THE FIRE FOUNTAIN
IN a city of glass and steel, on a minutely symmetrical street, in a geometrically perfect building that housed relics of the past in orderly rows, the four friends were together. They were on the fifteenth floor, in the “Ancient Modes of Travel” exhibit, strolling past bulky, four-wheeled vehicles that had been powered by fossil fuel; awkward, wasp-shaped fliers with propellors on their roofs, and smooth-hulled seacraft.
The four friends were Bramfel, Orin, Greely, and Anatol—all much alike in build and appearance, since they had been made from the same pattern—and all were robots, but different in personality, and of different age and experience. Orin, the oldest, had passed all but six months of his allotted two-hundred-year lifespan. Greely and Anatol were half his age. Bramfel was the youngest, a mere forty-eight.
They passed along the line of vehicles that were each on a plastic platform, spotlighted, labeled, and catalogued, and did not know they were looking at their own close relatives, for the vehicles and the robots had both been the brainchildren of man. But the robot race now denied that man had ever existed. Whatever records human beings might have left before they died out, nearly eight centuries ago, had either been obliterated, forgotten, or went unrecognized. Man was considered a myth, a superstition. The robots believed these artifacts before them had been devised by other robots like themselves—more primitive in design and more limited in intellect, to be sure, but still ancestors of their own kind.
And so they wondered at the clumsy construction of machines that had flown robots through the skies before the time they could fly under their own power; and machines that had driven them along the roads before the roads had become obsolete. They stopped before the boats.
This one, Bramfel told the others over his open telebeam. A boat like this with sails, and a motor to use only when we have to. We can explore the sea and the islands, endure all kinds of weather, examine all manner of marine and terrestrial life. Think of the experiences we can store!
A boat! Orin stroked the hull with his metal hand. I’ve flown over the seas and swum in them, but never in all my years have I tried to sail over them in a vessel like this!
Bramfel turned on his vocalizer and gave a brief command in the clicking speech the robots sometimes used. There was a sudden hum of power and the air around them turned to mist, and they were standing on the deck of a rolling sloop, riding deep blue waves, striped orange and green sails taut above them. The illusor gave them a sixty-second sample of what it would be like to be on this type of sailboat and then, with a whine, it turned off and they were once again standing on the solid floor before the model.
It will be dangerous, came the thought from Anatol.
But what a challenge! Greely seemed enthusiastic.
And that’s what life is all about, Orin reminded them. Experience . . . danger . . . knowledge to store in our data vaults and thus to mature and grow wise.
The idea of a voyage on an ancient ship had come to Bramfel the first time he’d seen this model, and he was glad that his friends seemed to like it. It would take four of them to handle the ship. We’ll have one built exactly like this one, bigger, of course, and stocked with an emergency engine. Should we have our powers reduced to make it more of a challenge?
They all considered this, and finally Greely answered. We should have our anti-grav flight motors removed, at any rate, so we won’t be tempted to fly out of danger.
Really! Anatol objected. The whole project sounds perilous enough as it is, without crippling ourselves, too.
But he was overruled by the others, and the decision was made to leave as soon as the boat was ready.
They went out of the building, and while Greely and Anatol hurried away to keep appointments, Bramfel strolled with Orin through the museum’s gardens.
Orin seemed troubled, but he had shut off his telebeam so that Bramfel had to wait until he was ready to communicate again. He admired the precisely patterned flower beds and the crystal fountains, and at last Orin opened his beam.
Bramfel, although you‘re young, you‘re a logical, sensible robot. I’m going to tell you something I wouldn’t tell the others. They wouldn’t understand, but I believe you will.
Bramfel, pleased at the compliment, urged him to go on.
I have lived many years and seen many strange things, Orin told him. Now we are voyaging together on what will be my last adventure before my data vaults are audited for the last time and Central Agency decides if I have matured enough to be promoted to a high position, or if I will be sent back to the factory to have my memory erased and my body refitted and sent out again.
You‘ll be promoted, Orin, I feel sure. You‘re very wise.
Perhaps you’ll feel differently when I tell you this. Orin paused for a moment and then made the strangest statement Bramfel had ever heard. I believe in the existence of man.
Man! But that’s irrational! The thought went out over his telebeam before he could stop it, but Orin had apparently been expecting this reaction. He seemed unperturbed.
Wait a moment, Bramfel, before you form any conclusions. Remember that I have lived nearly two hundred years, and have seen many strange things.
What? What have you seen?
I have seen footprints. Not the pawprints of animals, but the footprints of something that walked upright on feet that had no rubber treads and no vent holes on the bottom, as ours do.
Apes, Bramfel suggested.
In the forests of the north country? No. And where I have seen the footprints, I have found fires of wood and brush lying deserted, still glowing when I found them. Apes do not make fires. Bramfel, I have seen the ruins of ancient buildings, imperfectly built yet sturdy. Not the works of robots.
But Orin, no one has ever seen a man. There have always been tales about human beings, but surely someone would have told about seeing them if they existed?
And risk being reported to Central Agency as irrational? No, Bramfel, I think men have been seen by others, but no one has dared risk bringing back stories about them.
Bramfel considered this. Man—the most vicious, most dangerous species in the world, if the stories about them were true. But no, such tales couldn’t be true! The universe was, after all, logical, and all things existing in it were logical. Man was an irrational, illogical, mythical being that could not exist. He was said to be made of flesh, yet able to think and reason. No creature of flesh could reason and think, as far as he knew. Not only that, but man was susceptible to disease, death, and decay. And man was said to kill. No logical being would take a life that could not be replaced.
Orin went on. I believe, Bramfel, that human beings know of our existence and stay out of our way.
Why? Why would they not want to meet us?
