The Invincible

LAUDA’S HYPOTHESIS

Lauda knocked at the door of the astrogator’s cabin and walked in. The astrogator was making some entries on a photogrammetrical map.

“What’s the matter?” asked Horpach without lifting his head.

“I wanted to talk to you ahout something.”

“Is it that urgent? We’re starting in fifteen minutes.”

“I don’t know. It seems we’re about to figure this place out,” said Lauda.

The astrogator laid aside his compasses. Their eyes met. The biologist was no younger than the commander; strange, that he was still permitted to go on space flights. Apparently he was particularly interested in it. He looked more like an old mechanic than a scientist.

“What have you figured out, then? Let’s hear it.”

“We’ve turned up living organisms in the ocean,” answered Lauda. “Life in the ocean, but none at all on land.”

“How is that? There was life on land. Ballmin himself found traces of it.”

“That’s right. Traces more than five million years old. But later all life on land was exterminated. What I’m about to say sounds fantastic, Astrogator, and I have next to no proof for it, but here’s the way it might have come about: imagine, once upon a time, some millions of years ago, a rocket landed here. A rocket that originated from some other system, perhaps from the region of a nova.”

Lauda spoke faster now, his voice calm and firm.

“We know for a fact, that intelligent life existed on the sixth planet of the system before the explosion of the Zeta of the Lyre constellation. These creatures had a highly developed technology. Suppose a scouting craft of the Lyre people landed here on this planet. Maybe there was a crash landing or some other catastrophe that totally wiped out the ship’s crew — a nuclear explosion, say, or a chain reaction — anyhow, there wasn’t a single living being aboard that wreck that touched down on Regis. Only robots, automated and computerized machines remained. Not the kind we have, with a trunk, a head and limbs, resembling the human body. The inhabitants of the Lyre were probably not humanoid at all in appearance, and they constructed their robots to resemble them. The robots were unharmed and left the ship. They were highly specialized homeostatic mechanisms, capable of withstanding the most difficult environmental conditions. Now they no longer had anyone to direct their activities. Perhaps those robots whose mental processes were closest to those of their creators even tried to repair the wrecked craft, although this would serve no useful pupose under the circumstances. But you know the way robots operate. A repair robot will always repair, everything he’s been programed for, whether it makes sense in a given situation or not. Then a separate group of robots became independent of the others. Perhaps they were attacked by the local fauna. Lizardlike reptiles, predators lived on the planet at that time, and certain predators will attack anything that moves. The robots fought them off and won the battle. They had to be armed for a fight like that — in other words, they adapted to local conditions as best they could. We’d have to assume, of course, that these robots were capable of producing other machines according to their specific needs of the moment. Let’s say they needed flying machines to fight off these saurians. Needless to say, I don’t know any details. I am only imagining the way the situation might have evolved under natural conditions. Maybe there were no flying reptiles here at all, only burrowing reptiles, living underground. I simply have no way of knowing. But in any event the robots would have adapted perfectly to life on the continents of this planet. They succeeded so well that they were victorious in their battle against all life forms. Including plants.”

“Plants? How do you account for that?”

“I’m not quite sure. I could advance several hypotheses, but I’d rather not. Incidentally I haven’t even mentioned the most important part yet. Hundreds of generations later the ‘offspring’ of the first mechanisms were no longer anything like the original products created by the Lyre civilization. Do you follow me? It was the beginning of an evolution of nonliving things, an evolution of machines. After all, what’s the first principle of a homeostat? To outlast, to survive under changing conditions, however difficult and hostile these conditions may be. The forms that eventually resulted from this evolution faced a peril far greater than attack by the local fauna and flora. They were forced to search out sources of energy and raw materials in order to produce spare parts and new organisms. This search led to the development of a kind of mining industry. Their ancestors — the ones who arrived with our hypothetical spaceship — must have been originally powered by some radioactive source. But there are no radioactive elements present on this planet. In other words, they no longer had access to this particular supply of power, and so were forced to find another one. This would have led to a critical shortage of power and eventually to a battle over the source of energy supply. The machines waged war on each other in a literal struggle for survival. And of course this is the basis for all evolution: survival of the fittest, due to natural selection. In this battle, the ‘intellectually’ superior mechanisms, which needed considerable amounts of, energy (not least, perhaps, because of their size) were no match for the less developed but more economical and more productive machines — ”

