Collected Fiction (1940-1963)

by William P. McGivern

  “Come on in,” Rick said, getting to his feet. “Rita and I are through with our discussion.”

  THE girl stood up and left the room without looking at Ho Agar. When they were alone, the Martian shrugged his shoulders helplessly.

  “She hates me,” he said, and there was a look of pain on his thin features. “She thinks of me as her father’s murderer. Her reaction is understandable but that makes it no easier to bear.”

  “I think she’ll get over it,” Rick said. He lit another cigarette and flicked the match into the fire. “By the way,” he said abruptly, “have you had the communication equipment repaired yet? I should have been in contact with Earth forty-eight hours ago. Strange that it had to go on the blink just when I needed it most.”

  “It will be ready shortly, Rick,” Ho Agar said. He looked thoughtfully at the young Earthman. “Are you going to report that Doctor Farrel’s robot experiments were successful?”

  “Why, of course,” Rick said, surprised. “I told you that a couple of days ago. We agreed it was pretty obvious that the doctor had ordered the robots to go on a destructive rampage.”

  “Yes, I know,” Ho Agar said, “but I wonder if the robots are ready yet for export to Earth and Mars. It would be a calamity if we were wrong in our suppositions and innocently sent out a group of imperfect robots.”

  “But there are no imperfect robots,” Rick said. “Pm convinced of that, now. And I’m going to send that information to Earth just as soon as possible.”

  “Well,” Ho Agar shrugged, “I suppose that it is the best procedure. There have been no disturbances in the robot plant since the doctor’s death, which seems fairly conclusive evidence that he was responsible for their imperfect behavior.”

  “When the communication set is repaired I want to get that message off immediately,” Rick said. “Will you let me know when it’s ready?”

  “Of course,” Ho Agar said.

  Rick left him, then, and went up to change for dinner. When he came down again, an hour or so later, Rita was waiting for him in the lounge. She had changed to a light, knee-length dress and her hair was brushed back from her forehead in clean, shining waves.

  “You look simply terrific,” Rick said, smiling at her in admiration.

  “Thanks, Rick,” she said. “I feel better, too, since our talk. I realize now that Father’s development of robot life has been successfully accomplished, and that’s all that really matters. He wouldn’t have cared about what people thought, as long as his dream had been realized. And I think that now, wherever he is, he knew his work has been successful and is happy.”

  Rick looked at her, his face serious. “You’re a very wonderful girl, Rita,” he said quietly. “There aren’t many who’d take that attitude and I’m proud of you.”

  Rita smiled and said, “You make me sound a little awe-inspiring. I’m not the type for a halo, you know. Let’s change the subject. Ho Agar was here a while ago, and he asked me to tell you that the communication set isn’t ready yet, but he expects to have it in working order in another hour or so.”

  Rick shook his head in irritation. “Where did he go, do you know?”

  “No, I don’t,” Rita said. She glanced up as Moran, the chemist, and two other workers entered the room. “Come in, gentlemen,” she said. “Rick, here, is on edge because he can’t send a message through to Earth, so maybe you can cheer him up.”

  “I’m just the one for that,” Moran said, smiling genially. He went over to the sideboard and took up a bottle. “I’ll fix you a drink that’ll take your mind off everything.” He mixed several drinks and passed them around. “And what is this message that can’t wait until after dinner?” he asked.

  “It’s important,” Rick said. “I want to inform Earth that Doctor Farrel’s robots are in perfect working order and that they can be exported to Earth immediately.”

  “No wonder you’re on edge,” Moran said. “Good news like that can’t be sent too quickly.”

  Rick was raising his drink to his mouth, when the door was flung open and Hawkins charged into the room. His dark features were flushed and his eyes were snapping blackly.

  “What’s up?” Rick asked.

  Everyone in the room had turned to stare at Hawkins. A tension came over them as he stood in the doorway, legs spread wide, and stared about with hard, angry eyes.

  “Hell to pay!” he snapped. “Two more robots have just gone crazy. They’re on a rampage!”

