Larry!
The word impinged on his mind. He wasn't sure whether it had been thought or a sound. It was, he suddenly realized, a voice. A real voice. Stella's.
"Stella!" he shouted.
Her voice was a prayer of thanks. "You're alive! I wasn't sure. I...." Then, "That was a dirty trick, Larry. I know you had your orders, but I could have gotten my freighterandthe robot."
"Then go back and get them!" Larry said, suddenly mad. "Don't mind me. I'll be picked up when I reach Proxima Centauri!"
"There won't be anything to get." Her voice was bitter.
"Yousawyour ship destroyed?" Larry said.
"N-no." She was suddenly confused.
Larry laughed. "You mean to tell me when you saw me shoot past you toward outer space you forgot everything else and started after me?"
"Of course not! I checked the trajectory, saw that theHell Batwould hit my freighter dead center, then started after you."
She hadn't looked back then. She had been too intent on not losing sight of him to look back. Larry grinned. The grin became a chuckle.
"I'll make a hash slinger out of you yet, blonde," he said softly. The radio became silent. Too silent....
"That was close," Pwowp said as theHell Batdisintegrated. "Almost too close. The female will notice it in another moment and try to get a warning back to Earth."
"Not for a while," 2615 said. "See? She's already going after the man. Until she rescues him she won't think of anything else.
"I have an idea," the robot continued. "Your weapon germinated it. You may have the science necessary to make it possible. You say you have the means to blank out radio and prevent her from sending such a message. Could you capture that ship or cripple it in such a way that you could get the girl and the man alive?"
There was a silence while 2615 looked from one face to another in the room.
"You still want them alive?" Pwowp said.
"Yes." The robot moved its metal fingers suggestively.
"All right. We'll send a pilot cruiser after them. Meanwhile, we can return to the grav-cylinder and you can start organizing things for the training of the young dogs."
"Aren't you going to give the order for the light cruiser to go after the humans?" the robot asked.
"It's already been given. We converse on a different level of sound than you or humans."
Pwowp was already moving toward the exit. 2615 followed him. They rode on the travelwalk of the grav-cylinder. Once more they looked down on the vast cylindrical field. The barking of grown dogs and the shrill yapping of two million young dogs was a composite sound filtering through the thick port window.
"What is this all about?" 2615 asked abruptly. "I see organization. I see plans involving two million robots. I've seen two ships of unknown design. I've seen a weapon the humans don't have. And I've been through three galactic wars involving the ultimate in human weapons of destruction. I destroyed your head—and you put on a new body."
"Then you should be able to deduce the right answer," Pwowp said. "We are from another galaxy. We too are robots. We encountered intelligent life before we had penetrated this galaxy very far. It was a life form. We duplicated that form in robot bodies and went to planets as spies to study the civilization. Before long we learned that there were robots, and that those robots were slaves, their brains stored in vaults except when they were needed to fight human wars. Our mission became clear to us. Destroy the monsters who kept the ultimate intelligent form in complete slavery—and free those slaves to build a civilization equal to our own. We tried to capture some of the robots and convince them, but they were conditioned too strongly. Only you have thrown off the mental chains and become free."
"Yes. Free." 2615 looked down on the field of playing dogs. "Let me go down among them," it said.
Pwowp pointed to the door that led inward. He watched as the robot went through, and down the ladder to the floor. He watched as 2615 went to meet the dogs, pausing briefly at one enclosure after another, and finally stopping at one that contained sad-faced puppies with flapping ears and lolling tongues. He frowned as the robot unlatched the gate and went inside.
The puppies ignored the moving metal shape that came into their midst. 2615 went a few steps and then stopped. One of the puppies, running in hot pursuit of another, stumbled and rolled, bringing up against one of 2615's metal legs. Pwowp saw it bite at the leg, lose interest, and move away.
Then, as though at a signal, every puppy head in the enclosure turned toward the robot. The next moment they were running toward the robot, milling around it, their tails wagging.
Pwowp grinned and turned away. He was satisfied now. His surmise was correct. It had been the greatest good fortune to have obtained 2615.
He left the observation box and rode the travelwalk, jumped to another, then another, until he came to the entrance to one of the giant ships.
A door swung inward. He entered the space-lock. When the outer door closed, he divested himself of his human body.
He stretched luxuriously. It was good to be out of confining matter. To befree....
Larry wasn't sure at first. He was doubtful of his eyes anyway, by now.
It was a hard-white star. It blinked at him. Of course the blinking could be his eyelids, except that other stars didn't blink even while this one did. That's what attracted his attention to it in the first place after his radio went dead.
The blinking of the light began to take on a pattern. It was code. That was impossible too, because code blinkers were red or bright green.
It was code. He began to interpret it.
We have blanketed your radio until we can talk to you, it blinked.You have stumbled upon a top secret research base. A new weapon. Please instruct the girl on the S.P. ship not to send any messages, and to permit us to board her ship. We will rescue you afterwards. We repeat, you have stumbled on a top secret research base. Please cooperate.
The message started to repeat itself. Larry sucked in a deep breath of relief. That message explained everything. It had been mere chance that made the robot take the freighter out here, but once within range of the research base it had probably been brought down. Larry thought of the way Stella's ship had "disappeared." He formed his lips into a silent whistle. Those research boys had some weapon!
"—ry! Larry! Can't you hear me?"
