The Best Of Lester Del Rey Part 7

"Eight column periodic table," Slim told Fats. "At least, it looks like one.

Get me the handbook, will you? Ummm. Under sodium, No. 29. Sodium, pota.s.sium, copper. And it's No. 29, all right. That it, Lhin?"

Lhin's eyes were blazing with triumph. Grace to the Great Ones. "Yes, it is copper. Perhaps you have some? Even a gram, perhaps?"

"Ten thousand grams, if you like. According to your notions, we're lousy with the stuff. Help yourself."

Fats cut in. "Sure, monkey, we got copper, if that's the stuff you've been yelling about. What'll you pay for it?"

"Pay?"

"Sure, give in return. We help you; you help us. That's fair, isn't it?"

It hadn't occurred to Lhin, but it did seem fair. But what had he to give? And then he realized what was in the man's mind. For the copper, he was to work, digging out and purifying the radioactives that gave warmth and light and life to the crater, so painfully brought into being when the place was first constructed, trans.m.u.ted to meet the special needs of the people who were to live there. And after him, his sons and their sons, mining and sweating for Earth, and being paid in barely enough copper to keep Earth supplied with laborers. Fats' mind filled again with dreams of the other Earth creature. For that, he would doom a race to life without pride or hope or accomplishment.

Lhin found no understanding in it. There were so many of those creatures on Earth-why should his enslavement be necessary? Nor was enslavement all.

Eventually, doom was as certain that way as the other, once Earth was glutted with the radioactives, or when the supply here dropped below the vital point, great as the reserve was. He shuddered under the decision forced upon him.

Slim's hand fell on his shoulder. "Fats has things slightly wrong, Lhin.Haven't you, Fats?"

There was something in Slim's hand, something Lhin knew dimly was a weapon.

The other man squirmed, but his grin remained.

"You're touched, Slim, soft. Maybe you believe all this junk about other races' equality, but you won't kill me for it. I'm standing pat-I'm not giving away my copper."

And suddenly Slim was grinning, too, and putting the weapon back. "Okay, don't. Lhin can have my copper. There's plenty on the s.h.i.+p in forms we can spare, and don't forget I own a quarter of it."

Fats' thoughts contained no answer to that. He mulled it over slowly, then shrugged. Slim was right enough about it, and could do as he wanted with his share. Anyhow- "Okay, have it your way. I'll help you pry it off wherever it is, or dig it out. How about that wire down hi the engine locker?"

Lhin stood silently watching them as they opened a small locker and rummaged through it, studying the engines and controls with half his mind, the other half quivering with ecstasy at the thought of copper-not just a handful, but all he could carry, in pure form, eas-fly turned into digestible sulphate with acids he had already prepared for his former attempt at collecting it. In a year, the crater would be populated again, teeming with life. Perhaps three or four hundred sons left, and as they multiplied, more and yet more.

A detail of the hookup he was studying brought that t part of his mind uppermost, and he tugged at Slim's ftrouser leg. "The . . . that ... is not good, is it?"

"Huh? No, it isn't, fella. That's what brought us here.

Why?"

"Then, without radioactives, I can pay. I will fix it."

A momentary doubt struck him. "That is to pay, is it not?"

Fats heaved a coil of wonderful-smelling wire out of the locker, wiped off sweat, and nodded. "That's to pay, all right, but you let those things alone.

They're bad enough, already, and maybe even Slim can't fix it."

"I can fix."

"Yeah. What school did you get your degree in electronics from? Two hundred feet in this coil, makes fifty for him. You gonna give it all to him, Slim?"

"Guess so." Slim was looking at Lhin doubtfully, only half-watching as the other measured and cut the wire. "Ever touched anything like that before, Lhin? Controls for the ion feed and injectors are pretty complicated in these s.h.i.+ps. What makes you think you can do it-unless your people had things like this and you studied the records."

