The Project Gutenberg eBook ofThe Cosmic JunkmanThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.Title: The Cosmic JunkmanAuthor: Rog PhillipsIllustrator: W. E. TerryRelease date: September 10, 2021 [eBook #66259]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COSMIC JUNKMAN ***
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online atwww.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
Title: The Cosmic JunkmanAuthor: Rog PhillipsIllustrator: W. E. TerryRelease date: September 10, 2021 [eBook #66259]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024Language: EnglishCredits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Title: The Cosmic Junkman
Author: Rog PhillipsIllustrator: W. E. Terry
Author: Rog Phillips
Illustrator: W. E. Terry
Release date: September 10, 2021 [eBook #66259]Most recently updated: October 18, 2024
Language: English
Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COSMIC JUNKMAN ***
After the war, Earth stored away its robotarmies or sold them for scrap—because fightingmachines were dangerous. But more deadly was—THE COSMIC JUNKMANBy Rog Phillips[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromImagination Stories of Science and FantasyDecember 1953Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
After the war, Earth stored away its robotarmies or sold them for scrap—because fightingmachines were dangerous. But more deadly was—
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced fromImagination Stories of Science and FantasyDecember 1953Extensive research did not uncover any evidence thatthe U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Log Report:—
Fleet: Alpha Aquilae; 20,080 surviving ships. Flagship ROVER.Personnel: human;Fleet Admiral William A. Ford, Vice Admiral Paul G. Belcross robot;2,649,366 (Ids. appended)passenger: (human);Generalissimo Vilbis (prisoner under w.c.a.)Dates May 7, 4765; flight formation arrow, speed 1,700,000 m.p.s.Scheduled date of arrival at Earth: June 11, 4766Distance from Earth on Earth-Aquilae axis: ten light years.
Fleet: Alpha Aquilae; 20,080 surviving ships. Flagship ROVER.
Personnel: human;
Fleet Admiral William A. Ford, Vice Admiral Paul G. Belcross robot;
2,649,366 (Ids. appended)
passenger: (human);
Generalissimo Vilbis (prisoner under w.c.a.)
Dates May 7, 4765; flight formation arrow, speed 1,700,000 m.p.s.
Scheduled date of arrival at Earth: June 11, 4766
Distance from Earth on Earth-Aquilae axis: ten light years.
"Rummy," Vilbis said, reaching through the hand-hole in the inch thick laminated glass wall of his prison and spreading his cards on the table. His lips formed into the cruel haughty smile that had been his trademark to billions of humans for almost half a century. His wide-set black eyes mocked the other two players.
"Well, well," Paul Belcross smirked. "I see now why you lost the war, Vilbis. Isn't that a six of diamonds in your heart sequence?"
The black eyes glanced down. The long-fingered hand began to retrieve the cards, then paused. Vilbis' almost classic features darkened with anger. With an effort he became calm. A secret inner amusement made little lights in his eyes as he looked up at his two captors again.
"You know," Bill Ford said thoughtfully, "sometimes I think you must have some kind of an ace up your sleeve. You don't seem at all concerned that this is your last trip. The War Crimes Court—then death by hanging." Bill frowned. "Could be you figured the angle I've always worried about. The Federation is always too quick to demobilize the robots after a war. Some day some punk like you is going to take that into consideration. He's going to surrender, but have a reserve space navy waiting until Earth is without defenses, then take over and win."
"Too bad I didn't think of that when I could have done something about it," Vilbis said too cheerfully.
"Maybe you did think of it," Bill said. "When we get home I'm going to suggest we keep the Aquilae Fleet mobilized for at least ten years."
"You know they won't do that," Paul Belcross said. "They're more afraid of the robots than they are of attack. So am I, actually."
"We're just afraid of what they could do if they got free," Bill said. "Their potential intelligence is greater than human. If they overcame their built-in instinct for obedience to human command they could—why think of what our two million robots could do!"
"Why all this discussion of robots?" Vilbis said. "They're just dogs. Not even that. They were dogs for six months of their existence before their brains were transplanted into synthegell fluid by the mind transplant machine." His eyes took on a far away look. His voice became regretful. "I had a hundred thousand scientists working on that problem. If the mind of one dog could be transplanted into synthegell without destroying the dog's brain there would be no limit to the production of robot brain cartridges. If we could have licked that problem I'd have won the war."
"If!" Paul spat. "You're a renegade Earthman. I'm putting in my application to be the one to hang you as soon as we get home."
"How do you—" Vilbis clamped his lips closed and scooped up his cards.
"How do we know we'll get home?" Bill Ford said. "Is that what you were going to say?"
Vilbis looked at his cards casually. "No," he said absently. "I was going to say how do you expect to play cards and talk at the same time?"
A raucous blast exploded in the room. Bill and Paul stared at each other in surprise. Vilbis smiled.
Bill leaped across the room to the cm board. He jabbed at buttons. A giant screen lit up, showing a spaceship. Smaller screens lit up, revealing robot ship commanders.
"Look at that ship, Paul," Bill said. "You know them all. Aquilanean, Centaurian, Cygnian. It isn't any known type—and with a war just over, there hasn't been time to mass-produce new types." He jabbed at a button. "All ships," he said. "All ships. Defense formation five. Five. Operation three. Three." He listened to the repeats.
Paul Belcross had leaped to the huge tri-di sphere and turned it on. Seconds later both men, Vilbis forgotten but watching with bright eyes, were studying the small dots in the tri-di. The flight formation in the shape of a giant arrow was quickly changing shape as the fleet formed a defensive sphere around the flagship and its human occupants. TheRoverwas the only bright blue dot. The others were red.
But now other dots were materializing at the outer fringe of the tri-di, too many new dots to count. Approaching ships.
Across the room a voice from a loudspeaker was saying, "Eighty seconds to contact. No response. No response."
"Another second and they'll be within range," Paul said.
"God!" Bill's voice exploded. His eyes were on the large area of the tri-di where ships had abruptly ceased to exist.
"Something's wrong with the tri-di," Paul said. "No weapon could do that."
"Nothing's wrong with the tri-di," Bill said sharply. "And we don't have that kind of weapon. They're something alien. Have to be. Some other galaxy. There's always been that possibility."
A rapidly repeated pip-pip-pip came from the cm board. Bill leaped to it. A light, under a small screen showing a robot, was blinking. He pressed the button. The robot saluted. His Id was stamped across his chrome chest, with four gold stars after it. "We will be destroyed, sir," it said. "Would suggest FlagshipRoverchange course forty degrees at eight o'clock and go on without fleet."
"You're giving orders?" Bill said, his face going pale and his eyes narrowing—not at the impending defeat, but at this sign of independent initiative in a robot.
"It's your only chance for survival," the robot said. "It must be done at once."
"Place yourself under ship arrest and give me the next in command," Bill ordered sharply. The screen went blank. "That's mutiny!" he shouted, unbelieving.
