INTRODUCTION
Francisco Baltzer (1927-2005) wrote two stories in Más Allá, "The Factory Ship" ("La nave factoría", #12, May 1954, credited as "Franz Baltzer") and "Summer Vacation" ("Veraneo" #20, January 1955), and five stories and one novel, unpublished during his lifetime.
For bibliographic information on posthumous stories, see the Tercera Fundación record: https://tercerafundacion.net/biblioteca/ver/persona/13436?info=originales
See Carlos Abraham's "Las revistas argentinas de ciencia ficción" for biographical information and further background on Más Allá.
For complete scans of Más Allá, including the illustrations, see: https://ahira.com.ar/revistas/mas-alla-de-la-ciencia-y-de-la-fantasia/
THE FACTORY SHIP
Crashing in infinity can be good business
* * *
- "Where's Lieutenant Stanley?" I asked, glancing briefly over the control lamps and the chain of manometers and indicators.
- "He should be arriving soon; he's doing his routine tube examination," Corporal Eduards answered.
I already knew that; but it exasperated me that Stanley always left everything until the last minute. He'd probably spent his four-hour shift reading a detective novel, and now was conducting a rushed, negligent inspection so he could hand over his shift to me and leave.
I understand that planetary patrol work is quite dull; but, it's precisely due to this fact that we must maintain a spirit of discipline. If, by one of those rare coincidences, we made contact with some of those smuggler ships, there would always be a fight; and, by God! Those bastards are tough. They're nothing if not courageous.
But my meditations were interrupted by the hurried arrival of Lieutenant Stanley. He carelessly snapped to attention, gave his usual laconic briefing, "nothing to report," and then the guard was changed in the usual hurried manner, which always exasperated my nerves.
I knew very well that the doctor, the engineer, and the astronomical officer were already waiting in his cabin to play a game of poker with him. The blame lies with the captain for allowing them to do so.
Being the first officer on a patrol vessel with officers like these was a liability. But I couldn't delve deeper into my reasoning about our ship's lack of discipline.
- "There's a contact ahead, sir!" the radar officer shouted.
I looked at the repeater screen located at my control station, and indeed, there was a very weak point, almost at the edge.
- "Corporal Eduards, heat the tubes," I ordered, thinking it was just another one of those nasty meteorites.
Our position was almost nine light-seconds from Saturn, and that area is always infested with meteorites that, due to the planet's proximity, move with a terrible velocity. The sooner we avoid them, the better.
With satisfaction, I watched Corporal Eduards' speed and precision in making the connections and releasing the safeties, when I heard the calm voice of the radar officer:
- "Sir, there's indications that the contact is accelerating on its own."
Indeed, the screen showed that the dot moved with appreciable speed, but in the wrong direction. No meteorite can escape from a planet at such a close distance! There were no other patrol or merchant ships nearby; hence it's possible we'd located a smuggler.
I connected the intercom and called the captain's cabin.
- "Sir, there's a suspicious contact within 300,000 kilometers". He answered me with a sleepy grunt.
Yes, our good captain was a heavy sleeper. But, in difficult moments, he was a good leader. In less than two minutes, he was on the bridge.
* * *
By that time, the dot had come remarkably close.
- "Battle stations!" the captain shouted, and I pressed the button for the alarm siren, which blared throughout the ship.
- "Ready the engines!" Corporal Eduards shouted.
- "Maximum acceleration," said the captain's voice, now calm. "Helmsman, 213 degrees latitude, 95 degrees longitude."
And while Corporal Eduards opened the pressure on all the tubes, I connected the gravity synchronizer. And I did so just in time to stop the tremendous jolt that, otherwise, would have plastered all of us against the ceiling.
The deep hum of the stern tubes was immediately associated with the characteristic whistling of the gravity synchronizer and, from time to time, the blowing of the small tubes on the sides, reacting to the remote control of the helm.
The ship was moving at breakneck speed. Finally, some activity! After almost three days of rest!
I verified that the acceleration indicator climbed up scale to five kilometers per second: maximum acceleration. Of course, such a waste of fuel would leave us dry in just a few seconds; at most, we'd have two minutes of acceleration, but we had to catch up.
Our old P-38 handled itself well.
- "Cut the acceleration!" the captain's voice sounded, and I breathed a sigh of relief.
Reports from the various combat posts were coming in one by one over the intercom:
- "Forward rocket launcher, ready."
- "Aft rocket launcher, ready."
- "Electronic jamming, ready."
- "Gravity charges, ready."
- "Boarding party, ready."
The captain smiled with satisfaction. Our patrol ship wasn't the latest technical advancement anymore; but for the fight against those Saturnian smugglers, it was more than sufficient. Their ships were almost always old wrecks, war surplus from the last battle with Pluto, more than thirty years ago. In less than fifteen minutes, they would be at the mercy of our artillery. Once located, they had no chance of escape.
I looked at the radar screen and noticed with astonishment that the object was approaching much faster than expected, moving in a straight line, making no attempt to avoid us. It wasn't possible that their radar hadn't also located us at this distance.
- "Good heavens!" came the voice of the non-commissioned officer in charge of the radar. "They're going over a thousand kilometers per second!"
And that was the last human voice I heard. Events unfolded with uncontrollable rapidity. A terrible jolt threw me onto the floor panels. I heard the creaking of aluminum and plastic, and a deep, terrifying thunder coming from the stern tubes.
* * *
I felt, with a sharp pain in my ears, that the air pressure was dropping, indicating that the ship's hull was damaged.
Automatically, almost by instinct, I pressed the firing pin of the survival capsule, located in the form of a cylindrical tube on the belt of my uniform.
I saw how Corporal Eduards was lying next to me on the floor, doing the same.
Compressed air began to flow out of the small capsule, and along with it, the plastoelastic shell was stretched by the internal pressure, covering everything like a huge bubble.
The compressed air bubble had then sufficiently inflated for me to bury my head and shoulders in it, when, with an infernal crash, the aft tubes exploded, turning our entire glorious P-38 into molecules.
A terrible mess of twisted metal sheets, human bodies, plastic fragments, and gases expanded rapidly in all directions. I felt myself being pulled by an immense force into space.
I saw how a piece of a ladder cut Corporal Eduards's body in two. His survival bubble, now unoccupied, floated for a long time beside me, as a symbol of the tragedy.
These survival capsules were our interplanetary equipment's most modern invention, which were principally due to the advances made in plastics materials. The molecules of the material were oriented so that they always tended to position themselves in a predetermined line, exerting force in the desired direction. As a result, objects could pass inside, but not outside; because the shell counteracted any outward pressure, thus maintaining air and temperature. And thanks to this brilliant invention, I was now alive.
Despite the speed of the bubble's inflation, my legs were exposed to the intense heat of the explosion for several seconds, and my skin was burned from the knees down.
Normally, the pain would have made me pass out; but the spectacle I could view through the plastic wall was so terrifying that it made me partially forget about the horrors I was suffering.
In the center, the atomic fuel exploded in the form of an immense, yellowish-orange fireball. And fragments of the ship were shooting in all directions, reflecting the light of the explosion like small planets.
The heat already had melted most of the material, more or less turning them into large liquid balls. Other pieces still had more concrete shapes, or were simply losing them, melting, as I looked at them. Close to me, a piece of control panel, its clocks and dials intact, grew larger and larger due to the heat and the vacuum, reaching an absurd size. It must have already liquefied, because one could see through it; yet it still maintained its characteristic shape. Suddenly, a ball of molten aluminum collided with the control panel, and the whole thing disintegrated, forming a cloud of gas.
Along with myself, the entire inferno of bits and pieces were moving away from the orange-yellow center with explosive speed. With each passing second, the danger of being ripped apart by one of the particles diminished, and little by little I began to coordinate my thoughts.
