Part 1

Dynasty of the Lost

By George O. Smith

DYNAMIC FEATURE NOVEL

An Intensely Gripping Novel Of Metal Doom

Was this the beginning of a ghastly new war, or had the sinister kidnappings a different meaning?

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Future combined with Science Fiction Stories May-June 1950. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Harry Vinson entered the room eagerly. It was two hours earlier than he intended, but his anticipation of watching the finale of eight years' intense work was too great. Vinson had scarcely slept that night.

He had itched to try the machine out the evening before; only careful judgment kept him from it. The machine required a full twelve-hour period for warming up; to putter with it before it had reached its stable operating temperature would have been as senseless as attempting to fly with an aircraft only half completed.

But now--

Vinson stopped cold, three steps inside of the door. The vast room was empty, the machine was gone. The aisles and aisles of neatly machined rack and panel were bare; all that remained was the linoleum in the aisles--

That and the floor-studs now gleamed nakedly, each with its nut placed precisely before it on the edge of the linoleum. Far down the empty hall a power junction box was open; its heavy switches open; its fuses pulled. The busbars that carried power to the machine had been unbolted and the bare end reached out like the butt of an amputated arm.

Vinson's mind could have coped with ruin from natural causes--such as tornado or earthquake--even though the site of this building had been carefully selected to avoid such dangers. Vinson could have accepted unnatural ruin, such as sabotage--though again the site of the building had been kept as secret as could be to avoid such. But this was not destruction, either from foreign agents or the fury of nature.

This was complete dis-installation; theft; ton after ton of ultra-complex electro-mechanical gear neatly disconnected and removed during the course of one eight-hour period.

It was far too much to believe. Harry Vinson's mind rebelled; he reeled dizzily, turned in a dreamlike stupor and left the room. Moments later he was in his car and driving back to his bachelor quarters in the city, some miles away. Vinson was still in a daze as he undressed and got into bed.

He slept for an hour, which brought him to his regular time for arising, and awoke feeling the aftermath of a terrifying nightmare. He remembered himself in the grip of a gleaming mechanical monster, a lovely, frightened girl beside him. In his hand was some sort of pistol which shot out a futile beam at the ensnaring metal talons; he was high in the air of some strange world, which spread out below him.... Harry Vinson smiled grimly; the nightmare was symbolic, of course, and he wondered just what the dream had symbolized.

To dream of eight years of work disappearing overnight ... dream himself captured by machinery! It might be a good idea to talk to Doc Caldwell; he could help. Harry wondered whether he might have been working too hard, then shook his head and stopped thinking about it as best he could. No man, Caldwell had said, should try to analyze his own subconscious....

The nightmare memory faded, driven out of Vinson's mind by the eagerness of watching the machine work. He made coffee, washed his cup quickly, and in another five minutes was driving out across the wide, open plain towards the building.

* * * * *

Narina Varada was a dark beauty, almost oriental-looking. Her features were sensitive, changing with her mood from a laughing vitality when pleased to a Madonna-like impassiveness when serious. In either case she was beautiful; and when her face reflected terror the sight of it would have moved a bronze image to compassion.

But that which menaced Narina was colder than bronze and harder than cold steel.

Terror and wonder were in her face now. It was one thing to avoid a machine running wild; it was something entirely different to flee from a machine guided by someone trying to run you down. In either case the machine has no attitude; it is merely the insensate tool. But when a small mobile device, built to perform a routine operation, turns from some job it is not supposed to do and drives you into a corner like a thief interrupted in his work----

That could not be endured without terror.

There was no other human in sight but Narina; the machine had no human guidance that she could see. It should, then, be a simple machine that got off its tracks, out of its routine line, easily to be avoided or stopped.

But this was no insensate structure of metal and glass. The act of an unguided machine is far from the sentient behavior that trapped Narina in a corner. She could see over the top, and around the sides, of the little machine. The room was filled with rack and panels, and other small devices swarmed along the aisles. Tongs and grapplers that were fashioned only to make routine replacement of parts were not replacing parts. Inexplicably, they were unfastening nuts that held the racks and the panels to the floor. They were lifting each individual bay onto dolly trucks and trundling them out into a field near the building--out where Narina could not see them.

Narina could not know where they were going but she could guess. This was an attempt at theft; the chances were high that the stolen parts were being trundled across the field to a ship moored for the moment to the abandoned wharf.

These were clever little machines--sort of a part of a mechanical nervous system, she knew. Like ganglion. In the human body, a cut finger will send a nervous impulse of pain to inform the brain that damage has been done. The brain directs the rest of the body to apply first aid or, in more desperate cases to seek a doctor. In this mechanical device, the creation was superior to a human body. A damaged part sent its impulse not to a brain for further consideration, but to a master selector system that sent one of these little machines rolling down set tracks to replace the defective part.