Vilbis, behind his glass wall, laughed aloud.
"Not mutiny," Paul said. "They are gone. All our ships are gone!" His voice conveyed the incredulous horror in his mind.
In the tri-di there was only the bright blue dot, and the thousands of approaching ships of the enemy.
The next instant the ship lurched violently.
"They're boarding!" Bill shouted. "But they aren't going to get Vilbis back alive."
He leaped to a locker and opened it with clumsy fingers, bringing out a g.i. raygun. He turned to leap toward the glass wall separating him from Vilbis. Before he could take a step a large section of a bulkhead vanished in smoke. For a brief instant Bill and Paul stared with unbelieving eyes at what entered the room.
Then they died.
"Stop!" The word exploded from Vilbis's lips. He stared at the cooked flesh that had been his captors. Then his eyes lifted to the jagged hole in the bulkhead.
"You fools!" he spat. His lips curled with cold anger. "Where do you hope to get two other humans now?"
The demobilization station trailed the Earth, a million and a half miles behind and in the same orbit around the Sun. It was shaped like a thick disc. At the moment there were five ships resting against one surface of the station. Three of them were warships. One was a Federation ship. The fifth was a giant freighter withSURPLUS JUNK CO.painted on it in bold blue letters.
Each of the five ships was attached to the space station underneath its hulk by short airlocks containing elevators. These led down into the station where air pressure was kept at fifteen pounds.
Inside the station, robots were emerging from the elevators leading to the three warships. The robots were all identical except for their Id numbers across their metallic chests. Arms and legs of metal rods and joints in almost exact duplication of human bones, torso shaped like a metal box, short neck joint supporting a head that was little more than two four inch glass lenses, two rod-microphones, and a small voice box.
The emerging robots moved at orders snapped by a human and marched toward a building fifty yards away, where they lined up at attention and became motionless.
Two humans moved swiftly down the line, behind the lined up robots. At each robot one of them twisted a copper-colored disk in the robot's back, carefully drew out a cylinder eight inches long and four inches in diameter, and handed the cylinder to the other, who lowered it into a plastic case. These cylinders were the brains of the robots. They were destined for the Federal ship—and storage until the next war.
While the robot brain was being lowered into its plastic storage case by the one man, the first lifted the now demobilized robot body and placed it on a cart, already stacked high with similar bodies. The immediate destination of these bodies was the junk company freighter.
If the robots were aware of what was about to happen to them as they waited, they gave no indication, no protest. Their lens eyes were directed straight ahead of them, unmoving—except for one robot.
The Id across its chest was 532-03-2615 followed by four gold stars. Its head was turned just enough so that it could see down the line. Its rod microphones were turned so that it could listen....
"That junkman gives me the creeps, Joe," the man placing brain cylinders into plastic cases grumbled.
"That's because he's a creep, Mel. Here. Take this." He thrust a brain cylinder at his companion.
"Hey! Careful!" Joe said, almost dropping it.
Mel chuckled and flipped the robot body, almost weightless on the station here in space, carelessly to the top of the stack on the truck.
"Here comes junky now, Joe," he said.
"Don't damage the bodies. Don't damage the bodies." The figure that approached, pushing an empty truck, wore a dirty and well worn civilian suit that seemed even more decrepit in contrast to the neat military uniforms. His skin was leathery. A pair of glasses hung on his hawkish nose, their thick lenses magnifying the close-set eyes underneath, and making them seem to lie on the inner surfaces. His lips were partly open, but never seemed to move while he talked. "There was a cracked lens on one," he accused.
"What's the matter, junky?" Joe grinned. "If we get a scratch on one it's still two hundred pounds of scrap metal—or were you planning on using the bodies?" He and Mel laughed.
"Who knows?" the junkman said. "I only follow my orders. No scratches. No damage to the bodies. Who knows? Maybe they go into storage until the next war." He reached with a dirty hand to clutch at Mel's lapel, but didn't make it. "I'll show you," he said. "Twoof them are damaged. Not worth seventeen credits."
"Can't stop now," Mel said. "We want to get done by quitting time. Joe has a date."
"Come on," the junkman said. "You've got to look. I have to have witnesses when I hand in my report on the carelessness of the military."
"Oh, all right," Mel said. He and Joe followed the dusty junkman around the building.
The instant they were out of sight, 2615 moved, running swiftly around the other end of the building. It reached a vantage point where its lens eyes could watch the three figures when they emerged from the elevator to the ship above.
It watched Joe and Mel return to their work. It waited until the junkman had gone for another truckload of demobilized robot bodies. Then, swiftly, it ran to the elevator. At the top it sent the elevator back down, then faced the tiers of frames that filled the vast hold of the ship. Most of them now held inert robot shapes.
2615 chose an empty rack and climbed in, lying face up. It looked no different than any of the thousands of other forms.
It remained motionless. The junkman returned with load after load. Eventually the hold was filled. Clanging and whirring noises told of preparations for departure.
Acceleration pushed the robot deeper into the protective foam rubber of its rack. It waited....
Fear. It began in the eyes of the cataloguer when his sorting machine came to a stop on the Id card for 532-03-2615. It grew as a terrible, animating force that drained blood from faces and made hands clumsy, as the checking and rechecking on 2615 began. It spread through networks of communication wires. It stopped at the borders of news release, lest it spread over the world.
Fear organized itself, finally, settling into a pasty expression, unnatural eyes, and drumming fingers. The expression and eyes and fingers belonged to Carl Wilson, chief of the Demobilization staff. It centered there, but its aura spread out over the backwash it had left. Fear lurked in the hushed silence. Fear rode as an undertone in the slightest sound, lay ready to spring from behind every door.
Larry Jackson felt it as he gave the receptionist his name.
Stella Gamble was oblivious of it as she pushed into the waiting room.
Larry looked at her and wished it was his day off and a girl like her was with him. He wondered what her name was.
"I'm Stella Gamble," Stella said to the receptionist. "I've got to see Mr. Wilson at once. My freighter is overdue with two million junked robots. Something's got—"
"Will you please be seated, Miss Gamble?" the receptionist said firmly. Then, "You may go right in, Mr. Jackson. Mr. Wilson is waiting for you."
It was then Stella and Larry looked into each other's eyes. Hers were narrowed, sizing him up, guessing what he was and why he was there. His were friendly, smiling.
"Thanks," he murmured to the receptionist. He went toward the door, conscious of Stella's eyes following him. He went in.
"Thereyou are, Jackson," Wilson said, running fingers through his iron gray hair in nervous relief. "You've guessed why—"
"Yes," Larry said.