With or without a survival capsule, it was a miracle I was still alive, but it was the crucial evidence on which all my subsequent reasoning was based.
I looked at my wristwatch and, to my delight, found it was still working. Only ten minutes had passed since the explosion, and the center was already so far away that the enormous fireball was the size of the Sun, as seen from Earth.
There was no denying that the fuel used by our armed forces was top quality, I reflected cynically. The proof of this was plain to see.
The next ten minutes passed, leaving only clouds of gas, floating in space, expanding ever more and becoming ever more faint.
Within a quarter of an hour, there would be nothing left indicating that the P-38 patrol ship ever existed, mysteriously disappearing into space, without leaving a trace behind.
* * *
The pain in my scorched legs became more and more unbearable, and I tried to focus my attention on something else.
I observed that as the light from the atomic explosion diminished, the Sun's became more intense, although here it seemed much weaker and smaller than on Earth. On the other side, the enormous sphere of Saturn could be seen, hanging like a ball in space, with its rings and three of its satellites visible.
I started to mentally review my astronomical studies. I was amused by the idea of calculating how long it would take my body to crash into the nearest satellite. I knew my mass and Saturn's; I knew the velocity, direction, and position of the ship at the moment of the disaster; I also knew the quantity of fuel that exploded, and from this could deduce any additional acceleration I received. But I found that I could in no way discover the exact direction that I was ejected from the ship; this fact forced me to resign myself to approximating the results.
Of course, the oxygen and caloric reserves contained in my survival capsule would last for 48 hours, and a collision would surely occur much later. Thus, the matter was reduced to a simple scientific mystery. The distance, however, I would have to travel in that time was more than ten million kilometers. Anything could happen on such a journey.
However, for now, absolutely nothing was happening.
That is to say, yes, something was happening; something very strange and odd, which aroused my curiosity as a seasoned planetary navigator.
I looked at my watch. Forty-five minutes had passed since the explosion; but Saturn, with its rings and satellites, contrary to my calculations, shrunk visibly... no, enormously.
During the fourteen years I served in the Interplanetary Navy, I became so accustomed to and familiar with the planets that it wasn't difficult for me to estimate distances by eye. The rapidity with which Saturn was shrinking, however, was in stark contrast to any of my previous experience.
At first, I thought it was an optical illusion caused by the plastic wall surrounding me. A closer examination convinced me there was no sign of light distortion. I also checked to see if there was a fault with my wristwatch and if the whole phenomenon was due to an erroneous judgment of time. But it also ruled this possibility out.
No; the only logical explanation was that I was moving away from the planet at an absurd speed, that no one had dreamed of. I lamented not having the necessary instruments to take an exact measurement; but it had to be easily ten times faster-or rather, twenty times faster-than I'd calculated.
But, why? The idea filled me with fright. Suddenly, I felt terribly alone and abandoned in space. Only now did I notice the absolute silence surrounding me: I hadn't had time to notice it. I began to whistle the first tune that came to mind, just like children do when they're frightened by the dark.
* * *
In these regions, the light from the sun is almost ninety times weaker than on Earth, which is why it took my human eyes so long to discover an object, which must have been there in plain sight for quite some time. Moving my head upward, I saw a small, illuminated dot, the size of a lentil. It took me a long time to understand, but suddenly I thought it could be nothing other than the enemy ship.
My fists clenched themselves up. There were those bastards who had blown up our beautiful P-38. Oh, I would have given my life to know who they bought those gravity charges from! Who could be so traitorous as to sell such weapons to vile smugglers?... Because only a gravity charge could have caused our disaster: no other weaponry acted in that characteristic, devastating way.
When this moment of ire passed and I calmed down, I observed the object with greater attention. I soon noticed that it wasn't moving in any direction, but rather, seemed to be fixed in its position. I wasn't expecting any abrupt movement; but, based on my experience, it had to move, even if it was just a few inches per minute.
I tried placing my index finger against the transparent plastic wall to obscure it. Nothing; in fact, it didn't move.
As if by chance, I glanced at Saturn and saw that it continued moving away at the same speed. And when the reality finally dawned on me, my blood froze cold. It was clear that I must somehow be within the other ship's gravitational field, traveling with it at a speed exceeding anything I had ever known. What's more, the dot's lack of movement could only indicate that I was moving in a straight line toward it, and that we were bound to collide.
I looked back at the illuminated object above my head and noticed it had grown slightly larger. The tip of my finger was no longer wide enough to completely cover it.
I tried to wrap my head around it; but with the shock, my reasoning became increasingly confused. So I resigned myself to simply waiting for events to unfold.
The minutes continued to pass. After a quarter of an hour, the object was already larger; it was now more or less the size of my hand, and more specific shapes could be distinguished.
But what my eyes saw were not at all in accordance with what I expected to see. There was no smuggler ship there. In fact, it wasn't even a familiar shape that could be associated with the idea of a ship. It looked more like a fluorescent, circular cloud.
As it grew larger, I could see that the circular edge was much thicker than the rest of the circle. The periphery had a thickness that was more or less equivalent to a tenth of its diameter. The reduction of thickness toward the center proceeded in a form that was symmetrical, with the center itself taking on a membrane-like appearance. And right in the middle was an extraordinarily small dot that seemed compact.
The fluorescent circle grew larger minute by minute. With each minute, my astonishment increased. The small lentil, as it had seemed to me at first, must've had fantastical dimensions. I kept making mistakes when trying to estimate the distance that separated us. And the strange fluorescent circle kept growing and growing. The strange light, somewhere between violet and reddish, also grew more and more intense, to the point where it was difficult to distinguish its light from the stars.
The object now was already almost the size of a small planetoid. Its composition was not gaseous, as I initially thought, but solid; however, it appeared to be of very low density.
As absorbed as I was by it, I forgot that I was moving at a considerable velocity toward the object; and now a strange force pushed me against the plastoelastic wall, indicating that my fall was somehow being slowed.
That all this was not the work of nature, much less of man, was now beyond doubt. But what sort of intelligence could have conceived such a marvel!
To think that I was the first human to establish contact with a ship, or anything, from another star!... Our entire planetary system had been colonized for two hundred years; but it had never communicated with another star or any other intelligent life. It was well worth burning my legs for.
The object was no longer getting larger, but I also couldn't distinguish its contours with any precision anymore, which had turned into something resembling a horizon. Its total diameter must have measured some thirty or forty kilometers.
The distance that separated me from the fluorescent surface would be about a thousand meters now. The fall had been slowed appreciably, but it was still fast enough to break my neck. However, my curiosity was so great that I didn't have time for fear.
I finally struck it with moderate force, at approximately its thickest point. It turned out the material was indeed very low-density, as it gave way on impact, allowing me to penetrate through it into its interior.
* * *
I found myself surrounded by a flood of light somewhere between violet and red. That was the last sensation I was able to perceive; as suddenly I was also surrounded by a high-pitched, metallic buzzing of such a terrible intensity that I lost consciousness from the pain in my ears.
As my senses slowly recovered, I noticed I was still in the midst of the strange fluorescent cloud, but there was no more noise.
I began to gesticulate desperately, as if I were an animal caught in a trap. Furious, I pounded my fists against the wall of the survival capsule in an absurd attempt to break it open.
When my strength was nearly exhausted in this foolish endeavor, I saw a figure in the distance, approaching my position. Its mass appeared to be transparent. The figure moved with rapid, intermittent momentum, somewhat resembling the movements of a swimmer. When it was close, it ceased its movements and hovered beside me.
It was hardly a calming sight. It looked like it was four or five times larger than me in size. It was dark metallic in color, somewhere between blue and black, and shaped like a slightly elongated egg with four lower limbs arranged symmetrically. These limbs were thin and cylindrical, unjointed, and had a platform or a small, circular plate at the tip, which served as supports for walking. The four legs now hung freely downward, and a trunk-like appendage protruded between them, right in the middle. On the top portion, a very small sphere stuck out that was attached to the oval body, which appeared to be made of some semi-translucent, gray plastic material. Further down, approximately one-third of the way up the egg, hung what we might call the arms. They were attached to the body by a ball and socket joint; they had another similar joint, corresponding to our elbow, and a third joint merged with a soft, circular suction cup that functioned like a hand.
