Invasion of the Robots Read online

  “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, ginger-haired, 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.

  He stood up, looking again at his wrist watch. Scowling, he prowled around the room till he found what he wanted—the window buttons. As he pressed these, panels in the blank walls slid aside, revealing the lighted towers of New York.

  Gunther glanced at the door warily. He opened a window and peered down. The height was dizzying, but a ledge provided easy egress. Gunther eased himself over the sill and slid along to his right till he reached another window.

  It was locked. He looked down, hesitating. There was another ledge below, but he wasn’t sure he could make it. Instead, he went on to the next window.

  Locked.

  But the one after that was open. Gunther peered into the dimness. He could make out a bulky desk, and the glimmer of a telepanel. Sighing with relief, he crawled into the office, with another glance at his watch.

  He went directly to the televisor and fingered a number. When a man’s face appeared on the panel, Gunther merely said, “Reporting. O.K.,” and broke the connection. His consciousness recorded a tiny click.

  He called Ballard then, but the castle’s secretary answered.

  “Where’s Ballard?”

  “Not here, sir. Can I—”

  Gunther went white, remembering the click he had heard. He broke the connection experimentally, and heard it again. Ballard—

  “Hell!” Gunther said under his breath. He returned to the window, crawled out, hung by his hands, and let himself drop. He almost missed the ledge one story below. Skin ripped from his fingertips as he fought for a grip.

  But he got it at last. He kicked his way through the window before him and dived in, glass showering. No televsior here. But there was a door dimly defined in the wall.

  Gunther opened it, finding what he wanted on the other side. He switched on a lamp, riffling through the drawers till he was certain that this office wasn’t another plant. After that, he used the televisor, fingering the same number he had called before.

  There was no answer.

  “Uh-huh,” Gunther said, and made another call.

  He had just broken the connection when a man in a surgeon’s gown came in and shot him through the head.

  The man who looked like Ffoulkes scrubbed makeup from his face. He glanced up when the physician entered.

  “O.K.?”

  “Yeah. Let’s go.”

  “Did they trace Gunther’s call?”

  “That’s not our pie. Come on.”

  A gray-haired man, tied securely in his chair, swore as the hypodermic pierced his skin. Ballard waited a minute and then jerked his head at the two guards behind him.

  “Get out.”

  They obeyed. Ballard turned to the prisoner.

  “Gunther was supposed to report to you every day. If he failed, you were told to release a certain message he gave you. Where’s the message?”

  “Where’s Gunther?” the gray-haired man said. His voice was thick, the words slurring as the scopolamin began its work.

  “Gunther’s dead. I arranged matters so that he’d telecall you on a tapped beam. I traced the call. Now where’s the message?”

  It took a little while, but at last Ballard unscrewed a hollow table leg and took out a thin roll of recording wire tape, carefully sealed.

  “Know what’s in this?”

  “No. No. No—”

  Ballard went to the door. “Kill him,” he said to the guards, and waited till he heard the muffled shot. Then he sighed with heartfelt relief.

  He was, at last, impregnable.

  Barney Ffoulkes called his chief
of staff. “I hear Ballard’s robot is finished. Clamp down. Put the squeeze on him. Force him to liquidate. Tell the Donner boys about the robot.”

  Dangerfield’s face showed no expression as he made thumb, and forefinger into a circle.

  What Gunther had called Cain’s thermodynamic patent was] in reality something different, as the wire tape showed. Actually it was “McNamara, Torsion Process, Patent No. R-735-V-22.’! Ballard recorded that in his capacious memory and looked up the patent himself. This time he wished to share the secret with no one. He was enough of a scientist, he thought, to be able to; work out the details himself. Besides, Gunther’s machines for diamond-making were already set up in the castle laboratory.

  Ballard immediately ran into an annoying, though not serious, hitch. The original McNamara process was not designed to create artificial diamonds. It was a method of developing certain electronic alterations in matter, and through torsion changing the physical structure involved. Gunther had taken McNamara’s system, applied it to carbon, and made diamonds.

