Andre Norton (ed) (22 page)

"Well, sir, I didn't get a chance to ask
a lot of questions, but I was told that the robots wanted to establish
communications with us, and now they'd picked up our language we'd be hearing
from them. Then the big one said, kind of amused, that you in the ship had just
made rather a mess of one of the hills near here with a bomb, and there was a
heli coming for me, so they thought they'd better send me back before you did
something rash. The big one said he didn't blame you for being cagey, but he
hoped we'd get on more friendly terms soon. Then they said good-by and let me
out."

"So
they hope to get on friendly terms, hey?" said Chang grimly. "They
got another think coming. I don't like them one little bit."

Phillips's eyebrows went up, and he said,
"But sir, it's impossible
not
to
like them once you get close to them. I was pretty angry with the one that ran
off with me till I found what a swell bunch they really were. You know the way
it is, sir. There are some people you can't help liking even before you get to
know them, and these robots are like that. They're not like ordinary tin
soldiers, not the way human-built servants are. You feel you could swap jokes
with them, or
...
or play ball, just
like with people."

"Play ball with them is one thing we are
not
going to do," said Chang, elbowing himself away from the wall.
"How do you feel after what you've been through?"

"Me?
I feel fine, sir," said Phillips, who appeared genuinely distressed at the
captain's reaction.
"A lot better than before,
even."

"Well, thanks for your story, Phillips.
You were pretty observant."

"They made it easy for me, sir,"
said Phillips, rising. "Glad to have been of service."

"Adhem,
I want a word with you," Chang said, and the medical officer went with him
into the passage.

"See
what I mean?" the latter said.

Chang
nodded. "Are you sure that man's mind hasn't been tied in knots?"

"Certain, unless by a new and
unsuspected technique. But my guess is that the robots put on one big act, and
he swallowed it hook, line and sinker. They may have seemed friendly and
likable and so on, but right now they're probably doing the robot equivalent of
laughing their heads off. I'd advise you to do something in a hurry, sir."

"But we can't. Spinelli hasn't reported
the generator fixed yet, and without it we're helpless to use antigrav or go
into hyperdrive."

His lapel speaker rang softly, and he said,
"Chang listening." "Keston here, sir.
 
We're being watched by an alien ship.
The usual—a small rocket which looks like a solo job."
"Did you track it on the way up?"

"No, sir.
It only just came out of radar shadow. We're being properly leery of
it, but it seems content to . . . excuse me, sir." His thin voice dimmed
to inaudibility and then came back, excited and loud.

"Sir, it's signaling
to us—in Anglic!"

"Hold everything," said Chang.
"I'm coming up to the bridge." He glanced at Adhem. "It seems
Phillips wasn't dreaming," he commented, and departed at a run.

When he re-entered the bridge, he leaned over
Keston's shoulder and said, "Where's the signal?"

Without
taking his eyes off the stereoscreen in front of him, Keston passed up a sheet
of plastic torn from a waterproof memo block. Chang took it and read,
"Note that you are in difficulties. Can I be of assistance?"

He passed it back, said, "They seem to
take us for morons. Expect us to fall for that? What are you looking at?"

Keston
didn't reply for a moment. Then his screen suddenly lit with a severely black
and gold picture of a small rocket, obviously the inquisitive alien. At this
magnification it was quite easily seen that the locks were open and a robot was
"standing" on the hull looking towards them.

His speaker crackled again. A pleasant but
characterless voice said, "Calling the human ship. You didn't acknowledge
my last message, so
111
repeat my offer. If you're
in difficulties, can I help?"

Chang said in a low voice, "Is your mike
on that circuit?" "No. We haven't anything going outship on his
wavelength." "Then make it so."

Keston
glanced up in surprise, but shrugged and made a couple of adjustments on his
control desk. "You're on," he said. "He can hear us now."

"Hello,
robot!" said Chang harshly. "We're in no need of assistance."

"Glad
to hear it," said the robot with complete equanimity. "I thought
something might have given way during your rather scared-looking lift just now.
However, as your friend Phillips has doubtless told you, there wasn't anything
to be afraid of.

"I
suppose you're Captain Chang
...
is
that right? Phillips gave us your name. I want to talk to you."

"You're talking to me right now and I am
not much interested."

There was a subtle change in the robot's
unremarkable voice when he next spoke. He said, "You had better be. I have
an idea you are considering exterminating us and selling this planet to
colonists of your race. It's the sort of thing I'd expect from you." There
was a hint of contempt in the last sentence.

Chang said angrily, "You haven't much
right to talk that wayl
Suppose
it is what we are
intending, what then?" He covered the mike, whispered, "Spinelli, is
that generator finished yet?"

Spinelli whispered back, "Ship back to
full working order, sir."

Chang
nodded and uncovered the mike again. He said harshly, "And we might make
a start with you!"

The robot said, "I'd not advise you to
try. At this range I could detonate every mine in your ship. If you don't
believe me, throw out a mine from your ship well clear of both of us with the
detonator on safe, and I'll explode it. You aren't in a position to bargain,
captain."

"Bargain!
With a bunch of tin
soldiers?"

