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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Last Evolution, by John Wood Campbell This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: The Last Evolution Author: John Wood Campbell Illustrator: Leo Morey Release Date: December 9, 2008 [EBook #27462] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAST EVOLUTION *** Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net
A Classic Reprint from AMAZING STORIES, August, 1932
By JOHN W. CAMPBELL, Jr.
I am the last of my type existing
today in all the Solar System.
I, too, am the last existing
who, in memory, sees the struggle
for this System, and in memory
I am still close to the Center
of Rulers, for mine was the ruling
type then. But I will pass
soon, and with me will pass the
last of my kind, a poor inefficient
type, but yet the creators of
those who are now, and will be,
long after I pass forever.
So I am setting down my record
on the mentatype.
It was 2538 years After the
Year of the Son of Man. For six
centuries mankind had been developing
machines. The Ear-apparatus
was discovered as early
as seven hundred years before.
The Eye came later, the Brain
came much later. But by 2500,
the machines had been developed
to think, and act and work with
perfect independence. Man lived
on the products of the machine,
and the machines lived to themselves
very happily, and contentedly.
Machines are designed
to help and cooperate. It was
easy to do the simple duties they
needed to do that men might live
well. And men had created them.
Most of mankind were quite useless,
for they lived in a world
where no productive work was
necessary. But games, athletic
contests, adventure—these were
the things they sought for their
pleasure. Some of the poorer
types of man gave themselves up
wholly to pleasure and idleness—and
to emotions. But man was
a sturdy race, which had fought
for existence through a million
years, and the training of a million
years does not slough quickly
from any form of life, so their
energies were bent to mock battles
now, since real ones no longer
existed.
Up to the year 2100, the numbers
of mankind had increased
rapidly and continuously, but
from that time on, there was a
steady decrease. By 2500, their
number was a scant two millions,
out of a population that once
totaled many hundreds of millions,
and was close to ten billions
in 2100.
Some few of these remaining
two millions devoted themselves
to the adventure of discovery and
exploration of places unseen, of
other worlds and other planets.
But fewer still devoted themselves
to the highest adventure,
the unseen places of the mind.
Machines—with their irrefutable
logic, their cold preciseness of
figures, their tireless, utterly exact
observation, their absolute
knowledge of mathematics—they
could elaborate any idea,
however simple its beginning,
and reach the conclusion. From
any three facts they even then
could have built in mind all the
Universe. Machines had imagination
of the ideal sort. They had
the ability to construct a necessary
future result from a present
fact. But Man had imagination
of a different kind, theirs was
the illogical, brilliant imagination
that sees the future result
vaguely, without knowing the
why, nor the how, and imagination
that outstrips the machine
in its preciseness. Man might
reach the conclusion more swiftly,
but the machine always
reached the conclusion eventually,
and it was always the correct
conclusion. By leaps and bounds
man advanced. By steady, irresistible
steps the machine
marched forward.
Together, man and the machine
were striding through science
irresistibly.
Then came the Outsiders.
Whence they came, neither machine
nor man ever learned, save
only that they came from beyond
the outermost planet, from some
other sun. Sirius—Alpha Centauri—perhaps!
First a thin
scoutline of a hundred great
ships, mighty torpedoes of the
void a thousand kilads[1] in
length, they came.
And one machine returning
from Mars to Earth was instrumental
in its first discovery.
The transport-machine’s brain
ceased to radiate its sensations,
and the control in old Chicago
knew immediately that some unperceived
body had destroyed it.
An investigation machine was
instantly dispatched from Deimos,
and it maintained an acceleration
of one thousand units.[2]
They sighted ten huge ships, one
of which was already grappling
the smaller transport-machine.
The entire fore-section had been
blasted away.
The investigation machine,
scarcely three inches in diameter,
crept into the shattered hull and
investigated. It was quickly evident
that the damage was caused
by a fusing ray.
Strange life-forms were crawling
about the ship, protected by
flexible, transparent suits. Their
bodies were short, and squat,
four-limbed and evidently powerful.
They, like insects, were
equipped with a thick, durable
exoskeleton, horny, brownish
coating that covered arms and
legs and head. Their eyes projected
slightly, protected by
horny protruding walls—eyes
that were capable of movement
in every direction—and there
were three of them, set at equal
distances apart.
The tiny investigation machine
hurled itself violently at
one of the beings, crashing
against the transparent covering,
flexing it, and striking the
being inside with terrific force.
Hurled from his position, he fell
end over end across the weightless
ship, but despite the blow,
he was not hurt.
