Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  Ho Agar twirled the dial for several seconds, then swung the door open.

  “Ordinarily only Doctor Farrel and I are permitted in this laboratory, but I think we can make an exception in your case,” he said.

  Rick followed him into a steel-walled, windowless room about forty feet square, equipped completely with delicate laboratory apparatus. One wall of the room was covered by a chest of small drawers that extended from floor to ceiling. Each drawer, of which there were thousands, bore a small white card on which a serial number and a chemical equation were inscribed.

  In the center of the room was a steel table about four feet high, with powerful spring clamps at both ends and heavy leather straps dangling from its sides. There was a raised head-rest at one end of the table that was set between the cushioned jaws of a vise.

  “It looks like a medieval rack,” Rick said.

  “Its purpose is more humane,” Ho Agar smiled. “In this laboratory the robots are supplied with brains. Since the operation is highly delicate, we lock the robot into an immobile position, so that it won’t inadvertently upset our work with an untimely movement. The head is secured in a vise and the arms and legs are held by these clamps.”

  “I see,” Rick said. He was silent for a moment, then said, “I’d like to ask you a question, Ho Agar. You may consider it impertinent, but I’m going to take a chance. These robots I’ve seen work splendidly. Why aren’t you able to export some of them to Earth and Mars, now, to take over some of the work they’re able to do?”

  HO AGAR shook his head slowly.

  “We aren’t ready yet,” he said. “That’s what I’m asking,” Rick said. “Why aren’t they ready? They look ready.” He shrugged and smiled. “Of course you can tell me to go to hell; it’s none of my business, but I can’t help being curious.”

  “Yes,” Ho Agar said, “your curiosity is understandable.” He sighed and sat down slowly, as if he were suddenly very tired. There was a serious expression on his face that Rick hadn’t seen before and his eyes were solemn.

  “We are near success,” he said. “Our robots are eminently satisfactory in most respects. I have no doubt that we could put a number of them into service in factories on Earth and Mars with excellent results. “But,” he shrugged and smiled bitterly, “we can’t be sure. Things have happened here that we have kept secret, because if they were known it might prejudice the public against ever accepting robot life. I am trying to explain to you that all the robots produced here have not been successful. Some we were forced to demobilize because they were too dangerous to have about. You see,” he said, glancing up at Rick with an almost pleading expression on his face, “we can’t take the chance of sending a robot from here that might, even years later, go berserk and destroy human life. We must continue our experiments until we are absolutely certain that our robots will operate favorably under all circumstances, until they wear out. There can be no compromise. We either succeed or we fail. We cannot be satisfied with anything less than perfection, because the results of imperfection would be too horrible to contemplate.”

  “But good lord,” said Rick, “haven’t you been able to figure out what causes these imperfections?”

  “Not yet,” Ho Agar said, with a bitter shake of his head. He was silent a moment, then added, “Do you remember when Doctor Farrel first announced his theory for the creation of practical robot life?”

  Rick nodded. “That was about ten years ago, wasn’t it? I was just twenty-two then, in training at the Earth space school.”

  “Then you probably know something of the methods we use to create intelligent robot life,” Ho Agar said. “Do you remember, when Doctor Farrel’s plan was adopted by the Earth-Mars Federation, that we began a universal appeal for persons of sound mental health to bequeath their brains to the Foundation after their death?”

  “Yes, I remember that,” Rick said, nodding. “There was considerable squeamishness on the public’s part for a while, but they got over that. The idea of bequeathing brain tissue to be used in robots became as common as giving blood had been a few centuries before.”

  “Precisely,” Ho Agar said. “Doctor Farrel collected brain tissue for five years before we actually began work on our first robot. I was selected by the doctor because of my experiments in grafting metal and flesh together. Doctor Farrel’s theory is comparatively simple. He experimented for years at attempting to devise a brain of some synthetic substance that would act, in lay terminology, as a sounding board to carry commands to the robot’s motor system. After trying thousands of substances he used human brain tissue, which had been kept alive electrically. The results, of course, were highly satisfactory, and he announced his plan for the collection of sufficient brain tissue to build a few hundred experimental robots. Actually in six years he received enough tissue to build millions of robots, for each robot only requires a section of brain tissue a half inch square.”