The overall form was impressive because of its shape, so symmetrical and mechanical that there was no doubt I was facing a robot.
With a renewed attack of horror, I watched as, after a moment of anticipation, the arms moved in a direction towards me. The suction cups extended and adapted exactly to the surface of my survival capsule.
The plastoelastic material, it so happened, had the peculiarity of offering no resistance to the entry of an object, and that, once it was inside, it would not let it out again: an essential condition for being able to dive into the capsule when it inflated. Thus, it followed that the two suction cups pierced the plastic wall, and a small portion of the fluorescent cloud surrounding us entered along with them.
The cloud must have been at a very high temperature, because the small portion condensed with a snap, assuming the form of two very small metallic balls. The temperature inside immediately rose, and a large quantity of water vapor was generated.
Both arms stopped moving immediately, as if they were worried about causing any damage.
The suction cups, seen up close, were about thirty centimeters in diameter and must have been made of a material similar to a rubber sponge. They extended carefully, as if feeling their way, until they touched me, and at that very moment my feelings of fear stopped: they were soft and pleasant to the touch, and they moved to palpate me in a way that seemed to soothe my fright. I instinctively felt that the robot had no intention of harming me, and instead, actually came to save me.
* * *
A moment of anticipation followed, as if the robot were pondering what to do next. And indeed, it hit upon the exact solution. It applied strong outward pressure with both arms, which failed to dislodge the suction cups from the capsule, but held it firmly in place. Then it lifted me up to the small, translucent gray sphere. It held me in that position for a while, as if analyzing and observing what it had found.
I deduced that this sphere, about ten centimeters in diameter, was a sensory device, replacing the functions of a human head. Of course, I didn't understand the procedure, because there were no eyes, ears, mouth, or anything, just the small, translucent gray sphere, attached or glued to the dark metallic surface.
After holding me in the same position for a few minutes, it pushed me against its body and started to move.
This movement amidst the fluorescent mass surrounding us occurred in the strangest way. The propulsive function was performed by the trunk that the robot had between its legs. With rhythmic intermittent bursts of fluorescent light emerging from the central trunk, depending on how it turned, it changed direction.
I realized that the somehow, the trunk compressed the fluorescent mass and then forcefully expelled it, causing the rapid bursts I'd initially observed when the robot approached me.
Since the landscape that surrounded us was completely the same in any direction that could be seen, there was no way to gauge the speed at which we were traveling. After about ten minutes, I saw a group of eight robots that were the same as mine in the distance, manipulating something resembling a huge net or mantle, which was very difficult for them and which they were apparently pulling with all their might.
After a while, I saw two more groups; then several others, all engaged in similar tasks. We must have been approaching a concentration point or the center. Soon we approached a spherical shape, of unexpected dimensions and a color somewhere between light blue and silver.
I recalled that as I approached, I observed, in the very center of the strange circular object, a point that appeared compact, and this must be that same point.
The robot braked gently, and we landed on a small platform in front of a circular hole. Then the robot started to use its four legs to walk inside the hole. A faintly bluish, nearly white, and very pleasant light was emanating from the interior.
As soon as we passed through the hole, it automatically closed up, with no visible doors or sliding panels. The wall simply extended, and there was no more entry hole.
We found ourselves in a small spherical cavity, which I immediately associated with an airlock. I must have been right enough, because we remained still until the last vestiges of the fluorescent mass disappeared. Then another hole opened up, just opposite where we had entered, and we continued on our way.
The procedure was very similar to that used in the decompression chambers of Earth ships, which served to exit into the vacuum or re-enter the ship.
The robot continued its march through a wide cylindrical corridor or tunnel, illuminated by the same pleasant, faintly bluish light.
The light did not come from spotlights or lamps, but came out directly from the wall in a uniform manner, contrasting with the dark gray floor.
This floor was very peculiar: it had a marble-like aspect, yet it appeared to gently cushion one's footsteps, like a springy carpet.
The corridor continued along a slight curvature, which must have corresponded to the spherical shape of the entire structure. We crossed paths with some robots quickly walking in the opposite direction.
After a while, we stopped. The robot turned, as if to look at the wall. Instantly, a circular entrance opened up, and we entered an enormous round chamber with a vaulted ceiling, somewhat resembling the reception hall of a large hotel or sanatorium. Cylindrical corridors led off in all directions. Various robots hurriedly walked toward different places. In the center, on a raised circular platform there was a stool, or table, in the shape of a ring.
Three white figures stood behind this table, perhaps a meter and a half tall. Their deportment was so natural that I thought they were living beings at first; but upon closer examination, I realized they too must be robots, though of a different kind.
Their bodies were roughly shaped like a drop of water, with the tip pointing downward. A ridge elegantly divided it into two halves at the front, gracefully tapering downwards to merge with the tip. A sphere of semi-translucent gray material was attached to the top, just like the other robots, except here, the sphere was much larger, about twenty centimeters in diameter. They had three arms and three legs, symmetrically arranged. These limbs were thin, cylindrical, and flexible, without any joints. The legs ended in a rounded point, and the arms ended in a small flare with a tiny suction cup, about five centimeters in diameter. Everything seemed to be made of soft, flexible plastic material.
* * *
When the robot carrying me stopped next to the center platform, the three gathered like curious onlookers in front of where we were.
A heated argument must have developed between them, because from time to time they moved their arms in a way that resembled humans when they quarrel.
I lost my hearing, so I couldn't tell if they were actually speaking or communicating through signs, or perhaps through telepathy. But whatever the case, they undoubtedly arrived at a decision, and thus, each returned to their previous spot, moving over the platform until they were equidistant, forming a triangle.
Immediately, my robot was again set in motion, leading me down one of the hallways. A circular entrance opened, in the now familiar shape. We then entered a place that looked like a cross between a repair shop, a laboratory, and a doctor's office.
Attached to the walls were a number of instruments and tools of various shapes and sizes, the use of which I couldn't understand. Six small, white robots were moving diligently, preparing their tools.
The difference in size then became apparent in its true magnitude. The legs of the large robot were almost twice the height of one of the smaller ones; hence the need to have the elevated platform in the reception room.
We headed to the center, where a circle, seemingly hanging from the vaulted ceiling, emitted an extremely bright white light that nearly blinded me. The six small robots each climbed onto individual round platforms and, rising above them, took up their respective positions around us.
The small platforms had a foot or a cylinder, which could be raised or lowered, depending on that moment's need. A spherical end allowed them to roll along the floor. They were very practical; but, oh! right in the center of the platform was a spherical, translucent, gray drop. They, too, were robots! It appeared like this whole world was inhabited only by automatons and mechanical brains.
The six small robots now began to manipulate their instruments. One of them brandished a bag-shaped tool, and from this bag, a thin plastic hose protruded. The tip of the hose pierced the wall of my survival capsule. A greenish gas immediately began to flow out of the tip. I tried not to breathe, thinking they were trying to poison me; but again the robot's large suction cups caressed me, calming me. I relaxed my muscles and inhaled deeply. Soon my senses became cloudy, and I fell into a pleasant lethargy.
* * *
I haven't the slightest idea how long I'd been asleep. But I woke up suddenly, with a pleasant feeling all over my body, perfectly lucid.
I immediately noticed that the pain from the burns on my legs disappeared. I sat up to look at them and found them stuffed into a boot made out of some kind of milk-like material. Otherwise, I was still wearing my uniform, which was clean and spotless, as if it just came from the dry cleaners.