I don’t know. But they hide in remote corners of the world. I believe that travelers that are missing every now and then have been captured by men and perhaps destroyed. It is said humans will render a robot inoperative and use his components for their own dark purposes.
Why are you telling me all this? Bramfel felt uncomfortable receiving such information, especially from a robot he respected as much as Orin.
Because I want to find man on this voyage, and I want you to help me. You‘ll be heading this expedition, and I want your purpose to be the same as mine. Bramfel, when Central Agency audits my data vaults, they’re going to find out that I hold this belief they consider irrational. What will be my chances for promotion then? But if I can prove the belief is not irrational, perhaps even bring back a specimen of man, or some irrefutable evidence. . . .
It would certainly be an interesting challenge, Bramfel knew, searching for a mythical being. But why not? After all, it would be Orin’s last voyage, his last chance, and it meant so much to him. Very well, he told the old robot. But shouldn‘t we tell the others, too?
You know Anatol is too conventional to even consider the possibility of human beings existing. He’d refuse to go on such a trip. And Greely cares only for the experience, the excitement, and the danger. No, I don’t want them to know until we have some concrete evidence to show them.
* * * *
A fifty-six-foot yawl was built and stocked with an emergency engine, depthfinder, tools, and greases with which to repair themselves if needed, and assorted gear for the voyage. Then, to add to the danger and thus make the experience more valuable, they had their abilities deliberately reduced. Instead of being able to lift a ton, the strength in their arms was cut down to be sufficient for only one-tenth that much. Instead of being able to run as fast as the fastest animal and to fly under their own power, they could now only trot, earthbound. Their hearing, too, was cut down so that they could hear sounds only in their immediate vicinity.
Four safeguards were left them: their visual receptors, that could see by night and by day with equal ease; their thinking capacity had not been diminished; their components had been specially sealed to withstand the elements and the pressure of the sea depths, and air-lungs had been installed to make their metal bodies buoyant in the water. They could voyage for only six months, for their atomic batteries would need recharging at the end of that time, but in six months they could store a wealth of data.
* * * *
And so the Seahorse and its crew sailed from Whitecliff Point and went north to the frigid waters near the North Pole, where the robots witnessed the splendor of the northern lights and the glitter of stars on the icebergs. Bramfel searched the bleak tundra with Orin, but found no trace of human beings.
Then they sailed southeast, exploring the rocky coasts where gannets nested, and the islands where gannets nested, and the islands where deer and moose wandered. While Anatol and Greely dived under the waves to observe life in the depths, Bramfel and Orin searched forests and plains along the coast, looking for man, but finding no sign of him. In temperate and tropical climates they landed on islands with strange varieties of animal life, but no evidence of any other inhabitants, until they had been voyaging for more than five months and it was time to return to civilization. Bramfel felt by now that Orin’s stories had not been the exact truth. Perhaps in his desire to justify his belief, the old robot had misinterpreted things he had found years ago. Perhaps time had distorted his memory. Orin didn’t seem to be discouraged, but explored each new place with the same enthusiasm; still Bramfel was tiring and felt that in his search for the legend he might be missing out on adventures that would be more meaningful.
One warm, sunny day when the sea lay like sapphire glass around them and there was no breeze to fill their sails, Bramfel decided to dive underwater to see if he could catch a glimpse of a giant squid that Greely claimed to have seen while swimming underwater earlier that day. He asked Orin to go with him, and together they sank down into the half-light of the undersea world.
Curious fish followed them as they descended, until they had passed the point where the sun’s rays could reach and blackness closed in around them, the only light the amber glow from their visual receptors. Down, and still farther down they went, to the depths where the squids lived. They swam among rocky reefs, frightening schools of fish that were no more than tiny ovals of pale light darting between them, searching for the giant squid. A mass of seaweed gathered on Bramfel’s leg and he had to stop to untangle it, holding to a rock as he did so, but as the seaweed came loose, he saw that it wasn’t a rock he was clutching. It was a metal tube, encrusted with corals that disguised its shape. He summoned Orin over his telebeam. The old robot swam to him in answer to his call, and together they pried away the organisms clustered on the tube and studied it carefully. It was about ten inches in diameter and probably made of steel, although the metal was pitted and marred by age and the encroaching sea life. When they swam back a short distance to get a better look, they saw that the tube was protruding from a huge metal structure that lay on the sea bottom, and there were other metal tubes sticking out from its side.
It’s a ship! Orin was excited.
Bramfel went closer again, brushing away a swarm of curious fish that clustered around him. There seemed to be glass here, just above the first deck, partly visible under the crust of sea animals. He peeled these off a small area and uncovered a round pane of glass, pitted and corroded like the metal that held it. He pressed his face to the glass, his visual receptors beaming into the blackness, and looked through. The sea had taken over the inside of the ship, too, but he could see, after a time of studying, the remains of walls that had been formed a compartment, and the shapes of fixtures inside it. Fixtures he did not recognize.
No robot built this ship. Orin’s face was beside his, pressed to the thick glass.
But then who else?
Human beings! I knew we’d find something!
Perhaps ancient robots. . . . Bramfel was reluctant to jump to conclusions.
There’s no mention of this type of vessel in all recorded history. Why would robots need a ship with metal tubes along its sides? What about those fixtures? What would they be used for? And why would robots need a ship divided up into units the way this one is, as though its occupants needed to be separated from each other when they traveled? We don’t have any such need.
Bramfel drew back from the glass, puzzled, trying to correlate this new data with information already in his vault. He swam over and studied the metal pipes again. He could not guess what purpose these might serve, either. When he looked up, Orin was nowhere to be seen.
