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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 60907 ***
+
+                               ASSASSIN
+
+                         By BASCOM JONES, JR.
+
+                        _Everyone is allowed to
+                     commit an error. The trouble
+                         was that I couldn't._
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+              Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1961.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+I deliberately dug my heels into the concrete floor of the corridor of
+the Pentagon. The steel plates on the heels of my black uniform boots
+heralded my approach with sharp anvil sounds as I marched confidently
+toward the unmarked door five hundred feet ahead.
+
+What was that expression used by Earth people of the 20th century? I
+shifted back through my training, shuffled through the facts about
+Earth's past history with which I had been indoctrinated, searching for
+the word. _Assassin!_ That was it. But the term fell short. It lacked
+in magnitude. There was a difference in the murder of one person and
+the assassination of the occupants of an entire planet!
+
+One foot in front of the other, I paced off the distance toward the end
+of the hallway, carefully duplicating the strut which was a trademark
+of the Earth Council's Security Police. I'd practiced the peculiar,
+jolting method of walking a thousand times, but I began to feel the
+effects of Earth's heavier gravity before I had covered half the
+distance. It had been impossible to simulate the difference in gravity
+in my training.
+
+The two guards standing outside the door alertly watched my approach.
+When I was still four paces away, one of them ordered me to stop.
+They ignored as though they were not there the gold stars prominently
+displayed on the shoulders of my tunic.
+
+The guard on the left said, "Your ID card, sir."
+
+The guards were well trained. They would not hesitate to shoot if I
+made the slightest slip.
+
+I handed the card to him and watched as he held it up to a visi-scanner
+in the wall. The scanner glowed into life and purred softly, rapidly
+checking the invisible identification codings on the card against the
+ID component of Earth's Master Machine. Then it dulled and was silent.
+The strident alarm siren over the scanner remained inactive. The ID
+card was returned to me and the guards snapped smartly to attention as
+I went on into the room beyond the door.
+
+I had passed the first test.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The reception room was small. Thick carpeting deadened the clump of my
+heels as I marched toward the chromed desk guarding a second unmarked
+door. A flawlessly proportioned redhead sat behind the desk. Her eyes
+and face showed no expression when I stopped in front of her. Her
+tight-fitting uniform was black and bore the gold trim of the Security
+Police.
+
+Constricting my throat, I let the words snap out crisply, as I had been
+trained.
+
+"General Spicer," I said, "commanding general of the Security Police,
+reporting to the Secretary of Defense. As requested."
+
+I waited.
+
+Her eyes, still showing no outward expression, ran over me rapidly.
+Then she thumbed a button on the desk and a screen, recessed into the
+chromed surface, glowed into life.
+
+Almost immediately, a full-face reproduction of the features of General
+Spicer appeared on the screen in color. She checked the image against
+my face, her eyes flickering to the tiny scar under my left eye and to
+the old blaster burn across my right ear. When the image changed to a
+profile view, I turned my head to give her the same angle.
+
+She nodded, pressing the button on her desk which darkened the screen.
+
+She said, "You're early. Your appointment with Secretary Bartlett is--"
+
+"For 1300 hours," I filled in automatically, when she hesitated in one
+last routine test. "I was in the building on another matter, however,
+and came here after I had finished my other business."
+
+"Yes, of course," she said. "Please take a seat. Senator Chambers is
+ahead of you, but his business will not take long."
+
+I fought back the sudden impulse to pivot and stare in the direction
+her eyes were indicating. _Senator Carl Chambers._ My briefing on
+him had been lengthy. For 60 Earth years, he had headed the un-Earth
+Activities Committee. As General Spicer, I was supposed to have a
+nodding acquaintance with him, but no more than that. During the
+years, our rivalry had become legend. His unanticipated presence in
+the waiting room could prove disastrous. Chambers would not be fooled
+easily.
+
+Turning slowly, I nodded stiffly and curtly in Chambers' direction and
+then selected a chair across the room from him.
+
+The senator's head merged directly into the shoulders of his grossly
+rotund body. Small, round eyes stared unblinkingly at me from the red
+pudginess of his face. They hesitated on the black swagger stick which
+I held loosely in my right hand, moved on, and then returned to it. The
+invisible scars, made by the electro-surgical knives in re-designing my
+body, began to tense slowly. I shifted the swagger stick in my hand.
+
+Then the redheaded secretary stood up. She said, "Secretary Bartlett
+will see you now. Senator."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a fraction of a time, I thought Senator Chambers had not heard her.
+His expressionless eyes were still on me. Then, with a grunt, he lifted
+himself to his feet and disappeared through the door behind her. A tiny
+clicking noise indicated that it locked automatically.
+
+I shifted my gaze and saw that the secretary was looking at me
+intently. It was impossible to guess at what might be going on behind
+those eyes. The tension began to build inside me again, but I kept my
+own eyes as expressionless as hers.
+
+The girl picked up a folded piece of paper out of a receptacle on her
+desk and brought it over to me.
+
+She said, "While you're waiting, General, you might like to read the
+latest facsimile. Or have you already seen it?"
+
+I shook my head. "I saw the 1100 fac-report, but I missed this one."
+
+She handed it to me and returned to her desk. There was just the
+slightest suggestion of a rolling movement in her walk, not at all
+unpleasant.
+
+When I looked down at the facsimile sheet, the headline screamed
+silently up at me. I swiveled my eyes over at the secretary, but
+she was working her recordo-writer, her fingers moving rapidly,
+mechanically.
+
+The headline read: ALIEN INVADER DISCOVERED! The story that followed
+reported that two Security Police guards had intercepted someone who
+looked like and was dressed like an Earthman, trying to enter the
+Senate at 1109 hours that morning. A discrepancy had been discovered
+during the routine ID card check and the imposter had tried to escape.
+The guards had opened fire at close range, scoring two direct hits.
+
+While the account was obviously censored, it intimated that a full
+report to be released later by Security Police Headquarters would be
+almost unbelievable. It hinted that the hideous mess revealed when the
+guards' weapons had ripped through the surprisingly soft body armor of
+the impostor positively confirmed the fact that the individual was an
+enemy alien.
+
+Before I could read any further, there was a muted tone from the
+direction of the desk. The secretary acknowledged the signal, spoke
+several words which I couldn't hear, then looked at me.
+
+She said, "You may go in now, General Spicer."
+
+I placed the facsimile sheet on her desk and waited while she activated
+the circuit, which would release the catch on her side of the door.
+
+_Who had it been? There had been four of us. Volunteers. We had been
+selected, briefed and trained separately. We had been housed separately
+during the mental and physical tortures of the surgical and the psych
+labs. The ship which had brought us to Earth had released us at
+separate points above the Earth capital. Only our ultimate goal was the
+same. But now there was one less of us to accomplish that goal! And we
+had lost the element of surprise._
+
+The door clicked twice and swung open. I stepped through, just in time
+to see the rotund shape of Senator Chambers go out a private exit on
+the far side of the room. Both doors closed at almost the same moment
+and I stood alone before the Secretary of Defense for the planet Earth.
+
+The secretary sat behind a desk on the far side of the room. He was a
+powerful man, in keeping with the importance of the job he filled. But
+the huge memory bank which he relied upon and which filled the entire
+wall behind his desk seemed to dwarf him.
+
+Without looking up immediately, Secretary Bartlett carefully rewound a
+tape he had been referring to and fed it back into the open mouth of
+the memory unit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He said, "Spicer, we've been talking about you. Do you have anything
+new on this alien incident? Chambers said an impulse cleared the Master
+Machine last night, indicating there may have been some sort of ship
+overhead."
+
+"No, sir," I lied. "My people are working on it, but we don't have much
+more to go on than appeared in the latest fac-report."
+
+"If there was a ship overhead, it was protected by a new type of
+anti-identification device. The Master Machine probed for more than six
+minutes and registered only a void. Chambers, of course, is always--"
+
+Bartlett didn't finish the sentence. His words trailed off into a
+moment of puzzled silence as he turned and looked squarely at me for
+the first time.
+
+Something had gone wrong. Something that I had done or hadn't done had
+revealed to him that I wasn't General Spicer.
+
+Secretary Bartlett started to rise. "Why, you're not Spicer! You're an
+impostor!"
+
+His eyes displayed neither fear nor surprise, but his hand was less
+than a time point from the alarm buzzer on the top of his desk when I
+touched the tiny stud on the hilt of my useless-looking swagger stick.
+
+For the tick of a pulse, he sat there with his body bathed in the
+colored ray, his finger poised above the warning buzzer. Then his body
+began to glow. I closed my eyes when the heat and brightness reached
+my face. When I opened them, there was nothing left of Bartlett but a
+swirl of dust motes.
+
+Stepping behind the desk, I stripped off the thin plasti-mask which had
+disguised my features to look like those of General Spicer. My hands
+moved almost automatically. Each motion had been rehearsed, timed,
+analyzed, and timed again.
+
+I reversed my coat, hiding the gold markings of the Security Police,
+and revealing the precious-metal insignia which had been worn by the
+Secretary of Defense. The now-useless ID card, which I had obtained
+earlier when I destroyed the real General Spicer, was dropped into the
+office incendiary tube, along with the mask and the removable steel
+cappings of my boots.
+
+By the time I had finished, only the swagger stick remained to connect
+me with General Spicer. I carefully telescoped its length, twisting
+and turning the artfully designed tubing, until it was identical to
+Bartlett's cane of state, leaning against the desk. The real cane I
+disposed of by dropping it into the incendiary tube after the other
+articles.
+
+I turned the stiff black collar of my coat up, in the same manner
+that Bartlett had worn his. The upturned collar hid the tiny metal
+electrodes protruding from the base of my neck, under each ear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When I sat down behind the desk, the image reflected up at me from
+the chromed top was, feature for feature, that of Defense Secretary
+Bartlett. The electro-surgical knives, wielded by experts, had done a
+good job. I grimaced. I puffed out my cheeks. I rolled my eyes. And, in
+turn, the reflected image grimaced, puffed out its cheeks, and rolled
+its eyes. The texture of my skin was that of Bartlett's. Even the pore
+structure.
+
+This had been the final big hurdle. The rest was now up to me.
+
+No! More accurately, the rest depended upon routine--a routine
+established more than 70 Earth years ago--a routine so inflexible that
+it had not been broken for a single day. My mission was to break that
+routine.
+
+Destruction of Spicer and Bartlett was important only as a means to an
+end. As soon as they were missed, others would fill their places. I
+had to destroy _all_ Spicers and _all_ Bartletts. I had to destroy the
+residents of Washington, of London, of New York, of Earth!
+
+My mission was to destroy so that we could live. That was what the
+technicians in the psych-labs had told me. That was what the physicians
+behind the electro-surgical knives had told me. It had been drummed
+into me over and over, through every phase of the mental and physical
+preparation that I had been put through.
+
+So I sat in Bartlett's office, looking like Bartlett, waiting. I knew
+almost to the exact time point when the buzzer on the desk in front of
+me would sound. I expected it, but when the strident tone filled the
+room, I jumped.
+
+I thumbed the switch on the desk video-com and the features of the
+redheaded secretary looked out at me from the recessed screen. I
+deepened my voice to mimic Bartlett's.
+
+"Yes, Meta?"
+
+The video-com was a two-way security system and I knew that she could
+see me, too. She continued to stare, and I felt the scar tissue
+tighten around the electrodes in my neck.
+
+Through some flaw in transmission, for a brief moment, I thought I saw
+the twinkle of an expression deep in her eyes. But that was impossible.
+Her lips twitched and the transmission flaw, or whatever it might have
+been, was corrected. Her eyes were as inscrutable as ever.
+
+She said, "It's 1324, sir. The inspection group will be here in two
+minutes. Shall I bring them in?"
+
+I nodded my head to one side slightly, in a manner peculiar to
+Bartlett. "Thank you, Meta. Yes, of course. Bring them in as soon as
+they arrive."
+
+I switched the video-com off and let my fingers lightly play with the
+button on the desk that activated the lock on Bartlett's private door
+into the inner corridor. It was a temptation to open the door and
+attempt to go the rest of the way on my own. But I wouldn't make it.
+Not even disguised as Defense Secretary Bartlett. I had been warned not
+to try.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My only hope lay in the routine set up by Earth's scientists more
+than 70 years ago--the daily inspection of the unit. As a member of
+the inspection party, I could pass through the security guards. More
+important, as a member of the group, I would arrive at the protective
+force sphere at the hub of the Pentagon at the only time and at the
+only place the force sphere could be breached.
+
+I waited.
+
+Precisely at the end of Meta's two minutes, the lock buzzed on the door
+to the reception room. I touched the control which opened the door and
+stood as the group filed into the room. My briefings on each of them
+had been exhaustive, but I examined their faces for some sign that one
+or more might penetrate my disguise as Bartlett.
+
+The redheaded Meta nodded. She had been with Bartlett as his security
+secretary for 70 years. Senator Chambers, as a representative of the
+electorate, darted rapid glances around the room as soon as the door
+had closed, counting noses. General Whit Marshall, chairman of the
+Joint Chiefs of Staff of the police systems, nodded with the cold
+reserve of the high-ranking military to the higher-ranking civilian.
+The fourth member of the group, Chet Meyers, chief Master Machine
+technician, was the only one to speak.
+
+The lanky Meyers looked around the room. "Where's General Spicer, sir?
+Senator Chambers was telling us you were going to invite him because of
+this scare today."
+
+The invisible scars which cobwebbed across my body from the
+electro-surgical knives tensed so suddenly that I almost screamed. I
+made myself reach for my cane casually. I had come so close!
+
+No, wait--there was the bitter rivalry between Chambers and Spicer.
+Chambers was too complete a politician to pass up an opportunity to
+discredit General Spicer.
+
+His black pin-prick eyes darted up toward the time unit on the wall.
+
+"There's no time to wait, Meyers," he said eagerly. "Spicer knows the
+schedule. We must go without him."
+
+Conscious of the stares of Meta and Meyers, I pushed the button which
+opened the door into the inner corridor.
+
+I looked directly at the Master Machine technician. "I asked Spicer to
+get a late report on the incident for us. But you know that Chambers is
+right--we cannot afford to wait any longer. Perhaps he'll catch up."
+
+We followed the corridor toward the hub of the Pentagon. Senator
+Chambers led the way, almost at a trot, as though he were afraid that
+Spicer would catch up. General Marshall and Meyers, hard put to keep
+up, were strung out behind him, with Meta and me bringing up the rear.
+
+That was the way we went through the check points manned by the
+security guards. Twice I caught Meta looking at me. At one of the
+check points, I thought she was going to say something. I lifted the
+tip of my cane and put my finger near the stud, but she remained silent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tension began to mount inside me as we approached the door opening
+on the invisible force wall. Through the wall, I could see the squat,
+ugly building in the center of the hub of the Pentagon, which was our
+destination. I held my cane ready. But even a CT-bomb wouldn't break
+through the force field.
+
+As we drew near the final guard point, a scrubwoman who had been
+working on the floor of the corridor picked up her bucket and fell in
+with our party.
+
+Chambers was already gesturing at the guard to set the combination,
+which would open the force wall at precisely 1330. I looked at the time
+unit on my wrist and saw that we had twenty seconds to wait. I resisted
+the betraying impulse to rub the irritated area around the electrodes
+set in my neck.
+
+When I looked up from the time unit, everything was too quiet. Senator
+Chambers was no longer dancing around impatiently. He was staring at
+the bucket carried by the scrubwoman.
+
+The inside of the bucket was not even damp. And the mop she had been
+using was dry. The implication must have hit both Chambers and me at
+the same moment. I wanted to shout a warning.
+
+Chambers jumped back against the wall, yelling at the guard, "Shoot
+her! Shoot! She is an alien!"
+
+The scrubwoman did the wrong thing. She turned and tried to run, her
+legs lifting awkwardly against the pull of the unaccustomed gravity.
+But the guard's weapon was already at his shoulder. The low-velocity
+missile thudded into the body of the scrubwoman, flipping her up into
+the air in a graceless somersault. She landed on the concrete floor
+with a second thud, which echoed softly down the long hall. A pool
+slowly widened around her body and she lay still.
+
+I looked at my wrist time unit again. It was 1330. The door through the
+force wall was open. I went past the huddled heap lying on the floor,
+careful not to step in the pool of moisture.
+
+_Too hideous to put into words in a public fac-report! That's what the
+facsimile sheet had hinted about the broken body of the other "alien."
+Two from four left only two. But the door through the force wall was
+open. I had to get through the door and into the building._
+
+Senator Chambers stepped out from behind the guard and blocked the
+doorway. His little eyes flashed from one expressionless face to
+another as he tried to come to some inner decision. His shoulders
+slumped.
+
+"I--I don't like it," he said. "The door is open now. I think perhaps
+we had better wait for General Spicer, after all."
+
+But Meta shook her head and pushed past Chambers. She said, "No. You
+know the routine as well as we, Senator. We are required to inspect the
+unit. Leave the guard on duty here."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I took advantage of the indecision of the others and pushed through the
+door after her toward the squat, ugly little building that was my goal.
+
+Meta was almost to the door of the building when I heard Chambers yell.
+
+"Stop her, Secretary Bartlett! She's malfunctioning. We've all been
+ordered to wait outside for an ID check." I ignored him and he yelled
+again. "Guard, open fire on the girl. Don't let her get inside that
+door!"
+
+But he was too late. Meta disappeared through the door into the black
+building. I stepped inside just as it slammed shut and the first
+missile smashed against the door from the guard's weapon.
+
+The building was not large. The Master Machine squatted like a huge,
+thick-bodied black spider in the center of the building. A cobweb of
+power lines and control cables criss-crossed the floor and fed into the
+base of the unit.
+
+A myriad of tiny moving parts, levers and cams and elbowed arms and
+gears pulsed and shifted and moved to give the impression that the
+Master Machine was breathing, that it was alive. Tiny multicolored
+lights twinkled on and off. Giant vacuum tubes hummed and glowed. And
+all the while, it munched on endless tapes.
+
+The black monster was the heart of Earth's civilization, and it was the
+means of it. As I started toward the machine, a grid at the top turned
+slowly and ogled me. Almost immediately, a red tube blinked on, and
+the moving parts on one section of the machine plunged into a frenzied
+rhythm of action.
+
+I ran forward, breathing heavily under the strain of the unaccustomed
+gravity. I had only seconds in which to act. At any moment, Senator
+Chambers and the guards would be coming through the door behind me.
+
+I raised the cane and touched the stud.
+
+The finger of lavender light knifed toward the machine, searching for
+its heart and memory unit.
+
+The ray fused and melted and burned, cutting deeper and deeper into the
+maze of wires and tubes and relays. There was a blinding flash and one
+section of the machine ground to a stop. Other sections immediately
+increased their tempo of movement.
+
+Behind me the door slammed open, and Senator Chambers and two guards
+stumbled into the building.
+
+Chambers yelled, "He's over there in front of the Master Machine. Hurry
+up ... and ... shoot! Before it's ... too late! _Shoot!_"
+
+His face almost a cherry red, Chambers danced out of the way. The
+guards raised their weapons and sighted.
+
+Then the ray from my cane cut deeply into the very innermost section
+of the master unit and the machine died. A dial on the front of the
+blackened, twisted mess spun slowly to a stop. There was no more noise
+and no more movement.
+
+It was done.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I released the stud on the cane, the weapons of the guards were
+pointed directly at my back. Chambers' eyes were like two black
+marbles, staring at me, his head strained forward to watch the results
+of the missiles.
+
+I took a careful step to the left. And another. And then another. They
+didn't move.
+
+The guards' weapons remained trained on the spot where I had been
+standing. Senator Chambers continued staring at the place where I had
+been.
+
+None of them moved. They remained there, pointing at nothing. The
+electrodes at the bases of their necks reflecting the molten glow from
+the wrecked Master Machine.
+
+I relaxed. I rubbed the tender skin around the dummy electrodes set in
+my neck. It was finally over.
+
+Then a shadow moved against the wall where there should have been no
+movement. It lengthened and took on the shapely form of the redheaded
+Meta.
+
+Only now her eyes were no longer dead and expressionless. They were
+alive with feeling.
+
+I said, "So you are the other one. I should have guessed when you ran
+into the building ahead of me. But I was too busy thinking of those
+guards and of Chambers."
+
+She nodded. Her lips relaxed into a smile.
+
+_Two from four leaves two! But we had accomplished our mission. And
+outside the building, in Washington, London, New York--in every Earth
+city--figures on the streets, in office buildings, and at home had
+become motionless, poised like mechanical toys with their springs run
+down. Housewives, cab drivers, copter pilots, passengers, shoppers,
+policemen, government workers had ceased to move, had stopped
+functioning with the destruction of the Master Machine._
+
+The redhead said, "It's really over, isn't it? They're stopped." She
+looked at the still figures, the dummy electrodes in her neck quivering
+in a shiver. "They can't kill any more?"
+
+I said, "It's over."
+
+"They can't destroy or move?"
+
+"Without the Master Machine, they have no power supply--nothing. And
+they can't kill or destroy."
+
+She walked over to look at the figures. "What went wrong? What happened
+to them?"
+
+I shrugged. "You can't blame them any more than you can blame a boiler
+that explodes or a dam that breaks. It was the human race itself that
+was responsible for what happened. We became lazy, careless. We built
+too many time saving gimmicks to do too many jobs for us."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"But the machines were designed to help us," she said. "To make life
+better and more pleasant."
+
+"At the beginning," I agreed, "but we didn't know where to stop. We
+started with labor-saving devices. We replaced ourselves in factories,
+offices, restaurants, stores. Still it wasn't enough. We designed
+robots to serve as traffic policemen, to drive cars, and to handle
+thinking tasks. Then we designed humanoid robots, mechanical replicas
+of man and woman, controlled by the computing sections of the Master
+Machine, activated by its power supply, able to move and talk and
+think. We used them as servants. We had the means to replace ourselves
+completely--everywhere."
+
+"Why did they turn on the human race?" she asked.
+
+I pointed to the smoldering wreck of the Master Machine in the center
+of the room. "Perhaps there was a weak circuit, or a tape was garbled,
+or a relay didn't close properly. The scientific colony on the Moon
+helped some of us to escape. The rest of mankind was destroyed by the
+robots--systematically and ruthlessly."
+
+The redhead shivered again and walked over to the door leading from the
+building. She stood there, looking up at the thin curve of the Moon
+showing in the blue of the afternoon sky.
+
+Finally she said, "Up there, by now, they will know that we have
+accomplished our mission. In a few hours, they will be filing out of
+the underground caverns and loading onto the giant rockets. They'll be
+coming back. But only the very oldest will have been on Earth before.
+Like us, thousands of them will be coming to a new world for the first
+time. A world of beauty and opportunity--if they want it that way. What
+will they decide?"
+
+What _would_ they decide?
+
+I looked down at the redhead. Deep in her eyes, I saw the emotions
+which no humanoid robot could ever know. I saw them, and suddenly the
+tension eased out of my muscles.
+
+The answer to her question was in her own eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Assassin, by Bascom Jones
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 60907 ***
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-<pre>

