The Ultimate Experiment. Thornton DeKy.

The Ultimate Experiment

Thornton DeKy

Comet, July 1941

No living soul breathed upon the earth. Only robots, carrying on the last great order.

“They were all gone now, The Masters, all dead and their atoms scattered to the never ceasing winds that swept the great crysolite city towers in ever increasing fury. That had been the last wish of each as he had passed away, dying from sheer old age. True they had fought on as long as they could to save their kind from utter extinction but the comet that had trailed its poisoning wake across space to leave behind it, upon Earth, a noxious, lethal gas vapor, had done its work too well.”

No living soul breathed upon the Earth. No one lived here now, but Kiron and his kind.

“And,” so thought Kiron to himself. “He might as well be a great unthinking robot able to do only one thing instead of the mental giant he was, so obsessed had he become with the task he had set himself to do.”

Yet, in spite of a great loneliness and a strong fear of a final frustration, he worked on with the others of his people, hardly stopping for anything except the very necessities needed to keep his big body working in perfect coordination.

Tirelessly he worked, for The Masters had bred, if that is the word to use, fatigue and the need for restoration out of his race long decades ago.

Sometimes, though, he would stop his work when the great red dying sun began to fade into the west and his round eyes would grow wistful as he looked out over the great city that stretched in towering minarets and lofty spires of purest crystal blue for miles on every side. A fairy city of rarest hue and beauty. A city for the Gods and the Gods were dead. Kiron felt, at such times, the great loneliness that the last Master must have known.

They had been kind, The Masters, and Kiron knew that his people, as they went about their eternal tasks of keeping the great city in perfect shape for The Masters who no longer needed it, must miss them as he did.

Never to hear their voices ringing, never to see them again gathered in groups to witness some game or to play amid the silver fountains and flowery gardens of the wondrous city, made him infinitely saddened. It would always be like this, unless...

But thinking, dreaming, reminiscing would not bring it all back for there was only one answer to still the longing: work. The others worked and did not dream, but instead kept busy tending to the thousand and one tasks The Masters had set them to do—had left them doing when the last Master perished. He too must remember the trust they had placed in his hands and fulfill it as best he could.

From the time the great red eye of the sun opened itself in the East until it disappeared in the blue haze beyond the crysolite city, Kiron labored with his fellows. Then, at the appointed hour, the musical signals would peal forth their sweet, sad chimes, whispering goodnight to ears that would hear them no more and all operations would halt for the night, just as it had done when The Masters were here to supervise it.

Then when morning came he would start once more trying, testing, experimenting with his chemicals and plastics, forever following labyrinth of knowledge, seeking for the great triumph that would make the work of the others of some real use.

His hands molded the materials carefully, lovingly to a pattern that was set in his mind as a thing to cherish. Day by day his experiments in their liquid baths took form under his careful modeling. He mixed his chemicals with the same loving touch, the same careful concentration and painstaking thoroughness, studying often his notes and analysis charts.

Everything must be just so lest his experiment not turn out perfectly. He never became exasperated at a failure or a defect that proved to be the only reward for his faithful endeavors but worked patiently on toward a goal that he knew would ultimately be his.

Then one day, as the great red sun glowed like an immense red eye overhead, Kiron stepped back to admire his handiwork. In that instant the entire wondrous city seemed to breathe a silent prayer as he stood transfixed by the sight before him. Then it went on as usual, hurrying noiselessly about its business. The surface cars, empty though they were, fled swiftly about supported only by the rings of magnetic force that held them to their designated paths. The gravoships raised from the tower-dromes to speed silently into the eye of the red sun that was dying.

“No one now,” Kiron thought to himself as he studied his handiwork. Then he walked unhurriedly to the cabinet in the laboratory corner and took from it a pair of earphones resembling those of a long forgotten radio set. Just as unhurriedly, though his mind was filled with turmoil and his being with excitement, he walked back and connected the earphones to the box upon his bench. The phones dangled into the liquid bath before him as he adjusted them to suit his requirements.