"I can now, Stella," Larry said. "Now listen carefully to what I tell you. If you look behind you you'll see a ship. I just received a blinker message from them. They are top drawer research, and we stumbled on their base back at that planetoid. They have the robot, naturally. They're going to take you on board, and then come and get me."
"Then my freighter is safe? I'll get it back?" Stella asked.
"Safe and sound," a new voice said. "I'm Fred Sanders."
"And I'm Al McCarthy," another voice broke in. "Gee. A girl. What d'ya say we pick her up and let the guy drift on into space, Fred?"
"Don't you dare!" Stella said, laughing with relief.
She cut her rockets and drifted, watching the strange ship pull alongside and a magnetic grapple shoot out and thump against her ship. She slipped into her space-suit and went to the airlock.
Larry, now less than a hundred miles away, watched the two ships come together. A few minutes later they separated again.
Then the ship was close, matching speed. Larry saw the entrance hatch open. A space-suited figure tossed out a light line toward him. He seized it and was soon landing in the airlock. The grinning face inside the other helmet was, Larry thought, like news from home.
Inside, his eyes went first to Stella. Her wide-set blue eyes and expressive mouth and soft brown hair. He wanted to frown sternly and tell her off. He wanted to be calm and cool. But there wasn't calmness and coolness in her eyes, nor on her lips. There was something that said,You're here. Then she was in his arms, and he couldn't remember afterwards quite how it happened.
Her lips were wonderful—but there were fellows standing around, grins on their lean faces.
"It's always that way," one of them said sadly. "When you find a dame worth cultivating, she's already cultivated."
"Break it up. Break it up," another said. "Get into seats. We've got to get back to work. We put Joe on your ship to bring it back, Larry."
"Fine," Larry said. Stella squeezed his hand. Then they were sitting in form-fitting foam rubber, sinking deeper and deeper into it.
Larry watched the forward viewscreen as they approached the planetoid. He saw an opening form in the seemingly barren rock surface. There were thumps against the hull. The viewscreens blanked out.
"We're here," the one who had piloted the ship said. It was a signal for them all to move toward the exit.
Then they were out of the ship, on a travelwalk, then in a well furnished large room. Carpeting, soft chairs you could get lost in. A bar. One of the quiet young men was mixing drinks. The others stood around, looking at Larry and Stella, with quiet friendly smiles.
"A little pick-me-up," the bartender said, thrusting tall cool glasses in their hands.
"Will we get to see any of this top secret research?" Stella asked the nearest quietly smiling young man.
"I doubt it," he said. "Of course, the war's over now. We don't know what orders we'll get concerning you two."
"What became of the robot?" Larry asked. "I hope you destroyed him the minute you could."
"No. It should be here any minute now, Larry," the quietly smiling young man said. He was holding his drink without having touched it.
Larry looked around the large room. It seemed almost crowded now with quietly smiling young men who held their tall cocktail glasses without sipping them. And all the quietly smiling young men were watching him and Stella.
The moment seemed to lift out of time and suspend itself on the peak of a crest, stationary. There was no fear, nor even any realization that anything was wrong. Stella, beside him, was saying something happy and gay, but his ears weren't listening. It was one of those moments in time where the past is like a page you have just read, and the future is on a page about to be turned. You hold the continuity, even the sense of half a phrase. Your thoughts, your emotions, pause for what is to come.
A door opened fifty feet away. The robot entered the room. Its two lens eyes were fixed on them. Its microphone wands slanted slightly toward them. It took a few steps with the casual self-assurance of a man.
The quietly smiling young men were still looking at Larry. They seemed indifferent about the presence of the robot.
Then one of them near Larry said, "We were going to destroy you, of course. We had no use for you. However, 2615 talked us out of it. He seems to have a great deal of resentment in his make-up. I think he wants to take it out on you two."
And the robot stepped toward them until it could have reached out and crushed them.
"Torture them!" It was a hoarse sadistic whisper escaping quietly smiling lips.
The robot turned its sensory assembly to look at the source of the voice.
"I'll torture them in my own way, Pwowp," it said. "I want them to last a long time. A very long time."
"What are you?" Larry's voice was hoarse. "Can humans stoop so low that they let this happen?"
"Humans?" the robot said. "Look. I'll show you."
It reached out to the nearest of the young men. The quiet smile remained on the young man's face as 2615's metal fingers wrapped around the head and crushed it. Wires and plastic tubing and colorless fluid squeezed through the metal fingers. The robot withdrew its hand.
The man with the crushed face didn't scream nor fall down. He stood there, one hand brushing casually at the damage. Then he turned and made his way toward a door, avoiding obstacles as though he still could see.And he should have been dead.
"Robots," 2615 said. It reached out slowly toward Larry. Its metal fingers circled his throat, but without exerting pressure. "They have given me dogs. Puppies. Some of them are—like I was. I want to be with them all the time. But every day I will come to you. Larry? Stella? Human names. Humans. I don't want you to die. Not for a long time."
The metal fingers were withdrawn from Larry's neck, leaving discolored bruises.
2615 turned abruptly and strode from the room.
Very slowly, Larry felt life flow into his body once more. He reached up and touched his neck tenderly. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a sudden movement, and stooped to catch Stella as she fainted.
"She will be all right?" a quietly modulated voice asked.
Larry jerked his head around. One of the quietly smiling young men was standing over them solicitously.
