"Williamson, Jack - 01 - The Humanoids 1.1" - читать интересную книгу автора (Williamson Jack)

"At your service, gentlemen." The human vocal quality was suddenly gone from Steel's voice, so that it became a mellow silver drone. "But just a moment, if you please. Because you should see us as we are, and now the need for this disguise has ended."
And the thing slipped out of the crisp uniform. It snapped contact lenses out of its eyes. It ripped at what had seemed its skin, and began peeling flesh-colored plastic from its limbs and its body in long spiral strips.
Forester watched helplessly. He saw the faces around the table turning stiff and gray, and heard men gasping with something close to horror. His own breath caught when an overturned chair fell with a shocking crash. Yet there was nothing really horrible about what emerged from that discarded mask.
Rather, it was beautiful. The shape of it was nearly human, but very slim and graceful, with no mechanical awkwardness or angularity whatever. Half a head shorter than Forester, it was nude now, and sexless. The sleek skin of it was a shining black, shined with changing lights of bronze and blue. A yellow brand gleamed on its breast:

HUMANOID
Serial No. M8-B3-ZZ
"To Serve and Obey,
And Guard Men from Harm."

For a moment, when it had flung off the last of its wrappings, it stood quite still beside the old president. Now its eyes were blind-seeming orbs that caught the light like polished steel, and its narrow, high-cheeked face was fixed in a look of dark benignity. After the flowing felicity of its action, that frozen poise seemed eerie as its inhuman voice.
"Your present alarm is needless, gentlemen," it cooed musically, "because we never injure any man. Major Steel was simply a useful fiction, created for your own benefit, which enabled us to observe the present technological crisis as it developed here and to offer our services in time to avert calamity."
"But - Mr. President!" The defense minister had risen, still gasping. "I fail to understand this strange display," he protested shakenly. "But I must remind you that wise laws exist to protect our working classes from the competition of such multipurpose android mechanicals as this appears to be, and I hope you recall that our party is pledged to enforce them. With elections to come-"
The president merely looked at the machine.
"You need not fear the labor vote," it broke in briskly. "Because we bring no want or suffering to any workingman. On the contrary, our only function is to promote human welfare. Once established, our service will remove all class distinctions, along with such other causes of unhappiness and pain as war and poverty and toil and crime. There will be no class of toilers, because there will be no toil."
Fumbling agitatedly with a pitcher and a glass, the chief of staff looked uncertainty from the droning mechanical to the trembling lieutenants beside Mason Horn, and finally shouted hoarsely:
"Seize that - device!"
"That isn't necessary, sir," its golden voice sang instantly. "Because we have no purpose except to serve you."
The two lieutenants merely moved closer to Horn, and the chief of staff forgot them, sputtering breathlessly, "That's no machine! It - it thinks!"
"We are mechanical," the steel-eyed thing told him melodiously. "But we do think, because all our identical units are joined by rhodomagnetic beams to our central relay grid on the planet Wing IV. Such units as the one before you are only the limbs and the sense organs of that mechanical brain, which perceives and acts through them. We think more rapidly and effectively than men, in fact, because our rhodomagnetic impulses act without the time lag which slows the inefficient mental reactions of human beings, and because that great relay grid is a far more perfect mechanism than any human brain. We don't sleep and we don't err and we don't forget, and our awareness embraces everything that happens on many thousand worlds. You may welcome us without fear, however, because we exist only to serve and obey mankind."
The chief of staff swallowed convulsively, and somehow overturned his glass and pitcher. Moving with a silent, incredible ability, the mechanical righted them before the water had time to spill, and held the glass to the old general's lips.
"Quite remarkable!" The chief of staff strangled on the water, turning red in the face, and sputtered at the dark humanoid, which now stood alertly motionless again. "But how - precisely how - can you abolish war?"
"We are used to dealing with the inevitable cataclysmic breakdowns of such hypertrophic technologies as this planet has developed," the machine pealed sweetly, "and we have efficient methods of averting violence. Our agents here and on the neighbor planets began preparing for this crisis ten years ago. Our ships from Wing IV are already near, bringing the necessary units and equipment to begin our service, and you will find the formal arrangements very simple."
The humanoid moved swiftly again, to set the glass and pitcher safely beyond reach of the man's agitated hands.
"Your spaceports and those of the Triplanet Powers must be opened immediately to our shipping," it continued serenely. "Our advance agents must be given authority to monitor communications and inspect military installations, in order to prevent any human treachery. At an agreed future date, all military equipment must be surrendered to us for safe disposal."
"Surrender?" The chief of staff turned a choleric purple. "Never!"
