thank thee for having given me toil. Enlighten Domin and all those who are astray; destroy their work, and aid mankind to return to their labors; let them not suffer harm in soul or body; deliver us from the Robots and protect Helena, Amen.”

  HELENA: Mr. Alquist, are you a believer?

  ALQUIST: I don’t know. I’m not quite sure.

  HELENA: And yet you pray?

  ALQUIST: That’s better than worrying about it.

  HELENA: And that’s enough for you?

  ALQUIST: It has to be.

  HELENA: But if you thought you saw the destruction of mankind coming upon us—

  ALQUIST: I do see it.

  HELENA: You mean mankind will be destroyed?

  ALQUIST: It’s sure to be unless—unless…

  HELENA: What?

  ALQUIST: Nothing, good-bye.

  (He hurries from the room)

  HELENA: Nana, Nana!

  (NANA entering from the left)

  Is Radius still there?

  NANA: The one who went mad? They haven’t come for him yet.

  HELENA: Is he still raving?

  NANA: No. He’s tied up.

  HELENA: Please bring him here, Nana.

  (Exit NANA. HELENA goes to telephone)

  Hello, Dr. Gall, please. Oh, good-day, Doctor. Yes, it’s Helena. Thanks for your lovely present. Could you come and see me right away? It’s important. Thank you.

  (NANA brings in RADIUS)

  Poor Radius, you’ve caught it, too? Now they’ll send you to the stamping-mill. Couldn’t you control yourself? Why did it happen? You see, Radius, you are more intelligent than the rest. Dr. Gall took such trouble to make you different. Won’t you speak?

  RADIUS: Send me to the stamping-mill.

  HELENA: But I don’t want them to kill you. What was the trouble, Radius?

  RADIUS: I won’t work for you. Put me into the stamping-mill—

  HELENA: Do you hate us? Why?

  RADIUS: You are not as strong as the Robots. You are not as skillful as the Robots. The Robots can do everything. You only give orders. You do nothing but talk.

  HELENA: But someone must give orders.

  RADIUS: I don’t want any master. I know everything for myself.

  HELENA: Radius, Dr. Gall gave you a better brain than the rest, better than ours. You are the only one of the Robots that understands perfectly. That’s why I had you put into the library, so that you could read everything, understand everything, and then—oh, Radius, I wanted you to show the whole world that the Robots are our equals. That’s what I wanted of you.

  RADIUS: I don’t want a master. I want to be master. I want to be master over others.

  HELENA: I’m sure they’d put you in charge of many Robots, Radius. You would be a teacher of the Robots.

  RADIUS: I want to be master over people.

  HELENA: (staggering)

  You are mad.

  RADIUS: Then send me to the stamping-mill.

  HELENA: Do you think we’re afraid of you?

  RADIUS: What are you going to do? What are you going to do?

  HELENA: Radius, give this note to Mr. Domin. It asks them not to send you to the stamping-mill. I’m sorry you hate us so.

  DR. GALL enters the room.

  DR. GALL: You wanted me?

  HELENA: It’s about Radius, Doctor. He had an attack this morning. He smashed the statues downstairs.

  DR. GALL: What a pity to lose him.

  HELENA: Radius isn’t going to be put in the stamping-mill.

  DR. GALL: But every Robot after he has had an attack—it’s a strict order.

  HELENA: No matter…Radius isn’t going if I can prevent it.

  DR. GALL: I warn you. It’s dangerous. Come here to the window, my good fellow. Let’s have a look. Please give me a needle or a pin.

  HELENA: What for?

  DR. GALL: A test.

  (Sticks it into the hand of RADIUS who gives a violent start)

  Gently, gently.

  (Opens the jacket of RADIUS, and puts his ear to his heart)

  Radius, you are going into the stamping-mill, do you understand? There they’ll kill you, and grind you to powder. That’s terribly painful, it will make you scream aloud.

  HELENA: Oh, Doctor—

  DR. GALL: No, no, Radius, I was wrong. I forgot that Madame Domin has put in a good word for you, and you’ll be let off. Do you understand? Ah! That makes a difference, doesn’t it? All right. You can go.