Slowly he checked over every step of his experiments before he went farther. Then, as he proved them for the last time, his hand went slowly to the small knife switch upon the box at his elbow. Next he threw into connection the larger switch upon his laboratory wall bringing into his laboratory the broadcast power of the crysolite city.

The laboratory generators hummed softly, drowning out the quiet hum of the city outside. As they built up, sending tiny living electrical impulses over the wires like minute currents that come from the brain, Kiron sat breathless; his eyes intent.

Closer to his work he bent, watching lovingly, fearful least all might not be quite right. Then his eyes took on a brighter light as he began to see the reaction. He knew the messages that he had sent out were being received and coordinated into a unit that would stir and grow into intellect.

Suddenly the machine flashed its little warning red light and automatically snapped off. Kiron twisted quickly in his seat and threw home the final switch. This, he knew, was the ultimate test. On the results of the flood of energy impulses that he had set in motion rested the fulfillment of his success—or failure.

He watched with slight misgivings. This had never been accomplished before. How could it possibly be a success now? Even The Masters had never quite succeeded at this final test, how could he, only a servant? Yet it must work for he had no desire in life but to make it work.

Then, suddenly, he was on his feet, eyes wide. From the two long, coffin-like liquid baths, there arose two perfect specimens of the Homo sapiens. Man and woman, they were, and they blinked their eyes in the light of the noonday sun, raised themselves dripping from the baths of their creation and stepped to the floor before Kiron.

The man spoke, the woman remained silent.

“I am Adam Two,” he said. “Created, by you Kiron from a formula they left, in their image. I was created to be a Master and she whom you also have created is to be my wife. We shall mate and the race of Man shall be reborn through us and others whom I shall help you create.”

The Man halted at the last declaration he intoned and walked smilingly toward the woman who stepped into his open arms returning his smile.

Kiron smiled too within his pumping heart. The words the Man had intoned had been placed in his still pregnable mind by the tele-teach phones and record that the last Master had prepared before death had halted his experiments. The actions of the Man toward the Woman, Kiron knew, was caused by the natural constituents that went to form his chemical body and govern his humanness.

He, Kiron, had created a living man and woman. The Masters lived again because of him. They would sing and play and again people the magnificent crysolite city because he loved them and had kept on until success had been his. But then why not such a turnabout? Hadn't they, The Masters, created him a superb, thinking robot?

End

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Let There Be Light. Horace B. Fyfe.

Let There Be Light

Horace B. Fyfe

IF Worlds of Science Fiction, November 1952

No matter what the future, one factor must always be reckoned with—the ingenuity of the human animal.

The two men attacked the thick tree trunk with a weary savagery. In the bright sunlight, glistening spatters of sweat flew from them as the old axes bit alternately into the wood.

Blackie stood nearby, on the gravel shoulder of the highway, rubbing his short beard as he considered the depth of the white notch. Turning his broad, tanned face to glance along the patched and cracked concrete to where squat Vito kept watch, he caught the latter’s eye and beckoned.

“Okay, Sid—Mike. We’ll take it a while.”

The rhythm of the axe-strokes ceased. Red Mike swept the back of a forearm across the semi-shaven stubble that set him as something of a dandy.  

Wordlessly, big Sid ambled up the road to replace Vito.

“Pretty soon, now,” boasted Mike, eyeing the cut with satisfaction. “Think it’ll bring them?”

“Sure,” replied Blackie, spitting on his hands and lifting one of the worn tools. “That’s what they’re for.”

“Funny,” mused Mike. “How some keep going an’ others bust. These musta been workin’ since I was a little kid—since before the last blitz.”

“Aw, they don’t hafta do much. ‘Cept in winter when they come out to clear snow, all they do is put in a patch now an’ then.”

Mike stared moodily at the weathered surface of the highway and edged back to avoid the reflected heat.

“It beats me how they know a spot has cracked.”