Bramfel moved along the side of the ship to find out where he might have gone, and then Orin’s call reached him. At the same time, he saw an opening in the ship, just beyond him. He swam in and there was Orin, rubbing his metal hand against part of a ruined wall.
What is it? Have you found something?
A metal plate set into this wall. It has markings on it. Orin traced his finger over the faint lines etched into the square plate.
Bramfel studied the writing that was not in any language he had ever seen, and as Orin’s finger moved, he tried to decipher it. “S. S. Albany.’’ What do you suppose it is? The name of this ship?
Probably. Orin dug his fingers around the square edge of the plate and tried to pry it loose, and Bramfel pried at another corner. They were so engrossed in trying to free the plate that it was only when they were aware of varicolored lights glowing in the corner of their vision, and looked up to see a huge shape moving inside the ship, not far from them, that they remembered the squid.
Both of them headed immediately for the opening. When they had passed through it, Bramfel looked back to see the giant squid rocketing out of the aperture. Using a metal tube for leverage, he rose out of its path.
Panic gripped him now. The squid was huge, at least three times his size, and might do them serious damage if it attacked them. He saw that Orin was swimming just above him, headed upward, and he pushed off from the top of the sunken ship, feeling clumsy and slow in the water, taking what seemed ages to rise even a little way. He looked back to see the glowing lights on the squid’s body and the wavering tentacles close to his kicking feet. He thrashed his arms harder, but could only dance helplessly in slow motion. He looked back once more, readying himself for the tug at his body when the creature would grasp him, but instead of the reaching tentacles a large fish glistened just under his feet, and as he looked, slim bands whipped around it and it suddenly dropped, leaving only pale sea worms and shimmering jellyfish whirling in its wake. He put every atom of power in his body into the upward swim, until at last he could see the faint light that meant the surface of the sea was just above them.
Finally they emerged into the sunlight, seeing their boat a short distance away with Anatol and Greely on deck.
Finding that ship was worse than finding nothing at all, Orin told him as they swam toward the sailboat. We couldn’t even get that metal plate to take back as evidence that the ship exists and wasn’t built by robots.
But I saw it, and I believe you are right. No robots would have built it.
I’ve got to get concrete evidence, and there’s so little time left.
Bramfel had an idea. Let’s get Anatol and Greely to dive down and look at it. That way we’ll all have the same impressions in our data vaults. Four witnesses will be as good as evidence.
But there was no opportunity to tell Anatol and Greely about the ship. As soon as Bramfel and Orin were back on board their sailboat, a strong wind began blowing in from the northwest, bringing storm clouds and swelling the waves until by nightfall the little boat was sliding down the faces of moving mountains of water. Bramfel stayed by the helm, struggling with the kicking wheel, while continuous rain pelted them. Orin came into the cockpit beside him, but the other two robots stayed on the deck, experiencing the turmoil. Greely stood astern, gripping the mast with both six-fingered hands, the tiny hooks on each finger pressed into the wood, his head lifted toward the angry sky. Bramfel yearned to order him below, to the comparative safety of the cabin, but he knew he must not. Greely was living through the experience in his own way and no other had the right to interfere. Anatol was near him, probably recording each separate flash of lightning for some quieter time so that he could relive the precise sensations all over again.
At last dawn broke, but it was a lurid dawn of red streaks between black, racing clouds, and the rain let up intermittently only to fall again in blinding torrents while the wind shrieked through the rigging. Far ahead, Bramfel had seen a hump of green that meant land, and he was heading for it.
But the little craft had taken on too much water. Barely able to stay afloat, it yawed suddenly to port and began to sink, and Bramfel slid helplessly across the slippery deck and into the ocean.
Blackness closed in around him, but after the first shock his visual receptors were able to pick out another robot in the sea near him, though he couldn’t tell who it was, and the shape of the capsized ship above them. He propelled himself away from the sinking ship with powerful thrusts of his limbs. He would have to swim for the land they had sighted, knowing that his companions would be doing the same. Warnings of fear pulsed through him. In this storm they could be dashed against the rocky shoals or even lose their bearings in the raging waters and perhaps swim around in endless circles. And Orin, how would he hold up at his age? Bramfel searched the waters around him and telebeamed calls to the others, but there was no answer, and the one he had seen was gone. He suppressed his anxiety, needing to concentrate all his faculties on the swim to land.
He stayed under the turbulent waves, swimming in what he felt must be the right direction to the land. No use to surface and try to sight it now until the rain had let up.
An hour or so later, he surfaced and looked around. The sea was calmer now, and the storm clouds were drifting toward the horizon. The hump of green land was dead ahead. He searched for any sign of the other robots as the waves bore him up and tossed him down, but could see no one else, so he submerged again and resumed his tireless swim.
At last, there was a rocky reef where the waters grew shallow, and as he came to the surface again he saw that the reef became a neck of land, and beyond that was the shore sloping down toward the ocean; a band of white sand rimmed with thick foliage.
Someone was on the sand as he approached it, and when finally the water was so shallow he could walk, the one on shore was coming to meet him, waving metal arms in a stiff greeting.
Anatol!
You made it! came the happy thought from Anatol. The others should be here soon, too.
What place is this? Have you explored it yet?
I haven’t had time, my friend. I arrived here just before you. But it seems uncivilized. A small island, perhaps.
They waited by the edge of the water, scanning the heaving sea patiently, until at last here was another metal head bobbing in the surf, and soon Orin was coming toward them.
My left arm ... it must have been damaged when the boat capsized . . . I don’t know how. Orin held out his arm for them to see. It had a deep dent running from the shoulder to the elbow. But it doesn’t matter, I’ll be trading in this old shell soon, anyway.
The important thing is that you got here safely, Bramfel told him. Do you know where Greely is?
