Second Ending (16 page)

Ross saluted.

Immediately he felt his face burning with shame and anger. He had been thinking and acting in the most childish way imaginable: playing-acting, dressing up in theatrical uniforms and treating the robots as if they were his toys. And the toys had cooperated to the extent that they had made him salute them! Were the damn things trying to get a rise out of him or something…?

"Do it again," snarled Ross. "And this time close up, there's about half a mile between you!"

"Not quite as much as that," Sister objected. "But at the velocities involved it is safer to —"

"I have seen human jet pilots," said Ross scathingly, "who flew wingtip to wingtip…"

Effortlessly the formation climbed, though not quite wingtip to wingtip, rolled into their loop and leveled out, and suddenly there were only three of them and a formless tangle of wreckage which fell across the sky to crash three miles inland.

"Wh-what happened?" said Ross foolishly.

Sister was silent for nearly a minute, and Ross thought he knew what was going on in her complex, mechanical mind. Then she told him simply that two robots of the higher intelligence levels had been irreparably damaged, that their metal was salvageable but the personalities concerned had been permanently deactivated. She also suggested that he go below at once, as the robots had possessed nuclear power plants and there was a danger of radioactive contamination.

"I'm sorry," said Ross, "truly I am."

On the way down to his room he had time to think about a lot of things, but chiefly of the complete hopelessness of his position and his pathological refusal to accept the reality which had faced him on his first awakening. He was the last man and he should have accepted that fact and allowed himself to die of starvation when he had the chance. Instead he had instituted a search for survivors which was doomed from the start; then he had tried to re-create intelligent life and produced only grass. The race of Man was finished, written off, and he was simply a last loose end dangling across Time.

Maybe he wallowed a little in self-pity, but not much or for very long. He did some positive thinking as well.

Over the years the robots had developed intelligence and initiative to an extent which would have been frightening if Ross had not known that they were his servants and protectors. Their basic drives, he now knew, were the need to serve Man, the urge to acquire data and experience in order to serve Man more efficiently and the purely selfish urge to improve their own mental and physical equipment. If, however, they could be made to serve themselves rather than Man, what then? The answer was a race of intelligent beings who would be immensely long-lived and virtually indestructible, in short a super-race who would take over where Man had left off.

There was nothing that the robots couldn't do, if they would only stop thinking like slaves.

When they reached his room Ross sat on the edge of the bed and began repeating his thoughts to Sister, and the conclusions he had come to regarding them. He used very simple words, as though he was talking to the old, childish Sister of his first awakening, because he wanted to make absolutely sure that the robot — that all the robots — understood him. As he spoke a feeling of ineffable sadness overcame him, and, strangely, a fierce pride. This was a moment of tragedy and greatness, of Ending and Rebirth, and Ross was suddenly afraid that he was going to ham it up.

Awkwardly, he concluded, "… And so you can regard me as a friend, if you like, or a partner." He smiled bleakly. "A sleeping partner. But that is all. From now on I have no right to command you. I have set you free."

For several seconds the robot did not say anything, and Ross never did know whether his noble act of self-sacrifice was refused, ignored as the ravings of a sick mind, or what. Then Sister spoke.

"We have prepared a little present for you, sir," she said, "but, bearing in mind your remarks some time ago on the subject of kindness as opposed to assistance, I have been undecided as to whether or not I should give it to you. I hope you like it, sir."

It was a large picture, life-size and in color, of the head and shoulders of Alice. Obviously an enlargement of the photograph he had kept in his wallet. The flesh tints were off slightly, her glorious dark tan had a faintly greenish sheen, but otherwise the picture looked so natural and alive that he wanted to cry or curse.

"It's perfect," he said. Thank you."

"You always call for her during your last moments of consciousness prior to Deep Sleep," Sister went on, "and even though the wish is expressed while your mind is incapable of working logically, we must do everything possible to try to fulfill it. At the moment, this, was the best we could do."

Ross stood the picture against the bust of Beethoven and looked at it for a long time. Finally, he turned to Sister and said, "I want to go to sleep."

They both knew that he wasn't talking about bed.