  The shocked silence following Hawkins’ announcement was broken by a brittle, shattering sound as Rita Farrel’s glass slipped from her hand to the floor.

  CHAPTER X

  RICK stood stock-still for an instant, frozen in rigid paralysis by Hawkins’ words.

  Moran said, “Well, I’ll be damned,” in a slow, incredulous voice.

  “We can’t just stand here,” Hawkins said tersely. “I’m rounding up the men and starting for the plant. You men arm yourselves with ray rifles and follow as soon as possible.”

  He turned and left the room with long, decisive strides.

  Rick tossed his cigarette into the fire and started for the doorway, but Rita Farrel caught his arm before he had taken three steps.

  “Please, let me come with you, Rick.” she said.

  “No,” Rick said. “This is no job for a girl. Don’t worry, we’ll be able to handle it all right.”

  Ho Agar appeared in the doorway while Rick was talking to the girl, and his eyebrows lifted questioningly as he regarded the Earthman.

  “Trouble?” he asked calmly.

  Rick nodded. “More robots running wild. Hawkins is taking the men down to the plant now, to stop them.”

  “I see,” Ho Agar said. He shook his head slowly. “I’m afraid this destroys my last hope of producing harmless robot-life. Incidentally,” he added ironically, “the communication set is repaired, but of course you can’t very well send the message you intended.”

  “No, I can’t,” Rick said grimly, “but I’m going to send another equally as important.”

  “And that is . . .?”

  “I’m going to ask the Earth authorities,” Rick said, “to send an official investigation committee here to get to the bottom of this trouble. I’m convinced now that there is something going on that none of us understands.”

  “I think you’re right,” Ho Agar said, “but let’s attend to the imperfect robots before we do anything else.”

  “Rick,” Rita cried, “please let me come along.”

  “We may need every weapon at the base before this is over,” Ho Agar said, glancing at Rick. “Miss Farrel is an excellent shot. I think we had better take her with us.”

  Rick said, “Okay, get yourself a rifle. I don’t like the idea but Ho Agar is right. We may need you before we get things under control.”

  FIVE minutes later the three of them had reached the entrance to the robot plant. Hawkins was waiting outside with a group of armed men.

  “We’re going in the front entrance,” he said, when Rick, Ho Agar and Rita arrived.

  “Let me make a suggestion,” Ho Agar said quickly. “Rick and Miss Farrel and I will go in through the rear entrance, the one that leads to the brain laboratory. You men go in the front and between us we’ll have the robots caught in a cross-fire.”

  “Okay,” Hawkins said, “but be careful of your aim. We don’t want to burn each other into cinders.”

  Rick held Rita’s arm as they hurried along the side of the robot plant behind Ho Agar. The night was black and occasionally they stumbled on the rutted, hard ground.

  “Watch your step,” Ho Agar called from in front of them. “And keep your weapons ready for use.”

  They reached the end of the building in about ten minutes. Rita’s breath was coming hard, but she had kept up with the stiff pace Ho Agar had set.

  The Martian turned the corner of the building and stopped before a solid steel door, protected with a combination lock. He worked silently in the darkness for several mom
ents, then swung the door open and stepped through its black opening.

  “Follow me,” he said. “I’ll have a light on in a moment.”

  Rick moved cautiously into the laboratory with Rita at his side. His hands, extended gropingly before him in the blackness, suddenly touched someone.

  “Ho Agar,” he said. “Is that you?”

  There was no answer. Rick heard a footstep on the bard floor and he could dimly make out the outline of a man in the darkness.

  A flashing premonition shot through him, and he stepped back quickly, but the sixth sense warning had come too late. He saw vaguely an arm swinging down in the darkness and the next instant a hard blunt object crashed with stunning force into his forehead.

  His knees buckled and he started to fall. He fought against the curtain of blackness that was drawing over his consciousness, but it was no use. The last sound he heard was Rita Farrel’s high, piercing scream, but that faded away too as his limp body struck the floor . . .

