Highway of Eternity (25 page)

“You mouth madness,” Horace shouted. “How can simple, unassuming trees be enemies of yours?”

“You must surely know,” said the second robot, “that once all men are gone—and now they're almost gone—trees will supersede them as the dominant race of Earth.”

“I have heard some talk of it,” Timothy told the assembled robots. “Loose and speculative talk. I never paid it much attention, although our sister, Enid, thought it a splendid idea. She feels that, as a dominant race, trees would not be aggressive and would do little meddling with other forms of life.”

“It's all blathering,” yelled Horace. “Enid is noted for her fuzzy thinking. Why, a tree has no sense—no sense at all. It can't do anything. It stands there and grows and that is all it does. After a time, it falls down and rots, and that is the end of it.”

“There are certain fairy stories,” Emma said, speaking in her most timid voice, which was very timid.

“Fairy stories are nonsense,” yelled Horace. “All of this is nonsense. No one but a stupid robot would believe it.”

“We are not stupid, sir,” said the second robot.

“I suppose,” said Timothy, “that your animosity toward the trees is occasioned by the belief that you should be the ones to supersede the humans.”

“Why, yes, of course,” said the first robot. “That is exactly what we think. It stands to reason we are the ones who should take the humans' place. We are an extension of the race. We were made in the image of the race. We think the thoughts of humans and our behavior is patterned after humans. We are the heirs of humans and are being cheated of our heritage.”

Emma said, “Spike is coming back. And there is something with him.”

“I don't see him,” Horace said.

“They're coming around the far corner of the monastery. The thing with Spike is bigger than he is. He's bobbing along behind it. They are heading this way.”

Horace squinted his eyes and finally he made out the two of them. He recognized Spike immediately from his erratic, bounding progress, but for a time he could not make out what the other was. Then something flashed in the weak rays of the sun and there was no doubt at all. Even from as far away as he stood, he could see the spider web and the single gleaming eye.

Emma said, “It is a killer monster. Spike is playing with a killer monster. He plays with everything.”

“He is not playing with it,” said Horace, choking with a sudden wrath. “He's herding it. He's driving it to us.”

Down the slope from him, there now were fewer robots, he noted, than there had been before. Even as he watched them, they continued to dribble away, leaving by ones and twos and threes, not seemingly in any hurry, but simply walking off, going up the hill.

He asked Timothy, “What kinds of guns did you put in the traveler?”

“I put in no guns,” Timothy told him. “You attended to that detail. You raided my gun collection without a word to me. You simply grabbed up guns, as if they belonged to you.”

Emma shrilled, “All the robots are leaving. They are running away. They'll be no help to us.”

Horace snorted. “I never thought they would. They are a weak-bellied tribe. I never counted on them.”

He started purposefully up the ramp. “I think there was a thirty-naught-six,” he said. “Not as big a caliber as I might have liked, but if the cartridges are high-power, that should handle almost anything.”

“The best thing we can do,” wailed Emma, “is get into the traveler and leave.”

Timothy spoke sharply. “We can't go without Spike. He is one of us.”

“He's the one,” said Emma, tartly, “who is causing all the trouble. He is always causing trouble.”

The robots all were gone. The slope below the traveler was empty; not a one of them was left. It didn't matter, Horace told himself after a quick look around. Even if they'd stayed, they would be no help. A flighty bunch of people.

The monster, herded along by Spike, was closer now. The two of them had covered half the distance between the monastery and the foot of the hill.

Horace swung about and went up the ramp into the traveler. The guns were there, as he had thought they would be, their barrels protruding from beneath the pile of blankets—a shotgun and a 30.06 rifle.

He grabbed the 30.06 and eased back the bolt. A cartridge was seated in the breech and the magazine was loaded.

