The Rod of Light (Soul of the Robot)

While he watched, Jasperodus wondered if his father had developed the laser rod technique…. He doubted it; the level of expertise Gargan had been able to demonstrate was probably beyond human capability. Jasper Hobartus had not used long-term storage at all, as far as he knew. The transfer of consciousness had taken place with a hiatus of only seconds or minutes.

After a while, energisation began. The globes over the cabinet glowed. It was then that Jasperodus, hoping the others were sufficiently preoccupied, slipped away. Outside, he spoke to one of the guards.

‘Where is the store room?’

‘In that shed, sir.’ The servitor pointed. Jasperodus crossed the distance unchallenged. In the shed, he found a construct who if he was any judge had served his time on the pile, and from him he learned the way to the store room.

The place was crammed with relics of past activity: enigmatic machines, partly disassembled constructs, bins of powdered metal. And there, lying on a bench, was the hulk of Igor.

Gasha had cut him open with a fine cutting torch, removing a large section of his body shell which lay beside him like a piece of a barrel. Also lying beside him was the transmitter which Jasperodus had earlier seen him hand over to a servitor. As he had hoped, it had ben returned to the storeroom.

According to what Igor had told him, the Borgor satellite made a pass every two hours and forty-three minutes. The contact window was half an hour wide, or thereabouts. Though he had no way of keeping accurate time, he reckoned the window would be open now.

He picked up the transmitter, and found the ring Gargan had commented on. Neither he nor Gasha had guessed its true purpose, which was to rotate constantly with the same period as the orbiting satellite. A red arc on the casing signified the contact window for the region they were in. When the ring’s pointer traversed the arc the device was transmitting—once activated by Igor’s internal signal.

There was also a stop rod which Gasha had used to halt the ring. Jasperodus withdrew it, then turned the pointer to just inside the red arc, watching for a few moments to see that it was turning.

He had just replaced it on the bench where he found it when a sound behind him made him look round.

It was Gasha. His crenellated head rotated smoothly as he surveyed the scene, his eyes subdued.

‘This is as I suspected,’ he said quietly. ‘You are a traitor, working for our destruction. Our master’s vast intellect has not served him here. He has let himself be deceived by your personable qualities, Jasperodus.’

Jasperodus told himself he had better destroy Gasha quickly. But before he could move the other uttered a cry.

‘The device is transmitting! I detect it!’

He raised one of his flimsy arms, and from a protruberance on the upper surface of his hand a brilliant pencil-ray shot forth. In the very same instant Jasperodus lunged, knocking up Gasha’s arm so that the ray flitted to the roof of the shed, where it burned metal furiously.

His other arm he used to strike Gasha on the head, crumpling the castle-like crown and denting the brain-case. Gasha was neither big nor strong. His legs buckled; he toppled. But as he fell, he contrived to use his hand-weapon again, and this time he hit the transmitter squarely.

For the second time Jasperodus struck, with all his force, smashing the super-intelligent brain. Gasha twitched, then was still.

On the bench, the transmitter was ruined. The beam had burned out half its insides.

Could the signal have been received, in the few seconds it was being transmitted? Was that long enough to fix the location?

Also, he had no way of knowing whether Gasha had sent out an alarm call unheard by him. He picked up Gasha’s broken form and stuffed it behind a couple of bins, then walked out of the shed pondering his next move. Perhaps he could steal an aircraft and head back to Borgor to alert the authorities before the cult decamped … but then, the servitors would shoot him down before he’d covered a mile.

Meantime his feet were taking him towards the project shed. He found he could not resist knowing if … The guards at the door hesitated at his approach, then recognised him and let him through. He walked past the silent extraction department and into the smaller section. The glass globes were dull, shining with only remnants of light. The super-intelligent constructs were gathered before the black cabinet.

Then, moved from within, the door of the cabinet began to open.

And Jasperodus realized that the Gargan Work was completed.

13

As he watched the slowly-opening door, Jasperodus experienced a memory flashback to his first moments of consciousness. It was in a very similar cabinet that, in darkness, he had come to knowledge of himself. And he, too, had reached out, pushed open the door, and stepped forth into the world.