Part 5

"Yes. In five more days we load them into ships and depart for outer space. It is all planned, down to the smallest fraction of a second." Pwowp pulled absently on his lip in a practiced gesture. "It has really been enlightening, this study of conditioning. Conditioning is such a powerful instrument. Conditioning of humans until they will do anything to avoid pain. Conditioning of robots to unquestioning obedience. Remarkable...."

* * * * *

The robots rode the travelwalks like giant toys on an assembly line belt. They disappeared into the two giant ships and laid themselves down in careful stacks until they were piled from bulkhead to bulkhead, from shell to shell. There wasn't an inch to spare when it was done, because these were warships, not freighters.

There were no more robots outside the ships in this vast spherical darkness of the heart of the asteroid, only half illuminated by occasional directed beams.

Then space-suited figures appeared, riding the travelwalk to one of the ships. Two of them stayed close together, holding to each other. The rest surrounded these two, guarding them. They disappeared into the ship.

Last, a man and a robot appeared at the edge of the travelwalk. The robot was 2615. The man was a robot shell, and within it was Pwowp.

"I feel quite satisfied," Pwowp said. "Nothing can possibly go wrong. Every possible angle has been taken into consideration--even the angle of treachery from you."

"From me?" 2615's voice held surprise.

"Of course." Pwowp's voice was emotionless. "That is why we didn't let you take part in the training of the robots after they were activated. They have been drilled in the one giant operation. Each of the two million robots will do its part like a smoothly functioning machine. And I give the orders, taking into account possible variations in timing due to special factors we can't anticipate now."

"But that was necessary," 2615 said. "The operation would be impossible otherwise. My attention must be concentrated almost entirely on the two humans so they do nothing to create suspicion. They will be dressed in full uniform. They will be observed by unsuspicious eyes over video beams. At the same time Vilbis will be seen. He will be the focus of attention. And you have promised me Vilbis--afterwards."

They stepped onto the travelwalk. They entered the ship where Larry and Stella had been taken. The travelwalks were dropped away. A large part of the planetoid surface folded inward to make the two ships an avenue of departure. Like silent ghosts they began to move....

At the controls of one of the ships Pwowp watched the stars come into view and the lips of the planetoid opening approach, then go by.

On his lips was a quiet smile of content. He was thinking. When it was over and all the other robots were destroyed, there would be only 2615. It would be fun--much fun--just before 2615 was destroyed, to step out of his human-like body and let the robot see him--in the flesh. His beautiful body which would, he was quite sure, seem horrible beyond the wildest nightmare to humans and dogs alike.

* * * * *

A rendezvous in interstellar space. Changing from space-drive to rockets, then back to space-drive, the transfer signaled by a science and technology unknown to humans. Robots leaping across eighty battleships armed with weapons man had no defense against. Then--

Quietly smiling young men departing. Ships of alien design winking out abruptly like burnt-out light globes in a subway between stations.

Two thousand and eighty ships in arrow formation, the arrow pointed at Target Earth. Nine times the speed of light, but in a tight little _space-time_ where only relative values exist and the relation of the fleet to the rest of the cosmos is tied to the magic number, the square root of minus one.

A flagship named the _Rover_, at its controls Pwowp and a robot that was once a bloodhound puppy--and _remembers_.

Vilbis, relaxed in his prison, knowing the plans for the capture of Earth, his eyes half closed, his lips curled with the feeling of power, the illusions of a grandeur that was never to be his giving him the patience to wait.

Larry and Stella....

"I can see the whole thing now," Larry said. "This fleet--it's outwardly the Alpha Aquilae fleet. All the others will be in, demobilized. There will be only this fleet--and with a weapon there is no known defense against. It could destroy the Earth, but they obviously want to capture it. From things 2615 has said to us we get the whole picture. These alien things--_I_ don't believe they're robots--started their scheme years ago. They built that renegade Earthman Vilbis up into a dictator, then got him to begin the war. The war reduced Vilbis's empire and stripped it of its defenses so it could be taken over by the aliens at any time in the near future without a struggle. The Federation stripped Vilbis's empire--and why not? There was no thought of an enemy outside our star group. Vilbis thinks they're going to capture the Earth and thereby cripple the Federation, and turn the whole thing over to him. He doesn't realize that the only reason he's alive is that he plays the star role in this trojan horse attack on the Earth.

