Harry Harrison - War with the Robots

VIP免费
2024-12-15 0 0 238.9KB 77 页 5.9玖币
侵权投诉
A WORD FROM THE (HUMAN) AUTHOR ...
WHEN MOST PEOPLE HEAR THE WORD robot, they have a reflexive metal picture of
a mechanical man, all creaking joints and glowing eyes. This really wasn't
what Karel Capek had in mind when he invented the word for his play R.U.R.
soon after the First World War. His robots- Rossum's Universal Robots-were
flesh and blood, though artificially made, and identical with normal
placental-people in every way except for their complete lack of emotions. The
new word robot filled a need, and was gratefully seized by the science
fiction writers and soon mutated to be- come the mechanical man with the
steel skin. (Capek's flesh- and-blood robots are now called androids.) At the
same time, in applied engineering, robot has become an inclusive term for an
entire new family of gadgetry.
Just as tools and weapons-hammers, saws, swords and such -are a direct
extension of man's physical abilities, robots are an extension of the higher
and more abstract functions. The robot pilot, who flies the plane for far
longer periods than the human pilot, has delicate powers of discrimination
and choice. Even the first crude models could detect and correct deviations
from level flight before a human pilot could even sense them, while the
newer, sophisticated models turn and bank the plane at the touch of a single
button. This process of sensing and deciding is what separates the robots
from the insensate machines. An alarm clock is a machine-but an automatic
clock-radio is a robot. It may not look like one, but it has the functions.
It soothes its master to sleep with soft music, then turns off the sound
until the correct time in the morning when he should be awakened. There would
be no trick at all to enlarging its field of operation. Instead of a radio
this machine could play records: Brahms at night, Sousa in the morning. And
instead of switching off at night after a fixed interval, the music could
continue playing softly until the master was completely asleep-the robot
determining this fact by a thermocouple in the bed that would detect the
lowering of body temperature that accompanies sleep. If master wished to
arise at dawn there would be no need for him to check the almanac every night
for the correct time; a simple photoelectric cell sensitive to light would
take care of that. All of these gadgets-instead of being built into a black
box-could be housed in a metal torso, the thermo-couple in the end of one
finger, the photoelectric cells in place of eyes. Instead of internal
switching it could reach out a hand to turn on the music, even pull up the
shade if need be.
I personally feel no burning desire to have a truncated metal man
hovering over my bed at night, metal finger gently prodding my flesh and
unsleeping eyes watching for the sight of dawn. Though in essence it would
still be the same machine that now turns the music on and off for me.
Call my attitude emotional-but don't call it exceptional. We have long
tended to anthropomorphize our mechanical devices; giving our cars names,
cursing, coaxing-and occasionally kicking-recalcitrant machines. We are even
getting used to the services of robots and are beginning to take them for
granted too. What child has not been fascinated by the moron-level robot in
the refrigerator who turns the light off when we close the door? Does the
robot always turn it off? That train of thought can keep one up nights
figuring out ways to find out.
Have you ever ridden in one of those completely automatic elevators
they are beginning to install in the big office buildings? A single master
control starts and stops an entire bank of elevators, programming frequent
trips when the traffic is heavy and fewer in the slow periods. Passengers are
counted and the doors closed when the car is full. Speed and braking are
adjusted to the weight so that the doors will always open flush with the
floor outside. Some of the elevators even have a recorded voice
(appropriately firm) that orders the hoggish rider to stay clear of the doors
if he is preventing their closure. The elevator-controlling robot is built
into the wall and sends and receives all of its commands electronically. If
we wanted it to conform to the classic picture of a robot it would do the
same job-though perhaps not as efficiently-in the form of a machine man who
snapped its fingers at the metal operators of the cars. All of this would be
very dramatic, yet would not alter the basic robot-control situation in the
slightest.
The robots have arrived and are here to stay, deeply entrenched already
in the arts of war and peace. A little anti-social and suicidal robot named
proximity-fuse rides in cannon shells and can't stand being next to anyone
else. If he is, he blows up. Another robot can dip the bright lights on your
car, raising them again when the other car is by, though he is a bit on the
stupid side and blinks happily up and down at brightly lit signs. Robot
telephone operators are better, cheaper and faster than human ones, though
harder to argue with. Robot parking lots have arrived that will whisk your
automobile away upon presentation of a coin, and bring it back (hopefully)
when you present the right identification. In the home, robot controlled
stoves are so commonplace that we take them for granted.
Robots are here to stay all right-but what impact are they going to
have on our human society? Will they wreak death and destruction like Victor
