Part 1

REVOLT ON THE EARTH-STAR

By CARL SELWYN

Carver, lonely derelict from a happier earth-age, raises the revolt-cry: "Down with the Capeks!" And the luxurious, human stockyards discharge their men-of-no-hope.

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1940. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Rod Carver panted heavily and the sweat froze on his brow. Depending on his ax work now, he swung again and again, chipped shallow holes into which he wedged trembling fingers and pulled himself a little higher. Inch by precarious inch he crept up the sheer wall of the glacier, kicking his toes hard into the niches below. Chilling splinters flew down into his face as he chopped at the ice, high over the jagged and glistening crevice.

Not much farther. Just a little more. The patch of gray lichen was but a few yards above him now. It was on a small ledge. He could rest there. He had not thought it was so far but he must be several hundred feet up by now.

Despite the biting wind, he was hot in the fur suit that covered his muscular body. Eyes half-closed against the stinging shower that fell upon him, he moved slowly upward. There was a little crack in the ice just above him. Rod swung hard with the ax and it stuck there. Securing a firm hold with his left hand and making sure of his feet, he tugged at the short handle. It held tightly. He joggled the handle back and forth, then jerked at it. It came loose suddenly. His arm flew back and his feet slipped beneath him. His face banged against the ice. Panic screamed in him as he dangled by one arm. Madly, he clawed the wall with his other hand, flailed with his feet. Numbing fear bathed his entire body in cold perspiration. Then a foot found support and he caught a niche with his right hand.

Rod clung there, weak and shaken, almost crying his thankfulness. Immediately upon the cessation of exertion, however, the cold crept upon him and he finally regained sufficient control to examine his plight. He had lost the ax. His mittens were slick and wet; constantly he stretched numbing fingers for a new grasp upon the faithless ice as a treacherous film of water formed beneath them.

The wind whipped about him, breathed mournfully in the frozen recesses of the silent valley below. The sweat of fear formed on Rod's forehead and he shuddered. Bugs or no bugs, he should have known better than to venture away from the rest of his friends alone.

He had left the advance base of the expedition for a short explorative jaunt, thinking he might pick up something new in the way of fauna, of which the bleak Antarctic wastes had little to offer. He had caught several large mosquitoes and, entranced by the desolate beauty of this weirdly distorted and quiet void, had wandered farther than he had intended. Then he had seen the little growth of lichen high on an icy crag. Thinking to add the specimen to his private collection, he had climbed the precipitous wall, and here he was, trapped, without his ax, unable to move up or down....

He pressed his young body against the ice as a freezing gale lashed about him in a swirl of snow. Far below, he could see his haversack beside the cliff.

"Lord!" he breathed. If he fell here they would never find him--the snow would hide his body in no time. And he must get down or soon fall, frozen stiff.

He slid his free foot about the wall; there was a slight indention just below. He must chance it. Gingerly, he shifted his weight. Ice crumbled beneath his foot. He drew back. He heard a crackling below and looked down as the sound grew into a deep rumble. A great chunk of ice had been dislodged just below him. It thundered down into the valley and the vast walls of the surrounding glacier answered in clangorous echoes, hurled them back and forth till the valley was filled with deafening voices.

Rod stared, transfixed with the sound. He did not hear the siren scream from above as tons of ice smashed down upon him.

It fell into the chasm, roared in a sparkling explosion....

* * * * *

His first thought was that there was something which he must do. The concrete idea lurked far back in the hazy shadows of forgetfulness and, grope as he might, he could not bring the notion into full comprehension; it was but a vague, unformed feeling. Next came the realization of a faint humming in his ears. It whispered in a monotonous drone and he listened to it for some time. Then consciousness slowly dawned upon his lazy mind. He remembered the deep echoes in the valley of ice, something sweeping him away to sudden blackness....

He looked about him, dazed. He did not know what he expected to find, but this certainly was not it.