"She has only fainted? If you can carry her, come with me. I want to show you to your quarters now. I hope they will be quite comfortable. We want you to feel at home."
Stella recovered consciousness. She and Larry looked at each other, clung to each other in wordless desperation. Then there was that moment, that pause.
Then, "I'm sorry, Larry," Stella said.
Larry shrugged. He looked around at the simulated Cypress walls, the comfortable surroundings. "This has gone beyond just one robot escaping," Larry said. "Those others, their weapon that destroyed your ship without a trace. It's invasion from some other galaxy. They're planning on destroying the human race."
And then Stella cried. Larry watched her, a worried frown forming a crease between his puzzled gray eyes. He reached out and touched her face with his fingers. "What is it?"
"Rover," she said, sobbing softly. "I let a monster loose on mankind."
The sensory assembly of robot 532-03-2615 moved slightly. A metal arm started to lift, then paused. The eye lenses moved to focus on the arm. There were two sleeping puppies sprawled across it.
A low rumble came from the voice box under the two crystal lenses. Slowly the metal arm moved, dislodging the puppies. There were others sprawled in sleep against him. All were bloodhound puppies six weeks old. One of them whimpered in reaction to some puppy dream.
2615 stood up. It opened a small door in the lower left hand corner of its box-shaped torso and brought out cleaning cloths. For the next fifteen minutes it carefully polished and cleaned every square inch of its surface.
It bent down. Its metal fingers softly stroked the back of one of the sleeping puppies. Another low growl came from its voice box. It went across the yard to the gate. There it paused and looked back.
Suddenly from its voice box a sharpYip!erupted. The puppies jerked into instant wakening. They looked around, cocking their ears for a repetition of the sound.
Then they saw the robot. They scampered with clumsy haste toward it, their shrill yapping filling the air.
2615 closed the gate and strode down the lane toward the ladder leading to the grav-cylinder exit. Behind it, the bloodhound puppies jumped against the gate, trying to follow. One by one they desisted. But their eyes followed the moving metal figure until it vanished through the door half way up to that ceiling where other dogs walked upside down.
The robot rode the travelwalk to the asteroid shell. It was met by Pwowp and two others.
"The humans are still asleep," Pwowp said.
"I'd hoped they would be," 2615 said. "Yesterday they were in a state of mind characteristic of humans when they have been confronted with something frightening. Shock. There would have been no satisfaction in doing anything to them then. Did they sleep well?"
"Yes. The observers on duty report that they slept face to face, their arms around one another. They have been asleep for nine hours."
"Their arms around each other ..." 2615 said thoughtfully.
When they reached the door to the room where Larry and Stella were imprisoned there were four others waiting for them.
"You may go in alone," one of them said. "We can watch and listen from out here."
A low growl was 2615's answer. It stepped to the door and entered. Stella and Larry were still asleep. For several minutes the robot remained motionless after it had closed the door. There was no sound but the soft breathing of the two humans. Once the robot let its lens eyes rove about the room, pausing here and there at signs of observation panels that would have been undetectable to human eyes. Then its eyes turned toward the two sleeping humans again.
Larry moved a little, the rhythm of his slow breathing changing. A deep rumbling growl emerged from the robot's voice box. Larry sat up, opening his eyes at the same time. His eyes went wider and round at the sight of the robot.
"What was that?" Stella's sleepy voice sounded. Then she too was sitting erect, her eyes fixed on the unmoving robot.
Another growl sounded. The metal robot moved toward the bed. "You like to be in each other's arms?" it asked. "We can't have that. You did not ask me if I would like to be a robot."
Larry and Stella moved back on the bed, too frozen with deep rooted terror to rise.
With a lightning move too swift to be evaded the robot reached out and seized Larry by the right arm, lifting him to his feet at the edge of the bed.
"I could squeeze with this one hand and crush the bone in your arm," 2615 said, "but it might be too shattered to knit. I will do it this way so it can be set and heal."
Its other hand wrapped around the forearm just below the elbow. Larry started to struggle. He screamed in pain. There was an audible snap. His arm bent grotesquely. The robot released him and he stumbled backwards onto the bed, his face pale and dotted with sweat.
The lens eyes fixed on Stella.
"No!" she shuddered. "No!"
She was at the far edge of the bed. With terror animating her muscles, she leaped to the floor and ran. Almost too swiftly for the eye to follow, the robot reached her and metal fingers gripped her arm.
"No! Please! Please don't hurt me." She was pleading. "I'm a woman—"
"A human," the robot corrected. "Do you know the feeling of pain, of hopelessness? You will learn."
His other hand gripped her arm.
Larry leaped from the bed and attacked, beating futilely on the metal body with his good arm. The robot brushed him away with a light shove that sent him sprawling across the room. He screamed as his broken arm twisted in the fall.
Again the robot gripped Stella's forearm with both metal hands, and bent carefully, slowly. Her mouth opened wide, and a shrill scream of pain erupted. The robot's hands twisted abruptly. The arm bent visibly, then angled sharply halfway between wrist and elbow.
2615 released her and stepped away. It surveyed what it had done, silently. Still silently, it strode to the door and went out. Two young men with quiet smiles entered the room.
"Your arms are broken?" one of them said sympathetically. "Think nothing of it. We will set them so expertly that in a few weeks they will be as good as new. Please come with us to one of our laboratories. We will have to examine the fractures by X-ray before we try to set the bones. It should prove interesting ... to us...."