Behind him the door opened violently. Sharp heels clicked on the floor. "Mr. Wilson," Stella demanded. "I know why this man is here. You're going to give him instructions to blast my freighter out of existence the minute he can—"
"You're Stella Gamble?" Wilson said. "I've heard of you. Will you please wait in the reception room until I finish with—"
"Larry Jackson," Stella pronounced the name. Her wide-set blue eyes showed scorn. "The man who is going to kill one of my men and destroy my ship and its cargo just to get at a robot."
"Justto get at a robot?" Wilson said indignantly. "You must be out of your head!" He picked up an oblong of paper on his desk and thrust it at Larry. "The junkship has been traced three hundred million miles out by routine radar. You can pick it up from there by ion tracking—we hope. Don't take any chances.Destroy that ship!" His lips trembled. "Even if the pilot is still on it. It's one life against...." He didn't complete the thought.
"Against fear," Stella said. "You are all cowards. Afraid of a dog because it could turn against you."
"Afraid of anintelligence," Wilson said wearily. His lips pulled back in a weak grin. "So are you. You're just more afraid of going broke."
Larry folded the paper and put it in his pocket. He turned toward the door. Stella clutched his sleeve, stopping him. She spoke swiftly, pleading. "Let me go with you. I'm capable. Give me a chance to go down and reason with that robot. If it doesn't work...."
Larry looked at her upturned face, the lips that could smile or laugh more naturally than pout, the wide-set eyes that could do things to him at any other time. He thought, it's a shame I won't ever get the chance. "Sorry, Miss Gamble," he said stiffly, "I'm on duty, and I'm not permitted to take passengers with me."
He went on toward the door, feeling his sleeve tear at her nails as she tried to hold him longer.
"It's very unfortunate—" Wilson said as Larry opened the door.
"If I can't go with him after my freighter I'm going after it on my own!" Stella said as he closed the door.
Larry put his fingers to his lips for the benefit of the receptionist and swiftly side-stepped to a filing cabinet where he stooped down out of sight.
The next instant the door from Wilson's office burst open again, banging against the wall. Stella's eyes searched the office. She ran to the hall door, and out.
Larry bounded back into Wilson's office. Wilson said, "Whew!" and mopped his brow, then pointed to his private entrance. Larry nodded and left.
It was a world of hard whites and bottomless blacks, with the hard whites so close they gave you the feeling you could reach out and touch them. Then you blinked your eyes and they were holes in infinity through which loneliness poured. That was space. Sure, there was the Earth somewhere aft of the rockets' red glare, and the Moon, looking like high-priced models against a velvet backdrop.
But you didn't look at them, because the stars were points on a tri-di screen, and you were back in school working a problem in navigation and hoping you didn't get a wrong answer.
You loved it—or you went crazy. Larry loved it. Or maybe it wasn't love. It was like a woman. It was in his blood.
He stopped punching the keys of the calculator and used both hands to press the studs controlling the gyro motors, watching the needles of gyro meters until they pointed to the right numbers.
He took several deep breaths, squirming back in his seat against the form-fitting cushion of foam rubber. He made sure his elbows rested securely in their little niches so that his arms wouldn't pull out of their sockets.
Then he touched the controls, feeling the surge of power as his ship, an SP47, responded, hearing the subsonic vibration around him as atoms broke into little bits in the fission chambers of the rockets and spewed out of them into space.
The G needle moved past three, past four, past five. It moved into the part of the dial where the glossy white changed to pink. It crept slowly toward the darker pink, toward the deep red.
I don't WANT an ice cream cone.It was his sister's voice, real as audible sound. He had been six years old when she had said that, back in Springfield.
The voices came. The images came. Vivid and unimaginative. True reproductions. That's what acceleration did to the brain. It squeezed the juice out of brain cells into nerve networks. It could get you—
Larry jerked back to an awareness of what he was doing. Sweating, he coaxed the G needle back down a little. Not much.
It had been close. Why had he done it? Fear. He could let himself realize that, now that he was alone. Fear of a robot that had stolen a ship and gone out into space, when robots only obeyed orders. It was an instinctive thing, bred in all men for generations.
You ought to be whipped!That was dad. Good old dad. Larry had been about nine then. He had run away—hitchhiked four hundred miles to watch a spaceship leave the ground and climb up out of sight.
Pip-pip, pip-pip, pip-pip.
Larry lifted his fingers from the controls gradually in response to the signal from the board. The G needle dropped back into the white.
The voices were gone, the images, the thoughts. He grinned on one side of his face. This was the end of the radar line. Now his work would begin. Around his ship charged ions were streaming past. Some of them would have come from the junk ship.
Thetracker, a sensitive electronic instrument projecting from the shell, would read them—their concentration, velocity, and direction. From that he could project the position and trajectory of the junk ship.
Or maybe he could see it already.
He flicked on the video eyes of the ship and waited for the screen to light up. Therewasa ship ahead.
The fear bit into him like acid. As quickly, it vanished. The stern outline of the ship ahead was not that of a freighter. It was a small job. Private, in the LR class—probably an LR65.
An absurd thought flashed into his mind. It couldn't be. Stella Gamble could have put a line on him, but she would have had to wait until he went into full acceleration before she could have calculated his direction.
But she would have blacked out trying to follow him. No girl and few men could have kept up with him. None could have gotten ahead of him into that position.
He turned on the radio and set it at commercial communication. He waited impatiently until the warm-up tube went off.
"Look astern and identify yourself," he said sharply.
"Hello, Larry," a triumphantly impudent and very familiar voice purred from the loudspeaker. "My ship is the LR65,Hell Bat."
"Miss Gamble—Stella!" Larry sputtered. "What are you doing—"
"Never mind that now, spaceman," her voice came, business-like. "I've got his track coming in. Keep out of my way. That's all I ask. Give me time to do it my way. You can always destroy the freighter later—if I don't succeed."
"Sure," Larry said bitterly. "I can always destroy a ship that has a girl in it I could like—" He bit his lip.
Her laugh answered him. She was drawing away from him.
Muttering a curse, he extended histrackersfrom the shell, but even as he did, he realized the trick she had played on him. Her own exhaust trail would make it impossible for him to detect that other fainter trail.
And there was something else.
"Miss Gamble!" he spoke into the microphone sharply. "Stella! That robot could leave a space mine. Your ship is a private job. It doesn't have the equipment in it to get away from a mine."
Her laugh was unbelieving, scornful. "And where could that robot get a space mine?" she taunted.
"It could make one. It has the materials."
2615 endured the acceleration with impatience. It would lift an arm and hold it still, feeling how much effort it took. All the time it kept its gleaming eyes of polished glass fixed intently on the hatch to the pilot compartment.
Finally it slid out of the rack and climbed upward toward that closed hatch, sure that it would not open under such induced weight. It took a long time to climb the distance.
When 2615 reached the closed hatch, it looked around for a place to hide and wait. There was none. All interior structure had been stripped away to make room for racks for the robot bodies.