For some little time, there had been a faint commotion somewhere outside, the soft sound of running feet and the rattle of disturbed pebbles bouncing on the hillside. Horace had been conscious of it while he had inspected the rifle, but now, suddenly, the commotion swelled and boomed. A rock that must have been larger than a pebble banged with a loud metallic clamor against the traveler. Outside the doorway Emma was yelling, although he could not make out the words.

He spun heavily about and lunged for the doorway. From outside came not only Emma's bellowing, but the heavy pound of many feet and the thudding sound of heavy objects being hurled against the ground.

It could not be the killer monster being driven up the slope by that unspeakably perverse Spike, for when Horace had ducked into the traveler, the two of them still had been far out on the plain.

As he set his feet upon the ramp, he saw a scene of milling nonsense, with what seemed to be hundreds of robots, many of them loaded down with tools or logs. Those with logs were busily engaged in carrying them to several spots, where they hurled their loads down upon the ground and, turning swiftly, fled up the hill again.

Other robots with shovels, picks, mauls, or axes were making the dirt fly in all directions as they went to work.

Long logs were rammed into deep holes, canted at sharp angles to the steepness of the hillside. Other logs were being shaped by flashing broadaxes into squared timbers. Augers bit into wood, driving holes for heavy wooden pegs, while other gangs of robots toiled to heave the timbers into place, forming what seemed at first glance to be senseless structures.

Timothy said, quietly, “Do you realize that we are witnessing what amounts to the mounting of a Roman defense line? Short, flanking fortifications, with ditches dug in front of each fort, so situated as to support one another. Those other structures are catapults, designed to break up enemy attacks in force. The total defense could well be based on a classic Roman model. However, they seem to be rather overdoing it.”

All around the line of hills that enclosed the circular valley where the monastery stood, other gangs of robots labored at their chores. Here and there, tendrils of smoke rose from campfires the robots had kindled. If the signs meant anything, this robot legion was settling in to stay.

“I cannot believe these robots are students of Roman history,” said Timothy. “The story of the Roman Empire would be no more than a pinch of history scattered in a pile of blowing dust. But the same thinking and the same principles of engineering are as basic today as they were in very ancient times.”

“But why?” screeched Emma. “Why are they doing this to us?”

“Not to us, you ninny,” Horace shouted. “They are doing it for us. They are protecting us. Unnecessarily.” He shook the rifle in a clenched fist thrust above his head. “We could have protected ourselves short of their interference.”

Out on the plain beyond the slope a small whirlwind was zigzagging, darting here and there.

“It's Spike and the monster,” Timothy explained. “The monster, seeing what is happening, is trying to get away, probably back to the safety of the monastery. Spike is just as determined he will drive it up the hill.”

“It is all utter nonsense,” Horace roared. “Why should Spike want to drive the monster up to us? He knows what kind of thing it is.”

“Spike was always insane,” Emma said. “David used to stick up for him every now and then, and Henry always had a good word for him. But to me he is just a big nothing.”

One of the robots was climbing up the hill toward them.

The robot came to an abrupt halt at the foot of the ramp, upon which Horace stood. He clicked his metal heels together and raised his right arm in a brisk salute. Looking straight up the ramp at Horace, he said, “The situation is secured, sir. We have it well in hand.”

“To what situation do you refer?” asked Horace.

“Why,” said the robot, “the Infinites. The dirty Infinites!”

“We're not even sure,” said Timothy, “that there are any Infinites. All we saw was the killer monster.”

“There is the monastery, sir,” said the robot, stiffly, as if somewhat miffed by any questioning of his word. “Where there is a monastery, there are always Infinites. We've been watching this place for years. We have been keeping tab on it.”

“How many Infinites have you sighted?” asked Horace.

“Not a single one, sir. Not so far, we haven't.”

“How long have you been watching?”

“Not all the time, you understand. But off and on, for two hundred years or so.”

“In two centuries you have seen no Infinites?”

“Yes, that is true, sir. But if we'd been watching all the time …”

“Oh, come off it,” Emma said. “Cut out the silly games.”

