Captain Future 24 - Pardon My Iron Nerves (November 1950) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Using a poison-proof suit, I began work on the Machs. It was a simple matter to short their routine work-circuits and install my cybernetic apparatus on each. I gave them not only volition but ability to speak by means of recorded syllable-sounds with an automatic selector — also the ability to hear.
    “I installed the brains. I watched the Machs as their visual and aural senses poured sensations into their new electronic cortices. I saw them rapidly develop volition, the sense of self-preservation, the ability to compare.”
    “You mean that it was you who got these Machs off the beam?” I cried, the sense of what he was saying now penetrating.
    Gordon nodded, looking haggard. “Yes. But my success was too great. Before I knew it they developed so much individuality and intelligence that they refused longer to work in the ore-beds! They just roam around and let the Tenders take care of them.”
    “So that’s why no ore was mined!” I exclaimed. “But why didn’t you go back? Why did you stay here?”
    His voice rose hysterically. “They wouldn’t let me! They called me their Liberator for giving them intelligence but they wouldn’t let me return — and to make sure I didn’t, they took my flier away and hid it.”
    He added suddenly, “Just as they’re taking away your craft now! Apparently they don’t want anyone leaving here!”
    I sprang to the window. It was true. Two Diggers had picked up my space-sled between them. They were bearing it away.
    With a howl, I jumped toward the door. But Gordon’s protest stopped me.
    “You’ll only get yourself destroyed! You can’t oppose those huge machines!”
    It was true. And it gave me a sharp dismay.
    I turned angrily on the cyberneticist. “Why in thunder didn’t you let me know all this when I first arrived here? You must have seen me landing and walking around!”
     
    GORDON nodded. “I did. But naturally I thought you were another Mach.”
    “Just because I have an inferiority complex everybody thinks they can insult me!” I howled. “But that’s going too far!”
    Gordon shrank from me again. “It’s not that you look like a Mach now — but I saw you from so far away!” he quavered. “A natural mistake.”
    “I see nothing natural about it,” I growled.
    There was a moment of silence. My already burdened mind was reduced to despair by this dilemma.
    I had come to Dis for relief from the oppressive psychoses that too much cerebral activity had given me. And now I found myself marooned here with a rash cyberneticist and some scores of loud-mouthed intelligent Machs, any one of which could break even Grag in half.
    From outside, from the wafting Machs, came a thundering bellow. “Haven’t you finished with that guy, Liberator?”
    “How is it that they use such tough language?” I asked Gordon, disgustedly.
    “That’s not my fault,” he answered defensively. “I let the technician who designed the syllable-selector record the vocabulary himself. Though a fine technician he’s rather illiterate in many ways. That’s the way he talked himself, so they all talk that way.”
    From outside came an even more impatient roar, that shook the whole shelter. “Finish with that new guy and send him out or we’ll come for him.”
     

     
    Chapter 4: Crazy Moon
     
    GORDON turned white. “You’d better go out. If you don’t they’ll break in here.”
    “What am I going to do when I go out?” I demanded.
    “You can pretend that I’ve ‘liberated’ you,” he said. “You can pretend that I’ve given you intelligence.”
    “What do you mean, pretend?” I cried indignantly. “I’m more intelligent than anyone here, certainly more than a cyberneticist who was crazy enough to start all this!”
    A thunderous knocking on the wall of the shelter began which shook the whole structure on its foundations.
    “It’s one of the Crushers,” moaned Gordon. “Please go out to them. If you do, maybe you can get them out of the way so I can