“Hold it. Aside from the fact that this all sounds like pure fantasy, isn’t it true that it is precisely the organism with the highest developed nervous system who usually wins the evolutionary battle? Even if the nervous system had been replaced in this case by an electronic system, the principle would still remain the same.”

“Correct. But only in the case of homogenous organisms that naturally evolved on the same planet — not those that arrived from other planets.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s this simple: on Earth, the biochemical prerequisites for the proper functioning of organisms have always been and still are almost always the same. Algae, amoebae, plants, animals — they’re all made up of nearly identical cells; they all have a very similar protein-based metabolism. And in view of this common basic building block, this common point of origin, what you have just outlined about the development of the machines becomes a distinguishing characteristic rather than a common one. It is not the only one, but one of the most important. However, the situation was quite different in this case. There were two types of mechanisms that landed here on Regis. The more complicated obtained their energy from their own radioactive stores of supply, while the simpler mechanisms, small repair systems, derived their power from solar cells that were recharged by sunlight. This was a tremendous advantage and made them superior to the other radioactive-powered type.”

“But the higher developed mechanisms might have robbed them of these solar batteries. And anyway, what good is all this debate? Why should we even talk about it? It may not even be worth discussing. What do you say, Lauda?”

“Quite the contrary! This is an important point! As I see it, an inanimate evolution of a most peculiar character has taken place here, due to extraordinary conditions which came about by chance. This is the way it looks to me. Two types of systems were successful in this evolutionary pattern: first, those that had made the greatest advances in miniaturization, and then those that became settled in a definite place. The first type were the beginning of these Talack clouds. I believe them to be very tiny pseudo insects that, if necessary, and for their common good, can unite to form a superordinate system. This is the course taken by the evolution of the mobile mechanisms. The stationary mechanisms, on the other hand, were the starting point for this strange metallic vegetation, the ‘ruins’ of the areas we thought were cities — ”

“In other words, you don’t think they are cities?”

“No, of course not. They’re merely collections of mechanisms that became stationary. Inanimate structures that self-reproduced and were outfitted with special organs to store solar energy. That seems to be the function of the small triangular plates.”

“Do you mean to tell me that the city is still vegetating?

“No. I have the impression that this — let’s say this metallic forest — has become the victim in the struggle for existence. There’s nothing left of it but rustly scrap metal. Only one type of mechanism has survived the mobile systems that dominates all the continents of this planet.”

“Why?”

“I can’t answer that. I’ve made innumerable calculations. There is the possibility that the sun of Regis III has cooled off at a much faster rate over the past three million years than was previously the case. This may have deprived the stationary organisms of the amount of energy they need. But that’s just an assumption.”

“Let’s just suppose you are right: do you believe, then, that the clouds have some command center at either the surface or the interior of this planet?”

“No, I don’t think it’s anything like that. It could be that these microorganisms themselves form such a center when they combine in a certain manner — a kind of inanimate brain. In general it’s probably better for them to live separately. They exist in loose swarms which permits them to be constantly exposed to the sunlight, or even to chase after thunder clouds, for they probably obtain energy from these atmospheric discharges. However, they will unite in moments of danger, or to be more precise, in the event of any sudden change that constitutes a threat to their survival.”