  Ballard felt certain he could do the same, but it would take time. As a matter of fact, it took exactly two weeks. Once the new application was discovered, the rest was incredibly easy. Ballard started to make diamonds.

  There was one other difficulty. The annealing process took nearly a month. If the carbon was removed from the chamber before that time, it would be merely carbon. In the past, Gunther had kept a supply of diamonds on hand for emergencies; that supply was depleted now, most of the gems having gone to cover the golden robot. Ballard sat back and shrugged. In a month—

  Long before that Ffoulkes struck. He clamped down with both hands. Propaganda, whispering campaigns, releasing of new patents that rendered Ballard’s worthless—all the weapons of economic warfare were unleashed against the diamond king. Holdings depreciated. There were strikes in Ballard’s mines and factories. An unexpected civil war knocked the bottom out of certain African stocks he held. Word began to go around that the Ballard empire was collapsing.

  Margin was the answer—that, and security. Diamonds were excellent collateral. Ballard used up his small hoard lavishly, trying to plug the leaks in the dike, buying on margin, using the tactics that had always succeeded for him in the past. His obvious confidence stemmed the tide for a while. Not for long. Ffoulkes kept hitting, hard and fast.

  By the end of the month, Ballard knew, he would have all the diamonds he needed, and could reestablish his credit. In the meantime—

  The Donner gang tried to steal Argus. They didn’t know the robot’s capabilities. Argus fled from room to room, clanging an alarm, ignoring bullets, until the Donners decided to give it up as a bad job and escape. But by that time the police had arrived, and they failed.

  Ballard had been too busy pulling strings to enjoy his golden plaything. The advent of the Donners gave him a new idea. It would be a shame to mar the robot, but the diamonds could be replaced later. And what good was a bank except for emergencies?

  Ballard found a canvas bag and went into the robot’s room, locking the doors behind him. Argus stood motionless in a corner, his diamond eyes inscrutable. Ballard took out a tiny chisel, shook his head rather sadly, and said in a firm voice, “What light through yonder window breaks—”

  He finished the scrambled quotation and walked toward the robot. Argus silently went away.

  Ballard moved his shoulders impatiently. He repeated the key sentence louder. How many decibels were necessary? A good many—

  Argus still ran away. This time Ballard yelled the key at the top of his voice.

  And the robot’s flight mechanism continued to operate. The automatic alarm began to work. The siren screech hooted deafeningly through the room.

  Ballard noticed that a little envelope was protruding from a slot in Argus’ cuirass. Automatically he reached for it—and the robot fled.

  Ballard lost his temper and began to follow Argus around the room. The robot kept at a safe distance. Eventually Argus, since he was untiring, won the race. Panting, Ballard unlocked the door and rang for help. The alarm siren died.

  When servants came, Ballard ordered them to surround the robot. The circle of humanity closed in gradually, until Argus, unable to retreat within himself, chose the most logical solution and walked through the living wall, brushing the servants aside casually. He continued toward the door and through it, in a crackling of splintered mahogany panels. Ballard looked after the retreating figure without saying anything.

  The envelope had been brushed free by the encounter with the door, and Ballard picked it up. The brief note inside read:

  Dear Bruce:

  I’m taking no chances. Unless I make a certain adjustment on Argus daily, he reverts to a different code phrase from the one you give him. Since I'm the only guy who knows that code, you’ll have a sweet time catching Argus in case you cut my throat. Honesty is the best policy.

  Love,

  Joe Gunther.

  Ballard tore the note into tiny fragments. He dismissed the servants and followed the robot, who had become immobile in the next room.

  He went out, after a while, and televised his divorced wife in Chicago.

  “Jessie?”

  “Hello,” Jessie said. “What’s up?”

  “You heard about my golden robot?”

  “Sure. Build as many as you want, as long as you keep on paying my alimony. What’s this I hear about your hitting the skids?”

  “Ffoulkes is behind that,” Ballard said grimly. “If you want your alimony to continue, do me a favor. I want to register my robot in your name. Sign it over to you for a dollar. That way, I won’t lose the robot even if there’s a foreclosure.”

  “Is it that bad?”

