Leigh Brackett's Captain Future, page 7
The little repeller reached out its keening sonic vibrations and caught at the Harpers’ terrible singing, like a claw.
It clawed and twisted and broke that singing. It broke it, by its subtle sonic interference, into shrieking dissonances.
Simon strode forward, toward the throne and toward Taras. And now into the eyes of Taras had come a deadly doubt.
The Harpers, wild and frightened now, strove against the keening sound that broke their song into hideous discord. The shuddering sonic struggle raged, much of it far above the level of hearing, and Simon felt his body plucked and shaken by terrible vibrations.
He staggered, but he went on. The faces of Taras and the others were contorted by pain. The king had fainted on his throne.
Storm of shattered harmonies, of splintered sound, shrieked like the very voice of madness around the throne. Simon, his mind darkening, knew that he could endure no more...
And suddenly it was over. Beaten, exhausted, the Harpers stilled the wild vibration of their membranes. Utterly silent, they remained motionless in the hands of their captors, their soft eyes glazed with hopeless terror.
Simon laughed. He swayed a little on his feet and said to Taras, “My weapon is stronger than yours!”
Taras dropped the Harper. It crawled away and hid itself beneath the throne. Taras whispered, “Then we must have it from you, Earthman!”
He sprang toward Simon. On his heels came the others, mad with the bitter fury of defeat when they had been so sure of victory.
Simon snatched out the audio-disc and raised it to his lips, pressing its button and crying out the one word, “Hurry!”
He felt that it was too late. But not until now, not until this moment when fear conquered the force of tradition, could Curt and Otho have entered this forbidden place without provoking the very outbreak that must be prevented.
SIMON went down beneath his attackers’ rush. As he went down, he saw that the councilors who had fled were running back to help him. He heard their voices shouting, and he saw the boy Dion among them.
Something struck cruelly against his head, and there was a crushing weight upon him. Someone screamed, and he caught the bright sharp flash of darts through the torchlight.
He tried to rise, but he could not. He was near unconsciousness, aware only of a confusion of movement and ugly sounds. He smelled blood, and he knew pain.
He must have moved, for he found himself on his hands and knees, looking down into the face of Dion. The shank of a copper dart stood out from the boy’s breast, and there was a streak of red across the golden skin. His eyes met Simon’s, in a dazed, wondering look. He whispered uncertainly:
“Father!”
He crept into Simon’s arms. Simon held him, and Dion murmured once more and then sighed. Simon continued to hold him, though the boy had become very heavy and his eyes looked blankly now into nothingness.
It came to Simon that the hall had grown quiet. A voice spoke to him. He lifted his head and saw Curt standing over him, and Otho, both staring at him anxiously. He could not see them clearly. He said, “The boy thought I was his father. He clung to me and called me Father as he died.”
Otho took Dion’s body and laid it gently on the stones.
Curt said, “It’s all over, Simon. We got here in time, and it’s all right.”
Simon rose. Taras and his men were dead. Those who had tried to foster hatred were gone, and not ever again would Harpers be brought into Moneb. That was what the pale, shaken councilors around him were telling him.
He could not hear them clearly. Not so clearly, somehow, as the fading whisper of a dying boy.
He turned and walked out of the council hall, onto the steps. It was dark now. There were torches flaring, and the wind blew cold, and he was very tired.
Curt stood beside him. Simon said, “I will go back to the ship.”
He saw the question in Curt’s eyes, the question that he did not quite dare to ask.
Heartsick, Simon spoke the lines that a Chinese poet had written long ago.
“ ‘Now I know, that the ties of flesh and blood only bind us to a load of grief and sorrow.’ ”
He shook his head. “I will return to what I was. I could not bear the agony of a second human life — no!”
Curt did not answer. He took Simon’s arm and they walked together across the court.
Behind them Otho came, carrying gently three small creatures of silver and rose-pearl, who began now to sound ripples of muted music, faint but hopeful at first, then soaring swiftly to a gladness of prisoners newly freed.
They buried the body of John Keogh in the clearing where he had died, and the boy Dion lay beside him. Over them, Curt and Grag and Otho built a cairn of stones with Harker’s help.
From the shadows, Simon Wright watched, a small square shape of metal hovering on silent beams, again a living brain severed forever from human form.
It was done, and they parted from Harker and went down through the great booming lichens toward the ship. Curt and the robot and android paused and looked back at the tall cairn towering lonely against the stars.
But Simon did not look back.
Pardon My Iron Nerves
CHAPTER I
Metal Man
I DIDN’T want to do it. I, Grag, am not given to talking about myself. When Curt Newton suggested that I write up this particular adventure for the casebook in which he records our doings I refused at first.
I said, “No, Curt, I’d rather not. You know I’m not one to brag about my own exploits.”
“I know that,” he said. “But since it was you who where chiefly concerned in this business with the Machs, and since you’re the only one who knows all the details you should write the report on it.”
Well, I had to agree. After all, Curt — Captain Future — depends on me more than on any of the other Futuremen. It’s because we think alike, I guess.