“Such a reaction would have to be triggered by something. And what happens to that incredibly complex memory bank that remembers the whole system during these periods of ‘swarming’? After all, an electronic brain is known to be cleverer than its individual parts, Lauda. Are you suggesting that these elements have been clever enough to jump back to their proper places again by themselves? That would imply some initial blueprint of the entire brain — ”

“Not necessarily. It suffices for each element to recall those elements with which it was in immediate contact. Let’s say element number one is to attach each of its surfaces to six other particles which in turn remember the same thing about themselves. Thus the amount of information stored in each individual particle can be veiy limited indeed, and only a certain trigger mechanism, some kind of signal — Warning! Danger! — is needed to restore the original configuration, the creation of the ‘brain.’ But this is no more than a grossly simplified description. The process must be far more complicated than that — just consider how frequently these individual elements are destroyed — and yet the overall functioning of the superstructure remains unaffected.”

“Fine. We can’t afford the time now to go into further details. Are there any practical conclusions we can draw from your hypothesis, Lauda?”

“To some extent, yes, but rather negative conclusions. Millions of years of ‘machine evolution’ and a phenomenon never before encountered by man anywhere in the galaxy. Let’s just focus on the main problem. Machines as we know them do not exist for their own sake, but rather to serve someone or something. From the point of view of mankind, the existence of a self-generating metal bush or an iron cloud is meaningless. Of course you could also say that cactus plants in our terrestrial deserts are equally meaningless. The key lies in the fact how excellently they have adapated in their fight against other living beings. I am inclined to believe they resorted to killing only during the first phases of this battle, while the continents were still teeming with life. Soon the amount of energy used for killing must have proven to be uneconomical, and they turned to other methods. The result? The catastrophe of the Condor, the business with Kertelen, and, finally, the destruction of Regnar’s men.”

“What kind of methods do you mean?”

“I don’t know exactly how they function. I can only express my own opinion: in the case of Kertelen, we have witnessed the annihilation of almost the entire information bank stored in the human brain. It’s probably the same thing with animals. An organism maimed in this fashion obviously cannot survive. Simpler, faster, and more economical than outright killing… I’m sorry to say that my conclusions are very pessimistic, as far as we are concerned. That may even be the understatement of the year. Our position is far worse than theirs, for several reasons. To begin with, it’s much easier to destroy a living organism than a mechanism or some technical installation. Besides, they have evolved under conditions that forced them to fight against living things and against their metallic brothers, as we might call these robots. In other words, they have conducted a war on two fronts, battling against any kind of adaptive mechanism evolved by living systems, and also against any manifestation of intelligence in machines. Millions of years of such warfare must have resulted in a perfect and uniquely universal system of destruction. I am afraid if we want to beat them we’ll have to resort to total annihilation, and that’s as good as impossible.”

“Are you serious?”

“Yes. Of course, it is conceivable that the entire planet could be destroyed, if the proper concentration of means were available. But this is not our task here, quite apart from the fact that we lack the necessary equipment to do so. The situation as I see it is absolutely unique. We are superior intellectually. These mechanisms do not represent a truly intelligent power. But they have managed to adapt perfectly to this planet — by annihilating anything rational as well as anything alive. They themselves are not alive, therefore what is harmless for them might mean death for us.”

“How can you be so sure that these mechanisms lack rationality?”

“I could try to duck that question. I could plead ignorance; but I assure you, if I’ve ever been convinced of anything, this is it. Why don’t they represent an intellectual power? My God! If they had any mental faculties they would have finished us off long ago. Just run through everything that’s happened since we landed here — you’ll have to conclude that they can’t possibly have a strategical plan. They make only one attack at a time.”

“Hmm. What about the way they interrupted contact between us and Regnar, and then the attack on our scouting planes — ”

“But they haven’t done anything they didn’t already do thousands of years ago. The more complicated automatons they destroyed must certainly have had radio communication. One of their earliest tasks must have been to prevent the exchange of information. The solution to their problem was self-apparent: what would be better suited as a screening device than a metallic cloud? And now? What do we do? We have to protect ourselves and the machines and robots without whose aid we would be helpless, while our adversaries are free to operate in any way they need. They command a literally inexhaustible means of reproduction; they can continue to exist even if we annihilate a part of their forces; they are unaffected by our conventional weapons of destruction. There’s nothing left for us to do but turn to our strongest weapon, the antimatter artillery. Yet even so we’ll never destroy them all. Have you noticed how they react when they’re hit? They simply disintegrate. Besides, the fact that we have to stay behind our protective force fields, reduces our maneuverability. They, on the other hand, can reduce their size at will, move freely from place to place — and even if we should succeed in beating them on this continent, they’ll simply withdraw to another one. And after all, their complete annihilation is not what we came here to accomplish. I think we should get out.”

