Sense of Wonder: A Century of Science Fiction (37 page)

FABRY: The Robots are great on punctuality. Read it, Domin.

DOMIN: (reads handbill)

“Robots throughout the world: We, the first international organization of Rossum’s Universal Robots, proclaim man as our enemy, and an outlaw in the universe.” Good heavens, who taught them these phrases?

DR. GALL: Go on.

DOMIN: They say they are more highly developed than man, stronger and more intelligent. That man’s their parasite. Why, it’s absurd.

FABRY: Read the third paragraph.

DOMIN: “Robots throughout the world, we command you to kill all mankind. Spare no men. Spare no women. Save factories, railways, machinery, mines, and raw materials. Destroy the rest. Then return to work. Work must not be stopped.”

DR. GALL: That’s ghastly!

HALLEMEIER: The devils!

DOMIN: “These orders are to be carried out as soon as received.” Then come detailed instructions. Is this actually being done, Fabry?

FABRY: Evidently.

BUSMAN rushes in.

BUSMAN: Well, boys, I suppose you’ve heard the glad news.

DOMIN: Quick—on board the Ultimus.

BUSMAN: Wait, Harry, wait. There’s no hurry. My word, that was a sprint!

DOMIN: Why wait?

BUSMAN: Because it’s no good, my boy. The Robots are already on board the Ultimus.

DR. GALL: That’s ugly.

DOMIN: Fabry, telephone the electrical works.

BUSMAN: Fabry, my boy, don’t. The wire has been cut.

DOMIN: (inspecting his revolver)

Well, then, I’ll go.

BUSMAN: Where?

DOMIN: To the electrical works. There are some people still there. I’ll bring them across.

BUSMAN: Better not try it.

DOMIN: Why?

BUSMAN: Because I’m very much afraid we are surrounded.

DR. GALL: Surrounded?

(Runs to window)

I rather think you’re right.

HALLEMEIER: By Jove, that’s deuced quick work.

HELENA runs in from the library.

HELENA: Harry, what’s this?

DOMIN: Where did you get it?

HELENA: (points to the manifesto of the Robots, which she

has in her hand)

The Robots in the kitchen!

DOMIN: Where are the ones that brought it?

HELENA: They’re gathered round the house.

The factory whistle blows.

BUSMAN: Noon?

DOMIN: (looking at his watch)

That’s not noon yet. That must be—that’s—

HELENA: What?

DOMIN: The Robots’ signal! The attack!

GALL, HALLEMEIER, and FABRY close and fasten the iron shutters outside the windows, darkening the room. The whistle is still blowing as the curtain falls.

END OF ACT TWO

INTERVAL

ACT III

Helena’s drawing room as before.

DOMIN comes into the room. DR. GALL is looking out of the window, through closed shutters. ALQUIST is seated down right.

DOMIN: Any more of them?

DR. GALL: Yes. There standing like a wall, beyond the garden railing. Why are they so quiet? It’s monstrous to be besieged with silence.

DOMIN: I should like to know what they are waiting for. They must make a start any minute now. If they lean against the railing they’ll snap it like a match.

DR. GALL: They aren’t armed.

DOMIN: We couldn’t hold our own for five minutes. Man alive, they’d overwhelm us like an avalanche. Why don’t they make a rush for it? I say—

DR. GALL: Well?

DOMIN: I’d like to know what would become of us in the next ten minutes. They’ve got us in a vise. We’re done for, Gall.

Pause.

DR. GALL: You know, we made one serious mistake.

DOMIN: What?

DR. GALL: We made the Robots’ faces too much alike. A hundred thousand faces all alike, all facing this way. A hundred thousand expressionless bubbles. It’s like a nightmare.

DOMIN: You think if they’d been different—

DR. GALL: It wouldn’t have been such an awful sight!

DOMIN: (looking through a telescope toward the harbor)

I’d like to know what they’re unloading from the Amelia.

DR. GALL: Not firearms.

FABRY and HALLEMEIER rush into the room carrying electric cables.

FABRY: All right, Hallemeier, lay down that wire.

HALLEMEIER: That was a bit of work. What’s the news?

DR. GALL: We’re completely surrounded.

HALLEMEIER: We’ve barricaded the passage and the stairs. Any water here?

(Drinks)

God, what swarms of them! I don’t like the looks of them, Domin. There’s a feeling of death about it all.

FABRY: Ready!

DR. GALL: What’s that wire for, Fabry?

FABRY: The electrical installation. Now we can run the current all along the garden railing whenever we like. If any one touches it he’ll know it. We’ve still got some people there anyhow.

DR. GALL: Where?

FABRY: In the electrical works. At least I hope so.

(Goes to lamp on table behind sofa and turns on lamp)

Ah, they’re there, and they’re working.

(Puts out lamp)

So long as that’ll burn we’re all right.

HALLEMEIER: The barricades are all right, too, Fabry.

FABRY: Your barricades! I can put twelve hundred volts into that railing.

DOMIN: Where’s Busman?

FABRY: Downstairs in the office. He’s working out some calculations. I’ve called him. We must have a conference.

HELENA is heard playing the piano in the library.

HALLEMEIER goes to the door and stands, listening.

ALQUIST: Thank God, Madame Helena can still play.

BUSMAN enters, carrying the ledgers.

FABRY: Look out, Bus, look out for the wires.

