Sidney Bounds - The Robot Brains.

Both machines pulled back their discs, moved to the place where Christian was standing and stopped.

Five minutes passed, and nothing happened. Christian walked round each machine. There were no doors or windows in them. He knocked on the side of one of the machines and shouted: "Is there anyone inside?"

There was no answer. He understood that the machines were robots.

Robots! Robots directed by remote control - from where? And by whom?

Evidently they were controlled by the Watchers…

He climbed on the top of one of the machines hoping that it would carry him to the people who operated them. The machine did not move. Then he climbed down and began walking in the direction from which the machines had come.

Immediately the machines started moving in the same direction, too. He stopped, and the robots stopped, too. He went on, and they followed him again.

At least he was safe from the danger from insects. But he walked more and more slowly. He was tired, hungry and thirsty. Every new step was more difficult.

Finally he could walk no more. In despair he fell down on the sand. The two robots stopped beside him.

Suddenly it became much darker. He looked up and saw something big which was falling from the sky…

Waldo and other Brains were standing at the door of the lift.

"We must follow him," said one of the Brains.

"No! He cannot live on the surface. It is too cold there, and then there are giant mutated insects. He will certainly die," said Waldo.

"But what if he gets to the Watchers?" said another Brain. "What will happen then?"

Waldo hesitated. He wanted to take revenge on the captain, but was afraid of the Watchers.

"If the Watchers find out what we are doing in the past," he said, "they will try to stop us. We must try to complete our work before it is too late."

"Yes, we must hurry," the others agreed.

They went back. Soon all the Brains gathered in the hall of the transmitter with crystals.

"Captain Christian has run away to the surface," said Waldo. "He may meet the Watchers. We must act immediately. As you know, our purpose is to throw off the yoke of the Watchers. We can do it if we change the course of history from the past. We must concentrate our efforts on the scientists of the past who are working on the problems of space travel. If we stop all experiments with space travel, that are going on in the twentieth century, people will never fly into space - and we shall be masters of Earth."

Waldo was speaking louder and louder and finished with the words:

"Our plan is clear. We must go into the year nineteen hundred and sixty-six and completely destroy the satellite bases and everything that is connected with them!"

The Brains were very excited. Someone shouted: "To the past - destroy the satellites!"

They took their crystals from the transmitter and fastened them to their belts. Each Brain was armed with his decapitator.

Waldo gave a command:

"Follow me - into the past!"

He touched the crystal on his belt, the other Brains did the same - and one by one they disappeared.

Active work was going on in the United States Rocket Research Centre in New Mexico. Under the hot sun ten red and silver rockets stood in the large field ready to fly up. Somewhere a man counted loudly:

"Ten… Nine… eight… seven…»

The rockets were part of the artificial satellite project. In a few minutes they would fly up into space, orbit Earth and send information back to the Earth base. They were the first steps of man to other planets and stars.

The sky was bright blue and completely cloudless. There was no wind.

The man had his finger on the starting button. He continued to count:

"Four… Three… Two…»

Suddenly a great explosion shook the field. Great columns of flame and smoke covered the rockets.

The next moment a lot of Brains appeared in the field. They sent bright hot beams of fire from their energy weapons. In a few minutes all the laboratories were destroyed and all the people were killed. The Brains left nobody alive.

Telephones rang in the United Nations. The same thing happened in all the rocket bases of the world. The rocket research centres in Russia, Australia, China, and everywhere else were completely destroyed.

"For the first time in history the nations of the world are united, and we can do nothing," complained the Secretary-General.

He was standing at a high window and looking at the sky and stars. He could not see any way out of the situation. Nothing could stop the Brains… except, perhaps, Captain Christian. He was the only man who really knew about the Brains…

Christian opened his eyes and saw that he was lying on a bed in a room with white walls. Through a round window he could see the desert covered with black sand. The huge red sun hung in the black sky.

A door opened, and a man walked in.

"I am Paul, one of the Watchers," he said. "And you are, I think, from the twentieth century?"

"Captain Arthur Christian."

"Nice to meet you. I hope you are feeling well. Lunch is almost ready."

Christian stood up.

"There are a lot of questions - " he began.

The door opened. The woman who walked in was young and pretty. Christian noticed that both she and the young man had very wise eyes. Both Watchers were young - about twenty-five years old, Christian thought.

Paul said: "Barbara - Captain Arthur Christian."

Barbara smiled.

"It is an honour," she said, "to meet one of our ancestors."

They led Christian along a brightly lit corridor.

"Is this a spaceship?" the captain asked.

"Yes. We have just come from our base on the moon."

They came to a small comfortable room and sat down. Barbara brought lunch. Christian was very hungry and ate with pleasure.

"I wonder," said Christian after lunch, "how far away I am ahead of my time."

Paul looked at him carefully.

"You must prepare yourself for a shock, Captain," he said."…About one hundred thousand years!"

Christian put his glass on the table. One hundred thousand years! That was really a shock. He looked through the window at the black sand and the dyring sun. This, then, was the winter of Earth.

He looked at the Watchers again.

"There must be more than just the two of you," he said. "So far I've seen only the Brains and their giant women. What's happened to the rest of humanity?"

Paul rose and went to a wall with a large screen. He pressed a button, and Christian saw space with lots of stars.

"The humanity is there," said Paul. "Man has reached the stars"

Christian felt proud. After all, the human race was not really represented by the Brains. The stars… he dreamed a little, then remembered the reality.

"Do you know that the Brains have traveled into the past?" he said. "That they have come into the twentieth century and are murdering the best scientists of my time? Can the future be changed?"

Paul frowned. "That is a big question," he said, "even bigger than you think. I am not sure that I know the answer. Perhaps, it is a terrible mistake to try to change the past."

"But that's just what the Brains are doing!" said Christian. "Can you stop them?"

Perhaps," said Paul and rose from the table. "Let us go to the control room."

They came into a large round room with a large screen on the wall and a switchboard before it.

Paul said: "We can send the robots from here, and they will act as our eyes. We shall see on this screen all that they will see on the ground and underground."

He pressed some buttons on the switchboard, and the screen came to life.

The desert started moving before their eyes.