  WHEN consciousness returned he was aware of a light against the lids of his eyes, and when he attempted to move he realized he was strapped to a chair in a sitting position. There was an aching pain where he had been struck on the forehead, and his stomach felt restless.

  He opened his eyes, raised his head with a painful effort. Ho Agar was standing before him, a faint mocking smile brushing his lips.

  “Ah!” he murmured, “I’m relieved to see that you are yourself again.”

  Rick stared at him stupidly. He glanced dazedly about the steel-walled laboratory and down at the leather straps that bound him securely to the chair; then he looked up at Ho Agar again, his brain reeling in helpless bewilderment.

  “What’s this all about?” he said thickly. He stared at the Martian’s thin, mocking smile and he felt a sudden tight knot of terror in his breast. “Where’s Rita?” he demanded, struggling against the tight leather straps.

  “Don’t waste your energy,” Ho Agar said calmly. “I strapped you in that chair myself and there’s no chance of your getting loose. As for Rita,” he smiled and stepped aside, “she also is—ah—confined.”

  He pointed to the table on which robots were secured while their brains were being inserted.

  Rita Farrel was lying on its steel surface, helplessly bound. Iron clamps held her ankles and wrists and her head was secured in the padded jaws of the giant vise. Her eyes were closed but Rick could see-that she was breathing.

  Hot, wild anger shot through him and he twisted futilely against the straps that held him and glared at Ho Agar.

  “If you hurt her I’ll tear you apart with my bare hands!” he raged. “You—”

  “Please.” Ho Agar smiled. He sat down comfortably and crossed his long legs. “I have no intention of hurting Miss Farrel. But I may be forced to, if you do not cooperate.”

  “What do you mean?” Rick said.

  “I won’t keep you in suspense any longer,” Ho Agar said. “As you have probably guessed by now I have been responsible for the imperfect operation of the robot-life here on Jupiter. Poor Doctor Farrel was an innocent, industrious scientist and I found it a simple matter to throw the blame on him. Now I want you, my dear Rick, to send a message to Earth. I have a communication set in this laboratory and I wish you to inform your superiors that Doctor Farrel’s robots are completely out of hand, and that his theories and robot designs are unfeasible. In short, that the entire experiment here has been a complete and dangerous failure.”

  Rick stared at Ho Agar incredulously. He couldn’t make his mind absorb what the Martian was saying so calmly.

  “You were responsible for the robot destruction here?” he finally said.

  “Completely,” Ho Agar said quietly. “My planet needs robot-life, Rick, and it needs the processes and formulae of Doctor Farrell; but we do not intend to share robot production with Earth. When we have the sole command of robot production we will become the leading planet of the Solar System.”

  He smiled tightly. “Our relative position in the Solar System is fourth, but we will transform that, in a figurative sense, to first and foremost, through the power that Doctor Farrel’s robots will bring us.”

  RICK stared at Ho Agar with blazing eyes.

  “Mars, the fourth planet of the System!” he said bitterly. “That’s what Robot 161 was trying to tell me. That was what the numeral 4 meant. And that’s why it came to the doctor’s room that night and tried to prevent you from murdering Doctor Farrel.”

  Ho Agar nodded and smiled.

  “Everything you say is quite true,” he said. “I have only your stupidity to thank for my continued success. At first I was afraid you were going to guess the truth, but like a typical sentimental Earthman, you were unable to think of me as an enemy because I had posed as your friend. I knew from the start that you were here as an investigator. Martian Intelligence informed me of that. I staged the kidnaping of Miss Farrel, hoping that would convince you of the unreliability of the doctor’s robots; but you allowed your judgment to be blinded by Miss Farrel’s undeniably attractive charms. I then had you attacked in the assembly plant, hoping to get you out of the way, but the unfortunate intervention of Robot 161 spoiled my plans. There again your stupidity became my chief asset. Had you been thinking clearly you might have seen that I was the only one who knew of your presence that night at the robot plant, and therefore was the only person who could have arranged the attack. But that point escaped you. I didn’t want to take any more chances so I showed you the apparatus in the doctor’s room and then shot him when he came in to investigate the noises he had heard from below. Robot 161 almost upset my plans, but luck was with me and I put it out of the way at the same time. Incidentally,” Ho Agar said, smiling mockingly, “it might interest you to know that the brain which motivated Robot 161 was taken from your friend whom we discussed here in this laboratory the day you arrived. I am referring to your comrade and fellow space-pilot, James Haines.”

