not Y or Z. Alphal Beta! Ha, there’s a slip; a bad one-got to go back and start all over…. Nobody can integrate above
ninety-six brackets . . . no body and no thing or mind in this whole, entire, cock-eyed universe! . . .
Seaton cast aside any thought of the horror of their position. He denied any feeling of suspense. He refused to
consider the fact that both he and his beloved Dorothy might at any instant be hurled into nothingness. Closing his
mind deliberately to everything else, he fought that weirdly inimical entity with everything he had: with all his
single-mindedness of purpose; with all his power of concentration; with all the massed and directed strength of his
keen, highly-trained brain.
The hour passed.
“You win,” the gun-barrel said. “More particularly, I should say that the DuQuesne of you won. To my surprise and
delight that one developed his nascent quality very markedly during this short hour. Keep on going as you have
been going, my potential kinsman; keep on studying under those eastern masters as you have been studying; and it
is within the realm of possibility that, even in your short lifetime, you may become capable of withstanding the
stresses concomitant with the induction into our ranks.”
The pistol vanished. So did the planet behind them. The enveloping, pervading field of mental force disappeared.
All five knew surely, without any trace of doubt, that the entity, whatever it had been, had gone.
“Did all that really happen, Dick?” Dorothy asked, tremulously, “or have I been having the great-great-grandfather of
all nightmares?”
“It hap . . . that is, I guess it happened . . . or maybe . . . Mart, if you could code that and shove it into a mechanical
brain, what answer do you think would come out?”
“I don’t know. I-simply-do-not-know.” Crane’s mind, the mind of a highly-trained engineer, rebelled. No part of this
whole fantastic episode could be explained by anything he knew. None of it could possibly have happened.
Nevertheless. . . .
“Either it happened or we were hypnotized. If so, who was the hypnotist, and where? Above all, why? It must have
happened, Dick.”
“I’ll buy that, wild as it sounds. Now, DuQuesne, how about you?”
“It happened. I don’t know how or why it did, but I believe that it did. I’ve quit denying the impossibility of anything.
If I had believed that your steam-bath flew out of the window by itself, that day, none of us would be out here now.”
“If it happened, you were apparently the prime operator in saving our bacon. Who in blazes are those eastern
masters you’ve been studying under, and what did you study?”
“I don’t know.” He lit a cigarette, took two deep inhalations. “I wish I did. I’ve studied several esoteric philosophies .
. . perhaps I can find out which one it was. I’ll certainly try . . . for that, gentlemen, would be my idea of heaven.” He
left the room.
It took some time for the four to recover from the shock of that encounter. In fact, they bad not yet fully recovered
from it when Crane found a close cluster of stars, each emitting a peculiar greenish light which, in the spectro-
scope, blazed with copper lines. When they had approached so close that the suns were widely spaced in the
heavens Crane asked Seaton to take his place at the board while he and Margaret tried to locate a planet.
They went down to the observatory, but found that they were still too far away and began taking notes. Crane’s mind
was not upon his work, however, but was filled with thoughts of the girl at his side. The intervals between com-
ments became longer and longer, until the two were standing in silence.
The Skylark lurched a little, as she had done hundreds of times before. As usual, Crane put out a steadying arm.
This time, however, in that highly charged atmosphere, the gesture took on a new significance. Both blushed hotly;
and, as their eyes met, each saw what they had both wanted most to see.
Slowly, almost as though without volition, Crane put his other arm around her. A wave of deeper crimson flooded
her face; but her lips lifted to his and her arms went up around his neck.
“Margaret-Peggy-I had intended to wait-but why should we wait? You know how much I love you, my dearest!”
“I think I do … I know I do … my Martini”
Presently they made their way back to the engine-room, hoping that their singing joy was inaudible, their new
status invisible. They might have kept their secret for a time had not Seaton promptly asked, “What did you find,
Mart?”
The always self-possessed Crane looked panicky; Margaret’s fair face glowed a deeper and deeper pink.
“Yes, what did you find?” Dorothy demanded, with a sudden, vivid smile of understanding.
“My future wife,” Crane answered, steadily.
The two girls hugged each other and the two men gripped hands, each of the four knowing that in these two unions
there was nothing whatever of passing fancy.
ROBOT NEMESIS
The Metal Brains of the Ten Thinkers Plan a Flaming Trap for Humanity’s Great Armada-But Science Fights
Fire with Fire!
Chapter I
The Ten Thinkers
The War of the Planets is considered to have ended on 18 Sol, 3012, with that epic struggle, the Battle of Sector
Ten. In that engagement, as is of course well known, the Grand Fleet of the Inner Planets-the combined
space-power of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars-met that of the Outer Planets in what was on both sides a
desperate bid for the supremacy of interplanetary space.
But, as is also well known, there ensued not supremacy” but stalemate. Both fleets were so horribly shattered that
the survivors despaired of continuing hostilities. Instead, the few and crippled remaining vessels of each force
limped into some sort of formation and returned to their various planetary bases.
And, so far, there has not been another battle. Neither side dares attack the other; each is waiting for the develop-
ment of some super-weapon which will give it the overwhelming advantage necessary to ensure victory upon a field
of action so far from home. But as yet no such weapon has been developed; and indeed, so efficient are the various
Secret Services involved, the chance of either side perfecting such a weapon unknown to the other is extremely
slim.
Thus” although each planet is adding constantly to its already powerful navy of the void, and although four planet,
full-scale war maneuvers are of almost monthly occurrence, we have had and still have peace-such as it is.
In the foregoing matters the public is well enough informed, both as to the actual facts and to the true state of
affairs. Concerning the conflict between humanity and the robots, however, scarcely anyone has even an inkling,
either as to what actually happened or as to who it was who really did abate the Menace of the Machine; and it is to
relieve that condition that this bit of history is being written.
The greatest man of our age, the man to whom humanity owes most, is entirely unknown to fame. Indeed, not one
in a hundred million of humanity’s teeming billions has so much as heard his name. Now that he is dead, however, I
am released from my promise of silence and can tell the whole, true, unvarnished story of Ferdinand Stone, phys-
icist extraordinary and robot-hater plenipotentiary.
The story probably should begin with Narodny, the Russian, shortly after he had destroyed by means of his sonic
vibrators all save a handful of the automatons who were so perilously close to wiping out all humanity.
As has been said” a few scant hundreds of the automatons were so constructed that they were not vibrated to
destruction by Narodny’s cataclysmic symphony. As has also been said, those highly intelligent machines were able
to communicate with each other by some telepathic means of which humanity at large knew nothing. Most of these
survivors went into hiding instantly and began to confer through their secret channels with others of their ilk
throughout the world.
Thus some five hundred of the robots reached the uninhabited mountain valley in which, it had been decided, was to
be established the base from which they would work to regain their lost supremacy over mankind. Most of the
robot travelers came in stolen airships, some fitted motors and wheels to their metal bodies, not a few made the
entire journey upon their own tireless legs of steel. All, however, brought tools, material and equipment; and in a
matter of days a power-plant was in full operation.
Then, reasonably certain of their immunity to human detection, they took time to hold a general parley. Each
machine said what it had to say, then listened impassively to the others; and at the end they all agreed. Singly or en