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Chapter 8 · Slaves to the Metal Horde

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  Chapter eight of Slaves to the Metal Horde by Stephen Marlowe. This LibriVox recording
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  is in the public domain. Slaves to the Metal Horde, Chapter eight,
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  Stop Stand perfectly Still. The thought was unexpected, peremptory, driving into Johnny's
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  brain with more authority than any words. He wanted to stop, wanted to
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  immobilize the robot in which he hid. But where had the thought come from.
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  Wessler's robot was pointing a many jointed metal arm at the supervising robot,
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  which rushed toward them. Then did the thought originate there? Could the robot
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  somehow send a soundless message to them, stop let me dismantle you. The
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  urge to render his own robot motionless became stronger within Johnny. It was as
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  if the unbid thought originated outside his head, but tried to direct his own
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  muscles as surely as his own mind. Something made soft beeping noises in his
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  ear, and it took a while before he realized Wesler wanted to break their
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  radio silence. So soon after they had started, the other robot was almost
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  upon them. Awkward and uncomfortable in his cramped quarters, Johnny found the radio
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  switch and pulled it. We've got to destroy that robot, Johnny, now
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  at once, or we're finished. But how the robot was upon them,
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  its unbidden thought stronger halt. It was Johnny who struck the first blow,
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  clumsily lifting his great right arm up and bringing it down stiffly on the other
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  robot's head. Metal arms came up, swung blurringly. A clanging tumult deafened
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  Johnny. As Danse appeared inside the chamber of his own robot's head, He
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  triggered the levers mechanically, now aware that they were fighting under a tremendous disadvantage,
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  for their fingers were still stiff on the unfamiliar controls, and their artificial
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  reflexes could not hope to match the robots. Look out, Johnny. Two
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  metal shapes loomed Wessler and the real robot. The three of them came together,
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  clashing, clanging metal arms, swinging, and wrecking metal bodies. It
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  was Wessler's robot which went down, first slowly, buckling at the knee joints,
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  and then collapsing. Metal feet drove down upon it, ponderously, crushing
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  the head section. Wessler's robot was still Johnny hammered with huge metal hands at
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  the other robot, hardly knowing where he might strike a mortal blow. But
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  the robot slowed its reactions, grew feeble, its blows, denting Johnny's head
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  chamber no longer. Finally, it sprawled across Wessler's robot, then rolled away
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  and was still cursing to himself. Johnny climbed down from his robot, found
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  the battered headplate of Westerners forced it open. He saw at once he could
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  never hope to extricate the older man, for the metal walls of his chamber
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  had been crushed, knifing into bone and flesh and trapping him. Amos,
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  can you hear me? The eyelids fluttered open with pain. I never will
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  see the end, Johnny, what are you talking about? Don't fool me.
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  I'm all broken inside. I will get you out of there in no
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  time. You'd have to melt the metal down to do it, and you
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  know it. We'll do it. Your only hope is that the robot did
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  not have time to broadcast a warning. If he did, you will have
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  to hurry. But they still don't know our plans. Maybe they think we
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  only want to escape seeing these robot bodies for a disguise. Perhaps I hadn't
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  thought of that. Wesler lapsed into silence, his face twisted with pain.
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  If you can do it, if you can destroy their cybernetic center, new
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  start for humanity. I was going to tell you about the plague, Johnny.
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  The robots have been using a particularly virulent form of the toxin, which
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  does not exist naturally, spreading it in the air all over the earth.
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  That, combined with the toxin carried by a shining one, causes illness and
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  death. Wessler's words were harder to hear now, lo the barest whisper of
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  sound. Johnny leaned close to the glazed eyes, the barely opening lips.
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  When the robots are gone on the plague will die out almost at once.