"The matter is not in your hands," the machine droned blandly. "The crucial decision for all these planets was actually made some decades ago in a physics laboratory, by a foolhardy man who had discovered the theoretical possibility of a nuclear chain reaction in a uranium-graphite pile. Once he chose to risk the test, and so demonstrated the fission process, the outcome was already fixed. You are still free, however, to discuss the situation."
Turning attentively to face the president, the humanoid stood still again, a dark image of ultimate beneficence. Smiling at it hopefully, the old statesman called in a tremulous voice for discussion. Deaf to the wrangling which followed, Forester sat shivering in the damp blast of the fan, watching the machine and debating what to do. Once he caught his breath to report the whole matter of Mark White's warning. But that wouldn't do, he saw at once, because he would be compromising the security of Project Thunderbolt still farther. Finally he passed a note to the defense minister, asking for a private word with the president.
"Gentlemen," that sleek machine was purring, "you must understand the necessity of immediate agreement. The leaders of the Triplanet Powers are now meeting with others of our advance units, and they express extreme suspicion and alarm. Our units are finding it difficult, in fact, to prevent them from detonating this planet instantly."
But the president agreed to a brief recess, for a conference with the defense minister and his scientific adviser behind the soundproof doors of an adjoining private office. There Forester found the new paint drying, a dismal yellow-gray. The ventilators had been turned off and the choking fumes of it turned him faint with illness as he stood hastily reporting White's warning.
"Mr. President," he finished desperately, "I think we ought to keep these mechanicals out - at least until we can find out more about them and their 'service.' I want to remind you, sir, that we still have Project Thunderbolt. Instead of meekly giving up to the humanoids, I suggest that we fire a demonstration shot at some distant uninhabited satellite and send a warning note to the Triplanet Powers."
The old statesman hesitated, fumbling his withered yellow hands irresolutely together, and Forester knew that he longed for the confident assurance of little Major Steel.
"I'm afraid of war." His dim eyes blinked indecisively. "And I'm afraid your demonstration shot would touch it off, or even trigger detonators here."
"That might be," Forester agreed uneasily. "But at least, sir, I think we ought to stall somehow for time, until you can appoint a commission to investigate these mechanicals on some planet where their service is already established."
"I don't know." The old man twisted his gnarled fingers. "Let's ask Steel-"
"Just a moment, sir!" Forester broke in. "I object very strongly to letting the mechanicals know anything about Project Thunderbolt, because I think we may need it against them."
"Possibly." The president shook his head uncertainly. "But I don't know what to do."
A secret message, brought in by an excited male secretary, ended his agony of indecision. The satellite observation stations above the atmosphere were reporting a swarm of huge unidentified spacecraft, already within territorial space and still approaching at enormous velocities from Sector Xanthic. The president read the dispatch in a shaken voice, and then gasped apprehensively.
"Steel said we couldn't risk any delay." The message fluttered out of his helpless fingers. "That must be the Triplanet fleet, already invading our space."
"I think not, sir," Forester protested quietly. "With those detonators, our human enemies have no more use for heavy spacecraft than we have. And I believe the direction of Wing IV lies in Sector Xanthic." His voice shuddered. "I believe, sir, that those ships are bringing the humanoid invasion!"
"Invasion?" The old man rubbed at his rheumy eyes, in blank bewilderment. "Then I'll have to send for Steel-"
"Wait!" Forester broke in desperately. "Excuse me, sir, but we can still destroy those ships with Project Thunderbolt. I would suggest that you offer an ultimatum. This thing Steel is apparently in direct communication with all the other humanoid units. Why not tell him to stop those ships, until we can study these machines and their service?"
"But I'm afraid-"
"So am I," Forester whispered urgently. "That's why I want to keep the project safe. Our missiles can smash those ships. If that isn't enough, I can modify them to reach Wing IV. To wipe out that relay station, and stop every mechanical unit it controls. So don't betray the project, sir!"
"I don't know." The president chewed his parchment lips, trembling with the torture of doubt. His vague eyes went longingly to the room where the unmasked mechanical was waiting, but at last he gasped impulsively, "All right, Forester, we'll keep your weapon - though I know we won't need it. Go ahead with the necessary modifications to mount three missiles against Wing IV, and keep your staff alert to launch them if anything goes wrong." His large Adam's apple jerked nervously. "But I trust Steel!"
They went back to the outer room.
"-approaching spacecraft are our own," that small black machine was murmuring musically. "They are sufficiently protected against any unwise attack your primitive warcraft might make against them, but they carry no offensive weapons. They have come from Wing IV to bring our service, if you choose to let them land."
The Defense Authority voted a few minutes later, with the chief of staff indignantly abstaining, to suspend the antimechanicals statutes in this national emergency, and to open the spaceports to the craft from Wing IV. Forester hurried away from that damp underground room, tired and alarmed and vaguely ill, to look for a dose of bicarbonate.