Stephen Marlowe

“ I saw New York once. I stood on the Jersey cliffs at sunset and gazed across the broad river at the Citadel with its winking lights and beacons. It is not a place of fear, but a place that men built, long ago. I will go."
Again Amos Westler sighed. "I wish you win this fight, Johnny Hope. I never wished for anything as much in my life. I was a college professor before the war and I learned this: the search for knowledge is a strange thing and knows no fear. But I am no young man, and this may be my last opportunity."
"Ready?" Keleher's voice roared across the clearing. ”

“ Diane darted from the stream with a glad little cry, shaking the water from her long, tawny hair, the droplets of water sparkling on her bronzed skin like diamonds, the long, lithe lines of her body clothed only in the moisture until she found her buckskin shorts and halter and dressed. Life was comparatively simple and uncomplicated among the Shining Ones, and she, of all their encampment, remembered no other way. ”

“ If it weren't for the tawny-haired girl who had saved his life, Johnny Hope never would have returned to the encampment of the Shining Ones. He left DeReggio with the intention of again heading north toward New York, but his way led him close by the encampment and he remembered the sudden touch of the girl's hand and before that the vision of her face, lovely and comforting, while he burned with the fever. Calling himself a fool, he entered the encampment warily, half-expecting a dozen men to leap at him with the word traitor on their lips. ”

“ It was hardly wide enough for Johnny's Robot, it shook dangerously with the tread of metal feet. Here, Johnny knew, was the sanctuary. This was the Achilles Heel. This was the entrance, this ramp which no Robot could traverse. Here the way led to self-functioning, self-repairing machinery, to Central Intelligence. Here was man's final hope in the eyes of the original inventor. Here was the guarantee that the Robots, if they became some Frankenstein monster, could be met and conquered.
For no Robot could guard the final portal to Central Intelligence. ”

“ The long line of Robots, extending as far as they could see to the left and several hundred yards to the right, stopped its steady advance. The great metal heads, each bigger than a man, swiveled on the sockets which joined them with the tiny bodies. The unblinking eyes which now faced them—another set for each Robot surveyed the rear, Johnny knew—were lined up row on row.
"We want to join you," Johnny called out. "We want employment in the Citadel." Did a human ask a Robot for employment? Johnny hardly knew, for nothing had been further from his mind until recently. ”

“ Diane's indifference would irk him; Keleher's indifference was at times preferable. "We ought to be friends," Starbuck boomed. "I'm generally recognized as your second in command."
"Only because I want it that way. Amos Westler, for example has forgotten more than you will ever learn."
"That's clever," declared Starbuck. "That's expert. You play us off one against another and keep the power for yourself."
Keleher shrugged massive shoulders. "It wasn't original with me. But you're unusually perceptive today, Starbuck. And I'll say this: you've got more spunk than Westler, for all his brains." ”

“ Their heavily greased bodies prevented Keleher from applying a stranglehold. Johnny squirmed out from under, straddled the bigger man's back and felt himself borne aloft, still clinging there, as Keleher climbed to his feet and charged about the clearing. Johnny held grimly, his forearm circling the thick throat, choking off Keleher's breath. But the shaggy head twisted, broke free. The legs drummed backwards and Johnny whirled in time to fathom Keleher's plan.
He was going to crush Johnny against the bole of an oak tree, cracking his ribs and ending the battle at once. ”

“ We work for the Robots and obey them, is that clear? Some day the only humans left on Earth will be Shining Ones, or so the Robots tell us. Then we will climb up into the light of day and take our rightful place, side by side with them. Meanwhile, we do as we are told."
"Are you satisfied, Harry?" Diane wanted to know. "The Robots make promises—and destroy our brothers."
"Our brothers?" Starbuck laughed. "You mean the people of the villages? Those, our brothers?"
"The Plague makes brother hate brother, but you're a fool, Starbuck. The Robots want that, this playing of human against human." ”

“ This Central Intelligence is a vast cybernetics machine occupying an entire building—ironically, it is the United Nations building where once were housed the dreams of mankind. Now, understand this, Johnny. Every Robot in North and South America has its own particular wavelength, although the master intelligence is in tune with all of them. Each individual Robot sentience is dependent for its existence upon the great cybernetics machines in Central Intelligence. In other words, if you were to destroy them, at one blow you would 'kill' every Robot in the hemisphere! ”