I’m not certain, but he might have been trapped on the ship as it sank. I caught a glimpse of someone pinned under the mast just after it fell. Then a wave carried me away. I wasn’t sure then who it was, but it must have been Greely.
Bramfel was shocked. Why didn’t you get back to the ship and try to rescue him?
Because, Orin replied reasonably, I was damaged. It was a struggle for me just to keep myself on course in that storm. If I had tried to save Greely I would have risked further damage, or perhaps have been trapped with him.
You behaved quite logically, Orin, Anatol commented, but Bramfel was in a turmoil. They were both so calmly indifferent, and that might be logical but it didn’t seem right, somehow. We should swim back and see if we can rescue him.
That would be foolish to try, Anatol pointed out. How could you and I cover miles of sea, hoping to find one small sunken ship?
Orin agreed. And it could be that Greely managed to get free and decided to swim all the way home without stopping here.
Not with more storms coming. Bramfel waved an arm at the black clouds banked on the horizon. Our batteries are running down. Why would he risk draining them further with the extra effort of fighting a stormy sea when he could wait here until the going is easier? We all knew that was the best thing to do.
He might have been terminated by the accident, Orin reminded him. At the time I saw him, I couldn’t tell.
Bramfel was still worried. I hope we find some sort of civilization on this land so we can arrange for a rescue crew to look for him. But this place wasn’t on any of our maps. They showed about a hundred miles of open sea before we would have reached Whitecliff Point again.
That’s illogical, Anatol argued. Our maps are complete and correct. We must have gone far off our course during the storm so that we lost our bearings.
Perhaps, Bramfel agreed. We‘ll know better when we find out what lies beyond this beach.
They stood on the shore a little while longer, scanning the sea, until there was sudden loud, rumbling roar and the earth beneath them began to shake. Waves swelled in sudden mounds of foam, and the trees beside the beach shook violently. Startled, Bramfel saw dark jets of steam and ash squirting up from the sea just beyond the reef before he fell to the ground. Soon, ashes were falling on them in a swirling mist, blackening the sand, and a muddy rain began to pelt them. As soon as the earth had stopped quivering and they could get a firm footing, they ran for the cover of the trees. When they looked back at the beach, a gigantic wave was rolling toward it.
Frantically, they turned and ran through the woods, hearing the crash of trees falling close by, hoping they could find shelter. Ahead of them was the rocky side of the green hill they had seen, and they scrambled upward on their powerful legs until they reached a broad ledge and saw the mouth of a cave.
They took shelter just inside the cave entrance, although it seemed to go far back into the hillside. They watched the rain, and thought again of Greely, but to dwell on what might have happened to him would have been useless. They agreed that his companionship would be missed.
As soon as this rain lets up, we can get to the top of this ridge and get a good view around. Bramfel was anxious to find out where they were.
But why is it raining mud? Anatol held out his arms, coated with grime like the rest of his body. Look at me! And you two don’t look any cleaner. He lifted his head suddenly. What was that?
Bramfel strained his aural receptors. I don’t hear anything but the rain.
A sound in here, farther back in the cave.
And then Bramfel heard it, a low moaning like an animal in pain. Orin apparently had heard it, too, for he pointed toward the back of the cave and the three turned and went that way. The cavern widened from its mouth, where they had been standing, and slanted slightly downward, forming a high-ceilinged, wide-walled room. It was damp and cool, and bats clustered in rocky niches above them. The robots’ visual receptors glowed, casting a faint light in the place, taking in every detail as easily as though the cave had been brightly lit, and they all saw the mound of animal skins on the floor and paused in front of it. The mound quivered. Something was under those skins.
Bramfel reached down and pulled the top layer back. There, lying under the cover, was a creature he had never seen before.
It gave a frightened cry and sat up, grabbing at the covering he had pulled away, but he stood staring, holding the skins in an unconsciously tight grip, so that the creature could not hide from their gaze.
It was smaller than he, but formed in roughly the same way. A small, pale face with blue and white eyes. Fragile-looking neck and shoulders. Two round protuberances on the chest, and a huge round bulge below those that gave the creature a clumsy look. Its appendages were slender and curved, but were almost like his, however the thing had hair on its head and body and was certainly made of flesh.
An animal of an unknown species, Anatol stated. We’ve discovered something interesting indeed!
Bramfel agreed. A cave-dwelling animal, although it resembles a monkey somewhat.
Not at all, Anatol objected. It looks more like a chimpanzee, but with less hair and shorter arms.
The creature whimpered and hunched back toward the wall of the cave, away from them. It moved slowly and awkwardly, Bramfel saw, and he wondered at its grotesque shape—long, slender limbs and a midsection out of all proportion to the rest of it. It was shaking, probably with fear, so he bent down to the level of its face and made soothing gestures with his hands, to show they meant it no harm. The creature obviously didn’t understand. It flinched and made anxious noises.
Orin seemed fascinated. He stood completely still, studying the creature intently, and Bramfel suddenly knew why. The old robot believed this was a man! Bramfel looked at the frightened thing with new interest. Is this what a human being looked like? It certainly seemed different from any animal he’d ever seen, but it didn’t seem to be dangerous or vicious. On the contrary, it was quite pitiful. But that could be only because it was alone, and cornered. I wonder if there are any others like it in here?
I’ll take a look. Orin went farther back into the cave and Bramfel could hear his footsteps halting. No, the walls narrow down back here. There’s only a small passage, not big enough for anything that size to get through. This one must be alone.
The animal is shivering, Anatol pointed out. It might be cold.
Bramfel held out the covering he had taken from it, and the creature grabbed it with its slender hands and pulled it up around itself so that only the face was showing, and the round, frightened eyes.