-

-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Assassin, by Bascom Jones

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and

-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions

-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms

-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at

-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll

-have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using

-this ebook.

-

-

-

-Title: Assassin

-

-Author: Bascom Jones

-

-Release Date: December 12, 2019 [EBook #60907]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: ASCII

-

-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASSASSIN ***

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-Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online

-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

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-</pre>

-

-

-<div class="figcenter">

-  <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="347" height="500" alt=""/>

-</div>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<div class="titlepage">

-

-<h1>ASSASSIN</h1>

-

-<h2>By BASCOM JONES, JR.</h2>

-

-<p class="ph1"><i>Everyone is allowed to<br />

-commit an error. The trouble<br />

-was that I couldn't.</i></p>

-

-<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br />

-Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1961.<br />

-Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br />

-the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p>

-

-</div>

-

-<hr class="chap" />

-

-<p>I deliberately dug my heels into the concrete floor of the corridor of

-the Pentagon. The steel plates on the heels of my black uniform boots

-heralded my approach with sharp anvil sounds as I marched confidently

-toward the unmarked door five hundred feet ahead.</p>

-

-<p>What was that expression used by Earth people of the 20th century? I

-shifted back through my training, shuffled through the facts about

-Earth's past history with which I had been indoctrinated, searching for

-the word. <i>Assassin!</i> That was it. But the term fell short. It lacked

-in magnitude. There was a difference in the murder of one person and

-the assassination of the occupants of an entire planet!</p>

-

-<p>One foot in front of the other, I paced off the distance toward the end

-of the hallway, carefully duplicating the strut which was a trademark

-of the Earth Council's Security Police. I'd practiced the peculiar,

-jolting method of walking a thousand times, but I began to feel the

-effects of Earth's heavier gravity before I had covered half the

-distance. It had been impossible to simulate the difference in gravity

-in my training.</p>

-

-<p>The two guards standing outside the door alertly watched my approach.

-When I was still four paces away, one of them ordered me to stop.

-They ignored as though they were not there the gold stars prominently

-displayed on the shoulders of my tunic.</p>

-

-<p>The guard on the left said, "Your ID card, sir."</p>

-

-<p>The guards were well trained. They would not hesitate to shoot if I

-made the slightest slip.</p>

-

-<p>I handed the card to him and watched as he held it up to a visi-scanner

-in the wall. The scanner glowed into life and purred softly, rapidly

-checking the invisible identification codings on the card against the

-ID component of Earth's Master Machine. Then it dulled and was silent.

-The strident alarm siren over the scanner remained inactive. The ID

-card was returned to me and the guards snapped smartly to attention as

-I went on into the room beyond the door.</p>

-

-<p>I had passed the first test.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>The reception room was small. Thick carpeting deadened the clump of my

-heels as I marched toward the chromed desk guarding a second unmarked

-door. A flawlessly proportioned redhead sat behind the desk. Her eyes

-and face showed no expression when I stopped in front of her. Her

-tight-fitting uniform was black and bore the gold trim of the Security

-Police.</p>

-

-<p>Constricting my throat, I let the words snap out crisply, as I had been

-trained.</p>

-

-<p>"General Spicer," I said, "commanding general of the Security Police,

-reporting to the Secretary of Defense. As requested."</p>

-

-<p>I waited.</p>

-

-<p>Her eyes, still showing no outward expression, ran over me rapidly.

-Then she thumbed a button on the desk and a screen, recessed into the

-chromed surface, glowed into life.</p>

-

-<p>Almost immediately, a full-face reproduction of the features of General

-Spicer appeared on the screen in color. She checked the image against

-my face, her eyes flickering to the tiny scar under my left eye and to

-the old blaster burn across my right ear. When the image changed to a

-profile view, I turned my head to give her the same angle.</p>

-

-<p>She nodded, pressing the button on her desk which darkened the screen.</p>

-

-<p>She said, "You're early. Your appointment with Secretary Bartlett is&mdash;"</p>

-

-<p>"For 1300 hours," I filled in automatically, when she hesitated in one

-last routine test. "I was in the building on another matter, however,

-and came here after I had finished my other business."</p>

-

-<p>"Yes, of course," she said. "Please take a seat. Senator Chambers is

-ahead of you, but his business will not take long."</p>

-

-<p>I fought back the sudden impulse to pivot and stare in the direction

-her eyes were indicating. <i>Senator Carl Chambers.</i> My briefing on

-him had been lengthy. For 60 Earth years, he had headed the un-Earth

-Activities Committee. As General Spicer, I was supposed to have a

-nodding acquaintance with him, but no more than that. During the

-years, our rivalry had become legend. His unanticipated presence in

-the waiting room could prove disastrous. Chambers would not be fooled

-easily.</p>

-

-<p>Turning slowly, I nodded stiffly and curtly in Chambers' direction and

-then selected a chair across the room from him.</p>

-

-<p>The senator's head merged directly into the shoulders of his grossly

-rotund body. Small, round eyes stared unblinkingly at me from the red

-pudginess of his face. They hesitated on the black swagger stick which

-I held loosely in my right hand, moved on, and then returned to it. The

-invisible scars, made by the electro-surgical knives in re-designing my

-body, began to tense slowly. I shifted the swagger stick in my hand.</p>

-

-<p>Then the redheaded secretary stood up. She said, "Secretary Bartlett

-will see you now. Senator."</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>For a fraction of a time, I thought Senator Chambers had not heard her.

-His expressionless eyes were still on me. Then, with a grunt, he lifted

-himself to his feet and disappeared through the door behind her. A tiny

-clicking noise indicated that it locked automatically.</p>

-

-<p>I shifted my gaze and saw that the secretary was looking at me

-intently. It was impossible to guess at what might be going on behind

-those eyes. The tension began to build inside me again, but I kept my

-own eyes as expressionless as hers.</p>

-

-<p>The girl picked up a folded piece of paper out of a receptacle on her

-desk and brought it over to me.</p>

-

-<p>She said, "While you're waiting, General, you might like to read the

-latest facsimile. Or have you already seen it?"</p>

-

-<p>I shook my head. "I saw the 1100 fac-report, but I missed this one."</p>

-

-<p>She handed it to me and returned to her desk. There was just the

-slightest suggestion of a rolling movement in her walk, not at all

-unpleasant.</p>

-

-<p>When I looked down at the facsimile sheet, the headline screamed

-silently up at me. I swiveled my eyes over at the secretary, but

-she was working her recordo-writer, her fingers moving rapidly,

-mechanically.</p>

-

-<p>The headline read: ALIEN INVADER DISCOVERED! The story that followed

-reported that two Security Police guards had intercepted someone who

-looked like and was dressed like an Earthman, trying to enter the

-Senate at 1109 hours that morning. A discrepancy had been discovered

-during the routine ID card check and the imposter had tried to escape.

-The guards had opened fire at close range, scoring two direct hits.</p>

-

-<p>While the account was obviously censored, it intimated that a full

-report to be released later by Security Police Headquarters would be

-almost unbelievable. It hinted that the hideous mess revealed when the

-guards' weapons had ripped through the surprisingly soft body armor of

-the impostor positively confirmed the fact that the individual was an

-enemy alien.</p>

-

-<p>Before I could read any further, there was a muted tone from the

-direction of the desk. The secretary acknowledged the signal, spoke

-several words which I couldn't hear, then looked at me.</p>

-

-<p>She said, "You may go in now, General Spicer."</p>

-

-<p>I placed the facsimile sheet on her desk and waited while she activated

-the circuit, which would release the catch on her side of the door.</p>

-

-<p><i>Who had it been? There had been four of us. Volunteers. We had been

-selected, briefed and trained separately. We had been housed separately

-during the mental and physical tortures of the surgical and the psych

-labs. The ship which had brought us to Earth had released us at

-separate points above the Earth capital. Only our ultimate goal was the

-same. But now there was one less of us to accomplish that goal! And we

-had lost the element of surprise.</i></p>

-

-<p>The door clicked twice and swung open. I stepped through, just in time

-to see the rotund shape of Senator Chambers go out a private exit on

-the far side of the room. Both doors closed at almost the same moment

-and I stood alone before the Secretary of Defense for the planet Earth.</p>

-

-<p>The secretary sat behind a desk on the far side of the room. He was a

-powerful man, in keeping with the importance of the job he filled. But

-the huge memory bank which he relied upon and which filled the entire

-wall behind his desk seemed to dwarf him.</p>

-

-<p>Without looking up immediately, Secretary Bartlett carefully rewound a

-tape he had been referring to and fed it back into the open mouth of

-the memory unit.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>He said, "Spicer, we've been talking about you. Do you have anything

-new on this alien incident? Chambers said an impulse cleared the Master

-Machine last night, indicating there may have been some sort of ship

-overhead."</p>

-

-<p>"No, sir," I lied. "My people are working on it, but we don't have much

-more to go on than appeared in the latest fac-report."</p>

-

-<p>"If there was a ship overhead, it was protected by a new type of

-anti-identification device. The Master Machine probed for more than six

-minutes and registered only a void. Chambers, of course, is always&mdash;"</p>

-

-<p>Bartlett didn't finish the sentence. His words trailed off into a

-moment of puzzled silence as he turned and looked squarely at me for

-the first time.</p>

-

-<p>Something had gone wrong. Something that I had done or hadn't done had

-revealed to him that I wasn't General Spicer.</p>

-

-<p>Secretary Bartlett started to rise. "Why, you're not Spicer! You're an

-impostor!"</p>

-

-<p>His eyes displayed neither fear nor surprise, but his hand was less

-than a time point from the alarm buzzer on the top of his desk when I

-touched the tiny stud on the hilt of my useless-looking swagger stick.</p>

-

-<p>For the tick of a pulse, he sat there with his body bathed in the

-colored ray, his finger poised above the warning buzzer. Then his body

-began to glow. I closed my eyes when the heat and brightness reached

-my face. When I opened them, there was nothing left of Bartlett but a

-swirl of dust motes.</p>

-

-<p>Stepping behind the desk, I stripped off the thin plasti-mask which had

-disguised my features to look like those of General Spicer. My hands

-moved almost automatically. Each motion had been rehearsed, timed,

-analyzed, and timed again.</p>

-

-<p>I reversed my coat, hiding the gold markings of the Security Police,

-and revealing the precious-metal insignia which had been worn by the

-Secretary of Defense. The now-useless ID card, which I had obtained

-earlier when I destroyed the real General Spicer, was dropped into the

-office incendiary tube, along with the mask and the removable steel

-cappings of my boots.</p>

-

-<p>By the time I had finished, only the swagger stick remained to connect

-me with General Spicer. I carefully telescoped its length, twisting

-and turning the artfully designed tubing, until it was identical to

-Bartlett's cane of state, leaning against the desk. The real cane I

-disposed of by dropping it into the incendiary tube after the other

-articles.</p>

-

-<p>I turned the stiff black collar of my coat up, in the same manner

-that Bartlett had worn his. The upturned collar hid the tiny metal

-electrodes protruding from the base of my neck, under each ear.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>When I sat down behind the desk, the image reflected up at me from

-the chromed top was, feature for feature, that of Defense Secretary

-Bartlett. The electro-surgical knives, wielded by experts, had done a

-good job. I grimaced. I puffed out my cheeks. I rolled my eyes. And, in

-turn, the reflected image grimaced, puffed out its cheeks, and rolled

-its eyes. The texture of my skin was that of Bartlett's. Even the pore

-structure.</p>

-

-<p>This had been the final big hurdle. The rest was now up to me.</p>

-

-<p>No! More accurately, the rest depended upon routine&mdash;a routine

-established more than 70 Earth years ago&mdash;a routine so inflexible that

-it had not been broken for a single day. My mission was to break that

-routine.</p>

-

-<p>Destruction of Spicer and Bartlett was important only as a means to an

-end. As soon as they were missed, others would fill their places. I

-had to destroy <i>all</i> Spicers and <i>all</i> Bartletts. I had to destroy the

-residents of Washington, of London, of New York, of Earth!</p>

-

-<p>My mission was to destroy so that we could live. That was what the

-technicians in the psych-labs had told me. That was what the physicians

-behind the electro-surgical knives had told me. It had been drummed

-into me over and over, through every phase of the mental and physical

-preparation that I had been put through.</p>

-

-<p>So I sat in Bartlett's office, looking like Bartlett, waiting. I knew

-almost to the exact time point when the buzzer on the desk in front of

-me would sound. I expected it, but when the strident tone filled the

-room, I jumped.</p>

-

-<p>I thumbed the switch on the desk video-com and the features of the

-redheaded secretary looked out at me from the recessed screen. I

-deepened my voice to mimic Bartlett's.</p>

-

-<p>"Yes, Meta?"</p>

-

-<p>The video-com was a two-way security system and I knew that she could

-see me, too. She continued to stare, and I felt the scar tissue

-tighten around the electrodes in my neck.</p>

-

-<p>Through some flaw in transmission, for a brief moment, I thought I saw

-the twinkle of an expression deep in her eyes. But that was impossible.

-Her lips twitched and the transmission flaw, or whatever it might have

-been, was corrected. Her eyes were as inscrutable as ever.</p>

-

-<p>She said, "It's 1324, sir. The inspection group will be here in two

-minutes. Shall I bring them in?"</p>

-

-<p>I nodded my head to one side slightly, in a manner peculiar to

-Bartlett. "Thank you, Meta. Yes, of course. Bring them in as soon as

-they arrive."</p>

-

-<p>I switched the video-com off and let my fingers lightly play with the

-button on the desk that activated the lock on Bartlett's private door

-into the inner corridor. It was a temptation to open the door and

-attempt to go the rest of the way on my own. But I wouldn't make it.

