Silence.
He tried again, coldly, unpleasantly certain that it would be in vain. "Ship's drive control—
acknowledge!
"
Again the dead silence was his answer and he knew there was no use to try any more. The units that permitted the ground-control station to control the ship had been sabotaged and he was helpless to prevent the ship's take-off. Bullets continued to rattle against the door, warning him how fatal would be any attempt to leave the station. He was helpless so long as he remained in the station; he would be both helpless and dead a split-second after he opened the door to leave the station. Yet, he had to do
something
.
He estimated the time that had gone by since he had seen the car speeding from the bomber to the ship. It would have been Cullin, of course; it would be Cullin and Vickson who took the ship into the sky, with Vickson at the pilot's seat and Cullin behind him, watching him. Vickson knew as well as Miles how to operate the manual drive controls, and there was no hope that he would make a mistake and wreck the ship in a take-off. Even Cullin, alone, could lift the ship by simple voice command to the drive control. The Center forces would be closing in on the ship as the fighter planes exhausted the ammunition they were forced to use so continually, but they would be too late.
* * *
A sound broke the silence of the observer's viewscreen, the sound of someone entering the control room. It was Cullin, wearing the black and gray uniform of a high official of the State Police, and he was alone. He took one quick look at the room, then walked straight to the observer's chair in the manner of a man who knew exactly what he was going to do.
At the sight of Knight's face in the observer's viewscreen he smiled in sudden, pleased surprise. Knight spoke the same greeting he had spoken at Punta Azul: "Going somewhere, Cullin?"
Cullin seated himself in the observer's chair, still smiling and taking his time about answering. "Why, yes," he said, "I
am
going somewhere. Vickson was telling me you were in there, but I was afraid you had been rendered permanently speechless by your faithful George." Cullin shifted his eyes to look past Knight at the robot lying on the floor across the room. "I see you had sufficient intelligence to destroy the robot before it destroyed you. It was very useful to me—via Vickson's orders to it—but it's just as well that it failed to carry out its last order; to throttle anyone who entered the station. You and I can now chat pleasantly about cabbages and kings and sealing wax and a man named Cullin who is, as you feared, going somewhere."
"Alone?" Knight asked. "Where's Vickson?"
"Outside. He was rather surprised that he couldn't go with me."
"He is a pilot as well as observer—why don't you take him along?"
"You builders of this ship thoughtfully gave it a robotic brain for the drive that makes the pilot's manual controls unnecessary. Whoever controls this ship can write his own ticket, so I'll take it up alone and there'll be no danger of a doublecross, no doubt as to who will write the ticket."
Cullin reached out and turned the red knob to the right. "No pilot is needed," he said. "You've made the ship foolproof."
"How did you manage to keep Vickson from taking the ship up before you ever got to it?"
"He was selected, Knight, years ago. For all his passing of the tests for superior mental stability, Vickson is a man who places a very high value on his own life. Of all the men who had full access to the ship, Vickson was the best suited to our purpose. There are various ways of persuading various types of men and compelling them to co-operate. With Vickson it was very easy and simple—we used the
y
drug.
"Perhaps you've heard rumors of it. Our own scientists whipped it up for us several years ago, and it's very efficient. Thirty days after the administration of the drug the subject is stricken with intense pain. This pain increases by the hour and only the antidote, made from a batch of the original drug, can stop the increasing pain and eventual death. We have occasionally let Vickson wait a few hours extra just to keep him convinced of the desirability of wholehearted co-operation with us. Had he been foolish enough to take the ship he would have died in a great deal of agony within six hours, since everything was timed very carefully, including the last administration of the
y
drug."
"And what becomes of Vickson now?"
"I wouldn't know." Cullin shrugged his shoulders with disinterest. "He's served his purpose for me—I have no further use for him."
"And no antidote for him?"
"I rather doubt that the good citizens of what is left of Center will permit him to suffer very long."
No, thought Knight, they won't, but it was Cullin who had planned it, coldly, deliberately—
"I've planned this for a long time," Cullin said, as though he had been reading Knight's mind. "All my life I've played second-fiddle to someone else. Now, the world will dance to
my
tune."
Knight looked at him sharply and Cullin laughed with genuine mirth. "No, I'm not insane. This ship is my whip; I'll use the threat of it to whip the world into billions of gentle, obedient horses."
"Obedience seems to be a mania with you."
"It produces the desired results. That's why I liked your robot; no threats were necessary, no
y
drugs. It accepted orders without question and carried them out without question."
The bullets were no longer banging against the door, Knight noticed. That would mean that the Center forces had gathered in strength and had drawn in closer; that the paratroopers had no time to spare for watching the door. Cullin liked the unquestioning obedience of a robot and he, Knight, could not keep him from giving the order to the drive control that would lift the ship. The robotic brain that was the drive control would obey instantly and without question, but if Cullin should not word his command in the proper manner—
"Once more I'm leaving you. Listen while I give the order to your own ship."
Cullin smiled once more, triumphant and exultant, and gave the order: "Ship's drive control—accelerate!"
* * *
It was the command Knight had hoped he would give. It was a command the robotic brain would obey instantly and Cullin could never countermand.
It required slightly less than three seconds for the primary activation of the ship's drive, then the thrust of acceleration came and the ship hurled itself upward. Cullin was shoved deep into the cushioned seat by it, pinned and chained by it. He tried vainly to speak, the horror of sudden realization and fear in his eyes, then the blankness of unconsciousness clouded them. Knight turned away from the viewscreen. Cullin would be conscious when he returned to it later in the day. Cullin would not die for a long, long time—the doctor in the control room was very competent.