  RADIUS: You do unnecessary things.

  RADIUS returns to the library.

  DR. GALL: Reaction of the pupils; increase of sensitiveness. It wasn’t an attack characteristic of the Robots.

  HELENA: What was it, then?

  DR. GALL: Heavens knows. Stubbornness, anger or revolt—I don’t know. And his heart, too!

  HELENA: What?

  DR. GALL: It was fluttering with nervousness like a human heart. He was all in a sweat with fear, and—do you know, I don’t believe the rascal is a Robot at all any longer.

  HELENA: Doctor, has Radius a soul?

  DR. GALL: He’s got something nasty.

  HELENA: If you knew how he hates us! Oh, Doctor, are all your Robots like that? All the new ones that you began to make in a different way?

  DR. GALL: Well, some are more sensitive than others. They’re all more like human beings than Rossum’s Robots were.

  HELENA: Perhaps this hatred is more like human beings, too?

  DR. GALL: That, too, is progress.

  HELENA: What became of the girl you made, the one who was most like us?

  DR. GALL: Your favorite? I kept her. She’s lovely, but stupid. No good for work.

  HELENA: But she’s so beautiful.

  DR. GALL: I called her Helena. I wanted her to resemble you. But she’s a failure.

  HELENA: In what way?

  DR. GALL: She goes about as if in a dream, remote and listless. She’s without life. I watch and wait for a miracle to happen. Sometimes I think to myself, “If you were to wake up only for a moment you will kill me for having made you.”

  HELENA: And yet you go on making Robots! Why are no more children being born?

  DR. GALL: We don’t know.

  HELENA: Oh, but you must. Tell me.

  DR. GALL: You see, so many Robots are being manufactured that people are becoming superfluous; man is really a survival. But that he should begin to die out, after a paltry thirty years of competition. That’s the awful part of it. You might almost think that nature was offended at the manufacture of the Robots. All the universities are sending in long petitions to restrict their production. Otherwise, they say, mankind will become extinct through lack of fertility. But the R.U.R. shareholders, of course, won’t hear of it. All the governments, on the other hand, are clamoring for an increase in production, to raise the standards of their armies. And all the manufacturers in the world are ordering Robots like mad.

  HELENA: And has no one demanded that the manufacture should cease altogether?

  DR. GALL: No one has the courage.

  HELENA: Courage!

  DR. GALL: People would stone him to death. You see, after all, it’s more convenient to get your work done by the Robots.

  HELENA: Oh, Doctor, what’s going to become of people?

  DR. GALL: God knows, Madame Helena, it looks to us scientists like the end!

  HELENA: (rising)

  Thank you for coming and telling me.

  DR. GALL: That means you’re sending me away?

  HELENA: Yes.

  (Exit DR. GALL. With sudden resolution)

  Nana, Nana! The fire, light it quickly.

  HELENA rushes into Domin’s room.

  NANA: (entering from left)

  What, light the fire in summer? Has that mad Radius gone? A fire in summer, what an idea. Nobody would think she’d been married for ten years. She’s like a baby, no sense at all. A fire in summer. Like a baby.

 
HELENA: (returns from right, with armful of faded papers)

  It is burning, Nana? All this has got to be burned.

  NANA: What’s that?

  HELENA: Old papers, fearfully old. Nana, shall I burn them?

  NANA: Are they any use?

  HELENA: No.

  NANA: Well, then, burn them.

  HELENA: (throwing the first sheet on the fire)

  What would you say, Nana, if this was money, a lot of money?

  NANA: I’d say burn it. A lot of money is a bad thing.

  HELENA: And if it was an invention, the greatest invention in the world?

  NANA: I’d say burn it. All these new-fangled things are an offense to the Lord. It’s downright wickedness. Wanting to improve the world after He has made it.

  HELENA: Look how they curl up! As if they were alive. Oh, Nana, how horrible.

  NANA: Here, let me burn them.

  HELENA: No, no, I must do it myself. Just look at the flames. They are like hands, like tongues, like living shapes.

  (Raking fire with the poker)

  Lie down, lie down.