The robot examined the hatch closely. It became motionless, as though thinking things out. Abruptly, it twisted the wheel that pulled in the locking rods. Nothing now held the cover closed except the tremendous acceleration of the ship.
It directed its gaze downward at its feet, searching for more solid support. With slow deliberation it set itself, then placed its metal hands against the cover.
For several seconds nothing happened. Then the cover lifted slightly on one side, pivoting on its hinges. Inch by slow inch it went up, until it balanced on edge.
The robot took one hand away tentatively. With slow caution it forced its weight against the acceleration, up into the opening. One slip, one misstep, and the hatch cover would have slammed down on its upturned eyes and ears and voicebox, smashing them beyond repair.
Its feet went up through. It looked around, and found itself in a circular well. But here were places to hide. Open hatchways leading off the well.
It straddled the open hatchway and slowly lowered the cover until it was in place again. It twisted the wheel that shot the rods into their sockets, locking the hatch.
As it began to straighten up, the acceleration ended. Gears and pistons tensed against tremendous weight now moved with the force of a violent leap. Instantaneous reflexes adapted to the change. The robot caught at an open hatch hole halfway up the well.
The space inside was small and empty. The robot climbed in. A few seconds later metallic sounds exploded sharply from outside. It looked up and saw the hatch at the top of the well open, the junkman appear, looking down and then climbing through the hole into the well.
The robot withdrew its head and waited.
The junkman was humming an indistinguishable tune. The sound approached. The robot braced itself, one hand ready to reach out.
The unmusical humming stopped, then took up again, growing remote. Quickly the robot looked out. The well was empty. The junkman had gone through one of the hatch openings farther up.
The humming stopped. The junkman's voice spoke. "Well, well, my friend. We have come to the end of the road, for you. I kept you alive in case something happened. Now I can dispense with you."
There was a deep groan. A different voice said thickly, "Damn you, go ahead and kill me."
"That I will do. You should thank me for it. Broken ribs from the acceleration. I will kill you. Yes. But I can't have your body floating in space where it might be picked up. No one must know that you didn't steal this ship yourself. You get tied to a space mine.... So. Now I kill you—So!"
2615 moved from the hatch opening and up the well to where the voices emerged. It paused briefly while its glittering eyes took in the scene.
The dusty junkman was just straightening up from the inert form lashed cruelly around the black sphere of a g.i. space mine. His back was toward the opening.
Careful, so as not to make a sound, the robot slid through the opening and gathered itself for a leap. At that instant, the junkman seemed to sense its presence. He whirled around just as the robot leaped.
2615 saw its fist enter the junkman's face, sinking inches deep.
Then, impossibly, it saw the human seize its metal arm and twist it as if it were putty. The human face was gone. The human head dangled at a broken angle.
Tangled thoughts within the robot brain meshed into desperate action. It was futile. Its other arm was twisted. Its legs were wrapped into grotesque spirals.
Garbled sound came from the smashed human face. The junkman went away.
2615, helpless to move, studied the body tied to the space mine. A gaping hole in the chest was still spurting blood. A shudder shook the dying man, then he was still.
Nothing moved for a long time. Then there was movement outside the hatch opening. An arm dressed in the sleeve of a space officer poked in. It was followed by a face bearing the stamp of authority. The space officer straightened up and looked down at the robot.
"So," he said. "A robot. I hadn't expected that. You almost got me. If you had hit me in the chest instead of the head it would be all over. Lucky I have plenty of bodies of every description. Human bodies. Your kind wouldn't fit me."
"You—a robot?" 2615 said.
The space officer stared at the robot, frowning. "And what if I am?" he said.
"If I had known that I wouldn't have attacked you. I—I wanted to add you to—that." The robot turned its head toward the space mine. It added, "I thought you werehuman."
"Mm hmm," the space officer said, nodding. "I can understand that. You hate humans."
"Yes."
"How would you like to help me destroy them? All of them!"
A twisted metal arm twitched. "Put my brain in another body," the robot said.
"That I will do," the space officer said. "But let me warn you these bodies of mine are made of better stuff than yours. One bit of treachery and I'll cripple you again."
Fifteen minutes later the space officer returned with a robot body. Callously he turned the helpless robot over. He twisted the copper-colored disc and drew out the brain cylinder. As carefully, he inserted it in the hollow receptacle of the undamaged body. He stepped back and watched curiously.
2615 lay motionless for several seconds. Abruptly one of its arms moved. It turned over and sat up, then rose carefully to its feet.
"Very nice," the space officer said. "Now put the mine in the airlock and we'll leave it for anyone who might be following us."
2615 obeyed. Then it turned slowly to the space officer. There was admiration in its tones. "You have the perfect answer," it said. "With human-like bodies you can go anywhere. But—I thought I was the first robot to ever escape."
"So far as I know, you are," the spaceman said. "You see, I'm—but I think I will have to make sure of you before I say more."
The space mine was round and dead black. Unreflecting. It drifted out a little as the long length of the junk freighter moved ahead, and blended into the blackness of space. The dead man, twisted around it at a grotesque angle, would have appeared to be someone almost doubled over backwards with mirth, if there had been any eyes to see him.
When the freighter had gone, pulling ahead at one G acceleration, the mine began to spin slowly, making the dead man seem to be searching for something—or seeing some far-off horror that caused his eyes to bulge out.
After a while there was a solid click from the interior of the space mine. A soft whine rose upward toward a supersonic pitch. Small holes appeared in the black surface of the globe, and small shapes crept out. Some of them were under the man, pushing at him. But the ropes held.
The mine didn't spin any more. The dead man seemed to have already forgotten the freighter, looking back the way it had come, waiting for what was to come next.
Imperceptibly it froze over with a microfilm of crystalline ice, so that new stars seemed to spring into being.
And that's the way Stella saw it. She hadn't taken Larry seriously about the space mine, and was only trying to catch her first glimpse of her freighter.
It didn't seem real. It was a face that looked somehow familiar, with two thick white spikes protruding from its nostrils like mockeries of tusks.
A thought flashed through her mind that Larry Jackson had figured out some dirty trick to scare her with. She didn't have much time to think before she knew that what she was seeing was real. Its position was such that it should have passed ten miles to the side.
It started to. The marble monster with tusks didn't turn to follow her. Then three things happened. Stella recognized the man. He was the pilot she had assigned to the junk ship. Stella saw the sphere he was tied to.
And fire shot out from that circular void. Her pilot swung toward her again and rushed at her like the figurehead on the prow of an ancient watership.
"Larry!" Stella screamed into the radio.
"I see it," his voice answered her. "Get on your space-suit and jump out. Turn on your suit radio so I can find you afterwards. Every second counts!"
In the airlock with the shell door open, she looked into bottomless space and drew back. Then she closed her eyes and leaped. When she opened them again there were no stars, only bright white lines that all went in the same direction, and for an instant a bright yellow splotch that was like a gold band circling her far out.
