Collected fiction, p.303
Collected Fiction, page 303
“You’re talking about a robot,” Gunther said.
“The Metalman people will make us one to order, with the radioatomic type of brain. A seven-foot robot, studded with diamonds, conditioned to running away. An intelligent robot.” Gunther rubbed his jaw. “Lovely. Except for one thing. The intelligence must be limited. Metalman have made robots of human mind-power, but each one covers a city block. Mobility’s lost as intelligence increases. They haven’t yet found a substitute for the colloid brain.
However—” He stared at his fingernails. “Yeah. It could be done. The robot must be conditioned in one line only, self-preservation. It must be able to build logically from that motivation, and that’s all it needs.”
“Would that be enough?”
“Yes, because a robot’s logical. You can drive a seal or a deer into a trap. Or a tiger. The tiger hears the beaters behind him, and runs from them. To him, that’s the only danger he knows, till he falls in the pit that’s been dug for him. A fox might be smarter. He might think of both the menace behind him and the one in front. A robot—he wouldn’t stampede blindly. If he was driven toward a cul-de-sac, he’d use logic and wonder what was up that blind alley.”
“And escape?”
“He’d have split-second—in fact, instantaneous reaction. Radioatomic brains think fast. You’ve set me a beautiful problem, Bruce, but I think it can be done. A diamond-studded robot, parading around here—psychologically, it’s right up your alley.”
Ballard shrugged. “I like ostentation. As a kid I had a hell of an inferiority complex. I’m compensating for that now. Why do you suppose I built the castle? It’s a showplace. I need an army of servants to keep it going. The worst thing I can imagine is being a nonentity.”
“Which in your mind is synonymous with poverty,” Gunther murmured. “You’re essentially imitative, Bruce. You built your economic empire through imitation. I don’t think you’ve ever had an original thought in your life.”
“What about this robot?”
“Induction—simple addition. You figured out your requirements and added them up. The result is a diamond-studded robot conditioned to flight.” Gunther hesitated. “Flight isn’t enough. It’s got to be escape—selfpreservation. Sometimes offense is the best defense. The robot should run as long as that’s feasible and logical—and then try escape in other ways.”
“You mean giving him armament?”
“Uh-huh. If we started that, we couldn’t stop. We want a mobile unit, not a tank. The robot’s intelligence, based on flight logic, should enable him to make use of whatever he needs, the tools that are at hand. Squirt his brain full of the basic patterns, and he’ll do the rest. I’ll get at it immediately.”
Ballard wiped his lips with a napkin. “Good.”
Gunther got up. “I’m not really signing my death warrant, you know,” he said conversationally. “If you have a theft-proof safe like the robot, you won’t need me to make more diamonds. There’ll be enough on the robot to satisfy all your needs till you die. If you kill me, then, your diamond monopoly’s safe—nobody can make them but me. However, I wouldn’t make that robot without taking precautions. The Patent Office formula isn’t listed under the name of Cain, and it isn’t really a thermodynamic principle.”
“Naturally,” Ballard said. “I checked on that, without telling my investigators exactly what I was after. The patent number is your secret.”
“And I’m safe as long as it remains my secret. It will, until I die. Then it’ll be broadcast, and a lot of people will have their suspicions confirmed. There’s a pretty widespread rumor that your diamonds are artificial, but nobody can prove it. I know one guy who’d like to.”
“Ffoulkes?”
“Barney Ffoulkes, of Mercantile Alloys. He hates your insides as much as you hate his. But you’re a bigger man than he is, just now. Yeah, Ffoulkes would love to smash you, Bruce.”
“Get busy on the robot,” Ballard said, rising. “See if you can finish it before there’s another robbery.”
Gunther’s grin was sardonic. Ballard didn’t smile, but the skin crinkled around his eyes. The two men understood each other thoroughly—which was probably the reason they were both still alive.
“Metalman, eh?” Barney Ffoulkes said to his chief of staff, Dangerfield. “Making a diamond-studded robot for Ballard, eh? Bloody show-off!” Dangerfield didn’t say anything.
“How big?”
“Seven feet, perhaps.”