Of course Simon Wright was human himself once — long ago before his brain was transferred into the artificial serum-case that is now his “body”. But there’s something a little remote about Simon even to Curt.
As for Otho, the other Futureman — well, being an android or artificial man, Otho looks human. But that’s as far as it goes. Otho just doesn’t think the way we do.
I’ll admit that I, Grag, don’t look so much like other people. I’m a metal man, seven feet high. Otho calls me a robot but that’s ridiculous — he merely does it because he’s jealous of me.
I’ve always been sorry for Otho. For his limitations aren’t his own fault.
You see, neither Otho nor I was born. We were made, created by the science of Roger Newton, Curt’s father, and of Simon.
In their hidden laboratory on the Moon — the same Moon-laboratory that we Futuremen now call home — they used their scientific skill to create living beings.
I, Grag, was their first and supreme creation. They made me of enduring metal, powered by atomic generators that give my metal limbs immense strength. I am stronger than twenty men together. My photo-electric eyes can see better and my audio-circuit ears can hear better.
And my metal brain is just as superior in its own way. It contains millions of electronic synaptic circuits. That’s why I can think and act so swiftly.
I can still remember the look of awe on the faces of my creators when they observed the quickness with which I learned.
I remember overhearing Roger Newton tell Simon, “Grag is a great creation in his way. But we’ll try a different form, next time.”
Simon agreed. “We don’t want to create another one like him!”
OBVIOUSLY they were a bit frightened by the awesome intelligence and power they had created in me! Naturally they felt that a few more like me would make all other living creatures obsolete!
That is why, when they created a second artificial being, they ran no danger of creating another super-being like myself but instead chose the android form for Otho because they wanted to make sure he would have only a limited intelligence.
When Roger Newton and his young wife died so tragically it was we Futuremen — Simon and Otho and I — who took care of little Curtis and reared him to mankind.
I have to admit that I taught Curt most of what he learned. Otho was too feather-headed to teach anyone and Simon too severe and impatient. Of course they wouldn’t let me spank Curtis, for my metal hand would have crushed him. But I was his chief tutor and guide.
And when Curt grew up and started roving, winning the nickname of Captain Future, he naturally leaned more on me than on the others. Many a time my resourcefulness saved the day when his recklessness had got us into trouble. In fact I’ve seldom let him go anywhere without me.
But on the particular day when this business of the Machs really started I was on my own.
We had come to Earth so that Curt might consult a certain bureau of the Solar System Government. That gave me a chance I’d been waiting for and I took it.
I said, “I’d like to go into New York while you’re holding your conference here at Government Center, Curt.”
He stared at me. “Whatever for, Grag?”
“He probably wants to get his rivets tightened,” put in Otho.
That’s Otho’s way of showing his petty jealousy of me — always playing upon the fact that I’m made of metal. I simply ignored him with calm dignity, as I always do.
“Just a little private business,” I told Curt. “I won’t be long.”
He said, “Well, you’ll startle the people a little but everyone knows about Grag the Futureman so I guess they won’t be too surprised. Go ahead, but be back by ten for we’re going back to the Moon then.”
I left them and went to the tubeway station. It was a rush-hour and the tube-cars were crowded.
I created a mild sensation in the station. Naturally, everyone had heard of me and of the things I had done, with the help of Curt and the others. I heard them whispering my name in the train.
However I was too engrossed in my own thoughts to pay attention to them. The errand upon which I was going was a serious one.
I hadn’t told Curt about it lest he worry. But the fact is that I was concerned about my health.
Of course Otho would have laughed and sneered, “How can a metal man seven feet high get sick?”
But it wasn’t bodily sickness that worried me. My problem was a psychological one.
I’ve always had a delicate, sensitive kind of mind. I guess it’s because my metal brain is just too brilliant. And lately I’d been worrying a little about it.
It began when I happened to see a televisor-play about a man losing his mind. It showed how he neglected his complexes until finally he went crazy.
“This could happen to you!” the announcer had said. “Tune in next week for another thrilling psychological drama, presented by the Sunshine Company on their Happiness Hour!”
His words struck me. “This could happen to you!” I began to think. I had had a feeling of depression lately — I was sure of it. Probably I had complexes from overworking my brain too much. The more I thought about it the more I felt I’d better see a specialist before I ended up the same way.
I had already looked up the address of an eminent psychoanalyst and I got off at the right station and walked to his office.
New York was used to strangers — Martians, Venusians and what-not from all the planets. But they turned to look at me. I paid no attention to their staring but strode majestically on.
In Doctor Perker’s office there was a pretty girl receptionist and a half-dozen people sitting waiting.
The receptionist didn’t at first look up from her writing as she asked, “Do you wish to —”
She looked up, then, and her jaw fell and she gulped. I had forgotten that to anyone unused to me the sudden entrance of a colossal metal man would be a little upsetting.
I turned my photo-electric eyes reassuringly upon her and told her, “Yes, I want to see Doctor Perker as soon as I can. My name is Grag.”
She shrank away a little. “Do you mind repeating the name?”
I did and she said shakily, “If you could come back next week?”
“No, I’ll wait,” I said.