“ But DeReggio and Johnny's father had been close friends all their lives and had fought together in the last days of World War III before the Plague brought warfare—and civilization to an abrupt halt.
Johnny forced himself upright on trembling legs. "I thank you for my life," he said, "but not for how you treat your dead companion-in-arms."
The color drained from DeReggio's olive-skinned face. "Think what you will, Johnny. Think it but go while you still can. And remember that our first concern is with the living. ”

“ In other words, a man could climb inside a Robot today, right now, and no one would know the difference."
"You're forgetting one thing," Johnny pointed out. "Are you going to walk up to a Robot and tell him, 'Pardon me, old fellow, I'd like to borrow you and use you for a disguise for a while'?"
"I'm not forgetting anything. We work in the repair bays, remember? We have access to partially dismantled Robots. We could find ourselves two dismantled old ones, somehow manage to get inside, make our way to Central Intelligence...." ”

“ No Robot could even draw close enough to alter the thin ramp. Johnny smiled grimly as comprehension grew. If Robots could become neurotic, this was the place for it. They could have employed their human servants, the Shining Ones, to alter the place, but would have divulged their secret in the process. ”

“ DeReggio, the mayor, brandished his club—which was an old rifle stock with half the jagged, corroded barrel forming a handle. "Go," he said. He took a long stride toward Johnny, then changed his mind when the youth held his ground. "They cannot be buried, Johnny Hope. You know your parents must be burned as the law dictates."
Blinking sweat from his eyes, Johnny felt the sun scorching down through the glaring midsummer heat-haze. ”

“ Men might learn to use it again. It was as if, in dying, Amos Westler had transferred his own vision to Johnny, showing him a dream of the unborn tomorrow—its birth or stillborn death depending entirely upon Johnny's success or failure today.
Half a dozen Robots stood about the wide terrace leading to the building, but Johnny ignored them, for he had passed many in the broken streets of the city and grown accustomed to them. He entered the building through a door of glass and metal and was not aware of the Robots entering it behind him. ”

“ Diane guessed her best chance for escape would lie along the very edge of the file of Robots. She did not relish the idea, but she had seen the look on Burwood's face when the creatures of metal had appeared and figured he would be loathe to follow her in that direction.
Did the Robots see her? She ran in their direction, her clothing catching and tearing on the undergrowth. She neared the head of the file, could hear Burwood stumbling along behind her. The metal figures stood there, unmoving—watching her? Each one twelve feet tall, they could have stamped her to death. ”

“ If he knows something, take him alive."
"Someday we must learn the secret of Central Intelligence, if we are to survive. We must learn how to duplicate it or face the possibility of perishing in a single accident."
"Men built it once. Men could do it again."
"Defective! Silence. Man can do nothing we cannot do."
Then they were quiet, watching the tiny, darting pip on the three-dimensional map as it struggled through the uncleared rubble southwest of the U.N. building.
Even in ruin, the city held more wonders for Johnny Hope than he had ever thought possible. ”

“ Johnny heard sobbing from within.
A few moments later Starbuck and another man came and led him to a different tent where he remained under guard until the encampment had been broken, the tents and equipment packed and ready to move, the people assembled in the square clearing which now was dotted with folded tents and bedding rolls.
"Let's move it!" Starbuck roared in his booming voice. The men stooped for their burdens, the few horses carried three and four times their normal loads. Starbuck waved the group forward dramatically, aware of his moment and making the most of it. ”

“ The Shining Ones take all the loot they want."
"Some of us. I have been a Shining One all my life but have never taken part in such a raid. We do not grow crops because we are not an agricultural people. We are nomadic and hunters."
"Why?"
"The Robots," the girl told him. "Some of our people join them voluntarily, many others are forced into bondage. If we don't keep on the move, they'll find us. Agriculture is an impossible art when your encampment is always on the move."
It gave Johnny food for thought, and something of the girl's own frankness made him do his thinking aloud. ”

“ At a whim of Central Intelligence he might become nothing but a second-class Robot. On the surface, Intelligence would discover a flaw in his synapses. Actually, Intelligence would produce the flaw and pass his mantle of leadership down the line to some other Robot. ”

