The Rod of Light (Soul of the Robot)

The other lifted his hands dismissively, and Yoshibo turned to Jasperodus, speaking with a kind of sly seriousness. ‘You can be of assistance to me. I have been trying to educate this robot. Brass is Borgor-made, and like the others he was brought into the mine before his activation. Quite reasonably, you might suppose, he believes the world into which he was born to be the only that exists, but I have been trying to enlighten him. Back up my words, Jasperodus. Tell him of the world that exists above ground—the world where the humans live, where there are no tunnels, only an endless surface on which one can walk as far as one likes without impediment, where there is no roof, only endless space overhead. Tell him that no one carries a headlamp: the world is already filled with light and the vision extends automatically for as far as the eye can reach. These Borgor robots seem unable to believe in the sun—darkness and dirt is all they can conceive of. So try to tell him, Jasperodus.’

Jasperodus looked at Brass. His riveted, battered body spoke of decades of work. Even his face was dented, the eyes peering blearily from between wads of dried muck. Three fingers of his left hand were missing as a result of some accident.

‘What Yoshibo tells you is true,’ he said neutrally. ‘It is a world of light. Beside it, this is a dark, poky hole.’

Brass shook his head glumly. ‘Stories, stories. Can I be shown this world? No, never. It is only made of words. By contrast life is made up of experience.’ He picked up a piece of rock, clenched it in his fist, then threw it in a corner. ‘And experience is what we see around us.’

‘Then you think we are lying, when we tell you we came from this world?’

‘Lying, you have had a brainstorm, it is a tale passed from robot to robot—what does it matter? It is too fantastical to take seriously. Show this upper world to me—then I will believe.’

‘The truth is,’ Yoshibo said quietly, ‘that Brass is unable to visualise what we are describing.’

‘What of the humans?’ Jasperodus pressed him. ‘Where do they go to, when they leave the mine by way of the adit?’

‘Naturally they do not wish to spend their pleasure hours with us robots. They go to a better part of the mine, probably where there is not so much dust in the air.’ He waved his hand, causing the ever-sifting particles to waver. ‘The humans do not like dust. It damages their lungs.’

Just then the foreman returned, and with a roar of rage sent the robots rushing back to their labours.

Jasperodus found little time for discussion after that. Indeed, he found himself becoming engrossed in the drive to find coal. The time came when a cheer went up among men and robots alike as, instead of grey rock and the occasional heavy lumps of ironstone, black coal began to show itself, though disappointingly the seam was only four feet thick. Jasperodus then watched in fascination as the ‘face’—the cutting surface—was set up. The tunnel was broadened into a gallery, its roof supported by ‘walking supports’, steel pillars that juddered forward inches at a time as the face progressed. The cutting machine, mounted on a track that similarly could edge forward, traversed from one end of the coal face to the other, churning through the solid black hydrocarbon and tumbling it onto a conveyor. Oddly, it was not robotised itself but was operated by small, monkey-like robots that could skip about the confined space. At various times Jasperodus was to see three of them caught up in the cutting machine and chewed to junk.

With the rip finished, Jasperodus was put to work on other tasks and came to know a great deal about the archaic business of coal mining. He was allocated to ‘supplies’, manhandling needed equipment through the tunnels to the ‘gates’, as all working parts of the mine were called, hauling it on flatbeds but sometimes having to manoeuvre arced girders and sections of rail through narrow gaps where the tunnels had been squashed nearly flat by earth pressure. With drill, pick and shovel he dug those tunnels out again. He laid new tracks and conveyor belts. He worked as ‘switchman’, watching over the places where one belt fell onto another and making sure that the crossover did not get clogged up with overflow—a very boring occupation. He serviced the pumps that sucked out the constantly-collecting water everyone was obliged to wade through in places.

He solved the mystery of the oil lamps the foremen carried. They were to warn the air-breathing humans when they were in a place where the oxygen content was dangerously low. Another danger came from methane and from coal dust: mixed with air, they made explosive mixtures. That was why there were no fixed lights in the mine, with the attendant risk of sparking should they be damaged. The electric headlamps were sealed and isotope-powered, while the oil lamps were a special kind of safety lamp whose flame could not pass beyond its mesh guard.