Lhin fought for words as he tried to explain. His people had nothing like that-their atomics had worked from a different angle, since uranium was almost nonexistent on the moon, and they had used a direct application of it. But the principles were plain to him, even from what he could see outside; he could feel the way it worked in his head.

"I feel. When I first grew, I could fix that. It is the way I think, not the way I learn, though I have read all the records. For three hundred million of your years, my people have learned it-now I feel-it."

"Three hundred million years! I knew your race was old when you told me you were born talking and reading, but-galloping dinosaurs!"

"My people saw those things on your world, yes," Lhin a.s.sured him solemnly.

"Then I shall fix?"

Slim shook his head in confusion and handed over a tool kit without another word. "Three hundred million years, Fats, and during almost all that time they were further ahead than we are now. Figure that one out. When we were little crawling things living off dinosaur eggs, they were flitting from planet to planet-only I don't suppose they could stay very long; six tunes normal gravity for them. And now, just because they had to stay on a light world and their air losses made them gather here wherethings weren't normal, Lhin's all that's left."

"Yeah, and how does that make him a mechanic?" "Instinct. In the same amount of time, look at the instincts the animals picked up-what to eat, enemy smells, caring for their young ... He has an instinct for machinery; he doesn't know all about it, probably, but he can instinctively feel how a thing should work.1 Add to that the collection of science records he was showing me and the amount of reading he's probably done, and there should be almost nothing he couldn't do to a machine."

There wasn't much use hi arguing, Fats decided, as he watched what was happening. The monkey either fixed things or they never would leave now. Lhin had taken snips and disconnected the control box completely; now he was taking that to pieces, one thing at a time. With a curious deftness, he unhooked wires, lifted out tubes, and uncoupled transformers.

It seemed simple enough to him. They had converted energy from the atomic fuel, and they used certain forces to ionize matter, control the rate of ionization, feed the ions to the rocket tubes, and force them outward at high speed through helices. An elementary problem in applied electronics, to govern the rate and control the ionization forces.

With small quick hands he bent wires into coils, placed other coils hi relation, and coupled a tube to the combination. Around the whole, other coils and tubes took shape, then a long feeder connected to the pipe that carried the compound to be ionized, and bus bars to the energy intakes. The injectors that handled the feeding of ions were needlessly complicated, but he let them alone, since they were workable as they were. It had taken him less than fifteen minutes.

"It will work now. But use care when you first try it. Now it makes all work, not a little as it did before."

Slim inspected it. "That all? What about this pile of stuff you didn't use?"

"There was no need. It was very poor. Now it is good." As best he could he explained to Slim what happened when it was used now; before, it would have taken a well-trained technician to describe, even with the complicated words at his command. But what was there now was the product of a science that had gone beyond the stumbling complications of first attempts. Something was to be done, and was done, as simply as possible.

Slim's only puzzle was that it hadn't been done that way in the first place-a normal reaction, once the final simplification is reached. He nodded. .

"Good. Fats, this is the business. You'll get about 99.99 percent efficiency now, instead of the 20 percent maximum before. You're all right, Lhin."

Fats knew nothing of electronics, but it had sounded right as Lhin explained, and he made no comment. Instead, he headed for the control room. "Okay, we'll leave here, then. So long, monkey."

Slim gathered up the wire and handed it to Lhin, accompanying him to the air lock. On the ground, as the locks closed, the Moon man looked up and managed an Earth smile. "I shall open the doors above for you to go through. And you are paid, and all is fan:, not so? Then-so long, Slim. The Great Ones love you, that you have given my people back to me."

"Adios," Slim answered, and waved, just before the doors came shut. "Maybe we'll be back sometime and see how you make out."

Back in the cave, Lhin fondled the copper and waited for the sounds the rockets would make, filled with mixed emotions and uncertainties. The copper was pure ecstasy to him, but there were thoughts in Fats' mind which were not all clear. Well, he had the copper for generations to come; what happened to his people now rested on the laps of the Great Ones.