I also noticed that my hearing returned, because a distant hum of machines could be heard.
I tried to touch my ears and found two round caps attached to the sides of my head.
On a small table beside me, elegant and functional like the entire room, I recognized several of my belongings: a pen, a watch, a key ring, etc. There was also a small, metal handheld mirror. Piquing my curiosity, I held it to look at myself and noticed that the two caps attached to my head were made of the same milky material as the boots that covered my legs. In admiration, I thought that these robots must be extraordinary doctors.
I stretched my arms and took a deep breath. I felt like a newborn.
- "What a way to fall asleep, my friend!" I then heard a voice come from behind me. "They had to give you triple the normal dose to wake you up. But I see you're doing very well now. I'm glad."
I turned around and found a young, blond man standing in the middle of the room, between twenty-five and thirty years old, who was dressed in something resembling a mechanic's jumpsuit, a color between light blue and silver.
- "Excellent, finally, a human being," I said happily, as I walked a few steps and extended my hand to shake his hand. "I thought I'd never see anything but automatons and electronic brains for the rest of my life."
The man looked at my outstretched hand in surprise; then a smile broke out on his face. He understood that shaking hands is our greeting, and responded with a firm grasp.
- "I'm Lieutenant Palmer, from the Interplanetary Patrol Service," I introduced myself.
- "I'm Klinko," he replied, bowing with a friendly gesture. "I've already ordered food and drink for us. You must be ravenously hungry, my friend. The robots already informed me that our food won't do you any harm."
At that, I looked at Klinko's collar. His mechanic's suit was unbuttoned in the front, and with some surprise, I saw that a necklace of translucent gray beads, made of the same material as the robots' heads, wrapped around his neck twice and ended in a sphere about two inches in diameter, hanging over his chest.
- "Remove this terrible doubt for me, Klinko," I said anxiously. "Are you a robot too?"
- "I'm an organic being," he replied with a reassuring smile, "the only one in this factory besides you. But you've also got a little collar, you just haven't noticed it yet," and, saying this, he gestured toward my neck.
Indeed, around my neck was a thin silver chain, and threaded onto it were two small, translucent grey beads.
- "They're a language memory bank and an anti-telepathic shield. The robots installed them so we could get along more quickly. One contains all the memory necessary for you to speak and understand my language, and the other prevents me from reading your thoughts and thus offending your modesty. Besides, reading another person's thoughts is a crime punishable by the law."
Just then I realized I'd been speaking an unknown language, and that not only could I understand the meaning of the words, but I could handle it as if I'd been speaking it all my life. It was a rich language, full of technical and scientific words. It was beautiful and subtle, soft and easy to pronounce.
* * *
At that moment, the wall opened and one of the small robots entered, followed by a platform filled with small diversely colored dishes that must have contained food.
The robot immediately started to manipulate its three arms with incredible skill, placing the small dishes and plates on a specially arranged table. The platform assisted in this task, always moving to the precise spot where the robot extended one of its arms to pick up another one of the dishes.
The two automatons made a truly efficient team. I couldn't imagine a better pair of servants than these.
We sat down at the table and began to savor the food. The dishes were soups and sauces, with very intense flavors and colors. And it was notable that when we savored them, the flavorful pleasure combined with the aesthetic sensation of the beautiful color.
- "This is truly delicious," I commented, taking another spoonful of a very aromatic orange sauce. "I truly have to praise your food, Klinko. These soups and pastas are true examples of superior culinary art."
- "And that's the synthetic food. You should taste the dishes made with organic products," Klinko replied. "Of course, those foods are so expensive that the company doesn't include them in the provisions for factory ships. But starting from now, I'll invite you to my first free night on Erpon."
I paid close attention. It was the first time that anything about my future was mentioned. Up until now, the whole situation had been so interesting that it didn't occur to me to ask what would become of me. Turning the conversation around, I then said:
- "By the way, Klinko, you haven't given me time to thank you for saving my life yet."
As he filled his plate with greenish soup, he answered me smiling:
- "Oh, but anyone would have done the same. When the will synchronizer" - and, saying this, he touched the largest sphere hanging from his necklace - "began to detect a cerebral circuit that had to have been outside the factory ship, my first thought was that one of the robot workers, that is, one of the large robots you've seen working on the fluorescent disc, had gotten lost. But at the first general call, all the robot technicians, robot worker workers, and platforms responded from their usual work stations. Piqued by curiosity, I tuned into its telepathic wave and noticed that it was a poor native, who got lost in space somehow. I understood that it was going to collide with my ship's satellitoid, or disc, and therefore I took steps to save it."
- "From what you're saying, I gather you don't know anything about our ship exploding," I interrupted, startled. "I thought you were the one who blew it up."
- "What?... There was another ship?... There was a native ship near mine?" he asked in surprise. "I thought the strange round artifact you were traveling in was your personal spacemobile. Do you need ships to move from one planet to another?"
- "Of course!" I replied, feeling a little embarrassed by our primitive way of traveling through space.
- "This interests me greatly. Afterwards, accompany me to the navigation center. We can study this problem there in greater detail. You should know that the factory is surrounded by a negative gravity field, the impact of which either pushes aside or pulverizes any obstacle in its path. At the speed we're traveling, it's impossible to deviate. The gravity field must have acted on your ship, destroying it, just as it does on any meteorite."
* * *
We finished eating, stood up, and walked toward the wall.
- "Open!" said Klinko.
The wall opened in the now familiar way and let us pass, closing automatically behind us. As we walked down the cylindrical corridor, I finally decided to ask the question that had been bothering me so much.
- "What will happen to me? How much time until I can return to Earth?"
Klinko looked at me in confusion. With a slightly sad tone in his voice, he said:
- "The truth is, you'll never return to Earth, my friend Palmer. The law prohibits it."
- "What?"
- "We're strictly forbidden from making contact with any native cultures. History seems to have shown that an inferior culture always ends up destroying a superior one, simply because the superior is older, and then inherits the progress made by the culture that gets destroyed. For this reason, we must prevent the natives of Sol from even knowing that we exist. If you were to return to your planet, the secret would be out. I saved your life, Palmer, but I must strictly obey the law."
- "Does this mean I should consider myself your prisoner?"
- "Not at all, Palmer. Consider yourself my guest, until we reach Erpon. We'll see what happens there. It's possible the company will make a fortune selling you as a rare scientific specimen. A good chunk of that money will be yours, and you'll be able to live comfortably."
- "But what good will money do me if I'm not allowed to return to Earth?" I furiously contested. "After all, where is this famous planet Erpon? I've never even heard of it in my entire life."
- "Erpon is a star," Klinko corrected, "and it can be found directly opposite us, on the other side of the galaxy."
- "And you think I'm just gonna let myself be taken there like that?"
- "You'll have no choice," he assured me, and his voice showed genuine compassion. "I'm just an employee. I'm the manager of this factory, '3-F-107' of 'Plutomex,' the Plutonium and Derivatives Industrial Corporation. I have an employment contract, and I'm not going to stray from it."
I thought that it would be wiser to not argue with Klinko and just keep quiet. Besides, it seemed that, indeed, returning me to Earth for Klinko was a serious crime, punished most severely. It would be best to ride things out and keep my eyes open to see if there was any possibility of escape.
- "For your information, Palmer, I'll give you a legal document later so you can understand the seriousness of the problem... Open!" he said, turning to the wall, and we entered the navigation center.
* * *
It was a spherical chamber about thirty or forty meters in diameter. We stood on a platform that appeared to be made out of thick, transparent glass, which symmetrically divided the cavity into two hemispheres. It seemed to be suspended on gimbals, as it oscillated slightly with the slightest change of weight. A number of devices and instruments were fixed on this floor or platform, the use of which I could not understand. Several of them had a transparent gray sphere and therefore must be independent brains. Nine robot technicians were in charge of the entire equipment. The spherical wall itself must have been the reflecting screen of some system, a cross between television, radar, and astronomical observatory, as it repeated the image of the outside sky with astonishing perfection. Altogether, it gave the impression that one was standing on a glass disk, illuminated from within, floating in the middle of a fantastically starry night.
