Сидней Баундс - The Robot Brains [with w_cat]

"Why, Earth, of course!"

"If this is Earth," said Christian, "it is certainly not the Earth which I know. We are underground, I suppose?"

"Of course. No one lives on the surface now... it is forbidden."

"Now?"

Alma answered nothing. She was just sitting and looking at him. It seemed to Christian that she was losing interest.

He said:

"The Brains brought me here using a black crystal. I arrived in the hall where there was a giant machine with a lot of such crystals. Do you know anything about this machine?"

Alma nodded. Christian saw that she was falling asleep.

"Do you know how this machine works? Or what it is?"

"Oh, some kind of transmitter..."

"What kind of transmitter?"

Alma lay down and prepared to sleep.

"What kind of transmitter?" he repeated.

Alma was almost sleeping now.

"A time machine..."

Christian woke up. Alma was sitting near him and looking at him.

"I know who you are," she said. "You are from the past - a prehistoric man."

Christian began to understand. A time machine... and he was somewhere in the future.

"How far in the future?" he asked.

But Alma was not interested. She climbed out of the hollow trunk of the tree and Christian followed her She walked through the tall grass, then sat down and began eating some leaves.

"It was nineteen hundred and sixty-six when Waldo fastened a crystal on me and brought me here," he said. "What year is this?"

"I don't know," said Alma.

Christian felt very sad. Brains and blond giant women - this is what mankind came to in the end!

"Are there no other people?" he asked.

"There is no one else."

"And on the surface?"

"It is forbidden," said Alma.

"I want to reach the surface," said Christian. "It there a way? Can you show me?"

"It is forbidden," Alma repeated. "It is too cold there, and there are the Watchers and others..."

"What others?"

"Insects"

"And men?"

"No men - only the Watchers."

"I must see for myself," said Christian. "Show me the way, Alma."

She stood up and walked. Christian followed her. They walked a long time. Suddenly Alma said: "The Watchers will help you if you can reach them."

They came to a high metal wall.

"There is a door in this wall," said Alma. "I don't know what is on the other side of the door, but legends say that there is a moving room there that rises to the surface."

Soon they saw the door. There was a button in the wall near the door. Christian pressed the button and the door opened. And just at that moment they heard shouts behind their backs.. There was a flash of a decapitator, and Alma fell dead. Somebody's hands caught Christian from behind. He turned and hit the Brain with all the weight of his body. The Brain slipped on the wet grass and fell, and in falling dropped his decapitator. Christian seized the weapon and, quick as lightning, jumped inside. The door closed behind him.

It was a lift, and it went up as soon as the door closed.

The lift stopped, and the door opened. Christian saw a black sky and the ground on which nothing grew. It was very cold.

He stepped out of the lift cabin.

The sun was huge, an orange-red disc which hung low on the horison. He could see not a house, not a tree: all around him was desert.

Christian looked at the world's end and felt very sad.

Then he turned and walked towards the bloody-red disc of the sun. There was only sand around. An icy-cold wind was blowing. Who were the Watchers? Perhaps only a legend from the long dead past...

It was a world of silence. He was the last man alive.

Far ahead he saw a wall. It looked small, but as he was walking nearer and nearer, it grew in size. It took him many hours to approach the wall, and when at last he came near it, he stopped in great surprise. He had never seen such a huge construction. It rose high into the sky and he could not see the sun behind it. It stretched left and right beyond the horison.

It was old, very old. Who built this wall? And for what purpose?

He did not know how to get to the other side. He was walking along the base of the wall, and suddenly fell into a hole which he had not noticed in the darkness. The hole was deep and ended in a tunnel. He walked along it. The darkness was complete. By and by the tunnel began to go up, and Christian saw light at the end of it. Finally he got out on the other side of the wall.

The landscape was the same. There was desert all around him, and the huge red sun was still hanging over the horison. In the distance he saw a little hill and walked to it. From the top of the hill he saw something which looked like ruined buildings. He turned and looked in another direction. And then he saw it. Far across the desert something was moving.

Christian began to run, shouting and waving his arms. Movement meant life - he was no longer alone -

But a minute later he stopped. The thing that was running towards him was certainly not human. He raised his decapitator and waited.

It was a giant ant the size of a dog, and it was running on its six legs straight at Christian. Christian pressed the button on his weapon, and the giant insect fell dead.

He looked around. Several other ants were approaching from the distance. He turned and ran in the direction of the ruins.

Looking back, he saw that the ants had stopped beside the dead body of their comrade and were pulling it to pieces. He ran on, trying to reach the ruins as soon as he could.