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  Shining Ones even will be harmless. You see why it's so important. You
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  see I could never do it without you. We'll hide away somewhere, nurse
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  you back to health. Stop fooling an old man. We both know I'm
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  dying. That's ridiculous. Please don't interrupt me. I want to finish telling
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  you. The robots communicate with humans by telepathy. You witnessed it yourself a
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  few minutes ago. They can make it seem like your own thoughts, and
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  who can say thought waves are electromagnetic. Like so many other things, there
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  is nothing mysterious about telepathy. Give humanity a chance to study what the robots
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  have done, and you'll have civilization flourishing again within a generation. Give humanity
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  the chance. It was a whisper, a prayer. On that final note
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  of hope, Wessler died. The human has emerged from the underground within his
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  robot and is heading northeast across the city. I still think we ought to
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  stop him now while we know we can do it. Silence think on the
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  primary level, in unity, we will triumph. It is our one weapon
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  they cannot hope to match. But sixty three seventeen B warned us before he
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  perished, precisely that the humans were attempting something other than mere escape. We
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  must find out what that is, what they have learned. Don't you realize
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  that if this man fails, another might succeed in his place. Whatever knowledge
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  he has, perhaps it is widely disseminated. We must find out before we
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  kill him. There was a silence among the conclave of motionless robots, their
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  unblinking eyes intent upon a huge, three dimensional map of the city following a
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  tiny pip of light in its slow progress. He seems to be heading straight
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  for Central Intelligence. That's hardly possible unless it is mere coincidence. I don't
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  think so. See not half a mile away. Now have the supervisors discovered
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  who is missing? Yes, he was employed in the very repair bay where
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  sixty three seventeen B perished a defective robot incidentally and no great loss. We
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  have given his name to the top level Shining Ones in the hope that they
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  can help us. There is a shining one, a human here right now.
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  He wants an audience concerning the rebel very well, although we'll have to
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  make it brief. Starbuck entered the chamber cockily, then lost his poise when
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  he saw the solemn, unmoving conclave of robots I have outside. He began
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  moistening his lips and talking rapidly. A woman who this man, this Johnny
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  Hope loves? Can you understand me? Do you know what love is?
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  He won't do a thing that might harm her. We can understand. I
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  thought that we can read your thoughts. Leave your name with the robot outside.
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  Take this woman within the un building and hold her there until you hear
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  from us the un building. No questions go Starbucks shuffled from the room,
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  self conscious and fearful under the mental command. I doubt if we'll need the
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  hostage, but you can ever tell it seems incredible that does it. The
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  man has almost reached the U. N Building. It will take him perhaps
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  half an hour, for the rubble is piled high there underground. He could
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  reach it in a few moments. But apparently he is unfamiliar with the passages.
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  He has only recently arrived at the citadel. Somehow they have learned something.
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  It is why we cannot kill the man until we are sure have them
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  alerted at Central Intelligence. But let him enter. Watch him if he blunders
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  about as if he has arrived there by accident. Kill him if he knows
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  something, Take him alive. Some day. We must learn the secret of
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  Central Intelligence. If we are to survive, we must learn how to duplicate
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  it, or face the possibility of perishing in a single accident. Men built
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  at once, Men could do it again. Defective silence. Man can do
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  nothing we cannot do. Then they were quiet, watching the tiny darting pip
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  on the three dimensional map as it struggled through the uncleared rubble southwest of the
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  u N Building. Even in ruin, the city held more wonders for Johnny
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  Hope than he had ever thought possible. In many ways, it was like
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  a scar on the face of the earth, pitted with bomb craters, strewn
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  with a debris of topple towers, its streets choked with fallen, crumbling masonry,
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  and blocked by the skeletons of buildings which once had stood bare and rusted
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  now but not always so, as monuments to the greatness of man. Yet
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  it was a scar which could be healed, a broken, dying city which
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  could be made great again, with men and women roving its streets, repairing
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  the structures, making the living city function once more. That was Amos Wester's
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  dream. It was the dream of all mankind, Johnny thought philosophically, although
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  they did not realize it, as they rove the earth in hundred bands of
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  shining ones, or tilled its soil in small communities fearful of the plague.