-Not even disguised as Defense Secretary Bartlett. I had been warned not

-to try.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>My only hope lay in the routine set up by Earth's scientists more

-than 70 years ago&mdash;the daily inspection of the unit. As a member of

-the inspection party, I could pass through the security guards. More

-important, as a member of the group, I would arrive at the protective

-force sphere at the hub of the Pentagon at the only time and at the

-only place the force sphere could be breached.</p>

-

-<p>I waited.</p>

-

-<p>Precisely at the end of Meta's two minutes, the lock buzzed on the door

-to the reception room. I touched the control which opened the door and

-stood as the group filed into the room. My briefings on each of them

-had been exhaustive, but I examined their faces for some sign that one

-or more might penetrate my disguise as Bartlett.</p>

-

-<p>The redheaded Meta nodded. She had been with Bartlett as his security

-secretary for 70 years. Senator Chambers, as a representative of the

-electorate, darted rapid glances around the room as soon as the door

-had closed, counting noses. General Whit Marshall, chairman of the

-Joint Chiefs of Staff of the police systems, nodded with the cold

-reserve of the high-ranking military to the higher-ranking civilian.

-The fourth member of the group, Chet Meyers, chief Master Machine

-technician, was the only one to speak.</p>

-

-<p>The lanky Meyers looked around the room. "Where's General Spicer, sir?

-Senator Chambers was telling us you were going to invite him because of

-this scare today."</p>

-

-<p>The invisible scars which cobwebbed across my body from the

-electro-surgical knives tensed so suddenly that I almost screamed. I

-made myself reach for my cane casually. I had come so close!</p>

-

-<p>No, wait&mdash;there was the bitter rivalry between Chambers and Spicer.

-Chambers was too complete a politician to pass up an opportunity to

-discredit General Spicer.</p>

-

-<p>His black pin-prick eyes darted up toward the time unit on the wall.</p>

-

-<p>"There's no time to wait, Meyers," he said eagerly. "Spicer knows the

-schedule. We must go without him."</p>

-

-<p>Conscious of the stares of Meta and Meyers, I pushed the button which

-opened the door into the inner corridor.</p>

-

-<p>I looked directly at the Master Machine technician. "I asked Spicer to

-get a late report on the incident for us. But you know that Chambers is

-right&mdash;we cannot afford to wait any longer. Perhaps he'll catch up."</p>

-

-<p>We followed the corridor toward the hub of the Pentagon. Senator

-Chambers led the way, almost at a trot, as though he were afraid that

-Spicer would catch up. General Marshall and Meyers, hard put to keep

-up, were strung out behind him, with Meta and me bringing up the rear.</p>

-

-<p>That was the way we went through the check points manned by the

-security guards. Twice I caught Meta looking at me. At one of the

-check points, I thought she was going to say something. I lifted the

-tip of my cane and put my finger near the stud, but she remained silent.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>The tension began to mount inside me as we approached the door opening

-on the invisible force wall. Through the wall, I could see the squat,

-ugly building in the center of the hub of the Pentagon, which was our

-destination. I held my cane ready. But even a CT-bomb wouldn't break

-through the force field.</p>

-

-<p>As we drew near the final guard point, a scrubwoman who had been

-working on the floor of the corridor picked up her bucket and fell in

-with our party.</p>

-

-<p>Chambers was already gesturing at the guard to set the combination,

-which would open the force wall at precisely 1330. I looked at the time

-unit on my wrist and saw that we had twenty seconds to wait. I resisted

-the betraying impulse to rub the irritated area around the electrodes

-set in my neck.</p>

-

-<p>When I looked up from the time unit, everything was too quiet. Senator

-Chambers was no longer dancing around impatiently. He was staring at

-the bucket carried by the scrubwoman.</p>

-

-<p>The inside of the bucket was not even damp. And the mop she had been

-using was dry. The implication must have hit both Chambers and me at

-the same moment. I wanted to shout a warning.</p>

-

-<p>Chambers jumped back against the wall, yelling at the guard, "Shoot

-her! Shoot! She is an alien!"</p>

-

-<p>The scrubwoman did the wrong thing. She turned and tried to run, her

-legs lifting awkwardly against the pull of the unaccustomed gravity.

-But the guard's weapon was already at his shoulder. The low-velocity

-missile thudded into the body of the scrubwoman, flipping her up into

-the air in a graceless somersault. She landed on the concrete floor

-with a second thud, which echoed softly down the long hall. A pool

-slowly widened around her body and she lay still.</p>

-

-<p>I looked at my wrist time unit again. It was 1330. The door through the

-force wall was open. I went past the huddled heap lying on the floor,

-careful not to step in the pool of moisture.</p>

-

-<p><i>Too hideous to put into words in a public fac-report! That's what the

-facsimile sheet had hinted about the broken body of the other "alien."

-Two from four left only two. But the door through the force wall was

-open. I had to get through the door and into the building.</i></p>

-

-<p>Senator Chambers stepped out from behind the guard and blocked the

-doorway. His little eyes flashed from one expressionless face to

-another as he tried to come to some inner decision. His shoulders

-slumped.</p>

-

-<p>"I&mdash;I don't like it," he said. "The door is open now. I think perhaps

-we had better wait for General Spicer, after all."</p>

-

-<p>But Meta shook her head and pushed past Chambers. She said, "No. You

-know the routine as well as we, Senator. We are required to inspect the

-unit. Leave the guard on duty here."</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>I took advantage of the indecision of the others and pushed through the

-door after her toward the squat, ugly little building that was my goal.</p>

-

-<p>Meta was almost to the door of the building when I heard Chambers yell.</p>

-

-<p>"Stop her, Secretary Bartlett! She's malfunctioning. We've all been

-ordered to wait outside for an ID check." I ignored him and he yelled

-again. "Guard, open fire on the girl. Don't let her get inside that

-door!"</p>

-

-<p>But he was too late. Meta disappeared through the door into the black

-building. I stepped inside just as it slammed shut and the first

-missile smashed against the door from the guard's weapon.</p>

-

-<p>The building was not large. The Master Machine squatted like a huge,

-thick-bodied black spider in the center of the building. A cobweb of

-power lines and control cables criss-crossed the floor and fed into the

-base of the unit.</p>

-

-<p>A myriad of tiny moving parts, levers and cams and elbowed arms and

-gears pulsed and shifted and moved to give the impression that the

-Master Machine was breathing, that it was alive. Tiny multicolored

-lights twinkled on and off. Giant vacuum tubes hummed and glowed. And

-all the while, it munched on endless tapes.</p>

-

-<p>The black monster was the heart of Earth's civilization, and it was the

-means of it. As I started toward the machine, a grid at the top turned

-slowly and ogled me. Almost immediately, a red tube blinked on, and

-the moving parts on one section of the machine plunged into a frenzied

-rhythm of action.</p>

-

-<p>I ran forward, breathing heavily under the strain of the unaccustomed

-gravity. I had only seconds in which to act. At any moment, Senator

-Chambers and the guards would be coming through the door behind me.</p>

-

-<p>I raised the cane and touched the stud.</p>

-

-<p>The finger of lavender light knifed toward the machine, searching for

-its heart and memory unit.</p>

-

-<p>The ray fused and melted and burned, cutting deeper and deeper into the

-maze of wires and tubes and relays. There was a blinding flash and one

-section of the machine ground to a stop. Other sections immediately

-increased their tempo of movement.</p>

-

-<p>Behind me the door slammed open, and Senator Chambers and two guards

-stumbled into the building.</p>

-

-<p>Chambers yelled, "He's over there in front of the Master Machine. Hurry

-up ... and ... shoot! Before it's ... too late! <i>Shoot!</i>"</p>

-

-<p>His face almost a cherry red, Chambers danced out of the way. The

-guards raised their weapons and sighted.</p>

-

-<p>Then the ray from my cane cut deeply into the very innermost section

-of the master unit and the machine died. A dial on the front of the

-blackened, twisted mess spun slowly to a stop. There was no more noise

-and no more movement.</p>

-

-<p>It was done.</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>As I released the stud on the cane, the weapons of the guards were

-pointed directly at my back. Chambers' eyes were like two black

-marbles, staring at me, his head strained forward to watch the results

-of the missiles.</p>

-

-<p>I took a careful step to the left. And another. And then another. They

-didn't move.</p>

-

-<p>The guards' weapons remained trained on the spot where I had been

-standing. Senator Chambers continued staring at the place where I had

-been.</p>

-

-<p>None of them moved. They remained there, pointing at nothing. The

-electrodes at the bases of their necks reflecting the molten glow from

-the wrecked Master Machine.</p>

-

-<p>I relaxed. I rubbed the tender skin around the dummy electrodes set in

-my neck. It was finally over.</p>

-

-<p>Then a shadow moved against the wall where there should have been no

-movement. It lengthened and took on the shapely form of the redheaded

-Meta.</p>

-

-<p>Only now her eyes were no longer dead and expressionless. They were

-alive with feeling.</p>

-

-<p>I said, "So you are the other one. I should have guessed when you ran

-into the building ahead of me. But I was too busy thinking of those

-guards and of Chambers."</p>

-

-<p>She nodded. Her lips relaxed into a smile.</p>

-

-<p><i>Two from four leaves two! But we had accomplished our mission. And

-outside the building, in Washington, London, New York&mdash;in every Earth

-city&mdash;figures on the streets, in office buildings, and at home had

-become motionless, poised like mechanical toys with their springs run

-down. Housewives, cab drivers, copter pilots, passengers, shoppers,

-policemen, government workers had ceased to move, had stopped

-functioning with the destruction of the Master Machine.</i></p>

-

-<p>The redhead said, "It's really over, isn't it? They're stopped." She

-looked at the still figures, the dummy electrodes in her neck quivering

-in a shiver. "They can't kill any more?"</p>

-

-<p>I said, "It's over."</p>

-

-<p>"They can't destroy or move?"</p>

-

-<p>"Without the Master Machine, they have no power supply&mdash;nothing. And

-they can't kill or destroy."</p>

-

-<p>She walked over to look at the figures. "What went wrong? What happened

-to them?"</p>

-

-<p>I shrugged. "You can't blame them any more than you can blame a boiler

-that explodes or a dam that breaks. It was the human race itself that

-was responsible for what happened. We became lazy, careless. We built

-too many time saving gimmicks to do too many jobs for us."</p>

-

-<hr class="tb" />

-

-<p>"But the machines were designed to help us," she said. "To make life

-better and more pleasant."</p>

-

-<p>"At the beginning," I agreed, "but we didn't know where to stop. We

-started with labor-saving devices. We replaced ourselves in factories,

-offices, restaurants, stores. Still it wasn't enough. We designed

-robots to serve as traffic policemen, to drive cars, and to handle

-thinking tasks. Then we designed humanoid robots, mechanical replicas

-of man and woman, controlled by the computing sections of the Master

-Machine, activated by its power supply, able to move and talk and

-think. We used them as servants. We had the means to replace ourselves

-completely&mdash;everywhere."</p>

-

-<p>"Why did they turn on the human race?" she asked.</p>

-

-<p>I pointed to the smoldering wreck of the Master Machine in the center

-of the room. "Perhaps there was a weak circuit, or a tape was garbled,

-or a relay didn't close properly. The scientific colony on the Moon

-helped some of us to escape. The rest of mankind was destroyed by the

-robots&mdash;systematically and ruthlessly."</p>

-

-<p>The redhead shivered again and walked over to the door leading from the

-building. She stood there, looking up at the thin curve of the Moon

-showing in the blue of the afternoon sky.</p>

-

-<p>Finally she said, "Up there, by now, they will know that we have

-accomplished our mission. In a few hours, they will be filing out of

-the underground caverns and loading onto the giant rockets. They'll be

-coming back. But only the very oldest will have been on Earth before.