  “I REMEMBER the response was tremendous,” Rick said. “I signed up and I don’t think there was a cadet at the base who didn’t. My best friend, Jimmy Haines, died shortly after, and his brain was sent to the Foundation. That’s why I always had a sort of personal interest in the work here.”

  “Haines?” Ho Agar repeated, frowning. “He died on Mars, didn’t he?” Rick nodded. “He crashed. Forgot to set his automatic controls for landing and missed the beam.”

  “I remember the case,” Ho Agar said. “His tissue was sent here with the first consignment. Of course, we keep no record of the various brain tissue, other than a serial number and chemical formula,” He pointed to the thousands of drawers in the wall cabinet. “That’s our present repository, and we have thousands more on Mars, waiting to be shipped here. But it’s a safe guess that your friend’s brain is at work right now somewhere on the assembly line. Of course, you understand, the will and memory and personality of James Haines ceased to exist when his brain was removed from his body.”

  “Yes, I know that,” Rick said. But it was a peculiar feeling to realize that one of those metal creatures he had passed was being motivated through the medium of a man who had been dead for nine years and whom he had known intimately and loved like a brother.

  “But the one thing Doctor Farrel hadn’t foreseen,” Ho Agar continued, “was that using human tissue in these metal robots would endow them with certain human qualities. And that’s the way it has worked. Some of our robot products have been operating for four years, admirably. Others have been unsuccessful from the start. While still others have gone along month after month giving not the slightest trouble and then have gone wild, smashing machinery, attacking other robots within their reach and generally behaving like monsters.” Ho Agar spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “Last month we had our first casualty. A robot went crazy on the line and destroyed one of our guards while the man was attempting to demobilize it. We are not ready yet to admit defeat, but unless our percentage of satisfactory robots takes a sharp upswing, we’ll have to face the fact that we have failed utterly.”

  “I see,” Rick said slowly. “I can understand, now,” he said, after a moment’s silence, “why Doctor Farrel hasn’t got the time and energy to play the gracious host.”

  “Yes, it weighs on him terribly,” Ho Agar said. “We all feel a sense of defeat, but the doctor holds himself responsible personally for the entire failure. His room is on our floor and many nights I hear him working hours after the rest of us have gone to bed for the night.”

  He stood up and smiled.

  “So you see there is a real excuse for his bitterness. And now I think we had better be getting back. Dinner will be served soon and Miss Farrel likes to have everyone there on time.”

  When they left the laboratory Rick saw the swift darkness had fallen, and a wind had sprung up, beating against the metal sides of the buildings with cold, stinging blasts. There was the feel of rain in the air as they hurried across the cleared compound and into the four-storied building that housed their sleeping quarters.
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  CHAPTER IV

  DINNER was served by candle-light in a long, wood-paneled room that was warmed by a roaring, open fire. There were eight at the table: Doctor Farrel sat at the head, flanked by Ho Agar and Hawkins, the chief of the maintenance division. Rita Farrel was at the foot of the table. Rick sat at her left beside an engineer named Webber, a gaunt, taciturn man who looked hungry. Across from him, on Ho Agar’s side of the table, were two research chemists, Morgan and Blair, both men in their middle fifties. Morgan was small, red-cheeked and balding; but Blair was a huge man with fiery red hair and bushy eyebrows that shadowed his small, peculiarly expressionless eyes.

  Rick ate hungrily, for the food was excellent and it had been hours since he’d had a decent meal; but despite the attention he paid his food, he couldn’t help noticing the strained, unnatural silence that dominated the room. Doctor Farrel ate little and his eyes circled the faces at the table restlessly.

