Collected Short Fiction, page 506
A long, minor-bright teardrop, the new vehicle was unmarred by any projecting airfoil or landing gear. Two quick humanoids helped him up through an oval door. From within, the smooth hull was darkly transparent. The flat deck covered all the mechanism, and there were no controls that he could see.
The door closed silently, untouched.
“How does that work?” he inquired.
“All these devices are operated by rhodomagnetic relays, which are protected from human reach,” purred the thing beside him. “That is necessary to guard human beings from accidental harm.”
A second humanoid glided to the end of the deck and stood rigid there, staring blindly ahead. It touched no visible controls, but some concealed relays must have started the hidden machinery. The little craft lifted silently.
The mechanical beside him unfolded a low couch, out of the deck, and asked respectfully if he wished to sit. But Claypool didn’t feel like relaxing. A vague disquiet had already stained his elation. He asked more questions.
“The craft is powered by material energy,” came that pure golden tone, “which is transmitted by rhodomagnetic beams from our generators on Wing IV. The thrust is created by a rhodomagnetic field drive.”
“So? And what is the field equation?”
The reply cast a darker shadow on his hopes.
“We can’t supply you with such information,” hummed the black machine, “because men who enjoy our service have little need of knowledge, and science has often been used for purposes contrary to the Prime Directive.”
Yet, for all his vague forebodings, Claypool enjoyed that flight. Far swifter than any aircraft, the rhodomagnetic vessel lifted through a milky veil of high cirro-stratus, and on into the ionosphere. The sky turned purple-black, and he could see the planet’s lazy curve. Flattened mountains crawled beneath, and the scarlet-winged sun dropped back eastward. And suddenly they were landing on a broad new stage, at Starmont.
Starmont was changed.
New walls and towers rose everywhere, glowing under the desert sun in a riot of luminous pastels. He glimpsed broad new gardens already bursting into flamelike bloom, strange with imported plants he had never seen before.
The door of the craft had no handle that a man could work, but it was opened for him silently. The two attentive mechanicals helped him down, too carefully. He started eagerly across the new red pavement of the landing stage, and then he was halted by a sharp sense of disaster.
The exotic gardens and the colonnaded walks and the long bright-walled villa beyond didn’t surprise him, for he knew that the swarming machines had been rebuilding all the planet into a streamlined paradise. It was a moment before he could see just what was wrong.
A breath of hot, sickening sweetness struck him, a rank jungle scent from some more tropic world. In a deep sunken garden where the administration building had stood, he saw tall red stalks, crowned with queer, writhing buds. Next he missed the white concrete tower of the solar telescope, and then he stared at the blue-and-amber villa on the crown of the mountain.
“Where is it?” he gasped accusingly. “The big reflector?”
For that great telescope had cost most of his private fortune, and many years of toil. Searching the spectrum of the Crater Supernova, it had found the clue to rhodomagnetics. He had fondly planned to spend his last years with it, exploring the outer galaxies farther and farther toward the ultimate unknown. But it had stood where now that villa was.
The famous Starmont reflector was gone.
That realization stunned him. For one bright instant, he tried to hope that the humanoids had simply replaced the precious instrument with some compact new device, as wonderful as the silver teardrop behind him. But that golden voice throbbed softly:
“The observatory has been removed.”
A dim dread came to overwhelm his first sharp anger, and his voice turned husky.
“Why?”
“The space was required for your new dwelling.”
“I want it put back.”
The tiny machine stood frozen and alert, staring past him with sightless metal orbs. Its narrow handsome face wore a perpetual benign surprise.
“That will be impossible, sir. Observatory equipment is far too dangerous for you to use. Human beings are too easily injured by heavy instruments, broken glass, electric currents, inflammable paper and film, or poisonous photographic solutions.”
Claypool blinked with a bitter amazement.
“You’ve got to replace that telescope,” he said hotly, “because I’m going on with my astrophysical research.”