Frankenstein's creation? Or will they take over the world like their
progenitors in R.U.R.? Will they be willing serfs or metal masters? Or more
subtly, will they assure our physical needs to such a degree that the human
race will wallow in slothfulness, degenerate and perish. Anything's possible,
of course; and in these stories I talk about a few of the possibilities. Some
pleasant possibilities, and some rather nasty ones, too. Take your pick...
The first creature from earth to set foot-or treads-onto the moon will be a
robot. It is in the design stage now and careful plans are being made for it
to stroll around, sample the geology, search for life forms, examine the
surface and measure the radiation of the moon. And of course send the
information home. Unlike a man, the robot will then peacefully squat down and
sit unmoving for all eternity, eye lenses staring without interest at its
home world in the sky above. This little exploration-robot is so attractive a
design that it has already caused a schism among the ranks of the scientists
as to the necessity of sending men to the moon at all. But I think there is
little doubt as to the outcome of that argument. I don't remember any ticker-
tape parades for robots. Rockets will reach the moon and the planets and,
though there will be many robots aboard, there will also be at least one man.
It will be hard to keep him alive, warm and comfortable-but he'll be there...
SIMULATED TRAINER
MARS WAS A DUSTY, FRIGID HELL. Bone dry and blood red. They trudged single
file through the ankle-deep sand, and in a monotonous duet cursed the
nameless engineer who had designed the faulty reconditioners in their
pressure suits. The bug hadn't shown during testing of the new suits. It
appeared only after they had been using them steadily for a few weeks. The
water- absorbers became overloaded and broke down. The Martian atmosphere
stood at a frigid-60°centigrade. Inside the suits, they tried to blink the
unevaporated sweat from their eyes and slowly cooked in the high humidity.
Morley shook his head viciously to dislodge an itching droplet from his
nose. At the same moment, something rust- coloured and furry darted across his
path. It was the first Martian life they had seen. Instead of scientific
curiosity, he felt only anger. A sudden kick sent the animal flying high into
the air.
The suddenness of the movement threw him off balance. He fell sideways
slowly, dragging his rubberised suit along an upright rock fragment of sharp
obsidian.
Tony Bannerman heard the other man's hoarse shout in his earphones and
whirled. Morley was down, thrashing on the sand with both hands pressed
against the ragged tear in the suit leg. Moisture-laden air was pouring out in
a steaming jet that turned instantly to scintillating ice crystals. Tony
jumped over to him, trying to seal the tear with his own ineffectual gloves.
Their faceplates close, he could see the look of terror on Morley's face-as
well as the blue tinge of cyanosis.
"Help me-help me!"
The words were shouted so loud they rasped the tiny helmet earphones.
But there was no help. They had taken no emergency patches with them. All the
patches were in the ship at least a quarter of a mile away. Before he could
get there and back Morley would be dead.
Tony straightened up slowly and sighed. Just the two of them in the
ship, there was no one else on Mars who could help. Morley saw the look in
Tony's eyes and stopped struggling.
"No hope at all, Tony- I'm dead?"
"Just as soon as all the oxygen is gone; thirty seconds at the most.
There's nothing I can do."
Morley grated the shortest, vilest word he knew and pressed the red
EMERGENCY button set into his glove above the wrist. The ground opened up next
to him in the same instant, sand sifting down around the edges of the gap.
Tony stepped back as two men in white pressure suits came up out of the hole.
They had red crosses on the fronts of their helmets and carried a stretcher.
They rolled Morley onto it and were gone back into the opening in an instant.
Tony stood looking sourly at the hole for about a minute, waiting until
Morley's suit was pushed back through the opening. Then the sand-covered
trapdoor closed and the desert was unbroken once more.
The dummy in the suit weighed as much as Morley and its plastic features
even resembled him a bit. Some wag had painted black X's on the eyes. Very
funny, Tony thought, as he struggled to get the clumsy thing onto his back. On
the way back the now-quiet Martian animal was lying in his path. He kicked it
aside and it rained a fine shower of springs and gears.
The too-small sun was touching the peaks of the saw-tooth red mountains
when he reached the ship. Too late for a burial today-it would have to wait
until morning. Leaving the thing in the airlock, he stamped into the cabin and
peeled off his dripping pressure suit.
It was dark by that time and the things they had called the night-owls
began clicking and scratching against the hull of the ship. They had never
managed to catch sight of the night-owls; that made the sound doubly annoying.
Tony clattered the pans noisily to drown the sound of them out while he
prepared the hot evening rations. When the meal was finished and the dishes
cleared away, he began to feel the loneliness for the first time. Even the
chew of tobacco didn't help; tonight it only reminded him of the humidor of
green Havana cigars waiting for him back on earth.
His single kick upset the slim leg of the mess table, sending metal
