At first I said not a word, paying no attention to the microphone. I merely listened to their babblings and pleadings until I weared of it. Then I grasped the microphone and looked up and saw their tense, eager faces, awaiting my words.
«One does not easily forgive such an injustice as this,»; I shouted. «And I do not believe I shall be ready to until five more generations.»;
Then I laughed. Oh, how I laughed.
«He’s insane!»; I heard one of them say: «The secret of immortality may lie somehow with him, but I feel we shall never learn it; and we dare not stop the pendulum ― that might break the time field, or whatever it is that’s holding him in thrall….»;
(MUCH LATER): It has been a longer time than I care to think, since I wrote those last words. Years… I know not how many. I have almost forgotten how to hold a pencil in my fingers to write.
Many things have transpired, many changes have come in the crazy world out there.
Once I saw wave after wave of planes, so many that they darkened the sky, far out in the direction of the ocean, moving toward the city; and a host of planes arising from here, going out to meet them; and a brief, but lurid and devastating battle in which planes fell like leaves in the wind; and some planes triumphantly returning, I know not which ones…
But all that was very long ago, and it matters not to me. My daily parcels of food continue to come down the pendulum stem; I suspect that it has become a sort of ritual, and the inhabitants of the city, whoever they are now, have long since forgotten the legend of why I was encased here. My little world continues to swing in its arc, and I continue to observe the puny little creatures out there who blunder through their brief span of life.
Already I have outlived generations! Now I want to outlive the very last one of them! I shall!
… Another thing, too, I have noticed. The attendants who daily drop the parcels of food for me, and vacuum out the cell, are robots! Square, clumsy, ponderous and four-limbed things ― unmistakably metal robots, only vaguely human in shape.
… I begin to see more and more of these clumsy robots about the city. Oh, yes, humans too ― but they only come on sight ― seeing tours and pleasure jaunts now; they live, for the most part, in luxury high among the towering buildings. Only the robots occupy the lower level now, doing all the menial and mechanical tasks necessary to the operation of the city. This, I suppose, is progress as these self centered beings have willed it.
…robots are becoming more complicated, more human in shape and movements… and more numerous… uncanny… I have a premonition….
(Later):It has come! I knew it! Vast, surging activity out there… the humans, soft from an aeon of luxury and idleness, could not even escape… those who tried, in their rocket planes, were brought down by the pale, rosy electronic beams of the robots… others of the humans, more daring or desperate, tried to sweep low over the central robot base and drop thermite bombs ― but the robots had erected an electronic barrier which hurled the bombs back among the planes, causing inestimable havoc…
The revolt was brief, but inevitably successful. I suspect that all human life except mine has been swept from the earth. I begin to see, now, how cunningly the robots devised it.
The humans had gone forward recklessly and blindly to achieve their Utopia; they had designed their robots with more and more intricacy, more and more finesse, until the great day when they were able to leave the entire operation of the city to the robots ― under the guidance perhaps of one or two humans. But somewhere, somehow, one of those robots was imbued with a spark of intelligence; it began to think, slowly but precisely; it began to add unto itself, perhaps secretly; until finally it had evolved itself into a terribly efficient unit of inspired intelligence, a central mechanical Brain which planned this revolt.
At least, so I pictured it. Only the robots are left now ― but very intelligent robots. A group of them came yesterday and stood before my swinging pendulum and seemed to confer among themselves. They surely must recognize me as one of the humans, the last one left. Do they plan to destroy me too?
No. I must have become a legend, even among the robots. My pendulum still swings. They have now encased the operating mechanism beneath a protective glassite dome. They have erected a device whereby my daily parcel of food is dropped to me mechanically. They no longer come near me; they seem to have forgotten me.
This infuriates me! Well, I shall outlast them too! After all, they are but products of the human brain… I shall outlast everything even remotely human! I swear it!
(MUCH LATER): Is this the end? I have seen the end of the reign of the robots! Yesterday, just as the sun was crimsoning in the west, I perceived the hordes of things that came swarming out of space, expanding in the heavens… alien creatures fluttering down, great gelatinous masses of black that clustered thickly over everything….
I saw the robot rocket planes criss-crossing the sky on pillars of scarlet flame, blasting into the black masses with their electronic beams ― but the alien things were unperturbed and unaffected! Closer and closer they pressed to earth, until the robot rockets began to dart helplessly for shelter.
To no avail. The silvery robot ships began crashing to earth in ghastly devastation, like drops of mercury splashing on tiles….
And the black gelatinous masses came ever closer, to spread over the earth, to crumble the city and corrode whatever metal was left exposed.
Except my pendulum. They came dripping darkly down over it, over the glassite dome which protects the whirring wheels and roaring bowels of the mechanism. The city has crumbled, the robots are destroyed, but my pendulum still moves, the only moving thing on this world now… and I know that fact puzzles the sealien things and they will not be content until they have stopped it….
This all happened yesterday. I am lying very still now, watching them. Most of the mare gathering out there over the ruins of the city, preparing to leave ― except a few of the black quivering things that are still hanging to my pendulum, almost blotting out the sunlight; and a few more above, near the operating machinery, concentrating those same emanations by which they corroded the robots. They are determined to do a complete job here. I know that in a few minutes they will begin to take effect, even through the glassite shield. I shall continue to write until my pendulum stops swinging…. it is happening now. I can feel a peculiar grinding and grating in the coggery above. Soon my tiny glassite world will cease its relentless arc.
I feel now only a fierce elation flaming i thin me, for after all, this is my victory! I have conquered over the men who planned this punishment for me, and over countless other generations, and over the final robots themselves! There is nothing more I desire except annihilation, and I am sure that will come automatically when my pendulum ceases, bringing me to a state of unendurable motionlessness….
It is coming now. Those black, gelatinous shapes above are drifting away to join their companions. The mechanism is grinding raucously. My arc is narrowing… smaller… smaller….
I feel… so strange…