“Metalman, eh?” Barney Ffoulkes said to his chief of staff, Dangerfield. “Making a diamond-studded robot for Ballard, eh? Bloody show-off!”
Dangerfield didn’t say anything.
“How big?”
“Seven feet, perhaps.”
“And studded-wonder how thickly? Ballard’s going to tie up a lot of rocks in that sandwich man. Wonder if he’ll have the diamonds spell out, ‘Hurrah for Bruce Ballard’?” Ffoulkes got up from his desk and buzzed around the room like a mosquito, a ginger-haired, partially bald little man with a wrinkled rat-trap face, soured in brine. “Get an offensive ready. Revise it daily. Chart a complete economic front, so we can jump on Ballard from all directions when we get the tip-off.”
Dangerfield still said nothing, but his eyebrows lifted inquiringly in the sallow, blank face.
Ffoulkes scuttled toward him, twitching. “Do I have to make a blueprint? Whenever we’ve had Ballard in a spot before, he’s wriggled out-insurance companies, loan flotations, more diamonds. No insurance company will handle him now. His diamonds can’t be inexhaustible, unless they’re artificial. If they are, he’ll find it harder and harder to float a loan. See?”
Dangerfield nodded dubiously.
“Hm-m-m. He’ll have a lot of gems tied up in this robot. It’ll be stolen, naturally. And that time we’ll strike.”
Dangerfield pursed his lips.
“O.K.,” Ffoulkes said. “So it may not work. It hasn’t worked before. But in this game the whole trick is to keep hammering till the wall’s breached. This time may be the charm. If we can once catch Ballard insolvent, he’ll go under. Anyhow, we’ve got to try. Prepare an offensive. Stocks, bonds, utilities, agricultures, ores-everything. What we want to do is force Ballard to buy on margin when he can’t cover. Meantime, be sure our protection’s paid. Hand the boys a bonus.”
Dangerfield made a circle with thumb and forefinger. Ffoulkes chuckled nastily as his chief of staff went out.
It was a time of booms and panics, of unstable economics and utterly crazy variables. Man hours, as usual, remained the base. But what in theory seemed effective in practice was somewhat different. Man hours, fed into the hopper of the social culture, emerged in fantastic forms. Science had done that-science enslaved.
The strangle hold of the robber barons was still strong. Each one wanted a monopoly, but, because they were all at war, a species of toppling chaos was the result. They tried desperately to keep their own ships afloat while sinking the enemy fleet. Science and government were handicapped by the Powers, which were really industrial empires, completely self-contained if not self-supporting units. Their semanticists and propagandists worked on the people, ladling out soothing sirup. All would be well later-when Ballard, or Ffoulkes, or All-Steel, or Unlimited Power, took over. Meantime-
Meantime the technicians of the robber barons, well subsidized, kept throwing monkey wrenches into the machinery. It was the time preceding the Scientific Revolution, and akin to the Industrial Revolution in its rapid shifting of economic values. All-Steel’s credit was based chiefly on the Hallwell Process. Unlimited Power’s scientists discovered a better, more effective method that scrapped the Hallwell Process. Result, the bottom fell out of All-Steel, and there was a brief period of frantic readjustment, during which All-Steel yanked certain secret patents out into the open and utilized them, playing hell with Ffoulkes, whose Gatun Bond Issue was based on a law of supply and demand which was automatically revised by the new All-Steel patents. Meantime each company was trying to catch the others with their pants down. Each one wanted to be master. When that enviable day arrived, the economic mess would settle, it was hoped, under the central control, and there would be Utopia.
The structure grew like the Tower of Babel. It couldn’t stop-naturally. Crime kept pace with it.
Because crime was a handy weapon. The old protection racket had been revived. All-Steel would pay the Donner gang plenty to keep their hands off All-Steel interests. If the Donner boys happened to concentrate on robberies that would weaken Ffoulkes or Ballard or Unlimited Power-fine! Enough spectacular thefts would lead to a panic during which enemy stocks would drop to the bottom, one asked, nothing bid.
And if a man went down, he was lost. His holdings would go to the wolves, and he himself would be too potentially dangerous ever to be allowed power again. Vae victis!
But diamonds were increasingly rare-and so, till now, Bruce Ballard’s empire had been safe.
The robot was sexless, but gave the impression of masculinity. Neither Ballard nor Gunther ever used the neuter pronoun in reference to the creature. Metalman Products had done their usual satisfactory job, and Gunther improved on it.