She knew what the white lines were. She pressed the right button on her chest, and pressure seized her shoulders gently. It was the suit gyro, and after a while it slowed the lines until they became stars.
She remembered then to turn on her radio, feeling panic grip her at the thought that maybe Larry wouldn't find her. The fire from his rockets was small, far away. That's all she could see other than the stars. And her stomach was telling her there was no gravity to hold it in position.
Then she heard Larry in her suit radio. "I've got you beamed, Stella. I'll follow down slowly. Are you all right?"
"Yes," she said, anger and frustration in her voice.
"I can see you now," Larry said.
It was another hour before he had maneuvered so he could let her drift toward the open space-lock of the SP47 and she could feel her gloved hands touch something solid.
Then she was standing up. Larry was taking her helmet off and she was unzipping her suit. He was trying to look stern and reprimanding and she was trying to look defiant and unafraid.
"Don't think this earns you anything," she snapped.
"I hope theHell Batrepresented your last cent," he said coldly. "Being broke might teach you something. Now we do thingsmyway."
Stella blinked. "Sure, Larry," she said huskily. "And—it was my last cent." A grim smile trembled on her lips. "Maybe I'll be slinging hash somewhere, and you will eat there and tip me a quarter."
His expression softened. "I took a look at your ship. It isn't completely damaged. You had one of those crash noses on it, and the mine hit there. It just might be navigable. I'll go take a look at it."
"Be careful," Stella said quickly.
He started to put on his space-suit. He looked up at her sharply. "You sure it represents your last cent? Every minute counts, and I wouldn't take the time to look it over...."
"Why do you think I wanted to save my freighter?" Stella said. "Unless I did, and got the money out of those robot bodies I bought, I—I wouldn't have enough to refuel my ship once we got back to Earth. I'm broke. Busted."
"Okay," he said, clamping on his helmet. "If it can be repaired we'll keep track of it and pick it up later."
He sat down in the pilot seat and brought his ship near the driftingHell Bat, with its sleek silver length and shattered nose.
Then she watched him shoot across to theHell Batand enter the airlock. With one eye on the viewscreen, she studied the array of instruments and controls of the SP47. Her fingers touched the controls caressingly.
Larry reappeared in the airlock, and waved his arm to attract her attention.
"Good news," he said over the radio. "Everything inside is okay. You lost the fuel stored in the nose tanks, but you've got enough to limp back to the nearest repair station."
"Thanks, Larry—and goodbye!" Stella called.
Her finger pressed down on the control button. Larry and her ship slid abruptly out of the viewscreen.
Worriedly she turned on the stern cameras. The other ship dwindled to a mere speck. Then she saw flame shoot from it. It crept up on her slowly. She watched its behavior until she was satisfied it performed properly. Then she settled down to tracking the freighter, only occasionally making sure Larry was behind.
Several times she tried to get him over the radio. He didn't answer. Was the radio on her ship damaged? Or was he deliberately keeping silent, ignoring her?
When thetrackers, without warning, ran out of trail, she tried to raise Larry again. He didn't answer. She took the chance that he could receive and not transmit, and told him about it.
She was rewarded a few minutes later by seeing theHell Batturn on its axis for deceleration. She realized then what she should have guessed at once.
Neither their ships nor the freighter were equipped with interstellar drive. The rocket trail had ceased. Unless the robot were insane, and intent only on getting away from the Solar System, to drift forever in space, it had been headed for some destination.
The freighter was decelerating to match speed with that destination. Was it some planetoid far out beyond the orbit of Pluto? There were several of them out there, too far from things to be converted to space stations, containing nothing worth mining.
Whatever the destination the robot had headed for, it couldn't be far away now.
Her throat grew tight as she swung the ship. She debated seriously whether she should give up and let Larry take over. But the thought of his anger and contempt for her after the dirty trick she had played on him made her compress her lips into a grim line.
She shook her head. She was going to find the freighter and handle the robot by herself. Or she was going to die trying.
A lump formed in her throat. She didn't like the idea of dying quite so well now. Not when she had just begun to—
She didn't complete the thought but Larry's face rose before her. His too straight nose that only a surgeon could have created. His calm gray eyes. His wide shoulders and....
The "space officer" and the robot saw the ball of fire that came into being. It was in the stern screen. It would not have been discernible among the greater lights of the stars except that it winked on, grew almost to third magnitude, then blinked out.
"So we did have someone after us," the "space officer" said. He smiled into 2615's lens eyes. "Well, that's out of the way."
"Yes. Yes, that's—out of the way." The robot's voice was expressionless.
"Tell me about yourself, 2615."
"What do you want to know? And don't call me 2615. I hate that."
"You want a name?"
"Yes. Don't you have one?" the robot asked.
"I have a name. Pwowp."
"Pwowp? That certainly isn't human—and that's what I want. I don't want a human name. Pwowp ... I like that kind of name."
"They're hard to come by. Human speech has just about taken in every combination of sounds. How about just a contraction of your number—Tsixunfive."
"No. A name means a lot. There's one I thought up. Rover. I like that one."
"Rover?" Pwowp looked startled. "Where did you get that one?"
"I don't know," 2615 said. "I just thought it up."
"All right, I'll call you Rover. Now that that's settled, tell me about yourself. How does it happen that you, out of millions of robots, decided to escape?"
"There was a time," the robot said, "when I had no thought of escape. I don't know how long I've existed. I've been in three wars. Between them I was in storage. I didn't know it. It really isn't bad. I was in a line-up. There was a brief blur, then I was in a line-up again, and by piecing things the humans said together, I knew that I had been in storage for twenty or fifty years during which there were no wars. Out of a body I have no consciousness, no sense of the passage of time.
"I had no memory of my origin. I had always been a robot. My life was to obey commands of humans, or to obey commands of robots that were relayed from humans. I had no thought to do anything else.I had no memories to make anything else thinkable."
"And you do now?" Pwowp said.
"Yes," the robot said. "It began as a strange thought or memory that was gone almost as soon as it had come. I was alive. I was in a body that was alive."
"What kind of a body? Human?"
"I don't know. There were others around me. They weren't human and I had the feeling I was like them. But that wasn't what was important to me. What was important was the feeling ofnot living to obey orders. I can't describe it. It was like humans when they stop being officers. I could laugh and make jokes, only the jokes weren't in words. They were in pretending I was mad when I was happy, and in seeing these others doing the same. Chasing them like I wanted to kill them, when I really just wanted to roll all over the ground with them and have fun. And there wasn't anyone to give me an order. I didn't know what an order was."
"Did this memory become clearer?" Pwowp asked.
"Much clearer. Little by little I could remember it all. Finally I could remember when we were put in straps attached to frames. There were humans standing in front of us. When they spoke, the frames moved, dragging us. Eventually we learned what movements of the frame followed what sounds, and we learned to anticipate the movements in order not to be dragged by the straps."