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  Now directly ahead of him, he could see the monolithic slab of the un
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  building, like one structure in five It stood incredibly intact, a remembrance of
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  the past and a promise of the future. We can build again, Johnny
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  thought, without the robots and the plague, they could build again, or
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  they would die. Natural world or artificial world, men or robots, they
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  could not survive. Jointly battered and broken, but still functioning adequately, Johnny's
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  robot pushed through the debris south of the un building to the edge of the
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  river. He stood there a moment and stared up stream at the gaunt ruins
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  of a bridge now tumbled down the river and resting on the river bottom,
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  thrusting its towers up beyond the surface of the water and toward the sky.
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  Men had used that bridge once, long ago, but within the memory of
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  Johnny's father to reach the country beyond, the bridge might be rebuilt, men
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  might learn to use it again. It was as if in dying Amos Wessler
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  had transferred his own vision to Johnny, showing him a dream of the unborn
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  tomorrow, its birth or still born death, depending entirely upon Johnny's success or
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  failure. To day. Half a dozen robots stood about the wide terrace leading
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  to the building, but Johnny ignored them, for he had passed many in
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  the broken streets of the city. And grown accustomed to them. He entered
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  the building through a door of glass and metal, and was not aware of
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  the robots entering it behind him. His impulse was to climb down from his
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  robot, to stretch his cramped arms and legs, and find something to eat,
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  then explore the wonders of this new place above his head. The ceiling
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  was high and vaulted. Ramps led away, curving and graceful in all directions,
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  and he longed to feel his feet, his own feet upon them,
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  and to explore until he satiated himself with this wonder and sought another. To
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  leave the robot would be suicide, had the thought been his own, or
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  a metal maid thought instilled in him some unknown way, an unbidden suicide thought.
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  It was less specific than the commands of the robot that had perished in
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  the repair bay, but Johnny guessed it came from outside. Nevertheless, he
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  advanced mechanically, for Wessler had given him careful directions. The ramps led up
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  higher and higher, passed the rooms in which men from many lands once long
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  ago used to debate their future. Then higher, still climbing, there was
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  a noise behind him. He whirled in cramped quarters peered from the robot's second
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  set of eyes. A dozen robots climbed the ramp behind him, gaining He
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  let his mind drift blankly, let their thoughts reach him. He is not
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  wandering aimlessly. Somehow he learned, He learned capture him. He ran now
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  awkwardly, his own robot not smooth and graceful, a flawless piece of machinery
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  like the others. He clumped and clattered up the ramp and prayed for time.
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  The ramps soared upward, curved to the left. Once he looked down
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  at the floor of the rotunda so far below, and became giddy with the
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  distance and the thought of falling. He leaned over the railing and looked.
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  His head whirled. At the last moment, he drew his robot back from
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  the edge, stabbing half blindly at the controls which propelled it. They had
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  almost driven him to suicide. He must keep his mind a perfect blank,
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  or better still, think of something which would keep them at bay. Diane
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  his love for her, Diane, A robot waited for him at the top
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  of the ramp. Those behind him were gaining rapidly, driving death wishes deep
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  within his brain. The robot above him abruptly swung into motion, but Johnny
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  desperately sidestepped the lunch, which would have sent him hurtling to the floor of
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  the rotunda. The other robot checked his own inertia and came for Johnny again,
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  huge arms swinging, trying to crush him within the metal chamber as Amos
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  Wesler had been crushed. Johnny parried the blows with his own metal arms,
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  then reached out and heard mischione ma regrown within his metal frame. As he
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  lifted the other robot and hurled it in the path of his pursuers. There
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  was a grinding, clattering crash of metal. Johnny saw three forms detach themselves
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  from the arcing ramp and tumble, swinging and twisting in air grotesquely to the
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  floor, where they struck resoundingly and broke apart, the metal arms and legs
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  flying. Then he was climbing again. The remaining robots far below him and
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  disorganized now, but soon he knew they would be capable of following. It
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  was as Amos Wessler had predicted. After a time, the ramp grew smaller.