Klinko began conversing with one of the robots about the case, an interesting one for them, the destruction of a native ship. I observed that the robot seemed to hear the words, but never answered, the conversation was in fact a monologue by Klinko. I understood that Klinko read the robot's brain, without it being necessary for it to respond through speech, thus creating a double conversation, which saved them a great deal of time. This system must have been the usual way of communicating with a robot; hence the lack of a mouth or other device used to emit sound waves.
- "Listen," Klinko said, directing himself to me, "it looks like a strange object did indeed explode with considerable intensity, being repelled by the gravitational field. It even caused a small disturbance in our course, which had to be corrected later. There's no doubt that this explosion must have come from the Earth ship."
- "They could have invented a less dangerous way to travel," I said cynically. "What a way to run people over!"
But Klinko didn't seem to pay any attention to my commentary.
- "The notable thing is that you're consuming much more atomic fuels than our calculations show," he continued. "The directors of 'Plutomex' were quite right to begin mining in your star's area. Every year they continue the use of such uneconomical and extravagant spacecraft, the company will lose fortunes. We'll have to intensify plutonium extraction before you use it all up..."
At that moment, at the bottom of the astronomical sphere, a bright spot quickly grew larger, then vanished.
- "Did you see that?" he interrupted. "Another meteorite disintegrated in the gravity field."
But with what I'd heard, I was too preoccupied to take any interest in that. It seemed like Klinko said a bit too much. It all seemed as if these good fellows from the "Plutomex" company were stealing our raw materials. If I understood correctly, they were taking the plutonium we needed to fabricate our atomic fuels... But how did they do it? All the deposits were monitored by the government, and not a single gram had ever been reported missing...
Subconsciously, my mind had already begun to work, trying to find a way to escape from that strange ship. Now I thought that perhaps it wouldn't be so undesirable to remain aboard this factory "3-F-107" for some time. This numeration alone indicated the magnitude of the undertaking!... First, I had to figure out exactly what was going on. Then there would be time to attempt escape.
But something else happened, which kept me entertained for a while.
Klinko suddenly began to challenge his robots.
- "They sell you all with a written guarantee!... They manufacture you with all the circuits necessary for being the most perfect galactic navigators!... And then, why don't you navigate like people?... You bunch of bumbling monocircuits! Can't you see you're wasting energy?... Don't you see that here, behind the gravity field, there's a condensation?..."
The robot technicians began manipulating their apparatuses, but they seemed unable to solve the problem.
- "Well, since you can't get the condensation to assimilate in the gravity field, bring it to the satellitoid, and there we'll have it assimilated by a group of robot workers."
Klinko's navigation problem interested me immensely. I sarcastically recalled the times I'd had to challenge an inefficient crew. It seemed that electronic brains, while capable of far superior mental work to that of a human crew member, weren't entirely perfect either.
* * *
After a while, a small dot appeared on the astronomical sphere and began to get closer.
Suddenly, Klinko touched his will synchronizer, startled.
- "Look how interesting!"
With one hand, he grabbed my collar and linked it with his, thus connecting our two brain circuits. My mind seemed to expand fabulously. I suddenly knew thousands of things and had a variety of instincts I'd never known before. But the most remarkable thing was that I could see telepathically, and in the same direction as Klinko.
I jumped up in surprise!
In my mind, as if daydreaming, I saw a survival capsule approaching the fluorescent disc. And inside the capsule, the familiar figure of Lieutenant Stanley was huddled up... There were also two bottles of whiskey lying around, and the giant rascal, evidently, was sleeping off an awful hangover.
- "Please remember that the humming inside the disc, or satellitoid, as you call it, caused me to lose my hearing."
- "That's true; I forgot," Klinko replied, in a worried tone of voice. "Only the robot workers can stay there without being affected by the vibrations..."
- "Keep him away from the satellitoid," he ordered after a moment of thought, "and have two robot technicians go and find him with a spacemobile."
After a few seconds, I saw how Stanley was thrown against the plastic wall by the violent change in acceleration; he began to spin around like a satellite.
Awakened by the violent blow, Stanley muttered a curse, curled up to get comfortable again, and turning around, saw the enormous disc.
He made a dismissive gesture with his hand, as if to erase an absurd vision.
- "Good heavens!" his nasal, stuttering voice sounded, "I'm so drunk!... I'm almost reaching delirium tremens."
He raised one of the bottles and drank the small amount it still contained.
- "Instead of elephants and flying saucers..., that's not bad... saucers, small saucers, big saucers... bah!..." he yawned, and went back to sleep.
I felt in my mind how Klinko changed the telepathic wavelength. Then I saw two robot technicians inside a small device consisting of a transparent mat and a silvery-blue disc surrounding it. It was a spacemobile. The disc began to spin. The spacemobile shifted, passed through an airlock, then moved within the fluorescent mass; it gained rapid momentum and emerged into the void. It then went to the survival capsule's location and suspended itself below it, so that the capsule rested on the disc. The two technicians exited the sphere and, walking on the disc, moved the bubble until it was inside the spacemobile. For this task, they used flat instruments, which prevented their arms from penetrating the plastic wall and getting caught, as had happened to the robot worker who came to pick me up. These robots... evidently, learned very quickly!
Once they had Stanley inside the spacemobile, they returned to the factory ship. Stanley, meanwhile, stared blankly, rubbing his eyes in disbelief. Since we were tuning into a different telepathic wavelength, I couldn't know what Stanley was thinking at that moment. But he should have realized by now that he wasn't seeing visions.
Suddenly, as if an electric current had been cut off, my perceptive capacity was reduced back to normal. Klinko had released my necklace, and thus the telepathic flow was interrupted.
- "But, Klinko, how is this possible!" I said as soon as I recovered from my surprise. "I understand your factory ship is moving at several thousand kilometers per second. By now we must have traveled almost the entire solar system... Don't you realize that his survival capsule should have crashed into one of Saturn's satellites?... Where did it come from so suddenly?"
But Klinko smiled and said:
- "An extraordinary coincidence, that's what must have happened. When the Earth ship exploded, this capsule accelerated in such a direction that its mass and trajectory angle were exactly compensated for by the force of the gravitational field; and as a result, it was circling around us the entire time, as if it were our own planet. If I hadn't thought to control the acceleration compensation, it would have remained circling there forever."
I couldn't help but stand there speechless.
- "Well; let's go to the spacemobile hangar," said Klinko. "I imagine this native is a friend of yours, no?"
- "Yes, he's the second officer on board; he's an old acquaintance of mine."
- "I'm so glad!" he continued, speaking as if to himself. "Here, robot technicians, give the newly arrived human a linguistic memory and an anti-telepathic unit!... Also, examine him and treat any organic system damage he may have..."
As Klinko continued his monologue, issuing orders, we were walking down one of the cylindrical corridors again. This time I dared to pronounce the two syllables of "Open!" myself every time we had to pass through a wall. Klinko approved with a smile. Apparently, the doors had circuits independent of the will synchronizer. I was already beginning to feel comfortable and acclimated aboard Factory 3-F-107.
But suddenly I remembered the damned plutonium business that they were stealing from us, and I didn't feel so calm anymore.
* * *
We arrived at the spacemobile hangar just in time to see Stanley taken out and placed in the arms of a robot worker, who could then carry him to the hospital.
- "Hello, Lieutenant Palmer. What are you doing among all these nightmarish monsters?" he greeted me from inside his life pod.
- "Hi, Stanley. I'm glad to see you alive. I was certain I was the only survivor from the P-38."
- "Palmer, what are those round things you have instead of ears?"