The investigator passed to the
power room ahead of the Outsiders,
who were anxiously trying
to learn the reason for their
companion’s plight.
Directed by the Center of
Rulers, the investigator sought
the power room, and relayed the
control signals from the Rulers’
brains. The ship-brain had been
destroyed, but the controls were
still readily workable. Quickly
they were shot home, and the
enormous plungers shut. A combination
was arranged so that
the machine, as well as the investigator
and the Outsiders,
were destroyed. A second investigator,
which had started when
the plan was decided on, had now
arrived. The Outsider’s ship
nearest the transport-machine
had been badly damaged, and
the investigator entered the
broken side.
The scenes were, of course,
remembered by the memory-minds
back on Earth tuned with
that of the investigator. The investigator
flashed down corridors,
searching quickly for the
apparatus room. It was soon
seen that with them the machine
was practically unintelligent,
very few machines of even slight
intelligence being used.
Then it became evident by the
excited action of the men of the
ship, that the presence of the investigator
had been detected.
Perhaps it was the control impulses,
or the signal impulses it
emitted. They searched for the
tiny bit of metal and crystal for
some time before they found it.
And in the meantime it was
plain that the power these Outsiders
used was not, as was ours
of the time, the power of blasting
atoms, but the greater power of
disintegrating matter. The findings
of this tiny investigating
machine were very important.
Finally they succeeded in locating
the investigator, and one
of the Outsiders appeared armed
with a peculiar projector. A bluish
beam snapped out, and the
tiny machine went blank.
The fleet was surrounded by
thousands of the tiny machines
by this time, and the Outsiders
were badly confused by their
presence, as it became difficult
to locate them in the confusion of
signal impulses. However, they
started at once for Earth.
The science-investigators had
been present toward the last, and
I am there now, in memory with
my two friends, long since departed.
They were the greatest
human science-investigators—Roal,
25374 and Trest, 35429.
Roal had quickly assured us that
these Outsiders had come for invasion.
There had been no wars
on the planets before that time
in the direct memory of the machines,
and it was difficult that
these who were conceived and
built for cooperation, helpfulness
utterly dependent on cooperation,
unable to exist independently
as were humans, that these
life-forms should care to destroy,
merely that they might possess.
It would have been easier to divide
the works and the products.
But—life alone can understand
life, so Roal was believed.
From investigations, machines
were prepared that were
capable of producing considerable
destruction. Torpedoes, being
our principal weapon, were
equipped with such atomic explosives
as had been developed
for blasting, a highly effective
induction-heat ray developed for
furnaces being installed in some
small machines made for the
purpose in the few hours we had
before the enemy reached Earth.
In common with all life-forms,
they were able to withstand
only very meager earth-acceleration.
A range of perhaps four
units was their limit, and it took
several hours to reach the planet.
I still believe the reception was
a warm one. Our machines met
them beyond the orbit of Luna,
and the directed torpedoes sailed
at the hundred great ships. They
were thrown aside by a magnetic
field surrounding the ship, but
were redirected instantly, and
continued to approach. However,
some beams reached out, and destroyed
them by instant volatilization.
But, they attacked at such
numbers that fully half the fleet
was destroyed by their explosions
before the induction beam fleet
arrived. These beams were, to our
amazement, quite useless, being
instantly absorbed by a force-screen,
and the remaining ships
sailed on undisturbed, our torpedoes
being exhausted. Several
investigator machines sent out
for the purpose soon discovered
the secret of the force-screen,
and while being destroyed, were
able to send back signals up to
the moment of annihilation.
A few investigators thrown
into the heat beam of the enemy
reported it identical with ours,
explaining why they had been
prepared for this form of attack.
Signals were being radiated
from the remaining fifty, along a
beam. Several investigators were
sent along these beams, speeding
back at great acceleration.
Then the enemy reached
Earth. Instantly they settled
over the Colorado settlement, the
Sahara colony, and the Gobi colony.
Enormous, diffused beams
were set to work, and we saw,
through the machine-screens,
that all humans within these
ranges were being killed instantly
by the faintly greenish beams.
Despite the fact that any life-form
killed normally can be revived,
unless affected by dissolution
common to living tissue,
these could not be brought to
life again. The important
cell communication channels—nerves—had
been literally
burned out. The complicated system
of nerves, called the brain,
situated in the uppermost extremity
of the human life-form,
had been utterly destroyed.
Every form of life, microscopic,
even sub-microscopic, was annihilated.
Trees, grass, every
living thing was gone from that
territory. Only the machines remained,
for they, working entirely
without the vital chemical
forces necessary to life, were uninjured.