“So that’s it.”

“Yes, that’s it. Since we’re obviously dealing with an adversary that is merely the outgrowth of an inorganic evolution, we cannot solve this problem by the usual formula of retaliation for what happened to the Condor and its crew. That would be the same as trying to punish the ocean for having swallowed a ship.”

“There’d be a great deal of logic in what you are saying — if the story really went like that,” said Horpach and rose from his seat. He leaned back against the table, both hands planted on the chart that had been covered with writing. “But it’s only a hypothesis, and we can’t return to Earth with a hypothesis. We need certainty. Not vengeance but certainty. An accurate diagnosis. Facts. Once we have that, once I have specimens of these — these flying mechanical fauna (if they exist at all) — safely stowed away on board, then I’ll agree that we have nothing left to do here any more. Then it will be up to our homebase on Earth to give us further instructions. Incidentally, there’s no guarantee that these metal flies will remain on this planet. They might undergo further evolution, leave the confines of Regis III and become a threat to interstellar spaceflight in this part of the galaxy.”

“Even if that were so, nothing of the sort would happen for several hundred thousand — if not several million — years. I’m afraid you are still guided by the notion that our opponent is a rational being, Astrogator. What was once the mere instrument of reasoning creatures became autonomous once its masters vanished. Over a period of millions of years, these structures have actually become part of the natural forces of this planet. Life survived in the ocean, partly because the mechanical evolution did not extend to that sphere, partly because the aquatic organisms were prevented from getting access to the dry land. This would explain that atmosphere’s moderate oxygen content, which is a by-product of the photosynthesis taking place in the algae and plankton living in the ocean. It also would account for the conditions on the continent’s surface. Naturally it’s nothing but one vast desert — these systems do not build up anything, have no civilization and do not create anything of value, having nothing but themselves. That’s why we should regard them as forces of nature. Nature herself never creates values. These structures are their own raison d’être; they simply exist for themselves, and they behave the way they do simply in order to continue to exist…”

“How would you explain the destruction of our scouter planes? They were inside their protective energy field the whole time, as we know.”

“One energy field can be extinguished by another. And if you want to erase the entire memory bank of a man’s brain instantaneously, you have to surround his head with a magnetic field so powerful it would be difficult to produce even with all the means we have here on board. For that you would need gigantic transformers and electromagnets.”

“Do you mean to say that these structures have all that at their disposal?”

“Of course not. They don’t ‘have’ anything. They are nothing more than building blocks that combine to form whatever the circumstances of any given moment require. A danger signal simply means that ‘something has come up.’ They register changes in their environment — changes in the electrostatic field, for example. The flying swarm is immediately sent into the ‘cloud-brain’ formation and its collective memory reawakens: yes, we’ve encountered this organism before, dealt with them in such and such a manner, annihilated them — then they just repeat the procedure.”

“All right,” said Horpach, who had not been listening to the biologist’s explanations for some time. “I’m going to postpone departure. Now we’ll have a meeting, though I’d rather not, since it means another one of those endless disputes. The scientists will get upset again, but I don’t know what else to do. I’ll see you in the main library in thirty minutes, Dr. Lauda.”

“If they can convince me that my hypothesis is wrong, you’ll have a truly happy man on board.” Dr. Lauda spoke these words softly and left the cabin as quietly as he had come. Horpach walked over to the intercom at the other wall, pushed the receiver button and called the scientists in to a meeting.