He went to the door and stepped outside. The ship was gone, already beyond sight, and the last of the paratroopers were throwing down their guns and surrendering to the Center forces that surrounded them. The planes were gone; back to carriers somewhere in the Pacific, he presumed, there to depend upon the threat of the disintegrator rays to shield them and the carriers from retaliation.
But there would be no war. Russo-Asia had put all her eggs in one basket and one wrong word had sent that basket away forever.
Someone was lying near Lab 4; motionless on the ground, his rimless glasses knocked askew by the bullet that had killed him and looking mild and apologetic, even in death. Knight felt a sense of relief. Vickson had paid the penalty and it had been gentle compared with the penalty Cullin would pay. It was as it should be.
"Blacky."
June was coming toward him, a cartridge belt sagging from her waist and a rifle in her hands.
"We've lost, haven't we?" she asked, stopping before him. "They took the ship and we couldn't stop them."
"The ship will never come back," he said. He looked down at her, her grimy hands clutching the rifle, her clothes torn and her face scratched and dirty and tear-streaked. He saw that most of the clips were gone from the cartridge belt.
"They got Tim," she said. "They must have killed him in the first bombing. I ought to go back and try to help—there are so many people in need of help and it's what Connie would want me to do. But first"—she looked up at him, tears suddenly threatening to wash a new channel through the dirt on her face—"can't we take her—home?"
He took the rifle she still held and let his hand rest on her shoulder.
"First, we'll take Connie home."
The doctor's pre-flight training had included the order to keep the pilot informed of each man's physical condition.
How long had it been since the doctor last changed the words on the pilot's communications panel? Was his time finally within short minutes of its end? It was no longer hours, but minutes. The words read: OBSERVER HAS A LIFE EXPECTANCY OF ONE HOUR AT PRESENT ACCELERATION. DEATH FOR OBSERVER WILL RESULT UNLESS ACCELERATION IS REDUCED WITHIN THAT PERIOD.
How many days and weeks had gone by since he had first given the fatal command to the drive control? It had been Vickson who had done the thing that would so soon culminate in his death. Vickson, the mild and apologetic. Vickson had feared that he would be deemed dispensable, and this had been his means of revenge. Vickson had told him how to word the command to the drive control: "Ship's drive control—accelerate!"
Vickson had known that the robotic drive control would continue to accelerate until full acceleration was reached. Vickson had known full acceleration would be maintained until he ordered it reduced. Vickson had known that the first surge of acceleration would render him speechless and unconscious. Vickson had known that the robot doctor in the control room would do the only thing possible to save his life while under full acceleration: by-pass his heart with a mechanical heart, and put it in conjunction with a mechanical lung that frothed and aerated his blood. Vickson had known he would live a long time that way, with the doctor watching over him and administering nutrients into his bloodstream. Nutrients—and the antihysteria drug that had been designed to keep the observer's mind clear and logical so that he could meet any emergency!
How long had it been since the viewscreen shifted into the red and then turned black as the ship exceeded the speed of light?
They had watched him until the ship's speed had become too great. Knight, and others he did not know. He had tried to appeal to them to do something; pleading mutely, with all the power of his terrified mind. They had done nothing—what could they do? The robot had been ordered to destroy the units that enabled the ground-control station to control the ship, and machines did not make mistakes when carrying out orders.
Knight had spoken to him once: "You wanted obedience, Cullin—now you have it. You climbed a long way up by forcing human beings to behave like machines. But you were wrong in one respect; no human can ever be forced to behave exactly like a machine, and no machine can ever be constructed that will behave exactly like a human. Machines are the servants of humans, not their equals. There will always be a gulf between Flesh and Steel. Read those five words on the panel before you and you will understand."
How many minutes did he have left? The doctor knew he wanted to live, and it knew it had only to reduce the acceleration to save his life. It was intelligent and it knew what he wanted, but it was obedient and it was waiting to be ordered to reduce the acceleration.
It was watching him, waiting for him to give the order, and it knew he could not speak without lungs!
Once he had wanted obedience, without question, without initiative of thought. Now, he had it. Now he understood what Knight had meant. The full, bitter lesson was in the five words on the panel before him, and he was trying to laugh without lungs when he died, his eyes fixed on it and his lips drawn back in a grim travesty of a smile.
* * *
It was a good ship, built to travel almost forever, and it hurled itself on through the galaxy at full acceleration; on and on until the galaxy was a great pinwheel of white fire behind it and there was nothing before it.
On and on, faster and faster, into the black void of Nothing; without reason or purpose while a dark-eyed robot stared at a skeleton that was grinning mirthlessly at a five-word sentence:
A MACHINE DOES NOT
CARE
.
Editor's note: And here we come to the end, the backdrop of reality that Godwin never forgot. There are times I think "The Cold Equations" may be the greatest science fiction story ever written. But it's not a story I read very often. And I'm glad that I started, at the age of thirteen, with The Survivors.
He was not alone.
There was nothing to indicate the fact but the white hand of the tiny gauge on the board before him. The control room was empty but for himself; there was no sound other than the murmur of the drives—but the white hand had moved. It had been on zero when the little ship was launched from the
Stardust
; now, an hour later, it had crept up. There was something in the supplies closet across the room, it was saying, some kind of a body that radiated heat.
It could be but one kind of a body—a living, human body.
He leaned back in the pilot's chair and drew a deep, slow breath, considering what he would have to do. He was an EDS pilot, inured to the sight of death, long since accustomed to it and to viewing the dying of another man with an objective lack of emotion, and he had no choice in what he must do. There could be no alternative—but it required a few moments of conditioning for even an EDS pilot to prepare himself to walk across the room and coldly, deliberately, take the life of a man he had yet to meet.
He would, of course, do it. It was the law, stated very bluntly and definitely in grim Paragraph L, Section 8, of Interstellar Regulations:
Any stowaway discovered in an EDS shall be jettisoned immediately following discovery
.