Look at the way it uses its hands! Bramfel watched the fingers arrange the covering, noticing that instead of claws, they ended in oval, shell-like tips.
Amazing! Anatol agreed. It shows intelligence!
Look at these! Orin was coming back, carrying an earthenware bowl, a piece of bone sharpened to a thin point at one end, and a length of rope made of braided vines. There are more of these objects back there. All sorts of instruments and utensils.
An intelligent animal that uses tools? Anatol was incredulous.
It’s a human being! Orin extended his dented arm toward it triumphantly. I was right. They do exist, and we‘ve found one!
Nonsense! Anatol stepped back a little, away from the creature. It’s a species of chimpanzee, he insisted. A cave-dwelling chimpanzee. A mutation with less hair and pale skin caused by living away from the sun.
No, Orin told them. There’s something else here I want you to see.
They followed him to the rear of the cave, seeing the bones and skins of animals that littered the floor, and there, against the sloping cave wall, stood a metal box. They went closer to study it. It was rectangular, about three feet long and two feet high, rusted and dented. Bramfel knelt beside it to get a better look and saw the faint letters engraved on its top. “S. S. Albany.”
The same words we found on the ship!
What do you mean? Anatol had not heard about their discovery, so the others told him.
Can you still doubt these are humans we’ve found? Orin asked when he’d listened to the story.
I don’t know that this is conclusive proof. Anatol pried at the top of the box and finally got it open. It was empty. He closed the lid again and the three robots went back to stand beside the frightened creature in the cave. If this is a human being, Anatol persisted, it can terminate us. So far all it’s done is shiver in a corner.
Bramfel had to agree. It looks too weak and clumsy to hurt one of us.
Let’s see if it will try. Orin approached the creature slowly. When he was close enough, he crouched and held out the instrument with the sharp point, cupping it in his palm, and the creature, after staring at him for a moment, reached out and took it. For a long time each one of them was still, Bramfel and Anatol watching, and Orin crouching beside the being, who held the crude knife in a clenched hand and looked first at them and then at the weapon. The animal skin that had been held in one hand dropped away from its upper body, that was heaving and glistening with moisture. The hand that was now free went to clutch the knife, too. Then, in two swift movements, the creature raised the knife and brought it down toward its own chest, with a piteous wail that echoed through the cave. Bramfel started forward but Orin, closer, already had deflected the knife’s path with a swat from his metal hand and the instrument clattered across the cave floor.
The creature collapsed then, turning its face into the mound of skins, and Orin stood up. We should leave it alone. It seems to be afraid of us. It can’t get away.
Bramfel picked up the weapon from the floor and put it in the storage compartment in his chest, and then they went back to the mouth of the cave and looked out at the driving rain.
Bramfel made the first comment. I’ve never heard of an animal that would try to destroy itself with a sharp instrument.
Nor an animal that uses tools for anything, Orin added, at least not such a variety of tools. But human beings are said to be intelligent. He looked at Anatol.
Before you jump to hasty conclusions, remember that human beings, according to the legends, can only be killed with a wooden weapon.
No, that’s not accurate, Bramfel objected. The story goes that they can be killed in different ways, but they will spring to life again somewhere else in another form, unless the weapon is wooden.
Exactly! Orin was nodding enthusiastically. This man was trying to escape from us.
Anatol was not impressed. Speculation. Useless speculation. We‘ll only know for sure what species the creature is when we take it back to Central Agency and have tests made on it.
Bramfel longed to retreat inside himself, to turn off his receptors, however he knew he must stay alert. He almost believed this creature was a man, but he needed to mull over the evidence, to examine the facts.
The entity in the cave seemed to be suffering. Every now and then it would groan, and once it screamed. Bramfel went back then, to see if he could help it, and saw that it had kicked off the skins that covered it and was tossing on its couch. It seemed to be ignoring his presence, or else its suffering was too great for it to notice anything outside itself. Its hands clenched and pulled at the skins, and its body seemed to be straining.
And then Bramfel realized what was happening. He tele-beamed a call to the others and they raced in to watch the female as she gave birth to her young.
They were helpless to know what to do. The creature strained and cried, and Bramfel, who had seldom seen an animal in pain, felt that he should be helping her, but when he approached she objected, making loud, growling noises that were easy to understand. At last the baby emerged from her body, and with her last bit of strength, she used her teeth to sever the cord that connected it to her, tied it off, and took the tiny, crying thing in her arms and pressed it against her. Then she lay back with her eyes closed, exhausted.
The three robots kept a vigil around her through the night. The tiny creature was fascinating to watch, a miniature replica of its mother, perfect in every detail. It made small noises and sucked at its mother’s body for sustenance. Bramfel had never seen an animal give birth, although he knew that this was the way in which fleshy creatures reproduced, but there was something different about witnessing it; seeing the baby emerge and instantly breathe air; knowing that there was not one mechanical component inside it, and yet it functioned perfectly. Of course, animals were inferior to mechanical beings. They were imperfect copies of the robots’ perfection, who lived without any real purpose or knowledge. Yet, there was certainly some logic to their existing at all, since Central Agency had pronounced the universe to be entirely logical and rational. So what was the logic in this kind of being? If they were human, Central Agency must be mistaken in saying the universe was rational in every way. These creatures were intelligent, yet vulnerable; dangerous, yet weak; fierce, yet tender. It followed, then, that Central Agency might be either mistaken or untruthful. No, he could not assimilate such a monstrous thought, at least not until he had more data about these humans, if that’s what they were.