It soon became evident that Dr. Lauda’s assumptions were shared by most of his colleagues: he was merely the first to express them in such a determined manner. The only differences of opinion concerned the question whether the cloud could be considered to have consciousness or not. The cyberneticists were inclined to view the cloud as a thinking system, capable of strategic planning. Lauda was subjected to vigorous attacks. Horpach realized that the basis for their violent arguments was not so much their objections to Lauda’s explanations as the fact that he had discussed them first with the commander rather than with his colleagues. Despite their good relations with the rest of the crew, the scientists formed a “state within a state” on board ship and followed a definite unwritten code of behavior.

Kronotos, the senior cyberneticist, asked Lauda how the cloud could have learned to attack men if it were devoid of intellect.

“Quite simple,” answered the biologist. “It’s done nothing else for millions of years. I’m referring to their fight against the original denizens of Regis III, animals with a central nervous system. The cloud learned to attack them the same way a terrestrial insect will attack its victim, and with the same precision with which a wasp injects its poison into the nerve fibers of a cricket or a grasshopper. No intelligence is needed for that, just instinct.”

“But where did they learn to attack planes? Surely they’ve never met up with aircraft before.”

“How can you be sure of that? The cloud fought on two fronts, as I’ve already pointed out, my dear colleague. Against the organic inhabitants of Regis III, and against the inorganic kind — the automatons, the robots. These robots must necessarily have resorted to all kinds of defensive and offensive means.”

“But if there were no flying robots among them — ”

“I see the point Dr. Lauda wants to make here,” remarked Saurahan, the assistant cyberneticist. These giant robots, macro-automatons, must have established some means of communication with each other in order to work together. They could be most efficiently destroyed through isolation, and that could be best accomplished by blocking their communication system — ”

“Whether the cloud’s behavior is triggered by conscious mental activity or not is completely immaterial at this point,” Kronotos countered. “Our present task is not to find a single hypothesis that will answer all our problems, but rather one that will guarantee us maximum possible security in the course of our stay on this planet. So it would be wiser for us to assume that the cloud does have a certain degree of intelligence. We’ll probably exercise greater caution that way. If, on the other hand, we go along with Dr. Lauda’s belief that the cloud does not possess any reasoning power, and if he turns out to be in error, we may have to pay a terribly high price for that error. I am speaking now not as a theorist but as a tactician.”

“Which of us are you setting up camp against — myself or the cloud?” replied Lauda calmly. “I’m not opposed to caution, but this cloud has as much intelligence as an insect, and not even an individual insect, but, say, an anthill. Otherwise we would all be dead by now.”

“Where’s your proof?”

“We were not the cloud’s first human opponents. May I remind you that the Condor landed on this planet before us. The microscopic “flies” should have learned then, if they had any reasoning power, that they could penetrate the energy field by simply burrowing through the sand. After all, the energy field reached only as far as the surface of the ground. The flies knew the extent of the Condor’s energy field; they could have figured out the appropriate action. Yet they failed to do so. Therefore we must assume the cloud does not have a mind; it acts by sheer instinct.”

Kronotos was not ready to give up but Horpach intervened and suggested that they continue the discussion some other time. He asked for concrete suggestions based on the conditions they had discussed.

Nygren asked whether the men could be equipped with metal helmets in order to counteract the effect of a magnetic field, but the physicists thought this would be useless, since a strong field would produce currents in the metal that in turn would heat the helmets to temperatures so uncomfortable that the men would tear them off. One could easily imagine what the result would be.

It was already evening. Horpach was talking with Lauda and the physicians in one corner of the room, while the cyberneticists formed another group.

“You know, it is strange that the more intelligent ones, the macro-automatons didn’t come out on top of this conflict,” said one of the cyberneticists. “That would be the exception to the rule whereby evolution proceeds toward greater complexity, higher specialization, thus perfecting homeostasis and making better use of available information.”

“These machines didn’t have a chance; they were too complicated and too highly developed from the start,” argued Saurahan. “Don’t forget that they were highly specialized, and had been designed to serve their creators, the inhabitants of the Lyre. Once their masters ceased to exist, the robots were crippled. Like a body without a head. The precursors of the present “flies” — not that they existed at that time; on the conrary, they must have developed at a much later stage — these precursors were relatively primitive. That is precisely why they had such a tremendous potential to develop in many different directions.”

