Isaac Asimov - The Mammoth Book of Golden Age SF

He understood. Renewed resolution sent him back to his secret task. The humanoids had to be stopped. Slowly the director grew, until a time came finally when Sledge’s bent and unsteady fingers fitted into place the last tiny part that Underhill had made, and carefully soldered the last connection. Huskily, the old man whispered.

“It’s done.”

That was another dusk. Beyond the windows of the shabby little rooms — windows of common glass, bubble-marred and flimsy, but simple enough for a man to manage — the town of Two Rivers had assumed an alien splendor. The old street lamps were gone, but now the coming night was challenged by the walls of strange new mansions and villas, all aglow with color. A few dark and silent humanoids still were busy on the luminous roofs of the palace across the alley.

Inside the humble walls of the small manmade apartment, the new director was mounted on the end of the little kitchen table — which Underhill had reinforced and bolted to the floor. Soldered busbars joined director and integrator, and the thin palladium needle swung obediently as Sledge tested the knobs with his battered, quivering fingers.

“Ready,” he said hoarsely.

His rusty voice seemed calm enough, at first, but his breathing was too fast. His big gnarled hands began to tremble violently, and Underhill saw the sudden blue that stained his pinched and haggard face. Seated on the high stool, he clutched desperately at the edge of the table. Underhill saw his agony, and hurried to bring his medicine. He gulped it, and his rasping breath began to slow.

“Thanks,” his whisper rasped unevenly. “I’ll be all right. I’ve time enough.” He glanced out at the few dark naked things that still flitted shadowlike about the golden towers and the glowing crimson dome of the palace across the alley. “Watch them,” he said. “Tell me when they stop.”

He waited to quiet the trembling of his hands, and then began to move the director’s knobs. The integrator’s long needle swung, as silently as light.

Human eyes were blind to that force, which might detonate a planet. Human ears were deaf to it. The cathode-ray tube was mounted in the director cabinet, to make the faraway target visible to feeble human senses.

The needle was pointing at the kitchen wall, but that would be transparent to the beam. The little machine looked harmless as a toy, and it was silent as a moving humanoid.

The needle swung, and spots of greenish light moved across the tube’s fluorescent field, representing the stars that were scanned by the timeless, searching beam — silently seeking out the world to be destroyed.

Underhill recognized familiar constellations, vastly dwarfed. They crept across the field, as the silent needle swung. When three stars formed an unequal triangle in the center of the field, the needle steadied suddenly. Sledge touched other knobs, and the green points spread apart. Between them, another fleck of green was born.

“The Wing!” whispered Sledge.

The other stars spread beyond the field, and that green fleck grew. It was alone in the field, a bright and tiny disk. Suddenly, then, a dozen other tiny pips were visible, spaced close about it.

“Wing IV!”

The old man’s whisper was hoarse and breathless. His hands quivered on the knobs, and the fourth pip outward from the disk crept to the center of the field. It grew, and the others spread away. It began to tremble like Sledge’s hands.

“Sit very still,” came his rasping whisper. “Hold your breath. Nothing must disturb the needle.” He reached for another knob, and the touch set the greenish image to dancing violently. He drew his hand back, kneaded and flexed it with the other.

“Now!” His whisper was hushed and strained. He nodded at the window. “Tell me when they stop.”

Reluctantly, Underhill dragged his eyes from that intense gaunt figure, stooped over the thing that seemed a futile toy. He looked out again, at two or three little black mechanicals busy about the shining roofs across the alley.

He waited for them to stop.

He didn’t dare to breathe. He felt the loud, hurried hammer of his heart, and the nervous quiver of his muscles. He tried to steady himself, tried not to think of the world about to be exploded, so far away that the flash would not reach this planet for another century and longer. The loud hoarse voice startled him:

“Have they stopped?”

He shook his head, and breathed again. Carrying their unfamiliar tools and strange materials, the small black machines were still busy across the alley, building an elaborate cupola above that glowing crimson dome.

“They haven’t stopped,” he said.

“Then we’ve failed.” The old man’s voice was thin and ill. “I don’t know why.”

The door rattled, then. They had locked it, but the flimsy bolt was intended only to stop men. Metal snapped, and the door swung open. A black mechanical came in, on soundless graceful feet. Its silvery voice purred softly,

“At your service, Mr. Sledge.”

The old man stared at it, with glazing, stricken eyes.

“Get out of here!” he rasped bitterly. “I forbid you—”

Ignoring him, it darted to the kitchen table. With a flashing certainty of action, it turned two knobs on the director. The tiny screen went dark, and the palladium needle started spinning aimlessly. Deftly it snapped a soldered connection, next to the thick lead ball, and then its blind steel eyes turned to Sledge.

“You were attempting to break the Prime Directive.” Its soft bright voice held no accusation, no malice or anger. “The injunction to respect your freedom is subordinate to the Prime Directive, as you know, and it is therefore necessary for us to interfere.”

The old man turned ghastly. His head was shrunken and cadaverous and blue, as if all the juice of life had been drained away, and his eyes in their pitlike sockets had a wild, glazed stare. His breath was a ragged, laborious gasping.

“How—?” His voice was a feeble mumbling. “How did—?”

And the little machine, standing black and bland and utterly unmoving, told him cheerfully,

“We learned about rhodomagnetic screens from that man who came to kill you, back on Wing IV. And the Central is shielded, now, against your integrating beam.”

With lean muscles jerking convulsively on his gaunt frame, old Sledge had come to his feet from the high stool. He stood hunched and swaying, no more than a shrunken human husk, gasping painfully for life, staring wildly into the blind steel eyes of the humanoid. He gulped, and his lax blue mouth opened and closed, but no voice came.

“We have always been aware of your dangerous project,” the silvery tones dripped softly, “because now our senses are keener than you made them. We allowed you to complete it, because the integration process will ultimately become necessary for our full discharge of the Prime Directive. The supply of heavy metals for our fission plants is limited, but now we shall be able to draw unlimited power from integration plants.”

“Huh?” Sledge shook himself, groggily. “What’s that?”

“Now we can serve men forever,” the black thing said serenely, “on every world of every star.”

The old man crumpled, as if from an unendurable blow. He fell. The slim blind mechanical stood motionless, making no effort to help him. Underhill was farther away, but he ran up in time to catch the stricken man before his head struck the floor.

“Get moving!” His shaken voice came strangely calm. “Get Dr. Winters.”

The humanoid didn’t move.

“The danger to the Prime Directive is ended, now,” it cooed. “Therefore it is impossible for us to aid or to hinder Mr. Sledge, in any way whatever.”

“Then call Dr. Winters for me,” rapped Underhill.