- "Oh, these are artificial ears they've given me here. I lost my hearing when I entered the fluorescent disc."
I wasn't sure he understood me, and I wanted to explain further; but the huge robot worker was already taking him away.
- "Don't worry about anything! You're in good hands!" I still managed to shout at him.
Then they disappeared down one of the corridors.
Before we left the hangar, I took a good look around to remember every detail. I made a careful note of the six small spacemobiles, the same as the one the two robot technicians used, four larger ones, corresponding to the size of the robot workers, and one enormous one, which must be a transport.
As we walked back toward Klinko's private quarters, an idea occurred to me.
- "Why don't you let me see the legal memory you mentioned earlier?" I said. "That way I can better understand this situation that's been created by our stay on board the factory. I want to explain the whole matter to Stanley so he can rest easy. Even better, it would also be helpful if you could lend me a financial memory, so I can have more complete information."
I thought that if I knew the legal and economic structure of Erponian culture, I might be able to deduce why and how they stole our plutonium. Klinko didn't deduce my purpose, as he assented willingly.
One of the private rooms was a library. Shelves containing countless beads were neatly arranged on the walls. Klinko explained to me that most of them were "toys," that is, entertainment, which telepathically recounted stories, tales, novels, etc. Only one small shelf contained the various memories and wills, which in total couldn't have been more than fifty. You had to be a good telepath to be able to select the correct beads; because, at first glance, they were all the same.
* * *
Klinko took my collar and threaded two of the beads onto it. Then he put it back on; my collar now had four different telepathic beads. I was getting used to the nervous sensation of feeling the electrical circuits connecting and disconnecting in my brain. I now connected my attention to the legal and economic memories for as long as possible: for every minute I didn't have to converse with Klinko. Little by little, I discovered a series of wonderful and interesting details.
Since Stanley must have been as hungry as a wolf, Klinko ordered some food. The robot technician was still setting the table when the wall opened, and one of the platforms rolled in. Klinko and I burst out laughing. Stanley was sitting comfortably on the circular platform, shaved and fresh, in his immaculate uniform.
- "Stand here, next to these two gentlemen!" he ordered in his typical voice, full of fanfare. "Hold me up here!... Enough!"
The platform obeyed to the letter. Stanley, smiling, shook our hands.
- "This is marvellous!" he commented in contentment. "All these monsters go out of their way to make my life pleasant."
The three of us sat down at the table. Stanley did so without taking a single step; he simply ordered:
- "Take me to the table!" and the platform carried him right into the most comfortable position. And so he sat on that unusual contraption, blithely not caring about the fact that Klinko and I were using chairs.
- "I see Stanley is acclimating much faster than you, Palmer," Klinko commented.
Stanley savored the strange sauces and soups in ecstasy. During the meal, he told us his unusual story.
When the alarm sounded, he took up his battle station with the boarding party, which corresponded to his position as second officer; but he calculated that, once victorious, they would have to bring the captured ship back to Earth. He thought it advisable to take good provisions of whiskey with him to liven up this long and boring voyage. To fetch the bottles, he returned to his cabin. By chance, he happened to have stowed his survival capsule along with the bottles; of course, he never wore it on his uniform belt, as regulations required. In the very moment he was grabbing the bottles, the jolt of the ship threw him to the floor. To prevent the bottles from smashing against the floor, he made a sudden movement with his hand, which accidentally pulled the trigger of the capsule. At that same instant, he felt a violent explosion and, before he knew it, found himself floating in space, amid the fragments of the ship, which disintegrated. The capsule automatically inflated, protecting him from the vacuum. To kill time, as he was terribly bored, he ended up getting drunk, without realizing he became a satellite.
* * *
With the food finished, Klinko offered us a cabin to sleep in, which we gladly accepted. I was finally able to speak with Stanley alone and explain the unpleasant situation we'd found ourselves in. Despite Klinko's kind treatment of us, we were practically prisoners.
Through my concentration this entire time in analyzing the legal and economic knowledge contained in the memories, I had already been given a fairly clear idea of what was going on. The story I now told Stanley was extraordinary.
The star Erpon was located at the opposite end of the Galaxy, 18,000 light-years from the Sun. All of its planets had been colonized by a technically advanced culture. They managed to synchronize the gravities and climates of all its planets, duplicating their home environment. These gravities and climates were quite similar to those of planet Earth, which seemed to be a basic condition for the development of intelligent life.
The Erponians were a vast people, with a strictly commercial and economic structure. There were enormous corporations that controlled industries and consumer markets, factories that made spacemobiles, electronic brains, telepathic beads, synthetic foods, tourism companies, banks, and thousands more. Not to mention that there was a special law regulating the corporations that provided the service of synchronizing the gravity and climate on different planets: that alone will give you an idea of the magnitude of these economic corporations. All work was performed by robots of the most diverse specialties, which provided very efficient and economical work, since they never slept or ate. Once they became old, for a modest fee, payable in easy installments, the factories replaced them with new ones.
The custom of leaving all the work to automatons led to the extreme use of telepathic beads. There was, for example, a law prohibiting the connection of children's brains before they reached a certain age, in order to force them to at least babble a few words, walk, eat, and perform certain essential functions without the aid of electronic brains.
The Erponians themselves only exercised directive will, which was highly developed.
With all this activity, they consumed enormous quantities of atomic material, their only fuel. They same thing happened on Earth, when coal and oil reserves were exhausted during the first period of industrial evolution. In the entire Erpon planetary system, there wasn't a single gram of high-atomic fissionable matter left. Of course, their advanced technology would have allowed them to even split the last particle of a carrot off; but there was a problem of cost, and it was cheaper to extract plutonium and uranium directly from the stars.
Using this technique, their own sun, Erpon, was exhausted in a relatively short time. They then exploited the nearest stars, and gradually had to search for plutonium and uranium in increasingly distant stars.
* * *
Thus the system of "galactic concessions" emerged, which assigned each company the right to exploit stars in any given sector. And now comes the important part for us. All "galactic concessions" required giving preference to the stars with intelligent life on their planets. This ensured that the inhabitants of other planets, who reached a scientific level sufficient to travel among the stars, would no longer have enough fuel to accomplish that goal. Any future competition was eliminated from the outset. Establishing contact with a native culture was punishable by death. Klinko, therefore, was absolutely right to want to take us with him.
- "This is just fantastic!" Stanley said. "Can you imagine, Palmer? 18,000 light-years separate us from Erpon! And this Klinko wants to take us with him. Do you realize we won't have enough time to finish the voyage?"
- "Hey, calm down, Stanley! Don't think that these Erponians are immortal, no. There are laws regulating 'superlucid traffic,' and from that, I can deduce that, in interstellar space, these factory ships must travel many times faster than the speed of light. It's possible that this way the voyage to Erpon will only take a few months."
- "You see, Palmer? I always knew all our knowledge was useless. Now, I just plug in a little ball and, whoosh! I'm ten times smarter." Stanley roared with laughter. "And now, nice, wise Lieutenant Palmer, you'll tell me how we get out of here before we're all stuffed into some Erpon zoo as rare specimens from a backwards culture."
- "I have an idea about how we can go about it," I reassured him, "but after we figure out how they steal our plutonium."
- "It's always the same: 'duty first'... But where do we start?"
- "I think it would be best if we started by acquiring a technical memory. It will almost certainly contain their industrial procedure for extracting plutonium."
- "That means we have to steal one of the beads..."
- "Yes, we'll have to go to the library."
We were lucky that Stanley didn't dispatch his platform.
Now we'll use the same system he came up with for his joke. We sat on the platform and ordered it, in Erponian, to take us to the library. On our own, it would have been impossible to find our way, so we let the platform do that work for us. The system proved so practical that we continued to constantly use it.
* * *
Once in the library, I began experimenting, connecting various beads, but couldn't find the industrial memory I was looking for. Since I had no telepathic experience, and they all looked the same, the search was fruitless, even though I looked for over an hour.
