The Complete Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol. 2 (44 page)

The human servant squawked wildly. "An A! It's a Type A robot! They're making it!"

The five Council robots buzzed in consternation. "Get that servant out of here!" the D ordered.

The scene changed. It showed the first robots, the original Type A, rising to the surface to fight the war. Other early robots appeared, snaking through the ruins and ash, approaching warily. The robots clashed. Bursts of white light. Gleaming clouds of particles.

"Robots were originally designed as soldiers," Crow explained. "Then more advanced types were produced to act as technicians and lab workers and machinists."

The scene showed an undersurface factory. Rows of robots worked presses and stampers. The robots worked rapidly, efficiently – supervised by human foremen.

"These tapes are fake!" an N cried angrily. "Do you expect us to believe this?"

A new scene formed. Robots, more advanced, types more complex and elaborate. Taking over more and more economic and industrial functions as humans were destroyed by the War.

"At first robots were simple," Crow explained. "They served simple needs. Then, as the War progressed, more advanced types were created. Finally, humans were making Types D and E. Equal to humans – and in conceptual faculties, superior to humans."

"This is insane!" an N stated. "Robots evolved. The early types were simple because they were original stages, primitive forms that gave rise to more complex forms. The law of evolution fully explains this process."

A new scene formed. The last stages of the War. Robots fighting men. Robots eventually winning. The complete chaos of the latter years. Endless wastes of rolling ash and radioactive particles. Miles of ruin.

"All cultural records were destroyed," Crow said. "Robots emerged masters without knowing how or why, or in what manner they came into being. But now you see the facts. Robots were created as human tools. During the War they got out of hand."

He snapped off the tape scanner. The image faded. The five robots sat in stunned silence.

Crow folded his arms. "Well? What do you say?" He jerked his thumb at the human servant crouching in the rear of the chamber, dazed and astonished. "Now you know and now he knows. What do you imagine he's thinking? I can tell you. He's thinking -"

"How did you get these tapes?" the D demanded. "They can't be genuine. They must be fakes."

"Why weren't they found by our archeologists?" an N shouted shrilly.

"I took them personally," Crow said.

"You
took them? What do you mean?"

"Through a Time Window." Crow tossed a thick package onto the table. "Here are the schematics. You can build a Time Window yourself if you want."

"A time machine." The D snatched up the package and leafed through the contents. "You saw into the past." Dawning realization showed on its ancient face. "Then -"

"He saw ahead!" an N searched wildly. "Into the future! That explains his perfect Lists. He scanned them in advance."

Crow rattled his papers impatiently. "You've heard my proposal. You've seen the tapes. If you vote down the proposal I'll release the tapes publicly. And the schematics. Every human in the world will know the true story of his origin, and yours."

"So?" an N said nervously. "We can handle humans. If there's an uprising we'll put it down."

"Will you?" Crow got suddenly to his feet, his face hard. "Consider. Civil war raging over the whole planet. Men on one side, centuries of pent-up hatred. On the other side robots suddenly deprived of their myth. Knowing they were originally mechanical tools. Are you sure you'll come out on top this time? Are you positive?"

The robots were silent.

"If you'll evacuate Earth I'll suppress the tapes. The two races can go on, each with its own culture and society. Humans here on Earth. Robots on the colonies. Neither one master. Neither one slave."

The five robots hesitated, angry and resentful. "But we worked centuries to build up this planet! It won't make sense. Our leaving. What'll we say? What'll we give as our reason?"

Crow smiled harshly. "You can say Earth isn't adequate for the great original master race."

There was silence. The four Type N robots looked at each other nervously, drawing together in a whispered huddle. The massive D sat silent, its archaic brass eye lens fixed intently on Crow, a baffled, defeated expression on its face.

Calmly, Jim Crow waited.

"Can I shake your hand?" L-87t asked timidly. "I'll be going soon. I'm in one of the first loads."

Crow stuck out his hand briefly and L-87t shook, a little embarrassed.

"I hope it works out," L-87t ventured. "Vid us from time to time. Keep us posted."

Outside the Council Buildings the blaring voices of the street speakers were beginning to disturb the late afternoon gloom. All up and down the city the speakers roared out their message, the Council Directive.

Men, scurrying home from work, paused to listen. In the uniform houses in the human quarter men and women glanced up, pausing in their routine of living, curious and attentive. Everywhere, in all cities of Earth, robots and human beings ceased their activities and looked up as the Government speakers roared into life.

"This is to announce that the Supreme Council has decreed the rich colony planets Venus, Mars, and Ganymede, are to be set aside exclusively for the use of robots. No humans will be permitted outside of Earth. In order to take advantage of the superior resources and living conditions of these colonies, all robots now on Earth are to be transferred to the colony of their choice.

