Norton, Andre - Anthology Read Online Free PDF Page A

feeling of exhilaration that nearly drove the age-old loneliness
and emptiness from the corroded metal of what might be called his brain. The
sun was the source of his energy, even as it had been the source of the fleshy
life before him; and with the sun's reappearance he felt new strength coursing
through the wires and coils and gears of his complex body.
    He and his companions were highly
developed robots, the last ever to be made by the Earthmen. X-120 consisted of
a globe of metal, eight feet in diameter, mounted upon four many-jointed legs.
At the top of this globe was a protuberance like a kaiser's helmet which
caught and stored his power from the rays of the sun.
    From the "face" of the
globe two ghostly quartz eyes bulged. The globe was divided by a heavy band of
metal at its middle, and from this band, at each side, extended a long arm
ending in a powerful claw. This claw was like the pincers of a lobster and had
been built to shear through metal. Four long cables, which served as auxiliary
arms, were drawn up like springs against the body.
    X-120 stepped from the shadows of
the broken hall into the ruined street. The sun's rays striking against his
tarnished sides sent new strength coursing through his body. He had forgotten
how many springs he had seen. Many generations of twisted oaks that grew among
the ruins had sprung up and fallen since X-120 and his companions had been
made. Countless hundreds of springs had flitted across the dying earth since
the laughter and dreams and follies of men had ceased to disturb those
crumbling walls.
    "The sunlight is warm,"
called X-120. "Come out, G-3a and L-1716. I feel young again."
    His companions lumbered into the
sunlight. G-3a had lost one leg, and moved slowly and with difficulty. The
steel of his body was nearly covered with red rust, and the copper and aluminum
alloys that completed his makeup were pitted with deep stains of greenish
black. L-1716 was not so badly tarnished, but he had lost one arm; and the four
auxiliary cables were broken and dangled from his sides like trailing wires. Of
the three X-120 was the best preserved. He still had the use of all his limbs,
and here and there on his body shone the gleam of untarnished metal. His
masters had made him well.
    The crippled G-3a looked about him
and whined like an old, old man. "It will surely rain," he shivered.
"I cannot stand another rain.
    "Nonsense," said L-1716,
his broken arms, scraping along the ground as he moved, "there is not a
cloud in the sky. Already I feel better."
    G-3a looked about him in fear.
"And are we all?" he questioned. "Last winter
there were twelve."
    X-120 had been thinking of the
other nine, all that had been left of the countless horde that men had once fashioned. "The nine were to winter in the jade
tower," he explained. "We will go there. Perhaps they do not think it
is time to venture out."
    "I cannot leave my work,"
grated G-3a. "There is so little time left. I have almost reached the
goal." His whirring voice was raised to a pitch of triumph. "Soon I
shall make living robots, even as men made us."
    "The old story," sighed L-1716. "How long have we been working to make
robots who will take our places? And what have we made? Usually
nothing but lifeless blobs of steel. Sometimes we have fashioned mad
things that had to be destroyed. But never in all the years have we made a
single robot that resembled ourselves."
     
    X-120 stood in the broken street,
and the sunlight made a shimmering over his rust-dappled sides.
    "That is where we have
failed," he mused as he looked at his clawlike arms. "We have tried
to make robots like ourselves. Men did not make us for life; they fashioned us
for death." He waved his huge lobster claw in the air. "What was this
made for? Was it made for the shaping of other robots? Was it made to fashion
anything? Blades like that were made for slaughter—nothing else."
    "Even so," whined the
crippled robot, "I have nearly succeeded. With help I can