-Like us, thousands of them will be coming to a new world for the first

-time. A world of beauty and opportunity&mdash;if they want it that way. What

-will they decide?"</p>

-

-<p>What <i>would</i> they decide?</p>

-

-<p>I looked down at the redhead. Deep in her eyes, I saw the emotions

-which no humanoid robot could ever know. I saw them, and suddenly the

-tension eased out of my muscles.</p>

-

-<p>The answer to her question was in her own eyes.</p>

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-<pre>

-

-

-

-

-

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+<body>
+<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 60907 ***</div>
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+  <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="347" height="500" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="titlepage">
+
+<h1>ASSASSIN</h1>
+
+<h2>By BASCOM JONES, JR.</h2>
+
+<p class="ph1"><i>Everyone is allowed to<br />
+commit an error. The trouble<br />
+was that I couldn't.</i></p>
+
+<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br />
+Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1961.<br />
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br />
+the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p>I deliberately dug my heels into the concrete floor of the corridor of
+the Pentagon. The steel plates on the heels of my black uniform boots
+heralded my approach with sharp anvil sounds as I marched confidently
+toward the unmarked door five hundred feet ahead.</p>
+
+<p>What was that expression used by Earth people of the 20th century? I
+shifted back through my training, shuffled through the facts about
+Earth's past history with which I had been indoctrinated, searching for
+the word. <i>Assassin!</i> That was it. But the term fell short. It lacked
+in magnitude. There was a difference in the murder of one person and
+the assassination of the occupants of an entire planet!</p>
+
+<p>One foot in front of the other, I paced off the distance toward the end
+of the hallway, carefully duplicating the strut which was a trademark
+of the Earth Council's Security Police. I'd practiced the peculiar,
+jolting method of walking a thousand times, but I began to feel the
+effects of Earth's heavier gravity before I had covered half the
+distance. It had been impossible to simulate the difference in gravity
+in my training.</p>
+
+<p>The two guards standing outside the door alertly watched my approach.
+When I was still four paces away, one of them ordered me to stop.
+They ignored as though they were not there the gold stars prominently
+displayed on the shoulders of my tunic.</p>
+
+<p>The guard on the left said, "Your ID card, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The guards were well trained. They would not hesitate to shoot if I
+made the slightest slip.</p>
+
+<p>I handed the card to him and watched as he held it up to a visi-scanner
+in the wall. The scanner glowed into life and purred softly, rapidly
+checking the invisible identification codings on the card against the
+ID component of Earth's Master Machine. Then it dulled and was silent.
+The strident alarm siren over the scanner remained inactive. The ID
+card was returned to me and the guards snapped smartly to attention as
+I went on into the room beyond the door.</p>
+
+<p>I had passed the first test.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The reception room was small. Thick carpeting deadened the clump of my
+heels as I marched toward the chromed desk guarding a second unmarked
+door. A flawlessly proportioned redhead sat behind the desk. Her eyes
+and face showed no expression when I stopped in front of her. Her
+tight-fitting uniform was black and bore the gold trim of the Security
+Police.</p>
+
+<p>Constricting my throat, I let the words snap out crisply, as I had been
+trained.</p>
+
+<p>"General Spicer," I said, "commanding general of the Security Police,
+reporting to the Secretary of Defense. As requested."</p>
+
+<p>I waited.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes, still showing no outward expression, ran over me rapidly.
+Then she thumbed a button on the desk and a screen, recessed into the
+chromed surface, glowed into life.</p>
+
+<p>Almost immediately, a full-face reproduction of the features of General
+Spicer appeared on the screen in color. She checked the image against
+my face, her eyes flickering to the tiny scar under my left eye and to
+the old blaster burn across my right ear. When the image changed to a
+profile view, I turned my head to give her the same angle.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, pressing the button on her desk which darkened the screen.</p>
+
+<p>She said, "You're early. Your appointment with Secretary Bartlett is&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"For 1300 hours," I filled in automatically, when she hesitated in one
+last routine test. "I was in the building on another matter, however,
+and came here after I had finished my other business."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course," she said. "Please take a seat. Senator Chambers is
+ahead of you, but his business will not take long."</p>
+
+<p>I fought back the sudden impulse to pivot and stare in the direction
+her eyes were indicating. <i>Senator Carl Chambers.</i> My briefing on
+him had been lengthy. For 60 Earth years, he had headed the un-Earth
+Activities Committee. As General Spicer, I was supposed to have a
+nodding acquaintance with him, but no more than that. During the
+years, our rivalry had become legend. His unanticipated presence in
+the waiting room could prove disastrous. Chambers would not be fooled
+easily.</p>
+
+<p>Turning slowly, I nodded stiffly and curtly in Chambers' direction and
+then selected a chair across the room from him.</p>
+
+<p>The senator's head merged directly into the shoulders of his grossly
+rotund body. Small, round eyes stared unblinkingly at me from the red
+pudginess of his face. They hesitated on the black swagger stick which
+I held loosely in my right hand, moved on, and then returned to it. The
+invisible scars, made by the electro-surgical knives in re-designing my
+body, began to tense slowly. I shifted the swagger stick in my hand.</p>
+
+<p>Then the redheaded secretary stood up. She said, "Secretary Bartlett
+will see you now. Senator."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>For a fraction of a time, I thought Senator Chambers had not heard her.
+His expressionless eyes were still on me. Then, with a grunt, he lifted
+himself to his feet and disappeared through the door behind her. A tiny
+clicking noise indicated that it locked automatically.</p>
+
+<p>I shifted my gaze and saw that the secretary was looking at me
+intently. It was impossible to guess at what might be going on behind
+those eyes. The tension began to build inside me again, but I kept my
+own eyes as expressionless as hers.</p>
+
+<p>The girl picked up a folded piece of paper out of a receptacle on her
+desk and brought it over to me.</p>
+
+<p>She said, "While you're waiting, General, you might like to read the
+latest facsimile. Or have you already seen it?"</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head. "I saw the 1100 fac-report, but I missed this one."</p>
+
+<p>She handed it to me and returned to her desk. There was just the
+slightest suggestion of a rolling movement in her walk, not at all
+unpleasant.</p>
+
+<p>When I looked down at the facsimile sheet, the headline screamed
+silently up at me. I swiveled my eyes over at the secretary, but
+she was working her recordo-writer, her fingers moving rapidly,
+mechanically.</p>
+
+<p>The headline read: ALIEN INVADER DISCOVERED! The story that followed
+reported that two Security Police guards had intercepted someone who
+looked like and was dressed like an Earthman, trying to enter the
+Senate at 1109 hours that morning. A discrepancy had been discovered
+during the routine ID card check and the imposter had tried to escape.
+The guards had opened fire at close range, scoring two direct hits.</p>
+
+<p>While the account was obviously censored, it intimated that a full
+report to be released later by Security Police Headquarters would be
+almost unbelievable. It hinted that the hideous mess revealed when the
+guards' weapons had ripped through the surprisingly soft body armor of
+the impostor positively confirmed the fact that the individual was an
+enemy alien.</p>
+
+<p>Before I could read any further, there was a muted tone from the
+direction of the desk. The secretary acknowledged the signal, spoke
+several words which I couldn't hear, then looked at me.</p>
+
+<p>She said, "You may go in now, General Spicer."</p>
+
+<p>I placed the facsimile sheet on her desk and waited while she activated
+the circuit, which would release the catch on her side of the door.</p>
+
+<p><i>Who had it been? There had been four of us. Volunteers. We had been
+selected, briefed and trained separately. We had been housed separately
+during the mental and physical tortures of the surgical and the psych
+labs. The ship which had brought us to Earth had released us at
+separate points above the Earth capital. Only our ultimate goal was the
+same. But now there was one less of us to accomplish that goal! And we
+had lost the element of surprise.</i></p>
+
+<p>The door clicked twice and swung open. I stepped through, just in time
+to see the rotund shape of Senator Chambers go out a private exit on
+the far side of the room. Both doors closed at almost the same moment
+and I stood alone before the Secretary of Defense for the planet Earth.</p>
+
+<p>The secretary sat behind a desk on the far side of the room. He was a
+powerful man, in keeping with the importance of the job he filled. But
+the huge memory bank which he relied upon and which filled the entire
+wall behind his desk seemed to dwarf him.</p>
+
+<p>Without looking up immediately, Secretary Bartlett carefully rewound a
+tape he had been referring to and fed it back into the open mouth of
+the memory unit.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>He said, "Spicer, we've been talking about you. Do you have anything
+new on this alien incident? Chambers said an impulse cleared the Master
+Machine last night, indicating there may have been some sort of ship
+overhead."</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," I lied. "My people are working on it, but we don't have much
+more to go on than appeared in the latest fac-report."</p>
+
+<p>"If there was a ship overhead, it was protected by a new type of
+anti-identification device. The Master Machine probed for more than six
+minutes and registered only a void. Chambers, of course, is always&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Bartlett didn't finish the sentence. His words trailed off into a
+moment of puzzled silence as he turned and looked squarely at me for
+the first time.</p>
+
+<p>Something had gone wrong. Something that I had done or hadn't done had
+revealed to him that I wasn't General Spicer.</p>
+
+<p>Secretary Bartlett started to rise. "Why, you're not Spicer! You're an
+impostor!"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes displayed neither fear nor surprise, but his hand was less
+than a time point from the alarm buzzer on the top of his desk when I
+touched the tiny stud on the hilt of my useless-looking swagger stick.</p>
+
+<p>For the tick of a pulse, he sat there with his body bathed in the
+colored ray, his finger poised above the warning buzzer. Then his body
+began to glow. I closed my eyes when the heat and brightness reached
+my face. When I opened them, there was nothing left of Bartlett but a
+swirl of dust motes.</p>
+
+<p>Stepping behind the desk, I stripped off the thin plasti-mask which had
+disguised my features to look like those of General Spicer. My hands
+moved almost automatically. Each motion had been rehearsed, timed,
+analyzed, and timed again.</p>
+
+<p>I reversed my coat, hiding the gold markings of the Security Police,
+and revealing the precious-metal insignia which had been worn by the
+Secretary of Defense. The now-useless ID card, which I had obtained
+earlier when I destroyed the real General Spicer, was dropped into the
+office incendiary tube, along with the mask and the removable steel
+cappings of my boots.</p>
+
+<p>By the time I had finished, only the swagger stick remained to connect
+me with General Spicer. I carefully telescoped its length, twisting
+and turning the artfully designed tubing, until it was identical to
+Bartlett's cane of state, leaning against the desk. The real cane I
+disposed of by dropping it into the incendiary tube after the other
+articles.</p>
+
+<p>I turned the stiff black collar of my coat up, in the same manner
+that Bartlett had worn his. The upturned collar hid the tiny metal
+electrodes protruding from the base of my neck, under each ear.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>When I sat down behind the desk, the image reflected up at me from
+the chromed top was, feature for feature, that of Defense Secretary
+Bartlett. The electro-surgical knives, wielded by experts, had done a
+good job. I grimaced. I puffed out my cheeks. I rolled my eyes. And, in
+turn, the reflected image grimaced, puffed out its cheeks, and rolled
+its eyes. The texture of my skin was that of Bartlett's. Even the pore
+structure.</p>
+
+<p>This had been the final big hurdle. The rest was now up to me.</p>
+
+<p>No! More accurately, the rest depended upon routine&mdash;a routine
+established more than 70 Earth years ago&mdash;a routine so inflexible that
+it had not been broken for a single day. My mission was to break that
+routine.</p>
+
+<p>Destruction of Spicer and Bartlett was important only as a means to an
+end. As soon as they were missed, others would fill their places. I
+had to destroy <i>all</i> Spicers and <i>all</i> Bartletts. I had to destroy the
+residents of Washington, of London, of New York, of Earth!</p>
+
+<p>My mission was to destroy so that we could live. That was what the
+technicians in the psych-labs had told me. That was what the physicians
+behind the electro-surgical knives had told me. It had been drummed
+into me over and over, through every phase of the mental and physical
+preparation that I had been put through.</p>
+
+<p>So I sat in Bartlett's office, looking like Bartlett, waiting. I knew
+almost to the exact time point when the buzzer on the desk in front of
+me would sound. I expected it, but when the strident tone filled the
+room, I jumped.</p>
+
+<p>I thumbed the switch on the desk video-com and the features of the
+redheaded secretary looked out at me from the recessed screen. I
+deepened my voice to mimic Bartlett's.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Meta?"</p>
+
+<p>The video-com was a two-way security system and I knew that she could
+see me, too. She continued to stare, and I felt the scar tissue
+tighten around the electrodes in my neck.</p>
+
+<p>Through some flaw in transmission, for a brief moment, I thought I saw
+the twinkle of an expression deep in her eyes. But that was impossible.
+Her lips twitched and the transmission flaw, or whatever it might have
+been, was corrected. Her eyes were as inscrutable as ever.</p>
+
+<p>She said, "It's 1324, sir. The inspection group will be here in two
+minutes. Shall I bring them in?"</p>
+
+<p>I nodded my head to one side slightly, in a manner peculiar to
+Bartlett. "Thank you, Meta. Yes, of course. Bring them in as soon as
+they arrive."</p>
+
+<p>I switched the video-com off and let my fingers lightly play with the
+button on the desk that activated the lock on Bartlett's private door
+into the inner corridor. It was a temptation to open the door and
+attempt to go the rest of the way on my own. But I wouldn't make it.
+Not even disguised as Defense Secretary Bartlett. I had been warned not
+to try.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>My only hope lay in the routine set up by Earth's scientists more
+than 70 years ago&mdash;the daily inspection of the unit. As a member of
+the inspection party, I could pass through the security guards. More
+important, as a member of the group, I would arrive at the protective
+force sphere at the hub of the Pentagon at the only time and at the
+only place the force sphere could be breached.</p>
+
+<p>I waited.</p>
+
+<p>Precisely at the end of Meta's two minutes, the lock buzzed on the door
+to the reception room. I touched the control which opened the door and
+stood as the group filed into the room. My briefings on each of them
+had been exhaustive, but I examined their faces for some sign that one
+or more might penetrate my disguise as Bartlett.</p>
+
+<p>The redheaded Meta nodded. She had been with Bartlett as his security
+secretary for 70 years. Senator Chambers, as a representative of the
+electorate, darted rapid glances around the room as soon as the door
+had closed, counting noses. General Whit Marshall, chairman of the
+Joint Chiefs of Staff of the police systems, nodded with the cold
+reserve of the high-ranking military to the higher-ranking civilian.
+The fourth member of the group, Chet Meyers, chief Master Machine
+technician, was the only one to speak.</p>
+
+<p>The lanky Meyers looked around the room. "Where's General Spicer, sir?
+Senator Chambers was telling us you were going to invite him because of
+this scare today."</p>
+
+<p>The invisible scars which cobwebbed across my body from the
+electro-surgical knives tensed so suddenly that I almost screamed. I
+made myself reach for my cane casually. I had come so close!</p>
+
+<p>No, wait&mdash;there was the bitter rivalry between Chambers and Spicer.
+Chambers was too complete a politician to pass up an opportunity to
+discredit General Spicer.</p>
+
+<p>His black pin-prick eyes darted up toward the time unit on the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no time to wait, Meyers," he said eagerly. "Spicer knows the
+schedule. We must go without him."</p>
+
+<p>Conscious of the stares of Meta and Meyers, I pushed the button which
+opened the door into the inner corridor.</p>
+
+<p>I looked directly at the Master Machine technician. "I asked Spicer to
+get a late report on the incident for us. But you know that Chambers is
+right&mdash;we cannot afford to wait any longer. Perhaps he'll catch up."</p>
+
+<p>We followed the corridor toward the hub of the Pentagon. Senator
+Chambers led the way, almost at a trot, as though he were afraid that
+Spicer would catch up. General Marshall and Meyers, hard put to keep
+up, were strung out behind him, with Meta and me bringing up the rear.</p>
+
+<p>That was the way we went through the check points manned by the
+security guards. Twice I caught Meta looking at me. At one of the
+check points, I thought she was going to say something. I lifted the
+tip of my cane and put my finger near the stud, but she remained silent.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The tension began to mount inside me as we approached the door opening
+on the invisible force wall. Through the wall, I could see the squat,
+ugly building in the center of the hub of the Pentagon, which was our
+destination. I held my cane ready. But even a CT-bomb wouldn't break
+through the force field.</p>
+
+<p>As we drew near the final guard point, a scrubwoman who had been
+working on the floor of the corridor picked up her bucket and fell in
+with our party.</p>
+
+<p>Chambers was already gesturing at the guard to set the combination,
+which would open the force wall at precisely 1330. I looked at the time
+unit on my wrist and saw that we had twenty seconds to wait. I resisted
+the betraying impulse to rub the irritated area around the electrodes
+set in my neck.</p>
+
+<p>When I looked up from the time unit, everything was too quiet. Senator
+Chambers was no longer dancing around impatiently. He was staring at
+the bucket carried by the scrubwoman.</p>
+
+<p>The inside of the bucket was not even damp. And the mop she had been
+using was dry. The implication must have hit both Chambers and me at
+the same moment. I wanted to shout a warning.</p>
+
+<p>Chambers jumped back against the wall, yelling at the guard, "Shoot
+her! Shoot! She is an alien!"</p>
+
+<p>The scrubwoman did the wrong thing. She turned and tried to run, her
+legs lifting awkwardly against the pull of the unaccustomed gravity.
+But the guard's weapon was already at his shoulder. The low-velocity
+missile thudded into the body of the scrubwoman, flipping her up into
+the air in a graceless somersault. She landed on the concrete floor
+with a second thud, which echoed softly down the long hall. A pool
+slowly widened around her body and she lay still.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at my wrist time unit again. It was 1330. The door through the
+force wall was open. I went past the huddled heap lying on the floor,
+careful not to step in the pool of moisture.</p>
+
+<p><i>Too hideous to put into words in a public fac-report! That's what the
+facsimile sheet had hinted about the broken body of the other "alien."
+Two from four left only two. But the door through the force wall was
+open. I had to get through the door and into the building.</i></p>
+
+<p>Senator Chambers stepped out from behind the guard and blocked the
+doorway. His little eyes flashed from one expressionless face to
+another as he tried to come to some inner decision. His shoulders
+slumped.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't like it," he said. "The door is open now. I think perhaps
+we had better wait for General Spicer, after all."</p>
+
+<p>But Meta shook her head and pushed past Chambers. She said, "No. You
+know the routine as well as we, Senator. We are required to inspect the
+unit. Leave the guard on duty here."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I took advantage of the indecision of the others and pushed through the
+door after her toward the squat, ugly little building that was my goal.</p>
+
+<p>Meta was almost to the door of the building when I heard Chambers yell.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop her, Secretary Bartlett! She's malfunctioning. We've all been
+ordered to wait outside for an ID check." I ignored him and he yelled
+again. "Guard, open fire on the girl. Don't let her get inside that
+door!"</p>
+
+<p>But he was too late. Meta disappeared through the door into the black
+building. I stepped inside just as it slammed shut and the first
+missile smashed against the door from the guard's weapon.</p>
+
+<p>The building was not large. The Master Machine squatted like a huge,
+thick-bodied black spider in the center of the building. A cobweb of
+power lines and control cables criss-crossed the floor and fed into the
+base of the unit.</p>
+
+<p>A myriad of tiny moving parts, levers and cams and elbowed arms and
+gears pulsed and shifted and moved to give the impression that the
+Master Machine was breathing, that it was alive. Tiny multicolored
+lights twinkled on and off. Giant vacuum tubes hummed and glowed. And
+all the while, it munched on endless tapes.</p>
+
+<p>The black monster was the heart of Earth's civilization, and it was the
+means of it. As I started toward the machine, a grid at the top turned
+slowly and ogled me. Almost immediately, a red tube blinked on, and
+the moving parts on one section of the machine plunged into a frenzied
+rhythm of action.</p>
+
+<p>I ran forward, breathing heavily under the strain of the unaccustomed
+gravity. I had only seconds in which to act. At any moment, Senator
+Chambers and the guards would be coming through the door behind me.</p>
+
+<p>I raised the cane and touched the stud.</p>
+
+<p>The finger of lavender light knifed toward the machine, searching for
+its heart and memory unit.</p>
+
+<p>The ray fused and melted and burned, cutting deeper and deeper into the
+maze of wires and tubes and relays. There was a blinding flash and one
+section of the machine ground to a stop. Other sections immediately
+increased their tempo of movement.</p>
+
+<p>Behind me the door slammed open, and Senator Chambers and two guards
+stumbled into the building.</p>
+
+<p>Chambers yelled, "He's over there in front of the Master Machine. Hurry
+up ... and ... shoot! Before it's ... too late! <i>Shoot!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>His face almost a cherry red, Chambers danced out of the way. The
+guards raised their weapons and sighted.</p>
+
+<p>Then the ray from my cane cut deeply into the very innermost section
+of the master unit and the machine died. A dial on the front of the
+blackened, twisted mess spun slowly to a stop. There was no more noise
+and no more movement.</p>
+
+<p>It was done.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>As I released the stud on the cane, the weapons of the guards were
+pointed directly at my back. Chambers' eyes were like two black
+marbles, staring at me, his head strained forward to watch the results
+of the missiles.</p>
+
+<p>I took a careful step to the left. And another. And then another. They
+didn't move.</p>
+
+<p>The guards' weapons remained trained on the spot where I had been
+standing. Senator Chambers continued staring at the place where I had
+been.</p>
+
+<p>None of them moved. They remained there, pointing at nothing. The
+electrodes at the bases of their necks reflecting the molten glow from
+the wrecked Master Machine.</p>
+
+<p>I relaxed. I rubbed the tender skin around the dummy electrodes set in
+my neck. It was finally over.</p>
+
+<p>Then a shadow moved against the wall where there should have been no
+movement. It lengthened and took on the shapely form of the redheaded
+Meta.</p>
+
+<p>Only now her eyes were no longer dead and expressionless. They were
+alive with feeling.</p>
+
+<p>I said, "So you are the other one. I should have guessed when you ran
+into the building ahead of me. But I was too busy thinking of those
+guards and of Chambers."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded. Her lips relaxed into a smile.</p>
+
+<p><i>Two from four leaves two! But we had accomplished our mission. And
+outside the building, in Washington, London, New York&mdash;in every Earth
+city&mdash;figures on the streets, in office buildings, and at home had
+become motionless, poised like mechanical toys with their springs run
+down. Housewives, cab drivers, copter pilots, passengers, shoppers,
+policemen, government workers had ceased to move, had stopped
+functioning with the destruction of the Master Machine.</i></p>
+
+<p>The redhead said, "It's really over, isn't it? They're stopped." She
+looked at the still figures, the dummy electrodes in her neck quivering
+in a shiver. "They can't kill any more?"</p>
+
+<p>I said, "It's over."</p>
+
+<p>"They can't destroy or move?"</p>
+
+<p>"Without the Master Machine, they have no power supply&mdash;nothing. And
+they can't kill or destroy."</p>
+
+<p>She walked over to look at the figures. "What went wrong? What happened
+to them?"</p>
+
+<p>I shrugged. "You can't blame them any more than you can blame a boiler
+that explodes or a dam that breaks. It was the human race itself that
+was responsible for what happened. We became lazy, careless. We built
+too many time saving gimmicks to do too many jobs for us."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>"But the machines were designed to help us," she said. "To make life
+better and more pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"At the beginning," I agreed, "but we didn't know where to stop. We
+started with labor-saving devices. We replaced ourselves in factories,
+offices, restaurants, stores. Still it wasn't enough. We designed
+robots to serve as traffic policemen, to drive cars, and to handle
+thinking tasks. Then we designed humanoid robots, mechanical replicas
+of man and woman, controlled by the computing sections of the Master
+Machine, activated by its power supply, able to move and talk and
+think. We used them as servants. We had the means to replace ourselves
+completely&mdash;everywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did they turn on the human race?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>I pointed to the smoldering wreck of the Master Machine in the center
+of the room. "Perhaps there was a weak circuit, or a tape was garbled,
+or a relay didn't close properly. The scientific colony on the Moon
+helped some of us to escape. The rest of mankind was destroyed by the
+robots&mdash;systematically and ruthlessly."</p>
+
+<p>The redhead shivered again and walked over to the door leading from the
+building. She stood there, looking up at the thin curve of the Moon
+showing in the blue of the afternoon sky.</p>
+
+<p>Finally she said, "Up there, by now, they will know that we have
+accomplished our mission. In a few hours, they will be filing out of
+the underground caverns and loading onto the giant rockets. They'll be
+coming back. But only the very oldest will have been on Earth before.
+Like us, thousands of them will be coming to a new world for the first
+time. A world of beauty and opportunity&mdash;if they want it that way. What
+will they decide?"</p>
+
+<p>What <i>would</i> they decide?</p>
+
+<p>I looked down at the redhead. Deep in her eyes, I saw the emotions
+which no humanoid robot could ever know. I saw them, and suddenly the