  The silence of the room was broken only by the growing fury of the storm that was blowing over the base. Great sheets of water smashed into the side of the building with a continual booming sound and above this the thin, high wail of the wind could be heard, screaming like a tortured animal,

  Rick noticed that Rita Farrel shivered involuntarily as a wind-driven sheet of water struck the side of the building like surging surf, rattling the glasses on the table.

  “Good night to be inside, isn’t it?” he smiled.

  She turned to him gratefully.

  “It isn’t that there’s any danger,” she said, “but the noise frightens me.”

  “I think it does everyone,” Rick said. “The only advantage to storms in the void is that you never hear a thing. I remember once seeing two meteor swarms collide just beyond Earth’s Heaviside layer, and it was like something from Dante’s Inferno. But the only thing I heard was the sound of my cigarette striking the floor of the control cabin.”

  He went on talking to the girl and her nervousness faded gradually. Finally she laughed outright at something he said, and Rick saw her father’s eyes focus in their direction.

  The old man looked irritable.

  “Pardon me for interrupting your gay chatter,” he said with heavy sarcasm, “but could I have your attention for a moment, Mr. Weston?”

  “Certainly,” Rick said.

  “I have learned,” Doctor Farrel said, settling back and placing his hands on the arms of his chair, “that you chose to disregard my instructions about visiting the robot assembly line. Was there any good reason for your violation of my orders or did you just spend the afternoon there because you found time heavy on your hands?”

  “I was just curious,” Rick said, Hawkins looked at him and there was no smile on his face as he said, “That seems to be a predominant characteristic of yours, doesn’t it?”

  MORGAN, the red-cheeked, affable little chemist, smiled nervously. “After all, gentlemen,” he said with spurious heartiness, “where would science be today if men weren’t curious?”

  “Shut up, Morgan!” Doctor Farrel snapped, “I’m talking to Weston. I want to know, Weston, why you disregarded my orders and went snooping about the robot assembly plant?”

  “Please, just one moment, Doctor,” Ho Agar interposed suavely. “Mr. Weston is a guest of ours. It was at my invitation that he visited the robot plant. You are being unfair if you suppose he used his own initiative.”

  Doctor Farrel banged his fist suddenly on the table.

  “It doesn’t matter how he went there, or with whom he went,” he shouted. “He was ordered not to, yet he deliberately chose to ignore that order.”

  “Please, Father,” Rita Farrel said quietly. She glanced around the table. “Shall we have our coffee in the lounge?”

  “An excellent idea, my dear,” Morgan said, rising to his feet with alacrity.

  Hawkins said, “I think I’ll wait here until I have Weston’s answer to the doctor’s question.”

  Rick glanced at Hawkins. The man’s swarthy face was flushed with anger. He wondered why his visit to the plant should have upset the doctor and Hawkins to such an extent.

  “You don’t like me, do you, Hawkins?” he asked quietly.

  “I don’t like snooping spies,” Hawkins snapped. He stood up abruptly, knocking his chair to the floor. “I don’t give a damn about the other men here but I’m serving warning on you right now: Keep out of my department, if you know what’s good for you.” Rick smiled thinly and his face was bitterly hard.

  “If I want to go into your department, Hawkins,” he said, “don’t try to stop me.”

  “I’ve said my piece,” Hawkins said. He glared about the room for an instant and then strode through the doorway.

  There was an uncomfortable silence in the room after Hawkins left. Rita Farrel stood up and the rest of the men rose to follow her into the lounge, a comfortable living-room with windows that overlooked the compound.

  Farrel went directly to his office and the other men drifted away, leaving Ho Agar, Farrel’s daughter and Rick alone in the room.

  “You mustn’t mind Father,” Rita Farrel said to Rick, and there was an almost pleading note in her voice. “He’s so nervous and overworked that he’s snapping at everyone.” Her eyes begged him to understand.

  “I think,” Ho Agar said in his soft voice, “that Rick understands what your father and all of us are undergoing.” He moved to the window and drew the curtain aside as he spoke, and the almost continual bursts of lightning revealed the glistening, mile-long shed that housed the robot workers.