He was in a small, square room, white walled and windowless. A closed door was at one side and the walls, of a peculiar metallic substance, were not walls but little cabinets, many square doors with knobs. In a corner was a large dynamo-like machine--from here came the humming sound--and beside it was an unfamiliar apparatus of innumerable tubes, coils and levers. The room was lighted by a phosphorescent glow that covered the entire ceiling, a sheen of soft whiteness.

And he felt so strange ... a peculiar feeling of detachment, a dead non-feeling; like the first awakening moments from a sleep of hazy dreams, as if he were still in that half-world of mysterious insensibility, his mind awake but his body and all its physical consciousness yet unaroused from the deep, lethargic coma of abeyance. Rod felt no awareness of his body; only his mind seemed alive. As though he were entirely apart from all commonplace sensations of embodiment, his brain utterly cut off from all external senses, he possessed no feeling of concrete existence and from the room about him there emanated no semblance of reality. It stood distant from him and he felt nothing, merely saw with numb objectivity that it was there....

He raised a hand to his face--he thought the movement with no deliberation of will but the thought burst upon him with frantic helplessness when there was no response. His hand did not raise. As in a stupor, his whole body paralyzed and free of his will, he could not move.

Rod glanced down at his body. _There was no body!_

He sank sickeningly within himself and a wave of cold fear swept over him. A barrel-like thing of metal covered his body. And falling to new depths of swift panic, he saw that the container was much too small to hold the six feet, four inches of him....

He struggled to move about in the barrel. He was stuck there tightly; he could not budge. Examining the thing, he saw it was a smooth, seamless cylinder about three feet high. It was shiny black in color and mid-way on opposite sides were circular openings covered with a screen of microscopic gauze.

But how could he see outside if he were _in it_? It was as though he were standing above the object, looking down upon it from a cycloidal distance.

From the center of the cylinder's flat top, attached to a sort of socket, projected a snaky, black cable. It ran upward, and following its spindling curve, Rod was astonished to observe that he could not see its other end. He craned his neck upward--the cable moved. It was alive!

He recoiled in unreasoning fright. The wiry thing followed. He shook his head wildly. And the cable persisted in an imitation of his movements. He ducked his head down beside the barrel and the black strand--as much of it as was visible--came after him.

His brain was hot with insane fear. He dashed madly about his limited sphere of movement. His mind whirled and an unrequited nausea darkened his consciousness.

Rod fainted.

* * * * *

When he came to, he saw a black machine before him. It was cylindrical, set upon two metal-encased wheels. From sockets in the upper edge of the cylinder, on opposite sides, hung a pair of triple-jointed, arm-like bars at the ends of which dangled strands of thick, black wire. Upon the front of the machine was a little contact lever and large, raised numerals of glossy white--83. There were two small, mesh openings on the sides and set in the center of the top was a socket from which reared a long, slender cable, seemingly rigid, for at its end was a thin, metal-encircled, glassy disk. And deep within its prismatic refractions, Rod noticed a dark core--an eye, staring at him.

He gazed at the thing with irresistible fascination. There was life there, unholy, irrationally terrifying. He tried to back away and could not move.

He remembered he was imprisoned in the barrel and he glanced down at the cylinder covering him. It was like the machine's.

And suddenly he realized he was not in the cylinder. He _was_ the cylinder....

His mind froze to no thought.

The machine rolled silently forward, the eye fixed upon him.

"How do you feel?" It spoke, the sound like a cheap phonograph and with an insane tone in the words.

Rod was dumb. He merely stared.

"What--!" he finally quavered. But his voice was only a shrill whistle. The machine moved closer and the arm-like metal rods shot out, adjusted a small dial upon his drum. And he could speak....

"What are you!" cried Rod. His voice was like the machine's.

"I am 83, Capek," said the thing. "But you do not comprehend. I have a brain, set within my shell as I fixed yours."

"You did this?" Rod's mind lunged hotly at the machine, but he could not move. He stayed where he was, helpless.