But instead of minding their business as any insensate machine should, these same little devices were dismantling the master machine with the utmost efficiency and were carting it away.

Narina's lip curled in anger, now; anger and jealousy replaced fear, she knew of only one other country on earth where its citizens prided themselves in their mechanical ability. The country where 'Goldberg' means a complicated mechanical gadget instead of a man's name. Anger--and now frustration--For America was not even supposed to have an inkling of the fact that this machine was being built, let alone the ability to control the machine's own repair devices in some completely inexplicable manner.

Spies, she thought. And then she was forced to admit to herself that her country's own spies had managed to ferret out enough of the secrets of the American machine to enable her and others of her countrymen to reproduce it.

The machine before her moved slightly ... impatience?

The tempo of work had increased, and now the last of the gleaming racks and panels were being removed. As they were trundled out Narina saw her captor move forward with mechanical precision. She cried out as the tongs and grapples reached for her, lifted her from her feet, and carried her from the room.

Across the field she was taken, to the ship she expected to be there. Panic came, panic and then realization of complete helplessness.

For how could a machine catch a human being--when the mechanism had no eyes!

Eyes or not, the little machines were efficient; they moved about the cargo ship knowingly, and the finest human crew could not have made the ship ready, and cast away, in less time. Narina, from her prison in a small stateroom, watched the shores of her native country recede through a porthole too small for her to wriggle through.

She took solace in bitter tears.

* * * * *

Captain Jason Charless sat idly on the grille that looked down across a vast room full of cigar-shaped metal things with stubby wings. Behind him was a control panel and next to it a complex computing machine. From this room, buried deep in a man-made cavern in the mountains, Charless--or any of his command--could calculate and then direct any one of the horde of guided missiles to any place on earth. A millionth of a second after it had arrived at its destination, that place would cease to exist save as a cloud of incandescent gas, a wave of radiant energy, and a mounting white pillar of radioactive particles.

It was a dull job; a nasty job; a job no man would accept willingly. A policeman, Jason thought bitterly, directs his energies in many ways besides shooting criminals. But Charless could only sit and wait--hoping he would never be called to compute and then direct even the smallest of these devil's eggs against an active enemy.

On the floor of that cave was a planet-staggering quantity of atomic explosive. That it might go off did not occur to Charless. It could not; it was impossible because he, Captain Jason Charless, held complete and absolute control over every bit of its complex machinery at the dials and buttons of the control panels.

He was the master--

Jason Charless blinked foolishly. At the far end of the vast cave, the sealed door opened swiftly.

"Who--?" he called angrily, then turned to look at his control panel; it was inert.

Then at the far end of the floor, Guided Missile Number One lifted on its launching rack and roared into life. It zoomed through the open door with the thunder of hell and was gone into the sky.

Charless swore viciously. He grabbed the telephone to give someone particular and official hell for not telling him--_but he controlled them_.

Not an indicator was showing on his panel.

Did he really control them?

Missile Number Two raised and zoomed out, its rocket exhaust thundering in the vast cave. He saw Number Three follow Number Two, then Number Four followed Number Three. Number Five left with split-second timing, and Number Six followed. Number Seven left as Charless sounded the general alert, and Number Eight zoomed into the sky before the sirens began to sound.

Number Thirty-seven had passed the open door by the time Charless managed to get his call through to his commanding officer. Number Eighty-one went out on its trail of flame by the time that General Lloyd's official command came into the cave on feet driven by fear. Number Two Hundred arrowed into the upper air while Lloyd's men were searching the known spectra of electromagnetic radiations in an effort to discover who or what was capable of directing radio-controlled missiles that should have been inert until Jason Charless awakened them by pressing the proper button.

Number Seven Hundred Sixty-three roared skywards as General Lloyd's men turned from their instruments in despair. Number Eight Hundred Fifty-seven left at the instant that General Lloyd asked for a volunteer to--die.

Number Eleven Hundred Forty-two left--

With Jason Charless as passenger, carrying a small portable radio transmitter, in place of two hundred pounds of atomic warhead.

The last--Number Two Thousand--cleared the cave before the white-faced General Lloyd succeeded in contacting Secretary of War Hegeman and telling him the unbelievable tale.

2

His nightmare forgotten, Harry Vinson drove swiftly towards his day's work--knowing it would be the greatest day's work of his life. The telephone in his car rang thrice before its urgent buzzing broke into his consciousness. He lifted the phone and spoke, giving his name and number.

"Vinson! This is Hegeman. Jason Charless reports that some agency is stealing our supply of guided missiles."

"Stealing?" stammered Vinson, a cold chill hitting him in the stomach.

_Dream?_

Hegeman explained.

"Leaving, one by one," echoed Vinson dully.

_Dream! No dream, this!_

"Yes, leaving. Stolen. Without being energized, they took off one by one until they were gone!"

