Alien Earth and Other Stories Read online

  "They can do everything?"

  "Well, not everything. Most of the inventions have about sixty different processes, all alien, all mixed, all shapes, sizes, molded into them. Each one of my creations has a different set of services. Some are big. Some small. Some of the big ones have many, many services. The small ones have only one or two simple functions. No two are alike. Think of the space and time and money you save by buying a doohingey!"

  "Yeah," said Crowell. He thought about Bishop's body. "Your doohingey is certainly versatile, all right."

  "That reminds me," said the little man. "About that 1944 model hinkie you sold me in trade. Where did you get it?"

  "Get it? You mean that pipe cle—I mean, the hinkie? I— Oh, well, I—"

  "You don't have to be secretive. We share trade secrets, you know. Did you make it yourself?"

  "I ... I bought it and worked on it. The ... the power of thought, you know."

  "Then you know the secret? How astonishing! I thought I was the only one who knew about the transmission of thought into energy forms. Brilliant man. Did you study in Rruhre?"

  "No. I was always sorry I never got there. Never had the opportunity. I had to struggle along alone. Look, I'd like to turn this doohingey in for another apparatus. I don't like it."

  "You don't like it? Why not?"

  "Oh I just don't. Too cumbersome. Give me something simple every time."

  Yeah, simple, he thought, something you can see how it works.

  "What kind of machine do you want this time, Mr. Crowell?"

  "Give me a . . . gadget." "What year gadget?"

  "Does that make a great deal of difference, what year?" "Oh, you're joking again, aren't you?" Crowell swallowed. "I'm joking."

  "You know, of course, that in each year for thousands of years that the type of gadget and the name for a gadget would be different. A thingooey of the year 1965 would be an oddsblodkins in 1492. Or a ettubrutus in the days of Caesar."

  "Are you joking?" asked Crowell. "No. Never mind. Give me my gadget and I'll go home."

  That word "home" startled Crowell. It wouldn't be wise to go there just yet. Hide out for a while until he could send a message to the bodyguard saying that he was holding Bishop prisoner. Yes. That was it. That was safest.

  In the meantime he was curious about this shop, but not curious enough to have horrible contraptions like that doohingey near him. The little man was talking:

  "I've a whole case full of thingumabobs from all historical periods I'll give you," he was saying. "I'm so overstocked with stuff, and nobody but you takes me seriously so far. I haven't made one sale today. It's quite saddening."

  Crowell felt sorry for the man, but—"Tell you what. I've got an empty storage room in my house. Send the stuff around in a few days and I'll look it over and take what I like."

  "Can't you take some of it with you now?" pleaded the little man.

  "I don't think I can—"

  "Oh, it's small. Very small stuff. Really. Here. I'll show you. A few little boxes of trinkets and knickknacks Here. Here they are." He bent behind a counter, brought out six boxes, enough to load CroweU's arms up to the chin.

  Crowell opened one box. "Sure. I'll take these. Nothing but soup strainers, paring knives, lemon juicers, doorknobs and old meerschaum pipes from Holland. Sure, I'll take these." They looked safe. They were small, simple. Nothing wrong with them.

  "Oh, thank you. Thank you. Put these in the back of your beetle, gratis. I'm glad to clean them out of the store. I've done so much energy creating in the last few years or so I'll be relieved to get rid of them. Sick and tired of looking at them. There you go."

  Crowell, his arms full, staggered out to his white beetle and tossed the stuff in the back seat. He waved to the little man, said he'd see him again in a few days, and drove off.

  The hour spent in the shop, the gibbering joy of the little man, the bright lights, had made him forget, for the time, about Bishop's bodyguards and Bishop himself.

  The beetle car hummed under him. He headed downtown toward the Audio studios, trying to decide what was wisest to do. He reached back, curiously, and pulled out one of the little gadgets. It was nothing more nor less than a pipe. Seeing it, made him hungry for a smoke, so he took the pipe, filled it with makings from his blouse pouch, and lit it, experimentally, carefully. He puffed smoke. Fine. A good pipe.

