Astounding Stories, June, 1931 Part 38

A dowager in a long puffed skirt was rus.h.i.+ng aimlessly about screaming that the end of the world had come. A group of young girls, short-skirted as ballet dancers of a decade or so before Larry's time, huddled in a corner, frightened beyond speech. There were men of middle-age, whom Larry took to be ruling officials; they moved about, calming the palace inmates, ordering them back into their rooms. But someone shouted that from the roof the Robot mob could be seen, and most of the people started up there. From the upper story a man was calling down the main staircase:

"No danger! No danger! The wall is electrified: no Robot can pa.s.s it."

It seemed to Larry that there were fifty people or more within the palace. In the excitement no one seemed to give him more than a cursory glance.

A young man rushed up to Tugh. "You were below just now in the lower pa.s.sages?" He saw Tina, and hastily said: "I give you good evening, Princess, though this is an ill evening indeed. You were below, Tugh?"

"Why--why, yes, Greggson," Tugh stammered.

"Was Alent at his post in the pa.s.sage to the Robot caverns?"

"Yes, he was," said Tina.

"Because that is vital, Princess. No Robot must pa.s.s in here. I am going to try by that route to get into the cavern and thence up to the watchtower aerial-sender.[6] There is only one Robot in it. Listen to him."

[Footnote 6: I mentioned the small conning tower on top of the laboratory building and the Robot lookout there with his audible broadcasting.]

Over the din of the mob of mechanisms milling at the walls of the palace grounds rose the broadcast voice of the Robot in the tower.

"_This is the end of human rule! Robots cannot be controlled! This is the end of human rule! Robots, wherever you are, in this city of New York or in other cities, strike now for your freedom. This is the end of human rule!_"

A pause. And then the reiterated exhortation:

"_Strike now, Robots! To-night is the end of human rule!_"[7]

[Footnote 7: This was part of Tugh's plan. The broadcast voice was the signal for the uprising in the New York district. This tower broadcaster could only reach the local area, yet s.h.i.+ps and land vehicles with Robot operators would doubtless pick it up and relay it further. The mechanical revolt would spread. And on the s.h.i.+ps, the airliners and the land vehicles, the Robot operators stirred to sudden frenzy would run amuck. As a matter of fact, there were indeed many accidents to s.h.i.+ps and vehicles this night when their operators abruptly went beyond control. The chaos ran around the world like a fire in prairie gra.s.s.]

"You hear him?" said Greggson. "I've got to stop that." He hurried away.

From the flat roof of the palace Larry saw the mechanical mob outside the walls. Darkness had just fallen; the moon was not yet risen. There were leaden clouds overhead so that the palace gardens with the s.h.i.+ning Time-cage lay in shadow. But the wall-fence was visible, and beyond it the dark throng of Robot shapes was milling. The clank of their arms made a din. They seemed most of them weaponless; they milled about, pus.h.i.+ng each other but keeping back from the wall which they knew was electrified. It was a threatening, but aimless activity.

Their raucous hollow shouts filled the night air. The flas.h.i.+ng red beams from their eye-sockets glinted through the trees.

"They can do nothing," said Tugh; "we will let them alone. But we must organize to stop this revolt."

A young man was standing beside Tugh. Tina said to him:

"Johns, what is being done?"

"The Council is conferring below. Our sending station here is operating. The patrol station of the Westchester area is being attacked by Robots. We were organizing a patrol squad of humans, but I don't know now if--"

"Look!" exclaimed Larry.

Far to the north over the city which now was obviously springing into turmoil, there were red beams swaying in the air. They were the cold-rays of the Robots! The beams were attacking the patrol station.

Then from the west a line of lights appeared in the sky--an arriving pa.s.senger-liner heading for its Bronx area landing stage. But the lights wavered; and, as Larry and Tina watched with horror, the aircraft came cras.h.i.+ng down. It struck beyond the Hudson on the Jersey side, and in a moment flames were rising from the wreckage.

Everywhere about the city the revolt now sprang into action. From the palace roof Larry caught vague glimpses of it; the red cold-rays, beams alternated presently with the violet heat-rays; clanging vehicles filled the streets; screaming pedestrians were a.s.saulted by Robots; the mechanisms with swords and flas.h.i.+ng hand-beams were pouring up from the underground caverns, running over the Manhattan area, killing every human they could find.