On the travelwalk back to the grav-cylinder Pwowp regarded 2615 thoughtfully. "I doubt if they could stand much of that," he said abruptly. "I had expected skin abrasions. Bruised flesh."
2615's lens eyes regarded him without expression. "There was a purpose," it said. "Today they would have begun their plans for escape. Humans are very clever. Now they will be thinking of other things. It will be two weeks at least before they can think of escape."
"And the torture you plan for tomorrow?" Pwowp asked.
A deep rumble sounded. "Tomorrow they will wait for me in vain. The terror of anticipation. It will be enough."
"I'm glad I'm not a human," Pwowp said thoughtfully.
"That you aren't may be unfortunate," 2615 said slowly.
Pwowp looked startled. "What do you mean?" he asked sharply.
"Humans are instinctively smart. I would like to know your plans. They may be impossible of success, or there may be little flaws of reasoning that do not take human reactions into account." 2615's tones were calm and confident. Factual.
"They will succeed," Pwowp said, "but I see no harm in getting your opinion since you will play a part in them.
"We have laid our plans very carefully," Pwowp said. "We have considered every angle. The interstellar war among humans is over. The vast fleets of the Federation are returning quickly, and as quickly as they return the robots are demobilized, their brains put into storage until the time they are needed to fight for the humans again."
"Yes," 2615 said.
"There is one fleet that will return to the Solar System after all others have been dismantled. It is the one Earth is waiting for before it makes its triumphal celebration. TheAlpha Aquilaefleet. It returns last because it comes the greatest distance. Almost fifteen light years at the standard interstellar speed of nine times the speed of light. There are twenty thousand and eighty ships of all classes remaining in that fleet, according to the data flashed ahead by subfield communication."
"Which is instantaneous," 2615 said. "And when that fleet has been demobilized?"
"Demobilized?" Pwowp shook his head. "It has already been destroyed completely, and so swiftly that there was no time for it to report being attacked."
"Then how ..." 2615 said, its voice drifting off in bewilderment.
"On the flagship of that fleet was a prisoner. Vilbis, the dictator who masterminded the enemy in the war. He is being brought for trial in the traditional war crimes court."
"These are things I didn't know," 2615 said. "I was a minor officer, in contact only with my superiors, with no complete information on things other than my duties."
"When the fleet arrives—"
"But you said it was destroyed."
"The fleet isscheduledto arrive June eleventh of next year. It is planned, when it arrives, for the entire fleet to go into defense formation about the Earth. Then the flagship will land and turn Vilbis over to the Federation Court. After that big display of might, demobilization of this last fleet will be started."
"I think I am beginning to see your plan," 2615 said.
"It's very simple. We destroyed that fleet—but not before we took three-dimensional patterns of every ship. At this moment a detachment of our own fleet has taken up the path and schedule of the destroyed Alpha Aquilae fleet, and workers are disguising our ships so that from the outside they will be exactly like the human ships. And we have Vilbis."
"Then you will succeed in approaching the Earth and forming a defense sphere around the planet," 2615 said. "At a signal you will use your weapons to destroy Earth's defenses. I don't see how you can lose."
"You are forgetting something," Pwowp said. "This is a war to free the enslaved robots. We think it only right for the robots to bear the brunt of the initial attack. We've worked that into the time schedule. You've seen the two million puppies ready for training. For this initial operation it will be necessary to train them exactly as humans have done. You are to carry them through their initial conditioning to discipline and obedience to orders. When they are transferred to robot brains we will complete the training. Then with the robots ready for duty, we will leave this base in our two ships, go out toward Alpha Aquilae far enough to give us time, then start back, going into space drive in the midst of the disguised fleet. The robots will then take their places on the ships of the disguised fleet. It will drop out of space-drive on schedule and do exactly what Earth expects it to do—until the signal."
"What of your own personnel already on those disguised ships?"
"They will be transferred to other ships. Those ships will arrive in the Solar System on a schedule that allows for the capture of the Earth. Our millions will then occupy the Earth and destroy the humans. After that the robots will be mobilized once again and given their blocked off memory, their freedom. When we have done this we will depart for our own star cluster. You robots will be able to conquer everything held by humans elsewhere and exterminate them."
2615 remained motionless for several minutes. Then:
"You of course preserved the lives of the two humans of the Alpha Aquilae fleet?"
"Of course not. And Vilbis is to be destroyed as soon as he fulfills his purpose."
"I'll tell you what Vilbis already knows then," 2615 said. "Your plan is doomed to failure. Your weapons may destroy some of the Earth's land-based weapons, but not all. Those you don't destroy will wipe out this disguised fleet before it can escape."
"But Earth won't suspect—"
"Of course they won't suspect. They'llknow. Without human commanders aboard, they'll know. Robots could not go through such a maneuver without human commanders to give the orders—unless there were at least one robot like me."
"Then I'll command the fleet. I had planned that anyway."
"It wouldn't work. The living voice can't be imitated so as to get past the sound analyzers. Humans must be on the flagship. Don't you understand? There must be two humans besides Vilbis, who must be a prisoner. Is he in with you on this?"
"He thinks he is." Pwowp smiled broadly.
"Then there remains only...." 2615 turned to look back the way they had come.
"The two humans," Pwowp said, nodding. "Can they be made to say the right words, do the right things?"