  He was busy enjoying the pipe when he noticed something in the rear-view mirror. He was being followed by two black beetle cars. No mistaking those low ebony high-powered crawlers.

  He cursed silently and put on speed. The beetles were catching up with him, gaining speed every instant. There were two thugs in one of them, and two in the other.

  "I'll stop and tell them that I'm holding their boss as hostage," said Crowell to himself.

  There were guns gleaming in the hands of the thugs in the black cars.

  Crowell realized that. He had planned on hiding away and calling them and giving them his ultimatum. But—this! They were coming after him. He wouldn't have a chance to explain before they'd shoot him down.

  He increased the speed with his foot. Sweat came out to play on his forehead. What a mess. He was beginning to wish he hadn't returned the doohingey to the shop. He could use it now, just as he had inadvertendy used it on Bishop.

  Doohingey! Gadgets!

  Crowell cried out in relief. Maybe—

  He reached into the back seat and scrabbled wildly among the litter of gadgets. None of them looked like they could do anything, but he'd try, anyhow.

  "O. K., you thingums, do your stuff! Protect me, damn you!"

  There was a rattling crisp noise and something metallic thumped past Crowefl's ears, winged outside on transparent glass wings back in the direction of the pursuing enemy car and hit it head on.

  There was an explosion of green fire and gray smoke.

  The fraltamoret had done its work. It was a combination of a little boy's automatic airplane and an explosive projectile.

  Crowell pressed the floor plate and shot his beetle ahead again. The second car was still pursuing. They wouldn't give up.

  "Get them!" cried Crowell. "Get them, too! Get them any way you can!" He dumped two boxes of trinkets out ^he window. Several of them took flight. The others bounced harmlessly on the cement.

  Two missiles glittered in the air. They looked like old-fashioned pinking shears, sharp and bright, with an anti-gravity main-mechanistic drive attached. They sang along the boulevard until they got to the remaining black beetle car.

  They went in through the open windows gleaming.

  The black beetle car lost its control and went off the avenue, turning over and over, smashing, and bursting into a sudden savage fire.

  Crowell slumped in his seat. He let the beetle slow down and pull around a corner and over to the curb, stopping. He was breathing fast. His heart crashed.

  He could go home now, if he wanted to. There would be no one else waiting for him at home, waiting to ambush him, stop him, question him, threaten him.

  He could go home now. Funny, but he didn't feel relieved or happy. He just felt dark, unhappy, ill at ease. The world was a lousy place to live in. He had a bitter taste in his mouth.

  He drove home. Well, maybe things would be better. Maybe.

  He took the remaining boxes of trinkets and got out of the beede and took the vac-elevator upstairs. He opened the door and laid the boxes down and sorted through them.

  He still had that pipe in his mouth, after all the excitement. He had picked it up automatically and put it back in his mouth. He was nervous. Needed another smoke now to quiet his mind.

  He put fresh tobacco in his new pipe and puffed it into life. That little man was a screw for giving him all this stuff. Dangerous to have this sort of knowledge lying around in the world. All kinds of wrong people might get hold of it, use it.

  He laughed and puffed at his pipe.

  From now on, he'd play big shot. With the help of the little man a
nd the shop, he'd make those big Plastics officials jump, pay him money, obey his every thought. Damn them.

  It sounded like a lot of trouble, though. He sat down and scowled and brooded about it and his thoughts got dark, like they had been for so many years. Pessimistic.

  What was the use of trying to do anything in this world? Why did he bother to go on living? He got so tired.

  Sometimes, like tonight and so many nights in the long years, he felt that it might be a good idea if those gunmen caught up with him and filled him full of paralysis. Sometimes, if he had a gun in his own fingers, he'd blast his brains out.

  There was a sharp explosion. Crowell stood up suddenly. He stiffened and fell down on his knees.