  NANA: That’s the end of them.

  HELENA: (standing up horror-stricken)

  Nana, Nana.

  NANA: Good gracious, what is it you’ve burned?

  HELENA: Whatever have I done?

  NANA: Well, what was it?

  Men’s laughter off left.

  HELENA: Go quickly. It’s the gentlemen coming.

  NANA: Good gracious, what a place!

  (Exits)

  DOMIN: (opens the door at left)

  Come along and offer your congratulations.

  Enter HALLEMEIER and GALL.

  HALLEMEIER: Madame Helena, I congratulate you on this festive day.

  HELENA: Thank you. Where are Fabry and Busman?

  DOMIN: They’ve gone down to the harbor.

  HALLEMEIER: Friends, we must drink to this happy occasion.

  HELENA: Brandy?

  DR. GALL: Vitriol, if you like.

  HELENA: With soda water?

  (Exits)

  HALLEMEIER: Let’s be temperate. No soda.

  DOMIN: What’s been burning here? Well, shall I tell her about it?

  DR. GALL: Of course. It’s all over now.

  HALLEMEIER: (embracing DOMIN and DR. GALL)

  It’s all over now, it’s all over now.

  DR. GALL: It’s all over now.

  DOMIN: It’s all over now.

  HELENA: (entering from left with decanter and glasses)

  What’s all over now? What’s the matter with you all?

  HALLEMEIER: A piece of good luck, Madame Domin. Just ten years ago today you arrived on this island.

  DR. GALL: And now, ten years later to the minute—

  HALLEMEIER: —the same ship’s returning to us. So here’s to luck. That’s fine and strong.

  DR. GALL: Madame, your health.

  HELENA: Which ship do you mean?

  DOMIN: Any ship will do, as long as it arrives in time. To the ship, boys.

  (Empties his glass)

  HELENA: You’ve been waiting for a ship?

  HALLEMEIER: Rather. Like Robinson Crusoe. Madame Helena, best wishes. Come along, Domin, out with the news.

  HELENA: Do tell me what’s happened.

  DOMIN: First, it’s all up.

  HELENA: What’s up?

  DOMIN: The revolt.

  HELENA: What revolt?

  DOMIN: Give me that paper, Hallemeier.

  (Reads)

  “The first national Robot organization has been founded at Havre, and has issued an appeal to the Robots throughout the world.”

  HELENA: I read that.

  DOMIN: That means a revolution. A revolution of all the Robots in the world.

  HALLEMEIER: By Jove, I’d like to know—

  DOMIN: —who started it? So would I. There was nobody in the world who could affect the Robots; no agitator, no one, and suddenly—this happens, if you please.

  HELENA: What did they do?

  DOMIN: They got possession of all firearms, telegraphs, radio stations, railways, and ships.

  HALLEMEIER: And don’t forget that these rascals outnumbered us by at least a thousand to one. A hundredth part of them would be enough to settle us.

  DOMIN: Remember that this news was brought by the last steamer. That explains the stoppage of all communication, and the arrival of no more ships. We knocked off work a few days ago, and we’re just waiting to see when things are to start afresh.

  HELENA: Is that why you gave me a warship?

  DOMIN: Oh, no, my dear, I ordered that six months ago, just to be on the safe side. But upon my soul, I was sure then that we’d be on board today.

  HELENA: Why six months ago?

  DOMIN: Well, there were signs, you know. But that’s of no consequence. To think that this week the whole of civilization has been at stake. Your health, boys.

  HALLEMEIER: Your health, Madame Helena.

  HELENA: You say it’s all over?

  DOMIN: Absolutely.

  HELENA: How do you know?

  DR. GALL: The boat’s coming in. The regular mail boat, exact to the minute by the timetable. It will dock punctually at eleven-thirty.

  DOMIN: Punctuality is a fine thing, boys. That’s what keeps the world in order. Here’s to punctuality.

  HELENA: Then…everything’s…all right?

  DOMIN: Practically everything. I believe they’ve cut the cables and seized the radio stations. But it doesn’t matter if only the timetable holds good.