That blind, kind alertness didn’t change.
“Scientific research is no longer necessary, sir. We have found on many planets that knowledge of any kind seldom makes men happy, and scientific knowledge is frequently used for destruction. Foolish men have even attempted to attack Wing IV, with illicit scientific devices.”
Speechless, Claypool shuddered from a dark sudden terror.
“Sir, you must now forget your scientific interests.” That droning, melodious voice was dreadful with its ruthless benevolence. “You must now look for your happiness in some less harmful activity. Perhaps you can develop an interest in some innocent intellectual activity, such as chess.”
Claypool cursed, explosively. The small machine watched him silently. Struck with high lights of bronze and icy-blue, its black, high-cheeked face was set in serene solicitude. It didn’t move, and a new fear struck the man. He gasped hoarsely: “Where’s my wife?”
In the last harassed months, he had found no time to visit Starmont. Until the telephone system was taken out of service, however, he had called Ruth nightly. He had told her that he wouldn’t be so busy now, and asked her wistfully to plan them a new honeymoon. He shivered, now, to a shock of cold suspicion.
“She’s here,” that limpid golden voice assured him. “In the new toy room.”
“Will you tell her I’ve come home?”
“We told her.”
His uneasiness mounted. “What did she say?”
“She asked us who you are.”
“Eh!” Terror took his breath. “Is . . . is she all right?”
“She is well now, sir. But she has been unhappy. We discovered her secret troubles only a few days ago, after she learned that you were coming back. The unit watching in her room at night observed her crying, when she should have been asleep.”
“So?” A surge of puzzled fury knotted Claypool’s stringy fists. “Ruth used to be happy enough—what have you done to her?”
“Our function under the Prime Directive is to cure the unhappiness of men, not to cause it,” chimed the small machine. “We asked her the cause of her tears. She was afraid of growing old, she told us. She was crying for the loss of her beauty and her youth. And she seemed alarmed about something else.” Claypool stood swaying to a numbness of bewilderment.
“But she’s not,” he muttered. “She’s not old!”
“By comparison with our own steel-and-plastic units, all human bodies are very fragile and ephemeral. Your wife has been afraid of age for many years, she told us. She was afraid to lose her loveliness, and afraid of your return.”
“Ruth—” Claypool felt the sting of tears, and then he shouted incredulously: “I left her happy enough!”
“She said that she was happy, so long as she worked at the observatory,” droned the tranquil humanoid. “She said she loved the work, because she did it for you. Now she has no work—but we have made her happy again.”
“Take me to her!”
Breathlessly, Claypool followed the urbane machine across the red pavement, and along a covered walk beside that sunken garden. He hurried past those pink, writhing buds, because their rank scent stung his nostrils and made him sneeze.
Huge doors slid open soundlessly, beyond tall amber pillars, to let them into the dwelling. The place had a faint bitter odor of new synthetics. The walls were some saturn-surfaced stuff which could be made luminous, his guide purred, in any pattern of colors he might desire. Broad shallow niches along the lofty hall held tridimensional color views of the scenic wonders of many worlds, and these scenes, the humanoid whined, could be changed at his will.
But Claypool was growing impatient of wonders.
At the toy room door, a wave of heavy scent staggered him. It was Ruth’s perfume—that thick musk called Sweet Delirium. Her usual hint of it made a clean, clear fragrance. But this was an overpowering reek which took his breath, even before he entered the room.
The toy room was huge and splendid. The walls were hung with softly glowing tapestries, which the mechanicals must have copied from some nursery book, luminous with simple figures of animals and children at play.
He found his wife seated on the warm, soft floor. She sat flat, with her legs straight, out, in the posture of a small child. She must have drenched herself with that perfume, for the heavy sweetness of it seemed suffocating. A small dark machine stood watching her with a tireless blind attention. At first she didn’t see him.
“Ruth!” Shock had dried up his voice, and his knees trembled. “Ruth—darling!”