"Yes, I did it. I took your brain from the frozen body before it could deteriorate, placed it in this more substantial form.

"Where am I?" demanded Rod.

"These are my compartments, in the shop of Detroy. I found you encased in an iceberg, floating in the sea. By your dress you must have been there, perfectly preserved, for well over five thousand years--this is 6984. The last of your form, except those we use, were destroyed during the reign of A3, in the Great Conquest of the 40th century A.D. Your body was badly broken but the brain, fortunately, remained intact. I needed you, smuggled materials here and set your brain in a shell."

Lord, Rod thought. Prisoned in this thing forever! The shock of understanding was like a blow. He only wanted to die....

* * * * *

"Why am I needed?" Rod asked listlessly.

"I discovered by chance a counteraction for R4's _idea_. We are ruled by this, you see. There are only a hundred of us Capeks, all living here. Our science making others unnecessary, we limited ourselves to that number after conquering the world. This is the reign of R4. Each ruler governs the others by his _idea_--obedience to him instilled in each new brain by the royal vibration-ray. With my counteractive mechanism, I was able to liberate myself from his control, and my mind now free to individual thought, I shall usurp the throne. I could not trust the others. You arrived most opportunely. I shall give you _my idea_ and you shall aid me!"

Rod stared about the room helplessly. He was a pawn to this creature, body and mind. He was but a consciousness that had no will.

The machine called 83 glided to a cabinet upon the wall, returned with two long, jointed bars and a little wheeled carriage like his own. He put the burden on the floor beside Rod's cylinder and commenced to work, metal arms and tendril hands flying skilfully as he assembled the disjointed parts.

"I shall fit your arms and rollers, then give you the conditioning-accellerator for my idea," said 83.

Rod watched the progress, his mind far away. Five thousand years.... It could not be--but it was! It was true; the metal body, these arms of metal which were being prepared for him, this feeling of disembodiment--it was no dream--he was no longer a man, a human being; he was a thing of inorganization, a robot of no feeling, no sensation. He was nothing but a severed brain, without even the power to die....

"Can you never die?" he impassively voiced his thoughts.

"Yes, in a way perhaps. Our span, even with a perfected metabolic system, but little more than doubles normal mortality; depending upon the quality of the particular brain. But then we simply change to another. We remain the same. Only the ruler's number changes with the new brain."

"How does the brain live?"

"By a simple counterpart of its original requirements and a delicate system of connectives with which it controls the body. Naturally, under these perfect conditions it would be immortal did not the perfection also produce physical growth. It must be changed when the size increases to such an extent that pressure upon the cup impares its utility."

"Do you construct the brains also?"

"Oh, no. We breed them. There is apparently no other method; but the supply is plentiful. They are bred constantly in the stock yards."

Rod was horrified at his coldness. But what warmth of the human soul could long dwell in such a malanthropy of glass and steel? Then a faint spark came to sudden life within him.

"You keep live human beings here, breed them?"

* * * * *

"Certainly. We keep several hundred of the live stock ready at all times."

"Where are they kept?"

"In compartments at the north end of the shop. They are raised under perfect conditions and regularly thinned out."

There were humans here! Rod burned with the thought. He must get to them! There was something to live for now.... But how could he escape? He was completely at 83's command; soon, even his mind would be at the monster's disposal.

The parts were assembled and 83 easily lifted Rod's shell. He stared at it intently.

"It is a fine piece of work!" he exclaimed, admiringly. "It is as no other here. We are forced to leave our suspension switches exposed that we may be conveniently cut off at R4's desire. It disconnects impulse and response." Rod noticed the lever upon 83's drum. "But I made your shell in secret. You have no such switch; there is no way you may be stopped unless dismembered, as you are now. Also your activators are far stronger than the Capek's; your strength is greater. And I have tempered your shell to even heat-ray resistance."

