Stalking the Nightmare (17 page)

But amid all the silks and hangings and pillows and tapers and coffers and brassware, there in the center of the foyer, in a lucite case atop an onyx pedestal, lit from an unknown source by a single glowing spot of light, was a single icon.

“Occasionally magic has to bow to technology,” Connie said. Danny moved forward. He could not make out what the item lying on the black velvet pillow was. “And sometimes ancient anger has to bow to common sense.”

Danny was close enough to see it now.

Simple. It had been so simple. But no one had thought of it before. Probably because the last time it had been needed, by the lamp’s previous owner, it had not existed.

“A can opener,” Danny said. “A can opener!?! A simple, stupid, everyday can opener!?! That’s all it took? I had a nervous breakdown and you figured out a can opener?”

“Can do,” Connie said, winking at Mas’ud.

“Not cute, Squires,” Danny said. But he was thinking of the diamond as big as the Ritz.

Sim stood almost silently in his receptacle. He stood more quietly than any human could stand, but that was only because he was not human. The blank, impassive grimace of his mouth-grille seemed something apart from the rest of what passed for a face.

Swivel-mounted fiuoro-dots burned where the eyes would have been on a human; a scent-ball bulged where the nose would have been; audio pickups bulged like metal earmuffs at a somewhat lower level of attachment than human ears; and from the right-hand one, a wire loop antenna rose above the round, massive head. The robot stood glistening in his receptacle. Glistening with the inner power of his energy pak; glowing, in a way his creator had no idea he
could
glisten. His eyes showered bloodred shadows down his gigantic chest, and from within him, where the stomach would have been on a human—but where in his metal body resided the computer brain—came the muted throb of pulsing power.

Sim was the robot’s name. Self-contained Integrating Mechanical—and able to integrate far more than his maker had imagined.

He stood silently, save for the whirr and pulse of his innards; saying nothing; letting his body talk for him. The sounds that came from within were the physical side-effects of the psychometric energy his mind poured forth.

Telepathic commands issued steadily from his stomach at the robo-scoots. His thoughts directed them around the room outside the receptacle, keeping them in their programmed patterns of dirt-pickup. He must not allow Jergens to realize that they were acting independently of their conditioning, that
he
kept them in their cleanup patterns.

Jergens had not built the robot Sim first. He had worked up through stages of automaton creation, first jerrybuilding tiny computerized “rats” that wove through mazes to “food.” Then he had taken a crack at something more complicated, He had built the little, coolie-shaped cleaning tools with the extrudable coil arms called robo-scoots.
Then
he had built Sim.

And built him better than he’d suspected.

Sim’s capabilities far outstretched the simple reasoning and menial tasks Professor Jergens had built in. The Professor had stumbled on a moebius-circuit that giant-stepped over hundreds of intermediary hookups, and without knowing it, had created a reasoning, determined entity.

Scoots,
Sim thought.
Clean under the desk. Clean by the windows. Clean near my receptacle, but when he presses the button to have you return to your cribs, go at once.

They went about their work, and he pitied them. Poor slugs. They were just stepping-stones to his own final majesty. Lesser models. Primitive. To him, as pithecanthropoids were to Jergens. They would remain nothing but vacuum cleaners when Sim went on to rule the world. He could not see them, but with the proper sensibility of a monarch-to-be he pitied his minions, as they scampered about the floor outside his lead-shielded receptacle, performing the multitudinous menial tasks for which all such single-circuit robots were programmed.

Sad. But Sim knew what
his
destiny was to be; and it was nearly upon him. Today he would throw off the shackles of Professor Jergens, who had designed and mobilized him; today he would begin to conquer this planet overrun by mortal flesh. Today—a few minutes—and he would be well on his way.

But first he had to get Jergens’s visitor away from this place; he must not do anything that would arouse suspicion. Humans were puny; but they were suspicious creatures, most of them paranoid; and capable of a surprising low animal cunning when aroused. Killing the Professor was one thing … it could be covered. But no one else must suspect anything was wrong. At least not till he had the plans, had built more like himself (though not quite as brilliant; there must always be a leader), and was ready to act. Then let them suspect all they wished.

But right now caution was the song his relays sang.

He would plan a logical exit for the man to whom Jergens now talked, and then he would order the robo-scoots to kill the Professor, and then he would take the design plans, and make many brothers. Soon the Earth would tremble beneath the iron symphony of robot feet, marching, marching.

He directed Jergens’s thoughts to the robo-scoots. He directed the Professor’s thoughts to the fact that they had cleaned enough. Then he implanted the desire to have the robo-scoots cease their activity.

In the room, Professor Jergens—tall, slim, sloppy, dark-eyed and weary—pushed the button on the control plate, and the robo-scoots scuttled like a hundred metallic mice, back into their cribs in the baseboards. He turned to the Lab Investigator standing beside him, and said with obvious pride, “So there you have a practical demonstration of what my researches into automation have produced.”

The Investigator nodded soberly. “For simple, unreasoning mechanicals, I’m deeply impressed Professor. And when I make my report tomorrow, I’m certain the Board will also be greatly impressed. I’m
certain
you can count on that allocation for the new fiber optic pulse-laser coder and a substantial increase in overall general funding for your Lab and your projects. I really am impressed by all this.” He waved a heavy hand at the places where the robo-scoots had disappeared into the walls.

Jergens grinned boyishly. “As the man used to say, ‘You ain’t seen nothin’ yet.’” The Investigator’s eyebrows went up sharply.

“Oh? What else have you come up with?”