  HALLEMEIER: If the timetable holds good human laws hold good; Divine laws hold good; the laws of the universe hold good; everything holds good that ought to hold good. The timetable is more significant than the gospel; more than Homer, more than the whole of Kant. The timetable is the most perfect product of the human mind. Madame Domin, I’ll fill up my glass.

  HELENA: Why didn’t you tell me anything about it?

  DR. GALL: Heaven forbid.

  DOMIN: You mustn’t be worried with such things.

  HELENA: But if the revolution had spread as far as here?

  DOMIN: You wouldn’t know anything about it.

  HELENA: Why?

  DOMIN: Because we’d be on board your Ultimus and well out at sea. Within a month, Helena, we’d be dictating our own terms to the Robots.

  HELENA: I don’t understand.

  DOMIN: We’d take something away with us that the Robots could not exist without.

  HELENA: What, Harry?

  DOMIN: The secret of their manufacture. Old Rossum’s manuscript. As soon as they found out that they couldn’t make themselves they’d be on their knees to us.

  DR. GALL: Madame Domin, that was our trump card. I never had the least fear that the Robots would win. How could they against people like us?

  HELENA: Why didn’t you tell me?

  DR. GALL: Why, the boat’s in!

  HALLEMEIER: Eleven-thirty to the dot. The good old Amelia that brought Madame Helena to us.

  DR. GALL: Just ten years ago to the minute.

  HALLEMEIER: They’re throwing out the mail bags.

  DOMIN: Busman’s waiting for them. Fabry will bring us the first news. You know, Helena, I’m fearfully curious to know how they tackled this business in Europe.

  HALLEMEIER: To think we weren’t in it, we who invented the Robots.

  HELENA: Harry!

  DOMIN: What is it?

  HELENA: Let’s leave here.

  DOMIN: Now, Helena? Oh, come, come!

  HELENA: As quickly as possible, all of us!

  DOMIN: Why?

  HELENA: Please, Harry, please, Dr. Gall; Hallemeier, please close the factory.

  DOMIN: Why, none of us could leave here now.

  HELENA: Why?

  DOMIN: Because we’re about to extend the manufacture of the Robots.

  HELENA: What—now—now after the revolt?

  DOMIN: Yes, precisely, after the revolt. We’re just beginning the ma
nufacture of a new kind.

  HELENA: What kind?

  DOMIN: Henceforward we shan’t have just one factory. There won’t be Universal Robots any more. We’ll establish a factory in every country, in every State; and do you know what these new factories will make?

  HELENA: No, what?

  DOMIN: National Robots.

  HELENA: How do you mean?

  DOMIN: I mean that each of these factories will produce Robots of a different color, a different language. They’ll be complete strangers to each other. They’ll never be able to understand each other. Then we’ll egg them on a little in the matter of misunderstanding and the result will be that for ages to come every Robot will hate every other Robot of a different factory mark.

  HALLEMEIER: By Jove, we’ll make Negro Robots and Swedish Robots and Italian Robots and Chinese Robots and Czechoslovakian Robots, and then—

  HELENA: Harry, that’s dreadful.

  HALLEMEIER: Madame Domin, here’s to the hundred new factories, the National Robots.

  DOMIN: Helena, mankind can only keep things going for another hundred years at the outside. For a hundred years men must be allowed to develop and achieve the most they can.

  HELENA: Oh, close the factory before it’s too late.—Domin I tell you we are just beginning on a bigger scale than ever.

  Enter FABRY.

  DR. GALL: Well, Fabry?

  DOMIN: What’s happened? Have you been down to the boat?

  FABRY: Read that, Domin!

  FABRY hands DOMIN a small hand-bill.

  DR. GALL: Let’s hear.

  HALLEMEIER: Tell us, Fabry.

  FABRY: Well, everything is all right—comparatively. On the whole, much as we expected.

  DR. GALL: They acquitted themselves splendidly.

  FABRY: Who?

  DR. GALL: The people.

  FABRY: Oh, yes, of course. That is—excuse me, there is something we ought to discuss alone.

  HELENA: Oh, Fabry, have you had bad news?

  DOMIN makes a sign to FABRY.