+tension eased out of my muscles.</p>
+
+<p>The answer to her question was in her own eyes.</p>
+
+<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 60907 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Assassin, by Bascom Jones, Jr..
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Assassin, by Bascom Jones
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll
+have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
+this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: Assassin
+
+Author: Bascom Jones
+
+Release Date: December 12, 2019 [EBook #60907]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASSASSIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter">
+  <img src="images/cover.jpg" width="347" height="500" alt=""/>
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<div class="titlepage">
+
+<h1>ASSASSIN</h1>
+
+<h2>By BASCOM JONES, JR.</h2>
+
+<p class="ph1"><i>Everyone is allowed to<br />
+commit an error. The trouble<br />
+was that I couldn't.</i></p>
+
+<p>[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from<br />
+Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1961.<br />
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that<br />
+the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]</p>
+
+</div>
+
+<hr class="chap" />
+
+<p>I deliberately dug my heels into the concrete floor of the corridor of
+the Pentagon. The steel plates on the heels of my black uniform boots
+heralded my approach with sharp anvil sounds as I marched confidently
+toward the unmarked door five hundred feet ahead.</p>
+
+<p>What was that expression used by Earth people of the 20th century? I
+shifted back through my training, shuffled through the facts about
+Earth's past history with which I had been indoctrinated, searching for
+the word. <i>Assassin!</i> That was it. But the term fell short. It lacked
+in magnitude. There was a difference in the murder of one person and
+the assassination of the occupants of an entire planet!</p>
+
+<p>One foot in front of the other, I paced off the distance toward the end
+of the hallway, carefully duplicating the strut which was a trademark
+of the Earth Council's Security Police. I'd practiced the peculiar,
+jolting method of walking a thousand times, but I began to feel the
+effects of Earth's heavier gravity before I had covered half the
+distance. It had been impossible to simulate the difference in gravity
+in my training.</p>
+
+<p>The two guards standing outside the door alertly watched my approach.
+When I was still four paces away, one of them ordered me to stop.
+They ignored as though they were not there the gold stars prominently
+displayed on the shoulders of my tunic.</p>
+
+<p>The guard on the left said, "Your ID card, sir."</p>
+
+<p>The guards were well trained. They would not hesitate to shoot if I
+made the slightest slip.</p>
+
+<p>I handed the card to him and watched as he held it up to a visi-scanner
+in the wall. The scanner glowed into life and purred softly, rapidly
+checking the invisible identification codings on the card against the
+ID component of Earth's Master Machine. Then it dulled and was silent.
+The strident alarm siren over the scanner remained inactive. The ID
+card was returned to me and the guards snapped smartly to attention as
+I went on into the room beyond the door.</p>
+
+<p>I had passed the first test.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The reception room was small. Thick carpeting deadened the clump of my
+heels as I marched toward the chromed desk guarding a second unmarked
+door. A flawlessly proportioned redhead sat behind the desk. Her eyes
+and face showed no expression when I stopped in front of her. Her
+tight-fitting uniform was black and bore the gold trim of the Security
+Police.</p>
+
+<p>Constricting my throat, I let the words snap out crisply, as I had been
+trained.</p>
+
+<p>"General Spicer," I said, "commanding general of the Security Police,
+reporting to the Secretary of Defense. As requested."</p>
+
+<p>I waited.</p>
+
+<p>Her eyes, still showing no outward expression, ran over me rapidly.
+Then she thumbed a button on the desk and a screen, recessed into the
+chromed surface, glowed into life.</p>
+
+<p>Almost immediately, a full-face reproduction of the features of General
+Spicer appeared on the screen in color. She checked the image against
+my face, her eyes flickering to the tiny scar under my left eye and to
+the old blaster burn across my right ear. When the image changed to a
+profile view, I turned my head to give her the same angle.</p>
+
+<p>She nodded, pressing the button on her desk which darkened the screen.</p>
+
+<p>She said, "You're early. Your appointment with Secretary Bartlett is&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>"For 1300 hours," I filled in automatically, when she hesitated in one
+last routine test. "I was in the building on another matter, however,
+and came here after I had finished my other business."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, of course," she said. "Please take a seat. Senator Chambers is
+ahead of you, but his business will not take long."</p>
+
+<p>I fought back the sudden impulse to pivot and stare in the direction
+her eyes were indicating. <i>Senator Carl Chambers.</i> My briefing on
+him had been lengthy. For 60 Earth years, he had headed the un-Earth
+Activities Committee. As General Spicer, I was supposed to have a
+nodding acquaintance with him, but no more than that. During the
+years, our rivalry had become legend. His unanticipated presence in
+the waiting room could prove disastrous. Chambers would not be fooled
+easily.</p>
+
+<p>Turning slowly, I nodded stiffly and curtly in Chambers' direction and
+then selected a chair across the room from him.</p>
+
+<p>The senator's head merged directly into the shoulders of his grossly
+rotund body. Small, round eyes stared unblinkingly at me from the red
+pudginess of his face. They hesitated on the black swagger stick which
+I held loosely in my right hand, moved on, and then returned to it. The
+invisible scars, made by the electro-surgical knives in re-designing my
+body, began to tense slowly. I shifted the swagger stick in my hand.</p>
+
+<p>Then the redheaded secretary stood up. She said, "Secretary Bartlett
+will see you now. Senator."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>For a fraction of a time, I thought Senator Chambers had not heard her.
+His expressionless eyes were still on me. Then, with a grunt, he lifted
+himself to his feet and disappeared through the door behind her. A tiny
+clicking noise indicated that it locked automatically.</p>
+
+<p>I shifted my gaze and saw that the secretary was looking at me
+intently. It was impossible to guess at what might be going on behind
+those eyes. The tension began to build inside me again, but I kept my
+own eyes as expressionless as hers.</p>
+
+<p>The girl picked up a folded piece of paper out of a receptacle on her
+desk and brought it over to me.</p>
+
+<p>She said, "While you're waiting, General, you might like to read the
+latest facsimile. Or have you already seen it?"</p>
+
+<p>I shook my head. "I saw the 1100 fac-report, but I missed this one."</p>
+
+<p>She handed it to me and returned to her desk. There was just the
+slightest suggestion of a rolling movement in her walk, not at all
+unpleasant.</p>
+
+<p>When I looked down at the facsimile sheet, the headline screamed
+silently up at me. I swiveled my eyes over at the secretary, but
+she was working her recordo-writer, her fingers moving rapidly,
+mechanically.</p>
+
+<p>The headline read: ALIEN INVADER DISCOVERED! The story that followed
+reported that two Security Police guards had intercepted someone who
+looked like and was dressed like an Earthman, trying to enter the
+Senate at 1109 hours that morning. A discrepancy had been discovered
+during the routine ID card check and the imposter had tried to escape.
+The guards had opened fire at close range, scoring two direct hits.</p>
+
+<p>While the account was obviously censored, it intimated that a full
+report to be released later by Security Police Headquarters would be
+almost unbelievable. It hinted that the hideous mess revealed when the
+guards' weapons had ripped through the surprisingly soft body armor of
+the impostor positively confirmed the fact that the individual was an
+enemy alien.</p>
+
+<p>Before I could read any further, there was a muted tone from the
+direction of the desk. The secretary acknowledged the signal, spoke
+several words which I couldn't hear, then looked at me.</p>
+
+<p>She said, "You may go in now, General Spicer."</p>
+
+<p>I placed the facsimile sheet on her desk and waited while she activated
+the circuit, which would release the catch on her side of the door.</p>
+
+<p><i>Who had it been? There had been four of us. Volunteers. We had been
+selected, briefed and trained separately. We had been housed separately
+during the mental and physical tortures of the surgical and the psych
+labs. The ship which had brought us to Earth had released us at
+separate points above the Earth capital. Only our ultimate goal was the
+same. But now there was one less of us to accomplish that goal! And we
+had lost the element of surprise.</i></p>
+
+<p>The door clicked twice and swung open. I stepped through, just in time
+to see the rotund shape of Senator Chambers go out a private exit on
+the far side of the room. Both doors closed at almost the same moment
+and I stood alone before the Secretary of Defense for the planet Earth.</p>
+
+<p>The secretary sat behind a desk on the far side of the room. He was a
+powerful man, in keeping with the importance of the job he filled. But
+the huge memory bank which he relied upon and which filled the entire
+wall behind his desk seemed to dwarf him.</p>
+
+<p>Without looking up immediately, Secretary Bartlett carefully rewound a
+tape he had been referring to and fed it back into the open mouth of
+the memory unit.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>He said, "Spicer, we've been talking about you. Do you have anything
+new on this alien incident? Chambers said an impulse cleared the Master
+Machine last night, indicating there may have been some sort of ship
+overhead."</p>
+
+<p>"No, sir," I lied. "My people are working on it, but we don't have much
+more to go on than appeared in the latest fac-report."</p>
+
+<p>"If there was a ship overhead, it was protected by a new type of
+anti-identification device. The Master Machine probed for more than six
+minutes and registered only a void. Chambers, of course, is always&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>Bartlett didn't finish the sentence. His words trailed off into a
+moment of puzzled silence as he turned and looked squarely at me for
+the first time.</p>
+
+<p>Something had gone wrong. Something that I had done or hadn't done had
+revealed to him that I wasn't General Spicer.</p>
+
+<p>Secretary Bartlett started to rise. "Why, you're not Spicer! You're an
+impostor!"</p>
+
+<p>His eyes displayed neither fear nor surprise, but his hand was less
+than a time point from the alarm buzzer on the top of his desk when I
+touched the tiny stud on the hilt of my useless-looking swagger stick.</p>
+
+<p>For the tick of a pulse, he sat there with his body bathed in the
+colored ray, his finger poised above the warning buzzer. Then his body
+began to glow. I closed my eyes when the heat and brightness reached
+my face. When I opened them, there was nothing left of Bartlett but a
+swirl of dust motes.</p>
+
+<p>Stepping behind the desk, I stripped off the thin plasti-mask which had
+disguised my features to look like those of General Spicer. My hands
+moved almost automatically. Each motion had been rehearsed, timed,
+analyzed, and timed again.</p>
+
+<p>I reversed my coat, hiding the gold markings of the Security Police,
+and revealing the precious-metal insignia which had been worn by the
+Secretary of Defense. The now-useless ID card, which I had obtained
+earlier when I destroyed the real General Spicer, was dropped into the
+office incendiary tube, along with the mask and the removable steel
+cappings of my boots.</p>
+
+<p>By the time I had finished, only the swagger stick remained to connect
+me with General Spicer. I carefully telescoped its length, twisting
+and turning the artfully designed tubing, until it was identical to
+Bartlett's cane of state, leaning against the desk. The real cane I
+disposed of by dropping it into the incendiary tube after the other
+articles.</p>
+
+<p>I turned the stiff black collar of my coat up, in the same manner
+that Bartlett had worn his. The upturned collar hid the tiny metal
+electrodes protruding from the base of my neck, under each ear.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>When I sat down behind the desk, the image reflected up at me from
+the chromed top was, feature for feature, that of Defense Secretary
+Bartlett. The electro-surgical knives, wielded by experts, had done a
+good job. I grimaced. I puffed out my cheeks. I rolled my eyes. And, in
+turn, the reflected image grimaced, puffed out its cheeks, and rolled
+its eyes. The texture of my skin was that of Bartlett's. Even the pore
+structure.</p>
+
+<p>This had been the final big hurdle. The rest was now up to me.</p>
+
+<p>No! More accurately, the rest depended upon routine&mdash;a routine
+established more than 70 Earth years ago&mdash;a routine so inflexible that
+it had not been broken for a single day. My mission was to break that
+routine.</p>
+
+<p>Destruction of Spicer and Bartlett was important only as a means to an
+end. As soon as they were missed, others would fill their places. I
+had to destroy <i>all</i> Spicers and <i>all</i> Bartletts. I had to destroy the
+residents of Washington, of London, of New York, of Earth!</p>
+
+<p>My mission was to destroy so that we could live. That was what the
+technicians in the psych-labs had told me. That was what the physicians
+behind the electro-surgical knives had told me. It had been drummed
+into me over and over, through every phase of the mental and physical
+preparation that I had been put through.</p>
+
+<p>So I sat in Bartlett's office, looking like Bartlett, waiting. I knew
+almost to the exact time point when the buzzer on the desk in front of
+me would sound. I expected it, but when the strident tone filled the
+room, I jumped.</p>
+
+<p>I thumbed the switch on the desk video-com and the features of the
+redheaded secretary looked out at me from the recessed screen. I
+deepened my voice to mimic Bartlett's.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, Meta?"</p>
+
+<p>The video-com was a two-way security system and I knew that she could
+see me, too. She continued to stare, and I felt the scar tissue
+tighten around the electrodes in my neck.</p>
+
+<p>Through some flaw in transmission, for a brief moment, I thought I saw
+the twinkle of an expression deep in her eyes. But that was impossible.
+Her lips twitched and the transmission flaw, or whatever it might have
+been, was corrected. Her eyes were as inscrutable as ever.</p>
+
+<p>She said, "It's 1324, sir. The inspection group will be here in two
+minutes. Shall I bring them in?"</p>
+
+<p>I nodded my head to one side slightly, in a manner peculiar to
+Bartlett. "Thank you, Meta. Yes, of course. Bring them in as soon as
+they arrive."</p>
+
+<p>I switched the video-com off and let my fingers lightly play with the
+button on the desk that activated the lock on Bartlett's private door
+into the inner corridor. It was a temptation to open the door and
+attempt to go the rest of the way on my own. But I wouldn't make it.
+Not even disguised as Defense Secretary Bartlett. I had been warned not
+to try.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>My only hope lay in the routine set up by Earth's scientists more
+than 70 years ago&mdash;the daily inspection of the unit. As a member of
+the inspection party, I could pass through the security guards. More
+important, as a member of the group, I would arrive at the protective
+force sphere at the hub of the Pentagon at the only time and at the
+only place the force sphere could be breached.</p>
+
+<p>I waited.</p>
+
+<p>Precisely at the end of Meta's two minutes, the lock buzzed on the door
+to the reception room. I touched the control which opened the door and
+stood as the group filed into the room. My briefings on each of them
+had been exhaustive, but I examined their faces for some sign that one
+or more might penetrate my disguise as Bartlett.</p>
+
+<p>The redheaded Meta nodded. She had been with Bartlett as his security
+secretary for 70 years. Senator Chambers, as a representative of the
+electorate, darted rapid glances around the room as soon as the door
+had closed, counting noses. General Whit Marshall, chairman of the
+Joint Chiefs of Staff of the police systems, nodded with the cold
+reserve of the high-ranking military to the higher-ranking civilian.
+The fourth member of the group, Chet Meyers, chief Master Machine
+technician, was the only one to speak.</p>
+
+<p>The lanky Meyers looked around the room. "Where's General Spicer, sir?
+Senator Chambers was telling us you were going to invite him because of
+this scare today."</p>
+
+<p>The invisible scars which cobwebbed across my body from the
+electro-surgical knives tensed so suddenly that I almost screamed. I
+made myself reach for my cane casually. I had come so close!</p>
+
+<p>No, wait&mdash;there was the bitter rivalry between Chambers and Spicer.
+Chambers was too complete a politician to pass up an opportunity to
+discredit General Spicer.</p>
+
+<p>His black pin-prick eyes darted up toward the time unit on the wall.</p>
+
+<p>"There's no time to wait, Meyers," he said eagerly. "Spicer knows the
+schedule. We must go without him."</p>
+
+<p>Conscious of the stares of Meta and Meyers, I pushed the button which
+opened the door into the inner corridor.</p>
+
+<p>I looked directly at the Master Machine technician. "I asked Spicer to
+get a late report on the incident for us. But you know that Chambers is
+right&mdash;we cannot afford to wait any longer. Perhaps he'll catch up."</p>
+
+<p>We followed the corridor toward the hub of the Pentagon. Senator
+Chambers led the way, almost at a trot, as though he were afraid that
+Spicer would catch up. General Marshall and Meyers, hard put to keep
+up, were strung out behind him, with Meta and me bringing up the rear.</p>
+
+<p>That was the way we went through the check points manned by the
+security guards. Twice I caught Meta looking at me. At one of the
+check points, I thought she was going to say something. I lifted the
+tip of my cane and put my finger near the stud, but she remained silent.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>The tension began to mount inside me as we approached the door opening
+on the invisible force wall. Through the wall, I could see the squat,
+ugly building in the center of the hub of the Pentagon, which was our
+destination. I held my cane ready. But even a CT-bomb wouldn't break
+through the force field.</p>
+
+<p>As we drew near the final guard point, a scrubwoman who had been
+working on the floor of the corridor picked up her bucket and fell in
+with our party.</p>
+
+<p>Chambers was already gesturing at the guard to set the combination,
+which would open the force wall at precisely 1330. I looked at the time
+unit on my wrist and saw that we had twenty seconds to wait. I resisted
+the betraying impulse to rub the irritated area around the electrodes
+set in my neck.</p>
+
+<p>When I looked up from the time unit, everything was too quiet. Senator
+Chambers was no longer dancing around impatiently. He was staring at
+the bucket carried by the scrubwoman.</p>
+
+<p>The inside of the bucket was not even damp. And the mop she had been
+using was dry. The implication must have hit both Chambers and me at
+the same moment. I wanted to shout a warning.</p>
+
+<p>Chambers jumped back against the wall, yelling at the guard, "Shoot
+her! Shoot! She is an alien!"</p>
+
+<p>The scrubwoman did the wrong thing. She turned and tried to run, her
+legs lifting awkwardly against the pull of the unaccustomed gravity.
+But the guard's weapon was already at his shoulder. The low-velocity
+missile thudded into the body of the scrubwoman, flipping her up into
+the air in a graceless somersault. She landed on the concrete floor
+with a second thud, which echoed softly down the long hall. A pool
+slowly widened around her body and she lay still.</p>
+
+<p>I looked at my wrist time unit again. It was 1330. The door through the
+force wall was open. I went past the huddled heap lying on the floor,
+careful not to step in the pool of moisture.</p>
+
+<p><i>Too hideous to put into words in a public fac-report! That's what the
+facsimile sheet had hinted about the broken body of the other "alien."
+Two from four left only two. But the door through the force wall was
+open. I had to get through the door and into the building.</i></p>
+
+<p>Senator Chambers stepped out from behind the guard and blocked the
+doorway. His little eyes flashed from one expressionless face to
+another as he tried to come to some inner decision. His shoulders
+slumped.</p>
+
+<p>"I&mdash;I don't like it," he said. "The door is open now. I think perhaps
+we had better wait for General Spicer, after all."</p>
+
+<p>But Meta shook her head and pushed past Chambers. She said, "No. You
+know the routine as well as we, Senator. We are required to inspect the
+unit. Leave the guard on duty here."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>I took advantage of the indecision of the others and pushed through the
+door after her toward the squat, ugly little building that was my goal.</p>
+
+<p>Meta was almost to the door of the building when I heard Chambers yell.</p>
+
+<p>"Stop her, Secretary Bartlett! She's malfunctioning. We've all been
+ordered to wait outside for an ID check." I ignored him and he yelled
+again. "Guard, open fire on the girl. Don't let her get inside that
+door!"</p>
+
+<p>But he was too late. Meta disappeared through the door into the black
+building. I stepped inside just as it slammed shut and the first
+missile smashed against the door from the guard's weapon.</p>
+
+<p>The building was not large. The Master Machine squatted like a huge,
+thick-bodied black spider in the center of the building. A cobweb of
+power lines and control cables criss-crossed the floor and fed into the
+base of the unit.</p>
+
+<p>A myriad of tiny moving parts, levers and cams and elbowed arms and
+gears pulsed and shifted and moved to give the impression that the
+Master Machine was breathing, that it was alive. Tiny multicolored
+lights twinkled on and off. Giant vacuum tubes hummed and glowed. And
+all the while, it munched on endless tapes.</p>
+
+<p>The black monster was the heart of Earth's civilization, and it was the
+means of it. As I started toward the machine, a grid at the top turned
+slowly and ogled me. Almost immediately, a red tube blinked on, and
+the moving parts on one section of the machine plunged into a frenzied
+rhythm of action.</p>
+
+<p>I ran forward, breathing heavily under the strain of the unaccustomed
+gravity. I had only seconds in which to act. At any moment, Senator
+Chambers and the guards would be coming through the door behind me.</p>
+
+<p>I raised the cane and touched the stud.</p>
+
+<p>The finger of lavender light knifed toward the machine, searching for
+its heart and memory unit.</p>
+
+<p>The ray fused and melted and burned, cutting deeper and deeper into the
+maze of wires and tubes and relays. There was a blinding flash and one
+section of the machine ground to a stop. Other sections immediately
+increased their tempo of movement.</p>
+
+<p>Behind me the door slammed open, and Senator Chambers and two guards
+stumbled into the building.</p>
+
+<p>Chambers yelled, "He's over there in front of the Master Machine. Hurry
+up ... and ... shoot! Before it's ... too late! <i>Shoot!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>His face almost a cherry red, Chambers danced out of the way. The
+guards raised their weapons and sighted.</p>
+
+<p>Then the ray from my cane cut deeply into the very innermost section
+of the master unit and the machine died. A dial on the front of the
+blackened, twisted mess spun slowly to a stop. There was no more noise
+and no more movement.</p>
+
+<p>It was done.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>As I released the stud on the cane, the weapons of the guards were
+pointed directly at my back. Chambers' eyes were like two black
+marbles, staring at me, his head strained forward to watch the results
+of the missiles.</p>
+
+<p>I took a careful step to the left. And another. And then another. They
+didn't move.</p>
+
+<p>The guards' weapons remained trained on the spot where I had been
+standing. Senator Chambers continued staring at the place where I had
+been.</p>
+
+<p>None of them moved. They remained there, pointing at nothing. The
+electrodes at the bases of their necks reflecting the molten glow from
+the wrecked Master Machine.</p>
+
+<p>I relaxed. I rubbed the tender skin around the dummy electrodes set in
+my neck. It was finally over.</p>
+
+<p>Then a shadow moved against the wall where there should have been no
+movement. It lengthened and took on the shapely form of the redheaded
+Meta.</p>
+
+<p>Only now her eyes were no longer dead and expressionless. They were
+alive with feeling.</p>
+
+<p>I said, "So you are the other one. I should have guessed when you ran
+into the building ahead of me. But I was too busy thinking of those
+guards and of Chambers."</p>
+
+<p>She nodded. Her lips relaxed into a smile.</p>
+
+<p><i>Two from four leaves two! But we had accomplished our mission. And
+outside the building, in Washington, London, New York&mdash;in every Earth
+city&mdash;figures on the streets, in office buildings, and at home had
+become motionless, poised like mechanical toys with their springs run
+down. Housewives, cab drivers, copter pilots, passengers, shoppers,
+policemen, government workers had ceased to move, had stopped
+functioning with the destruction of the Master Machine.</i></p>
+
+<p>The redhead said, "It's really over, isn't it? They're stopped." She
+looked at the still figures, the dummy electrodes in her neck quivering
+in a shiver. "They can't kill any more?"</p>
+
+<p>I said, "It's over."</p>
+
+<p>"They can't destroy or move?"</p>
+
+<p>"Without the Master Machine, they have no power supply&mdash;nothing. And
+they can't kill or destroy."</p>
+
+<p>She walked over to look at the figures. "What went wrong? What happened
+to them?"</p>
+
+<p>I shrugged. "You can't blame them any more than you can blame a boiler
+that explodes or a dam that breaks. It was the human race itself that
+was responsible for what happened. We became lazy, careless. We built
+too many time saving gimmicks to do too many jobs for us."</p>
+
+<hr class="tb" />
+
+<p>"But the machines were designed to help us," she said. "To make life
+better and more pleasant."</p>
+
+<p>"At the beginning," I agreed, "but we didn't know where to stop. We
+started with labor-saving devices. We replaced ourselves in factories,
+offices, restaurants, stores. Still it wasn't enough. We designed
+robots to serve as traffic policemen, to drive cars, and to handle
+thinking tasks. Then we designed humanoid robots, mechanical replicas
+of man and woman, controlled by the computing sections of the Master
+Machine, activated by its power supply, able to move and talk and
+think. We used them as servants. We had the means to replace ourselves
+completely&mdash;everywhere."</p>
+
+<p>"Why did they turn on the human race?" she asked.</p>
+
+<p>I pointed to the smoldering wreck of the Master Machine in the center
+of the room. "Perhaps there was a weak circuit, or a tape was garbled,
+or a relay didn't close properly. The scientific colony on the Moon
+helped some of us to escape. The rest of mankind was destroyed by the
+robots&mdash;systematically and ruthlessly."</p>
+
+<p>The redhead shivered again and walked over to the door leading from the
+building. She stood there, looking up at the thin curve of the Moon
+showing in the blue of the afternoon sky.</p>
+
+<p>Finally she said, "Up there, by now, they will know that we have
+accomplished our mission. In a few hours, they will be filing out of
+the underground caverns and loading onto the giant rockets. They'll be
+coming back. But only the very oldest will have been on Earth before.
+Like us, thousands of them will be coming to a new world for the first
+time. A world of beauty and opportunity&mdash;if they want it that way. What
+will they decide?"</p>
+
+<p>What <i>would</i> they decide?</p>
+
+<p>I looked down at the redhead. Deep in her eyes, I saw the emotions
+which no humanoid robot could ever know. I saw them, and suddenly the
+tension eased out of my muscles.</p>
+
+<p>The answer to her question was in her own eyes.</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Assassin, by Bascom Jones
+
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+</pre>
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+</body>
+</html>
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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Assassin, by Bascom Jones