While he slept his world of grass absorbed carbon and C02 from the soil and air, synthesizing oxygen. Over the centuries the oxygen content of the atmosphere increased, doubled. "It was inevitable that a long dry spell would occur, broken by a sudden thunderstorm. A flash of lightning stabbed earthward, igniting the grass, which now grew in spines twenty feet high. Within minutes there raged a conflagration covering several acres, which hurled towering fountains of sparks into the sky and spread with the speed of the wind. For in that oxygen-rich air even the damp material caught and the sparks never went out. A tidal wave of fire swept across the continental land masses, slowed but never stopped by rainstorms, adverse winds or mountain ranges. A few islands in mid-Pacific escaped, but all the others caught the airborne contagion and became their own funeral pyre.

Ross awoke to a scene which made him think that Time had gone full circle: sooty ground, smoke and a baleful, red-ringed sun. Before he could say anything Sister explained what had happened, then went on to assure him that the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere had restored the oxygen content to normal and that the combustion products currently fouling the air would, as they had done once before, disappear with time. Her reason for awakening him was to report on the progress of the sea grass.

Violent tides pulled up by the approaching moon, she began, had forced the grass to seek the more sheltered environment of the ocean bed. Here extreme pressure, darkness and a gradually rising temperature had brought about a significant mutation. In order to keep alive in those conditions the plants had to absorb large quantities of necessary minerals from the sea bed, and at the same time, because they had to retain their defensive mobility, their roots had to be shallow. The result was that they had to keep on the move.

Recently these mobile plants had begun to band together. There were now several hundred colonies of them crawling like vast, moving carpets across the ocean floor, grazing for minerals and the non-mobile strains of their own species.

"Leave them for a couple of million years," said Ross, sighing, "and see what happens." He turned to go below again. He agreed that it was a most significant mutation, the most promising yet, but his capacity for hope had gone.

Sister moved quickly in front of him. She said, "I would prefer you to remain awake, sir."

The wording and accompanying action made it seem more an order than a request. Ross felt anger stir within him, then die again. He said, "Why?"

"For psychological reasons, sir," the robot replied, respectfully enough. "You should remain awake for one month at least, so that you can appreciate and understand what has happened during the preceding period of suspended animation. Major changes are occurring and you are giving yourself no time to adjust to them. You must interest yourself in things again. We… we fear for your sanity, sir."

Ross was silent. In the present circumstances, he thought, sanity was a distinct disadvantage.

"We could hold another review, sir," Sister went on. "There are not as many robots available as there were last time, but then the visibility is not so good, either. We were thinking that we might stage a mock battle for you. The casualties would have to be pretended, of course, because we may not willfully damage or destroy ourselves unless in the defense of a human being, but we have absorbed many books on the subject of war and are confident that we could put on a show which would amuse you, sir." Ross shook his head.

"There are ways in which you could assist us…" began Sister, and then for the first time in countless thousands of years she began to tick! "How?" said Ross, interested at last. Outside a sudden rain squall left the ground steaming and the sky reasonably clear. Above the sea a vast, fuzzy crescent shone through the smoke haze. The sun was a formless white glare on the western horizon, so this must be the moon. Ross felt a tiny surge of hope at the sight, but it was the sad, negative sort of hope, the hope of escape.

He had missed Sister's opening remarks, and brought his mind back to present time to hear her saying, "… your instructions give us very little to occupy our time, and even a robot can become bored when forced simply to observe minute changes which require thousands of years to become manifest. For this reason we have, with the enormous store of data at our disposal, sought methods of reevaluating and extending our knowledge of the sciences. With the physical sciences we have made considerable progress…"

She began to tick again in the way which used to be indicative of a major dilemma. This was something about which she must feel very strongly.

"… But in the social and related sciences we have encountered problems on which we need human guidance," she finished with a rush. "Such as?" said Ross.

"An example," said Sister. "Is it allowable to force human beings into an advanced state of civilization rapidly, by means of periodic wars, supposing that there are very good, but not vital, reasons for wanting their advance to be rapid?"

You have been getting in deep water, Ross thought, surprised and more than a little awed. Aloud, he said, "Speaking from experience, I'd say that it is not allowable under any circumstances. Your hypothetical human beings should advance slowly and naturally, so that physical knowledge should not outstrip the psychological, if they are to survive to enjoy their advances…" He stopped, a growing suspicion beginning to form in his mind; then he added, "I know this is a hypothetical problem, but are the robots by any chance planning on fighting a war among themselves to increase their —"