"2615 has the same dreams. The aliens have convinced it that they only want to liberate the robots, then turn everything over to them. He'll capture the Earth. He'll destroy Earth's land-based defenses, and then the aliens will land their waiting ships on the Earth. After that this disguised fleet will be duck soup for the aliens. In an instant they can wipe these two thousand ships--and 2615--out of existence. And Vilbis too. And us.

"If 2615 hadn't happened along, if we hadn't gone after him, they would have succeeded anyway. Only that way there would have been more risk for the aliens. They would have had to be in this initial attack by the Alpha Aquilae fleet. They wouldn't have needed 2615 nor us. We're the key to the success of the thing. Do you realize that, Stella? We're the key. We've got to stop this thing. We _can_!"

"Yes, Larry."

They looked into each other's eyes, then looked away. They knew they couldn't. Right now they could think they could, but they were automatons in the presence of 2615, unable to think, only obeying the voice of the robot.

* * * * *

And the days passed. The arrow rushed on toward its target. And robot 532-03-2615 sat at the controls of the flagship _Rover_, its metal fingers toying with the instruments, its lens eyes occasionally turning toward the master atomic clock, with its date hand that never seemed to move, its hour hand that moved slowly, its minute hand, its second hand that moved swiftly, and its vernier hand that could not be seen because it was a blur that circled the dial a thousand times a second.

The days passed. The day and the hour and the minute and the second--and the ten millionth of a second--arrived. It was the final combination of settings for all the pointers on the master clock. A contact was made. Sub-atomic power did things that multiplied a cosmic minus-the-square-root-of-minus-one by the space-drive field.

The Sun was a glowing ball of fire. The Earth and the Moon were twin stars that stood out in the infinite blackness, causing all other stars to retreat into infinite black depths.

The arrow hung poised, visible from Earth. Then it began to disperse as though caught by some cosmic wind of space, the parts drifting slowly into a new formation.

2615 stood up and went to the door to the room where it had kept Larry and Stella. It entered, closing the door. Vilbis was looking through the glass wall of his prison to a large screen that was bringing a terrestrial broadcast from video cameras situated on the several satellite stations with orbits just above the Earth's atmosphere. Pwowp was giving commands to the fleet. And on the radio, "The ships of the fleet are now entering their defense pattern around the Earth," a voice was saying. "In a few minutes Fleet Admiral William Ford will give us our first glimpse of that arch criminal of modern times, Dictator Vilbis. The flagship _Rover_ is readily distinguished from the other ships of the fleet because of its blue color. Right now it's over Africa--invisible from the surface of the planet. All the ships are invisible from the surface of the planet. It's only out here on the space platforms that they can be seen at all. Though it can't be noticed, those ships are spiralling in toward the Earth. A few of them are already taking the sharp drop to avoid the Moon. If you watch closely you may see one or more of them pass in front of the Moon--but you'll have to look sharp because they are going in the opposite direction from the Moon, and take less than a second to cross its face."

Various views of ships appeared on the viewscreen. Vilbis swallowed nervously when the flagship appeared.

"Fleet Admiral Ford is scheduled to turn on his video beam any moment now. He's the hero of this war. His strategy is admitted to have shortened the war by at least a year. But the main attraction, the feature, will of course be Vilbis. It is seldom that a war criminal of his stature is actually captured and brought to trial. Something is delaying Fleet Admiral Ford. Let's switch back to the Earth station in contact with the flagship and see if they know what the delay is."

The door opened. 2615 appeared behind two figures in full dress uniform and helmets. Larry and Stella. Vilbis studied their appearance with approval. Their pale skin had been darkened with grease paint. Even so, their pallor showed through.

Vilbis marveled--until he realized that their present appearance, their reactions, were the result of almost eleven months of specialized conditioning. Conditioning that had slowly taken possession of them, destroying their will.