“ In many ways, it was like a scar on the face of the earth, pitted with bomb craters, strewn with the debris of toppled towers, its streets choked with fallen, crumbling masonry and blocked by the skeletons of buildings which once had stood, bare and rusted now but not always so, as monuments to the greatness of man. Yet it was a scar which could be healed, a broken, dying city which could be made great again, with men and women roving its streets, repairing the structures, making the living city function once more. ”

“ They put it this way: we are hated by the rest of mankind, we are apparently not hated by the Robots. Why not cooperate with them, then? Actually, a free band of Shining Ones as large as Keleher's is the exception, not the rule. Every day, more and more Shining Ones go to the Citadel in New York or elsewhere to work for the Robots. Not a pretty picture, is it?"
"What can we do about it?"
"At present, I don't have the slightest notion. We've got to do something, though. Someone's got to do something, unless nature's ready to write off mankind as a bad experiment. Perhaps I am a pedant, Johnny. ”

“ Johnny had recently recovered from the Plague and did not feel fully himself. Still, he had to find Diane, and if there was no other way....
Keleher was grinning. "Perhaps you do not know what that entails. I'll admit, it's primitive. Upon your challenge we fight. Not with weapons, Johnny Hope. With our bare hands. Call it a peculiarity of mine, but I prefer brute strength. It is as if civilization, in closing its book for mankind, has put men like me in its stead. The ballot, the tribunal, the town meeting—all these are sophistications leading ultimately back along the road to civilization. ”

“ Keleher is a fool."
"And life among the Shining Ones has always been an expendable item. Diane's life, your life, even Keleher's."
"What happens if I win?"
Westler sighed wistfully. "You won't. This won't be the first fight for Keleher, nor the last. Actually, I hope you do win."
"Why? And you haven't answered my question."
"Because I've always wanted to leave the encampment. But I'm not a man for the outdoors, Johnny. I wouldn't survive a week. With your companionship, I might. Should you win the fight, and should you decide to seek Diane, I would like to join you." ”

“ They're sending some more men up to get you. All I have to do is hold the fort until ... cut it out, Hope! Stay right there." Starbuck edged out of the doorway, dragging Diane along with him to the railing at one side of the ramp. "I'll do it if you make me."
"Don't listen to him, Johnny! I'm not afraid." Hair disheveled, clothing torn, face bruised, she still looked beautiful to him. All at once she stood for everything Westler had mentioned; for the future of man, for the dreams of tomorrow, for a free world with no Plague and no Robots. ”

“ CHAPTER VI
"We have openings in the repair bays or for servants among the inner circle of Shining Ones who work hand in hand with our masters," the old woman told Starbuck and Diane after they had been taken from the rocket ship in New York and shunted underground where the subways had been converted into living quarters for humans without being given a chance to see the city. "Which will it be?"
"We're not cut out to be menials," Starbuck said coldly, "but the repair bays don't appeal to me, either. You say servants to the leaders themselves?" ”

“ In time you'll learn we're not the monsters you were led to believe all your life. But mark me—you owe your allegiance to us henceforth—provided you decide to stay." Johnny did not have to be introduced. Starbuck had mentioned a man named Keleher as their leader, and the newcomer spoke not with the bluster and arrogance of a leader unsure of his position, but with the calm self-assurance of a respected and powerful chieftain. Keleher would make a first-rate friend but a terrible enemy.
"He'll stay," Diane spoke for Johnny. "He doesn't look like a hermit, does he?" ”

“ He was surprised at his own objective lack of fear; he wanted only to start out after Diane.
"You probably wonder why they grease you," Amos Westler declared. Westler was a small, slim man with close-cropped graying hair and eyes that would twinkle, Johnny thought, even in darkness. He had come to Johnny's corner as a sort of unexpected second, to ready him for battle. "It's a concession on the part of Keleher, Johnny Hope. He has declared openly your strength is no match for his. The slicking will make speed and dexterity count for more." ”

“ Adjustment will come."
"All my life they said the Shining Ones were monsters. When I was a little boy I had to be good because my mother said otherwise the Shining Ones would come and get me, carrying me off to kill me with the Plague."
"You've had the Plague yourself. You've got to remember that. Besides," the girl laughed easily, "you're a big boy now to believe in bogey men."
"Well," Johnny continued stubbornly, "there are other things. The Shining Ones are scavengers. They don't work themselves or grow their own crops. Instead they invade the peaceful villages. ”