Table Of Content* * * *
The Anarchistic
Colossus
A. E. van Vogt
Scanned & Proofed By MadMaxAU
* * * *
introduction
In this novel I took it for granted that the basic nature of, particularly, the
human male, as it has been observed from ancient times, is not about to
alter for the better. And so, my question was not: how much perfection may
we anticipate from human beings in the future? It was: what kind of
technology would be required to maintain a system of anarchism among all
those misbehaving human beings around us? No government. No police.
Nobody minding the store. The entire operation would, of course, have to
be automatic.
Surely - you say - science fiction, which all too often tends to create
its own facts to bolster the reality of a story premise, has finally gone too
far. Meaning, even to pose such a question is ridiculous. Human beings are
incorrigible in their endless dangerous madness.
I agree. That’s exactly what I said. Now, how can we have an
anarchistic society in spite of that madness?
Well!
As I write this, I have before me a copy of a patent issued several
years ago to a major west coast aircraft corporation. In it the Kirlian
photography technology is combined with a relay system, whereby the
following occurs: The camera focuses. The person photographed - an
actor - pretends anger. His realistic evocation of the emotion alters the
Kirlian pattern. Which triggers a relay. Across the building, in another room,
a second relay shuts off (or turns on) a large machine.
Two thoughts here as an aside. First: all too often when science
fiction writers of 1977 predict the future, they come up with something that
was invented in 1967. We have a little bit of that here. The second aside:
recently, I read that a group of American scientists have belatedly proved
that the Kirlian Effect cannot be achieved without the aid of moisture - and
therefore it is not what was claimed. I can only look at my copy of the
foregoing-described patent - and shake my head over their disproof.
The patent establishes that a machine can be controlled by a
photographed human emotion. I believe that, for story purposes, I am
entitled to deduce that if one emotion - anger - can be used for one
purpose, then a spectrum of other emotions could, by way of
microprocessors - tiny computers - perform a large number of co-ordinated
actions.
We may therefore visualize a unit, complete with its own tiny
computer and its Kirlian sensors, plus a laser penalty system (which last
also constitutes the unit’s own defence system). Visualize this additionally
multiplied by one or more billion duplicates of each other, all self-sustaining
but interconnected, and, of course, scattered all over the planet. At which
point you have the condition on earth when my story opens.
… The alien invaders looked over this ideal society. And deduced
that anarchistic man could not defend his planet.
A. E. van Vogt
* * * *
one
It is not easy for some one or some thing in a distant (multi-light-years
away) part of the universe to watch a single episode of human existence on
earth. But the problems of such a spy operation are within the frame of
physics. And so that somebody -who possessed that high a level of
scientific achievement, and was sufficiently motivated to spend the time
and the energy - had his awareness focused just above human head level.
Meaning just over six feet above the ground.
What was visible seemed scarcely worth the effort. A tree-lined
residential street of a large city. Night. The only mobile life form in sight was
a man strolling along on the sidewalk. He was coming towards the point of
focus. So it would almost seem as if he were the object of the remote
being’s interest.
The man coming along the street could have been an earth scientist,
or some other professional type. He seemed about forty earth years old,
and had a middle-class appearance - that is, he was dressed in a suit, and
was clean-shaven. He looked intelligent.
Nothing more was visible.
But additional developments were not long in coming.
As the night stroller came full under the street light, there was an
unexpected movement in the hedge beside the sidewalk. It was a tiny
rustling sound of leaves and boughs scraping against each other.
The next instant a young man burst forth from the darkness of the
hedge. Without a word, he launched himself at the older man. The victim
had half-turned at the sound. But he was obviously not prepared for
violence. Obviously, because the first rush of the assailant caught him and
nearly knocked him over. And then he was being struck with fists that did
not hold back, and shoved even harder.
He fell. And that was the purpose. Down on top of him, with knees into
the victim’s groin, plunged the assailant. The attacker’s hand reached inside
his own jacket. A syringe flashed, as the hand came into the open. The
young man - for that was what he was - thrust it downwards. He was clearly
and without pause intending to inject something into the body of the man
whom he had struck down so forcefully.
He was not successful.
There was an interruption.
At that precise instant of time, the two - the attacker and the attacked -
had a synchronized reaction to… something.
Whatever the perception was, it caused the attacker to hesitate.
The victim, though he was down and on his back - and though he
gave the appearance of being helpless - now, belatedly, showed that he
was at least partially capable of defending himself.
A tiny beam of light reached up from his right lapel and touched the
syringe.
The brightness of it sparkled and coruscated, almost like a hair-thin
stream of water splashing. As this stream of light splashed, it broke up into
the colours of the rainbow.
The youth uttered a moan. The syringe fell from his suddenly
nerveless fingers. For a moment he crouched there, knelt there, blanked
out by pain.
For that moment, he looked like an overgrown teenager, blond and
blue-eyed, with the only disparate factor being his size. He had the build of
a football player. He was an inch taller than his intended victim. He looked
as if he weighed 190 pounds.
As he cringed, held by uncontrollable physical agony, he had the
helpless appearance of someone who could be picked off by a
sharpshooter, and in fact he was a perfect target for the sedation method of
the Kirlian computer system that protected the city. And, of course, his
victim could have reacted with more of that numbing light.
For whatever reason, apparently none of these things happened
during the split-instants that he could not move.
Moments after that, the youth showed his power. He straightened. He
said aloud, ‘Hank!’
A voice spoke out of his coat collar. ‘Yeah?’
‘It’s a robot. This is a trap.’