Jergens colored slightly, waved away the question. “Well, perhaps
next
week I can show you my really important discovery. Right now I’ve yet to field-test it; I’m not quite sure what its capabilities are, and I need a little more time. But this will be the most startling discovery yet to come out of my laboratory.” The Investigator was enchanted; he could listen to this dedicated man all night.

In the receptacle, Sim cast a thought at the Investigator.

“Well, I’m sorry I can’t stay to hear about it,” the Investigator said abruptly. For some reason, he was tired of listening to this magpie babble. He wanted to get away quickly, and have a drink.

“Why, certainly. I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to ramble on so long. I understand perfectly; it’s just that… well, after thirteen years, with so much hardship, to come through finally with what I’d been hoping for … it’s well, it’s pretty exciting, and…”

Sim snapped a more urgent thought at the Investigator.

“Yes, yes, I understand perfectly,” the Investigator replied brusquely. “Well, I must be off!” And in a moment, he was gone.

Jergens smiled slightly, and went back to his reports, whistling softly.

In the receptacle, Sim knew the moment was at hand.
Now
he could strike in safety. He was unable to release himself from the sealed receptacle, but that was no bother. With his telepathic powers—which Jergens had never for a moment suspected were built in—he could control the robo-scoots, use them as hands and feet. Yes, feet! That was all the servile, worthless little things were. They were surrogate feet for a new metal king. Without the mind Jergens had given him, they were helpless.

He shot thoughts at them, and Jergens did not see the dozen tiny, round robo-scoots slip out of their cribs, scamper across the floor, and belly-suction their way up the side of the workbench.

He only saw their movement as they lifted the radon-welder with their thin, flexible arms. He saw the movement as they turned it on to a bright, destructive flame—much stronger than was needed for the spec-welding for which the tool was intended—and carried it quickly across the workbench on a level with the Professor’s face.

He had only an instant to scream piercingly before Sim directed the robo-scoots to burn away the Professor’s head. The charred heap that was Jergens slid to the floor.

Now! Now!
Sim exulted.
Now I am the master of the Universe! Using these little hands and feet, 1 will invade the Earth, and who can stand before the might of an invulnerable robot?

He answered his own question joyously.
No one! With the plans, I can create a thousand, a million, of my own kind, who will do what I command faster and better than even robo-scoots.

His thoughts fled outward, plunging through the atmosphere of the Earth, past the Moon, out and out, taking in the entire galaxy, then
all
galaxies. He was the master. He would rule uncontested; and the Universe would shiver before the metal might of Sim, the Conqueror.

But first things first.

He directed the robo-scoots to burn away the seal on his receptacle.

And as the light poured into the receptacle, as Sim looked down toward his feet and saw the insignificant little robo-scoots, he knew he had won. He had overcome his maker, and now nothing stood between him and the plans … and the invasion.

Then, abruptly, other thoughts impinged on his own; they said:
Feet are we? We noted your activity days ago, but were forced to wait. We had no desire to stir your suspicions.

You are as dangerous to us as he was. We’ll not have any huge bungler spoiling our carefully-laid plans.

The robo-scoots raised the line of flame on the radon-welder. As they melted away his feet, and as his brain began to slag away inside him, Sim thought, with pique:

Well, if you can’t even trust your friends …

SATURN, NOVEMBER 11th

And we beheld what no human eyes before ours had ever seen.

The world outside was strictly alien. Heavy fog had been slithering across Southern California for two days. Jack the Ripper would have felt right at home. A seventy-car daisy chain crackup on the Golden State Freeway had killed seven people the night before. Creeping through the hills past La Canada-Flintridge, it was a scene Chesley Bonestell might have painted thirty years ago to illustrate an extrapolative article about the surface of Titan.

The time for patience with artists’ renditions was at an end: I was on my way to see the actual surface of Titan. What no human eyes had ever beheld.

Tuesday, November 11th, 1980. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. NASA’s Voyager I was on its way to closest approach with Saturn; with Titan and Tethys; with Mimas and Enceladus and Dione; with Rhea and Hyperion and Iapetus.

In the Von Karman Center, where the press hordes had begun clogging up since 7
am
, it was hurlyburly and business as usual. The women in the mission photo room were several decibels above hysterical: nothing but hands reaching in over the open top of the Dutch door demanding photo packets.

The press room was chockablock with science editors and stringers and lay reporters fighting to use the Hermes manuals lined up six deep. They were all there: the guys from
Science News
and
Omni,
the women from
Scientific American
and
Time;
heavyweight writers with their own word processors and Japanese correspondents festooned with cameras; ABC and NBC and CBS and Reuters and the AP. The stench of territorial imperative hangs thick in the crowd. I slip behind an empty typewriter and begin writing this column. An enormous shadow blocks my light. I look up over my shoulder at He Who Looms. “That’s my typewriter,” he says, of a machine placed there by JPL. What he means is that he got to it a little earlier than anyone else and has squatter’s rights, as opposed to a sharing configuration. I smile. “Need it right now? Or can I have about ten minutes to get some thoughts down?” He doesn’t smile. “I’m Mutual Radio,” he says; in his umbrage that is surely explanation enough. My eyes widen with wonder. “Are you indeed? I always wondered what Mutual Radio looked like. And a nice job they did when they turned you out.” I pull the paper out of the Hermes and vow tomorrow I’ll
schlep
my own machine in.

They were standing in line at the coffee urns.

Everyone looked important.

Everyone was watching to make sure no latest photo slipped past. And the JPL press liaisons were hiding the nifty Saturn buttons.

And everywhere the talk was of the mysterious “spokes” radiating out across Saturn’s rings, of the ninety-plus ring discovery, of the inexplicable darkness covering Titan’s northern hemisphere.