The Mechanical Monarch

by E. C. Tubb

  to cloud and wind, temperature and humidity, their reports would double in accuracy. The same with a machine. Feed it with everything known about the problem, let it correlate that information, assess variables and allow for errors, and you will have a modern oracle.”

  “Are you certain of that?”

  “Yes.”

  “I see.” Smith drew deeply on his cigarette, the tip glowing like a red eye* against the impassiveness of his features. “Will you build one for us?”

  “No.”

  ' Smith didn’t seem surprised. He merely sat, inhaling the blue smoke from his cigarette, but his eyes held a hidden purpose. Comain fidgeted on his stool.

  “I guessed that this was coming and I warned you. I will not betray my country.”

  “Have I asked you to?”

  “No, but ..."

  “I, we, offer you full facilities to build your machine. I am .not asking you to leave your employment. I am not even asking you to work for us instead of your own country. You are not working, your country neither needs your machine or will give you the opportunity to build it. How then will you be a traitor if you work for us?”

  “Logic,” said Comain bitterly. “It can prove anything.” “Let me be frank with you.” Smith leaned a little further across the littered table. “We need you and what you could build. Those I represent have all the material wealth they can use but with that wealth they have a tremendous population and supply problem. The old methods are breaking down. It isn’t enough to have an army of clerks and floors of computing machines. There are questions they cannot answer and questions that must be answered. How. much grain to plant to take care of the increase in population? Where to build a dam to give the maximum amount of irrigation and power? How many tons of iron to be mined for how many planes? Where should development be speeded and why? What animals to breed and how many? Questions, Comain, which

  affect the life of a nation and, indirectly, the welfare of the world.” He crushed the butt of his cigarette into smouldering ruin. “You understand me?”

  “How many planes to carry how many bombs?” Comain didn’t try to hide his cynicism. “When to fire the atomic missile and where? What weight of explosive to crush an enemy? When to attack to gain the greatest chance of success? Yes. Such a predictor could answer your questions, but it could answer others, too.”

  “Is fire to be banned because it can bum?” Smith shrugged. I am not asking you to work for war but for peace. A hungry nation is a restless one—and soon the people will be hungry.”

  “A threat, Smith?”

  “No, Comain. A prediction.”

  “I 'See.” The lean man sighed and again his eyes drifted over the junk littering the room. Deep down inside of him he knew he was being tempted, and why, but against that was the desire to work again, to handle delicate equipment and to lose himself in his dream. To build. To construct. To delve into the delicate balance of the human mind and to emulate it in imperishable metal and crystal. He thought of Rosslyn and what he would have said, but Rosslyn was gone, dead, wandering somewhere in the limitless void, and he was alone.

  “For peace,” he whispered. “Not for war.”

  “For peace.” Almost, the man who called himself Smith, smiled, almost, but he knew better than to reveal his triumph. "I promise you.”

  “And full authority to utilise what material and equipment I need?”

  “Yes. There is a base, at the Urals, you will be in sole charge of all scientific work.” He leaned forward and rested one thick hand on the scientist’s knee. “We need you, Comain, you and men like you. Our wealth is in more than the com we grow and the metal we dig. It must be in the progress we make, the scientific utilisation of all we possess, the elimination of waste—and war is waste. Will you help, Comain?”

  He paused then and silence filled the room, a silence tense with conflicting emotions and opposed loyalties. Comain felt

  doubt, felt the touch of something sinister, but brushed it aside in the dazzling contemplation of what the big man offered. Tools, Material. Equipment and men. A nation behind him, pressing him on to solve the great problem and resolve his dream. He nodded.

  “Good.’*’ Smith leaned back and smiled for the first time. “You will never regret this decision.” He glanced at his thick left wrist where a thin gold chronometer ticked off the passing minutes. “I shall arrange everything. You understand that it would not be wise to talk of our meeting? They may try to stop you, hold you, even imprison you. They are selfish like that. Even though they do not want you themselves, yet they will kill you to prevent others giving you your opportunity.” He rose. “Say nothing. Do nothing. I shall contact you later.”