dishes, pans and silverware flying in every direction. They made a
satisfactory noise and he exacted even greater pleasure by leaving the mess
just that way and going to bed. They had been so close this time, if only
Morley had kept his eyes open! He forced the thought out of his mind and went
to sleep.
In the morning he buried Morley. Then, grimly and carefully, passed the
remaining two days until blast off time. Most of the geological samples were
in and the air sampling and radiation recording meters were fully automatic.
On the final day, he removed the recording tapes from the instruments
and carried the instruments away from the ship where they couldn't be caught
in the take off blast. Next to the instruments he piled all the extra
supplies, machinery and unneeded equipment. Shuffling through the rusty sand
for the last time, he gave Morley's grave an ironical salute as he passed.
There was nothing to do in the ship and not as much as a pamphlet left to
read. Tony passed the two remaining hours on his bunk counting the rivets in
the ceiling.
A sharp click from the control clock broke the silence and behind the
thick partition he could hear the engines begin the warm-up cycle. At the same
time, the padded arms slipped across his bunk, pinning him down securely. He
watched the panel slip back in the wall next to him and the hypo arm slide
through, moving erratically like a snake as its metal fingers sought him out.
They touched his ankle and the serpent's tooth of the needle snapped free. The
last thing he saw was the needle slipping into his vein, then the drug blacked
him out.
As soon as he was under, a hatch opened in the rear bulkhead and two
orderlies brought in a stretcher. They wore no suits nor masks and the blue
sky of earth was visible behind them.
Coming to was the same as it always had been. The gentle glow from the
stimulants that brought him up out of it, the first sight of the white ceiling
of the operating room on earth.
Only this time the ceiling wasn't visible, it was obscured by the red
face and thundercloud brow of Colonel Stregham. Tony tried to remember if you
saluted while in bed, then decided that the best thing to do was lie quietly.
"Damn it, Bannerman, the colonel growled, "welcome back on earth. And
why did you bother coming back? With Morley dead the expedition has to be
counted a failure - and that means not one completely successful expedition to
date."
"The team in number two, sir, how did they do...?" Tony tried to sound
cheerful.
"Terrible. If anything, worse than your team. Both dead on the second
day after landing. A meteor puncture in their oxygen tank and they were too
busy discovering a new flora to bother looking at any meters.
"Anyway, that's not why I'm here. Get on some clothes and come into my
office."
He slammed out and Tony scrambled off the bed, ignoring the touch of
dizziness from the drugs. When colonels speak, lieutenants hurry to obey.
Colonel Stegham was scowling out of his window when Tony came in. He
returned the salute and proved that he had a shard of humanity left in his
military soul by offering Tony one of his cigars. Only when they had both lit
up did he wave Tony's attention to the field outside the window.
"Do you see that? Know what it is?"
"Yes, sir, the Mars rocket."
"It's going to be the Mars rocket. Right now, it's only a half-completed
hull. The motors and instruments are being assembled in plants all over the
country. Working on a crash basis the earliest estimate of completion is six
months from now.
"The ship will be ready-only we aren't going to have any men to go in
her. At the present rate of washout there won't be a single man qualified.
Yourself included."
Tony shifted uncomfortably under his gaze as the colonel continued.
"This training program has always been my baby. I dreamed it up and kept
after the Pentagon until it was adapted. We knew we could build a ship that
would get to Mars and back, operated by automatic controls that would fly her
under any degree of gravity or free fall. But we needed men who could walk out
on the surface of the planet and explore it-or the whole thing would be so
much wasted effort.
"The ship and the robot pilot could be tested under simulated flight
condition, and the bugs worked out. It was my suggestion, which was adopted,
that the men who are to go in the ship should be shaken down in the same way.
Two pressure chambers were built, simulated trainers that duplicated Mars in
every detail we could imagine. We have been running two-men teams through
these chambers for eighteen months now, trying to shake down and train them to
man the real ship out there.
"I'm not going to tell you how many men we started with, or how many
have been casualties because of the necessary realism of the chambers. I'll
tell you this much though-we haven't had one successful simulated expedition
in all that time. And every man who has broken down or "died," like your
partner Morley, has been eliminated.
"There are only four possible men left, yourself included. If we don't
get one successful two-man team out of you four, the entire program is a
washout."
Tony sat frozen, the dead cigar between his fingers. He knew that the
pressure had been on for some months now, that Colonel Stegham had been
growling around like a gut-shot bear. The colonel's voice cut through his
thoughts.
"Psych division has been after me for what they think is a basic
weakness of the program. Their feeling is that because it is a training