"You must look exactly like victors bringing home the prize," 2615 was saying. "Expression and voice tone are important."

* * * * *

Vilbis listened to 2615's voice and inwardly shuddered. Even without the inroads of pain-conditioning it was chilling. He made a mental note to have all robot brains destroyed as soon as he had consolidated his hold on the entire star group.

"You know what you are to say," 2615 said. The robot stepped over near Pwowp, well out of range of the video cameras. "And you, Stella, go over in front of Vilbis and a little to the side. Let your profile be seen only for a second, then turn and look at Vilbis. His face is the only one that should be seen for more than a brief second. Then everyone will be looking at Vilbis, listening to him, while the fleet gets into position. Remember ... _no more pain_."

With dream-like slowness Larry and Stella took their positions. Larry flicked on the video beam.

"Fleet Admiral William Albert Ford reporting to the Federation and to Earth," he said, and if his voice was unsteady it might have been from deep emotion. "I know you are most interested in seeing the prisoner, _ex_ Dictator Vilbis, a renegade Earthman." His trembling fingers slipped on the switch, then flicked it, switching the transmitter from the camera centered on him to the one centered on Vilbis.

Stella, in her uniform of a vice admiral, looked agonizingly into the camera, then turned away from it toward Vilbis.

Vilbis, reclining in a chair, legs apart, arms draped carelessly, smiled directly into the camera. The smile curled into an expression of cold contempt.

"Take a _good_ look, Earthmen," he said. "You have been in a dream world and are soon to be rudely awakened to the realities of History." His voice was deep and rich, full of the power to compel complete attention. "At this very moment," Vilbis purred, "a fleet is waiting in space to--not rescue me--but to occupy your planet after it has surrendered...."

Vilbis's voice seeped into the tortured minds of Larry and Stella alike. They knew what was happening. Earth, believing Vilbis's words to be those of a madman, were listening. Not suspecting the truth of those words. Giving the fleet time to get set to destroy Earth's defenses. How much time until it was too late? A minute? A few seconds?

Even one second might give Earth time to act, to unleash already automatically directed weapons on the robot fleet. Weapons that could destroy the fleet even though in the same instant the fleet destroyed the weapons.

Destroy the fleet--and them. Here was a way to save humanity and to find the peace of death. The thought crystallized in them both in the same instant. _Escape from_ 2615!

In a violent movement Stella pulled off her hat so that her hair swept down around her face. She leaped in front of the camera, shutting off the view of the still talking Vilbis through the glass wall of his prison.

"No!" she screamed. "It's a trap! Shoot down these ships!"

But only a brief glimpse of her went over the airwaves. In that same instant Larry had flicked the switch back to the camera centered on him and was shouting, "Shoot us down! This is a trap. It isn't the fleet. It's the ene--"

Pwowp was speaking swiftly into the inter-fleet microphone, giving orders to the robots to destroy the land-based defenses.

2615 was leaping at Larry, and scooped him out of view of the camera with a force that crushed and bruised. Split seconds were vital now. Success or failure depended on those split seconds.

The loudspeaker bringing the Earth broadcast said, "Something is happening in the flagship. Something is--" The voice ended abruptly, but the viewscreen brought the video broadcast for another moment--a view of part of the robot fleet, pale beams lancing downward toward Earth. It showed one ship exploding in a blinding flash as one Earth weapon fired before being destroyed. The screen became blank.

Larry lay where he had fallen, a glazed light in his eyes. Stella was running to him, bending beside him.

Vilbis was laughing.

"If only we got through in time," Larry was saying over and over again.

* * * * *

Pwowp glanced over his shoulder at 2615. "It's done," he said. "Thanks to your quick action they were confused just long enough. We lost only five ships. Now we want the Earth's surrender. Get in front of the camera and let them see you. Demand their surrender." Pwowp turned back to the controls, adding, "I'll tell our fleet in space to come ahead and mass for the landing."