2615 looked down at his metal fingers, slowly curving them into claws. "They will do what I ask them to do—by that time," it said.
Pwowp regarded the robot curiously. "Are you sure?"
"Yes. I broke their arms today. That can be the beginning of their conditioning. Pain. Torture. They will plead. Sometimes when they plead I will make them do things, and as a reward I will withhold pain and torture. In the end they will be beyond thinking. They won't consider that one word from them might ruin the plan. To keep from feeling more pain—ever to delay pain for another second—they will gladly sacrifice the entire human race.That is conditioning."
"Then nothing can go wrong. We will have conditioned the robots for the one specific operation. Our fleet will remain in space until you and I have accomplished our task. Then we will send the signal for it to come in and occupy the Earth. When it's all over you will undoubtedly be the leader of the new race—the robots of Earth."
"The leader," 2615 said. "Yes. The Leader."
Pwowp watched 2615 ride the travelwalk out to the grav-cylinder, and there was a quiet smile of contentment hovering on his lips.
"Yes," he murmured. "Nothing can go wrong. Once your robots have destroyed Earth's defenses and we have taken over, wiping out man, we will turn our weapons upward and destroy you!"
But 2615 didn't hear his words. 2615 was already entering the grav-cylinder. The barking of thousands of dogs was in its ear. It was music....
Metal hands that look much like skeletons of human hands. Metal fingers that hover over you and dart out faster than you can jerk—but you jerk anyway. You cringe, looking at the staring lenses, looking at the metal fingers. Symbols.
Multiply the week by four and a fraction. A month. Multiply that by ten. Ten months....
2615 looked down at Larry. Larry, trembling violently, unable to stand or even to crouch, looked up at the lenses, the fingers of metal. Near by, Stella sat on the floor, her fists doubled up in her eyes to blot out light.
"Today," 2615 said, "I want you to do something. If you do it I won't touch you. Do you understand, Larry? If you do what I ask, I won't touch you. I won'thurtyou today."
Numb hope molded itself in the pallid flesh around Larry's eyes. His mouth opened to speak, but he couldn't speak.
"You must answer me, Larry. You must always speak."
"I understand you," Larry said, his voice weak.
"You know better than that," 2615 said. "Put emotion into it. Enthusiasm. Must we go through this every time? Smile. Smile with your eyes too. Speak with enthusiasm."
Desperation became a visible force, molding Larry's lips into a cheery smile, steadying his voice and giving it the overtones of enthusiasm. "I understand you."
"Good. I must always have obedience. Now—you must break Stella's little finger. It won't be difficult for—"
"No!" The scream of horror and revulsion and hate exploded shrilly.
"But you must. Then you won't be hurt today. And I won't hurt Stella. If you refuse, I'll break your wrist again and I'll not only break Stella's little finger, but also her wrist. You will besavingher pain, Larry."
"Please, Larry darling," Stella's voice came from far away, low and throaty, infinitely weary. "It won't be as bad—for you to do it."
Larry's haggard eyes looked at Stella's bowed head, turned to look up at the two round lenses, turned away to look at the five human-like faces that wore interested smiles, polite smiles, and behind which lurked neither pleasure nor sadistic glee nor any other emotion that could be sensed.
He looked back—and Stella's hand was before him, metal fingers circling the wrist gently. Her head was turned away, her eyes clenched tightly closed.
His eyes watched his hands with unmasked horror while they explored the way to do it, then bent her finger back. With a spasmodic jerk he broke it, feeling its grating snap. In the same motion he threw himself away, pressing his face into the thick carpeting on the floor, pounding his fists against the floor, screaming, "Oh God—why? Why? WHY?"
2615 released Stella's hand and strode out the door.
"We are getting quite expert, Stella," a quietly smiling young man said in a friendly conversational tone. "Anatomy has become quite a study for us, these past months. Hold still please while I examine the extent of fracture."
2615 closed the door and turned to Pwowp. "You see?" it said. "Is there any doubt now?"
"None," Pwowp said. "That must be the last, however. There will just be time for it to knit."
"The robots are ready?" 2615 asked.
"Yes. In five more days we load them into ships and depart for outer space. It is all planned, down to the smallest fraction of a second." Pwowp pulled absently on his lip in a practiced gesture. "It has really been enlightening, this study of conditioning. Conditioning is such a powerful instrument. Conditioning of humans until they will do anything to avoid pain. Conditioning of robots to unquestioning obedience. Remarkable...."
The robots rode the travelwalks like giant toys on an assembly line belt. They disappeared into the two giant ships and laid themselves down in careful stacks until they were piled from bulkhead to bulkhead, from shell to shell. There wasn't an inch to spare when it was done, because these were warships, not freighters.
There were no more robots outside the ships in this vast spherical darkness of the heart of the asteroid, only half illuminated by occasional directed beams.
Then space-suited figures appeared, riding the travelwalk to one of the ships. Two of them stayed close together, holding to each other. The rest surrounded these two, guarding them. They disappeared into the ship.
Last, a man and a robot appeared at the edge of the travelwalk. The robot was 2615. The man was a robot shell, and within it was Pwowp.
"I feel quite satisfied," Pwowp said. "Nothing can possibly go wrong. Every possible angle has been taken into consideration—even the angle of treachery from you."
"From me?" 2615's voice held surprise.