program the men always have it in the back of their minds that it's not for
real. They can always be pulled out of a tight hole. Like Morley was, at the
last moment. After the results we have had I am beginning to agree with Psych.
"There are four men left and I am going to run one more exercise for
each two-man group. This final exercise will be a full dress rehearsal-this
time we're playing for keeps."
"I don't understand, Colonel..."
"It's simple." Stegham accented his words with a bang of his first on
the desk. "We're not going to help or pull anyone out no matter how much they
need it. This is battle training with live ammunition. We're going to throw
everything at you that we can think of-and you are going to have to take it.
If you tear your suit this time, you're going to die in the Martian vacuum
just a few feet from all the air in the world."
His voice softened just a bit when he dismissed Tony.
"I wish there was some other way to do it, but we have no choice now. We
have to get a crew for that ship next month and this is the only way to he
sure.
Tony had a three-day pass. He was drunk the first day, hung-over sick
the second-and boiling mad on the third. Every man on the project was a
volunteer, adding deadly realism that was carrying the thing too far. He could
get out any time he wanted, though he knew what he would look like then. There
was only one thing to do: go along with the whole stupid idea. He would do
what they wanted and go through with it. And when he had finished the
exercise, he looked forward to hitting the colonel right on the end of his big
bulbous nose.
He joined his new partner, Hal Mendoza, when he went for his medical.
They had met casually at the training lectures before the simulated training
began. They shook hands reservedly now, each eyeing the other with a view to
future possibilities. It took two men to make a team and either one could be
the cause of death for the other.
Mendoza was almost the physical opposite of Tony, tall and wiry, while
Tony was as squat and solid as a bear. Tony's relaxed, almost casual manner,
was matched by the other man's seemingly tense nerves. Hal chain-smoked and
his eyes were never still.
Tony pushed away his momentary worry with an effort. Hal would have to
be good to get this far in the program. He would probably calm down once the
exercise was under way.
The medic took Tony next and began the detailed examination.
"What's this?" the medical officer asked Tony as he probed with a swab
at his cheek.
"Ouch," Tony said. "Razor cut, my hand slipped while I was shaving."
The doctor scowled and painted on antiseptic, then slapped on a square
of gauze.
"Watch all skin openings," he warned. "They make ideal entry routes for
bacteria. Never know what you might find on Mars."
Tony started a protest, then let it die in his throat. What was the use
of explaining that the real trip-if and when it ever came off-would take 260
days. Any cuts would easily heal in that time, even in frozen sleep.
As always after the medical, they climbed into their flight suits and
walked over to the testing building. On the way, Tony stopped at the barracks
and dug out his chess set and a well-thumbed deck of cards. The access door
was open in the thick wall of Building Two and they stepped through into the
dummy Mars ship. After the medics had strapped them to the bunks the simulated
frozen sleep shots put them under.
Coming to was accompanied by the usual nausea and weakness. No realism
spared. On a sudden impulse Tony staggered to the latrine mirror and blinked
at his red-eyed, smooth-shaven reflection. He tore the bandage off his cheek
and his fingers touched the open cut with the still congealed drop of blood at
the bottom. A relaxed sigh slipped out. He had the recurrent bad dream that
some day one of these training trips would really be a flight to Mars. Logic
told him that the army would never forego the pleasure and publicity of a big
send-off. Yet the doubt, like all illogical ones, persisted. At the beginning
of each training flight, he had to abolish it again.
The nausea came back with a swoop and he forced it down. This was one
exercise where he couldn't waste time. The ship had to be checked. Hal was
sitting up on his bunk waving a limp hand. Tony waved back.
At that moment, the emergency communication speaker crackled into life.
At first, there was just the rustle of activity in the control office, then
the training officer's voice cut through the background noise.
"Lieutenant Bannerman-you awake yet?"
Tony fumbled the mike out of its clip and reported. "Here, sir."
"Just a second, Tony," the officer said. He mumbled to someone at one
side of the mike, then came back on. "There's been some trouble with one of
the bleeder valves in the chamber; the pressure is above Mars norm. Hold the
exercise until we pump her back down."
"Yes, sir," Tony said, then killed the mike so he and Hal could groan
about the so-called efficiency of the training squad. It was only a few
minutes before the speaker came back to life.
"Okay, pressure on the button. Carry on as before."
Tony made an obscene gesture at the unseen man behind the voice and
walked over to the single port. He cranked at the handle that moved the crash
shield out of the way.
"Well, at least it's a quiet one," he said after the ruddy light had
streamed in. Hal came up and looked over his shoulder.
"Praise Stegham for that," he said. "The last one, where I lost my
