James White - Second Ending

“I’ve been thinking,” he said while the digger unit was returning to the surface. “Our construction program should be based on a site where metal is available rather than go through the time-wasting business of transporting it back here. So I’m going to send you as many repair robots as can be spared, and while they are on the way here is what I want done.

“You have absorbed data on open-cast mining,” Ross went on briskly, “and your report states that there are large quantities of metal within fifty feet of the surface. I want you to rejoin your transporter unit as quickly as possible and have your repair robots modify it as a bulldozer. When you have uncovered—”

The Sister broke in at that point. “Mr. Ross,” she said firmly, “it’s time for bed.”

Although Ross protested bitterly as he was led down to his room, underneath he was happier and more hopeful than at any other time since his awakening. He was still very far from achieving his goal of searching every square foot of the Earth’s surface, but a beginning had been made. He knew the capabilities of his robots, knew that, given the raw material — which was now available — he would have a duplicate Miner built by the end of the week, and the week after that he would have half a dozen of them. The square law, he thought, was wonderful. Compared to what he was going to do the achievements of the first few rabbits in Australia would be as nothing.

He went to sleep dreaming happily of the orders he would have to give next day, next week and next year…

As duplicates of the first Miner were completed Ross sent them to investigate the sites of bombed towns and cities in the area, but for Miner One itself he had a special job. The inexplicable feeling of the need for urgency was still with him, as if somewhere, someone who was alive would die if he did not do the right thing quickly. Nevertheless, he sent Number One northward on a mission which did not include a search for human survivors. Fitted with special equipment and accompanied by a Sister with plant-biology programming, it had been ordered to search the polar areas for plantlife or seeds preserved under the ice. Life could survive intense cold; nobody knew that better than Ross himself.

Then suddenly he discovered who the someone was, the someone who was alive and who would shortly die if he did not think of something quick. It was himself.

“Using the testing procedure you suggested,” Sister reported one morning shortly after he awoke, “we have found that approximately two thirds of the remaining food on this level is edible. A random sampling of containers taken from stores on the four higher levels indicates total spoilage. We suspect chemical changes brought about by radiation filtering down from the surface, which did not reach its full effect down here. At the present rate of consumption you have food for eighteen days.

“The matter is urgent, sir,” Sister ended, with fine if unconscious understatement. “Have you any instructions?”

“There must be some mistake…” began Ross numbly, then went out to have a look for himself. But there was no mistake. Because it had been close to his room, he had been supplied with food from the lowest level; he had been using that store for two years, and now it turned out that it was the only one which contained edible food. This was something he should have checked on earlier, and it was now obvious that his subconscious had been trying to remind him of it during sleep. Yet if he had known earlier, what could he have done? Maybe fate had been kind to give him only three weeks’ notice on the date of his death.

And Sister kept following him everywhere, continually asking for instructions.

“Yes!” said Ross suddenly, as it occurred to him that there was one useful order that he could give. He had been thinking emotionally, playing a distraught, tragic figure and not using his brain at all. He went on, “Signal all Miners and assistant robots to give priority to the search for underground food stores. Except Miner One, it is too far away to get back in time to do any useful work before the deadline…”

Deadline, he thought. Ross had a new definition of the word now — the end of a lifeline.

“…And start opening all the cans which you think are spoiled,” he ended sharply, “in case your random sampling has missed a few, or a few dozen. Get as many robots onto it as can be packed into the storeroom. Now I’ve work to do on the surface…”

For a long time Ross had used hard physical and mental labor as a means of not thinking about the past. Now he was using it so as not to think about the future. Psychologically, he thought mirthlessly, you are a horrible mess.

The work involved a project which Ross had shelved temporarily in order to concentrate on the search for survivors, a robot helicopter. Now the possession of such a machine might mean the difference between life and death for him — if the search robots found food and if it could not be brought to him fast enough by land to reach him in time. So he built models and read aeronautical texts and watched his prototype helicopter chew up the hillside with its rotors in vain attempts to throw itself into the air. Then one day it staggered off the ground and circled at an altitude of one hundred feet under a rough semblance of control. Watching from the small dome, Ross felt very little satisfaction, because it had taken him thirteen days to achieve this. He had five days left.

The helicopter was still clattering about the sky when one of his Miners reported in. Negatively, as usual.

The problem, according to the robot searcher, was that its metal-detection equipment was not sensitive enough to differentiate between food canisters and the structural wreckage with which they would be associated. The only solution involved sinking test tunnels at intervals and examining the wreckage visually. This was a long, difficult process which held small probability of success, the robot warned, because, in addition to the time involved, none of the city underground shelters had been as deep as the hospital’s fifth level, so that any food which might be found would almost certainly be inedible.

“Things are tough all over,” said Ross, and cut the connection viciously. But there was another attention signal blinking at him. He keyed it into the main screen and saw a wavering gray blur which resolved itself into a blizzard immediately the caller identified itself. It was Miner One.

“Sir,” it began tonelessly, “data gained after forty-seven test bores leads me to the following deductions. During the war very many nuclear missiles were intercepted and exploded in the polar regions, and several interception bases and stockpiles were situated under the ice. It must have been the most heavily bombed area on the planet. The background radiation is still above normal, though not dangerously so. Analysis of the underlying soil shows complete sterility.”

Ross didn’t know what he said to the Miner. All hope had drained out of him and suddenly he was horribly afraid. His world that he had been trying to make live again was dead, the land a crematorium and the ocean a black graveyard, and himself a wriggling blob which had lived a little past its time. And now his time was coming.

He had never considered himself to be the suicidal type, and in the two years since his awakening he had never seriously considered it. But now he wanted to break cleanly with life before he could become any more afraid, something quick like a drop down the elevator shaft or a one-way swim out to sea. At the same time he knew that Sister would not allow anything like that. He knew that he was doomed to a horrible, lingering death from slow starvation, probably with Sister asking for instructions and clicking because she could not supply the one thing he needed, and he felt himself begin to tremble.