  Jimmy Haines!

  Rick felt a bitterness that was deeper than any emotion he had ever experienced in his life. He had no conscious thoughts; his brain was too numb for that. There was only one idea in his mind and it seemed to flow through his entire body. And that was the thought of getting his hands about Ho Agar’s slender neck and choking the rotten life from the man.

  “I still don’t understand just how Robot 161 was able to disregard my orders,” Ho Agar said musingly. “You see 161 was supposed to aid the giant robot in killing you; instead 161 saved you and destroyed the giant.”

  RICK was beginning to think again with some calmness, and he realized that his only chance was in keeping Ho Agar talking until Hawkins and his men subdued the rampaging robots and got to the laboratory.

  He forced a smile to his lips.

  “You were pretty clever,” he said. “And since you hold all the cards, maybe you’ll tell me how you managed to control the robots. I understand they wouldn’t react to any but the work commands for which they were constructed.”

  “Absolutely right,” Ho Agar said, smiling. “But fifty of the robots are special products of mine. Each of these special robots was equipped with two brains. One brain was normal and directed their activities at work. But the second brain, which was separated from the normal brain by a thin plastic sheet, I took from a special stock of demented, paranoic brains which were secured for me from certain institutions on Mars. When I needed a robot for a—ah—demonstration, I simply sent an electrical current from this laboratory to two poles which I had already built into the head of each special robot, and the plastic protection sheet was burned away, the normal brain destroyed, and the creature began to move under the direction of a paranoic brain which I could control. It was really very simple.”

  “You’re out of your mind,” Rick said evenly. “You’ll never get away with this. Hawkins and the men are on their way through the plant now. They’ll be here any minute. You can kill me and the girl but you’ll never escape, yourself, and Mars will never get
the formulae and theories of Doctor Farrel.”

  “I beg to differ with you,” Ho Agar said smoothly. He held up a slim hand and cocked his head in a listening attitude. A contented smile appeared on his features as the faint sounds of mechanical clamor became audible.

  “Hawkins and his brave men,” he murmured, “entered the plant to burn down two imperfect robots. That, at least, was what they thought.”

  HE CHUCKLED and rubbed his slim hands together in a pleased gesture. “Actually there are about forty-five paranoic robots in the plant, and I timed their eruption so it would occur when Hawkins and his men were in the center of the plant and unable to escape to the front entrance.” He listened again to the clamor that was drifting faintly to their ears. “They won’t have much chance against forty-five robots, will they, Rick?”

  “You cold-blooded murderer!” Rick raged. “You’ve worked with those men for four years and now you send them to a horrible death without batting an eyebrow.”

  “Sentiment is a barbaric sort of expression,” Ho Agar said idly. He shifted slightly in his chair and said, “and now, Rick, since I have been so obligingly verbose, I hope you will repay the favor and send the message I wish to Earth.”

  “Supposing I tell you to go to hell?” Rick said.

  “That will gain you nothing,” Ho Agar said. “And it might make Miss Farrel’s next few minutes very uncomfortable.” He raised a slim hand as Rick strained powerfully against his bonds. “Oh, I am not thinking of torturing her,” he said. “I think you should credit me with more delicacy than that. I shall, however, be forced to anesthetize her and equip her with a paranoic brain which came, I believe, from a degenerate Martian. I wouldn’t like to do that, Rick, but I don’t think I shall have to. I don’t think you will sit there and watch me perform an operation of that sort, when two minutes at this communication set will obviate that necessity.”

  “You wouldn’t dare!” Rick said hoarsely.