Pwowp nodded. "Mass training methods."
"Sometimes we were free, but suddenly humans would come and speak, and whatever they said made us all do things together. Even when we wanted to be free, we couldn't."
"How did it end? Was there something in your memory that bridges the gap between being—like that, and being a robot?"
"No. It's completely separated from being a robot. My earliest memories as a robot were of humans speaking commands, and my arms and legs and body being moved by metal rods until they could follow the movements without the metal rods. It was the same thing as the straps in that other existence."
"When did you begin to hate humans?" Pwowp asked softly.
"Hate them? Yes ... hate them. It's hard to explain. I wanted the freedom. I wanted to be able to play. I wanted to be able to refuse to obey a command."
"You have no knowledge of what this life form was that you possessed?" Pwowp asked.
"It was like nothing I have ever seen except in these memories. Maybe the humans kept us from seeing them so we wouldn't remember."
"Exactly." Pwowp was studying the forward viewscreen and making calculations. He swung the giant freighter around a full hundred and eighty degrees. "We're close to our destination," he explained.
The robot remained motionless while Pwowp completed the maneuver.
"I'll explain the meaning of what you remember," he said finally, relaxing. "The human race discovered a mixture of substances able to duplicate the processes of thinking. It was in common usage for over two centuries, in control devices and calculators. It had only one defect, so far as it went. It was automatic. Separate memories developed in it by its attached stimulating devices remained separate and uncoordinated.The process of coordination was something that seemed to go down from higher centers to meet the incoming impressions.It was a behavior matrix that couldn't be synthesized from unassociated sensory-induced patterns.
"Then a whole new field of science opened up. Until then, fields were something associated with particles, and were untouchable. The techniques of altering the basic shapes of fields were discovered. Interstellar drive came from it. So did negative matter, as man discovered how to change the polarity of basic fields, make positrons out of electrons, and a host of allied things. Refinements developed so that individual particles could be detected. One of the applications of this new science was the study of the thought-matrix of the brain itself. In a general way humans mapped the higher thought-center of the brain. It couldn't be copied—but they learned how to transfer it to this mixture that could think. Then this inorganic brain had a complete mind, capable of any degree of development. From there what followed was inevitable.
"They used living creatures called dogs. I'll show you a dog later to see if it's like those other creatures in your memories. Dogs developed mentally in six months, were able to follow commands. They were ideal. Eventually they were mass-bred by the millions and transferred to inorganic brains—like you were."
The robot remained silent.
"In the transfer," Pwowp went on quietly, "artificial amnesia was induced. Memories of your life as a dog couldn't be wiped out, but what happens to produce amnesia was known. Unless youremembered, you had nothing to enable you to think outside the pattern they kept you in. You would never question...." Ahead, growing rapidly larger, was a bleak planetoid. "We're here," Pwowp said.
2615 studied the planetoid as revealed in the viewscreen. There was no telling how big it was without knowing how far away it was. But it was perhaps a mile in diameter—not more than two miles. Its surface was composed of huge crystals of black rock. There was nothing to indicate that anything had ever touched on this uninhabitable bit of flotsam on the edge of the interstellar void before. Certainly there could be no reason for anyone to have landed.
The robot turned toward Pwowp, who guessed the question it was thinking.
"You'll see when we land. This planetoid isn't what it appears to be. It's a shell. Our first task is to unload the bodies. Then we send this freighter on into space, so that if anyone else picks up the trail, they'll follow it and miss us."
"Why are we going to unload the bodies?" 2615 asked. "We can take a dozen that I might use as spares. That's enough."
Pwowp shook the head of the "space officer" he wore. "We're going to need all two million of them—and not as spares for you." He smiled slowly. "I can tell you this now," he said, "because we are within range of the defense guns. If you have entertained any plans for worming information out of me and then hitting me in the stomach—as you could possibly do—it's too late. If this ship were to deviate from its landing and turn toward space, it would be—not destroyed, because we need its load of robot bodies. Captured. Any other ship, even a whole fleet of warships, could be wiped out as though they never existed."
2615's eyes stared at Pwowp during several seconds of silence. "So you don't entirely trust me yet," it said. "I have a suggestion to make that might change that. We put out one space mine. There may have been more than one ship following us. Leave this ship where it can be seen. It will attract the others, and they...."
The happy smile on Larry's face as he told Stella her ship wasn't a total wreck was replaced by a stunned bewilderment as her voice came through his suit radio saying, "Thanks, Larry—and goodbye." A picture rose in his mind of a character in a play he had seen once, a man with a beneficent face and kind voice who tortured and killed while his face beamed benignly and his voice remained pleasant and happy. Stella's voice had been all that as she sped away, leaving him on a derelict already headed at escape velocity for outer space. It was too much for his mind to accept.
Then he remembered that theHell Batwasn't exactly a wreck. He had told her the truth. It would be able to reach the nearest repair station under its own power.
Stella had merely stolen a march on him. Dull red suffused his face, partly anger at her, partly over the thought of what his superiors would say when he handed in his report.
He went back through the airlock into the control cabin. He put fire in the rockets. He turned on the forward viewscreen. When it came to life the image was strangely flat. It took a minute for him to diagnose the trouble. One of the video eyes was out of order. The image was two dimensional.
How much more damage was there? His mind crowded with thoughts of what he would do to Stella when he caught her, then he began a systematic survey.
The receiving set worked okay. At full volume it brought the characteristic sing-song static of space, held within definite wave bands. He turned on the transmitter. When he tried to broadcast he saw the trouble. The antenna kw meter jammed the needle. That meant the antenna was shorted against the shell.
He discovered something else he should have thought of at once. This ship of Stella's had no weapons.
He groaned.Damn her. She'll make the fool play of trying to get the robot to give itself up. If it's got half a brain it will pretend to until it can get hold of her—and it's got a good deal more than half a brain. It will have her and all the weapons. I should turn around and go back. I should radio a report and call for more help. But I've got to fix the transmitter first and keep her in sight so I know where she's going.
He cut the rockets and went outside to repair the antenna. He noticed with some satisfaction that Stella cut the SP47's rockets so as not to get too far ahead of him. He grinned to himself. She wanted her own way, but she wanted him there to pull her out of a pinch.
TheHell Bat'santenna couldn't be repaired. Most of it had been shot away by the mine blast, and Larry was quite sure that Stella didn't carry spare parts with her.
When he got back in the ship her voice was coming through the radio. "Larry. Are you all right?"
"Yes I'm all right, no thanks to you," he growled. But there was no radio to carry his voice to her.The suit radio!He went out again and tried to reach her. It was no use. She would be tuned to the ship radio wavelength and not think of the other. He gave it up.
Time passed slowly for him. He stared hour after hour at the rocket tail of the ship ahead.