  For a moment Comain felt like backing out. For a moment he thought of Rosslyn and what he would have said and done, then as he remembered the wasted years, he hardened ' himself and banished his doubts.

  “I shall be waiting for you,” he said quietly. He stared at the big man. “One other thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “The predictor, the machine you want me to built. It may take a little time. In fact it may take a lot of time.”

  “That doesn’t matter.” Smith shrugged with elaborate carelessness. “We can wait.”

  “You may have to wait a long time,” repeated Comain, “A very long time.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Smith moved towards the door. “We have time to spare.”

  He left then, his big figure almost filling the doorway as he left the house and for a long time Comain stared after him.

  Then he returned to his books.

  CHAPTER VII

  Ten million miles beyond Mars, en route to the Red Planet from the Asteroid Belt, a space ship, glinting a little from the weak light of the distant Sun, hung poised against the star-shot night of space. A tiny thing, squat, the stem studded with wide-mouthed venturis, it seemed lifeless and dead, only the starlight winking from its rotating hull betraying the presence of life.

  Lars Menson lay in his bunk and stared disgustedly at the smooth metal above his head. Opposite him, seeming to hang from the 6ther side of the compartment like a fly, Jarl Wendis yawned and eased himself into a more comfortable position.

  “What’s .the time, Lars?”

  Menson grunted as he twisted and stared at the control panel. “Twenty hours fifteen minutes and seven seconds. Standard time of course. The month is November and the year, just in case you’re interested, is 2210.” He scowled at the man opposite. “What the devil do you want to know the time for?”

  “No reason.” Wendis yawned again. “Just wondering when this trip will be over.”

  “It’ll be over too soon to suit me. Just think of it, Jarl. One more trip after this and we’ll be grounded for life.”

  “Maybe.”

  “What do you mean, ‘maybe?” Lars stared at the other man. “You know what happens after we get back. The settlement is to be closed and the colonists returned to Earth. We heard the ultimatum just before we took off.”

  “We heard what the Matriarch told us would happen,” corrected Wendis. “We didn’t hear what we were actually going to do.” He rose and walked ‘down’ the walk, the artificial gravity of centrifugal force making every spot on the outer hull ‘down.’ He sat on the edge of the narrow cot.

  “Look, Menson,” he said quietly. “We don’t have to do as the Matriarch thinks best you know.”

  “Rebellion?” Lars smiled and shook his head. “That old dream again? I thought that you had more intelligence than that, Wendis. We wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  “Perhaps not, but then again, perhaps yes.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Wendis shrugged and in the cold glare of the lights his blue eyes were peculiarly intent. Like Menson he was a small man, light boned, slender limbed, and with the well-developed chest and rib case of all the Martian Colonists. Though slender he didn’t lack strength, constant exercise and the one-and-a-half times normal Earth gravity maintained
within the ship had kept him fit.

  “I’m .not talking of rebellion,” he said quietly. “I’ve no wish to overthrow the Matriarch. But why should we have to go back to Earth? We’re doing all right as we are.” “Didn’t you ever go to school?” Menson tried to keep his impatience from his voice. “You know that we are dependent on the home planet for supplies. Ever since the colony was founded, over a hundred years ago now, we have had to rely on Earth for almost everything we need. Even our food has had to come from there. How can we ever be self-sufficient?” ‘We could be.” Wendis had the stubbornness of the fanatic. ‘We can get our water from the pole, our food from the yeast vats, our building materials from the oxidised minerals in the sand. We can mine and refine the radioactives, we’ve been doing that for long enough, and with them we can keep the atomic piles operating to supply light and power. We can even fuel the space ships and mine the Asteroid Belt for rare metals. Damn it, Menson, you know that we can do it.”