She was building a tower out of soft, bright-hued plastic blocks. Her hands seemed very careful, yet strangely clumsy. She heard his husky voice, and turned to face him as she sat. And she laughed, softly, in that cloud of overwhelming sweetness.
Time troubled her no more. She looked as young as she had been when the hard blue light of the supernova shone down on them to end their honeymoon. Her fine skin was pink from lotions and massage. Her dark hair had been washed to a golden blond. Her brows were arched too thinly, her lips too crimson. She wore a sheer blue negligee that she once would have thought far too daring.
“Ruth—my dear!”
Her staring eyes were wide and strangely vacant. She was still holding one of the spongy blocks, with a child’s clutching awkwardness, in both her red-nailed hands. She spoke to him at last, with a child’s soft and solemn voice.
“Hello,” she said. “Who are you?”
The black impact of terror struck Claypool dumb.
But she knew him. The soft block fell out of her hands, and bounded silently across the elastic floor. The humanoid moved instantly to pick it up and hand it back, but she ignored it. She sat staring, her dark eyes big with effort.
“You’re Webb,” she whispered at last.
Claypool started quickly toward her, holding his breath against that penetrating sweetness. The dim pathos of her altered voice blinded him with tears, and he trembled with a sudden stark hatred for the humanoid beside her.
“Dear Ruth!” he cried brokenly. “What have they done to you?”
Her staring eyes had slowly lit with a dim and wistful gladness, and now her red mouth quivered in a smile. Her round white arms reached out, in a gesture of childish eagerness. And then she must have sensed his fear.
“They don’t hurt us,” she lisped. “They’re our friend’s.”
Claypool checked himself, for her movement toward him had overturned her tower of blocks. Her round baby-eyes saw the damage, and her red woman’s mouth thrust out in a petulant baby-pout.
“Let us help you, Mrs. Claypool.”
The deft little humanoid gathered up the fallen blocks, and she began building them up again. Her dark eyes turned grave once more, absorbed. Her scarlet mouth smiled wide with pleasure, and Claypool heard a happy baby-chuckle.
She had forgotten him.
X.
Claypool’s knees were weak, and he could scarcely see. He turned away from Ruth, and stumbled back into that splendid hall which was a gallery of windows on many worlds, and waited for the humanoid to close the sliding door. He caught a deep breath of unscented air, and whispered bitterly:
“What have you done to my wife?”
“We have merely made her happy,” the machine droned cheerfully. “We have taken all her cares.”
“And her memory!”
“Forgetfulness is the key to human happiness,” whined, the suave machine. “Our new drug, euphoride, has removed her fear of age, and it will also protect her from the effects of time. Euphoride stops all the corrosion of stress and effort, and it triples the brief life expectancy of human beings.”
“Maybe!” Claypool blinked incredulously. “Did she ask for it.”
“No request was necessary.”
“I won’t have it!” Claypool was cold and gasping with his anger. “I want you to restore her mind—if you can.”
“Her mind is not injured,” the machine assured him brightly. “The drug merely protects her from her memories and her fears. She has no need of memory now, for we can shield her from every want and harm and human folly.”
“I won’t allow it!” The man’s voice was vehemently shrill. He was quivering with hot emotion, his stringy fists unconsciously clenched. “You’ve got to bring her back!”
Trembling antagonism swept him close to the black machine.
“We acted under the Prime Directive.” Blind and motionless, the humanoid softly murmured its sweet reply. “We have removed her worries, and made her happy. If the situation distresses you too much, sir, then it may be necessary for you to take euphoride, also.”
For an instant he was stunned. The words had echoed in his mind like silver music before he ever grasped their sense. Then a savage fury fell upon him. The bald egg-shape of that black plastic head was close before him, and his quivering fist already knotted. Spurred to unthinking madness, he struck at it.