He stood outside the entrance, watching the now-steady rocket blast upward and away, carrying with it the fate of his race. If they told of the radioactives, slavery and extinction. If they remained silent, perhaps a return to former greatness, and pa.s.sage might be resumed to other planets, long deserted evenat the height of their progress; but now planets bearing life and intelligence instead of mere jungles. Perhaps, in time, and with materials bought from other worlds with ancient knowledge, even a solution that would let them restore their world to its ancient glory, as they had dreamed before hopelessness and the dark wings of a race's night had settled over them.

As he watched, the rocket spiraled directly above him, cutting the light off and on with a shadow like the beat of wings from the mists of antiquity, when winged life had filled the air of the moon. An omen, perhaps, those sable wings that reached up and pa.s.sed through the roof as he released the slides, then went skimming out, leaving all clear behind. But whether a good omen or ill, he had not decided.

He carried the copper wire back to the nursery.

And on the s.h.i.+p, Slim watched Fats wiggle and try to think, and there was amus.e.m.e.nt on his face. "Well, was he good? As good as any human, perhaps?"

"Yeah. All right, better. I'll admit anything you want. He's as good as I am- maybe he's better. That satisfy you?"

"No." Slim was beating the iron while it was hot. "What about those radioactives?"

Fats threw more power into the tubes, and gasped as the new force behind the rockets pushed him back into his seat. He eased up gently, staring straight ahead. Finally he shrugged and turned back to Slim.

"Okay, you win. The monkey keeps his freedom and I keep my lip b.u.t.toned.

Satisfied now?"

"Yeah." Slim was more than satisfied. To him, also, things seemed an omen of the future, and proof that idealism was not altogether folly. Some day the wings of dark prejudice and contempt for others might lift from all Earth's Empire, as they were lifting from Fats' mind. Perhaps not in his time, but eventually; and intelligence, not race, would rule.

"Well satisfied, Fats," he said. "And you don't need to worry about losing too much. We'll make all the money we can ever spend from the new principles of Lhin's hookup; I've thought of a dozen applications al- ready. What do you figure on doing with your share?" Fats grinned. "Be a d.a.m.ned fool. Help you start your propaganda again and; go around kissing Mars.h.i.+es and monkeys. Wonder what our little monkey's thinking?" Lhin wasn't thinking, then; he'd solved the riddle of the factors hi Fats' mind, and he knew what the decision would be. Now he was making copper sulphate, and seeing dawn come up where night had been too long. There's something beautiful about any dawn, and this was very lovely to him.

Into Thy Hands

SIMON AMES WAS old, and his face was bitter as only that of a confirmed idealist can be. Now a queer mixture of emotions crossed it momentarily, as he watched the workmen begin pouring cement to fill the small opening of the domelike structure, but his eyes returned again to the barely visible robot within.

"The last Ames' Model Ten," he said ruefully to his son. "And even then I couldn't put in full memory coils! Only the physical sciences here; biologicals hi the other male form, humanities in the female. I had to fall back on books and equipment to cover the rest. We're already totally converted to soldier robots, and no more humanoid experiments. . . . Dan, is there no conceivable way war can be avoided?"

The young Rocket Force captain shrugged, and his mouth twitched unhappily.

"None, Dad. They've fed thek people on the glories of carnage and loot so long they have to find some pretext to use their hordes of warrior robots."

"Mmm . . . The stupid, blind idiots!" The old man shuddered. "Dan, it sounds like old wives' fears, but this time it's true; unless we somehow avoid or win this war quickly, there'll be no one left to wage another. I've spent my lifeon robots; I know what they can do-and should never be made to do! Do you think I'd waste a fortune on these storehouses on a mere whim?"

"I'm not arguing, Dad. G.o.d knows, I feel the same!" Dan watched the workmen pour the last concrete, to leave no break in the twenty-foot thick walls.

