Page:Stirring Science Stories, March 1942.djvu/13

 —about fanaticism gave them the idea of turning out fighters with souls bonded over to me. I swear I didn't mean it that way! But look at the result.

"Every week or so one of the foreman robots brings me a list of the suns that are now under my imperial domination. And I can't explain to them because they aren't trouble-shooters specialized to straighten out a mess like this. And the proteans can't make a trouble-shooter because they aren't the originals, who simply manufactured for its own sake. The originals are all worn out and scrapped, and the ones that are turning out robots now are also fanatics with the idea of conquest for my greater glory.

"It's a chain of events that's been twisted around and tied to its tail. If you can find a way to stop it let me know."

Entered a grim-faced fetching-foreman robot. "Worshipful master," it intoned, "your dominion is extended this week over twenty new suns. Accept this list, your children beseech." He handed to Allistair a sheet of names.

The boy let it fall to the floor. "Listen," he said passionately to the robot. "I don't want any more sheets like this. I don't want to conquer any suns or planets. I want the proteans to stop making robots. And above all I want you damned hunks of tin to stop calling me worshipful master! I'm not worshipful and I'm not anybody's master."

The foreman said methodically: "Worshipful master, despite your folly we are loyal and shall make you lord of all things that are. It is for your own good that we act. Do not forget the day when you said to the great protean 27: 'Fanaticism may be a good thing. If you machines had more of it things'd be a lot easier for me. If I wanted I could be master of the universe with you machines, given that touch of lunatic bravery.'" The foreman stumped out of the room.

"Where they get those ideas I don't know!" shrilled Allistair. "I haven't the faintest idea of what their machinery's like. My God, what I set in motion when I built protean 1!"

"The trouble is," said Bartok broodingly, "that you have all the firerpower you need and no control whatsoever over it. And because of this lack of control you are even now waging the most successful invasion of all time. I don't blame you—I know the spot you're in. You say you don't know a thing about these late-model robots?"

"Not a thing," almost sobbed the young man. "Not a thing. About twenty robot generations have gone by since I built protean 1, and they've been evolving like wildfire. A math robot thinks up a new law of electromagnetics, takes it to a physics robot who applies it and takes it to a protean, who incorporates it into the next series of machines. That's the way it perpetuates itself. They invented death-rays, tractor rays—I don't know what-all!"

"You shouldn't have said fanaticism, son," worried Bartok. "That was the one concept that couldn't have been cancelled out by another suggestion. Because a full-fledged fanatic brooks no obstruction whatsoever to achieve his aim. Not even such a trifling detail as the fact that policy, orders and authority are opposed to that aim."

"And," said Babe, "these robots are the most full-fledged anythings you could hope to see. Did you meet one of their full-fledged humorists, Barty?" She shuddered. "Back on Earth we'd lynch a comedian who never let you catch a breath between gags."

"What'm I going to do?" asked the young man simply. "I can't have this on my conscience. I'll blow my brains out."

"Babe," said Bartok. "That package I gave you—still got it?"

"Yes, you old home-spun philosopher." She produced the package. "How many more to go in this Chinese ring trick?"

"Only one. Open it up." Curiously she tore off the seals and read from the neatly-printed card that was in the last of the boxes: "'If you've given up hope be ready to die. If you haven't, try misdirection.'" She stared at the Commander. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"The purpose of the little boxes was simply to jog your imagination in tight spots. There isn't any cure-all formula except the thing you carry in your skull. The human brain is a marvelous mechanism" He turned abruptly on Allistair. "Take me to see one of your proteans, son."

AKE tracks, Babe!" the Commander yelled, sprinting for the little cruiser in which he had arrived at Arided. He flung himself into the cabin à second after the girl and a split-second before the craft roared into the air.

"We are now," said Bartok, sprawled comfortably along the floor, "going to see the first and, I hope, the last real space-battle of its kind, fought with rays, disintegrators, ray-screens, inertia-less drive and all the lunatic creations that crack-brained authors have been devising for the past few centuries. It is fitting and proper that this war should be fought, because no real lives are going to be lost and it will inevitably end in a stasis, both sides having wiped each other out."

"But can he put up a real fight?" asked the girl worriedly.

"Remember what I said about the human brain, Babe? It's bigger and better than any thinking-machinery, however elaborate. It's nature's way, which is often best. Nature's way was to smash the protean and perform a simple operation that substituted Allistair's brain for its impulse-mechanism."

"What happens then?" she asked. "Not that I question that he ought to die in a good cause.