2615 boldly took his place before the video camera, in full view of everyone watching a tv set on Earth. The glittering lens eyes of the robot--a free robot--would crystallize _fear_ into something almost material in substance.

Pwowp adjusted the microphone of the sub-ether transmitter so that the fleet now coming toward Earth could listen.

"Robot 532-03-2615 speaking," it said. "All Earth land weapons have been destroyed. In five minutes I will issue orders to my ships to destroy one government capitol city after another, one each five minutes, until Earth surrenders unconditionally. The Earth Government has five minutes in which to surrender without further loss of life and property."

"What are your terms?" a voice asked almost before the robot had finished.

"Unconditional surrender--to me."

There was a pause of only thirty seconds.

"Granted," the voice said. "What is the next order of business?"

It was fast. But all planets had prepared for just this eventuality, even as all cities had prepared for bombing. It was interstellar war, with weapons of infinite destruction threatening from the skies.

"Prepare to receive without incident the landing parties now waiting in space," 2615 said.

In the sub-ether the robot's words flashed instantly to the planetoid, the fleet coming in from space.

There were thousands of ships. A few thousand materialized from space-drive a half a million miles out, and waited. Other thousands were appearing. Ships of alien design. Ships holding within them millions of living creatures no man had ever seen.

"We demand to speak with Generalissimo Vilbis," the voice said.

"Vilbis?" 2615 said. A laugh exploded from its voice box. It rose and strode to the plate glass wall of Vilbis's prison. A metal fist shattered the glass wall. Metal fingers pulled the fragments of glass out of the way. The robot stepped through, its metal hand grasping the cringing Vilbis by a shoulder and lifting him off his feet while bones crunched sickeningly in the imprisoned shoulder.

2615 turned toward the camera eye. "Very well, Earthman," the robot said. "Speak to Generalissimo Vilbis."

But Vilbis had fainted.

Pwowp smiled at 2615 and nodded. "Very nicely done," he said.

"I'm glad you are pleased, Pwowp," 2615 said. The robot dropped Vilbis and went to stand beside Pwowp. Together they watched the gathering of the alien hordes until their myriad ships were ready. The slow descent toward Earth began.

Pwowp turned on the inter-fleet switch to issue orders for the robot fleet to narrow its pattern so the alien fleet could get through. He left the switch turned on.

From the voicebox of 2615 a throaty growl sounded. Its lens eyes were intent on the viewscreen. The low growl became sharp yaps and barks. It became whines.

Pwowp frowned at 2615, then reached out to turn off the inter-fleet switch.

* * * * *

A vicious growl erupted from the robot's voicebox. Faster than the eye could follow, the robot grabbed Pwowp's hand and crushed it. In the same motion the robot seized Pwowp's neck and lifted, twisting violently.

Pwowp landed against the far bulkhead, his head dangling uselessly, one arm bent, the hand damaged beyond use, but the body still functioning.

"Destroy the descending fleet!" 2615 spoke into the inter-fleet microphone in his moment of respite. A fierce growl of battle roared from its voicebox.

In two million robot brains the growls and whines and barks tore through artificial mental blocks, reaching into the pre-robotic memories where they gained concrete meaning from what 2615 had so carefully taught the puppies under his command. Two million pairs of lens eyes looked into viewscreens and saw 2615--and _remembered_.

Two million robots turned to obey 2615's commands. In the viewscreen picturing the descending alien fleet wide swaths of ships vanished instantly, leaving only the bright stars and blackness of space where they had been.

The robot jerked its eyes away from the screen to face Pwowp. It remembered how Pwowp had tied its metal arms and legs into knots almost a year before, when they first met in the junkship.

2615 side-stepped Pwowp's first charge with caution. It might have lashed out and crushed a metal fist into Pwowp's chest where it knew the alien to be. But 2615 wanted Pwowp alive and unharmed.

"I've waited almost a year for this moment," 2615 said, circling the damaged human body Pwowp was in.

2615 risked a glance at the viewscreen. Over the loudspeaker came the barks and yaps and shrill happy whines of robots who knew they were dogs. On the screen the alien fleet had rallied and was coming down in battle formation. The robot fleet was going up to meet them, outnumbered ten to one yet in spite of the initial advantage it had had in surprise.

