Planet Of No Return

He shook his head. “There’s no ‘we’ this time. One person will go out there, the other will have to stay here with the radio to make a report, I think it best if you stay with the radio. I’ll take the holocamera and work fast, just in and out. I’ll set it to automatic and it will shoot a hundred frame roll in less than fifteen seconds.”

“Don’t think that I’m going to argue with you. I know that you can do the reconnaissance faster and better than I ever could. Should you wait — or go now?”

Brion looked up at the sky and nodded. “Now I think. The local tribe are frightened off for the time being, so there will be no trouble from them. And I’ll need light, so I can’t wait until after dark. There are no other tanks in sight — and the aircraft are an unknown factor. I want to get out there and back as quickly as I can. It shouldn’t take long.”

He was gone on the instant, running at top speed, making directly for the wreck. It was time to make a preliminary report. Lea took the radio out and described the events of the day as clearly as she could, then switched off. She saw that Brion had fallen flat beside the tank and was lying there motionless. Then he moved and vanished out of sight behind the machine.

It was hard to wait. Although she knew that the local tribe were long gone she listened to every rustle and crack in the forest behind, waiting for footsteps. The sky and the plain remained empty. Slow seconds crept by.

And there he was — running back! She had never seen a more beautiful sight in her entire life than that great hurtling shape. Pounding through the thick grass and on into the security of the trees, coming through them back to her side. He was breathing heavily, his skin dripping with sweat.

“Didn’t suspect this …” he said, leaning against the tree next to her.

“Suspect what? Who was driving that tank?”

“No one. That is the awful part. It’s empty

empty of human beings at least. The tank was completely robot controlled. Operated by robot’s guidance, trained to seek out and kill people. That’s who is fighting this war, fighting on one side at least.”

“A mechanized army of killer robots.”

14: Machines That Murder

A small red light that had been blinking on the rear of the holocamera changed to green, indicating that the development cycle was complete. Brion took out the roll of film and slipped it into the holder of the projector. When he switched it on a jagged wall of metal instantly appeared in the opening between the trees. It floated there, against all reason, a holographic projection indistinguishable from the real thing.

“This is a shot of the outside of the tank,” Brion said, pressing the actuator button. “And here is what I saw when I first looked in.”

The projected image vanished and another took its place; the interior of the ruined tank. Flying shrapnel had cut up the apparatus, but the units were still identifiable. Brion pointed to the jumble of cables and circuit boxes.

“This is the view facing forward. You’ll notice that there are no seats or controls for human operators. Just these inputs and microprocessors. The whole interior is so cramped that it must have been designed solely for robot control. See that metal tube? That’s the ammunition feed for the re-coilless canon. It goes right across the interior, right through the space where a human gunner or driver would sit. But there is more than enough space to site the control units for robot operation.”

“I don’t understand. How can this be possible?” Lea said. “I thought that robots were incapable of injuring people? There are the robotic laws …”

“Perhaps on Earth, but they were never applied out at the fringes of the old Earth Empire. You are forgetting that robots are machines, nothing more. They are not human so we shouldn’t be anthropomorphic about them. They do whatever they are programmed to do — and do it without emotional reactions of any kind. They have been used in combat ever since technological warfare began. To aim bombs, warn of approaching aircraft, guide missiles, fire guns, a hundred different tasks. And what they do they do faster and better than a human being. Add to this the fact that they are far more rugged in every way, and you will understand why the military like them. You’ll find that the history of the wars during the Breakdown is filled with references to battles that were almost fully automated. They were tremendously wasteful — but at least they were not deadly to human beings. Only when one side was defeated, or ran out of material, did the human populations suffer. But once the mechanized defences were breached the defeated side usually surrendered quite quickly.”

“Then the war robots didn’t mind killing people …”

“They couldn’t mind because they are incapable of emotions. They simply obey instructions. That robot tank had been programmed to look for people — then destroy them. We saw how good it was at its task.”