partner, was wind all the time. From the shape of those dunes it looks like
the atmosphere never moves at all."
They stared glumly at the familiar red landscape and dark sky for a long
moment, then Tony turned to the controls while Hal cracked out the atmosphere
suits.
"Over here-quick!"
Hal didn't have to be called twice, he was at the board in a single
jump. He followed Tony's pointing finger.
"The water meter-it shows the tank's only about half full."
They fought off the plate that gave access to the tank compartment. When
they laid it aside a small trickle of rusty water ran across the deck at their
feet. Tony crawled in with a flashlight and moved it up and down the tubular
tanks. His muffled voice echoed inside the small compartment.
"Damn Stegham and his tricks-another 'shock of landing' failure.
Connecting pipe split and the water that leaked out has soaked down into the
insulating layer; we'll never get it out without tearing the ship apart. Hand
me the goo, I'll plug the leak until we can repair it."
"It's going to be an awfully dry month," Hal muttered while he checked
the rest of the control board.
The first few days were like every other trip. They planted the flag and
unloaded the equipment. The observing and recording instruments were set up by
the third day, so they unshipped the theodolite and started their maps. By the
fourth day they were ready to begin their sample collecting.
It was just at this point that they really became aware of the dust.
Tony chewed an unusually gritty mouthful of rations, cursing under his
breath because there was only a mouthful of water to wash it down with. He
swallowed it painfully, then looked around the control chamber.
"Have you noticed how dusty it is?" he asked.
"How could you not notice it? I have so much of it inside my clothes I
feel like I'm living on an ant hill."
Hal stopped scratching just long enough to take a bite of food
They both looked around and it hit them for the first time just how much
dust was in the ship. A red coating on everything, in their food and in their
hair. The constant scratch of grit underfoot.
"It must come in on our suits," Tony said. "We'll have to clean them off
better before coming inside."
It was a good idea-the only trouble was that it didn't work. The red
dust was as fine as talcum powder and no amount of beating could dislodge it;
it just drifted around in a fine haze. They tried to forget the dust, just
treating it as one more nuisance Stegham's technicians had dreamed up. This
worked for awhile, until the eighth day when they couldn't close the outer
door of the air lock. They had just returned from a sample-collecting trip.
The air lock barely held the two of them plus the bags of rock samples. Taking
turns, they beat the dust off each other as well as they could, then Hal threw
the cycling switch. The outer door started to close, then stopped. They could
feel the increased hum of the door motor through their shoes, then it cut out
and the red trouble light flashed on.
"Dust!" Tony said. "That damned red dust is in the works."
The inspection plate came off easily and they saw the exposed gear
train. The red dust had merged into a destructive mud with the grease. Finding
the trouble was easier than repairing it. They had only a few basic tools in
their suit pouches. The big tool box and all the solvent that would have made
fast work of the job were inside the ship. But they couldn't be reached until
the door was fixed. And the door couldn't be fixed without tools. It was a
paradoxical situation that seemed very unfunny.
It took them only a second to realize the spot they were in-and almost
two hours to clean the gears as best they could and force the door shut. When
the inner port finally opened, both their oxygen tanks read EMPTY, and they
were operating on the emergency reserves.
As soon as Hal opened his helmet, he dropped on his bunk. Tony thought
he was unconscious until he saw that the other man's eyes were open and
staring at the ceiling. He cracked open the single flask of medicinal brandy
and forced Hal to take some. Then he had a double swallow himself and tried to
ignore the fact that his partner's hands were trembling violently. He busied
himself making a better repair of the door mechanism. By the time he had
finished, Hal was off the bunk and starting to prepare their evening meal.
Outside of the dint, it was a routine exercise-at first. Surveying and
sampling most of the day, then a few leisure hours before retiring. Hal was a
good partner and the best chess player Tony had teamed with to date. Tony soon
found out that what he thought was nervousness was nervous energy. Hal was
only happy when he was doing something. He threw himself into the day's work
and had enough enthusiasm and energy left over to smash the yawning Tony over
the chessboard. The two men were quite opposite types and made good teammates.
Everything looked good-except for the dust. It was everywhere, and
slowly getting into everything. It annoyed Tony, but he stolidly did not let
it bother him deeply. Hal was the one that suffered most. It scratched and
itched him, setting his temper on edge. He began to have trouble sleeping.
And the creeping dust was slowly working its way into every single item
of equipment. The machinery was starting to wear as fast as their nerves. The
constant presence of the itching dust, together with the acute water shortage
was maddening. They were always thirsty and had only the minimum amount of
water to last until blast off. With proper rationing, it would barely be