“And studded—wonder how thickly? Ballard’s going to tie up a lot of rocks in that sandwich man. Wonder if he’ll have the diamonds spell out, ‘Hurrah for Bruce Ballard’ ?” Ffoulkes got up from his desk and buzzed around the room like a mosquito, a ginger-haired, partially bald little man with a wrinkled rat-trap face, soured in brine. “Get an offensive ready. Revise it daily. Chart a complete economic front, so we can jump on Ballard from all directions when we get the tip-off.”
Dangerfield still said nothing, but his eyebrows lifted inquiringly in the sallow, blank face.
Ffoulkes scuttled toward him, twitching. “Do I have to make a blueprint? Whenever we’ve had Ballard in a spot before, he’s wriggled out—insurance companies, loan flotations, more diamonds. No insurance company will handle him now. His diamonds can’t be inexhaustible, unless they’re artificial. If they are, he’ll find it harder and harder to float a loan. See?” Dangerfield nodded dubiously. “Hm-m-m. He’ll have a lot of gems tied up in this robot. It’ll be stolen, naturally. And that time we’ll strike.”
Dangerfield pursed his lips. “O.K.” Ffoulkes said. “So it may not work. It hasn’t worked before. But in this game the whole trick is to keep hammering till the wall’s breached. This time may be the charm. If we can once catch Ballard insolvent, he’ll go under. Anyhow, we’ve got to try. Prepare an offensive. Stocks, bonds, utilities, agricultures, ores—everything. What we want to do is force Ballard to buy on margin when he can’t cover. Meantime, be sure our protection’s paid. Hand the boys a bonus.”
Dangerfield made a circle with thumb and forefinger. Ffoulkes chuckled nastily as his chief of staff went out.
It was a time of booms and panics, of unstable economics and utterly crazy variables. Man hours, as usual, remained the base. But what in theory seemed effective in practice was somewhat different. Man hours, fed into the hopper of the social culture, emerged in fantastic forms. Science had done that—science enslaved.
The strangle hold of the robber barons was still strong. Each one wanted a monopoly, but, because they were all at war, a species of toppling chaos was the result They tried desperately to keep their own ships afloat while sinking the enemy fleet. Science and government were handicapped by the Powers, which were really industrial empires, completely self-contained if not self-supporting units. Their semanticists and propagandists worked on the people, ladling out soothing sirup. All would be well later—when Ballard, or Ffoulkes, or All-Steel, or Unlimited Power, took over. Meantime—
Meantime the technicians of the robber barons, well subsidized, kept throwing monkey wrenches into the machinery. It was the time preceding the Scientific Revolution, and akin to the Industrial Revolution in its rapid shifting of economic values. All-Steel’s credit was based chiefly on the Hallwell Process. Unlimited Power’s scientists discovered a better, more effective method that scrapped the Hallwell Process. Result, the bottom fell out of All-Steel, and there was a brief period of frantic readjustment, during which All-Steel yanked certain secret patents out into the open and utilized them, playing hell with Ffoulkes, whose Gatun Bond Issue was based on a law of supply and demand which was automatically revised by the new All-Steel patents. Meantime each company was trying to catch the others with their pants down. Each one wanted to be master. When that enviable day arrived, the economic mess would settle, it was hoped, under the central control, and there would be Utopia.
The structure grew like the Tower of Babel. It couldn’t stop—naturally. Crime kept pace with it.
Because crime was a handy weapon. The old protection racket had been revived. All-Steel would pay the Donner gang plenty to keep their hands off All-Steel interests. If the Donner boys happened to concentrate on robberies that would weaken Ffoulkes or Ballard or Unlimited Power—fine! Enough spectacular thefts would lead to a panic during which enemy stocks would drop to the bottom, one asked, nothing bid.
And if a man went down, he was lost. His holdings would go to the wolves, and he himself would be too potentially dangerous ever to be allowed power again. Vae victis!
But diamonds were increasingly rare—and so, till now, Bruce Ballard’s empire had been safe.
The robot was sexless, but gave the impression of masculinity. Neither Ballard nor Gunther ever used the neuter pronoun in reference to the creature. Metalman Products had done their usual satisfactory job. and Gunther improved on it.
