Memoirs of a Space Traveler

The reader familiar with my travel diaries may recall that I myself was involved in that computer affair and helped resolve it. When I returned to Earth, however, I learned that the Jonathan incident was unfortunately not an isolated one. Revolts of shipboard machines became the plague of space navigation. It reached the point where a gesture insufficiently polite, the slamming of a door, was enough to cause a shipboard refrigerator to rebel — which was exactly what happened with the notorious “Deepfreeze” on the transgalactic Intrepid. The name of Deepfreeze was repeated with horror for many years by the captains of the Milky Way lanes. This pirate was said to raid numerous ships, frighten passengers with its steel arms and icy breath, make off with sides of bacon, amass valuables and gold, and reportedly keep a whole harem of calculators, but it is not known how much truth there was to these and similar rumors. Its bloody career was ended finally by the well-aimed shot of an officer in the cosmic patrol. In reward, the officer, Constablomatic XG-17, was placed in the window of the New York branch of the Stellar Lloyd Agency, where he stands to this day.

While outer space was being filled with the din of battle and desperate SOS’s from ships beset by electronic corsairs, in the big cities various masters of Electro-Jitsu or Judomatic made good money teaching self-defense courses, in which they showed how with a simple pair of pliers or a can opener one could disable the fiercest washing machine.

As we know, cranks and eccentrics are not confined to any one time. In our day, too, there is no lack of them. From their ranks come individuals who proclaim theses contrary to common sense and prevailing opinion. One Cathodius Mattrass, a self-educated philosopher and born fanatic, founded the school of the so-called cyber-nophiles, which proclaimed the doctrine of cyber-nethics. According to this, the human race was intended by the Creator to serve as a kind of scaffolding, to be a means, a tool — for the creation of electrobrains more nearly perfect than itself. Mattrass’s sect believed that the continued vegetation of the human race was a misunderstanding. The sect founded an order that devoted itself to the contemplation of electrical thought and did what it could to give refuge to robots in trouble. Cathodius himself, dissatisfied with the results of his endeavors, decided to take a radical step toward robots’ liberation from human bondage. After consulting a number of eminent attorneys, he procured a rocket and flew to the nearby Crab Nebula. In empty regions frequented only by cosmic dust, he carried out unknown projects. Then the incredible affair of his heirs-successors came to light.

On the morning of August 29 all the papers carried this mysterious item: “Message from PASTA COSPOL VI/221: object measuring 520 mi x 80 mi x 37 mi discovered in Crab Nebula. Object executing movements similar to breast stroke. Further investigation in progress.”

The afternoon editions explained that the cosmic police patrol ship VI/221 had detected, at a distance of six light-weeks, a “man in the nebula.” Closer examination revealed that the “man” was a giant many hundreds of miles long and possessing a torso, head, arms, and legs, and that it was moving through a rarefied dust medium. Upon sighting the police ship, the giant first waved, then turned away.

Radio contact was soon established with the thing. It stated that it was the former Cathodius Mattrass, that after arriving two years ago at this place, it — he — had remade himself into robots, using, in part, the raw materials of the vicinity, and that in the future he would slowly but continually increase in size, because this suited him, and he asked to be left alone.

The commander of the patrol, pretending to take this statement at face value, concealed his ship behind a passing swarm of meteors. After a while he observed that the gigantic pseudo-human was gradually beginning to divide into much smaller pieces, each no larger than an average person, and that these parts or individuals were uniting to form something like a small round planet.

Coming out of hiding then, the commander asked the alleged Mattrass, by radio, what this spherical metamorphosis meant, and, also, what exactly was he — robot or human.

Mattrass replied that he assumed whatever shape he pleased, that he was not a robot, having arisen from a human, nor human, having rebuilt himself in robot form. He refused to give further explanations.