“I guess there’s machines to run the machines,” sighed Blackie. “I dunno; I was too young. Okay, Vito?”

The relieving pair fell to. Mike stepped out of range of the flying chips to sit at the edge of the soft grass which was attempting another invasion of the gravel shoulder. Propelled by the strength of Vito’s powerful torso, a single chip spun through the air to his feet. He picked it up and held it to his nose. It had a good, clean smell.

When at length the tree crashed down across the road, Blackie led them to the ambush he had chosen that morning. It was fifty yards up the road toward the ruined city—off to the side where a clump of trees and bushes provided shade and concealment.

“Wish we brought something to eat,” Vito said.

“Didn’t know it would take so long to creep up on ‘em this morning,” said Blackie. “The women’ll have somethin’ when we get back.”

“They better,” said Mike.

He measured a slender branch with his eye. After a moment, he pulled out a hunting knife, worn thin by years of sharpening, and cut off a straight section of the branch. He began whittling.

“You damn’ fool!” Sid objected. “You want the busted spot on the tree to show?”

“Aw, they ain’t got the brains to notice.”

“The hell they ain’t! It stands out like one o’ them old street signs.

D’ya think they can tell, Blackie?”

“I dunno. Maybe.” Blackie rose cautiously to peer over a bed of blackberry bushes. “Guess I’ll skin up a tree an’ see if anything’s in sight.”

He hitched up his pants, looking for an easy place to climb. His blue denims had been stoutly made, but weakened by many rips and patches, and he did not want to rip them on a snag. It was becoming difficult to find good, un-rotted clothing in the old ruins.

***

Choosing a branch slightly over his head, he sprang for it, pulled, kicked against the trunk, and flowed up into the foliage with no apparent effort. The others waited below. Sid glanced up occasionally, Vito idly kicked at one of the clubs made from an old two-by-four.

The other lay beneath the piled jackets; but enough of the end protruded to show that they had been chopped from the same timber, gray-painted on one side, stained and gouged on the other where boards had once been nailed. A coil of rope lay beside the axes.

High in the upper branches, Blackie braced himself with negligent confidence and stared along the concrete ribbon.

From here, he thought, you’d almost think the place was still alive, instead of crumbling around our ears.

The windows of the distant houses were dark, un-glassed holes, but the sunlight made the masonry clean and shining. To Blackie, the ragged tops of most of the buildings were as natural as the tattered look of the few people he knew. Beyond, toward the center of the city, was real evidence of his race’s bygone might—a vast jumble of shattered stone and fused metal. Queer weeds and mosses infected the area, but it would be centuries before they could mask the desolation.

Better covered, were the heaps along the road, seemingly shoved just beyond the gravel shoulders—mouldering mounds which legend said were once machines to ride in along the pavement.

Something glinted at the bend of the highway. Blackie peered closer.

He swarmed down the tree from branch to branch, so lithely that the trio below hardly had the warning of the vibrating leaves before he dropped, cat-footed, among them.

“They’re comin’!”

He shrugged quickly into his stained jacket, emulated in silent haste by the others. Vito rubbed his hands down the hairy chest left revealed by his open jacket and hefted one of the clubs. In his broad paws, it seemed light.

They were quiet, watching Sid peer out through narrowly parted brush of the undergrowth. Blackie fidgeted behind him. Finally, he reached out as if to pull the other aside, but at that moment Sid released the bushes and crouched.

The others, catching his warning glance, fell prone, peering through shrubbery and around tree trunks with savage eyes.

The distant squawk of a jay became suddenly very clear, as did the sighing of a faint breeze through the leaves overhead. Then a new, clanking, humming sound intruded.

A procession of three vehicles rolled along the highway at an unvarying pace which took no account of patches or worn spots. They jounced in turn across a patch laid over a previous, unsuccessful patch, and halted before the felled tree. Two were bulldozers; the third was a light truck with compartments for tools. No human figures were visible.