“Still another, even more important factor may have played a role there,” interjected Dr. Sax, who had just joined the group. “We are dealing here with mechanisms, which are incapable of regenerating themselves in the manner of organic beings, or living tissue that can renew and heal itself. Even if a macro-automaton could have repaired a damaged robot, he would have needed the proper tools; probably a lot of complicated machinery. Consequently, it would have sufficed to separate these macromachines from their tools in order to put them out of action. Thus they became the defenseless victims of these tiny flying creatures, who in turn were hardly affected if they were damaged.”

“Very interesting,” spoke up Saurahan. “From what you say it follows that robots should be constructed quite differently from the way we’ve been doing it in order to be really universal: you’d have to start with tiny elementary building blocks, primary units, pseudo-cells that can replace each other, if necessary.”

“That’s not such a new idea,” replied Sax with a smile. “It’s the same way organic forms develop — and it’s no accident, either. Neither is it merely by chance that this cloud is composed of such interchangeable units. It is a question of the proper materials: a damaged robot needs parts that can only be produced by a highly advanced technology. But a system that consists of a few crystals, thermistors, or other simple elements, can be destroyed without serious effects, because it will be replaced immediately by one of a billion similar systems.”

Horpach realized that he could not expect much help. The others were too engrossed in the debate to notice as he left the room. He went to the command center in order to tell Rohan’s group about the hypothesis of “inorganic evolution.” It was already dark when the Invincible managed to establish communication with the supercopter far off in the crater. Gaarb answered the call.

“I have only seven people here,” he said, “including two physicians who are tending to our casualties. The others are asleep, except for the radio operator, who’s sitting here next to me. By the way, Rohan’s not back yet.”

“Not yet returned? When did he leave?”

“At about 18:00 hours. He took six engines along and the rest of the crew. We agreed that he would return shortly after sunset. The sun went down ten minutes ago.”

“Are you in radio communication with him?”

“Not since about an hour ago.”

“Gaarb! Why didn’t you inform me at once?”

“Rohan told us he would be out of touch for a while. They wanted to advance into one of the deep ravines, you know. The canyon walls are completely covered by that damned metal stuff. It reflects so strongly that we can’t get any signal at all.”

“Please inform me the moment Rohan gets back. He will have to justify such negligence. That’s a sure way to lose the entire crew in one fell swoop.”

The astrogator had hardly finished when Gaarb began to yell excitedly: “Here they are, Astrogator! I can see their lights, they’re coming up the hill — there’s Rohan. One, two, no, only one vehicle — in a minute we’ll know more.”

“I’ll wait.”

As soon as Gaarb saw the headlights that swept the path ahead, now flinging bundles of light rays on the encampment, now disappearing behind some small elevation of the ground, he seized a flare pistol and fired twice, with the effect that his men awoke abruptly and jumped up. In the meantime the vehicle made a turn, the radio operator in the center opened a passage in the wall of the force field. A dust-covered tank rolled along a runway marked by blue blinking lights. The vehicle slowed down in front of the dune where the supercopter was poised. Gaarb was horror-stricken when he recognized the small vehicle: it was the three-man amphibian scouter, the radio car of the group. Now the cone of their searchlight formed a straight path from the copter to the vehicle. Gaarb and several men ran toward the machine. The vehicle had not yet come to a complete standstill when a man jumped out. His protective suit hung in shreds from his body; his face was so encrusted with blood and dirt that Gaarb recognized him only after the man began to speak.

“Gaarb,” moaned the man, and tried to grab the scientist’s shoulders as his own legs gave way under him. The others jumped forward, held him up and asked anxiously: “What happened? Where are the rest of the men?”

“They’re all — all —,” whispered Rohan and fainted as they caught him in their arms.

Toward midnight the physicians succeeded in reviving him. From the oxygen tent inside the aluminum barrack, he told the story that Gaarb transmitted half an hour later to the Invincible.