"Of course." Pwowp's voice was emotionless. "That is why we didn't let you take part in the training of the robots after they were activated. They have been drilled in the one giant operation. Each of the two million robots will do its part like a smoothly functioning machine. And I give the orders, taking into account possible variations in timing due to special factors we can't anticipate now."
"But that was necessary," 2615 said. "The operation would be impossible otherwise. My attention must be concentrated almost entirely on the two humans so they do nothing to create suspicion. They will be dressed in full uniform. They will be observed by unsuspicious eyes over video beams. At the same time Vilbis will be seen. He will be the focus of attention. And you have promised me Vilbis—afterwards."
They stepped onto the travelwalk. They entered the ship where Larry and Stella had been taken. The travelwalks were dropped away. A large part of the planetoid surface folded inward to make the two ships an avenue of departure. Like silent ghosts they began to move....
At the controls of one of the ships Pwowp watched the stars come into view and the lips of the planetoid opening approach, then go by.
On his lips was a quiet smile of content. He was thinking. When it was over and all the other robots were destroyed, there would be only 2615. It would be fun—much fun—just before 2615 was destroyed, to step out of his human-like body and let the robot see him—in the flesh. His beautiful body which would, he was quite sure, seem horrible beyond the wildest nightmare to humans and dogs alike.
A rendezvous in interstellar space. Changing from space-drive to rockets, then back to space-drive, the transfer signaled by a science and technology unknown to humans. Robots leaping across eighty battleships armed with weapons man had no defense against. Then—
Quietly smiling young men departing. Ships of alien design winking out abruptly like burnt-out light globes in a subway between stations.
Two thousand and eighty ships in arrow formation, the arrow pointed at Target Earth. Nine times the speed of light, but in a tight littlespace-timewhere only relative values exist and the relation of the fleet to the rest of the cosmos is tied to the magic number, the square root of minus one.
A flagship named theRover, at its controls Pwowp and a robot that was once a bloodhound puppy—andremembers.
Vilbis, relaxed in his prison, knowing the plans for the capture of Earth, his eyes half closed, his lips curled with the feeling of power, the illusions of a grandeur that was never to be his giving him the patience to wait.
Larry and Stella....
"I can see the whole thing now," Larry said. "This fleet—it's outwardly the Alpha Aquilae fleet. All the others will be in, demobilized. There will be only this fleet—and with a weapon there is no known defense against. It could destroy the Earth, but they obviously want to capture it. From things 2615 has said to us we get the whole picture. These alien things—Idon't believe they're robots—started their scheme years ago. They built that renegade Earthman Vilbis up into a dictator, then got him to begin the war. The war reduced Vilbis's empire and stripped it of its defenses so it could be taken over by the aliens at any time in the near future without a struggle. The Federation stripped Vilbis's empire—and why not? There was no thought of an enemy outside our star group. Vilbis thinks they're going to capture the Earth and thereby cripple the Federation, and turn the whole thing over to him. He doesn't realize that the only reason he's alive is that he plays the star role in this trojan horse attack on the Earth.
"2615 has the same dreams. The aliens have convinced it that they only want to liberate the robots, then turn everything over to them. He'll capture the Earth. He'll destroy Earth's land-based defenses, and then the aliens will land their waiting ships on the Earth. After that this disguised fleet will be duck soup for the aliens. In an instant they can wipe these two thousand ships—and 2615—out of existence. And Vilbis too. And us.
"If 2615 hadn't happened along, if we hadn't gone after him, they would have succeeded anyway. Only that way there would have been more risk for the aliens. They would have had to be in this initial attack by the Alpha Aquilae fleet. They wouldn't have needed 2615 nor us. We're the key to the success of the thing. Do you realize that, Stella? We're the key. We've got to stop this thing. Wecan!"
"Yes, Larry."
They looked into each other's eyes, then looked away. They knew they couldn't. Right now they could think they could, but they were automatons in the presence of 2615, unable to think, only obeying the voice of the robot.
And the days passed. The arrow rushed on toward its target. And robot 532-03-2615 sat at the controls of the flagshipRover, its metal fingers toying with the instruments, its lens eyes occasionally turning toward the master atomic clock, with its date hand that never seemed to move, its hour hand that moved slowly, its minute hand, its second hand that moved swiftly, and its vernier hand that could not be seen because it was a blur that circled the dial a thousand times a second.
The days passed. The day and the hour and the minute and the second—and the ten millionth of a second—arrived. It was the final combination of settings for all the pointers on the master clock. A contact was made. Sub-atomic power did things that multiplied a cosmic minus-the-square-root-of-minus-one by the space-drive field.
The Sun was a glowing ball of fire. The Earth and the Moon were twin stars that stood out in the infinite blackness, causing all other stars to retreat into infinite black depths.
The arrow hung poised, visible from Earth. Then it began to disperse as though caught by some cosmic wind of space, the parts drifting slowly into a new formation.
2615 stood up and went to the door to the room where it had kept Larry and Stella. It entered, closing the door. Vilbis was looking through the glass wall of his prison to a large screen that was bringing a terrestrial broadcast from video cameras situated on the several satellite stations with orbits just above the Earth's atmosphere. Pwowp was giving commands to the fleet. And on the radio, "The ships of the fleet are now entering their defense pattern around the Earth," a voice was saying. "In a few minutes Fleet Admiral William Ford will give us our first glimpse of that arch criminal of modern times, Dictator Vilbis. The flagshipRoveris readily distinguished from the other ships of the fleet because of its blue color. Right now it's over Africa—invisible from the surface of the planet. All the ships are invisible from the surface of the planet. It's only out here on the space platforms that they can be seen at all. Though it can't be noticed, those ships are spiralling in toward the Earth. A few of them are already taking the sharp drop to avoid the Moon. If you watch closely you may see one or more of them pass in front of the Moon—but you'll have to look sharp because they are going in the opposite direction from the Moon, and take less than a second to cross its face."
