The Rod of Light (Soul of the Robot)

It had been known for a long time that nature used this subtle fluorescence for more than merely smelling. Insects and even plants used it for long-range signalling. Some human beings were said to be sensitive to it and to be able to detect underground sources of water by means of it. More interestingly, it carried secret messages of an emotional nature. What the scientists of the robot city had discovered was that in fact the air immediately above the surface of the earth was, to a height of about fifty feet, a seething swamp of infra-red fluorescence, a volatile mist of molecules given off by animals, insects, plants and soil. These chemicals could carry great distances, could irradiate even further. The air was an emotional ocean conveying the concerns and appeals of myriad small creatures.

The infra-red brain had been built to take advantage of this phenomenon. He spent his time detecting and analysing countless minute signals, tapping the instinctive pulses of life over a considerable area. The inventor of the brain claimed he was superior to radar—emitting no detectable signal himself, able to interpret events not by the movement of large metallic masses but by the shock waves produced in the biosphere’s psychic ambience. No army could move stealthily enough to evade him; the plants and the tiny creatures of soil and air would know of its passing, and through the disturbance it caused in their lives he would know it too.

Robots of the defence committee (of which Jasperodus was also a member) stood in attentive postures around the brain, which began to speak in a low dolorous voice.

‘No, no, I cannot estimate the speed of advance yet. The moths smell metal, if I am any judge. Then, too, the ferns tell of a devastation: they are being wrecked, there is wholesale snapping and burning. I deduce the army is encamped.

‘Also, there has been some fighting recently. Blood is being fed on; there is feasting among insectivores.’

‘We should send a plane over there to take a look,’ a committee robot muttered.

‘No,’ Jasperodus counselled. ‘Then they would know we are alerted to them.’

‘Yes, I suppose that’s so,’ admitted the other, a military robot with humping shoulders and a beam gun mounted on the flat of his head. ‘Glad you could join us, Jasperodus. The approaching force is a large one, and plainly Borgor. There is little doubt we are its destination, and that it is bent on annihilating us.’

‘That would accord with Borgor’s long-term intention …. The question is whether that intention can be thwarted indefinitely. There is still the option of evacuating—of withdrawing further south where Borgor will not be able to reach us for a while.’

‘What? Retreat before our enemy? No, Jasperodus!’ expostulated an older, battered robot of human manufacture. ‘In that direction lies nothing but eventual defeat. We must fight for our existence. We have been promised extinction—our only hope is to be as strong as the humans are.’

Jasperodus nodded. The old robot had been with him during the insurrection in Tansiann. From that experience the myth of final robot-human war had been born in him, and he still carried it.

‘If that is still the consensus of opinion I will fall in with it,’ Jasperodus said mildly.

‘We have been reviewing the dispositions,’ said the military robot—one of the new Bellum class that the designers had tentatively produced. He pointed to a map etched in the metal of the wall. ‘Unfortunately the enemy is not coming by the route we once thought likely but is approaching from further to the east. This means that the ambush we prepared in the decline between these hills is useless, and we have sent teams to recover the equipment. There is now very little by way of concealment between us and the enemy. Nevertheless we must not wait for him to come to us. We must strike before he reaches our city. Therefore we propose to send the main part of our forces up here, moving by night, to strike at the enemy’s left flank just here. At the same time we shall hit him with all available air power.’

Jasperodus nodded. ‘And the city?’

‘To make our blow effective, the city will be left with only light defences. But we think that matters less than stopping the Borgors before they come over the horizon.’

Jasperodus could not help but agree. He believed the morale of the robot township would collapse very quickly once a besieging force arrived at its outskirts. Sufficiency of military equipment would not make up for the lack of personal resolution that so often befell robots when up against human beings face to face.