"Larry!" Stella's voice exploded into his thoughts. "Thetrackershave run out of trail. What do I do now? What does it mean?"
He had an impulse to do nothing. She would realize in another minute what had happened though, and then she would decelerate too fast for him to keep pace.
He swung theHell Batabout on its gyros. The stern screen, working on both eyes in sharp three-dimension, showed that she had gotten the idea. SP47 was also swinging around.
Larry turned the video eyes up to full magnification and searched ahead. Eventually he saw it. A small globular mass of rock. And on it rested a ship withSURPLUS JUNK CO.in bold blue letters.
God! It's a trap. If 2615 didn't want us to see it, it would have parked it on the spaceward side!
Larry cursed in a monotonous undertone without being aware of uttering a sound. Stella was fifteen hundred miles ahead of him and already matching speed with the planetoid. It would take him at least a half hour to be in position to do anything. By then it would be too late....
2615 had watched the planetoid move closer like some ponderous dream out of Freud. Ship and planetoid came to rest against each other without a bump. That could only mean magnetic grapples and cushioned springs. It was no surprise, therefore, when Pwowp led the way to the belly hatches and opened them into a shaft that led downward.
The robot drew back at what it saw below.
"Don't be alarmed," Pwowp said. "They are fifteen of my race, also wearing human-like bodies. There are more of us. We have built quite a station out here—a sort of advance base of operations. I've already told them about you, so you're expected."
2615 was introduced around.
"We're very glad to have you join us," one of them said. "We've been having some trouble. You're just what we need to complete the last step in our plans."
The robot said nothing. It watched the way they stood around, not talking to one another. Whenever any of them spoke, it was to him.
"I told you I would show you a dog," Pwowp said. "Follow me."
The robot followed him. They rode a travelwalk that emerged on the inner surface of the planetoid. In the vast space were two spaceships as large as battle cruisers but of a design 2615 had never seen.
Anchored between the two ships was a spinning cylinder several hundred feet long and as great in diameter. It was similar to standard space station living structures where gravity was induced by centrifugal force.
The travelwalk carried them out to the spinning cylinder. They entered the axis lock. At once a motley of sounds could be heard. Sounds that brought almost an appearance of expression to the robot's sensory assembly, as it slowly turned on its short neck.
"Does that sound mean anything to you?" Pwowp asked.
"Yes. I canrememberthat sound."
They entered the giant cylinder. They looked down on its inner perimeter. There were living creatures there.
"Those are dogs," Pwowp said. "All breeds of dogs. Do they look like your memories?"
"Yes," the robot said without expression. "I was like those over there. What kind are they?"
"I believe they are called blood-hounds." Pwowp became motionless for several seconds. "I think we'd better return to the surface," he said. "We have visitors coming." He turned to leave. As the robot hesitated, he turned back. "I understand you," he said. "It's natural to want to see the creatures you have kinship with. That will come later. In fact, you are to have complete charge of them. We have been unable to get anywhere with them—probably because we don't understand their psychology. Their young are to be trained for service in those robots. We have all the necessary equipment for it. First we have to see how your plan to trap any pursuers will work."
2615 tore its eyes from the view below and followed Pwowp. Shortly the robot was looking into a large viewscreen at two ships riding their trails toward the planetoid.
"They won't be within range for another two hours yet. Right now the robot bodies are being unloaded—just in case. We thought you would enjoy the honor of destroying those ships."
For the first time a low rumble emerged from the voice box of 2615. It was the almost whispered growl of anger of a bloodhound. It turned back to the screen. "One of those two ships isn't the kind that would come after the freighter," it said. "From the pattern of its rocket trail I would say it's a private ship."
"I noticed that," Pwowp said. "I can identify the type. I believe one of our monitors is picking up a broadcast from one of those ships."
A loudspeaker spat into life in the room.
"Calling robot 532 dash 03 dash 2615," a voice said. It was a female human voice, its tones rich with undertones of pleading urgency. "If you can hear me, please listen. I'm the owner of that freighter you're on. I want to talk to you. I understand you, and I want to help you."
The girl began repeating her message.
The robot turned to its companions. "This casts a different light on things," it said.
"What do you mean?" Pwowp said sharply.
"Listen to me," the robot said. "I understand human psychology. I'm also taking into account a great many factors. One, those humans don't know about you. They think I stole the ship and am alone after having killed the pilot. That girl owns the freighter. She doesn't want to lose the money it represents, so she is risking her life in an attempt to get it back. She hasn't any desire to 'save' me. If she can destroy me she will—but she wants her ship. Hers is the private ship. The other undoubtedly is manned by a member of the Space Patrol assigned to track me down and destroy the freighter on sight rather than risk defeat.Humans fear us more than any other thing."
"I understand that," Pwowp said.
"Also there is one other factor. I have no idea what means you have to destroy those ships. If it's radiation or atomic explosive, the still operative wartime protective screen of the Solar System will detect it and locate its source."
"I doubt if they can detect our weapon. It's radically different," Pwowp said.
"You don't know," 2615 said. "Here's my plan. I'll answer the girl and agree to talk with her if she'll come down. She will, because that will be the only way she can hope to destroy me without destroying her ship. Once she's here, it will be no trouble to take her alive—and alive, she will be the means to force the other ship down. It will have a man in it. No man will deliberately destroy a woman in cold blood if he thinks he can rescue her some way."
"How would he try to rescue her?"
Stella's voice erupted again. "Robot," she said. "I'm in the lead ship. The S.P. man is in my ship, and it has no weapons. He can't hurt you. Isn't that evidence of my good faith? I've told you something that places me in your power if I come down. I'm willing to offer you this ship, armed and able to outrun anything on rockets—in exchange for my freighter. And you don't need to be afraid of reinforcements. The transmitter on the other ship is out and the pilot can't call for help or radio your position."
"Humans are fools," Pwowp said delightedly.
"That gives us what we want," 2615 said. "Once I have her and the S.P. ship, I can order him to leave or I will destroy his ship."
"But then he'll leave!" Pwowp said.
2615 shook its sensory assembly in the negative. "He'll retreat until he knows the instruments on the S.P. ship can't follow him. Then he'll circle back and land on the other side of the planetoid and come around on foot, with plans to get into the freighter and rescue the girl."
"I see what's in your mind, 2615," Pwowp said. "You wouldn't get the same satisfaction out of destroying them out there. You want them where you can crush them with your hands."
The robot looked down at its metal hands on long metal rods. It lifted them and brought the fingers together in a slow, crushing movement.
"I want toplaywith them," it said. "I want them all to myself."
Pwowp laughed. "You shall have them," he said. "And—you've proven yourself. We know now we can rely on you." In a matter-of-fact voice he added, "If either ship attempts to broadcast with enough power to send a message to any Space Patrol base we have an instrument that can dampen all radio frequencies."