‘You’re loaded for anything, boy,’ said the same bodiless voice, ‘so
don’t leave yet. How do you know it’s a robot?’
‘When I kneed him, his abdomen felt - you know - not human.’
‘Okay! Talk to him! What’s the trap for?’
No one had moved… much. The erstwhile victim continued to lie on
his back, and continued to have the appearance of a middle-aged,
middle-class professional man. And the attacker remained in a kneeling
position on top of him.
He seemed a little grimmer, as he said, ‘Okay, talk!’
‘The trap,’ replied the robot, calmly, ‘is designed to identify you and to
find out why you haven’t triggered the Kirlian scanners of this city.’
‘What are you authorized to do to get that information?’ asked the
blond youth.
‘To hold you. I have already notified a Tech volunteer.’
‘The message to the volunteer didn’t get through,’ said the powerful
young man, ‘so my question is still, how much force are you authorized to
use?’
‘Only what I need to defend myself, hold you, and call a volunteer.’
‘Since you can do none of those things, I’ll just get up and we’ll
separate.’
‘I’m supposed to hold you,’ said the robot, ‘so we can’t separate.’
The youth stood up. ‘That’s no problem,’ he said. ‘We understand
those kinds of forces. Where’s your human look-a-like, Frank Corman?’
‘Home - watching and listening.’
The human being laughed curtly. ‘He may be home, but he’s getting
no picture and no sound. Goodbye!’
He stepped towards the hedge. There was the same crackling and
rustling of leaves and branches. The next instant he was through, and gone
into the darkness beyond.
With his reference point - the youth - retreating, the alien watcher had
progressive difficulty maintaining his viewpoint on the street. The scene
flickered and grew darker. But he was able to observe that the robot rolled
over, picked up the syringe, climbed to his feet, and said, ‘Mr Corman.’
‘What happened?’ came a voice that seemed to be an exact
duplicate of the robot’s. It spoke from the region of the robot’s stomach.
‘We lost contact.’
‘I have the syringe,’ was the reply.
‘Oh, good. Now, we’ll be able to find out what he intended to do to
me. Get over here, quick!’
The scene and the voice were faint and far away. The alien abruptly
gave up on it - and rejoined the fleeing blond youth.
Contact was swift. The young human being (for those who
understood complex life structures - and the alien did) was the mobile relay
unit on earth for his communication system. All the neural wiring and the
organic control switching centres in the spine and braincase constituted
existent equipment of a quality that could not be duplicated by machinery.
The attacker was visibly a young man in a hurry. He raced across one
darkened yard and on to a bright street, then over another yard and past a
large house, and so to a second street.
There, a car with a man at the wheel waited at a kerb. As the youth
came up, breathless, the driver leaned over and opened the door. For a
few moments as he poised there in that bent-over position, his face was
brightened by a street light. It showed him to be a man in his middle thirties.
The face, thus revealed, was not an intellectual type. But it had a certain
openness and the kind of maturity that comes from an intensive education
in the university of experience and from many, many decisions.
His face (and head and shoulders) withdrew into the unlighted
shadows, as his young companion scrambled into the car and shut the
door. The vehicle was in motion even before he could settle down. It glided
forward and away from the kerb making only a faint tyre sound and soft
hissing noise.
For the alien, the movement of the car was another opportunity to
evaluate human technology in everyday life, although it was not easy to
immediately determine the motive power of the car at this colossal
distance. He deduced it was a turbine engine. The smooth, silent, flowing
power had that feel to it. Was hydrogen gas the heating element? It was
difficult to be sure. He would have to wait for a chance word, or other clue.
The information was important because after the game player had
played his game to its grim conclusion, he was expected to make a report
that would show thorough knowledge of the doomed race.
Inside the moving vehicle an urgent dialogue began swiftly. The youth
said, ‘How do you figure what happened? A trap?’
The man - Hank - was cool. ‘The Techs know something is wrong.
You’ve beaten up top-rated Techs, in spite of the Kirlians.’
‘But Corman knew I was after him long enough in advance to
substitute a humanoid for his evening walk. How sharp can you get? He
must know who I am.’
‘That doesn’t follow - think about it.’
‘Think how?’
‘He’s one of a handful of top Techs - the kind you’ve gone after. And
so he sent a humanoid to walk his usual exercise route. He expected,
perhaps, that somebody would jump the robot. But he wouldn’t necessarily
know who that somebody was.’
The reasoning seemed to make instant sense. The young man -Chip
- lost his scowl. He nodded. ‘But,’ he argued, ‘it still could be that the group
- if it’s more than one - that is suspicious enough to do such a thing, may
also have these attacks I’ve been making connected with the return of the
fleet to the solar system.’
‘Look, Hal put you up to this. And he wasn’t even along. Besides, let’s
not worry about one, or even a dozen suspicious Tech As like Corman. If
we have to, we’ll take care of him, and them, later.’
‘Maybe,’ said Chip, darkly, ‘we should drive to his house, and catch
him there. In the rush I left my syringe.’
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said.
The alien listener noted that the words about the space fleet were
spoken casually. And he was relieved again, as he already had been many
times by other conversations of the past few days.
There seemed to be no doubt. Not even these dissidents suspected
the truth. The fleet had returned with a report of having defeated the aliens.
So we did the right thing, thought the alien, in programming every
single human being aboard to believe that there had been a victory, and
then sending the fleet home.
It was not always possible to know how to deal with a different
intelligent species. Further study would be needed before the grim game of
planet extermination began in earnest.
* * * *