enough.
They quarrelled over the ration on the thirteenth day and almost came to
blows. For two days after that they didn't talk. Tony noticed that Hal always
kept one of the sampling hammers in his pocket; in turn, he took to carrying
one of the dinner knives.
Something had to crack. It turned out to be Hal.
It must have been the lack of sleep that finally got to him. He had
always been a light sleeper, now the tension and the dust were too much. Tony
could hear him scratching and turning each night when he forced himself to
sleep. He wasn't sleeping too well himself, but at least he managed to get a
bit. From the black hollows under Hal's bloodshot eyes it didn't look like Hal
was getting any.
On the eighteenth day he cracked. They were just getting into their
suits when he started shaking. Not just his hands, but all over. He just stood
there shaking until Tony got him to the bunk and gave him the rest of the
brandy. When the attack was over he refused to go outside.
"I won't... I can't!" He screamed the words. "The suits won't last much
longer, they'll fail while we're out there... I won't last any longer... we
have to go back..."
Tony tried to reason with him. "We can't do that, you know this is a
full scale exercise. We can't get out until the twenty-eight days are up.
That's only ten more days-you can hold out until then. That's the minimum
figure the army decided on for a stay on Mars-it's built into all the plans
and machinery. Be glad we don't have to wait an entire Martian year until the
planets get back into conjunction. With deep sleep and atomic drive that's one
trouble that won't be faced."
"Stop talking and trying to kid me along," Hal shouted. "I don't give a
flying frog what happens to the first expedition. I'm washing myself out and
this final exercise will go right with me. I'm not going crazy from lack of
sleep just because some brass-hat thinks super-realism is the answer. If they
refuse to stop the exercise when I call, it will be murder."
He was out of his bunk before Tony could say anything and scratching at
the control board. The EMERGENCY button was there as always, but they didn't
know if it was connected this time. Or even if it were connected, if anyone
would answer. Hal pushed it and kept pushing it. They both looked at the
speaker, holding their breaths.
"The dirty rotten... they're not going to answer the call." Hal barely
breathed the words.
Then the speaker rasped to life and the cold voice of Colonel Stegham
filled the tiny room.
"You know the conditions of this exercise-so your reasons for calling
had better be pretty good. What are they?"
Hal grabbed the microphone, half-complaining, half-pleading-the words
poured out in a torrent. As soon as he started, Tony knew it would not be any
good. He knew just how Stegham would react to the complaints. While Hal was
still pleading the speaker cut him off.
"That's enough. Your explanation doesn't warrant any change in the
original plan. You are on your own and you're going to have to stay that way.
I'm cutting this connection permanently; don't attempt to contact me again
until the exercise is over."
The click of the opening circuit was as final as death.
Hal sat dazed, tears on his cheeks. It wasn't until he stood up that
Tony realized they were tears of anger. With a single pull, Hal yanked the
mike loose and heaved it through the speaker grill.
"Wait until this is over, Colonel, and I can get your pudgy neck between
my hands." He whirled towards Tony. "Get out the medical kit, I'll show that
idiot he's not the only one who can play boy scout with his damned exercises."
There were four morphine styrettes in the kit; he grabbed one out, broke
the seal and jabbed it against his arm. Tony didn't try to stop him, in fact,
he agreed with him completely. Within a few minutes, Hal was slumped over the
table, snoring deeply. Tony picked him up and dropped him onto his bunk.
Hal slept almost twenty hours and when he woke up some of the madness
and exhaustion was gone from his eyes. Neither of them mentioned what had
happened. Hal marked the days remaining on the bulkhead and carefully rationed
the remaining morphine. He was getting about one night's sleep in three, but
it seemed to be enough.
They had four days left to blast off when Tony found the first Martian
life. It was something about the size of a cat that crouched in the lee of the
ship, He called to Hal who came over and looked at it.
"That's a beauty," he said, "but nowheres near as good as the one I had
on my second trip. I found this ropy thing that oozed a kind of glue. Contrary
to regulations-frankly I was curious as hell-I dissected the thing. It was a
beauty, all wheels and springs and gears, Stegham's technicians do a good job.
I really got chewed out for opening the thing, though. Why don't we just leave
this one where it is?"
For a moment Tony almost agreed-then changed his mind.
"That's probably just what they want-so let's finish the game their way.
I'll watch it, you get one of the empty ration cartons."
Hal reluctantly agreed and climbed into the ship. The outer door swung
slowly and ground into place. Disturbed by the vibration, the thing darted out
towards Tony. He gasped and stepped back before he remembered it was only a
robot.
"Those technicians really have wonderful imaginations," he mumbled.
The thing started to run by him and he put his foot on some of its legs
to hold it. There were plenty of legs; it was like a small-bodied spider