The female and her offspring slept for many hours, until the floor of the cave began to tremble from another earthquake and she sat up with a cry. Frightened bats swooped at them. She hugged the baby to her with one arm, and beat them away with the other. The cave wall cracked with a terrifying sound, and loose rocks tumbled around them. The female shielded her baby with her own body until the quake was over and the rocks had stopped falling, and then she soothed its frightened cries by rocking it and crooning to it. Bramfel watched and wondered. Why had she not tried to save herself instead of that tiny, helpless thing? It was completely useless to her, only a drain on her strength and a burden to her, yet she had protected it as though it were her most valuable possession. He turned to Orin and Anatol who were watching her with the same interest. She doesn’t behave logically.
Oh yes, Anatol replied. All animals protect their young. Preservation of the species.
Then what is she doing now? Bramfel asked. It’s in no danger now, but she tries to take away its fears. And why does she make that humming sound?
The creature seemed to have forgotten they were there. Bramfel thought she probably had grown used to their presence and sensed that they would not harm her, because she was totally absorbed in her infant. She cradled it in her arms and her voice came sweet and clear, speaking, yet not speaking. Bramfel thought the sound strangely beautiful. It made him think of a waterfall, of the wind, of a bird call.
She seems to be forming words, Orin told them. Maybe we could speak with her.
Well, apparently she can’t hear us this way. You’ll have to shut off your telebeam and articulate. Bramfel turned his own off.
Orin stepped forward. The creature stopped her music and clutched at her baby, watching him suspiciously.
“We will not hurt you,” Orin said in the clicking speech the robots sometimes used. “My name is Orin.”
The female sat, motionless.
“Orin.” He moved closer to her.
The female opened her mouth and spoke words, but none of them could understand the language she used.
Bramfel decided to try. He pointed to himself. “Bramfel,” he clicked, Then he pointed to Orin and repeated his name.
The creature seemed to relax. Her mouth opened and her teeth showed white as a cadence of sound came from her throat. Then she began to imitate the sounds they had made, as with her free hand she pointed to first one and then the other. “Orin,” she said, and “Bramfel.” The pointing finger went toward Anatol, who seemed reluctant but finally pronounced his name for her. She repeated that, too, and then pointed to herself, but now she spoke with a different sound, in liquid syllables. “Sallis.”
Bramfel and Orin, delighted, tried to repeat that but it didn’t sound the same, somehow. The female opened her mouth and the cascade of sounds came again. Then she held up the wriggling baby. “Adam,” she said.
* * * *
When daylight came again and the rain had stopped, the female went to the mouth of the cave, but Anatol blocked her way. She might try to escape. We must keep her in here until we decide how to get her back to civilization.
Orin objected to this. She’s too weak to get far if she tries to run away. Besides, she probably needs food and only wants to go out and look for it.
And so they allowed the female, carrying her baby, to leave the cave, and while Anatol kept watch on her, Bramfel and Orin went up the side of the hill to get a view from its top. Once they had climbed over the rocky ledges near the cave, the hillside became a gentle, grassy slope, but the greenery they had seen from the ship was blackened now with a layer of ashes and soot.
The summit was a plateau, but Bramfel took note of no more than that before he saw the spectacle, perhaps a quarter-mile away from them. It looked at first like a fountain of fire. A steady jet of glowing boulders soared from a cone-shaped black hill that rose from the sea. Orange steam clouds coiled above it, enclosing a nest of lightning bolts that dazzled and roared in brief explosions.
Orin seemed overcome with excitement. It’s a volcano! Rising from the sea! That’s what caused the earthquakes and the storms. And that’s why ashes are falling from the sky.
It’s too close! Bramfel could almost feel the vibrations of the fiery rocks that were landing on the beach, visible below them, where they lay glowing like angry fireflies. As the two robots watched, a bundle of gray spears of rock and vapor streamed from the volcano, and a broad mushroom cloud formed atop the column that towered high in the air. Brown gusts of volcanic dust swelled from the crater, and steaming blocks of lava broke in arcs from the dark central mass. The wind veered and dark ash bore down on them like a moving wall. They ran before it down the slope, their feet crunching on the cinders, until they had gained the shelter of the cave mouth. Anatol and the female were already there. Together they watched the strange golden rain slanting down through the sunlight.
The female was terribly frightened. She clutched her baby to her with one hand, while with the other she covered her face and whimpered.
They told Anatol about the volcano, and Bramfel wished the female could understand them. Or, did she know about it?
Did you notice, Bramfel, whether this is an island? Orin asked.
No. The volcano was so fascinating, I didn’t look at anything else.
Nor did I. If the land is large enough, we must start walking. We‘ll have to get away from here. If this is an island, we‘ll have to swim, but how can we take these two humans with us?
Make a boat, Bramfel suggested.
Without tools that might take too long. We probably won’t be safe here for another day, so close to the volcano. And I believe that’s why this human is all alone here. There must have been others who fled when the volcano rose.
There was nothing they could do at the moment, until the wind changed and the rain of ashes stopped. Gradually, Sallis stopped crying and took her baby back into the rear of the cave, and Bramfel went with her and watched as she sat on her mound of skins and ate the fruit she had gathered that morning. When she had finished her meal, she allowed the baby to feed while she used her voice to make the same musical sounds he had heard before. Enchanted, he tried to imitate her, but the clicking noises he made were grotesque even to him. Sallis showed her teeth and made a happy sound and then, ignoring him, she took up the soothing ribbon of music once again. The baby’s eyes closed and its restless body relaxed. Bramfel studied them, listening and wondering, and when they had both fallen asleep he remained deep in thought.
Orin came to tell him when the downpour had stopped. Anatol is going up the hill to see the volcano for himself and find out about this place while he’s there.
Human beings are amazing, Bramfel told the old robot. I remember the stories that said they reproduce in an un-mechanical way, but I never realized what it could be like to see one creature make another just like itself, that already works perfectly without mechanics or technicians to ready it.