A moment later, the working force appeared—a column of eight robots. These deployed as they reached the obstacle, and explored like colossal ants along its length.

“What’re they after?” asked Mike, whispering although he lay fifty yards away.

“They’re lookin’ over the job for whatever sends them out,” Blackie whispered back. “See those little lights stickin’ out the tops o’ their heads? I heard tell, once, that’s how they’re run.”

Some of the robots took saws from the truck and began to cut through the tree trunk. Others produced cables and huge hooks to attach the obstacle to the bulldozers.

“Look at ‘em go!” sighed Sid, hunching his stiff shoulders jealously. “Took us hours, an’ they’re half done already.”

They watched as the robots precisely severed the part of the tree that blocked the highway, going not one inch beyond the gravel shoulder, and helped the bulldozers to tug it aside. On the opposite side of the concrete, the shoulder tapered off into a six-foot drop. The log was jockeyed around parallel to this ditch and rolled into it, amid a thrashing of branches and a spurting of small pebbles.

“Glad we’re on the high side,” whispered Mike. “That thing ‘ud squash a guy’s guts right out!”

“Keep listenin’ to me,” Blackie said. “An’ you’ll keep on bein’ in the right place at the right time.”

Mike raised his eyebrows at Vito, who thrust out his lower lip and nodded sagely. Sid grinned, but no one contradicted the boast.

“They’re linin’ up,” Blackie warned tensely. “You guys ready? Where’s that rope?”

Someone thrust it into his hands. Still squinting at the scene on the highway, he fumbled for the ends and held one out to Mike. The others gripped their clubs.

“Now, remember!” ordered Blackie. “Me an’ Mike will trip up the last one in line. You two get in there quick an’ wallop him over the head—but good!”

“Don’t go away while we’re doin’ it,” said big Sid. “They won’t chase ya, but they look out fer themselves. I don’t wanna get tossed twenty feet again!”

The eyes of the others flicked toward the jagged white scar running down behind Sid’s right ear and under the collar of his jacket. Then they swung back to the road.

“Good!” breathed Blackie. “The rollin’ stuff’s goin’ first.”

The truck and bulldozers set out toward the city, with the column of robots marching a fair distance behind. The latter approached the ambush—drew abreast—began to pass.

Blackie raised himself to a crouch with just the tips of his fingers steadying him.

***

As the last robot plodded by, he surged out of the brush, joined to Red Mike by their grips on the twenty feet of rope. They ran up behind the marching machine, trailed by the others.

In his right hand, Blackie twirled the part of the rope hanging between him and Mike. On the second swing, he got it over the head of the robot. He saw Mike brace himself.

The robot staggered. It pivoted clumsily to its left, groping vaguely for the hindrance. Mike and Blackie tugged again, and the machine wound up facing them in its efforts to maintain balance. Its companions marched steadily along the road.

“Switch ends!” barked Blackie.

Alert, Mike tossed him the other end of the rope and caught Blackie’s. They ran past the robot on either side, looping it in. Blackie kept going until he was above the ditch. He wound a turn of rope about his forearm and plunged down the bank.

A shower of gravel spattered after him as Mike jammed his heels into the shoulder of the highway to anchor the other end. Then he heard the booming sound of the robot’s fall.

Blackie clawed his way up the bank. Vito and Sid were smashing furiously at the floundering machine. Mike danced about the melee with bared teeth, charging in once as if to leap upon the quarry with both feet. Frustrated by the peril of the whirling two-by-fours, he swept up handfuls of gravel to hurl.

Blackie turned to run for one of the axes. Just then, Sid struck home to the head of the robot.

Sparks spat out amid a tinkle of glass. The machine ceased all motion.

“All right!” panted Blackie. “All right! That’s enough!”

They stepped back, snarls fading. A handful of gravel trickled through Mike’s fingers and pattered loudly on the concrete. Gradually, the men began to straighten up, seeing the robot as an inert heap of metal rather than as a weird beast in its death throes.