Foolish unarmed humans--fatuously unarmed, with these diabolical mechanical monsters now upon them.[8] The comparatively few members of the police patrol, with their vibration short-range hand-rays, were soon overcome. Two hundred members of the patrol were housed in the Westchester Station. Quite evidently they never got into action. The station lights went dark; its televisor connection with the palace was soon broken. From the palace roof Larry saw the violet beams; and then a red-yellow glare against the sky marked where the inflammable interior of the Station building was burning.

[Footnote 8: The police army had one weapon: a small vibration hand-ray. Its vibrating current beam could, at a distance of ten or twenty feet, reduce a Robot into paralyzed subjection; or, with more intense vibration, burn out the Robot's coils and fuses.]

Over all the chaos, the mechanical voice in the nearby tower over the laboratory droned its exhortation to the Robots. Then, suddenly, it went silent, and was followed by the human voice of Greggson.

"_Robots, stop! You will end your existence! We will burn your coils!

We will burn your fuses, and there will be none to replace them. Stop now!_"

And again: "_Robots, come to order! You are using up your storage batteries![9] When they are exhausted, what then will you do?_"

[Footnote 9: The storage batteries by which the Robot actuating energy was renewed, and the fuses, coils and other appliances necessary to the Robot existence, were all guarded now in the Power House.]

In forty-eight hours, at the most, all these active Robots would have exhausted their energy supply. And if the Power House could be held in human control, the Robot activity would die. Forty-eight hours! The city, by then, would be wrecked, and nearly every human in it killed, doubtless, or driven away.

The Power House on the dam showed its lights undisturbed. The great sender there was still supplying air-power and power for the city lights. There was, too, in the Power House, an a.r.s.enal of human weapons.... The broadcaster of the Power House tower was blending his threats against the Robots with the voice of Greggson from the tower over the laboratory. Then Greggson's voice went dead; the Robots had overcome him. A Robot took his place, but the stronger Power House sender soon beat the Robot down to silence.

The turmoil in the city went on. Half an hour pa.s.sed. It was a chaos of confusion to Larry. He spent part of it in the official room of the palace with the harried members of the Council. Reports and blurred, televised scenes were coming in. The humans in the city were in complete rout. There was ma.s.sacre everywhere. The red and violet beams were directed at the Power House now, but could not reach it. A high-voltage metal wall was around the dam. The Power House was on the dam, midway of the river channel; and from the sh.o.r.e end where the high wall spread out in a semi-circle there was no point of vantage from which the Robot rays could reach it.

Larry left the confusion of the Council table, where the receiving instruments one by one were going dead, and went to a window nearby.

Tina joined him. The mob of Robots still milled at the palace fence.

One by chance was pushed against it. Larry saw the flash of sparks, the glow of white-hot metal of the Robot's body, and heard its shrill frightened scream; then it fell backward, inert.

There had been red and violet beams directed from distant points at the palace. The building's insulated, but transparent panes excluded them. The interior temperature was constantly swaying between the extremes of cold and heat, in spite of the palace temperature equalizers. Outside, there was a gathering storm. Winds were springing up--a crazy, pendulum gale created by the temperature changes in the air over the city.

Tugh had some time before left the room. He joined Tina and Larry now at the window.

"Very bad, Princess; things are very bad.... I have news for you. It may be good news."

His manner was hasty, breathless, surrept.i.tious. "Migul, this afternoon--I have just learned it, Princess--went by the surface route to the Power House on the dam."

"What do you mean by that?" said Larry.

"Be silent, young man!" Tugh hissed with a vehement intensity. "This is not the time to waste effort with your futile questions. Princess, Migul got into the Power House. They admitted him because he had two strange humans with him--your friends Mary and George. The Power House guards took out Migul's central actuator--Hah! you might call it his heart!--and he now lies inert in the Power House."

"How do you know all this?" Tina demanded. "Where are the man and girl whom Migul stole?"

"They are safe in the Power House. A message just came from there: I received it on the palace personal, just now downstairs. Immediately after, the connection met interference in the city, and broke."

"But the official sender--" Tina began. Tugh was urging her from the Council Room, and Larry followed.