The same thing occurred to me, Orin agreed. It was interesting.
Interesting! Orin, this human created her own species right before our eyes!
No, they reproduce like animals. The female didn’t create her baby, it was created by the male sperm and her own fertile egg, and grew inside her body. What we saw was only the emergence-
I know all that! Bramfel interrupted. I’ve learned the biology of fleshy creatures. But consider, Orin, we are the highest form of life, yet we can’t reproduce ourselves as these humans can, or even as the lowest form of animal life can.
Central Agency creates us.
Central Agency duplicates our bodies and sends us out from the factories, but did it conceive us?
Orin was silent.
I’m talking about creating. Bramfel was growing impatient.
Yes, Orin finally answered. I understand.
And this female also makes music of endless variations, all pleasing to the aural receptors, that brings strange thoughts. Listening to her my senses perceive things that are not evident.
You believe she creates this music, too?
She seems to improvise it. No two pieces have the same pattern.
We can compose music. What’s so different about hers?
Only by transposing notes we have learned. This female uses her voice like an instrument, and makes use of words with it. She gets a message across with the sound, somehow. I’ve never heard music like it.
You believe that human beings, then, have powers we do not have? Do you infer they have abilities superior to ours?
As a race they must be, or have been at one time, highly intelligent. Remember the ship we saw, Orin, with the fittings we could not even guess the uses for. I don’t infer they are superior to us, but only that they are different, and possess traits we know little of.
All the more reason to take them back home and study them scientifically, Orin pointed out.
I wonder if she would want to go with us, if she knew? I wonder what kind of tests they will give her, and what they might do to her?
We won’t harm her. We don’t take a life that can’t be replaced—unlike humans.
If we could make her understand that she’s contributing valuable knowledge to our whole race, she might go willingly. Bramfel looked at the sleeping female and her child, and somehow knew that she would be most unwilling.
Orin glanced toward the cave entrance. I wonder what’s keeping Anatol so long?
Let’s go and meet him while they are asleep, Bramfel told him.
* * * *
They found Anatol at the top of the ridge, pinned under a basalt boulder. Bramfel and Orin ran to where he lay and heaved the giant rock, still steaming from the volcano, off his legs. Are you all right? Bramfel leaned over him with concern.
Anatol answered him weakly. It began to rain stones up here and this one got me as I tried to get away. I think my left leg is inoperative.
His leg was, indeed, a crushed mass of metal, and there was a jagged tear in his right leg, although it was intact. They lifted him and carried him between them clumsily down the slope.
I could see the other side of this island, he told them as they went. That’s what it is, and not a very big island, at that. To the west of us is another island, about two miles distant.
Bramfel glanced back at the clouds that rose behind them, black and threatening. We’ll swim to the next island and tow you along with us.
But what about the female and her baby? Orin seemed doubtful.
We can take Anatol first and then come back for them. We can build a raft.
They reached the cave and deposited the injured robot just inside its mouth. But there was no sound from the inside of the cave, and when they looked, they saw that the female and her baby were gone.
They can’t go far. Bramfel was disappointed. Since this is a small island, there will be no place for them to go. We can swim with Anatol to the next island and then come back, find her, and take her there, too.
Orin agreed, and Anatol was willing, so they carried him down the hillside toward the other side of the island, hearing the volcano rumbling now behind them. Bramfel thought with apprehension of the swim across two miles of churning sea, towing the dead weight of Anatol, and hoped that there were no reefs between this island and the next. They didn’t need any more injuries.
Through the bushes he could see the white sand ahead of them, glistening in the sunlight, but it wasn’t until they were on the beach that they saw the boat. It was about fifteen feet long, made of some light wood, sturdy enough to hold the three of them. Four wooden paddles sat inside it. A rope of vines anchored it to a rock at the water’s edge, where it bobbed in the waves.
There was no point in wondering where it had come from, or if it had been there since they arrived on the island. They needed it, so they decided to use it, and deposited the injured Anatol inside it.
The boat is big enough to hold the female and her baby, too, Orin suggested. Why don’t we go and find her, and take her with us?
It would save us a trip, Bramfel agreed, and so, leaving Anatol in the boat and making sure the rope holding it was secure, he took off in the direction of the woods that edged the beach, while Orin went the other way.
Bramfel tried to walk lightly, making as little noise as possible to warn her in case she was hiding from them, but although he spent nearly half an hour searching, there was no sign of her. Disappointed, he returned to the beach by another way, and it was while he was still in the cover of the bushes that he heard the child crying. Looking between the branches, he saw them.
Four humans were on the beach beside the boat. One was the female, carrying her young, but the other two were bigger and heavier that she, although formed in much the same way, but lacking the protuberances on the chest and abdomen. They were talking to each other in their own language, the two strangers sounding angry and the female speaking softly. Finally one of the males, for so Bramfel judged them to be, gave a loud shout and held up a weapon that he carried. It was a sharp-edged metal head on a long wooden handle. Waving this, he ran toward the boat with a wild cry, the other male following, brandishing his own weapon. They were going to attack Anatol, lying helplessly in the boat! Before Bramfel could move, the female had run to one of the males and grabbed his arm with her free hand. She let out a piteous wail and both the males stopped and looked at her. She was telling them something now, pointing to herself and to her baby. Although Bramfel couldn’t hear her words, and couldn’t have understood them, anyway, it was plain to him she was telling them about meeting the robots in the cave. He knew he should go out there and help Anatol, but he was curious to know more about the reactions of these humans. Would the male be influenced by the female? Was she trying to reason with him? The other male was apparently awaiting the first one’s decision, for he stood slightly behind the pair and watched them without making a move.