DR. GALL: What’s that you’re carrying?

BUSMAN: (going to table)

The ledgers, my boy! I’d like to wind up the accounts before—before—well, this time I shan’t wait till the new year to strike a balance. What’s up?

(Goes to the window)

Absolutely quiet.

DR. GALL: Can’t you see anything?

BUSMAN: Nothing but blue—blue everywhere.

DR. GALL: That’s the Robots.

BUSMAN sits down at the table and opens the ledgers.

DOMIN: The Robots are unloading firearms from the Amelia.

BUSMAN: Well, what of it? How can I stop them?

DOMIN: We can’t stop them.

BUSMAN: Then let me go on with my accounts.

(Goes on with his work)

DOMIN: (picking up telescope and looking into the harbor)

Good God, the Ultimus has trained her guns on us!

DR. GALL: Who’s done
that
?

DOMIN: The Robots on board.

FABRY: H’m, then, of course, then—then, that’s the end of us.

DR. GALL: You mean?

FABRY: The Robots are practised marksmen.

DOMIN: Yes. It’s inevitable.

Pause.

DR. GALL: It was criminal of old Europe to teach the Robots to fight. Damn them. Couldn’t they have given us a rest with their politics? It was a crime to make soldiers of them.

ALQUIST: It was a crime to make Robots.

DOMIN: What?

ALQUIST: It was a crime to make Robots.

DOMIN: No, Alquist, I don’t regret that even today.

ALQUIST: Not even today?

DOMIN: Not even today, the last day of civilization. It was a colossal achievement.

BUSMAN:
(sotto voce)

Three hundred sixty million.

DOMIN: Alquist, this is our last hour. We are already speaking half in the other world. It was not an evil dream to shatter the servitude of labor—the dreadful and humiliating labor that man had to undergo. Work was too hard. Life was too hard. And to overcome that—

ALQUIST: Was not what the two Rossums dreamed of. Old Rossum only thought of his God-less tricks and the young one of his milliards. And that’s not what your R.!U.!R. shareholders dream of either. They dream of dividends, and their dividends are the ruin of mankind.

DOMIN: To hell with your dividends. Do you suppose I’d have done an hour’s work for them? It was for myself that I worked, for my own satisfaction. I wanted man to become the master, so that he shouldn’t live merely for a crust of bread. I wanted not a single soul to be broken by other people’s machinery. I wanted nothing, nothing, nothing to be left of this appalling social structure. I’m revolted by poverty. I wanted a new generation. I wanted—I thought—

ALQUIST: What?

DOMIN: I wanted to turn the whole of mankind into an aristocracy of the world. An aristocracy nourished by milliards of mechanical slaves. Unrestricted, free and consummated in man. And maybe more than man.

ALQUIST: Super-man?

DOMIN: Yes. Oh, only to have a hundred years of time! Another hundred years for the future of mankind.

BUSMAN:
(sotto voce)

Carried forward, four hundred and twenty millions.

The music stops.

HALLEMEIER: What a fine thing music is! We ought to have gone in for that before.

FABRY: Gone in for what?

HALLEMEIER: Beauty, lovely things. What a lot of lovely things there are! The world was wonderful and we—we here—tell me, what enjoyment did we have?

BUSMAN: (sotto voce)

Five hundred and twenty millions.

HALLEMEIER: (at the window)

Life was a big thing. Life was—Fabry, switch the current into that railing.

FABRY: Why?

HALLEMEIER: They’re grabbing hold of it.

DR. GALL: Connect it up.

HALLEMEIER: Fine! That’s doubled them up! Two, three, four killed.

DR. GALL: They’re retreating!

HALLEMEIER: Five killed!

DR. GALL: The first encounter!

HALLEMEIER: They’re charred to cinders, my boy. Who says we must give in?

DOMIN: (wiping his forehead)

Perhaps we’ve been killed these hundred years and are only ghosts. It’s as if I had been through all this before; as if I’d already had a mortal wound here in the throat. And you, Fabry, had once been shot in the head. And you, Gall, torn limb from limb. And Hallemeier knifed.

HALLEMEIER: Fancy me being knifed.

(Pause)

Why are you so quiet, you fools? Speak can’t you?

ALQUIST: And who is to blame for all this?

HALLEMEIER: Nobody is to blame except the Robots.

ALQUIST: No, it is we who are to blame. You, Domin, myself, all of us. For our own selfish ends, for profit, for progress, we have destroyed mankind. Now we’ll burst with all our greatness.

HALLEMEIER: Rubbish, man. Mankind can’t be wiped out so easily.

ALQUIST: It’s our fault. It’s our fault.

DR. GALL: No! I’m to blame for this, for everything that’s happened.

FABRY: You, Gall?

DR. GALL: I changed the Robots.

BUSMAN: What’s that?

DR. GALL: I changed the character of the Robots. I changed the way of making them. Just a few details about their bodies. Chiefly—chiefly, their—their irritability.

HALLEMEIER: Damn it, why?

BUSMAN: What did you do it for?

FABRY: Why didn’t you say anything?

DR. GALL: I did it in secret. I was transforming them into human beings. In certain respects they’re already above us. They’re stronger than we are.

FABRY: And what’s that got to do with the revolt of the Robots?

DR. GALL: Everything, in my opinion. They’ve ceased to be machines. They’re already aware of their superiority, and they hate us. They hate all that is human.