"Seeing
that the deal I have to offer runs considerably in your favor, I'd advise you
to hear it."

"You must think us
extremely gullible," said Chang dryly.

The robot said tightly, "Captain, I'll
give you proof of my good faith. I could quite easily destroy all the members
of your would-be occupying force, but I don't want to. Throw out the mine as I
suggested. Make sure for yourself, if you like, that the detonator's on
safe."

Chang said slowly,
"Well, there's nothing to lose—"

There
was only expectant silence from the robot. He turned to Engelhart.
"All right.
We'll call his bluff. Engelhart, throw out
a mine—hard as you can—well clear of us and the alien ship, with the detonator
welded
over to safe. That'll leave no room for doubt."

About two minutes later the mine—a small one,
about ten feet in diameter—left the number three starboard catapult at speed,
but it had traveled a bare thousand yards from the ship before it melted into
silent eye-searing flame.

There was a long silence.

Then Chang said, shaken,
"All right, robot. I guess we have to listen. What's the deal you
offer?"
"Will
you
accept
not
only
this
planet,
but
ourselves—
as
a
gift?'

There was silence again. This time it was the
silence of sheer stunned amazement. There was no reflex in the human make-up
that would cope with a reverse of attitude so sweepingly complete. From facing
a deadly enemy in the shape of machines that had turned on their creators to
receiving their unconditional surrender without a blow being struck was beyond
their powers of assimilation.

Chang
was the first to recover. He said, "There's a phrase in our language
dating back to the Dark Ages—something about a Greek gift. It means a gift with
strings attached—a booby trap. We won't strike a bargain till we know the whole
story."

The
robot sighed—a remarkably human sigh, considering it was
effected
by direct modulation of radio waves. He said, "That's very sensible of
you, I suppose."

Around Chang the four
officers listened with set, worried faces.

"I don't think you'd believe me if I
told you our reasons for this action. You might believe the big one—one of the
main computers. This is my proposition.

"I'll
send my ship back on-world under auto control and stay here myself. You will
put someone responsible, in a position to make decisions, aboard a small
vessel—a lifeboat, for instance— and pick me up. The ship can then get well out
of the way.

'Tour representative will come with me to the
big one where Phillips was taken. If we fail to convince him of the honesty of
our offer, you have the choice of going away unharmed and staying gone, or
being destroyed. Sorry to put it so bluntly, but that's the way it is.
Any takers?"

Chang shut off the microphone and looked
around the group of officers. Engelhart was pale but calm. Adhem frankly overwhelmed,
Spinelli as ever inscrutable, Deeley torn between vast hopes on one side and
dreadful forebodings on the other.

He said abruptly, "I'm
going."

Under the robot's guidance, Chang set the
lifeboat down on its jets—it was too small to mount an antigrav unit—about half
a mile from the hill that concealed what the robots called "the big
one." The radar antennae among the trees had followed them down, and as
soon as the flames from the exhaust died, two more of the robots came from the
open entry.

Chang
shut off the controls and wondered why he was doing this. He was both scared
and not scared—scared in the conscious part of his mind that told him what he
was doing was insanely risky, not scared but rather warmly satisfied in his
subconscious, because he was feeling what Phillips had felt, and only his ingrained
caution prevented him from reacting as the trooper had reacted to the aura of
good will that the big robot exuded. Under any other circumstances he would
have accepted it at once. But now-Well, Greek gifts were one thing that had not
lost nationality. The robot opened the lock and descended to meet the others
below, and Chang followed, sick with the conflict between conscious fear and
mounting confidence, descended the steps into the side of the little hill.

It
was as Phillips had described it—bright-lit, full of shimmering crystal and many
flashing indicators. There was a faint humming like that of a well-tuned ship,
and there were about half a dozen robots standing round, one of which carried
one of the little animals he had met when first they came. It clung to the arm
of its metal mount and gazed curiously at him. He glanced all around, noting
what seemed to be an inscription on one wall in curious unreal curves that made
him dizzy to look at. One of the robots came up with a chair, and he looked at
it, saw it was plain plastic, and sat down with a word of thanks. Expectantly,
the robots glanced up.

A deep, friendly voice which might have come
from anywhere said, "Welcome, Captain Chang. I'm the big computer you're
sitting inside."

In spite of the warmth of the voice, Chang
felt a touch of the tremendous, terrifying awe Engelhart had suffered when he
spoke to the giant brain on Canopus X and XI. He licked dry lips, said inanely,
"Thank you."

The
voice chuckled amusedly. "I'm sorry to frighten you, captain. But I can't
say I blame you for distrusting me. My creators would have done the same at
your stage of cultural development, and justifiably."

Chang
said, with a glacial calm that cost him much effort, "Your creators—what
happened to them?"

The
voice said, "When you came here and found a number of obviously
manufactured machines in virtually solitary possession of the planet, you saw
two possible explanations. One— that our creators had been forced by some
natural process to abandon the planet—had died off and were gone, in short. Two—
that we had taken it by force. You settled on the second as more likely and are
computing on that basis. But you overlooked the third and correct
alternative."