So Argus came to the castle, for final conditioning. Rather surprisingly, the robot was not vulgarly ostentatious. He was functional, a towering, symmetrical figure of gold, studded with diamonds. He was patterned on an armored knight, seven feet tall, with a cuirass of bright gold, golden greaves, golden gauntlets that looked clumsy but which contained remarkably sensitive nerve-endings. His eyes had diamond lenses, specially chosen for their refractive powers, and, logically, Ballard called him Argus.
He was blazingly beautiful, a figure out of myth. In a bright light he resembled Apollo more than Argus. He was a god come to Earth, the shower of gold that Danae saw.
Gunther sweated over the conditioning process. He worked in a maze of psychological charts, based on the mentalities of the creatures that lived by flight. Automatic reactions had to have voluntary cut-offs, controlled by logic, when reasoning power took over—reasoning power based on the flight-instinct. Self-preservation was the prime factor. The robot had it in a sufficient amount.
“So he can’t be caught,” Ballard said, regarding Argus.
Gunther grunted. “How? He automatically adjusts to the most logical solution, and readjusts instantly to any variable. Logic and superswift reactions make him a perfect flight machine.”
“You’ve implanted the routine?”
“Sure. Twice a day he makes his round of the castle. He won’t leave the castle for any reason—which is a safeguard. If crooks could lure Argus outside, they might set an ingenious trap. But even if they captured the castle, they couldn’t hold it long enough to immobilize Argus. What have you got burglar alarms for?”
“You’re sure the tour’s a good idea?”
“You wanted it. Once in the afternoon, once at night—so Argus could show off to the guests. If he meets danger during his round, he’ll adjust to it.”
Ballard fingered the diamonds on the robot’s cuirass. “I’m still not sure about—sabotage.”
“Diamonds are pretty tough. They’ll resist a lot of heat. And under the gold plate is a casing that’ll resist fire and acid—not forever, but long enough to give Argus his chance. The point is that Argus can’t be immobilized long enough to let himself be destroyed. Sure, you could play a flame thrower on him—but for how long? One second, and then he’d scram.”
“If he could. What about cornering him?”
“He won’t go into corners if he can help it. And his radioatomic brain is good! He’s a thinking machine devoted to one purpose: self-preservation.”
“Hm-m-m.”
“And he’s strong,” Gunther said. “Don’t forget that. It’s important. He can rip metal, if he can get leverage. He’s not a superdooper, of course—if he were, he couldn’t be mobile. He’s subject to normal physical laws. But he is beautifully adaptive; he’s very strong; he has superswift reactive powers; he’s not too vulnerable. And we’re the only guys who can immobilize Argus.”
“That helps,” Ballard said.
Gunther shrugged. “Might as well start. The robot’s ready.” He jerked a wire free from the golden helm. “It takes a minute or so for the automatic controls to take over. Now—”
The immense figure stirred. On light, rubberoid soles, it moved away, so quickly that its legs almost blurred. Then it stood motionless once more.
“We were too close,” Gunther said, licking his lips. “He reacts to the vibrations sent out by our brains. There’s your piggy bank, Bruce!”
A little smile twisted Ballard’s lips. “Yeah. Let’s see—” He walked toward the robot. Argus slid away quietly.
“Try the combination,” Gunther suggested.
Ballard said softly, almost whispering, “All is not gold that glitters.” He approached the robot again, but it reacted by racing noiselessly into a distant corner. Before Ballard could say anything, Gunther murmured, “Say it louder.”
“Suppose someone overhears? That’s—”
“So what? You’ll change the key phrase, and when you do, you can get close enough to Argus to whisper it.”
“All is not gold that glitters.” Ballard’s voice rose. This time, when he went to the robot, the giant figure did not stir.
Ballard pressed a concealed stud in the golden helm and murmured, “These are pearls that were his eyes.” He touched the button again, and the robot fled into another corner. “Uh-huh. It works, all right.”
“Don’t give him such obvious combinations,” Gunther suggested. “Suppose one of your guests starts quoting Shakespeare? Mix up your quotations.” Ballard tried again. “What light through yonder window breaks I come here to bury Caesar now is the time for all good men.”