  “Our robots are working harmoniously now, but none of us can guess when one or more of them might transform into a raging creature of destruction.”

  “Please!” Rita said, turning away from the window.

  “I am sorry,” Ho Agar said simply.

  RICK looked over the wind-swept, rain-drenched compound at the mighty robot plant and felt a sensation that was close to terror as he thought of thousands of mighty metal creatures, working with unbroken, unchanging rhythm week after week, month after month, feeling nothing, caring for nothing but their appointed work. The realization that that limitless energy might at any instant be transformed into a blind destructive force was unnerving. Rick moved away from the window, feeling an irritation with himself for letting the tension of this place get on his nerves.

  Ho Agar excused himself a while later and went to his room. Rick and the girl talked for awhile over their coffee, and he found her company charming. It and went to his room. Rick and the girl glanced at her watch and gave a low exclamation of surprise.

  “Why, it’s almost midnight,” she said. “This is way past my bedtime.” She stood up and extended her hand to Rick in a frank, impulsive gesture. “Thanks for tonight,” she said. “It’s been fun.”

  Rick smoked another cigarette after the girl had gone, then went up to his own room. He undressed slowly. The storm had increased in intensity and the blasts of lightning threw weird flickering shadows into his room. He got into bed and stretched luxuriously. He switched off the light at the side of the bed and closed his eyes. In a few minutes he was asleep.

  How long he slept he didn’t know. Some subtle sixth sense warned him of danger and he found himself sitting upright in bed, staring into the darkness of the room, listening with straining ears for the sound that had awakened him.

  The house was silent; but an instant later Rick’s flesh crawled as the quiet darkness was shattered by a high-pitched scream of mortal horror.

  CHAPTER V

  RICK sprang out of bed and snapped on the lamp; he shoved his feet into shoes, jerked his trousers on over his pajamas and stepped into the corridor.

  Doctor Farrel was just emerging from his room, fully clothed. There was a dazed, helpless look on his face as he stared at Rick.

  “Rita!” he gasped feebly.

  Ho Agar, the Martian, appeared in the doorway of his room. He looked as if he’d been sleeping, but his eyes were alert.

  “The scream ca
me from below,” he said crisply. “Let’s go down.”

  Rick followed him down the steps at a reckless run. When they reached the second floor, Ho Agar strode along the corridor to Rita’s room. One glance told them an instant and terrible story.

  The door was smashed open and was hanging crazily on one hinge. There was a hole in the center panel that could have been made only by a heavy bludgeon. Inside, the room was in wild disorder. Bedclothes were strewn about the floor, a chest of drawers had been hurled on its side, and the room was empty of life.

  Rick felt a tightening in his chest as he stared dazedly at the smashed room. Rita’s slippers and robe were lying on a chair, mute evidence that she had not left the room of her own will. Ho Agar touched his arm and pointed to the floor, to great gouged imprints that had been ripped and splintered in the wood.

  “Those marks were made by the metal stumps of a robot,” he said tensely. His fingers tightened on Rick’s arm. “There’s not a second to lose. One of the robots has gone berserk and taken Rita. We’ve got to find her before—”

  Doctor Farrel appeared at the door, his eyes glazed with terror.

  “Where is my daughter?” he cried wildly. He shoved past Rick into the room and stared in horror at the smashed room, the torn bedclothes.

  “We don’t know yet,” Ho Agar said, “but we’ll find her. I’m sure.”

  He drew Rick into the corridor.

  “There are weapons downstairs,” he said. “We must start the search immediately. We won’t wait for the others.”

  Downstairs, in the lounge, Ho Agar took two powerful ray-rifles from a cabinet and handed one to Rick.

  “They’re loaded with maximum charges and will melt anything within fifty yards,” he said.

  They strode into the main corridor. The front door of the structure, a solid oaken timber three inches thick had been torn completely from its frame and was lying in a crushed, splintered heap on the floor.