Once it had been a very large house. Now there were only half broken walls with no ceilings and remains of columns.

Christian was running from room to room, with the insects hurrying after him. He came into a large hall and ran across it to the opposite wall. When he reached it, the first ants appeared in the doorway through which he had entered. He could not climb over the wall because it was too high. Rather high over the floor there were some niches in the wall big enough for him to get in. With a great difficulty, using cracks in the wall as steps, he managed to climb into one of these niches. The ants came up to the wall and were trying to climb to him. Every minute more and more insects gathered at the wall.

His situation was desperate. Then he had an idea - to try to burn a hole in the wall with his decapitator. Of course, he did not know how thick the wall was and how much energy was remaining in the decapitator. He did not know what he would find of the other side of the wall if he managed to burn a hole through it. But it was the only way to try to get away from the terrible insects.

He turned his decapitator to the wall and pressed the energy button. A narrow hot beam touched the wall, and it slowly began to melt.

It took him a long time to make the hole large enough to get through. Then he had to wait for the wall to cool. At last he jumped out on the other side.

There were no ants... but he saw far on the horison moving lights. What was it? The Watchers who were coming to save him? Or some new enemies?

The moving lights were quickly approaching. He saw two machines. They were round, the size of small cars, and they were moving on caterpillars, like tractors.

Christian was running towards the moving machines, because the ants had already found their way around the wall and were running after him. When the insects noticed the moving machines, some of them turned and started running away, other, tried to hide into the sand. Both machines put out metal discs which were quickly turning, and attacked the insects with them, cutting them to pieces. Soon all the ants which had not run away were killed.

Both machines pulled back their discs, moved to the place where Christian was standing and stopped.

Five minutes passed, and nothing happened. Christian walked round each machine. There were no doors or windows in them. He knocked on the side of one of the machines and shouted: "Is there anyone inside?"

There was no answer. He understood that the machines were robots.

Robots! Robots directed by remote control - from where? And by whom?

Evidently they were controlled by the Watchers...

He climbed on the top of one of the machines hoping that it would carry him to the people who operated them. The machine did not move. Then he climbed down and began walking in the direction from which the machines had come.

Immediately the machines started moving in the same direction, too. He stopped, and the robots stopped, too. He went on, and they followed him again.

At least he was safe from the danger from insects. But he walked more and more slowly. He was tired, hungry and thirsty. Every new step was more difficult.

Finally he could walk no more. In despair he fell down on the sand. The two robots stopped beside him.

Suddenly it became much darker. He looked up and saw something big which was falling from the sky...

Waldo and other Brains were standing at the door of the lift.

"We must follow him," said one of the Brains.

"No! He cannot live on the surface. It is too cold there, and then there are giant mutated insects. He will certainly die," said Waldo.

"But what if he gets to the Watchers?" said another Brain. "What will happen then?"

Waldo hesitated. He wanted to take revenge on the captain, but was afraid of the Watchers.

"If the Watchers find out what we are doing in the past," he said, "they will try to stop us. We must try to complete our work before it is too late."

"Yes, we must hurry," the others agreed.

They went back. Soon all the Brains gathered in the hall of the transmitter with crystals.

"Captain Christian has run away to the surface," said Waldo. "He may meet the Watchers. We must act immediately. As you know, our purpose is to throw off the yoke of the Watchers. We can do it if we change the course of history from the past. We must concentrate our efforts on the scientists of the past who are working on the problems of space travel. If we stop all experiments with space travel, that are going on in the twentieth century, people will never fly into space - and we shall be masters of Earth."

Waldo was speaking louder and louder and finished with the words:

"Our plan is clear. We must go into the year nineteen hundred and sixty-six and completely destroy the satellite bases and everything that is connected with them!"

The Brains were very excited. Someone shouted: "To the past - destroy the satellites!"

They took their crystals from the transmitter and fastened them to their belts. Each Brain was armed with his decapitator.

Waldo gave a command:

"Follow me - into the past!"

He touched the crystal on his belt, the other Brains did the same - and one by one they disappeared.

Active work was going on in the United States Rocket Research Centre in New Mexico. Under the hot sun ten red and silver rockets stood in the large field ready to fly up. Somewhere a man counted loudly:

"Ten... Nine... eight... seven..."

The rockets were part of the artificial satellite project. In a few minutes they would fly up into space, orbit Earth and send information back to the Earth base. They were the first steps of man to other planets and stars.

The sky was bright blue and completely cloudless. There was no wind.