"Well, at least if anyone does survive, you've done all you can for them. Now it's in the hands of G.o.d!"

Simon Ames nodded, but there was no satisfaction on his face as he turned back with his son. "All we could- and never enough! And G.o.d? I wouldn't even know to pray for the survival of which of the three-science, life, or culture. . .

." The words sighed into silence, and his eyes went back to the filled-in tunnel.

Behind them, the ugly dome hugged the ground while the rains of G.o.d and of man's destruction washed over it. Snow covered it and melted, and other things built up that no summer sun could disperse, until the ground was level with its top. The forest crept forward, and the seasons flicked by in unchanging changes that pyramided decade upon century. Inside, the s.h.i.+ning case of SA-10 waited immovably.

And at last the lightning struck, blasting through a tree, downward into the dome, to course through a cable, short-circuit a ruined timing switch, and spend itself on the ground below.

Above the robot, a cardinal burst into song, and he looked up, his stolid face somehow set in a look of wonder. For a moment, he listened, but the bird had flown away at the sight of his lumbering figure; With a tired little sigh, he went on, cras.h.i.+ng through the brush of the forest until he came back near the entrance to his cave.

The sun was bright above, and he studied it thoughtfully; the word he knew, and even the complex carbon-chain atomic breakdown that went on within it. But he did not know how he knew, or why.

For a second longer he stood there silently, then opened his mouth for a long wailing cry. "Adam! Adam, come forth!" But there were doubts in the oft- repeated call now and the pose of his head as he waited. And again only the busy sounds of the forest came back to him.

"Or G.o.d? G.o.d, do You hear me?"

But the answer was the same. A field mouse slipped out from among the gra.s.s and a hawk soared over the woods. The wind rustled among the trees, but there was no sign from the Creator. With a lingering backward look, he turned slowly to the tunnel he had made and wriggled back down it into his cave.

Inside, light still came from a single unbroken bulb, and he let his eyes wander from the jagged breach in the thick wall across to where some ancient blast had tossed crumpled concrete against the opposite side. Between lay only ruin and dirt. Once, apparently, that half had been filled with books and films, but now there were only rotted fragments of bindings and sc.r.a.ps of useless plastic tape mixed with broken gla.s.s in the filth of the floor.

Only on the side where he had been was the ruin less than complete. There stood the instruments of a small laboratory, many still useful, and he named them one by one, from the purring atomic generator to the projector and screen set up on one table.

Here, in his mind, were order and logic, and the world above had conformed to an understandable pattern. He alone seemed to be without purpose. How had he come here, and why had he no memory of himself? If there was no purpose, why was he sentient at all? The questions held no discoverable answers.

There were only the cryptic words on the sc.r.a.p of plastic tape preserved inside the projector. But what little of them was understandable was all he had; he snapped off the light and squatted down behind the projector, staring intently at the screen as he flicked the machine on.

There was a brief fragment of some dark swirling, and then dots and bright spheres, becoming suns and planets that spun out of nothing into a celestialpattern. "In the beginning," said a voice quietly, "G.o.d created the heavens and the earth." And the screen filled with that, and the beginnings of life.

"Symbolism?" the robot muttered. Geology and astronomy were part of his knowledge, at least; and yet, m a mystic beauty, this was true enough. Even the life forms above had fitted with those being created on the screen.

Then a new voice, not unlike his own in resonant power, filled the speaker.

"Let Us go down and create man in Our Image!" And a s.h.i.+fting mist of light that symbolized G.o.d appeared, shaping man from the dust of the ground and breathing life into him. Adam grew lonely, and Eve was made from his rib, to be shown Eden and tempted by the serpentine mist of darkness; and she tempted the weak Adam, until G.o.d discovered their sin and banished them. But the banishment ended in a blur of ruined film as the speaker went dead.

