Alice: The Girl From Earth - Булычев Кир. Страница 32

Making out way through such a wasteland was somehow sad. We all wanted to shout out loud: “Is anybody here?”

The doors to the space port terminal building were wide open. Inside it was as empty and quiet as without. We left the All Terrain Vehicle and stopped at the doors, not knowing where to head for now.

There was a hissing from the enormous, grey loudspeaker that hung from the ceiling and an already familiar scratchy voice said:

“Go up the stairway to the small black door. Push on it and it will open.”

We obeyed and found a narrow stairway. The stairway was narrow and just as dusty as everything else. It ended in a small black door. I pushed on the door and it did not move. Perhaps it had been locked?

“Hit it harder!” The voice came from behind the door.

“Let me do it.” The engineer Zeleny said.

He put his shoulder to the door, pushed hard enough for him to groan, and the door burst open. Zeleny vanished into the room.

“Just as I thought.” He said gloomily after he had flown into the room and collided with one of the planet’s metallic inhabitants who was sitting at a desk.

The robot was covered with dust like everything else.

“Thank you for coming.” The robot said, raising his hand to help Zeleny get to his feet. I didn’t think anyone would ever come. I’d given up hope. And we don’t have any ships of our own out…”

“It’s your transmitting station.” I said. “It’s too weak. We picked up our message only because we were flying right by. It was pure random chance.”

“Once our station was the most powerful in the sector.” The robot said.

Then something grinding sounded from his iron jaw and he froze with his mouth open. The robot waved his hands back and forth and silently called for help. I looked at Zeleny in confusion, and he said:

“It’s not doctor that’s needed here.”

He went over to the robot and struck him below the chin with his fist. The mouth opened with a clang and the robot said:

“Than….”

Zeleny had to deal with the robot with his fist again. He shook his bruised hand and said,

“Please don’t open your mouth so wide. I’d rather not have to stand with my fist over you all the time.”

The robot nodded and continued to talk, with its mouth only slightly open.

“I sent the SOS signal.” He said. “Because for the past two weeks no one has come to relieve me. I suspect the entire population of the planet is afflicted with paralysis.”

“But why do you think that?”

“Because my own legs refuse to work.”

“Has this sickness afflicted you long?” I asked.

“No, not very.” The robot said. “In general, over the last few years, we’ve had jams even with lubricant, but in general we’ve managed to avoid them. But not long after one human had become angry with us and swore a terrible curse against us, a terrifying, mysterious paralysis began to ruin us, both the weak and the great. And I fear that I am the last more or less healthy robot on the entire planet. But the paralysis is already approaching my heart. And, as you see, even the jaw is affected.”

“All right, let me take a look. Maybe despite all your precautions you’ve forgotten to replace your oil properly.” Zeleny said with suspicion.

He went over to the robot and opened the round plate on the robot’s chest, put his hand inside, and the robot started to giggle.

“Ticklish!”

“Wait a moment.” The engineer insisted. He checked the joints in the robot’s legs and arms, straightened him out and said as he wiped his hands on a handkerchief:

“He’s been lubricated all right. I don’t understand it at all.”

“Nor do we.” The robot agreed.

We went on into the city. We stopped at one of the apartment buildings enormously long structures with long rows of single plank beds. The individual robots lay on their plants, covered with dust. Indicator lights burned on their foreheads; this meant the robots were alive. The robots could move their eyes, but nothing else. Finally, understanding nothing at all of what was going on, we returned to the space port terminal and put the robot dispatcher into the ATV. He was still at least able to talk. So we brought him to the Pegasus to analyze him there and try to determine the cause of the strange epidemic that had overwhelmed the planet.

The robot himself was able to help us with his own disassembly; he gave advice, which screw to turn, which button to press. The robot was neglected and dirty, but we were unable to find any particular damage to him. Although, in general, the service robots of this type had long ago been taken out of production in the Galaxy, they were designed to work for centuries and were capable of working in deep space, in volcanoes, underwater, or underground. They just had to be oiled from time to time, but they were perfectly capable of doing that themselves.

Finally, we laid out the parts of the robot on a large work table in the laboratory; we set his head up in one corner and tied it to the ship’s power net.

“Anything at all?” The head of the robot asked when Zeleny finished the mechanical dissection of his body.

Zeleny could only shrug his shoulders.

“Is there nothing that can be done?” The head asked quietly. “Our entire civilization will die.”

“We’ll have to send a message to Earth or to some other major planet.” I said. “They can send an expedition with specialists on robot sicknesses.”

“But how can we be sick?” The robot asked so firmly its jaw remained open. I had to go over and hit it under the chin.

“Thank you.” The robot said. “But should we remain like this our condition will be perilous. Think of yourself in our position. Not a single moving being on the entire planet. The very first rainstorm of flood will damage us irretrievably; we wouldn’t even be able to dry ourselves off.

“But listen,” I said, “There is no way we could stay with out until other help arrives!”

“Then your work must be extremely important, I take it?” The robot head asked.

Before I had a chance to answer Zeleny said:

“One last possibility. The first one. I’m going to try to change the oil. May I?”

“If it’s good quality oil, of course.” The robot head answered.

Zeleny began to clean all the moving parts of the robot and replace its lubricant with our own.

At the same time the robot asked again:

“And just what is it that you are doing?”

“We’re gathering animals for the Moscow Zoo.” I said. “Rare animals. We should even now be finishing the expedition and returning home. It is extremely difficult to carry a whole zoo with you.”

“If you can help us,” The robot said, “We would be delighted to give you our animals. There are none like them anywhere else in the universe.”

“What sort of animals?”

And then the robot told us:

Once, many years ago, an automated space ship crashed onto this planet; on board were a number of universal robots. They survived and built themselves huts from pieces of the ship. Then they found deposits of iron and other metals, they found uranium and many other useful resources, And then the robots began to build themselves children, and gradually, over the years, the robots, became very numerous.

But as intelligent as the robots were they were unable to look into the future. At that time there was water and air on the planet, grass and trees. The robots, however, had no interest whatsoever in the planet’s environment and ecosystems. They made use of their complete freedom and soon built many factories, and all the factories constructed robots, and the new robots built new factories and the new factories prepared new robots. And this continued until the day came when all the oxygen on the planet was consumed in the furnaces, all the trees were turned into warehouses for spare parts, all the native animals had died out, all the mountains were leveled to their foundations and all the seas were expended in coolant for engines. Finally the useful fossil fuels were used up. All that remained on the planet were robots, many billions of ordinary robots who suddenly had nothing at all to do.