  “I know that we can’t do it, and if you’d stop to think about it, so would you,” Lars raised himself on one elbow. “As things are now we depend on Earth to buy our asteroid-metal and supply things we can’t do without. You talk of living on yeast. Have you ever tried it? Of course you haven’t, and if you did, you’d find that within two years you’d be dying of vitamin deficiency. Then what about medical sup-

  plies? Drugs? Machine tools? Artifacts? No,-Wendis, when you can manufacture a radio from the sand I’ll listen to you, not before.”

  “We can do without radios.”

  “Agreed. But you’re talking of running space ships, and how can you do that with a technology which can’t even make a radio? We could remain on Mars, but if we did, it would be a primitive existence and we’d be extinct within two generations.”

  “So you’d rather we crawl back to Earth?”

  “What else can we do?” Menson stared at the other man. “Don’t get me wrong, Wendis. I want to stay on Mars as much as you do. It’s my home, I was born there and so were my parents, but I don’t want to die there fighting a losing battle with the environment. If men could have lived on Mars without outside help they would have done it before this.”

  “What’s wrong with you Menson is that you’re a yellow-bellied coward!”

  “And you’re a blind fool.”

  The two men glared at each other, each fighting his inner rage, and each realising that his rage was only a temporary phase. Spacemen always quarrelled. The free radiations did it, the surging electrons and penetrating gamma particles, disturbing the delicate neuron paths of the brain and triggering quick and sometimes deadly displays of temper.

  The barrier screen gave some protection, the steady flow of current within the outer hull, but the screen didn’t stop all the radiation, and it couldn’t prevent nervous tension and psychological strain inevitable in the cramped quarters of a space ship.

  Men had died for that reason. Died in screaming madness and blood-stained hate. Entire crews had turned, each on the other, and sometimes ships were found manned by a long-dead crew, the inner hull dull with blood and dismembered bodies. Violence when it came had all the ferocity of insanity and civilised decadence.

  Menson relaxed, forcing himself to ignore the hate-filled features of the man at his side, and gradually, as it had done before, the tension eased.

  “One day I’m going to kill you,” said Wendis casually. “I can feel it.”

  “Then you’ll spend the rest of your life regretting it.” Menson grinned and glanced at the control panel. “Who would you have to argue with then?”

  “I’ll get married and take my wife with me. I . . .” He paused and narrowed his eyes as a red light began to flash its warning signal. “What . . . ?”

  “Meteor?” Menson surged from the bunk and slipped into the control seat.

  “Could be.” Wendis squinted at the radar screen and adjusted the electro-spectroscope. “Pretty big and moving fairly slow.” He grunted as he adjusted the vernier controls. “Mass about fifty tons. Speed.” He pursed his lips. “Relative to .us about a hundred and ten.” He stared at Menson. “Odd. With that low mass it shouldn’t bulk so large.”

  “Might be hollow. Any chance of a spectro-analysis?”

  “Not unless we stop spin and get nearer. Shall we?”

  Menson frowned at his controls. “I don’t know. Not much chance of getting anything worth while so far from the Belt. It’s probably just a rogue mass heading for the-Sun. Still, it’s peculiar that it’s so large and so low in mass.”

  “We could at least see what it’s made of,” suggested Wen-, dis. “We’ve plenty of room in the hold and we need all we can get.”

  “It means free fall.” Menson hesitated, his hands resting on the controls. “Can you take it?”

  “I’ve stood it before and I can stand it again. Let’s see what it is, Lars. We might be lucky and we can do with all the cash we can get.” He grunted with disgust. “We’ll probably need it on Earth.”

  “Right.” Menson glanced at the instruments banked over the firing controls and slowly moved a lever down its groove. Sound began to vibrate through the ship, a muffled drumming as of distant rockets, and slowly, so gradually that neither of the men noticed the slightest jerk or strain, the spinning of the vessel died.

  With the slowing of the rotation the artificial gravity of centrifugal force died and free fall gripped them with its terrible nausea. Wendis gulped, his thin face pale, and thinned his . lips as he squinted through the eyepiece of the spectro-telescope.

  “Swing nearer,” he grunted. “I can’t, get a sight.”