The robot shut it off, trying to read its meaning. It must concern him, since he alone was here to see it. And how could that be unless he were one of its characters? Not Eve or Satan, but perhaps Adam; but then G.o.d should have answered him. On the other hand, if he were G.o.d, then perhaps the record was unfulfilled and Adam not yet formed, so that no answer could be given.

He nodded slowly to himself. Why should he not have rested here with this film to remind him of his plan, while the world readied itself for Adam? And now, awake again, he must go forth and create man in his own image! But first, the danger of which the film had warned must be removed.

He straightened, determination coming into his steps as he squirmed purposefully upward. Outside the sun was still s.h.i.+ning, and he headed toward it into the grossly unkempt Eden forest. Now stealth came to him as he moved silently through the undergrowth, like a great metal wraith, with eyes that darted about and hands ready to snap forward at lightning speed.

And at last he saw it, curled up near a large rock. It was smaller than he had expected, a mere six feet of black, scaly suppleness, but the shape and forked tongue were unmistakable. He was on it with a blurr of motion and a cry of elation; and when he moved away, the lifeless object on the rock was forever past corrupting the most naive Eve.

The morning sun found the robot bent over what had once been a wild pig, a knife moving precisely in his hand. Delicately he opened the heart and manipulated it, studying the valve action. Life, he was deciding, was highly complex, and a momentary doubt struck him. It had seemed easy on the film! And at times he wondered why he should know the complex order of the heavens but nothing of this other creation of his.

But at last he buried the pig's remains, and settled down among the varicolored clays he had collected, his' fingers moving deftly as he rolled a white type into bones for the skeleton, followed by a red clay heart. The tiny nerves and blood vessels were beyond his means, but that could not be helped; and surely if he had created the gigantic sun from nothing, Adam could rise from the crudeness of his sculpturing.

The sun climbed nigher, and the details multiplied. Inside, the last organ was complete, including the grayish lump that was the brain, and he began the red sheathing of muscles. Here more thought was required to adapt what he had learned of the pig to the longer limbs and different structure of this new body; but his mind pushed grimly on with the mathematics involved, and at last it was finished.

Unconsciously he began a crooning imitation of the bird songs as his fingers molded the colored clays to hide the muscles and give smooth symmetry to the body. He had been forced to guess at the color, though the dark lips on the film had obviously been red from blood within them.

Twilight found him standing back, nodding approval of the work. It was a faithful copy of the film Adam, waiting only the breath of life; and that must come from him, be a part of the forces that flowed through his own metalnerves and brain.

Gently he fastened wires to the head and feet of the day body; then he threw back his chest plate to fasten the other ends to his generator terminals, willing the current out into the figure lying before him. Weakness flooded through him instantly, threatening to black out his consciousness, but he did not begrudge the energy. Steam was spurting up and covering the figure as a mist had covered Adam, but it slowly subsided, and he stopped the current, stealing a second for relief as the full current coursed back through him. Then softly he unhooked the wires and drew them back.

"Adam!" The command rang through the forest, vibrant with his urgency. "Adam, rise up! I, your creator, command it!"

But the figure lay still, and now he saw great cracks in it, while the n.o.ble smile had baked into a gaping leer. There was no sign of life! It was dead, as the ground from which it came.

He squatted over it, moaning, weaving from side to side, and his fingers tried to draw the ugly cracks together, only to cause greater ruin. At last he stood up, stamping his feet until all that was left was a varicolored smear on the rock. Still he stamped and moaned as he destroyed the symbol of his failure.

The moon mocked down at him with a wise and cynical face, and he howled at it in rage and anguish, to be answered by a lonely owl, querying his ident.i.ty.

A powerless G.o.d, or a G.o.dless Adam! Things had gone so well in the film as Adam rose from the dust of the ground. . . .

But the film was symbolism, and he had taken it literally! Of course he had failed. The pigs were not dust, but colloidal jelly complexes. And they knew more than he, for there had been little ones that proved they could somehow pa.s.s the breath of life along.