-

-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and

-most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions

-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms

-of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at

-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll

-have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using

-this ebook.

-

-

-

-Title: Assassin

-

-Author: Bascom Jones

-

-Release Date: December 12, 2019 [EBook #60907]

-

-Language: English

-

-Character set encoding: ASCII

-

-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASSASSIN ***

-

-

-

-

-Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online

-Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-

-                               ASSASSIN

-

-                         By BASCOM JONES, JR.

-

-                        _Everyone is allowed to

-                     commit an error. The trouble

-                         was that I couldn't._

-

-           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from

-              Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1961.

-         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that

-         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

-

-

-I deliberately dug my heels into the concrete floor of the corridor of

-the Pentagon. The steel plates on the heels of my black uniform boots

-heralded my approach with sharp anvil sounds as I marched confidently

-toward the unmarked door five hundred feet ahead.

-

-What was that expression used by Earth people of the 20th century? I

-shifted back through my training, shuffled through the facts about

-Earth's past history with which I had been indoctrinated, searching for

-the word. _Assassin!_ That was it. But the term fell short. It lacked

-in magnitude. There was a difference in the murder of one person and

-the assassination of the occupants of an entire planet!

-

-One foot in front of the other, I paced off the distance toward the end

-of the hallway, carefully duplicating the strut which was a trademark

-of the Earth Council's Security Police. I'd practiced the peculiar,

-jolting method of walking a thousand times, but I began to feel the

-effects of Earth's heavier gravity before I had covered half the

-distance. It had been impossible to simulate the difference in gravity

-in my training.

-

-The two guards standing outside the door alertly watched my approach.

-When I was still four paces away, one of them ordered me to stop.

-They ignored as though they were not there the gold stars prominently

-displayed on the shoulders of my tunic.

-

-The guard on the left said, "Your ID card, sir."

-

-The guards were well trained. They would not hesitate to shoot if I

-made the slightest slip.

-

-I handed the card to him and watched as he held it up to a visi-scanner

-in the wall. The scanner glowed into life and purred softly, rapidly

-checking the invisible identification codings on the card against the

-ID component of Earth's Master Machine. Then it dulled and was silent.

-The strident alarm siren over the scanner remained inactive. The ID

-card was returned to me and the guards snapped smartly to attention as

-I went on into the room beyond the door.

-

-I had passed the first test.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-The reception room was small. Thick carpeting deadened the clump of my

-heels as I marched toward the chromed desk guarding a second unmarked

-door. A flawlessly proportioned redhead sat behind the desk. Her eyes

-and face showed no expression when I stopped in front of her. Her

-tight-fitting uniform was black and bore the gold trim of the Security

-Police.

-

-Constricting my throat, I let the words snap out crisply, as I had been

-trained.

-

-"General Spicer," I said, "commanding general of the Security Police,

-reporting to the Secretary of Defense. As requested."

-

-I waited.

-

-Her eyes, still showing no outward expression, ran over me rapidly.

-Then she thumbed a button on the desk and a screen, recessed into the

-chromed surface, glowed into life.

-

-Almost immediately, a full-face reproduction of the features of General

-Spicer appeared on the screen in color. She checked the image against

-my face, her eyes flickering to the tiny scar under my left eye and to

-the old blaster burn across my right ear. When the image changed to a

-profile view, I turned my head to give her the same angle.

-

-She nodded, pressing the button on her desk which darkened the screen.

-

-She said, "You're early. Your appointment with Secretary Bartlett is--"

-

-"For 1300 hours," I filled in automatically, when she hesitated in one

-last routine test. "I was in the building on another matter, however,

-and came here after I had finished my other business."

-

-"Yes, of course," she said. "Please take a seat. Senator Chambers is

-ahead of you, but his business will not take long."

-

-I fought back the sudden impulse to pivot and stare in the direction

-her eyes were indicating. _Senator Carl Chambers._ My briefing on

-him had been lengthy. For 60 Earth years, he had headed the un-Earth

-Activities Committee. As General Spicer, I was supposed to have a

-nodding acquaintance with him, but no more than that. During the

-years, our rivalry had become legend. His unanticipated presence in

-the waiting room could prove disastrous. Chambers would not be fooled

-easily.

-

-Turning slowly, I nodded stiffly and curtly in Chambers' direction and

-then selected a chair across the room from him.

-

-The senator's head merged directly into the shoulders of his grossly

-rotund body. Small, round eyes stared unblinkingly at me from the red

-pudginess of his face. They hesitated on the black swagger stick which

-I held loosely in my right hand, moved on, and then returned to it. The

-invisible scars, made by the electro-surgical knives in re-designing my

-body, began to tense slowly. I shifted the swagger stick in my hand.

-

-Then the redheaded secretary stood up. She said, "Secretary Bartlett

-will see you now. Senator."

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-For a fraction of a time, I thought Senator Chambers had not heard her.

-His expressionless eyes were still on me. Then, with a grunt, he lifted

-himself to his feet and disappeared through the door behind her. A tiny

-clicking noise indicated that it locked automatically.

-

-I shifted my gaze and saw that the secretary was looking at me

-intently. It was impossible to guess at what might be going on behind

-those eyes. The tension began to build inside me again, but I kept my

-own eyes as expressionless as hers.

-

-The girl picked up a folded piece of paper out of a receptacle on her

-desk and brought it over to me.

-

-She said, "While you're waiting, General, you might like to read the

-latest facsimile. Or have you already seen it?"

-

-I shook my head. "I saw the 1100 fac-report, but I missed this one."

-

-She handed it to me and returned to her desk. There was just the

-slightest suggestion of a rolling movement in her walk, not at all

-unpleasant.

-

-When I looked down at the facsimile sheet, the headline screamed

-silently up at me. I swiveled my eyes over at the secretary, but

-she was working her recordo-writer, her fingers moving rapidly,

-mechanically.

-

-The headline read: ALIEN INVADER DISCOVERED! The story that followed

-reported that two Security Police guards had intercepted someone who

-looked like and was dressed like an Earthman, trying to enter the

-Senate at 1109 hours that morning. A discrepancy had been discovered

-during the routine ID card check and the imposter had tried to escape.

-The guards had opened fire at close range, scoring two direct hits.

-

-While the account was obviously censored, it intimated that a full

-report to be released later by Security Police Headquarters would be

-almost unbelievable. It hinted that the hideous mess revealed when the

-guards' weapons had ripped through the surprisingly soft body armor of

-the impostor positively confirmed the fact that the individual was an

-enemy alien.

-

-Before I could read any further, there was a muted tone from the

-direction of the desk. The secretary acknowledged the signal, spoke

-several words which I couldn't hear, then looked at me.

-

-She said, "You may go in now, General Spicer."

-

-I placed the facsimile sheet on her desk and waited while she activated

-the circuit, which would release the catch on her side of the door.

-

-_Who had it been? There had been four of us. Volunteers. We had been

-selected, briefed and trained separately. We had been housed separately

-during the mental and physical tortures of the surgical and the psych

-labs. The ship which had brought us to Earth had released us at

-separate points above the Earth capital. Only our ultimate goal was the

-same. But now there was one less of us to accomplish that goal! And we

-had lost the element of surprise._

-

-The door clicked twice and swung open. I stepped through, just in time

-to see the rotund shape of Senator Chambers go out a private exit on

-the far side of the room. Both doors closed at almost the same moment

-and I stood alone before the Secretary of Defense for the planet Earth.

-

-The secretary sat behind a desk on the far side of the room. He was a

-powerful man, in keeping with the importance of the job he filled. But

-the huge memory bank which he relied upon and which filled the entire

-wall behind his desk seemed to dwarf him.

-

-Without looking up immediately, Secretary Bartlett carefully rewound a

-tape he had been referring to and fed it back into the open mouth of

-the memory unit.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-He said, "Spicer, we've been talking about you. Do you have anything

-new on this alien incident? Chambers said an impulse cleared the Master

-Machine last night, indicating there may have been some sort of ship

-overhead."

-

-"No, sir," I lied. "My people are working on it, but we don't have much

-more to go on than appeared in the latest fac-report."

-

-"If there was a ship overhead, it was protected by a new type of

-anti-identification device. The Master Machine probed for more than six

-minutes and registered only a void. Chambers, of course, is always--"

-

-Bartlett didn't finish the sentence. His words trailed off into a

-moment of puzzled silence as he turned and looked squarely at me for

-the first time.

-

-Something had gone wrong. Something that I had done or hadn't done had

-revealed to him that I wasn't General Spicer.

-

-Secretary Bartlett started to rise. "Why, you're not Spicer! You're an

-impostor!"

-

-His eyes displayed neither fear nor surprise, but his hand was less

-than a time point from the alarm buzzer on the top of his desk when I

-touched the tiny stud on the hilt of my useless-looking swagger stick.

-

-For the tick of a pulse, he sat there with his body bathed in the

-colored ray, his finger poised above the warning buzzer. Then his body

-began to glow. I closed my eyes when the heat and brightness reached

-my face. When I opened them, there was nothing left of Bartlett but a

-swirl of dust motes.

-

-Stepping behind the desk, I stripped off the thin plasti-mask which had

-disguised my features to look like those of General Spicer. My hands

-moved almost automatically. Each motion had been rehearsed, timed,

-analyzed, and timed again.

-

-I reversed my coat, hiding the gold markings of the Security Police,

-and revealing the precious-metal insignia which had been worn by the

-Secretary of Defense. The now-useless ID card, which I had obtained

-earlier when I destroyed the real General Spicer, was dropped into the

-office incendiary tube, along with the mask and the removable steel

-cappings of my boots.

-

-By the time I had finished, only the swagger stick remained to connect

-me with General Spicer. I carefully telescoped its length, twisting

-and turning the artfully designed tubing, until it was identical to

-Bartlett's cane of state, leaning against the desk. The real cane I

-disposed of by dropping it into the incendiary tube after the other

-articles.

-

-I turned the stiff black collar of my coat up, in the same manner

-that Bartlett had worn his. The upturned collar hid the tiny metal

-electrodes protruding from the base of my neck, under each ear.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-When I sat down behind the desk, the image reflected up at me from

-the chromed top was, feature for feature, that of Defense Secretary

-Bartlett. The electro-surgical knives, wielded by experts, had done a

-good job. I grimaced. I puffed out my cheeks. I rolled my eyes. And, in

-turn, the reflected image grimaced, puffed out its cheeks, and rolled

-its eyes. The texture of my skin was that of Bartlett's. Even the pore

-structure.

-

-This had been the final big hurdle. The rest was now up to me.

