Амброз Бирс - We, Robots

"And listening to the human world dying?"

"Well," said Prospero, "we all had to do that, didn’t we? Robots, I mean."

We landed at the old Cape.

"I’m quite sure," said Prospero, as I helped him out of the seat until he could steady himself on his feet, "that some of their security safeguards still function."

"I never met a security system yet," I said, "that didn’t understand the sudden kiss of a hot arc welder on a loose faceplate."

"No, I assume not." He reached down and took up some soil. "Why; this sand is old! Not newly formed encrustations. Well, what should we do first?" He looked around, the Moon not up yet.

"Access to information. Then materials, followed by assembly. Then we go to the Moon."

"Splendid!" said Prospero. "I never knew it would be so easy."

On the second day, Prospero swiveled his head around with a ratcheting click.

"Montgomery," he said. "Something approaches from the east-northeast."

We looked toward the long strip of beach out beyond the assembly buildings, where the full Moon was just heaving into view at sunset.

Something smaller than we walked jerkily at the water’s edge. It stopped, lifting its upper appendages. There was a whirring keen on the air, and a small crash of static. Then it stood still.

We walked toward it.

"… rrrrr…" it said, the sound rising higher. It paid us no heed.

"Hello!" said Prospero. Nothing. Then our long shadows fell across the sand beside it.

The whining stopped. It turned around.

"I am Prospero. This is Montgomery Clift Jones. Whom do we have the honor to address?"

"… rrr…" it said. Then, with a half turn of its head, it lifted one arm and pointed toward the Moon. "rrrrrrrRRR!"

"Hmmm," said Prospero.

"RRRR," said the machine. Then it turned once more toward the Moon in its lavender-red glory, and raised all its arms. "RRRRR! RRRRR!" it said, then went back to its high whining.

"This will take some definite study and trouble," said Prospero.

We found one of the shuttle vehicles, still on its support structure, after I had gone through all the informational materials. Then we had to go several kilometers to one of their museums to find a lunar excursion module, and bring that to the shuttle vehicle. Then I had to modify, with Prospero’s help, the bay of the shuttle to accommodate the module, and build and install an additional fuel tank there, since the original vehicle had been used only for low-orbit missions and returns.

When not assisting me, Prospero was out with the other machine, whom he had named Elkanah, from the author of an opera about the Moon from the year A.D. 1697. (In the course of their conversations, Prospero found his real name to be, like most, a series of numbers.) Elkanah communicated by writing in the sand with a stick, a long series of sentences covering hectares of beach at a time.

That is, while the Moon was not in the sky. While that happened, Elkanah stood as if transfixed on the beach, staring at it, whining, even at the new Moon in the daylit red sky. Like some moonflower, his attitude followed it across the heavens from rise to set, emitting the small whining series of Rs, the only sound his damaged voice box could make.

The Moon had just come up the second night we were there. Prospero came back into the giant hangar, humming the old song "R.U.R.R.R.U.0. My Baby?" I was deciding which controls and systems we needed, and which not.

"He was built to work on the Moon, of course," said Prospero. "During one of those spasms of intelligence when humans thought they should like to go back. Things turning out like they did, they never did."

"And so his longing," I said.

"It’s deep in his wiring. First he was neglected, after the plans were canceled. Then most of the humans went away. Then his voice and some memory were destroyed in some sort of colossal explosion here that included lots of collateral electromagnetic damage, as they used to say. But not his need to be on our lunar satellite. That’s the one thing Elkanah is sure of."

"What was he to do there?"

"Didn’t ask, but will," said Prospero. "By his looks—solid head, independent eyes, multiuse appendages, upright posture—I assume some kind of maintenance function. A Caliban/Ariel-of-all-work, as ’twere."

"A janitor for the Moon," I said.

"Janus. Janitor. Opener of gates and doors," mused Prospero. "Forward- and backward-looking, two-headed. The deity of beginnings and endings, comings and goings. Appropriate for our undertaking."

When we tried to tell him we were taking him with us, Elkanah did not at first understand.

"Yes," said Prospero, gesturing. "Come with us to the Moon."

"R-R." Elkanah swiveled his head and pointed to the Moon.

"Yes," said Prospero. He pointed to himself, to me, and to Elkanah. Then he made his fingers into a curve, swung them in an arc, and pointed to the sky. He made a circle with his other hand. "To the Moon!" he said.

Elkanah looked at Prospero’s hands.

"R-R," he said.

"He can’t hear sound or radio, you know?" said Prospero. "He has to see information, or read it."

Prospero bent and began writing in the sand with his staff.

YOU COME WITH MONTGOMERY AND ME TO THE MOON.

Elkanah bent to watch, then straightened and looked at Prospero.

"RRRR?" he said.

"Yes, yes!" said Prospero, gesturing. "RRR! The RRRR!"

The sound started low, then went higher and higher, off the scale:

"RRRRRRRRRRRRRR!"

"Why didn’t you write it in the first place?" I asked Prospero.

"My mistake," he said.

From then on, Elkanah pitched in like some metallic demon, any time the Moon was not in the sky, acid rain or shine, alkali storm or fair.

We sat in the shuttle cabin, atop the craft with its solid-fuel boosters, its main tank, and the extra one in the bay with the lander module.

"All ready?" I asked, and held up the written card for Elkanah.

" Certes ," said Prospero.

"R," said Elkanah.

Liquid oxygen fog wafted by the windshield. It had been, by elapsed time counter, eleven years, four months, three days, two minutes, and eleven seconds since we had landed at the Cape. You can accomplish much when you need no food, rest, or sleep and allow no distractions. The hardest part had been moving the vehicle to the launch pad with the giant tractor, which Elkanah had started but Prospero had to finish, as the Moon had come up, more than a week ago.

I pushed the button. We took off, shedding boosters and the main tank, and flew to the Moon.

The Sea of Tranquility hove into view.

After we made the lunar insertion burn, and the orbit, we climbed into the excursion module and headed down for the lunar surface.

Elkanah had changed since we left Earth, when the Moon was always in view somewhere. He had brought implements with him on the trip. He stared at the Moon often, but no longer whined or whirred.

At touchdown I turned things off, and we went down the ladder to the ground.

There was the flag, stiffly faking a breeze, some litter, old lander legs (ours we’d welded in one piece to the module), footprints, and the plaque, which of course we read.

"This is as far as they ever came," said Prospero.

"Yes," I said. "We’re the thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth intelligent beings to be here."

Elkanah picked up some of the litter, took it to a small crater, and dropped it in.

Prospero and I played in the one-sixth gravity. Elkanah watched us bounce around for a while, then went back to what he was doing.

"They probably should have tried to come back, no matter what," said Prospero. "Although it doesn’t seem there would be much for them to do here, after a while. Of course, at the end, there wasn’t much for them to do on Earth, either."