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  It no longer climbed. Now it had soared high and now was just
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  below the girdered ceiling. It was hardly wide enough for Johnny's robot. It
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  shook dangerously with a tread of metal feet. Here, Johnny knew, was
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  the sanctuary. This was the Achilles' heel, the entrance, this ramp,
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  which no robot could traverse. Here the way led to self functioning, self
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  repairing machinery to Central Intelligence. Here was man's final hope in the eyes of
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  the original inventor. Here was the guarantee that the robots, if they became
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  some Frankenstein monster, could be met and conquered. For no robot could guard
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  the final portal to Central Intelligence. No robot could even draw close enough to
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  alter the thin rap. Johnny smiled grimly as comprehension grew. If robots could
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  become neurotic, this was the place for it. They could have employed their
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  human servants, the Shining Ones, to alter the place, but would have
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  divulged their secret in the process. Still smiling, Johnny halted his robot,
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  opened the face, played clumsily from the inside, and climbed out. He
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  sat on the rap and flexed stiff arms and legs, then stood up and
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  heard the robots below him He could see them now, no longer advancing,
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  milling about in confusion. Their weight would destroy the ramp, and they knew
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  it. They could never hope to reach him. It was all so incredibly
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  simple, was it? One robot had been above him, then they knew
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  he was coming. What had they prepared for him beyond the point where the
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  robots could not climb? Shrugging, he advanced warily. Soon he could see
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  where the ramp reached, a small doorway, much too low and narrow to
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  admit a robot, even if one of the machines could have climbed the ramp
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  this far hold it, Johnny Hope, don't come any closer. Startled,
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  he looked up. Harry Starbuck stood in the doorway, holding Diane in front
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  of him. I'm not fooling Hope. If you come any closer, I'll
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  throw her off. It's a long way down. You're crazy, Starbuck.
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  You'll never leave this place alive. But even as he spoke, he knew
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  he could never reason with the man. The robots can't let you carry their
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  secret from here. Your only hope is to cooperate with me. Is that
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  so they're sending some more men up to get you. All I have to
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  do is hold a fort until cut it out. Hope, stay right there.
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  Starbuck edged out of the doorway, dragging Diana long with him to the
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  railing at one side of the ramp. I'll do it if you make me.
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  Don't listen to him, Johnny, I'm not afraid. Hair disheveled,
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  clothing torn, face bruised, she still looked beautiful to him. All at
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  once. She stood for everything Wessler had mentioned, for the future of man,
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  for the dreams of tomorrow, for a free world with no plague and
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  no robots. But for Wesler, the choice would have been easy, the
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  girl or humanity. Wesler had not been in love. Now. Starbuck had
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  forced Diane back, arched, breast thrust forward out over the railing. She
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  struggled in his grip, but futally he could hurry her out over the edge
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  and into space, or not, as he wished. Back up, Hope,
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  I want you to go back down the ramp and surrender to the robots.
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  You're only delaying things. More men will be here soon. You're licked,
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  and you know it. Wearily, Johnny retreated. Don't hurt her,
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  he said, Promise me that you crazy. I want her for myself.
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  The thought numbed Johnny. He hadn't considered it that way. A live Diane
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  or a dead one was one thing, but a Diane forced to submit to
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  Starbuck. He reached his own immobile robot, saw the others not twenty yards
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  below him, waiting thought. He heard shouts somewhere behind them. He must
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  do what he had come to do, as if Diane did not exist,
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  it was Starbuck who had made the choice for him, but there was a
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  wild possibility. Quickly, he climbed within his robot, activated it lumbered forward.
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  He could feel the ramp shaking with each step he took. At any
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  moment, its struts might collapse and send him hurtling to his death, trapped
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  in his man shaped metal coffin far below. Soon he could see Starbuck again
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  on the ramp, outside the doorway, holding Diane. Starbuck's eyes went wide.
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  Starbuck frowned, then began to lick his lips anxiously. You can't come
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  up here, he cried. They won't hold you. I sent the man
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  down to surrender anyway, have him? Is he dead? What do you
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  want anyway? I can come down myself. Don't come any closer, not
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  unless you want the ramp to collapse. Keep away, do you hear me?