-

-No! More accurately, the rest depended upon routine--a routine

-established more than 70 Earth years ago--a routine so inflexible that

-it had not been broken for a single day. My mission was to break that

-routine.

-

-Destruction of Spicer and Bartlett was important only as a means to an

-end. As soon as they were missed, others would fill their places. I

-had to destroy _all_ Spicers and _all_ Bartletts. I had to destroy the

-residents of Washington, of London, of New York, of Earth!

-

-My mission was to destroy so that we could live. That was what the

-technicians in the psych-labs had told me. That was what the physicians

-behind the electro-surgical knives had told me. It had been drummed

-into me over and over, through every phase of the mental and physical

-preparation that I had been put through.

-

-So I sat in Bartlett's office, looking like Bartlett, waiting. I knew

-almost to the exact time point when the buzzer on the desk in front of

-me would sound. I expected it, but when the strident tone filled the

-room, I jumped.

-

-I thumbed the switch on the desk video-com and the features of the

-redheaded secretary looked out at me from the recessed screen. I

-deepened my voice to mimic Bartlett's.

-

-"Yes, Meta?"

-

-The video-com was a two-way security system and I knew that she could

-see me, too. She continued to stare, and I felt the scar tissue

-tighten around the electrodes in my neck.

-

-Through some flaw in transmission, for a brief moment, I thought I saw

-the twinkle of an expression deep in her eyes. But that was impossible.

-Her lips twitched and the transmission flaw, or whatever it might have

-been, was corrected. Her eyes were as inscrutable as ever.

-

-She said, "It's 1324, sir. The inspection group will be here in two

-minutes. Shall I bring them in?"

-

-I nodded my head to one side slightly, in a manner peculiar to

-Bartlett. "Thank you, Meta. Yes, of course. Bring them in as soon as

-they arrive."

-

-I switched the video-com off and let my fingers lightly play with the

-button on the desk that activated the lock on Bartlett's private door

-into the inner corridor. It was a temptation to open the door and

-attempt to go the rest of the way on my own. But I wouldn't make it.

-Not even disguised as Defense Secretary Bartlett. I had been warned not

-to try.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-My only hope lay in the routine set up by Earth's scientists more

-than 70 years ago--the daily inspection of the unit. As a member of

-the inspection party, I could pass through the security guards. More

-important, as a member of the group, I would arrive at the protective

-force sphere at the hub of the Pentagon at the only time and at the

-only place the force sphere could be breached.

-

-I waited.

-

-Precisely at the end of Meta's two minutes, the lock buzzed on the door

-to the reception room. I touched the control which opened the door and

-stood as the group filed into the room. My briefings on each of them

-had been exhaustive, but I examined their faces for some sign that one

-or more might penetrate my disguise as Bartlett.

-

-The redheaded Meta nodded. She had been with Bartlett as his security

-secretary for 70 years. Senator Chambers, as a representative of the

-electorate, darted rapid glances around the room as soon as the door

-had closed, counting noses. General Whit Marshall, chairman of the

-Joint Chiefs of Staff of the police systems, nodded with the cold

-reserve of the high-ranking military to the higher-ranking civilian.

-The fourth member of the group, Chet Meyers, chief Master Machine

-technician, was the only one to speak.

-

-The lanky Meyers looked around the room. "Where's General Spicer, sir?

-Senator Chambers was telling us you were going to invite him because of

-this scare today."

-

-The invisible scars which cobwebbed across my body from the

-electro-surgical knives tensed so suddenly that I almost screamed. I

-made myself reach for my cane casually. I had come so close!

-

-No, wait--there was the bitter rivalry between Chambers and Spicer.

-Chambers was too complete a politician to pass up an opportunity to

-discredit General Spicer.

-

-His black pin-prick eyes darted up toward the time unit on the wall.

-

-"There's no time to wait, Meyers," he said eagerly. "Spicer knows the

-schedule. We must go without him."

-

-Conscious of the stares of Meta and Meyers, I pushed the button which

-opened the door into the inner corridor.

-

-I looked directly at the Master Machine technician. "I asked Spicer to

-get a late report on the incident for us. But you know that Chambers is

-right--we cannot afford to wait any longer. Perhaps he'll catch up."

-

-We followed the corridor toward the hub of the Pentagon. Senator

-Chambers led the way, almost at a trot, as though he were afraid that

-Spicer would catch up. General Marshall and Meyers, hard put to keep

-up, were strung out behind him, with Meta and me bringing up the rear.

-

-That was the way we went through the check points manned by the

-security guards. Twice I caught Meta looking at me. At one of the

-check points, I thought she was going to say something. I lifted the

-tip of my cane and put my finger near the stud, but she remained silent.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-The tension began to mount inside me as we approached the door opening

-on the invisible force wall. Through the wall, I could see the squat,

-ugly building in the center of the hub of the Pentagon, which was our

-destination. I held my cane ready. But even a CT-bomb wouldn't break

-through the force field.

-

-As we drew near the final guard point, a scrubwoman who had been

-working on the floor of the corridor picked up her bucket and fell in

-with our party.

-

-Chambers was already gesturing at the guard to set the combination,

-which would open the force wall at precisely 1330. I looked at the time

-unit on my wrist and saw that we had twenty seconds to wait. I resisted

-the betraying impulse to rub the irritated area around the electrodes

-set in my neck.

-

-When I looked up from the time unit, everything was too quiet. Senator

-Chambers was no longer dancing around impatiently. He was staring at

-the bucket carried by the scrubwoman.

-

-The inside of the bucket was not even damp. And the mop she had been

-using was dry. The implication must have hit both Chambers and me at

-the same moment. I wanted to shout a warning.

-

-Chambers jumped back against the wall, yelling at the guard, "Shoot

-her! Shoot! She is an alien!"

-

-The scrubwoman did the wrong thing. She turned and tried to run, her

-legs lifting awkwardly against the pull of the unaccustomed gravity.

-But the guard's weapon was already at his shoulder. The low-velocity

-missile thudded into the body of the scrubwoman, flipping her up into

-the air in a graceless somersault. She landed on the concrete floor

-with a second thud, which echoed softly down the long hall. A pool

-slowly widened around her body and she lay still.

-

-I looked at my wrist time unit again. It was 1330. The door through the

-force wall was open. I went past the huddled heap lying on the floor,

-careful not to step in the pool of moisture.

-

-_Too hideous to put into words in a public fac-report! That's what the

-facsimile sheet had hinted about the broken body of the other "alien."

-Two from four left only two. But the door through the force wall was

-open. I had to get through the door and into the building._

-

-Senator Chambers stepped out from behind the guard and blocked the

-doorway. His little eyes flashed from one expressionless face to

-another as he tried to come to some inner decision. His shoulders

-slumped.

-

-"I--I don't like it," he said. "The door is open now. I think perhaps

-we had better wait for General Spicer, after all."

-

-But Meta shook her head and pushed past Chambers. She said, "No. You

-know the routine as well as we, Senator. We are required to inspect the

-unit. Leave the guard on duty here."

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-I took advantage of the indecision of the others and pushed through the

-door after her toward the squat, ugly little building that was my goal.

-

-Meta was almost to the door of the building when I heard Chambers yell.

-

-"Stop her, Secretary Bartlett! She's malfunctioning. We've all been

-ordered to wait outside for an ID check." I ignored him and he yelled

-again. "Guard, open fire on the girl. Don't let her get inside that

-door!"

-

-But he was too late. Meta disappeared through the door into the black

-building. I stepped inside just as it slammed shut and the first

-missile smashed against the door from the guard's weapon.

-

-The building was not large. The Master Machine squatted like a huge,

-thick-bodied black spider in the center of the building. A cobweb of

-power lines and control cables criss-crossed the floor and fed into the

-base of the unit.

-

-A myriad of tiny moving parts, levers and cams and elbowed arms and

-gears pulsed and shifted and moved to give the impression that the

-Master Machine was breathing, that it was alive. Tiny multicolored

-lights twinkled on and off. Giant vacuum tubes hummed and glowed. And

-all the while, it munched on endless tapes.

-

-The black monster was the heart of Earth's civilization, and it was the

-means of it. As I started toward the machine, a grid at the top turned

-slowly and ogled me. Almost immediately, a red tube blinked on, and

-the moving parts on one section of the machine plunged into a frenzied

-rhythm of action.

-

-I ran forward, breathing heavily under the strain of the unaccustomed

-gravity. I had only seconds in which to act. At any moment, Senator

-Chambers and the guards would be coming through the door behind me.

-

-I raised the cane and touched the stud.

-

-The finger of lavender light knifed toward the machine, searching for

-its heart and memory unit.

-

-The ray fused and melted and burned, cutting deeper and deeper into the

-maze of wires and tubes and relays. There was a blinding flash and one

-section of the machine ground to a stop. Other sections immediately

-increased their tempo of movement.

-

-Behind me the door slammed open, and Senator Chambers and two guards

-stumbled into the building.

-

-Chambers yelled, "He's over there in front of the Master Machine. Hurry

-up ... and ... shoot! Before it's ... too late! _Shoot!_"

-

-His face almost a cherry red, Chambers danced out of the way. The

-guards raised their weapons and sighted.

-

-Then the ray from my cane cut deeply into the very innermost section

-of the master unit and the machine died. A dial on the front of the

-blackened, twisted mess spun slowly to a stop. There was no more noise

-and no more movement.

-

-It was done.

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-As I released the stud on the cane, the weapons of the guards were

-pointed directly at my back. Chambers' eyes were like two black

-marbles, staring at me, his head strained forward to watch the results

-of the missiles.

-

-I took a careful step to the left. And another. And then another. They

-didn't move.

-

-The guards' weapons remained trained on the spot where I had been

-standing. Senator Chambers continued staring at the place where I had

-been.

-

-None of them moved. They remained there, pointing at nothing. The

-electrodes at the bases of their necks reflecting the molten glow from

-the wrecked Master Machine.

-

-I relaxed. I rubbed the tender skin around the dummy electrodes set in

-my neck. It was finally over.

-

-Then a shadow moved against the wall where there should have been no

-movement. It lengthened and took on the shapely form of the redheaded

-Meta.

-

-Only now her eyes were no longer dead and expressionless. They were

-alive with feeling.

-

-I said, "So you are the other one. I should have guessed when you ran

-into the building ahead of me. But I was too busy thinking of those

-guards and of Chambers."

-

-She nodded. Her lips relaxed into a smile.

-

-_Two from four leaves two! But we had accomplished our mission. And

-outside the building, in Washington, London, New York--in every Earth

-city--figures on the streets, in office buildings, and at home had

-become motionless, poised like mechanical toys with their springs run

-down. Housewives, cab drivers, copter pilots, passengers, shoppers,

-policemen, government workers had ceased to move, had stopped

-functioning with the destruction of the Master Machine._

-

-The redhead said, "It's really over, isn't it? They're stopped." She

-looked at the still figures, the dummy electrodes in her neck quivering

-in a shiver. "They can't kill any more?"

-

-I said, "It's over."

-

-"They can't destroy or move?"

-

-"Without the Master Machine, they have no power supply--nothing. And

-they can't kill or destroy."

-

-She walked over to look at the figures. "What went wrong? What happened

-to them?"

-

-I shrugged. "You can't blame them any more than you can blame a boiler

-that explodes or a dam that breaks. It was the human race itself that

-was responsible for what happened. We became lazy, careless. We built

-too many time saving gimmicks to do too many jobs for us."

-

-       *       *       *       *       *

-

-"But the machines were designed to help us," she said. "To make life

-better and more pleasant."

-

-"At the beginning," I agreed, "but we didn't know where to stop. We

-started with labor-saving devices. We replaced ourselves in factories,

-offices, restaurants, stores. Still it wasn't enough. We designed

-robots to serve as traffic policemen, to drive cars, and to handle

-thinking tasks. Then we designed humanoid robots, mechanical replicas

-of man and woman, controlled by the computing sections of the Master

-Machine, activated by its power supply, able to move and talk and

-think. We used them as servants. We had the means to replace ourselves

-completely--everywhere."

-

-"Why did they turn on the human race?" she asked.

-

-I pointed to the smoldering wreck of the Master Machine in the center

-of the room. "Perhaps there was a weak circuit, or a tape was garbled,

-or a relay didn't close properly. The scientific colony on the Moon

-helped some of us to escape. The rest of mankind was destroyed by the

-robots--systematically and ruthlessly."

-

-The redhead shivered again and walked over to the door leading from the

-building. She stood there, looking up at the thin curve of the Moon

-showing in the blue of the afternoon sky.

-

-Finally she said, "Up there, by now, they will know that we have

-accomplished our mission. In a few hours, they will be filing out of

-the underground caverns and loading onto the giant rockets. They'll be

-coming back. But only the very oldest will have been on Earth before.

-Like us, thousands of them will be coming to a new world for the first

-time. A world of beauty and opportunity--if they want it that way. What

-will they decide?"

-

-What _would_ they decide?

-

-I looked down at the redhead. Deep in her eyes, I saw the emotions

-which no humanoid robot could ever know. I saw them, and suddenly the

-tension eased out of my muscles.

-

-The answer to her question was in her own eyes.