The robot stiffened violently. “My name is Conrad,” he said, “and I am the commander of this exercise. We are doing nothing more than our primary function, the protection and the care of the human race, carrying out our duty, I might say, with precise competence and dispatch.”

“Very fine, Conrad,” Horace said. “Please do carry on.”

The monster and Spike had ceased their dusty waltz and stood together, neither of them stirring. The robots, so many now that the circling hill seemed to be covered with them, still were energetically building a solid defense, ringing in the central valley where the monastery stood.

“Well, I guess there is nothing we can do about it,” said Emma. “I might as well go in and see to some food. Are either of you hungry?”

“I am,” said Horace. He was always hungry.

She went swiftly up the ramp and Horace came slowly down it to stand beside Timothy. “What do you make of it?” he asked.

“I am sorry for them,” said Timothy. “They've been here for centuries without a human to take care of.”

“And, suddenly, here we are,” said Horace, “dumped slap-dab in their laps.”

“That's about it. No humans at all, and then, all at once, three humans who seem utterly defenseless to them, and coming under threat. Part of it an imaginary threat, for it appears quite definite that there are no Infinites. But the killer monster is real enough and extremely dangerous.”

“So they went hog wild.”

“It's natural that they should. Here they've been, out of work for years and years.”

“They've not been standing idle. They cut every tree they find, they grub out stumps and tend bonfires where they burn the logs.”

“Made work,” said Timothy. “To do it, to put any muscle into it, they must sell themselves on the belief that trees would follow humans as the planet's dominant life force.”

“You don't believe that tree business, do you?”

“Well, to tell you the truth, I am of two minds about it. That trees should assume a position of dominance has a certain appeal to me. They probably would work out better than the humans, the dinosaurs, or the trilobites, all three of which turned out rather badly.”

“The whole idea is crazy,” protested Horace. “They'd just be standing there, they'd not be getting anywhere.”

“You forget,” said Timothy, “that they would have billions of years. They could afford to sit and let evolution have a chance. That was the trouble with the human race. We couldn't wait, so we short-circuited evolution. But it is a mistake to put evolution down as being too slow. See what it did in less than a billion years, from the first bare flicker of life to a highly intelligent animal. One that proved too smart for its own good …”

“There you go again,” howled Horace, “putting down your own kind.”

Timothy shrugged. Perhaps, he told himself, Horace might be right. He was putting down the human race. But the fact was that it had put itself down. Men had been a bungling band of primates. In the course of human history, there had been glory and accomplishment, but there had also been too many fatal errors. Man had made every error that was possible.

The sun was going down behind the western hill. Timothy ambled slowly down the slope, leaving Horace where he stood. As he approached the first fortification, the laboring robots dropped their tools and sprang swiftly to attention.

“It's all right,” said Timothy. “Pay no attention to me. Continue with your work. You are to be commended. You are doing very well.”

The robots went back to their work. Conrad, sighting Timothy, hurried up the hill to meet him.

“Sir, we have them now,” he said, “surrounded on all sides. We're looking down their throats. Let them so much as wiggle and we'll be down upon them.”

“Good work, Captain,” said Timothy.

“Sir,” said Conrad, “I am not a captain. I'm a colonel. A full colonel, sir.”

“My mistake,” said Timothy. “I apologize. I intended no offense.”

“And none was taken,” said the colonel.

From the door of the traveler, Emma yelled that dinner was ready.

Timothy turned about and went swiftly up the hill. He was hungry; it had been a long time since he'd eaten.

On the table Emma had placed a plate of cheese, another plate of ham, a large jar of jam, and a loaf of bread.

“Do the best you can,” she told the other two. “It all is cold. Either the stove is not working or I don't know how to use it. It resisted all my efforts.”

“We'll make out,” said Horace.

“You'll have to drink water,” Emma wailed. “There is tea and coffee, but without a stove …”