surrounded by a thousand unarticulated legs. They moved in undulating waves
like a millipede and dragged the misshapen body across the sand. Tony's boot
crunched on the legs, tearing some off. The rest held.
Being careful to keep his hand away from the churning legs, he bent over
and picked up a dismembered limb. It was hard and covered with spines on the
bottom side. A milky fluid was dripping from the torn end.
"Realism," he said to himself, "those technicians sure believe in
realism."
And then the thought hit him. A horribly impossible thought that froze
the breath in his throat. The thoughts whirled round and round and he knew
they were wrong because they were so incredible. Yet he had to find out, even
if it meant ruining their mechanical toy.
Keeping his foot carefully on the thing's legs, he slipped the sharpened
table knife out of his pouch and bent over. With a single, swift motion he
stabbed.
"What the devil are you doing?" Hal asked, coming up behind him. Tony
couldn't answer and he couldn't move. Hal walked around him and looked down at
the thing on the ground.
It took him a second to understand, then he screamed.
"It's alive! It's bleeding and there are no gears inside. It can't be
alive-if it is we're not on earth at all-we're on Mars!" He began to run, then
fell down, screaming.
Tony thought and acted at the same time. He knew he only had one chance.
If he missed they'd both be dead. Hal would kill them both in his madness.
Balling his fist, he let swing hard as he could at the spot just under the
other man's breastplate. There was just the thin fabric of the suit there and
that spot was right over the big nerve ganglion of the solar plexus. The thud
of the blow hurt his hand-but Hal collapsed slowly to the ground. Putting his
hands under the other's arms, he dragged him into the ship.
Hal started to come to after he had stripped him and laid him on the
bunk. It was impossible to hold him down with one hand and press the freeze
cycling button at the same time. He concentrated on holding Hal's one leg
still and pushed the button. The crazed man had time to hit Tony three times
before the needle lanced home. He dropped back with a sigh and Tony got
groggily to his feet. The manual actuator on the frozen sleep had been
provided for any medical emergency so the patient could survive until the
doctors could work on him back at base. It had proven its value.
Then the same unreasoning terror hit him.
If the beast were real-Mars was real.
This was no "training exercise"-this was it. That sky outside wasn't a
painted atmosphere, it was the real sky of Mars. He was alone as no man had
ever been alone before. On a planet millions of miles from his world.
He was shouting as he dogged home the outer airlock door, an animal-like
howl of a lost beast. He had barely enough control left to get to his bunk and
throw the switch above it. The hypodermic was made of good steel so it went
right through the fabric of his pressure suit. He was just reaching for the
hypo arm to break it off when he dropped off into the blackness.
This time, he was slow to open his eyes. He was afraid he would see the
riveted hull of the ship above his head. It was the white ceiling of the
hospital, though, and he let the captive air out of his lungs. When he turned
his head he saw Colonel Stegham sitting by the bed.
"Did we make it?" Tony asked. It was more of a statement than a
question.
"You made it, Tony. Both of you made it. Hal is awake here in the other
bed."
There was something different about the colonel's voice and it took Tony
an instant to recognize it. It was the first time he had ever heard the
colonel talk with any emotion other than anger.
"The first trip to Mars. You can imagine what the papers are saying
about it. More important, Tech says the specimens and meter reading you
brought back are invaluable. When did you find out it wasn't an exercise?"
"The twenty-fourth day. We found some kind of Martian animal. I suppose
we were pretty stupid not to have tumbled before that."
Tony's voice had an edge of bitterness.
"Not really. Every part of your training was designed to keep you from
finding out. We were never certain if we would have to send the men without
their knowledge, but there was always that possibility. Psych was sure the
disorientation and separation from earth would cause a breakdown. I could
never agree with them."
"They were right," Tony said, trying to keep the memory of fear out of
his voice.
"We know now they were right, though I fought them at the time. Psych
won the fight and we programmed the whole trip over on their say-so. I doubt
if you appreciate it, but we went to a tremendous amount of work to convince
you two that you were still in the training program.
"Sorry to put you to all that trouble," Hal said. The colonel flushed a
little, not at the words but at the loosely-reined bitterness that rode behind
them. He went on as if he hadn't heard.
"Those two conversations you had over the emergency phone were, of
course, taped and the playback concealed in the ship. Psych scripted them on
the basis of fitting any need, apparently they worked. The second one was
supposed to be the final touch of realism, in case you should start being
doubtful. Then we used a variation of deep freeze that suspends about ninety-
nine per cent of the body processes; it hasn't been revealed or published yet.
This along with anti-coagulants in the razor cut on Tony's chin covered the
fact that so much time had passed."
摘要：