The female seemed to be winning the argument. The two males put down their weapons and went to the boat, and as Bramfel tensed, ready to run to Anatol’s aid if needed, there was a long, loud roar from the volcano. All of them turned to look and saw, high above them, the steaming magma of another eruption jetting toward the clouds.
Quickly, the humans heaved Anatol out of the boat and laid him on the beach, the female running beside them. The helpless robot struggled and squirmed but they held his arms so that he could not harm them. Then they helped the female and her baby into the boat.
The sky was turning dark with the volcano’s black breath and the rain was starting again. Bramfel ran out of the bushes toward the boat. He would have to stop them before they got away. As he pounded along the beach, he saw Orin running from the other direction. The males turned around and saw them, and they waited on the sand, their weapons ready.
Orin reached them first. With a swipe of his metal arm, he knocked the nearest human to the ground. The other swung with his weapon, aiming for Orin’s neck where his vulnerable ring cable was located. Orin deflected the blow with his forearm and with his other arm he felled the creature. Seeing that Orin was handling the humans, Bramfel picked up their weapons and threw them into the water, among the waves that were churning and rising from the volcano’s force.
The female was crying, scrambling out of the boat to the beach. She ran to one of the fallen males, whose face was streaked with blood from the blow Orin had given him, and knelt in the sand beside him, making anxious noises. The frightened baby wailed. As Bramfel approached them, the injured male, dazed but conscious, sat up and shielded the female with his body, as though afraid Bramfel would attack. The robot halted. Humans could terminate robots, but now that their weapons were gone, these humans seemed only weak and fearful. Yet, the unarmed male, vulnerable himself, and helpless, seemed ready to die to protect the female and her young.
Orin was exultant. We have four specimens now to take back home, instead of two. Let’s get them all in the boat and we‘ll push it back to civilization.
They got Anatol back into the boat. If only I could swim with you, he complained, we could get home so much faster.
Bramfel helped Orin then to drag the unconscious male into the boat, and the female and the other male got in beside him without protest. The warm, wet ashes rained down on them, and the volcano grumbled threateningly, flinging its hot boulders near them as they pushed the wooden craft out into the churning sea.
They swam quickly and tirelessly, and when they were far enough away from the island and darkness had fallen, they looked back to see the volcano spilling blood-red lava over its open mouth, lava that flowed in a fiery stream over the island they had just left.
We got out just in time, Orin remarked, paddling strongly behind the boat. Inside, the humans were quiet except for the occasional cry of the baby.
Bramfel was thinking about what the humans had done on the beach. They must have come back for her, he told Orin. The males. One of them is probably her mate, the father of the baby. They must have left her there when they had to flee from the rising volcano. Perhaps she couldn’t travel when she was so close to giving birth. But the mate came back for her. Even though the danger to himself was so great, he came back for her.
Orin seemed to be thinking along other lines. In all my two hundred years I’ve never seen a human, and now we have four of them. I have truly had unusual experiences to complete my life.
Just before dawn, Bramfel made his decision. The humans must eat, he told Orin. I will try to catch some fish for them. We don’t know how long we’ll have to swim before we reach home, and we want them alive. He left Orin to push the boat alone and he paddled around it, diving now and then to catch fish from under the surface, and bringing them up to throw into the boat, where the males, both conscious now although seeming sick and still fearful, took them from him and shared them with the female.
When Bramfel had given them many fish, he went to the nose of the moving boat where Anatol lay, and, out of sight of Orin who still pushed at the stern, he climbed in beside the inert robot. For a moment he bent beside him, asking how he was faring, and then with a sudden movement he seized Anatol under the arms and heaved him over the side. Anatol sank like a stone. Bramfel dived in quickly after him and, catching up with him in the depths, hauled him to the surface again. Orin, unknowing, still pushed the boat and was yards away from them now. Bramfel beamed a call to him. Orin, come and help!
The old robot turned, saw them, and swam away from the boat. What happened?
Anatol fell out of the boat.
Bramfel pushed me out! Anatol seethed with shock and disapproval at the lie.
Orin swam up to them and grasped one of Anatol’s arms to support him. You did what? he asked Bramfel.
Bramfel looked past Orin, at the little boat bobbing on the waves. He saw the faces of the three humans looking at them with wide eyes, and then he saw them take the slender wooden oars and dip them in the water, and as the two males pulled on these, the female opened her mouth and showed her teeth at him, the way she had done in the cave, and Bramfel knew she understood what he had done.
Orin and Anatol saw, too, that the boat was pulling away from them. Orin dropped Anatol’s arm and started through the water to stop it, but Bramfel sent him a warning. If you try to bring them back, I’ll let Anatol sink.
But why? Orin kept asking, long after the little boat had disappeared in the direction of the islands, and they had towed Anatol many miles through the sea.
And finally Bramfel answered. Because no matter how we studied them, we would never understand them.
What do you mean? Orin insisted. We could have gained priceless knowledge, and you deliberately let it out of our grasp, perhaps forever.
I hope human beings are never caught to be tested and dissected. No tests would ever tell us how they can create, how they can make music that summons up strange thoughts, why there is such a strong bond between the female and her baby, and her mate. They value each other highly, and it seems right that we should place the same value upon them.
These ideas of yours hardly seem rational, Anatol commented, but Bramfel ignored him.
You still have your evidence for the existence of human beings, Orin. You and I have the data about the sunken ship we saw. I have the weapon we took from the female. And Anatol is a witness, even though he still won’t admit the creatures were human beings.
I would have preferred the living specimens, Orin answered, but I know when our data vaults are audited and all the facts agree, the proof will be there. He paused for a moment, and then continued. Bramfel, I still believe you think these humans are superior to us.
What nonsense! Anatol stated. There is nothing as perfect as we are.