  He'd forgotten about the pipe in his mouth—forgotten it was a thingumabob gadget.

  It took an unpleasantly fatal way of reminding him.

  AUTOMATON

  A. E. van Vogt

  The human automaton stirred uneasily in his small, almost invisible plane. His eyes strained into the visiplate, scanning the sky ahead. Out of the blue came two flashes of fire. Instantly, the plane careened as if struck from a double blow.

  It fell slowly at first, then more rapidly, down into the enemy lines. As the Earth came near, a resisting mechanism went into operation. The rate of fall grew slower. The automaton had time to see that there was a vast ruin of a city below. Soundlessly, the tiny machine settied into the shelter of the crumbled base of what had once been a building.

  A moment passed, then the radio beside him sibilated. Voices which were strange to him were talking to each other.

  "Bill!" said the first voice.

  "Shoot!"

  "Did we get him?"

  "Don't think so. Not permanentiy, anyway. I think he went down under at least partial control, though it's hard to tell with that safety device they have. My guess is he's down there somewhere with his motor shut off.

  "I think we disabled him."

  "Well, then, you know the routine when one of 'em is cornered just inside our lines. Do your psychology stuff. I'll call the Vulture."

  "Don't pass the buck to me. I'm sick of spouting those lines. You give 'em!"

  "All right. Shoot me the come-on!"

  "Hmmmm . . . he's down there. Think we ought to go after him?"

  "Naw! The automatons they send out this far are basically the clever ones. That means we couldn't capture him. He'd be just fast enough on the uptake to make it necessary for us to kill him, and who the devil wants to kill those poor, tortured slaves?—Did you get his picture?"

  "Yep, he was listening with an intent look on his face. Fine

  looking chap . . . It's funny, and kind of terrible how all this started, isn't it?"

  "Yeah. Wonder what this guy's number is."

  There was a distinct pause. The automaton stirred uneasily. His number? Ninety-two, of course. What else? The voice was speaking again:

  "Poor fellow probably doesn't remember that he once had a name."

  The other voice said, "Who'd have thought when they first made a human duplicate—flesh and blood and bones and all—that today, only fifty years later, we'd be fighting for our lives against people who look exactly like us, except that they're natural eunuchs."

  The automaton listened with vague attention, as the two men went on talking. Every little while he nodded as their words reminded him of something he had almost forgotten. The human duplicates had first been called robots. They had resented that name, and changed it around to make it Tobor, and that stuck. The Tobors proved to be very effective scientists, and at first no one noticed how rapidly they took over scientific posts in every part of the world. Nor was it immediately noticed that the Tobors were secretly carrying on a duplication campaign on a tremendous scale. The great shock to the human masses came when Tobor-infiltrated governments on each continent simultaneously enacted laws declaring duplication would henceforth be the only means of procreation. Sex was forbidden under pentalty of a fine for the first offense, then imprisonment, and then, for recalcitrants, the Tobor-invented process of being made into an automaton.

  A special police organization—which turned out to be already in existence—was set up to administer the new law. Tobor enforcement officers swung into action immediately, and there was some street fighting on that first day. Neither side even thought of compromise, so within two weeks full-scale war was raging.

  The account ended, as Bill said: "I guess he's heard enough. Come on, let's go."

  There was muffled laughter, then silence.

  The automaton waited, disturbed. Sketchy memories were in his mind of a past when there had been no war, and, somewhere, there was a girl, and another world.

  The unreal pictures faded. And again there was only this ship that clothed his body in almost form-fitting metal. There was the need to go on, aerial pictures to be taken . . . Must get up into the air!

  He felt the ship tug in response to his urgent thought, but no movement followed. For seconds, he lay lethargically, then came a second urge for flight. Once more the tiny ship writhed with effort, but no upward movement resulted.

  This time the automaton had the slow thought: "Something must have fallen across the ship, and is holding it down . . . Have to go out and remove it , . ."