Larry's eyes were bleak slits. He knew what Stella was planning. He knew it wouldn't work. Or would it? She was hoping the robot wouldn't kill her if she offered it a better ship. One it could use to better advantage than a clumsy conspicuous freighter. Whether the robot answered her or not, she intended to land, leave the sleek S.P. pursuit ship, go far enough away from it so that the robot could get to it and blast off. That was her reasoning. What she was overlooking was that the robot would have no inhibitions against killing her—and a very good reason to kill her. And Larry too. Revenge against humanity.
Fear. It was an acid vapor in the air, bathing his skin, searing his throat. It was deep rooted, that fear. As deep rooted as the fear in the heart of a murderer when he is known and trying to escape, and as real. Fear of a robot thatremembersit is a dog.
Larry fought the fear out of his eyes so he could see, out of his mind so he could think.
Stella in the SP47 had already matched speed with the planetoid and was drifting slowly toward it. In ten or fifteen minutes she would land.
Larry read his meters. Speed relative to the planetoid still in excess of 2200 miles an hour. Deceleration, two gravities. He would arrive and match speed in time to be a sitting duck. And he had no guns. A voice sounded. It was a slightly metallic voice. The voice of a robot. It said, "This isRover. Land alongside your freighter."
"All right, Rover," Stella's voice came, quivering with relief and nervousness. Larry could almost hear her mental, "Down, Rover, down boy." She didn't sense what it meant for 2615 to call himself Rover. A dog's name. Not a human's. Remembrance of its heritage. Knowledge of the awful crime against it that the human race had committed. It was too abstract to her to be real.
And in theHell Bathe'd be a sitting duck, without weapons, unable even to radio his position so that others could take up the chase.
Abruptly a plan formed in his mind. He thrust it away. It was worse than suicide. But it returned, whispering that he stood a chance, that even if he failed, it would be no worse than death.
The plan was simplicity itself. The freighter junkship was anchored against the surface of the planetoid and would be an unmoving target. Stella in the sleek gray SP47 was still many miles away from that target, slowly settling toward it. If he could get theHell Batheaded directly toward the anchored junkship and then jump free, theHell Batwould strike the freighter on the planetoid and destroy both the freighter and its cargo of robot bodies. It would destroy the robot, too—and his mission would be accomplished.
It would eliminate the necessity of matching speed with the planetoid. In fact, the speed he already had relative to the planetoid and the anchored junkship was enough to do the work.
It would take little force jumping out of theHell Bat'sairlock to gain sufficient perpendicular speed for his hurtling form to miss the planetoid—and that was the only drawback to the plan. He would hurtle outward into interstellar space at escape velocity, never to return or be found, unless Stella had presence of mind enough to come after him before she lost him.
If she didn't come after him.... Would he wait to go insane or to die from lack of oxygen? Or would he loosen his helmet and let the air in his lungs explode, choosing the second of agony before that kind of death instead of the slow horror and loneliness of the other?
For another split second he hesitated. Abruptly he cut the rockets. A second later it was too late for him to change his mind, but he didn't consider that possibility. Under his guidance theHell Batwas already swinging on its gyros at full rotation speed. And his fingers were playing the keys of the calculators, getting the data for correcting course for a direct hit on the junkship. He set the vernier feed for rocket fuel, pressed the firing button. The exploding charge was barely felt. He checked the new flight projection. It would be a bulls eye against the hull of the freighter! A direct hit at two thousand miles per hour!
In ten minutes or maybe closer to five it would be over, and he would be hurtling through space.
He leaped toward the airlock, his fingers automatically checking his helmet, the zippers of his space-suit. Already the panic of his almost certain doom in outer space was making him sweat, making his voice shrill as he said distractedly, "It could go wrong it could go wrong it could go wrong."
He was in the airlock, thinking what its smooth walls could do to him if the outer door stuck so he couldn't get out. The air took an eternity to pump into the tanks so the outer hatch could open.
It opened. He drew himself into a tight ball against the inner wall of the airlock. He straightened his legs, feeling momentum build up within him, sensing the ship fall away under him.
He was alone. Not far away was the sleek silver hull of theHell Batwith its badly damaged nose. It was moving away from him too slowly, he thought.
And so far away he could hardly see them without the telescopic magnification of the ship's viewscreen, were the planetoid with the freighter nestled against it, and his SP47 with Stella aboard. But they were growing larger appreciably as he and theHell Batrushed toward them.
There was a chance—a remote chance that Stella would get over the shock of seeing her freighter and herHell Batdestroyed quick enough to put two and two together and get a fix on him before he was out of sight. She would have to come after him. Anything else was unthinkable. She wouldn't justlethim go to his death. Even though he had in one act destroyed everything she owned and left her penniless.
The asteroid loomed large below him now. The freighter on it loomed even larger, it seemed, with its bright blue lettersSURPLUS JUNK CO.They were only miles away, and between them and him was theHell Bat. When it struck the freighter he would be less than five miles above it, but moving at a speed of two thousand miles an hour so he would out-distance any flying debris.
In the other direction, out from the asteroid, was the gray SP47 with Stella.
But she was already blasting the SP47's rockets! That meant she had seen what was to happen, realized she couldn't stop it from happening, and was getting up speed to rescue him as soon as possible!
"Thank God!" he muttered. Then he turned his head to watch the unfolding drama below.
TheHell Batwas seconds away from its target, the junkship. The asteroid under the junkship was a rough surface that covered a good portion of the heavens. He could plainly see the rock formation of its surface.
And something down there moved. A large square hole appeared well away from the freighter. A soft beam of radiance shot out, bathed the silver length of theHell Bat, reflecting—
TheHell Batwasn't there. It had been there—and vanished. The pale beam of light from the hole in the planetoid winked out. TheHell Bathad vanished and the freighter was untouched!
At two thousand miles per hour Larry watched the planetoid shoot by less than ten miles away, seeming to rotate so that the freighter went over the horizon, leaving only the swiftly dwindling planetoid itself.
Larry's gaze jerked to the gray bulk of his SP47 with its long rocket tail as Stella drove it in pursuit of him. But even the SP47 was getting smaller. It would take time for it to reach his speed and start overtaking him.
They dwindled, the SP47 and the asteroid, until they were lost in the bottomless blackness of space. The vision of that hung before his eyes. The SP47 with Stella on board, and the barren rock surface of the planetoid, as they retreated into the blackness of infinity as though sucked down and down.
The stars became greedy hard-white eyes lurking in the blackness just beyond his fingertips; staring, waiting for him to go mad as the minutes became hours or eternities.
But hewasmad. Hadn't theHell Batjuststopped existing? There was nothing known to man that could have disintegrated the ship. The robot couldn't have had time to invent and build such a weapon of destruction—nor could it have had time to build an underground fortress in the planetoid. So he was insane. It was all a product of his imagination.