"The Supreme Council has decided that Earth is no fit place for robots. Its wasted and still partly-devastated condition renders it unworthy of the robot race. All robots are to be conveyed to their new homes in the colonies as quickly as adequate transportation can be arranged.

"In no case can humans enter the colony areas. The colonies are exclusively for the use of robots. The human population will be permitted to remain on Earth.

"This is to announce that the Supreme Council had decreed that the rich colony planets of Venus -"

Crow moved away from the window, satisfied.

He returned to his desk and continued assembling papers and reports in neat piles, glancing at them briefly as he classified them and laid them aside.

"I hope you humans will get along all right," L-87t repeated. Crow continued checking the heaps of top-level reports, marking them with his writing stick. Working rapidly, with absorbed attention, deep in his work. He scarcely noticed the robot lingering at the door. "Can you give me some idea of the government you'll set up?"

Crow glanced up impatiently. "What?"

"Your form of government. How will your society be ruled, now that you've maneuvered us off Earth? What sort of government will take the place of our Supreme Council and Congress?"

Crow didn't answer. He had already returned to his work. There was a strange granite cast to his face, a peculiar hardness L-87t had never seen.

"Who'll run things?" L-87t asked. "Who'll be the Government now that we're gone? You said yourself humans show no ability to manage a complex modern society. Can you find a human capable of keeping the wheels turning? Is there a human being capable of leading mankind?"

Crow smiled thinly. And continued working.

The late afternoon sun shone down blinding and hot, a great shimmering orb in the sky. Trent halted a moment to get his breath. Inside his lead-lined helmet his face dripped with sweat, drop after drop of sticky moisture that steamed his viewplate and clogged his throat.

He slid his emergency pack over to the other side and hitched up his gun-belt. From his oxygen tank he pulled a couple of exhausted tubes and tossed them away in the brush. The tubes rolled and disappeared, lost in the endless heaps of red-green leaves and vines.

Trent checked his counter, found the reading low enough, slid back his helmet for a precious moment.

Fresh air rushed into his nose and mouth. He took a deep breath, filling his lungs. The air smelled good – thick and moist and rich with the odor of growing plants. He exhaled and took another breath.

To his right a towering column of orange shrubbery rose, wrapped around a sagging concrete pillar. Spread out over the rolling countryside was a vast expanse of grass and trees. In the distance a mass of growth looked like a wall, a jungle of creepers and insects and flowers and underbrush that would have to be blasted as he advanced slowly.

Two immense butterflies danced past him. Great fragile shapes, multicolored, racing erratically around him and then away. Life everywhere – bugs and plants and rustling small animals in the shrubbery, a buzzing jungle of life in every direction. Trent sighed and snapped his helmet back in place. Two breathfuls was all he dared.

He increased the flow of his oxygen tank and then raised his transmitter to his lips. He clicked it briefly on. "Trent. Checking with the Mine Monitor. Hear me?"

A moment of static and silence. Then, a faint, ghostly voice. "Come in, Trent. Where the hell are you?"

"Still going North. Ruins ahead. I may have to bypass. Looks thick."

"Ruins?"

"New York, probably. I'll check with the map."

The voice was eager. "Anything yet?"

"Nothing. Not so far, at least. I'll circle and report in about an hour." Trent examined his wristwatch. "It's half-past three. I'll raise you before evening."

The voice hesitated. "Good luck. I hope you find something. How's your oxygen holding out?"

"All right."

"Food?"

"Plenty left. I may find some edible plants."

"Don't take any chances!"

"I won't." Trent clicked off the transmitter and returned it to his belt. "I won't," he repeated. He gathered up his blast gun and hoisted his pack and started forward, his heavy lead-lined boots sinking deep into the lush foliage and compost underfoot.

It was just past four o'clock when he saw them. They stepped out of the jungle around him. Two of them, young males – tall and thin and horny blue-gray like ashes. One raised his hand in greeting. Six or seven fingers – extra joints. "Afternoon," he piped.

Trent stopped instantly. His heart thudded. "Good afternoon."

The two youths came slowly around him. One had an ax – a foliage ax. The other carried only his pants and the remains of a canvas shirt. They were nearly eight feet tall. No flesh – bones and hard angles and large, curious eyes, heavily lidded. There were internal changes, radically different metabolism and cell structure, ability to utilize hot salts, altered digestive system. They were both looking at Trent with interest – growing interest.

"Say," said one. "You're a human being."

"That's right," Trent said.

"My name's Jackson." The youth extended his thin blue horny hand and Trent shook it awkwardly. The hand was fragile under his lead-lined glove. Its owner added, "My friend here is Earl Potter."