So Argus came to the castle, for final conditioning. Rather surprisingly, the robot was not vulgarly ostentatious. He was functional, a towering, symmetrical figure of gold, studded with diamonds, He was patterned on an armored knight, seven feet tall, with a cuirass of bright gold, golden greaves, golden gauntlets that looked clumsy but which contained remarkably sensitive nerve-endings. His eyes had diamond lenses, specially chosen for their refractive powers, and, logically, Ballard called him Argus.
He was blazingly beautiful, a figure out of myth. In a bright light he resembled Apollo more than Argus. He was a god come to Earth, the shower of gold that Danae saw.
Gunther sweated over the conditioning process. He worked in a maze of psychological charts, based on the mentalities of the creatures that lived by flight. Automatic reactions had to have voluntary cut-offs, controlled by logic, when reasoning power took over-reasoning power based on the flight-instinct. Self-preservation was the prime factor. The robot had it in a sufficient amount.
“So he can’t be caught,” Ballard said, regarding Argus.
Gunther grunted. “How? He automatically adjusts to the most logical solution, and readjusts instantly to any variable. Logic and superswift reactions make him a perfect flight machine.”
“You’ve implanted the routine?”
“Sure. Twice a day he makes his round of the castle. He won’t leave the castle for any reason-which is a safeguard. If crooks could lure Argus outside, they might set an ingenious trap. But even if they captured the castle, they couldn’t hold it long enough to immobilize Argus. What have you got burglar alarms for?”
“You’re sure the tour’s a good idea?”
“You wanted it. Once in the afternoon, once at night-so Argus could show off to the guests. If he meets danger during his round, he’ll adjust to it.”
Ballard fingered the diamonds on the robot’s cuirass. “I’m still not sure about-sabotage.”
“Diamonds are pretty tough. They’ll resist a lot of heat. And under the gold plate is a casing that’ll resist fire and acid-not forever, but long enough to give Argus his chance. The point is that Argus can’t be immobilized long enough to let himself be destroyed. Sure, you could play a flame thrower on him-but for how long? One second, and then he’d scram.”
“If he could. What about cornering him?”
“He won’t go into corners if he can help it. And his radioatomic brain is good! He’s a thinking machine devoted to one purpose: self-preservation.”
“And he’s strong,” Gunther said. “Don’t forget that. It’s important. He can rip metal, if he can get leverage. He’s not a superdooper, of course- if he were, he couldn’t be mobile. He’s subject to normal physical laws. But he is beautifully adaptive; he’s very strong; he has super-swift reactive powers; he’s not too vulnerable. And we’re the only guys who can immobilize Argus.”
“That helps,” Ballard said.
Gunther shrugged. “Might as well start. The robot’s ready.” He jerked a wire free from the golden helm. “It takes a minute or so for the automatic controls to take over. Now-”
The immense figure stirred. On light, rubberoid soles, it moved away, so quickly that its legs almost blurred. Then it stood motionless once more.
“We were too close,” Gunther said, licking his lips. “He reacts to the vibrations sent out by our brains. There’s your piggy bank, Bruce!”
A little smile twisted Ballard’s lips. “Yeah. Let’s see-” He walked toward the robot. Argus slid away quietly.
“Try the combination,” Gunther suggested.
Ballard said softly, almost whispering, “All is not gold that glitters.” He approached the robot again, but it reacted by racing noiselessly into a distant corner. Before Ballard could say anything, Gunther murmured, “Say it louder.”
“Suppose someone overhears? That’s-”
“So what? You’ll change the key phrase, and when you do, you can get close enough to Argus to whisper it.”
“All is not gold that glitters.” Ballard’s voice rose. This time, when he went to the robot, the giant figure did not stir.
Ballard pressed a concealed stud in the golden helm and murmured, “These are pearls that were his eyes.” He touched the button again, and the robot fled into another corner. “Uh-huh. It works, all right.”
“Don’t give him such obvious combinations,” Gunther suggested. “Suppose one of your guests starts quoting Shakespeare? Mix up your quotations.”
Ballard tried again. “What light through yonder window breaks I come here to bury Caesar now is the time for all good men.”
“Nobody’s going to say that by accident,” Gunther remarked. “Fair enough. Now I’m going out and enjoy myself. I need relaxation. Write me a check.”
“How much?”