“Nobody’s going to say that by accident,” Gunther remarked. “Fair enough. Now I’m going out and enjoy myself. I need relaxation. Write me a check.”
“How much?”
“Couple of thousand. I’ll telecall you if I need more.”
“What about testing the robot?”
“Go ahead and test him. You won’t find anything wrong.”
“Well, take your guards.” Gunther grinned sardonically and headed for the door.
An hour later the air taxi grounded atop a New York skyscraper. Gunther emerged, flanked by two husky protectors. Ballard was running no risks of having his colleague abducted by a rival. As Gunther paid the air cabman, the detectives glanced at their wrist spotters and punched the red button set into each case. They reported thus, every five minutes, that all was well. One of Ballard’s control centers in New York received the signals and learned that all was well—that there was no need to send out a rush rescue squad. It was complicated, but effective. No one else could use the spotters, for a new code was used each day. This time the key ran: First hour, report every five minutes; second hour, every eight minutes; third hour, every six minutes. And, at the first hint of danger, the detectives could instantly send in an alarm.
But this time it didn’t work out successfully. When the three men got into the elevator, Gunther said, “The Fountain Room,” and licked his lips in anticipation. The door swung shut, and as the elevator started its breakneck race down, anaesthetic gas flooded the little cubicle. One of the detectives managed to press the alarm warning on his spotter, but he was unconscious before the car slowed at the basement. Gunther didn’t even realize he was being gassed before he lost consciousness.
He woke up fettered securely to a metal chair. The room was windowless, and a spotlight was focused on Gunther’s face. He manipulated sticky eyelids, wondering how long he had been out. Scowling, he twisted his arm so that his wrist watch was visible.
Two men loomed, shadowy beyond the lamp. One wore a physician’s white garment. The other was a little man, gingerhaired, with a hard rat trap of a face.
“Hi, Ffoulkes,” Gunther said. “You saved me a hangover.”
The little man chuckled. “Well, we’ve done it at last. Lord knows I’ve been trying long enough to get you away from Ballard’s watchdogs.”
“What day is this?”
“Wednesday. You’ve been unconscious for about twenty hours.”
Gunther frowned. “Well, start talking.”
“I’ll do that, first, if you like. Are Ballard’s diamonds artificial?”
“Don’t you wish you knew?”
“I’ll offer you about anything you want if you’ll cross up Ballard.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” Gunther said candidly. “You wouldn’t have to keep your word. It’d be more logical for you to kill me, after I’d talked.”
“Then we’ll have to use scopolamin.”
“It won’t work. I’ve been immunized.”
“Try it, anyway. Lester!” The white-gowned man came forward and put a hypodermic deftly into Gunther’s arm. After a while he shrugged.
“Complete immunization. Scop is no good, Mr. Ffoulkes.” Gunther smiled. “Well?”
“Suppose I try torture?”
“I don’t think you’d dare. Torture and murder are capital crimes.”
The little man moved nervously around the room. “Does Ballard himself know how to make the diamonds? Or are you the only one?”
“The Blue Fairy makes ’em,” Gunther said. “She’s got a magic wand.”
“I see. Well, I won’t try torture yet. I’ll use duress. You’ll have plenty to eat and drink. But you’ll stay here till you talk. It’ll get rather dull after a month or so.”
Gunther didn’t answer, and the two men went out. An hour passed, and another.
The white-gowned physician brought in a tray and deftly fed the prisoner. After he had vanished, Gunther looked at his watch again. A worried frown showed on his forehead.
He grew steadily more nervous.
The watch read 9:15 when another meal was served. This time Gunther waited till the physician had left, and then recovered the fork he had managed to secrete in his sleeve. He hoped its absence wouldn’t be noticed immediately. A few minutes was all he wanted, for Gunther knew the construction of these electromagnetic prison chairs. If he could short circuit the current—
It wasn’t too difficult, even though Gunther’s arms were prisoned by metal clamps. He knew where the wires were. After a bit, there was a crackling flash, and Gunther swore at the pain in his seared fingertips. But the clamps slid free from his arms and legs.
