Гарри Гаррисон - Planet Of No Return

He was gone on the instant, running at top speed, making directly for the wreck. It was time to make a preliminary report. Lea took the radio out and described the events of the day as clearly as she could, then switched off. She saw that Brion had fallen flat beside the tank and was lying there motionless. Then he moved and vanished out of sight behind the machine.

It was hard to wait. Although she knew that the local tribe were long gone she listened to every rustle and crack in the forest behind, waiting for footsteps. The sky and the plain remained empty. Slow seconds crept by.

And there he was — running back! She had never seen a more beautiful sight in her entire life than that great hurtling shape. Pounding through the thick grass and on into the security of the trees, coming through them back to her side. He was breathing heavily, his skin dripping with sweat.

“Didn’t suspect this …” he said, leaning against the tree next to her.

“Suspect what? Who was driving that tank?”

“No one. That is the awful part. It’s empty

empty of human beings at least. The tank was completely robot controlled. Operated by robot’s guidance, trained to seek out and kill people. That’s who is fighting this war, fighting on one side at least.”

“A mechanized army of killer robots.”

A small red light that had been blinking on the rear of the holocamera changed to green, indicating that the development cycle was complete. Brion took out the roll of film and slipped it into the holder of the projector. When he switched it on a jagged wall of metal instantly appeared in the opening between the trees. It floated there, against all reason, a holographic projection indistinguishable from the real thing.

“This is a shot of the outside of the tank,” Brion said, pressing the actuator button. “And here is what I saw when I first looked in.”

The projected image vanished and another took its place; the interior of the ruined tank. Flying shrapnel had cut up the apparatus, but the units were still identifiable. Brion pointed to the jumble of cables and circuit boxes.

“This is the view facing forward. You’ll notice that there are no seats or controls for human operators. Just these inputs and microprocessors. The whole interior is so cramped that it must have been designed solely for robot control. See that metal tube? That’s the ammunition feed for the re-coilless canon. It goes right across the interior, right through the space where a human gunner or driver would sit. But there is more than enough space to site the control units for robot operation.”

“I don’t understand. How can this be possible?” Lea said. “I thought that robots were incapable of injuring people? There are the robotic laws …”

“Perhaps on Earth, but they were never applied out at the fringes of the old Earth Empire. You are forgetting that robots are machines, nothing more. They are not human so we shouldn’t be anthropomorphic about them. They do whatever they are programmed to do — and do it without emotional reactions of any kind. They have been used in combat ever since technological warfare began. To aim bombs, warn of approaching aircraft, guide missiles, fire guns, a hundred different tasks. And what they do they do faster and better than a human being. Add to this the fact that they are far more rugged in every way, and you will understand why the military like them. You’ll find that the history of the wars during the Breakdown is filled with references to battles that were almost fully automated. They were tremendously wasteful — but at least they were not deadly to human beings. Only when one side was defeated, or ran out of material, did the human populations suffer. But once the mechanized defences were breached the defeated side usually surrendered quite quickly.”

“Then the war robots didn’t mind killing people …”

“They couldn’t mind because they are incapable of emotions. They simply obey instructions. That robot tank had been programmed to look for people — then destroy them. We saw how good it was at its task.”

“But people must have programmed it. So they are morally responsible for the killing, aren’t they?”

“Absolutely. They are the real criminals who should be brought to justice.”

Lea watched with growing distaste as the images of the shattered war machine flickered and changed. “At least this killer-robot has been destroyed. Perhaps that is what is going on out there, what this war is all about. The pilots of those aircraft were trying to stop these robots.”

“They were — but how do you know that there were pilots in the jets? They could have been robots too.”

“That’s crazy. A war of robots fighting robots on a virtually uninhabited planet, and incidentally shooting up the surviving people at the same time. It doesn’t make sense.”

“It may not make sense to us — but it’s happening out there, you can’t deny that. Those war machines must come from some place on this planet.”

“Underground factories?”

“Perhaps. We’ve chewed that one over before. We are just going to have to keep looking for the Place With No Name.”

“I’m not going to lie and say that I miss him, but isn’t that going to be difficult with Ravn dead?”

“Difficult, but not impossible. We’ll just keep pushing north, staying under cover of the forest as much as we can. We have just had evidence of what could happen to us if we are seen.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to travel at night?”

“No. We’re safer by daylight. Whatever kind of detection equipment the machines use, radio location, infrared, heat monitors, anything, the devices will work just as well in the dark. While we have to depend upon vision alone. My empathetic sense will enable us to avoid the tribesmen, but is no good in detecting the machines. So we’ll move by day to enable us to keep our eyes open for the war machines, to see them before they spot us.”

Although the tension and the danger were still there, the journey was easier without the venomous presence of Ravn. He had died while trying to betray them; he would not be missed. Their course was almost due north now, with the great inland sea off to their right at all times. They stayed among the trees and paralleled the open plain. As the days passed they saw fewer and fewer animals grazing there, perhaps because the military presence was now much greater. Aircraft passed over at least once a day, swinging in wide circles as though searching for something. One night there was a battle of some kind over the horizon; distant explosions shook the ground and they could see the flare of explosions against the clouds.

It was a day later that the war column passed. They saw the clouds of dust clearly building up to the north, quickly billowing even higher. At first it resembled a sandstorm — but this was grassy plain, not desert, and there was nothing natural about this steady advance.

“Up among the trees, quickly,” Brion said, leading the way with ground-eating strides. “There’s a ridge up there. We want to be behind it — with solid stone between us and their detection equipment if that’s what I think it is.”

He threw the bundle down among the rocks, then helped Lea the rest of the way up the hill. There were great jumbled boulders here, and they wormed their way into the space under one of the largest, completely concealing themselves. Brion pushed the bundle with the metal apparatus even further down to make it as undetectable as possible. Then he piled up the flatter rocks into a rough shelter, leaving thin openings through which they could peer out.

“I can hear them now,” Lea said.” All that rumbling and rattling. Here they come!”