  He squirmed against the metal and padding that encased him. Sweat poured down his cheeks, but presently he stood free in ankle deep dust. As he had been trained to do on such occasions, he checked his equipment . . . weapons, tools, gas mask—

  He flung himself flat on the ground as a great, dark ship swooped down out of the sky, and setded to the ground several hundred yards away. From his prone position, the automaton watched it, but there was no sign of movement now. Puzzled, the automaton climbed to his feet. He recalled that one of the men on the radio had said a Vulture had been called.

  So they had been playing a trick on him, pretending to go away. Clearly visible on the ship's hull was the name: Vulture 121.

  Its appearance seemed to suggest that an attack was to be made. His strong, determined mouth tightened. They'd soon learn it didn't pay to meddle with a Tobor slave.

  Die for Tobor, mighty Tobor . . .

  Tensely, the young woman watched as her pilot lowered the high-speed plane toward the leveled ruin of the city where the Vulture lay. The big ship was unmistakable. It towered above the highest remnant of shattered wall. It was a black bulk against the gray-dark sameness of the rubble.

  There was a bump and she was out of the machine, clutching her bag. Twice, her right ankle twisted cruelly as she raced over the uneven ground. Breathlessly, she ran up the narrow gangplank.

  A steel door clicked open. As she hurried inside, she glanced behind her. The door clanged shut; and she realized gratefully that she was safe.

  She stopped, as her eyes had to accustom themselves to the dim metal room. After a moment she saw a little group of men. One of them, a small individual with glasses and a thin face, stepped forward. He took the suitcase from her with one hand, and with the other, he grabbed her hand, and shook it warmly.

  "Good girl!" he said. "That was well and swifdy run, Miss Harding. I'm sure no spying ship of the robots could have identified you in any way during the half-minute you were exposed. Oh, pardon me."

  He smiled. "I shouldn't be calling them robots, should I? They've reversed all that, haven't they? Tobors is their name. It does have more rhythm and should be psychologically more satisfying to them. There now, you've caught your breath. By the way, I'm Doctor Claremeyer."

  "Doctor," Juanita Harding managed to say, "are you sure it's he?"

  "Definitely, your fiance, John Gregson, chemist extraordinary." ... It was a younger man who spoke. He stepped forward and took the suitcase from the older man's fingers. "The patrol got the picture by the new process, whereby we tune in on their communicating plates. It was flashed to headquarters, and then transmitted to us."

  He paused, and smiled engagingly. "My name is Madden. That's Phillips wit
h the long, gloomy face. The big fellow with the uncombed hair, lurking there in the background like an elephant, is Rice, our field man. And you've already met Doctor Claremeyer."

  Rice said gruffly, "We've got a hell of a job here, ma'am, begging your pardon for them rough words."

  Miss Harding took off her hat with a brisk sweep of one hand. The shadows retreated from her face into her eyes, but there was a hint of a smile on her lips. "Mr. Rice, I live with a father whose nickname is 'Cyclone' Harding. To him, our everyday language is an enemy which he attacks with all available weapons. Does that answer your apology?"

  The big man chuckled. "You win. But let's get down to business. Madden, you've got a brain that thinks in words, tell Miss Harding the situation!"

  "Right!" The young man took up the refrain grimly. "We had the good fortune to be in the air near here when the first report came through that an automaton had been brought down alive. As soon as the identification arrived, we asked army headquarters to set up a defense ring of all available planes. They stripped the entire nearby line to help us."

  He paused, frowning. "It has had to be very carefully done, because we don't want to give the Tobors any idea of what's going on. Your fiance can't get away; that is certain, I think. And he can't be rescued unless they come out in force of a size that catches us momentarily off guard. Our big problem is to capture him alive."

  "And that, of course—" It was Claremeyer, who cut in with a shrug of his shoulders—"may be easy or it may be difficult. Unfortunately, it must be fast. The Tobors will not be unaware long of this concentration of forces, then they will examine his file, analyze at least a part of the true situation, and act.