The wheeled carriage was fitted to his underside and Rod was lowered to the floor. The machine screwed one arm in its socket--it was a simple matter--and picked up the other. He looked at it, turned it about in his tendrils.

"Zutkuh!" he cried. "I've gotten two left upper-joints by mistake. This will not fit the right socket. I must go get another from the supply house." He whirled, rolled toward the door. Then paused, returned. "But you can be absorbing the _idea_ while I am gone! It will save time."

He went to the peculiar machine Rod had noticed in the corner, rolled it to him.

It was a wheeled, oblong box, thickly insulated and studded with calibrated dials and levers. A heavy cord connected it with the dynamo. Taking a length of wire, 83 attached one end to a contact on the machine, approached Rod with the other.

"This is a short-wave vibration transmitter which is attuned to my cerebral frequency. I shall attach it to your brain-cord and when I return your mind will be on the exact wave-length as mine. Our every thought will be synonymous, with the exception that the weaker potential which I give you will place you in my command."

Rod watched 83 and to his mind came a wild, formless plan.

The machine rolled close and 83 enlongated his neck cable, eyed a small hole in Rod's cylinder. He reached to plug in the wire.

Rod's single arm moved quickly, silently. Before 83 could perceive the motion, Rod had entwined his steel tendrils about the lever on his shell, snapped the switch downward.

The black neck of 83 went suddenly limp. His crystal eye mechanism dulled, clattered to the floor and the jointed arms fell, dangled lifelessly.

Rod marveled at the ease with which he moved. Given the thought stimulus, his members sprang into action with amazing speed and strength. He fumbled with 83's right upper-arm joint, unscrewed it from the socket, and with a dexterity he had never known, set it in place upon himself. It responded instantly as contact was made with the sensitive mechanism within.

Rod rolled to the door, gliding smoothly upon his wheels.

* * * * *

He halted at the scene outside. Stretching into a misty distance, the city of Detroy was a flat plane of concrete-like earth, broken by rows of long, low buildings and a great tower, windows at the summit, which soared high above the vast expanse. He glanced about and saw everywhere the same monotonous panorama--oblong, single-story compartments like the one he had left, glaring whitely metallic in the noon-day sun. The high structure, the sole dominating object, towered above everything else. Lazy clouds wandered over in a sky of summer blue.

The streets swarmed with many machines, all constructed like himself, entering and leaving the buildings, rolling purposefully about everywhere, like little cars. There were numbers upon their shells, none exceeding one hundred. Nervously he watched several approach, but they passed, paid him no attention.

There was no sound but the soft whine of resilient wheels upon the street, an occasional murmur of unintelligible, passing conversation.

But he must find the humans! Where were the stock yards? To ask might arouse suspicion. He would have to chance being taken for one of the others, though he had no number. He rolled aimlessly down the street.

As he passed one building--all of them were alike--he heard the vibrant hum of a great machinery and peering in the open door, he saw a gigantic room filled with dynamos and electrical apparatus of a simplified, advanced design. It must be a sort of power plant, he thought as he moved on.

There was scarcely any fraternizing, Rod observed. The Capeks kept mostly to themselves; carefully avoided collision and there was no salutations in passing. They truly were things without feeling. Doubtless, only the governing idea, of which 83 had spoken, forced their concerted interest in a common society. Unheeded, he advanced up the crowded thoroughfare.

Two machines approached carrying a long, metal box. It was open at the top and Rod glanced into the container as they passed. With revulsion he saw that it held the trephined body of a man, newly dead, fresh blood upon the smoothly severed crown of the skull. The top of the shaved head also lay in the box. And weak with new waves of nausea, he saw that the brain had been cleanly removed. The rest of the nude body was intact.

The machines carrying the grizzly burden passed on.

A human corpse, freshly dead! The repugnance of the sight was swept away by a sudden flash of logic. They must have come from the stock yards....

Rod looked cautiously about--there was no suspicious glance at him--slowly, with a pretense of just remembering something, he turned and followed.