That blank steel stare saw nothing, and the intent serenity of that narrow face reflected no emotion. But the oval head moved slightly. His whipping fist slipped past, and the reckless force of his lunge hurled him forward.
He tripped on the foot of the machine, and stumbled toward the glowing wall. He might have fallen, but the humanoid moved quickly to catch his arms and set him on his feet again. It glided back from him, and he stood gasping.
He was dismayed at its effortless, incredible agility, and frightened by the feel of limitless strength in its warm plastic hands. Blood drummed loud in his ears. Faintly, far away, he heard its mellow, silver voice:
“That is useless, sir. Many men have attacked us, and none has ever won. Human bodies are too weak, and human minds too slow.”
Gulping convulsively, Claypool stumbled back from it. It stood darkly beautiful and calmly kind as ever, but all his wrath had chilled into shivering terror.
“I. . . I didn’t mean to hit you!” he stammered desperately. “It was just . . . just the shock.” He tried to get his breath, and flinched from a trailing hint of Sweet Delirium. “I know I’ll soon be happy enough, and I don’t need your drug.”
The machine stood impassively serene.
“That decision is our responsibility, but we shall try to help you find happiness, without the aid of euphoride.”
He trembled with unbelieving relief.
“Then you won’t . . . won’t punish me?”
“Our function is not to punish men, but merely to aid them.”
Claypool stepped back again, voiceless with appalled speculation. The black and shining thing before him was utterly benign, and unspeakably dreadful. It was the science he had always loved, evolved to infinity. It was the ultimate machine, the final mechanical god—created too perfect by imperfect man. Claypool was numbed with an unholy dread, and he trembled in blasphemous rebellion.
For it had to be destroyed.
He shuddered in its awful presence, for no angry god of arbitrary wrath had ever been more terrible. The yellow-branded words on its breast mocked him with the humane promise of the Prime Directive. Its very benevolence gave it a baffling strength, but it had to be crushed.
Breathing too fast and too loud in the solemn hush of that long splendid hall, Claypool backed away again. A cold numbness slowed him. Again he caught that bitter synthetic reek, tinged with Sweet Delirium and suddenly suffocating. His stomach felt uneasy and he wanted to sit down.
“I’ll be all right.” He gave the watchful humanoid a sickly grin. “All I need is time to think.”
That was it. He must think how to reach the old search building and make his way down to the secret vault of Project Thunderbolt. He must find a chance to press a button there, to launch a missile against Wing IV.
For the humanoids had to be stopped.
Trying to hide that sudden cold resolve, Claypool turned and walked uncertainly toward a shining niche. The machine followed, half a step behind his elbow, noiseless and inevitable as his shadow.
He glanced back at it, taut with a baffled fury. He wanted to crush and shatter that polished, proudly tilted oval head, but he made his narrowed eyes turn away. He tried to relax his jerking muscles, and stared into the niche.
The bright, tridimensional picture was a window on wide desolation. On a limitless waste of rippled red sand, huge eroded boulders crouched like monstrous sleeping saurians of dark stone. But Claypool scarcely saw them, for his mind wrestled with closer terrors.
Now he understood that blazing savagery of hatred in the hard blue eyes of White. For he saw that the smothering benevolence of these machines would doom the whole race to a kind of passive, prenatal existence, to a dim gray hell where every value of life was suavely denied.
Now he shared White’s fanatic purpose, and suddenly he saw the reason for White’s warning. That had puzzled him, because the clairvoyant Overstreet must already have foreseen the coming of the humanoids. But the warning, he saw, had saved Project Thunderbolt—and now the time had come to use it.
He stared into the niche, trying to feign a casual interest in those tortured demons of black stone, sleeping. He tried to keep his face relaxed, tried to slow his noisy breathing, desperately tried to drive his mind to useful planning.
He saw that he must have help. Alone, there was little hope that he could reach the vault. He must have aid to plan some ruse, to shake off his keepers and stand them off until he could press a firing key. But who was left to help him?