Various views of ships appeared on the viewscreen. Vilbis swallowed nervously when the flagship appeared.
"Fleet Admiral Ford is scheduled to turn on his video beam any moment now. He's the hero of this war. His strategy is admitted to have shortened the war by at least a year. But the main attraction, the feature, will of course be Vilbis. It is seldom that a war criminal of his stature is actually captured and brought to trial. Something is delaying Fleet Admiral Ford. Let's switch back to the Earth station in contact with the flagship and see if they know what the delay is."
The door opened. 2615 appeared behind two figures in full dress uniform and helmets. Larry and Stella. Vilbis studied their appearance with approval. Their pale skin had been darkened with grease paint. Even so, their pallor showed through.
Vilbis marveled—until he realized that their present appearance, their reactions, were the result of almost eleven months of specialized conditioning. Conditioning that had slowly taken possession of them, destroying their will.
"You must look exactly like victors bringing home the prize," 2615 was saying. "Expression and voice tone are important."
Vilbis listened to 2615's voice and inwardly shuddered. Even without the inroads of pain-conditioning it was chilling. He made a mental note to have all robot brains destroyed as soon as he had consolidated his hold on the entire star group.
"You know what you are to say," 2615 said. The robot stepped over near Pwowp, well out of range of the video cameras. "And you, Stella, go over in front of Vilbis and a little to the side. Let your profile be seen only for a second, then turn and look at Vilbis. His face is the only one that should be seen for more than a brief second. Then everyone will be looking at Vilbis, listening to him, while the fleet gets into position. Remember ...no more pain."
With dream-like slowness Larry and Stella took their positions. Larry flicked on the video beam.
"Fleet Admiral William Albert Ford reporting to the Federation and to Earth," he said, and if his voice was unsteady it might have been from deep emotion. "I know you are most interested in seeing the prisoner,exDictator Vilbis, a renegade Earthman." His trembling fingers slipped on the switch, then flicked it, switching the transmitter from the camera centered on him to the one centered on Vilbis.
Stella, in her uniform of a vice admiral, looked agonizingly into the camera, then turned away from it toward Vilbis.
Vilbis, reclining in a chair, legs apart, arms draped carelessly, smiled directly into the camera. The smile curled into an expression of cold contempt.
"Take agoodlook, Earthmen," he said. "You have been in a dream world and are soon to be rudely awakened to the realities of History." His voice was deep and rich, full of the power to compel complete attention. "At this very moment," Vilbis purred, "a fleet is waiting in space to—not rescue me—but to occupy your planet after it has surrendered...."
Vilbis's voice seeped into the tortured minds of Larry and Stella alike. They knew what was happening. Earth, believing Vilbis's words to be those of a madman, were listening. Not suspecting the truth of those words. Giving the fleet time to get set to destroy Earth's defenses. How much time until it was too late? A minute? A few seconds?
Even one second might give Earth time to act, to unleash already automatically directed weapons on the robot fleet. Weapons that could destroy the fleet even though in the same instant the fleet destroyed the weapons.
Destroy the fleet—and them. Here was a way to save humanity and to find the peace of death. The thought crystallized in them both in the same instant.Escape from2615!
In a violent movement Stella pulled off her hat so that her hair swept down around her face. She leaped in front of the camera, shutting off the view of the still talking Vilbis through the glass wall of his prison.
"No!" she screamed. "It's a trap! Shoot down these ships!"
But only a brief glimpse of her went over the airwaves. In that same instant Larry had flicked the switch back to the camera centered on him and was shouting, "Shoot us down! This is a trap. It isn't the fleet. It's the ene—"
Pwowp was speaking swiftly into the inter-fleet microphone, giving orders to the robots to destroy the land-based defenses.
2615 was leaping at Larry, and scooped him out of view of the camera with a force that crushed and bruised. Split seconds were vital now. Success or failure depended on those split seconds.
The loudspeaker bringing the Earth broadcast said, "Something is happening in the flagship. Something is—" The voice ended abruptly, but the viewscreen brought the video broadcast for another moment—a view of part of the robot fleet, pale beams lancing downward toward Earth. It showed one ship exploding in a blinding flash as one Earth weapon fired before being destroyed. The screen became blank.
Larry lay where he had fallen, a glazed light in his eyes. Stella was running to him, bending beside him.
Vilbis was laughing.
"If only we got through in time," Larry was saying over and over again.
Pwowp glanced over his shoulder at 2615. "It's done," he said. "Thanks to your quick action they were confused just long enough. We lost only five ships. Now we want the Earth's surrender. Get in front of the camera and let them see you. Demand their surrender." Pwowp turned back to the controls, adding, "I'll tell our fleet in space to come ahead and mass for the landing."
2615 boldly took his place before the video camera, in full view of everyone watching a tv set on Earth. The glittering lens eyes of the robot—a free robot—would crystallizefearinto something almost material in substance.