Trent shook hands with Potter. "Greetings," Potter said. His rough lips twitched. "Can we have a look at your rig?"

"My rig?" Trent countered.

"Your gun and equipment. What's that on your belt? And that tank?"

"Transmitter – oxygen." Trent showed them the transmitter. "Battery operated. Hundred-mile range."

"You're from a camp?" Jackson asked quickly.

"Yes. Down in Pennsylvania."

"How many?"

Trent shrugged. "Couple of dozen."

The blue-skinned giants were fascinated. "How have you survived? Penn was hard hit, wasn't it? The pools must be deep around there."

"Mines," Trent explained. "Our ancestors moved down deep in the coal mines when the War began. So the records have it. We're fairly well set up. Grow our own food in tanks. A few machines, pumps and compressors and electrical generators. Some hand lathes. Looms."

He didn't mention that generators now had to be cranked by hand, that only about half of the tanks were still operative. After three hundred years metal and plastic weren't much good – in spite of endless patching and repairing. Everything was wearing out, breaking down.

"Say," Potter said. "This sure makes a fool of Dave Hunter."

"Dave Hunter?"

"Dave says there aren't any true humans left," Jackson explained. He poked at Trent's helmet curiously. "Why don't you come back with us? We've got a settlement near here – only an hour or so away on the tractor – our hunting tractor. Earl and I were out hunting flap-rabbits."

"Flap-rabbits?"

"Flying rabbits. Good meat but hard to bring down – weigh about thirty pounds."

"What do you use? Not the ax surely."

Potter and Jackson laughed. "Look at this here." Potter slid a long brass rod from his trousers. It fitted down inside his pants along his pipe-stem leg.

Trent examined the rod. It was tooled by hand. Soft brass, carefully bored and straightened. One end was shaped into a nozzle. He peered down it. A tiny metal pin was lodged in a cake of transparent metal. "How does it work?" he asked.

"Launched by hand – like a blow gun. But once the b-dart is in the air it follows its target forever. The initial thrust has to be provided." Potter laughed. "I supply that. A big puff of air."

"Interesting." Trent returned the rod. With elaborate casualness, studying the two blue-gray faces, he asked, "I'm the first human you've seen?"

"That's right," Jackson said. "The Old Man will be pleased to welcome you." There was eagerness in his reedy voice. "What do you say? We'll take care of you. Feed you, bring you cold plants and animals. For a week, maybe?"

"Sorry," Trent said. "Other business. If I come through here on the way back…"

The horny faces fell with disappointment. "Not for a little while? Overnight? We'll pump you plenty of cold food. We have a fine cooler the Old Man fixed up."

Trent tapped his tank. "Short on oxygen. You don't have a compressor?"

"No. We don't have any use. But maybe the Old Man could -"

"Sorry." Trent moved off. "Have to keep going. You're sure there are no humans in this region?"

"We thought there weren't any left anywhere. A rumor once in a while. But you're the first we've seen." Potter pointed west. "There's a tribe of rollers off that way." He pointed vaguely south. "A couple of tribes of bugs."

"And some runners."

"You've seen them?"

"I came that way."

"And north there's some of the underground ones – the blind digging kind." Potter made a face. "I can't see them and their bores and scoops. But what the hell." He grinned. "Everybody has his own way."

"And to the east," Jackson added, "where the ocean begins, there's a lot of the porpoise kind – the undersea type. They swim around – use those big underwater air-domes and tanks – come up sometimes at night. A lot of types come out at night. We're still daylight-oriented." He rubbed his horny blue-gray skin. "This cuts radiation fine."

"I know," Trent said. "So long."

"Good luck." They watched him go, heavy-lidded eyes still big with astonishment, as the human being pushed slowly off through the lush green jungle, his metal and plastic suit glinting faintly in the afternoon sun.

Earth was alive, thriving with activity. Plants and animals and insects in boundless confusion. Night forms, day forms, land and water types, incredible kinds and numbers that had never been catalogued, probably never would be.

By the end of the War every surface inch was radioactive. A whole planet sprayed and bombarded by hard radiation. All life subjected to beta and gamma rays. Most life died – but not all. Hard radiation brought mutation – at all levels, insects, plant and animal. The normal mutation and selection process was accelerated millions of years in seconds.

These altered progeny littered the Earth. A crawling teeming glowing horde of radiation-saturated beings. In this world, only those forms which could use hot soil and breathe particle-laden air survived. Insects and animals and men who could live in a world with a surface so alive that it glowed at night.