I went over to a corner and stood there, feeling a little depressed and worried about the coming interview.
The people who had been waiting to see the psychoanalyst were all staring at me. They certainly didn’t look well — they were all pale and trembling and when I swiveled my head around to look at them one of them uttered a cry and the others jumped.
One by one they got up and slunk out of the office. Presently a patient came from the inner office. He looked at me and then he too went hastily out.
“Doctor Perker will see you now, Mr. Grag,” the girl murmured.
I stalked into the inner office. Doctor Perker was a wispy little man, polishing his spectacles when I entered.
“Well, Mr. Grag, what’s the trouble?” he said cheerfully, staring at me myopically as he polished. “You’re a mighty husky young fellow to be seeing a doctor. You look like a football player.”
“No, I never played football but once,” I told him. “It was on Mars. They put me out of the game, because I knocked down the goal-posts.”
DOCTOR PERKER hastily laid down his glasses and fumbled at the hearing-aid he wore. “Blasted thing amplifies too loud now and then!”
He reached for his glasses. “Now you were saying Mr. Grag?”
“It’s my subconscious,” I told him. “I think I’ve got complexes.”
He put his spectacles on and stared at me. He gulped and then he said, “Huh?”
“Complexes. I get fits of depression. I’m afraid of what they’ll lead to. A person has to be careful of the mind.”
The doctor had sat down suddenly, in his chair. He swallowed a couple of times and then said, “Grag? Then you’re that Futureman, the robot who —”
“I don’t like people calling me a robot,” I said indignantly.
A glass chandelier shivered and fell and Doctor Perker hastily turned his hearing-aid farther down.
“Please, please, not so loud,” he whispered. “The plaster will be next and they’re very particular in this building.”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “My loudspeaker voice is pretty strong.”
“About your complexes,” he said huskily. “Perhaps, Mr. Grag, rather than a psychoanalyst, a good mechanic?”
“No!” I told him. “I’ve got a human mind, and I need a human psychologist to help me. After all, I don’t want to go on until I’m crazy.”
“No indeed,” he gulped. “A crazy ro — er — person like you is awful to think about. We’ll see what we can do for you, Mr. Grag.”
He still seemed pretty shaky and uncertain but he came up to me. “In matters like this physical condition is important,” he said. “Tell me, do you eat well?”
“To tell the truth, doctor, my appetite has fallen off lately,” I admitted. “I consume only two-thirds as much copper as I used to.”
He goggled at me. “Copper?”
“Of course — I take copper to keep my atomic generators going,” I said impatiently, tapping the little fuel-plate in my breast.
“Oh, of course,” he said, gulping again. “But have you slept well in recent weeks?”
“In recent weeks I haven’t slept at all — not a minute,” I told him.
“Ah, now we’re getting somewhere,” he said. “How long have you had this insomnia condition?”
“Why, ever since I was made,” I told him. “I never sleep.”
He was beginning to look upset again. “Well, after all, it’s the mind we’re interested in,” he said. “If you have complexes it’s because there’s something in your subconscious, festering away —”
“Wouldn’t it rust rather than fester?” I suggested.
“Well, rusting then,” he said. “Anyway, whatever it is we’ll have it out! Suppose you lie down on the couch.”
It was a big comfortable-looking couch. I lay down on it. It promptly collapsed under me.
I felt a little chagrined and told him, “Perhaps I should have told you that I weigh a little more than a ton.”
“Perhaps you should have,” he said irritably. “Never mind. Just lie down and talk to me — tell me whatever comes into your mind. Memories, dreams, half-forgotten fears — they’re all important!”
I thought for a little while, trying to remember anything that would help.
“Well,” I said, “I remember that when I was just a young robot, only a few weeks old, I put some uranium into my fuel-chamber instead of copper to see what would happen.”
“What happened?” he asked eagerly.
“My overload fuses blew out,” I told him. “Simon fixed them and warned me never to take anything but copper in the future.”
Doctor Perker looked baffled. He was obviously puzzled by the complexity of my problem.
“And when Otho was made,” I continued, “I tried to be like a big brother to him because he was so ignorant. But he jeered at me and called me robot! It hurt me, deep inside, doctor. I could feel my relays click over when he called me that.
“Other ignorant people have called me robot sometimes. It’s wounded my sub-conscious. It’s what’s given me an inferiority complex, like the man in the tele-drama.”
“A metal man seven feet high with an inferiority complex?” said Doctor Perker. “Oh, no!”
I saw that he was trying to conceal from me the gravity of my condition. I wouldn’t have that. I was brave enough to take it.
I told him so. I got up from the couch and told him emphatically, “I do so have an inferiority complex!”
He saw that he couldn’t fool me. He cringed a little.
“Please, Mr. Grag — not so loud!” he begged. “If you say you have an inferiority complex — why, you have.”
“What shall I do about it?” I asked. “Should I take an extended course of analysis from you?”
“No, no, not that!” he said hurriedly. “To get rid of your — er — complex you ought to get away from people for awhile. That’s it! You should stay away from other people, especially from crowded places like New York.”