"But what--?"

Hegeman was snappish-short. "Get on that machine of yours and find out who's doing it!"

"I can't," said Vinson unhappily.

"Why? Have you forgotten something?"

"The machine is gone," said Vinson breathlessly.

"Gone!" roared Hegeman. "Where?"

Vinson did not need his vast computing machine to tell him part of the answer to that question. "Gone," he said quietly, "where your stockpile of guided missiles went."

"Oh my God!" said Hegeman weakly.

From somewhere behind, a small vehicle came racing up beside Vinson's car. Girders reached out and opened the door to the passing air; the door snapped open and off while the car lurched sickeningly. The girders clutched Harry Vinson and lifted him from the car and tucked him in the racing vehicle. Vinson's car careened into a telephone post as the capturing machine raced off down the road.

Vinson swore. This was magnificent theft, and now expert abduction.

From somewhere below him, a small arm appeared with a hypodermic needle on its end. The needle went into Vinson's back with mechanical precision.

He enlarged on his profanity. The only nation capable of such high-handed methods was the same one reported to have stolen some of the secrets of the American Logic Computer a number of years back--Now they had stolen not only the computer itself, but its master technician and the stockpile of atomic missiles as well.

Hate was not a familiar emotion to Harry Vinson, but it sprang up in him now and grew until he hated the very name--of--

The drug hit Harry Vinson suddenly and completely.

* * * * *

When he awoke he was in a minute cabin, lying on a small cot. The cabin was a-buzz with the sound of motors, and it swayed gently. Vinson knew he was flying--flying in a large aircraft, kidnapped and helpless.

He beat on the door with his fists, then shattered a metal fitting against it; both attempts were equally futile. He tried the cabin call-button with deliberate intent to arouse anger but received no reply. He gave up; they might have disconnected the bell or they may have been ignoring the sound--it was one and the same to Vinson.

An hour later a slide in the wall opened and a tray of food came into the room.

"So," he said aloud, "they will not even let me see them. How can they hope to keep this secret, and do they think I cannot guess who they are?"

Shrugging, Vinson sat down and ate laconically. There was little he could do but wait; eventually someone would come.

But Vinson could not accept his fate quietly for very long. The narrow confines of the cabin left him nothing to do but think.

He scoured the minute place for something to use as a tool, found the cabin to be clean as the inside of an empty gasoline tin so far as tools went. Not a thing, nothing of any use but the light in the ceiling.

But that was a starting point for a trained engineer; Vinson removed the electric light, inserted a coin in the socket, then screwed the lamp back tight then snapped the switch. From somewhere there was a minute _sput_ and all the rest of the lights in the cabin went out. What happened to the rest of the ship was outside of Vinson's knowledge. He only hoped that all the lights were on the same circuit; before anyone could replace the fuse, they would have to clear the short circuit.

He waited.

And then there was a snicking sound and the door opened automatically.

"Now, damn you--" he started. He stepped forward swinging the pillow from the bed, its end torn open, and effectively hurling a snowstorm of feathers at his captive--

Machine!

It came forward through the storm of feathers and Vinson leaped back to the bed and tore the mattress from its place. He hurled it on the floor in front of the half-tracks upon which the machine rode. The machine tilted, put out a girder to correct its off-balance position, then came to the floor with a crash as Vinson leaped forward, feet first, to kick the forward corner of the machine around and away from its steadying arm.

He leaped over the fallen machine, avoiding a questing girder-and-clutcher by less than inches. He slammed the door behind him, raced down the corridor towards the pilot's compartment. He paused to smash the glass and take a metal crowbar from the fire-case on the wall; then he hit the door with a crash, went into the pilot's cabin with his bar upraised to bring it down on the pilot's head.

Vinson stopped on his heels. There was no pilot; just an ultra-complex machine that was fastened to the floor before the controls.

Vinson sought controls for the auto-pilot, but found none. Then, with a sour face, he inserted his bar in among the glowing tubes in the auto-pilot and rammed hard. Tubes burst with loud pops and the auto-pilot went inert.

He took over in the empty co-pilot's seat and turned the plane around.

Vinson shook his head, laughed. Instead of humans swearing about a lack of light, making repair necessary, he had energized a rather complex repair machine that came with mechanical disregard for strategy. This automatic plane required no illumination for its mechanical crew; it was fortunate for him that machines do not think.

_Now_, he exulted, _I can go back home and go to work._

* * * * *

From her porthole, Narina Varada saw the rest of the small fleet of thieving ships spread out for safety during the passage across the ocean. Hour after hour they went, and it became dark.

Narina was offered food from the same sort of a slot in the wall as had served Harry Vinson. That, of course, she didn't realize, for she didn't know Harry Vinson--yet.