“We better load up an’ get,” said Blackie. “We wanna be over on the trail if they send somethin’ up the road to look for this.”

Vito dragged the robot off the highway by the head, and they began the task of lashing it to the two-by-fours.

It was about two hours later when they plodded around a street corner among the ruins and stopped before a fairly intact building. By that time, they had picked up an escort of dirty, half-clad children who ran ahead to spread the news.

Two other men and a handful of women gathered around with eager exclamations.

The hunters dropped their catch.

“Better get to work on him,” said Blackie, glancing at the sky. “Be dark soon.”

The men who had remained as guards ran inside the entrance of polished granite and brought out tools: hammers, crowbars, hatchets. Behind them hurried women with basins and large cans. The original four, weary from the weight of the robot despite frequent pauses on the trail, stepped back.

“Where first, Blackie?” asked one of the men, waiting for the women to untangle the rope and timbers.

“Try all the joints. After that, we’ll crack him open down the middle for the main supply tank.”

He watched the metal give way under the blows. As the robot was dismembered, the fluid that had lubricated the complex mechanism flowed from its wounds and was poured by the women into a five-gallon can.

“Bring a cupful, Judy,” Blackie told his woman, a wiry blond girl. “I wanna see if it’s as good as the last.”

He lit a stick at the fire as they crossed the littered, once-ornate lobby, and she followed him down a dim hall. He pulled aside the skins that covered their doorway, then stumbled his way to the table. The window was still uncovered against the night chill, but it looked out on a courtyard shadowed by towering walls. To eyes adjusted to the sunny street, the room was dark.

Judy poured the oil into the makeshift lamp, waited for the rag wick to soak, and held it out to Blackie. He lit the wick from his stick.

“It burns real good, Blackie,” the girl said, wrinkling her nose against the first oily smoke. “Gee, you’re smart to catch one the first day out.”

“Tell them other dames to watch how they use it!” he warned. “This oughta last a month or more when we get him all emptied.”

He blew out the dying flame on the stick and dropped the charred wood thoughtfully to the floor.

“Naw, I ain’t so smart,” he admitted. “Or I’d figure a way to make one of them work the garden for us. Maybe someday—but this kind won’t do nothin’ but fix that goddam road, an’ what good’s that to anybody?”

His woman moved the burning lamp carefully to the center of the table.

“Anyway, it’s gonna be better’n last winter,” she said. “We’ll have lights now.”

End

Yeah, you really got to hope the robots don’t look back just as you’re sneaking up on them…

One has to wonder what they run on, considering there’s some kind of fuel or lubrication tank in the belly or trunk of the beast. Also, road-repair or road-building robots wouldn’t necessarily have to be small and humanoid, tall, skinny things with bipedal locomotion. Some specialization would be in order, but it might be better to think in terms of an autonomous backhoe, an autonomous road-grader, or an autonomous dump-truck/snow-plow. They could come in various sizes, and be transported to the work area in groups, on an autonomous flatbed. In which case, running them on batteries and solar power makes more sense than filling up a tank with gasoline or diesel fuel, or any bottled-gas type fuel.

Basically, at the end of a day, any given autonomous vehicle pulls up to a convenient charging station and an extensible arm plugs it in to a storage/charging system for the night, all set for the next working period. The cycle might even be diurnal, in spite of robotic night-vision. Even for a robot, festooned with cameras and sensors, there’s nothing quite like plentiful, natural light.

A small group of hunter-gatherers taking down an autonomous bulldozer sounds like a pretty big challenge…perhaps some sort of deadfall trap might work, if it was big enough and you could lure the thing into it. Then all you have to do is unscrew the filler cap and siphon out the fuel, assuming that’s what it runs on. If you knew anything at all, you’d steal batteries, lights and electrical components including switches, relays, voltage controls, servo-motors, even just copper or other type of wire. You’d use the metal or plastic to make tools, weapons, kitchen utensils and even jewelry.

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