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  Johnny advanced slowly, the ramps shaking with each stride, no longer but
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  dipping and rocking constantly. Now almost ready to go, Starbuck retreated, taking
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  Diane with him through the doorway. They went out, fell the face plate
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  of Johnny's robot. He tumbled after it as the ramp shook, metal grinding
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  against metal, then snapped. He leaped forward as the ramp caved in.
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  He felt his feet shoot out from under him, saw metal dropping away.
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  Twisting to his left. He clawed out with his hands gripped a jagged edge,
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  pulled himself up slowly as blood made his hand slip. He stood in
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  what was left of the doorway, trembling as reactions set in his heels on
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  the brink of nuhing, his bloodied hands aching. Starbuck roared and charged at
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  him, attempting to drive him back a few inches to his death, but
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  Johnny caught him, met him half way, with no room to evade the
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  charge, and they grappled there, teetering on the edge. A knee blurred
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  up at Johnny, exploding in violent pain. He felt himself falling and managed
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  to twist away from the edge of the sundered ramp. He hit the floor,
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  with waves of nausea boiling up from his stomach. He lay there,
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  blinking his eyes. Starbuck came for him. He drew his legs up instinctively.
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  The knees bent then straightened as Starbuck leaned over him. His feet caught
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  the big man squarely on the chest, lifted him pushed. Starbuck went over
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  the edge of the ramp, screaming all the way down. Inside, Johnny
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  found Diane dazed on the floor. He ignored her. She could wait for
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  now. He was a man possessed the machinery, which he could never hope
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  to understand, was all about him. Bank on bank of it, lining
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  the walls, humming with its strange scentiate energy, glowing and flickering with a
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  million lights. Kill yourself, two words, clamoring, insistent inside his skull,
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  their final hope. He felt himself edging back toward the doorway and the
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  death which awaited him just outside. He looked at Diane, huddled on the
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  floor, her lips parted. Johnny, I love you, he thought,
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  The words of death and those of life and hope fought inside his skull,
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  twisting his brain, battling there for mastery. He found something, a length
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  of metal rod. He ripped it loose and began to attack the machinery.
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  He would never understand. He was a wild man. The strength flowed in
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  from elsewhere, raising his arm, swinging it high over his head and down.
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  Sparks flew as his metal club battered the crystal in tubes, the delicate
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  wiring, the metal cases, glass shattered, sprinkling him, brought blood from
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  a dozen cuts on his face. Electricity hummed, then shrieked, then wailed
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  off distantly on a register too high for his ears. Raise his arm and
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  plunge, lift it and bring it down, battering the metal club part of
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  him. It was Diane who eased the twisted rod from his fingers, soothed
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  him with her words, it's finished, easy, Johnny, you've done it.
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  The place was a shamble's bank, on bank of gutted machinery. Lay
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  silent there on a floor strewn with glass, with wire, with filaments,
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  with nameless things which were the brains for a million robots. There's another way
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  out, Johnny Starbuck took me here behind that wall. You she took his
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  hand and they went. The passage was dark and cool and smelled musty,
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  as if air did not circulate very well within it. It was a place
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  for thinking and dreaming of tomorrow. It was a place for realizing. You
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  could go back to the hills and find keller Her and his Shining Ones and
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  convince them they should at least look at the city, the city which belonged
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  to them now to them, and Reggio and his villagers and all the others.
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  And there must be a coming together of Kellerher and a Reggio, with
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  Johnny as mediator, and a realization that the last plague victim had been smitten,
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  and humanity had a long path to travel, but could set foot upon
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  it right now at once. Outside it was growing dark, but Johnny could
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  make out the still forms of the robots, gleaming red with final sunlight,
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  sprawled upon the broken streets. The shining ones within the city stalked about furtively
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  in small not yet knowing what it meant to live without their masters. Perhaps
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  in time, Kelliher and all the others could teach them. Hungry, said
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  Johnny, we could stop and eat no you in a different way. They
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  followed the last slanting rays of the sun to the western River and the mainland
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  beyond it. End of chapter eight. The End of Slaves to the Metal
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  Horde by Stephen Marlowe