But she did realize that the convoy of ships was heading from her country across the ocean. She wondered dully why they were stealing both the big machine and its most competent technician. The combination of horror and a sense of the utter futility of coping with the situation dazed Narina; finally she fell asleep.

Morning came and again the slot opened and food came into her cabin. Narina awoke, noted it dully, and made no move toward it. Hunger seemed quite secondary; eating was necessary to maintain life and Narina preferred death to her immediate future.

The slot opened again after a time and the tray was withdrawn. A few moments later, the lock snicked and the door opened. A machine trundled in quietly. It inspected her with twin girders that felt her pulse and her forehead. Narina permitted this, but she was nauseated at the feel of cold metal. She sneered; how like them to make machines to do their dirty work for them!

The machine retracted its girders, and from a small speaker on the front, said, "You may have the freedom of the ship; please understand that you are an honored guest and not a craven prisoner."

"Why not meet me face to face!" snapped Narina.

"I cannot, yet," came the reply. "But if you will not attempt self-destruction, you may go where you please."

"I prefer to remain here."

"As you wish. However, the door will not be locked again."

The machine backed out of the door and closed it gently. There was no snick of the lock. Narina tried it, found it open, then wondered whether she could barricade the door against her captors. There was no one; she slammed the door angrily and threw herself across the bed once more.

Slowly her hands went up towards her hair, found a ribbon of hard metal--a hair ornament. As a weapon against her captors it would be pitifully inefficient, but for a determined person, the little ribbon of metal could be used effectively. She would leave only dead and senseless flesh for any of them to violate.

Slyly, for she feared they might be watching, Narina began to sharpen her little ribbon of metal to a fine, useful edge.

* * * * *

Harry Vinson drove his captured aircraft back towards the United States with a feeling of wariness. Though they had attempted to keep their identity a secret, Vinson knew--without having seen any direct evidence--who they were. He also believed that they knew that he knew; similarly, his piracy of their aircraft must be known to them and he could expect reprisals.

But it takes time to marshal aircraft for pursuit, and so far he had seen nothing on his radar screen but sea return and noise.

Hours passed, and Vinson's feelings were those of exultation at his escape mingled with a wonder of how much longer it would be before the real fox-and-hounds game began.

It came, inevitably, as he knew it must come. His radar screen showed a target pip--it came across the screen with lightning velocity and crossed his nose with but feet to spare. A guided missile--of American origin! It curved in the air, roared ahead and came around, dead nose on.

That was enough for Vinson. A man might be bluffed, but not a machine. He turned the aircraft and the missile followed in great loops made with lightning rapidity, forcing Vinson to fly in the direction wanted by his captors. He wondered where--

Again he tried to turn aside, and the missile looped to intercept and force him to return. It missed his nose by feet and the aircraft lurched from the backwash of ruffled air.

Vinson smiled. If they went to all this trouble to keep him alive, to capture him, they would not risk a crash unless his escape seemed imminent. He knew that no mere human could withstand the maneuverability of a guided missile; therefore his escape was impossible--unless he could depend upon their unwillingness to kill him and defy the darting thing.

He turned again, and setting his teeth firm, let the big aircraft fly in a straight line.

The missile looped forward and came back at him, nose-on again and at a slight angle to force him to turn. Vinson ignored it.

There was a racketing crash, and the guided missile ripped through the left wingtip. The plane shuddered, lost flying speed, and began to flutter. Vinson swore and put the nose down.

He had been wrong.

The plane hit the water with a crash and bounced. It did not sink. Vinson sat in the co-pilot's seat and wondered what would come next. He watched the radar screen, and soon he knew. A flight of three planes--he recognized them as such by their velocity--came from the North. He saw them, later, as they came in sight, circled, and made neat landings on the water near him.

They taxied towards him while he sat there cursing his inability to move the damaged plane. It was but a matter of time before the other planes touched his. His plane was opened from the outside--

And machines entered.

They came for Vinson. He wrenched the radar cabinet from its rubber shock mountings and hurled it at the foremost. The machine put forth grapples and caught the heavy cabinet neatly, then turned and hurled it through the walls of the plane. It was a dramatic gesture to prove Vinson's complete helplessness--a feat no human being could duplicate.

Then, turning again, it came forward and took Harry Vinson by the forearms, for all his attempts to prevent this by keeping his arms in wild swinging motion. Then, paying no attention to Vinson's protest nor his fighting, the machine reversed its half-tracks and retreated, leading Vinson against his will. He had to walk or be dragged.

It held him thus while the flying boats took off. It held him--standing--while an hour passed by and the flight of planes approached a small, widespread convoy. Then, moving again, the machine drew Vinson along the deck of the hindmost craft towards the stern cabin block.

And as he passed the bridge he caught the sight of a face looking down at him.

Now! At long last, the first evidence of a human being! And one of olive complexion, black hair, and other national characteristics of his captors.