  “It’s plenty bad. But as long as I’ve got the robot, I’m safe. It’s worth several fortunes. I want you to sell the robot back to me for a dollar, of course, but we’ll keep that document quiet.”

  “You mean you don’t trust me, Bruce?”

  “Nat with a diamond-studded robot,” Ballard said.

  “Then I want two dollars. I’ve got to make a profit on the transaction. O.K. I’ll attend to it. Send me the papers and I’ll sign ’em.”

  Ballard broke the beam. That was done, anyhow. The robot was unequivocally his, and not even Ffoulkes could take it away from him.

  Even if he went broke before the month was up and the new diamonds ready, the robot would put him on his feet again in no time. However, it was first necessary to catch Argust—

  There were many telecalls that day, People wanted collateral. Brokers wanted margin covered. Ballard frantically juggled his holdings, liquidating, attempting flotations, trying to get loans. He received a visit from two bulky men who made a business of supplying credit, at exorbitant rates.

  They had heard of the robot. But they demanded to see it.

  Ballard was gratified by their expressions. “What do you need credit for, Bruce? You’ve got plenty tied up in that thing.”

  “Sure. But I don’t want to dismantle it. So you’ll help me out till after the first—”

  “Why the first?”

  “I’m getting a new shipment of diamonds then.”

  “Uh-huh,” said the taller of the two men. “That robot runs away, doesn’t he?”

  “That’s why he’s burglarproof.”

  The two brokers exchanged glances. “Mind if we make a closer examination?” They went forward, and Argus fled.

  Ballard said hastily, “Stopping him is rather a complicated process. And it takes time to start him again. Those stones are perfect.”

  “How do we know? Turn off the juice, or whatever makes the thing tick. You don’t object to our making a closer examination, do you?”

  “Of course not,” Ballard said. “But it takes time—”

  “I smell a rat,” one of the brokers remarked. “You can have all the credit you want, but I insist on testing those diamonds. Call me when you’re ready.”

  They both went out. Ballard
cursed silently. The telescreen in the corner flickered. Ballard didn’t bother to answer; he knew very well what the purport of the message would be. Collateral—

  Ffoulkes was closing in for the kill.

  Ballard’s lips tightened. He glared at the robot, spun on his heel, and summoned his secretary. He issued swift orders.

  The secretary, a dapper, youngish man with yellow hair and a perpetually worried expression, went into action. He, in turn, issued orders. People began to come to the castle—workmen and technicians.

  Ballard consulted with the technicians. None of them could suggest a certain method for immobilizing the robot. Yet they were far too optimistic. It didn’t seem difficult to them to catch a machine.

  “Flame throwers?”

  Ballard considered. “There’s an alloy casing under the gold."

  “Suppose we can corner it long enough to burn through to the brain? That should do the trick.”

  “Well, try it. I can afford to lose a few diamonds if I can get my hands on the rest of ’em.”

  Ballard watched as six men, armed with flame throwers, maneuvered Argus into a corner. He warned them finally, “You’re close enough. Don’t go any nearer, or he’ll break through you.”

  “Yes, sir. Ready? One…two—•”

  The nozzles blasted fire in unison. It took an appreciable time for the flame to reach the robot’s head—some fractional part of a second, perhaps. By that time, Argus had ducked, and, safely under the flames, was running out of his corner. Crouching, he burst through the line of men, his alarm siren screeching. He fled into the next room and relapsed into contented immobility.

  “Try it again,” Ballard said glumly, but he knew it wouldn’t work. It didn’t. The robot’s reactions were instantaneous. The men could not correct their aim with sufficient speed to hit Argus. A good deal of valuable furniture was destroyed, however.

  The secretary touched Ballard’s sleeve. “It’s nearly two.”

  “Eh? Oh—that’s right. Call the men off, Johnson. Is the trapdoor ready?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The robot suddenly turned and headed for a door. It was time for his first tour of the castle that day. Since his route was prearranged and never swerved an iota from its course, it had been easy to set a trap. Ballard hadn’t really expected the flame throwers to work, anyhow.