- "We're not getting anywhere like this," I finally said. "It'd be better to do a sweep of the entire factory; and maybe we'll find something then. We'll have to hurry, because the will-synchronizer will reveal our location as soon as Klinko even thinks about us. Stanley!... Come on!"
But Stanley, seated in a beautiful, functional armchair, was apparently deep in thought, concentrating on something very important, and didn't hear me. I tapped him on the shoulder; but he ignored me, too. Then I saw that one of the beads became connected. "Maybe he's found the industrial memory!" I thought happily. I leaned over and, grabbing his collar, joined it to mine to connect our brain circuits and find out what was keeping him so extraordinarily preoccupied:
"At that very moment, the thief was escaping in his spacemobile, taking the billionaire's jewels with him. With a malicious cackle, he fired a gravity charge at the pursuing police automaton, shattering its electronic brain. Free of his closest pursuer, he veered off to hide inside the greenish cloud coming from the exhaust fumes of a food factory that he saw nearby. Calmer now, he began to count the jewels he had stolen. They were of an incalculable value!..."
Enough! With an effort of will, I let go of Stanley's collar. This poor wretch hadn't thought of anything better than to connect with a "toy," and now it was telling him an Erponian detective story. It wouldn't be possible to wake him until the story was over.
With a sigh, I carried him onto the platform.
- "Take us to the plutonium depot!" I ordered, and we set off.
The suspense in the detective novel must have been off-the-charts: Stanley's facial muscles contracted and his fists clenched. After rolling for a while through the cylindrical corridors, we entered what appeared to be a huge warehouse. Some robot workers, which seemed immense when seen from below, were stacking giant cubes. These contained crystallized grains of a dark grayish material, which must be refined plutonium. After a brief inspection, we were lifted to the level of a small control bridge, where a robot technician supervised all the work. I tried to understand the purpose of the instruments there, but the only thing I recognized was a television screen. From the image it transmitted, I noticed it was connected to the navigation center. I looked, interested... And suddenly my blood ran cold. I remembered the center as if it were a glass disc suspended in the night. But now everything, the instruments, the robots, were bathed in an intense yellowish light. An immense ball of fire occupied nearly half the astronomical sphere. Judging by the intensity of the light and the size of the ball, it couldn't be anything else other than a star. But very close! There was no doubt that within ten minutes, at the latest, we'd collide with it. I looked for Klinko's familiar figure and didn't see him anywhere in the navigation center. Klinko was the only one who might be able to save us. These navigators with electronic brains!... We'll all be killed!... Surely a small calculation error had been made, but at the terrible speed we were traveling, it would have the most catastrophic of consequences.
- "Take us quickly to where Klinko is!" I ordered desperately. "Quickly, quickly!"
I had to hold Stanley tight, who was still absorbed in his detective novel, as our platform took such a violent leap that we almost fell off. We raced down the corridors, reached the private quarters, and entered a dark room.
- "Klinko! I want you to take me to where Klinko is!" I shouted furiously, thinking the platform had made a mistake.
Then a sigh was heard, and the light came on. There was Klinko, lying peacefully on his bed, waking up from a beautiful dream. And that was just minutes before the star would pulverize us into dust!
- "What's going on? Why all the shouting?"
- "Klinko! Quickly, come to the navigation center!"
- "What?"
- "Get to the center! We're about to crash into a star. Come quickly!"
- "Oh, that's all..." and he turned around, as if he wanted to go back to sleep.
- "Klinko... please!"
- "Calm down, Palmer," he then said, with an almost paternal smile. "It's a very common thing to cut through a gaseous star..."
- "But..."
- "Besides, it's the star you should know best: it's the Sun."
- "But..."
- "Go back to sleep... It's very boring. After these last provisions, we'll begin the journey to Erpon. There'll be a lot to do, and I want you to help me..."
- "But..."
- "No buts," his voice became a little more energetic. "After cutting through the Sun, our satellitoid will be saturated with raw materials, and we'll have a lot of work crystallizing all this plutonium. So, enough! Go to bed!"
- "Fine; take us to bed," I finally said, resigned, speaking to the platform.
* * *
I needed time. I felt stupefied and needed a few minutes to think calmly. I had to process what I heard. It was the last thing that would have occurred to me. I couldn't have believed such a thing was possible in my wildest dreams. To think we were passing through the Sun, and everything was just as normal: the robots continued working peacefully, and the ship's captain was still sleeping...
On second thought, and once I'd gotten used to the idea, it wasn't so outlandish. The Sun is composed of gases, whose temperatures range between 6,000 and 20,000,000 degrees. It wasn't at all unusual to pass through a gaseous mass with a solid body. The problem, in truth, was to prevent the heat from melting or vaporizing the materials the ship was made out of. Now, assuming that, at a speed of a few thousand kilometers per second, the gases would pass alongside the ship so quickly that they wouldn't have time to transfer a sufficient amount of heat; also assuming that the negative gravity field surrounding the ship prevented direct contact with the gases, also eliminating this as a heating factor; then, indeed, the materials were kept at a normal temperature.
At it's core, the idea was simple, except that Erponian technical advancements were needed to put it into practice. And... of course! Now I also understood Klinko's last sentence. They were extracting plutonium directly from the Sun. And that was logical, since the Sun has more than 800 times the mass of all the planets combined; therefore, almost all the plutonium in our system is concentrated there: in the Sun itself.
With everything, that was enough. Upon leaving the sun, the journey to Erpon would begin, and if we ever wanted to get home, we'd have to start worrying right now. With marked trepidation, I watched Stanley, still engrossed in his detective novel. I decided to leave him lying on one of the beds in our bedroom. Next to his head, I left a note explaining that he should try to get to the spacemobile depot as soon as possible and to wait for me by the largest one, that is, the transport.
* * *
I got back on the platform and had myself carried to the exact spot in the corridor where Klinko's bedroom was. I left it waiting there.
- "Open!" I said, and the wall opened to let me into the room.
Klinko's deep, calm breathing was clearly audible. I gathered my courage and, on tiptoe, entered the room, approaching the bed. I was going to gamble everything on a single card. I had to speculate that the Erponian nervous system was basically like ours; that is, that Klinko's dreams were just like ours, and a possible loss of consciousness would completely shut down his willpower. There was no certainty about that, as I hadn't been able to connect with any medical memory; but since Klinko was physically identical to us, I confidently accepted the risk.
When I was at his side, I clenched my fist and struck his head with two violent blows. The only reaction was a groan; then, silence. I had succeeded in making him unconscious... I had triumphed!
I grabbed Klinko's double collar and hung it around my neck, connecting it with my brainwaves. Poor Klinko; I felt truly sorry for what I had to do to him. But it was necessary. Now I was the one with the will synchronizer!... It was an extraordinary feeling of power. It was as if I were Klinko now. I knew everything: the position of every robot, their thoughts, the location of everything; I knew every compartment and chamber on the ship... Plus, I had the immense knowledge of about fifty different memories and wills.
There were so many things I could think, that it took a tremendous effort of will to control my thoughts. These Erponians must have had fantastic powers of concentration. It was very difficult to follow a line of reasoning: the wisdom was so widespread that one constantly wanted to associate ideas that belonged to different arguments. But little by little, I grew accustomed to it.
* * *
The first thing I did was head for navigation center. I arrived just a moment after we left the Sun. Everything was bathed in a very intense light. On the astronomical sphere, cloud-like formations were visible, resembling enormous flares of gas.
Maximum acceleration was already engaged. All the instruments were synchronized. Two robot technicians were working with an electronic calculator, solving the navigation problems involved in getting from the Sun to Erpon. I saw that a smaller calculator was free. I took the opportunity to assign it the task of solving the navigation problems for me that involved in getting the factory to Earth. It was child's play for one of those Erponian machines. It was ready within three minutes, copied and recorded in my will synchronizer, for me to use whenever it was most convenient.