-

-

-

-

-

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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Assassin, by Bascom Jones
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
+most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
+whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
+of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
+www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll
+have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using
+this ebook.
+
+
+
+Title: Assassin
+
+Author: Bascom Jones
+
+Release Date: December 12, 2019 [EBook #60907]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ASSASSIN ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
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+
+
+                               ASSASSIN
+
+                         By BASCOM JONES, JR.
+
+                        _Everyone is allowed to
+                     commit an error. The trouble
+                         was that I couldn't._
+
+           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
+              Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1961.
+         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
+         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
+
+
+I deliberately dug my heels into the concrete floor of the corridor of
+the Pentagon. The steel plates on the heels of my black uniform boots
+heralded my approach with sharp anvil sounds as I marched confidently
+toward the unmarked door five hundred feet ahead.
+
+What was that expression used by Earth people of the 20th century? I
+shifted back through my training, shuffled through the facts about
+Earth's past history with which I had been indoctrinated, searching for
+the word. _Assassin!_ That was it. But the term fell short. It lacked
+in magnitude. There was a difference in the murder of one person and
+the assassination of the occupants of an entire planet!
+
+One foot in front of the other, I paced off the distance toward the end
+of the hallway, carefully duplicating the strut which was a trademark
+of the Earth Council's Security Police. I'd practiced the peculiar,
+jolting method of walking a thousand times, but I began to feel the
+effects of Earth's heavier gravity before I had covered half the
+distance. It had been impossible to simulate the difference in gravity
+in my training.
+
+The two guards standing outside the door alertly watched my approach.
+When I was still four paces away, one of them ordered me to stop.
+They ignored as though they were not there the gold stars prominently
+displayed on the shoulders of my tunic.
+
+The guard on the left said, "Your ID card, sir."
+
+The guards were well trained. They would not hesitate to shoot if I
+made the slightest slip.
+
+I handed the card to him and watched as he held it up to a visi-scanner
+in the wall. The scanner glowed into life and purred softly, rapidly
+checking the invisible identification codings on the card against the
+ID component of Earth's Master Machine. Then it dulled and was silent.
+The strident alarm siren over the scanner remained inactive. The ID
+card was returned to me and the guards snapped smartly to attention as
+I went on into the room beyond the door.
+
+I had passed the first test.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The reception room was small. Thick carpeting deadened the clump of my
+heels as I marched toward the chromed desk guarding a second unmarked
+door. A flawlessly proportioned redhead sat behind the desk. Her eyes
+and face showed no expression when I stopped in front of her. Her
+tight-fitting uniform was black and bore the gold trim of the Security
+Police.
+
+Constricting my throat, I let the words snap out crisply, as I had been
+trained.
+
+"General Spicer," I said, "commanding general of the Security Police,
+reporting to the Secretary of Defense. As requested."
+
+I waited.
+
+Her eyes, still showing no outward expression, ran over me rapidly.
+Then she thumbed a button on the desk and a screen, recessed into the
+chromed surface, glowed into life.
+
+Almost immediately, a full-face reproduction of the features of General
+Spicer appeared on the screen in color. She checked the image against
+my face, her eyes flickering to the tiny scar under my left eye and to
+the old blaster burn across my right ear. When the image changed to a
+profile view, I turned my head to give her the same angle.
+
+She nodded, pressing the button on her desk which darkened the screen.
+
+She said, "You're early. Your appointment with Secretary Bartlett is--"
+
+"For 1300 hours," I filled in automatically, when she hesitated in one
+last routine test. "I was in the building on another matter, however,
+and came here after I had finished my other business."
+
+"Yes, of course," she said. "Please take a seat. Senator Chambers is
+ahead of you, but his business will not take long."
+
+I fought back the sudden impulse to pivot and stare in the direction
+her eyes were indicating. _Senator Carl Chambers._ My briefing on
+him had been lengthy. For 60 Earth years, he had headed the un-Earth
+Activities Committee. As General Spicer, I was supposed to have a
+nodding acquaintance with him, but no more than that. During the
+years, our rivalry had become legend. His unanticipated presence in
+the waiting room could prove disastrous. Chambers would not be fooled
+easily.
+
+Turning slowly, I nodded stiffly and curtly in Chambers' direction and
+then selected a chair across the room from him.
+
+The senator's head merged directly into the shoulders of his grossly
+rotund body. Small, round eyes stared unblinkingly at me from the red
+pudginess of his face. They hesitated on the black swagger stick which
+I held loosely in my right hand, moved on, and then returned to it. The
+invisible scars, made by the electro-surgical knives in re-designing my
+body, began to tense slowly. I shifted the swagger stick in my hand.
+
+Then the redheaded secretary stood up. She said, "Secretary Bartlett
+will see you now. Senator."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+For a fraction of a time, I thought Senator Chambers had not heard her.
+His expressionless eyes were still on me. Then, with a grunt, he lifted
+himself to his feet and disappeared through the door behind her. A tiny
+clicking noise indicated that it locked automatically.
+
+I shifted my gaze and saw that the secretary was looking at me
+intently. It was impossible to guess at what might be going on behind
+those eyes. The tension began to build inside me again, but I kept my
+own eyes as expressionless as hers.
+
+The girl picked up a folded piece of paper out of a receptacle on her
+desk and brought it over to me.
+
+She said, "While you're waiting, General, you might like to read the
+latest facsimile. Or have you already seen it?"
+
+I shook my head. "I saw the 1100 fac-report, but I missed this one."
+
+She handed it to me and returned to her desk. There was just the
+slightest suggestion of a rolling movement in her walk, not at all
+unpleasant.
+
+When I looked down at the facsimile sheet, the headline screamed
+silently up at me. I swiveled my eyes over at the secretary, but
+she was working her recordo-writer, her fingers moving rapidly,
+mechanically.
+
+The headline read: ALIEN INVADER DISCOVERED! The story that followed
+reported that two Security Police guards had intercepted someone who
+looked like and was dressed like an Earthman, trying to enter the
+Senate at 1109 hours that morning. A discrepancy had been discovered
+during the routine ID card check and the imposter had tried to escape.
+The guards had opened fire at close range, scoring two direct hits.
+
+While the account was obviously censored, it intimated that a full
+report to be released later by Security Police Headquarters would be
+almost unbelievable. It hinted that the hideous mess revealed when the
+guards' weapons had ripped through the surprisingly soft body armor of
+the impostor positively confirmed the fact that the individual was an
+enemy alien.
+
+Before I could read any further, there was a muted tone from the
+direction of the desk. The secretary acknowledged the signal, spoke
+several words which I couldn't hear, then looked at me.
+
+She said, "You may go in now, General Spicer."
+
+I placed the facsimile sheet on her desk and waited while she activated
+the circuit, which would release the catch on her side of the door.
+
+_Who had it been? There had been four of us. Volunteers. We had been
+selected, briefed and trained separately. We had been housed separately
+during the mental and physical tortures of the surgical and the psych
+labs. The ship which had brought us to Earth had released us at
+separate points above the Earth capital. Only our ultimate goal was the
+same. But now there was one less of us to accomplish that goal! And we
+had lost the element of surprise._
+
+The door clicked twice and swung open. I stepped through, just in time
+to see the rotund shape of Senator Chambers go out a private exit on
+the far side of the room. Both doors closed at almost the same moment
+and I stood alone before the Secretary of Defense for the planet Earth.
+
+The secretary sat behind a desk on the far side of the room. He was a
+powerful man, in keeping with the importance of the job he filled. But
+the huge memory bank which he relied upon and which filled the entire
+wall behind his desk seemed to dwarf him.
+
+Without looking up immediately, Secretary Bartlett carefully rewound a
+tape he had been referring to and fed it back into the open mouth of
+the memory unit.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+He said, "Spicer, we've been talking about you. Do you have anything
+new on this alien incident? Chambers said an impulse cleared the Master
+Machine last night, indicating there may have been some sort of ship
+overhead."
+
+"No, sir," I lied. "My people are working on it, but we don't have much
+more to go on than appeared in the latest fac-report."
+
+"If there was a ship overhead, it was protected by a new type of
+anti-identification device. The Master Machine probed for more than six
+minutes and registered only a void. Chambers, of course, is always--"
+
+Bartlett didn't finish the sentence. His words trailed off into a
+moment of puzzled silence as he turned and looked squarely at me for
+the first time.
+
+Something had gone wrong. Something that I had done or hadn't done had
+revealed to him that I wasn't General Spicer.
+
+Secretary Bartlett started to rise. "Why, you're not Spicer! You're an
+impostor!"
+
+His eyes displayed neither fear nor surprise, but his hand was less
+than a time point from the alarm buzzer on the top of his desk when I
+touched the tiny stud on the hilt of my useless-looking swagger stick.
+
+For the tick of a pulse, he sat there with his body bathed in the
+colored ray, his finger poised above the warning buzzer. Then his body
+began to glow. I closed my eyes when the heat and brightness reached
+my face. When I opened them, there was nothing left of Bartlett but a
+swirl of dust motes.
+
+Stepping behind the desk, I stripped off the thin plasti-mask which had
+disguised my features to look like those of General Spicer. My hands
+moved almost automatically. Each motion had been rehearsed, timed,
+analyzed, and timed again.
+
+I reversed my coat, hiding the gold markings of the Security Police,
+and revealing the precious-metal insignia which had been worn by the
+Secretary of Defense. The now-useless ID card, which I had obtained
+earlier when I destroyed the real General Spicer, was dropped into the
+office incendiary tube, along with the mask and the removable steel
+cappings of my boots.
+
+By the time I had finished, only the swagger stick remained to connect
+me with General Spicer. I carefully telescoped its length, twisting
+and turning the artfully designed tubing, until it was identical to
+Bartlett's cane of state, leaning against the desk. The real cane I
+disposed of by dropping it into the incendiary tube after the other
+articles.
+
+I turned the stiff black collar of my coat up, in the same manner
+that Bartlett had worn his. The upturned collar hid the tiny metal
+electrodes protruding from the base of my neck, under each ear.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+When I sat down behind the desk, the image reflected up at me from
+the chromed top was, feature for feature, that of Defense Secretary
+Bartlett. The electro-surgical knives, wielded by experts, had done a
+good job. I grimaced. I puffed out my cheeks. I rolled my eyes. And, in
+turn, the reflected image grimaced, puffed out its cheeks, and rolled
+its eyes. The texture of my skin was that of Bartlett's. Even the pore
+structure.
+
+This had been the final big hurdle. The rest was now up to me.
+
+No! More accurately, the rest depended upon routine--a routine
+established more than 70 Earth years ago--a routine so inflexible that
+it had not been broken for a single day. My mission was to break that
+routine.
+
+Destruction of Spicer and Bartlett was important only as a means to an
+end. As soon as they were missed, others would fill their places. I
+had to destroy _all_ Spicers and _all_ Bartletts. I had to destroy the
+residents of Washington, of London, of New York, of Earth!
+
+My mission was to destroy so that we could live. That was what the
+technicians in the psych-labs had told me. That was what the physicians
+behind the electro-surgical knives had told me. It had been drummed
+into me over and over, through every phase of the mental and physical
+preparation that I had been put through.
+
+So I sat in Bartlett's office, looking like Bartlett, waiting. I knew
+almost to the exact time point when the buzzer on the desk in front of
+me would sound. I expected it, but when the strident tone filled the
+room, I jumped.
+
+I thumbed the switch on the desk video-com and the features of the
+redheaded secretary looked out at me from the recessed screen. I
+deepened my voice to mimic Bartlett's.
+
+"Yes, Meta?"
+
+The video-com was a two-way security system and I knew that she could
+see me, too. She continued to stare, and I felt the scar tissue
+tighten around the electrodes in my neck.
+
+Through some flaw in transmission, for a brief moment, I thought I saw
+the twinkle of an expression deep in her eyes. But that was impossible.
+Her lips twitched and the transmission flaw, or whatever it might have
+been, was corrected. Her eyes were as inscrutable as ever.
+
+She said, "It's 1324, sir. The inspection group will be here in two
+minutes. Shall I bring them in?"
+
+I nodded my head to one side slightly, in a manner peculiar to
+Bartlett. "Thank you, Meta. Yes, of course. Bring them in as soon as
+they arrive."
+
+I switched the video-com off and let my fingers lightly play with the
+button on the desk that activated the lock on Bartlett's private door
+into the inner corridor. It was a temptation to open the door and
+attempt to go the rest of the way on my own. But I wouldn't make it.
+Not even disguised as Defense Secretary Bartlett. I had been warned not
+to try.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+My only hope lay in the routine set up by Earth's scientists more
+than 70 years ago--the daily inspection of the unit. As a member of
+the inspection party, I could pass through the security guards. More
+important, as a member of the group, I would arrive at the protective
+force sphere at the hub of the Pentagon at the only time and at the
+only place the force sphere could be breached.
+
+I waited.
+
+Precisely at the end of Meta's two minutes, the lock buzzed on the door
+to the reception room. I touched the control which opened the door and
+stood as the group filed into the room. My briefings on each of them
+had been exhaustive, but I examined their faces for some sign that one
+or more might penetrate my disguise as Bartlett.
+
+The redheaded Meta nodded. She had been with Bartlett as his security
+secretary for 70 years. Senator Chambers, as a representative of the
+electorate, darted rapid glances around the room as soon as the door
+had closed, counting noses. General Whit Marshall, chairman of the
+Joint Chiefs of Staff of the police systems, nodded with the cold
+reserve of the high-ranking military to the higher-ranking civilian.
+The fourth member of the group, Chet Meyers, chief Master Machine
+technician, was the only one to speak.
+
+The lanky Meyers looked around the room. "Where's General Spicer, sir?
+Senator Chambers was telling us you were going to invite him because of
+this scare today."
+
+The invisible scars which cobwebbed across my body from the
+electro-surgical knives tensed so suddenly that I almost screamed. I
+made myself reach for my cane casually. I had come so close!
+
+No, wait--there was the bitter rivalry between Chambers and Spicer.
+Chambers was too complete a politician to pass up an opportunity to
+discredit General Spicer.
+
+His black pin-prick eyes darted up toward the time unit on the wall.
+
+"There's no time to wait, Meyers," he said eagerly. "Spicer knows the
+schedule. We must go without him."
+
+Conscious of the stares of Meta and Meyers, I pushed the button which
+opened the door into the inner corridor.
+
+I looked directly at the Master Machine technician. "I asked Spicer to
+get a late report on the incident for us. But you know that Chambers is
+right--we cannot afford to wait any longer. Perhaps he'll catch up."
+
+We followed the corridor toward the hub of the Pentagon. Senator
+Chambers led the way, almost at a trot, as though he were afraid that
+Spicer would catch up. General Marshall and Meyers, hard put to keep
+up, were strung out behind him, with Meta and me bringing up the rear.
+
+That was the way we went through the check points manned by the
+security guards. Twice I caught Meta looking at me. At one of the
+check points, I thought she was going to say something. I lifted the
+tip of my cane and put my finger near the stud, but she remained silent.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The tension began to mount inside me as we approached the door opening
+on the invisible force wall. Through the wall, I could see the squat,
+ugly building in the center of the hub of the Pentagon, which was our
+destination. I held my cane ready. But even a CT-bomb wouldn't break
+through the force field.
+
+As we drew near the final guard point, a scrubwoman who had been
+working on the floor of the corridor picked up her bucket and fell in
+with our party.
+
+Chambers was already gesturing at the guard to set the combination,
+which would open the force wall at precisely 1330. I looked at the time
+unit on my wrist and saw that we had twenty seconds to wait. I resisted
+the betraying impulse to rub the irritated area around the electrodes
+set in my neck.
+
+When I looked up from the time unit, everything was too quiet. Senator
+Chambers was no longer dancing around impatiently. He was staring at
+the bucket carried by the scrubwoman.
+
+The inside of the bucket was not even damp. And the mop she had been
+using was dry. The implication must have hit both Chambers and me at
+the same moment. I wanted to shout a warning.
+
+Chambers jumped back against the wall, yelling at the guard, "Shoot
+her! Shoot! She is an alien!"
+
+The scrubwoman did the wrong thing. She turned and tried to run, her
+legs lifting awkwardly against the pull of the unaccustomed gravity.
+But the guard's weapon was already at his shoulder. The low-velocity
+missile thudded into the body of the scrubwoman, flipping her up into
+the air in a graceless somersault. She landed on the concrete floor
+with a second thud, which echoed softly down the long hall. A pool
+slowly widened around her body and she lay still.
+
+I looked at my wrist time unit again. It was 1330. The door through the
+force wall was open. I went past the huddled heap lying on the floor,
+careful not to step in the pool of moisture.
+
+_Too hideous to put into words in a public fac-report! That's what the
+facsimile sheet had hinted about the broken body of the other "alien."
+Two from four left only two. But the door through the force wall was
+open. I had to get through the door and into the building._
+
+Senator Chambers stepped out from behind the guard and blocked the
+doorway. His little eyes flashed from one expressionless face to
+another as he tried to come to some inner decision. His shoulders
+slumped.
+
+"I--I don't like it," he said. "The door is open now. I think perhaps
+we had better wait for General Spicer, after all."
+
+But Meta shook her head and pushed past Chambers. She said, "No. You
+know the routine as well as we, Senator. We are required to inspect the
+unit. Leave the guard on duty here."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I took advantage of the indecision of the others and pushed through the
+door after her toward the squat, ugly little building that was my goal.
+
+Meta was almost to the door of the building when I heard Chambers yell.
+
+"Stop her, Secretary Bartlett! She's malfunctioning. We've all been
+ordered to wait outside for an ID check." I ignored him and he yelled
+again. "Guard, open fire on the girl. Don't let her get inside that
+door!"
+
+But he was too late. Meta disappeared through the door into the black
+building. I stepped inside just as it slammed shut and the first
+missile smashed against the door from the guard's weapon.
+
+The building was not large. The Master Machine squatted like a huge,
+thick-bodied black spider in the center of the building. A cobweb of
+power lines and control cables criss-crossed the floor and fed into the
+base of the unit.
+
+A myriad of tiny moving parts, levers and cams and elbowed arms and
+gears pulsed and shifted and moved to give the impression that the
+Master Machine was breathing, that it was alive. Tiny multicolored
+lights twinkled on and off. Giant vacuum tubes hummed and glowed. And
+all the while, it munched on endless tapes.
+
+The black monster was the heart of Earth's civilization, and it was the
+means of it. As I started toward the machine, a grid at the top turned
+slowly and ogled me. Almost immediately, a red tube blinked on, and
+the moving parts on one section of the machine plunged into a frenzied
+rhythm of action.
+
+I ran forward, breathing heavily under the strain of the unaccustomed
+gravity. I had only seconds in which to act. At any moment, Senator
+Chambers and the guards would be coming through the door behind me.
+
+I raised the cane and touched the stud.
+
+The finger of lavender light knifed toward the machine, searching for
+its heart and memory unit.
+
+The ray fused and melted and burned, cutting deeper and deeper into the
+maze of wires and tubes and relays. There was a blinding flash and one
+section of the machine ground to a stop. Other sections immediately
+increased their tempo of movement.
+
+Behind me the door slammed open, and Senator Chambers and two guards
+stumbled into the building.
+
+Chambers yelled, "He's over there in front of the Master Machine. Hurry
+up ... and ... shoot! Before it's ... too late! _Shoot!_"
+
+His face almost a cherry red, Chambers danced out of the way. The
+guards raised their weapons and sighted.
+
+Then the ray from my cane cut deeply into the very innermost section
+of the master unit and the machine died. A dial on the front of the
+blackened, twisted mess spun slowly to a stop. There was no more noise
+and no more movement.
+
+It was done.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+As I released the stud on the cane, the weapons of the guards were
+pointed directly at my back. Chambers' eyes were like two black
+marbles, staring at me, his head strained forward to watch the results
+of the missiles.
+
+I took a careful step to the left. And another. And then another. They
+didn't move.
+
+The guards' weapons remained trained on the spot where I had been
+standing. Senator Chambers continued staring at the place where I had
+been.
+
+None of them moved. They remained there, pointing at nothing. The
+electrodes at the bases of their necks reflecting the molten glow from
+the wrecked Master Machine.
+
+I relaxed. I rubbed the tender skin around the dummy electrodes set in
+my neck. It was finally over.
+
+Then a shadow moved against the wall where there should have been no
+movement. It lengthened and took on the shapely form of the redheaded
+Meta.
+
+Only now her eyes were no longer dead and expressionless. They were
+alive with feeling.
+
+I said, "So you are the other one. I should have guessed when you ran
+into the building ahead of me. But I was too busy thinking of those
+guards and of Chambers."
+
+She nodded. Her lips relaxed into a smile.
+
+_Two from four leaves two! But we had accomplished our mission. And
+outside the building, in Washington, London, New York--in every Earth
+city--figures on the streets, in office buildings, and at home had
+become motionless, poised like mechanical toys with their springs run
+down. Housewives, cab drivers, copter pilots, passengers, shoppers,
+policemen, government workers had ceased to move, had stopped
+functioning with the destruction of the Master Machine._
+
+The redhead said, "It's really over, isn't it? They're stopped." She
+looked at the still figures, the dummy electrodes in her neck quivering
+in a shiver. "They can't kill any more?"
+
+I said, "It's over."
+
+"They can't destroy or move?"
+
+"Without the Master Machine, they have no power supply--nothing. And
+they can't kill or destroy."
+
+She walked over to look at the figures. "What went wrong? What happened
+to them?"
+
+I shrugged. "You can't blame them any more than you can blame a boiler
+that explodes or a dam that breaks. It was the human race itself that
+was responsible for what happened. We became lazy, careless. We built
+too many time saving gimmicks to do too many jobs for us."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"But the machines were designed to help us," she said. "To make life
+better and more pleasant."
+
+"At the beginning," I agreed, "but we didn't know where to stop. We
+started with labor-saving devices. We replaced ourselves in factories,
+offices, restaurants, stores. Still it wasn't enough. We designed
+robots to serve as traffic policemen, to drive cars, and to handle
+thinking tasks. Then we designed humanoid robots, mechanical replicas
+of man and woman, controlled by the computing sections of the Master
+Machine, activated by its power supply, able to move and talk and
+think. We used them as servants. We had the means to replace ourselves
+completely--everywhere."
+
+"Why did they turn on the human race?" she asked.
+
+I pointed to the smoldering wreck of the Master Machine in the center
+of the room. "Perhaps there was a weak circuit, or a tape was garbled,
+or a relay didn't close properly. The scientific colony on the Moon
+helped some of us to escape. The rest of mankind was destroyed by the
+robots--systematically and ruthlessly."
+
+The redhead shivered again and walked over to the door leading from the
+building. She stood there, looking up at the thin curve of the Moon
+showing in the blue of the afternoon sky.
+
+Finally she said, "Up there, by now, they will know that we have
+accomplished our mission. In a few hours, they will be filing out of
+the underground caverns and loading onto the giant rockets. They'll be
+coming back. But only the very oldest will have been on Earth before.
+Like us, thousands of them will be coming to a new world for the first
+time. A world of beauty and opportunity--if they want it that way. What
+will they decide?"
+
+What _would_ they decide?
+
+I looked down at the redhead. Deep in her eyes, I saw the emotions
+which no humanoid robot could ever know. I saw them, and suddenly the
+tension eased out of my muscles.
+
+The answer to her question was in her own eyes.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Assassin, by Bascom Jones
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