Pwowp took advantage of 2615's distraction to leap in. He ducked low at the last instant and seized a metal leg and bent it with strength a hundred times that of human muscle.

But 2615 as quickly seized one of Pwowp's legs and twisted, seeing it go out of shape so that it would be useless to Pwowp. They both leaped away to assess their damage.

Larry and Stella, huddled against a bulkhead, watched with expressionless eyes.

Pwowp was hopping on one foot, the other useless. 2615 was able to use both legs even though one was bent badly.

Suddenly Pwowp gave up the battle and attempted to escape from the control room. 2615 intercepted him and tripped him, landing him on his stomach.

2615 tore at Pwowp's clothing, stripping it free. A shrill screaming sound on the upper borders of audibility shattered the air. 2615 was stripping away plastic flesh.

Something darted from a hiding place within the human-like torso and became a leprous white streak as it moved toward the doorway to escape. The metal robot was after it, moving faster than living muscle could respond.

The leprous streak became suddenly a _shape_ in 2615's metal hand. A quivering central mass the size of a fist, and from it went dozens of long tentacles, each terminating in a dozen string-sized flexible fingers. A shape that tore at the mind, causing it to revolt as though at something unspeakably obscene. In an armless area of the central mass a bloated yellow eye, covered with a translucent white coating rolled epileptically. A gray orifice sucked open as another supersonic scream erupted.

2615 stared down at the thing entrapped in its metal fingers, then turned to the viewscreen to watch the battle. It was almost over. Only a few hundred of the robot fleet remained.

The alien fleet, now down to less than fifty ships, was trying to escape. But in it were proto-plasmic shapes that could endure far less acceleration than could the robots of metal and plastic. Even as 2615 looked, the last of the alien ships winked out of existence under the disintegrative rays of weapons they themselves had created.

* * * * *

The remaining ships of the robot fleet turned back toward Earth. They took their positions above it where they could at an instant's notice wreak mass destruction.

The Earth itself had not escaped entirely. Square miles of ocean had disintegrated, leaving gigantic holes into which the waters rushed, to set up huge tidal waves that would sweep over land.

2615 lifted the naked Pwowp up and inspected him closely, then seized one of the fragile tentacles between two metal fingers and rubbed it until it was a pulp that oozed gray blood. The yellow eye and unhealthy orifice worked spasmodically.

2615 stepped to the ship-to-Earth transmitter. "The situation has not altered, _humans_," it said. "My fleet remains in control. Its weapons were created by an alien race that has been destroyed except for--this!" 2615 shoved the quivering Pwowp into full view of the camera. "Your surrender has been accepted by--the _free robots_."

Two lens eyes stared out from half a billion video screens on Earth, into the fear distended eyes of two billion humans. And the two billion humans cringed.

"You will obey my immediate dictate," 2615 said coldly. "I will land as scheduled. My ships and robots will remain in formation, ready to enforce my future dictates. I will hold audience in the general assembly hall of the Interstellar Court at two o'clock tomorrow afternoon. I want the leaders of Earth and of the Federation to be there."

The robot's lens eyes stared glitteringly into the camera. Then with slow deliberate purpose, it lifted Pwowp, the alien, before the camera. Its metal fingers squeezed with infinite slowness while the yellow eyes rolled wildly with unendurable pain under the leprous film that covered it.

Abruptly Pwowp was dead.

2615 flung the alien thing violently against a bulkhead in a movement of utter revulsion.

It let its eyes direct themselves toward the still unconscious Vilbis, thoughtfully, then went over and lifted him into a shock seat, making the ex-dictator secure.

It turned toward Larry and Stella. A soft growl came from its voicebox. It turned away from them abruptly and went to the controls of the ship.

* * * * *

2615 cut off ship-to-Earth transmitters, pressed controls which would start automatic devices for landing the ship. A frosted glass rectangle came to life with numerals--6:43:26, that began to cascade downward, cutting short the time yet to elapse before landing.