Thinking of the workers, I telepathically saw that they were all feverishly busy, working on the satellitoid. With magnetic nets, they were collecting the materials that had filtered through the gravitational field and were now trapped in the fluorescent mass of the satellitoid. The harvest of the radioactive isotopes had been extremely rich, and they would be occupied for more than two hundred hours with this work. Nevertheless, I ordered:
- "Have four robot workers equip the spacemobile transport!"
The order was carried out; but I perceived a general feeling of surprise and curiosity in all the automatic minds. My order must have been something very unusual, and what's more, it was imprudent!
I sensed, in a central compartment of the factory ship, a brain began to think that was outside of my control. I thought it was Klinko or Stanley, who were waking up; but its location didn't match the private quarters, and the wavelength didn't correspond to any human being.
I focused my attention on the phenomenon. I sensed my legal memory forcefully align itself with my reasoning. I let it align itself, and then I knew who it was. Before I could think any further, I gulped in shock... It was the police automaton that, according to what the legal memory explained to me, accompanied any factory that approached a star with intelligent life.
The order to equip the transport exposed my plan to escape. I sensed the police automaton was determined to prevent our escape at any cost. It was authorized to use force in such a case, and it was sure to use it. Just the thought of coming face to face with a police automaton was bloodcurdling. From what I was able to deduce, the automaton must've looked unpleasant and terrifying. It would be much better for my nervous system not to have to confront such a monster.
I had to think quickly and carefully to solve this unexpected problem. But thinking calmly was difficult because the police robot was already on the move. I sensed its brain waves now coming from the direction of the spacemobile depot, and I could read its desire to destroy the first robot worker that approached the vehicle.
* * *
That was it! It was a dangerous solution, but it was necessary to risk everything. Factory ships traveled faster than light, but acceleration had a critical threshold. It was a problem similar to that of our primitive aircraft when they crossed the sound barrier. At the precise moment the ship hit the speed of light, overlapping vibrations spread throughout the ship, causing a real danger of disintegration. It depended on the crew's skill to match the vibrations of the fluorescent disc, which rotated at 30,000 revolutions per second, with the vibrations of the light. I put my plan into practice. I slightly changed the speed of the satellitoid and kept the acceleration constant, in a manner such that, inevitably, upon reaching the speed of light, the ship would disintegrate against the vibration barrier.
This was deliberate damage to another's property, since with this maneuver I intended to destroy a factory ship belonging to the Plutomex company. The police robot had to prevent this crime, which was far more important than the possible escape of two Earthlings. Nevertheless, I was successful: the police robot left the robot workers alone, and I sensed it moving at a considerable speed toward the navigation center.
To be on the safe side, I short-circuited all the instruments and, before running away, disconnected the basic circuit to all the robots in Central.
The police robot would have one hell of a time getting things back in order.
With this maneuver, I gained at least fifteen minutes. And that was almost the time it would take for the craft to reach the vibration barrier and disintegrate. If the police robot made a mistake in one of its technical decisions, we might have exploded sooner.
As I rolled onto the platform, heading for the spacemobile hangar, I remembered Stanley and Klinko. I thought about them; and I felt calmer, as I spotted them moving toward the hangar. When I got closer, I suddenly saw a line of robot workers, walking in single file. Each one was carrying one of the buckets full of crystallized plutonium that I had noticed in the warehouse.
I didn't understand what was happening there, since I didn't order any such a thing, and the transport didn't need that much fuel. The line of robots and I were going in the same direction. I passed them one by one. Oh, what a surprise!... Stanley and Klinko were at the head of the line. Stanley shouted orders and gesticulated with his arms, while Klinko watched everything with an ignorant look, as if he didn't notice anything. Poor Klinko! Without the telepathic beads, he was useless. The poor thing, like any Erponian, never learned to act or think without the aid of automatic brains. Now that he didn't have the collar, he was like a baby in the skin of a grown man. It was horrible, and it was my fault!
- "Come on, hurry up!" Stanley shouted to the robots.
- "But, Stanley... what are you doing?" I asked, startled.
- "Since you promised in your note that we'd escape and go home, I thought I'd bring as much plutonium as I could," he said, smiling. "According to what they say, it's common on Erpo to steal all sort of things from one another. That's what gave me the idea."
- "Always the same! Alright, but hurry, we'll all be gone in a few minutes."
- "Do you realize there's tons and tons of plutonium, Palmer? On Earth, every gram is worth a fortune, and to these people, it's like a shipment of watermelons... If we escape from this, we'll be rich."
* * *
We'd already arrived alongside the transport, which was a fairly sizable flying saucer. The robot workers entered one after another, with their precious cargo. Suddenly, a shudder ran through the line. I tried to figure out what was happening to them. I immediately sensed the police robot coming toward us. A disintegrator beam pierced the wall. The last robot worker in the line burst into a pile of dust. Then another, and another.
- "Quick!" I shouted to Stanley and Klinko, pushing them behind the spacemobile.
The very moment the door closed, the floor we'd been standing on was blasted away by the disintegrator beam. The police robot was taking this seriously.
- "Depart according to navigation plan #127!" I shouted to the two robot technicians in charge of the transport.
With a hiss, we began to float. I switched on the observation screen and saw that, at the same moment we took off, the wall of the spacemobile hangar opened, and the black, amorphous mass of the police robot penetrated through the opening, burning everything with its whitish beam. But we were already emerging into the fluorescent mass of the satellitoid. The disintegrator beam was still scanning for us. We all fell to the ground from the violent force that sent us out into the void. We began to move further and further away from Factory 3-F-107. What we saw then on the observation screen left us speechless. The immense fluorescent disk was leaving a gaseous trail, which spread out into space in a vast spiral. Then, the enormous ship began to veer off course and circle. There was no doubt it began to disintegrate. At one point, we saw a black shape emerge, which must have been the police automaton. Its deadly beam was still searching for us; but suddenly it pierced the gaseous trail and exploded in the form of a black cloud...
* * *
I sighed in relief. We could finally be sure that we were saved.
The enormous factory ship was quickly lost out of sight, spiraling in ever tighter circles, remaining in the same place, while we moved away in a straight line.
The return voyage was terribly uncomfortable, as we had to decelerate with all our might for most of the time. The synchronization of gravity couldn't be equalized, and we remained crushed against the ceiling for days on end, unable to eat or sleep.
But all these adventures ended when we finally reached the planetoid Eros, where we're still living today.
In total, we managed to bring four robot technicians, twenty-eight robot workers, and five platforms. We made them all work at an accelerated pace. They built us a small climate synchronizer, which keeps Eros's atmosphere at conditions similar to those on Earth. They also built a beautiful palace, which has every imaginable comfort and is surrounded by a sizable park. We also have a secure chamber to store all the plutonium we brought with us, and a powerful television station, which allows us to communicate with the entire planetary system.
Our main problem, however, was retraining Klinko's mind so that he could think without the aid of telepathic beads. But we've achieved the greatest success.
As for me, I'll have to wear the two plastic caps instead of ears for the rest of my days. It's just a matter of getting used to it. With respect to Stanley, he finally managed to ruin his liver with so much whiskey, and now he's on a strict diet of milk.
It's a shame the Erponians were such good businessmen... because all the machines, robots, and telepathic beats only worked for two years! After that, we'd have had to send them back to their respective factories to exchange them for new ones. But that wasn't possible. Now we're left with a pile of Erponian scrap, which we rent out to universities and the government for use in their research.
But our main business remains plutonium, as "Stanley, Palmer & Klinko, Inc." holds an undisputed monopoly on plutonium throughout Earth's civilization. And, it's believed, although no one knows for sure, since none of us file tax returns, we're the richest men in the world.
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