AWORDFROMTHE(HUMAN)AUTHOR...WHENMOSTPEOPLEHEARTHEWORDrobot,theyhaveareflexivemetalpictureofamechanicalman,allcreakingjointsandglowingeyes.Thisreallywasn'twhatKarelCapekhadinmindwhenheinventedthewordforhisplayR.U.R.soonaftertheFirstWorldWar.Hisrobots-Rossum'sUniversalRobots-werefleshandblood,thoughar...

展开>> 收起<<
Harry Harrison - War with the Robots.pdf

共77页,预览16页

还剩页未读， 继续阅读

声明：本站为文档C2C交易模式，即用户上传的文档直接被用户下载，本站只是中间服务平台，本站所有文档下载所得的收益归上传人(含作者)所有。玖贝云文库仅提供信息存储空间，仅对用户上传内容的表现方式做保护处理，对上载内容本身不做任何修改或编辑。若文档所含内容侵犯了您的版权或隐私，请立即通知玖贝云文库，我们立即给予删除！

相关推荐

更多
立即下载
分类：外语学习 价格：5.9玖币 属性：77 页 大小：238.9KB 格式：PDF 时间：2024-12-15

开通VIP享超值会员特权

  • 多端同步记录
  • 高速下载文档
  • 免费文档工具
  • 分享文档赚钱
  • 每日登录抽奖
  • 优质衍生服务

作者详情

相关内容

更多

热门标签

人际关系 配电装置 动力学连接体 力的合成 高考理综 全宋诗作者索引 公务员考试
/ 77
评分 收藏
分享
立即下载 VIP免费下载
客服
关注