Trent considered this moodily, as he made his way through the steaming jungle, expertly burning creepers and vines with his blaster. Most of the oceans had been vaporized. Water descended still, drenching the land with torrents of hot moisture. This jungle was wet – wet and hot and full of life. Around him creatures scuttled and rustled. He held his blaster tight and pushed on.

The sun was setting. It was getting to be night. A range of ragged hills jutted ahead in the violet gloom. The sunset was going to be beautiful – compounded of particles in suspension, particles that still drifted from the initial blast, centuries ago.

He stopped for a moment to watch. He had come a long way. He was tired – and discouraged.

The horny blue-skinned giants were a typical mutant tribe.
Toads,
they were called. Because of their skin – like desert horned-toads. With their radical internal organs, geared to hot plants and air, they lived easily in a world where he survived only in a lead-lined suit, polarized viewplate, oxygen tank, special cold food pellets grown underground in the Mine.

The Mine – time to call again. Trent lifted his transmitter. "Trent checking again," he muttered. He licked his dry lips. He was hungry and thirsty. Maybe he could find some relatively cool spot, free of radiation. Take off his suit for a quarter of an hour and wash himself. Get the sweat and grime off.

Two weeks he had been walking, cooped up in a hot sticky lead-lined suit, like a diver's suit. While all around him countless life-forms scrambled and leaped, unbothered by the lethal pools of radiation.

"Mine," the faint tinny voice answered.

"I'm about washed up for today. I'm stopping to rest and eat. No more until tomorrow."

"No luck?" Heavy disappointment.

"None."

Silence. Then, "Well, maybe tomorrow."

"Maybe. Met a tribe of toads. Nice young bucks, eight feet high." Trent's voice was bitter. "Wandering around with nothing on but shirts and pants. Bare feet."

The Mine Monitor was uninterested. "I know. The lucky stiffs. Well, get some sleep and raise me tomorrow am. A report came in from Lawrence."

"Where is he?"

"Due west. Near Ohio. Making good progress."

"Any results?"

"Tribes of rollers, bugs and the digging kind that come up at night – the blind white things."

"Worms."

"Yes, worms. Nothing else. When will you report again?"

"Tomorrow," Trent said. He cut the switch and dropped his transmitter to his belt.

Tomorrow. He peered into the gathering gloom at the distant range of hills. Five years. And always – tomorrow. He was the last of a great procession of men to be sent out. Lugging precious oxygen tanks and food pellets and a blast pistol. Exhausting their last stores in a useless sortie into the jungles.

Tomorrow? Some tomorrow, not far off, there wouldn't be any more oxygen tanks and food pellets. The compressors and pumps would have stopped completely. Broken down for good. The Mine would be dead and silent. Unless they made contact pretty damn soon.

He squatted down and began to pass his counter over the surface, looking for a cool spot to undress. He passed out.

"Look at him," a faint faraway voice said.

Consciousness returned with a rush. Trent pulled himself violently awake, groping for his blaster. It was morning. Gray sunlight filtered down through the trees. Around him shapes moved.

The blaster… gone!

Trent sat up, fully awake. The shapes were vaguely human – but not very. Bugs.

"Where's my gun?" Trent demanded.

"Take it easy." A bug advanced, the others behind. It was chilly. Trent shivered. He got awkwardly to his feet as the bugs formed a circle around him. "We'll give it back."

"Let's have it now." He was stiff and cold. He snapped his helmet in place and tightened his belt. He was shivering, shaking all over. The leaves and vines dripped wet slimy drops. The ground was soft underfoot.

The bugs conferred. There were ten or twelve of them. Strange creatures, more like insects than men. They were shelled – thick shiny chitin. Multi-lensed eyes. Nervous, vibrating antennae by which they detected radiation.

Their protection wasn't perfect. A strong dose and they were finished. They survived by detection and avoidance and partial immunity. Their food was taken indirectly, first digested by smaller warm-blooded animals and then taken as fecal matter, minus radioactive particles.

"You're a human," a bug said. Its voice was shrill and metallic. The bugs were asexual – these, at least. Two other types existed, male drones and a Mother. These were neuter warriors, armed with pistols and foliage axes.

"That's right," Trent said.

"What are you doing here? Are there more of you?"

"Quite a few."

The bugs conferred again, antennae waving wildly. Trent waited. The jungle was stirring into life. He watched a gelatin-like mass flow up the side of a tree and into the branches, a half-digested mammal visible within. Some drab day moths fluttered past. The leaves stirred as underground creatures burrowed silently away from the light.

"Come along with us," a bug said. It motioned Trent forward. "Let's get going."

Trent fell in reluctantly. They marched along a narrow path, cut by axes some time recently. The thick feelers and probes of the jungle were already coming back. "Where are we going?" Trent demanded.

"To the Hill."