  Menson nodded, staring at the radar detector and letting his hands play over the firing levers. Flame spat from the venturis, jerking them with acceleration surges, and in the tiny circle of the direct vision port something loomed, dark and shapeless against the stars.

  “There it is. Can you get a spectro?”

  “No heat.” Wendis shook his head. “I’ll have to warm it up with a tracer.”

  “Hurry then. I don't want to remain in free fall longer than I have to.”

  Fire streaked in a thin line from the muzzle of a cannonlike tube mounted beneath the viewing instruments and a tiny, rocket-powered projectile, drove towards the mysterious bulk. It hit, exploding into a cloud of incandescent vapour, and Wendis stared thoughtfully at the brilliant lines on the spectroscope screen, t “Any good?”

  "I’m not sure,” Wendis said slowly. “The spectro shows traces of iron,- some copper, a little tungsten and a lot of beryllium. Looks unnatural somehow, too much like an alloy.”

  “What of it? Fifty tons of beryllium is worth picking up. Get into your suit and make it fast.”

  “How shall we handle it? Cut it up with the torches, fasten a line, or explode it into an orbit?”

  “I’d say fasten a line. We can drag it into an orbit around Mars and send for the tugs. Cutting will take so long and I don’t fancy working in free fall.”

  Wendis nodded and taking a space suit from a locker struggled into the tough fabric and metal. He paused, his helmet still open, and his gloved hands adjusted the controls at his wide belt.

  “Testing,” he said quietly into the inter-suit radio. “Are you receiving me?”

  “Yes.” Menson grinned as he replied over the limited channel radio. “Seal up and get moving!”

  The hiss of the air lock echoed throughout the ship.

  “Am now outside.” Wendis’s voice came clearly over the radio. “Object about five miles from me. Will use shoulder jets to cross.”

  “Don’t forget your life-line,” snapped Menson. “I don’t want to have to come out after you as I did on Ceres IV.”

  “Don’t worry,” said Wendis grimly. “Once was enough and I might not be so lucky next time.” A faint crackle from the radio told of the firing of his shoulder jets and in the tiny circle of the direct vision port, twin streamers of fire lanced across the star-shot void.

  “See anything?”

/>   “Not yet. I . . .” Menson heard his startled whistle. “Lars! This isn’t a meteor. The shape is too regular.”

  “What is it then?”

  “A ship!”

  “What?” Menson leaned closer to the radio. “Are you certain?”

  “Don’t you think I know what a ship looks like? Of course I’m certain.” A soft metallic thud came from the radio. “I’ve just landed on the hull.”

  “What identification markings are there? Is it one of ours or one of the Matriarchs?”

  “I don’t know.” Wendis sounded puzzled. “I can’t see any markings. I don’t even recognise the type of ship, at least, I’ve never seen one like it before.”

  “Describe it.” Menson tried to keep the impatience from his voice. "What does it look like?”

  “About, two hundred feet long. Very slender, far too slender to be a cargo vessel. Seven venturis and no steering tubes. Three wide fins. No signs of landing skids or rotating

  jets. The hull is scarred and split down one side.” Wendis gulped. “Menson! This thing is old!"

  “Are you crazy? How could it be old?”

  “I don’t know the answer to that one but I do know what radiation does to metal after a century or so. The hull is pitted all over, it’s almost rotten, and that means that this ship is an old one.” Wendis gulped again. “Menson. Could it be the vessel of an alien race?”

  “I doubt it. From what you tell me it sounds like one of the old types, the experimental ones. It’s probably a test rocket which somehow got off course.”

  “I see.” Wendis sounded disappointed. “I’d hoped that we’d find something inside, some weapon or machine which could have helped us against the Matriarch. If this is only one of the old automatic rockets it can’t be of much value.” “Fifty tons of beryllium are always valuable,” reminded Menson. “Fasten the line and get back here.”

  “Right.” Faint noises came from the radio, the transmitted sound of Wendis as he worked on the hull, welding the line to the ancient metal. He grunted, breathing harshly as if exerting all his strength, and Menson frowned as he tried to guess what his partner was doing.