The Capeks carried the ghastly box a short way down the street, halted before a small building. A sliding door opened at a touch and the container was shoved in, to disappear down a winding shoot. The door closed and they returned the way they had come.

Rod followed slightly behind them, unnoticed. The shoot must have led to a kind of incinerator, but he feared to think what ghoulish eccentricities these soulless creatures might have developed.

The machines rolled along swiftly for several minutes. Then they suddenly turned into a side street, entered a building. Rod remained in the street, undecided. While he watched, several Capeks passed him, entered also. Finally he wheeled to the door and went in. What had he to lose?

Inside was a long, deserted corridor with many closed doors along the walls. The far end of the hall was open to the sunlight and he rolled there, looked out.

Before him was an immense, square compound, surrounded by high walls and partitioned into many sections. And in the enclosures moved throngs of _human beings_. Rod stood and stared.

The faces of the men and women there possessed no look of the caged animal--they milled about like cattle, talking and laughing among themselves. The centuries of captivity had changed men little for their stature and appearance was as he had known them. He could feel nothing but it must be warm, for they were lightly clad. Along the partitions were rows of many compartments, probably living quarters. In one large section were many women, some holding small children.

Then he noticed that in the geometric divisions of the fenced places was a purpose of separation. One contained larger children, happily playing timeless games; another was crowded with older youths, girls separated from the boys. In a more spacious enclosure, neatly encircled by compact quarters, were the adults. Some stood about in groups, conversing pleasantly; others walked the edges of the fences, men and women in pairs; more sat before their houses, some entering and leaving. It was as in the crowded settlements of a large city. These people lived here, carried on a life, perhaps more leisurely, but little different than in the general environment from which he had come.

Rod saw the adult area was open to smaller enclosures. He noticed a neatly landscaped park, flowered and with green trees, grassy paths. There were even brilliantly-hued birds. Men and women sat upon the turf and upon benches along the little trails. In another partition was an assortment of gymnastic equipment and Rod visualized these human beings led like animals out to regular exercise for their health.

Here was real life--flesh, human faces, bodies as he had possessed! And all penned here, like sheep awaiting the butcher.

So engrossed was he in his thoughts that he was startled to notice two Capeks coming down the long, wire-barracaded path which bisected the compound. They were preceded by two men and a woman.

* * * * *

As they neared, Rod forgot his caution, watched their approach. One of the men was huge and swarthy, his bushy hair black and his features heavy. His forehead, however, was high, and his face, despite the prominent nose and large eyes, was of a delicate gentleness; a man of strength, and mind. The other was tall and slender, well proportioned and broad of shoulder. His features were finely cut and his blond hair was thick and well groomed. He carried himself rigidly erect and with an air of suppressed feeling. His firm chin he held high and his eyes stared straight ahead, apparently at something far beyond. He was speaking softly to the woman, one muscular arm around her waist. The woman--she was more a girl--was almost as tall as the man. Her hips were narrow and her shoulders wide, but the fullness of her breast and her rhythmic, animal grace proclaimed her richly feminine. There was a clear beauty in her brown hair, the swift symmetry of her patrician nose, the ripe lips and in the sparkling blue of her eyes. All wore identical clothing, a loose suit of thin cloth; sandles upon their feet.

They passed Rod without a glance. But as they passed the woman spoke.

"It has been worth it--" Rod heard her say and they marched in the building and down the corridor.

The Capeks followed them and Rod turned to watch their departure. But as they were half-way down the deserted hall, one machine made a restraining movement and they halted. A door opened and they passed from view into a side room.

Rod stared at the vacant hall for a long moment, felt a strange sense of unease. Where were they going? Why were they led out, the others left behind? What had the woman meant by "It has been--" Suddenly his mind snapped with a hazard supposition. The brainless corpse he had seen! The Capeks bred _brains_! They used them as needed; so had said 83....