Kate Wilhelm - The Killer Thing

Trace pushed rocks over the edge of the cliff, he shoved over all that were within reach. Some of them vaporised in air, vanishing with a cloud that quickly dispersed, others hit resoundingly, now and then upsetting the balance of the artificial hill, dislodging more than they added. When the wind blew too hard for him to continue on the top of the cliff, he returned to his chimney. He drank deeply and washed himself, and then he ate; he even made coffee. He found an ointment and applied it to his lips. When the winds died down he left the chimney, landed the dinghy in the valley where he could floodlight the pile of rocks and sand and study it for any change. Almost immediately a red glow showed, not at the top this time, but three-fourths of the way up, in the side that faced the valley. The robot had been able to shift its position. The wind had driven sand over it, piling it higher on the far side, but thinning the nearer side somewhat.

Trace worked on adding rocks to the pile until the morning wind drove him back to the chimney. He was exhausted, trembling with fatigue when he turned off the engine.

It doesn’t end, Duncan. Goes on and on…

A logic box, Trace, that’s all, a logic box…

On and on automatically without thought, without heart, without pain…

You have no heart, Captain Tracy, no thought for those who live on the worlds you take, no pain for those who bleed…

Logic box, Trace… can’t do anything not programmed in, can’t think…

As an officer you have to command instant obedience in your men, not because they agree, or like your plan, or because of anything except that you pushed the buttons that put them in motion. Do you men understand that? Instant obedience. All the way up the line!

Nothingness of sleep then, and wakening to fear. How long had he slept? Was it still there? He shook all over until he located it in the visual scanner and saw that it was still covered. Weakly he staggered to the storage unit and prepared food. He would have to set an alarm, not sleep over a couple of hours at a time. He went again to the cliff-top and surveyed the hill below. The wind had piled up the rocks and sand higher than ever on the passage side of the robot, but the valley side was being denuded. He turned his detector on the hill and located the robot inside it, less than fifteen feet from the valley side of the mound. The beam was cutting a hole five inches long, not directly up now, but towards the side, back and forth, back and forth, five inches, five and a half, six… Feverishly Trace searched for rocks that he could shove over the edge. The sun climbed through the white sky, filled it and turned the world into a dazzling glare of white hot light. He worked on. He was perspiring profusely; for the first time in days he had enough water to let him sweat. He worked without thought, until suddenly he staggered. The ground was spinning, and the cliffs were rising and falling erratically.

He pitched forward. When he roused, moments later, he had no way of knowing how long he had lain there. He was burning up, dry, and he knew he was suffering from heat prostration. He had to get out of the sun, get his body temperature down, start the flood of sweat again…

He dragged himself to the dinghy and got in it. He had neglected to take the medicine that morning, he realised, had expected the abundance of water to heal him. He thought of the killer robot fighting as hard as it could to free itself, and a wave of pity passed through him. He sponged his body, caught the water in a plastic sheet to cool again that night, and sponged himself over and over.

Afterwards he rested on the seat-bed. He could not work out in the sun during the middle of the day. He had to remember that there was too little oxygen in the air to support strenuous effort over any length of time. He had to remember that he was sick, really sick. He wondered if the robot had been programmed to feel its hurts. He hoped not. “It is such a waste,” he whispered once. Pain was such a waste.

Later he went back and stared down at the burial mound. “I’m sorry for you,” he said. “None of it is really your fault.” He shoved over the rocks he had accumulated there at the edge. Tomorrow he would have to go farther afield to get the rocks to add to the pile. It was time then to get back to the safety of the chimney. In the days that followed he was building a new world, laboriously adding to the foundations, or raising new walls of incredible beauty. Sometime he was building a simple house for Lar. Again it was a monument to mankind that he was erecting. It was an edifice that required exquisite care. His selection of his material was meticulous, his handling of the building blocks almost gentle, his concern for the thing under his corner-stone was urgent. He talked to it incessantly, describing the stones he was using, explaining the purpose of the building. Sometimes he merely worked doggedly, refusing to think about the condition of his body, the condition of his mind, hinted at by the great, growing gaps when he could remember nothing at all of what he did, or what he thought. The voices were in the dinghy constantly now, remaining there when he left, continuing when he returned. Sometimes it was the voices that directed him in the preparation of food, or reminded him to take medicine, or to set the timer, or to move to the chimney before the winds came. He would have died without the voices leading him through the bad hours. He selected the rocks he would use with infinite patience, rejecting those that were too jagged, feeling happiness when he came across one of particularly pleasing shape or colour. These he examined many times before pushing them over the side. He would tell it about the rocks he was sending to it. His voice was low and kind when he spoke to it.

He talked to it of the Outsiders. “They will push us back to the three worlds of the Solar System,” he said. “Then we’ll have to learn many new things, how to live on only three worlds, how to use the land we’ll have then. It won’t be easy. But we can’t fight them, you know.” He spoke to it about Lar, about Duncan, about death and life. It never answered him. The sweep of its laser was the only sign that it still lived. He began waiting for the beam to reach the wall of the cliff before he went on after telling it something new. When it touched the side of the cliff and started back towards the other side, it was his signal that he was to continue. Back and forth, from one side of the passage to the other, sixteen feet here at the entrance.

He felt particularly pleased with it when it made some unexpected gain, clearing more of the rubble from itself than he had anticipated, freeing one of its sensors, or widening the range of its beam. Almost regretfully he would push the rocks over the edge then, as if ashamed to continue in the face of such courage.

He asked the voices if it actually possessed courage, and they debated the answer for days without coming to a decision. Then his radio hummed and the panel light went on and he knew the relief ship was within radio range. When his report was given and the radio went silent he found that tears were on his cheeks, the sound of a voice that was not inside his head had released the hysteria that had been accumulating for a month. He went outside to the edge of the cliff and shouted at the robot.

“It’s over now, brother! They’ll be here in a few hours and then you’ll be finished for good! Do you know what I’m saying to you?”

He waited until the beam bit into the side of the crevice wall and started to swing back towards the other side, and he nodded. It knew. It wouldn’t matter now if it did get loose. They could find it and drop bombs on it wherever it went. Again it was the hunted, no longer the hunter. He laughed his relief. He didn’t push any more rocks over the edge. Let it struggle.