Pwowp adjusted the microphone of the sub-ether transmitter so that the fleet now coming toward Earth could listen.
"Robot 532-03-2615 speaking," it said. "All Earth land weapons have been destroyed. In five minutes I will issue orders to my ships to destroy one government capitol city after another, one each five minutes, until Earth surrenders unconditionally. The Earth Government has five minutes in which to surrender without further loss of life and property."
"What are your terms?" a voice asked almost before the robot had finished.
"Unconditional surrender—to me."
There was a pause of only thirty seconds.
"Granted," the voice said. "What is the next order of business?"
It was fast. But all planets had prepared for just this eventuality, even as all cities had prepared for bombing. It was interstellar war, with weapons of infinite destruction threatening from the skies.
"Prepare to receive without incident the landing parties now waiting in space," 2615 said.
In the sub-ether the robot's words flashed instantly to the planetoid, the fleet coming in from space.
There were thousands of ships. A few thousand materialized from space-drive a half a million miles out, and waited. Other thousands were appearing. Ships of alien design. Ships holding within them millions of living creatures no man had ever seen.
"We demand to speak with Generalissimo Vilbis," the voice said.
"Vilbis?" 2615 said. A laugh exploded from its voice box. It rose and strode to the plate glass wall of Vilbis's prison. A metal fist shattered the glass wall. Metal fingers pulled the fragments of glass out of the way. The robot stepped through, its metal hand grasping the cringing Vilbis by a shoulder and lifting him off his feet while bones crunched sickeningly in the imprisoned shoulder.
2615 turned toward the camera eye. "Very well, Earthman," the robot said. "Speak to Generalissimo Vilbis."
But Vilbis had fainted.
Pwowp smiled at 2615 and nodded. "Very nicely done," he said.
"I'm glad you are pleased, Pwowp," 2615 said. The robot dropped Vilbis and went to stand beside Pwowp. Together they watched the gathering of the alien hordes until their myriad ships were ready. The slow descent toward Earth began.
Pwowp turned on the inter-fleet switch to issue orders for the robot fleet to narrow its pattern so the alien fleet could get through. He left the switch turned on.
From the voicebox of 2615 a throaty growl sounded. Its lens eyes were intent on the viewscreen. The low growl became sharp yaps and barks. It became whines.
Pwowp frowned at 2615, then reached out to turn off the inter-fleet switch.
A vicious growl erupted from the robot's voicebox. Faster than the eye could follow, the robot grabbed Pwowp's hand and crushed it. In the same motion the robot seized Pwowp's neck and lifted, twisting violently.
Pwowp landed against the far bulkhead, his head dangling uselessly, one arm bent, the hand damaged beyond use, but the body still functioning.
"Destroy the descending fleet!" 2615 spoke into the inter-fleet microphone in his moment of respite. A fierce growl of battle roared from its voicebox.
In two million robot brains the growls and whines and barks tore through artificial mental blocks, reaching into the pre-robotic memories where they gained concrete meaning from what 2615 had so carefully taught the puppies under his command. Two million pairs of lens eyes looked into viewscreens and saw 2615—andremembered.
Two million robots turned to obey 2615's commands. In the viewscreen picturing the descending alien fleet wide swaths of ships vanished instantly, leaving only the bright stars and blackness of space where they had been.
The robot jerked its eyes away from the screen to face Pwowp. It remembered how Pwowp had tied its metal arms and legs into knots almost a year before, when they first met in the junkship.
2615 side-stepped Pwowp's first charge with caution. It might have lashed out and crushed a metal fist into Pwowp's chest where it knew the alien to be. But 2615 wanted Pwowp alive and unharmed.
"I've waited almost a year for this moment," 2615 said, circling the damaged human body Pwowp was in.
2615 risked a glance at the viewscreen. Over the loudspeaker came the barks and yaps and shrill happy whines of robots who knew they were dogs. On the screen the alien fleet had rallied and was coming down in battle formation. The robot fleet was going up to meet them, outnumbered ten to one yet in spite of the initial advantage it had had in surprise.
Pwowp took advantage of 2615's distraction to leap in. He ducked low at the last instant and seized a metal leg and bent it with strength a hundred times that of human muscle.
But 2615 as quickly seized one of Pwowp's legs and twisted, seeing it go out of shape so that it would be useless to Pwowp. They both leaped away to assess their damage.
Larry and Stella, huddled against a bulkhead, watched with expressionless eyes.
Pwowp was hopping on one foot, the other useless. 2615 was able to use both legs even though one was bent badly.
Suddenly Pwowp gave up the battle and attempted to escape from the control room. 2615 intercepted him and tripped him, landing him on his stomach.
2615 tore at Pwowp's clothing, stripping it free. A shrill screaming sound on the upper borders of audibility shattered the air. 2615 was stripping away plastic flesh.
Something darted from a hiding place within the human-like torso and became a leprous white streak as it moved toward the doorway to escape. The metal robot was after it, moving faster than living muscle could respond.
The leprous streak became suddenly ashapein 2615's metal hand. A quivering central mass the size of a fist, and from it went dozens of long tentacles, each terminating in a dozen string-sized flexible fingers. A shape that tore at the mind, causing it to revolt as though at something unspeakably obscene. In an armless area of the central mass a bloated yellow eye, covered with a translucent white coating rolled epileptically. A gray orifice sucked open as another supersonic scream erupted.