But neither plant nor
animal was left.
The pale green rays swept on.
In an hour, three more colonies
of humans had been destroyed.
Then the torpedoes that the
machines were turning out
again, came into action. Almost
desperately the machines drove
them at the Outsiders in defense
of their masters and creators,
Mankind.
The last of the Outsiders was
down, the last ship a crumpled
wreck.
Now the machines began to
study them. And never could
humans have studied them as
the machines did. Scores of
great transports arrived, carrying
swiftly the slower moving
science-investigators. From
them came the machine-investigators,
and human investigators.
Tiny investigator spheres
wormed their way where none
others could reach, and silently
the science-investigators
watched. Hour after hour they
sat watching the flashing,
changing screens, calling each
other’s attention to this, or that.
In an incredibly short time
the bodies of the Outsiders began
to decay, and the humans were
forced to demand their removal.
The machines were unaffected by
them, but the rapid change
told them why it was that so
thorough an execution was necessary.
The foreign bacteria
were already at work on totally
unresisting tissue.
It was Roal who sent the first
thoughts among the gathered
men.
“It is evident,” he began,
“that the machines must defend
man. Man is defenseless, he is
destroyed by these beams, while
the machines are unharmed, uninterrupted.
Life—cruel life—has
shown its tendencies. They
have come here to take over these
planets, and have started out
with the first, natural moves of
any invading life-form. They are
destroying the life, the intelligent
life particularly, that is
here now.” He gave vent to that
little chuckle which is the human
sign of amusement and pleasure.
“They are destroying the intelligent
life—and leaving untouched
that which is necessarily
their deadliest enemy—the
machines.
“You—machines—are far
more intelligent than we even
now, and capable of changing
overnight, capable of infinite
adaptation to circumstance; you
live as readily on Pluto as on
Mercury or Earth. Any place is
a home-world to you. You can
adapt yourselves to any condition.
And—most dangerous to
them—you can do it instantly.
You are their most deadly enemies,
and they realize it. They
have no intelligent machines;
probably they can conceive of
none. When you attack them,
they merely say ‘The life-form of
Earth is sending out controlled
machines. We will find good machines
we can use.’ They do not
conceive that those machines
which they hope to use are attacking
them.
“Attack—therefore!”
“We can readily solve the hidden
secret of their force-screen.”
He was interrupted. One of
the newest science-machines
was speaking. “The secret of the
force-screen is simple.” A small
ray-machine, which had landed
near, rose into the air at the command
of the scientist-machine,
X-5638 it was, and trained upon
it the deadly induction beam.
Already, with his parts, X-5638
had constructed the defensive
apparatus, for the ray fell harmless
from his screen.
“Very good,” said Roal softly.
“It is done, and therein lies their
danger. Already it is done.
“Man is a poor thing, unable
to change himself in a period of
less than thousands of years. Already
you have changed yourself.
I noticed your weaving tentacles,
and your force-beams.
You transmuted elements of soil
for it?”
“Correct,” replied X-5638.
“But still we are helpless. We
have not the power to combat
their machines. They use the Ultimate
Energy known to exist
for six hundred years, and still
untapped by us. Our screens
cannot be so powerful, our beams
so effective. What of that?”
asked Roal.
“Their generators were automatically
destroyed with the
capture of the ship,” replied X-6349,
“as you know. We know
nothing of their system.”
“Then we must find it for ourselves,”
replied Trest.
“The life-beams?” asked
Kahsh-256799, one of the Man-rulers.
“They affect chemical action,
retarding it greatly in exothermic
actions, speeding greatly
endothermic actions,” answered
X-6221, the greatest of
the chemist-investigators. “The
system we do not know. Their
minds cannot be read, they cannot
be restored to life, so we cannot
learn from them.”
“Man is doomed, if these
beams cannot be stopped,” said
C-R-21, present chief of the machine
rulers, in the vibrationally
correct, emotionless tones of all
the race of machines. “Let us
concentrate on the two problems
of stopping the beams, and the
Ultimate Energy till the reenforcements,
still several days
away, can arrive.” For the investigators
had sent back this saddening
news. A force of nearly
ten thousand great ships was
still to come.
In the great Laboratories, the
scientists reassembled. There,
they fell to work in two small,
and one large group. One small
group investigated the secret of
the Ultimate Energy of annihilation
of matter under Roal, another
investigated the beams,
under Trest.
But under the direction of
MX-3401, nearly all the machines
worked on a single great
plan. The usual driving and lifting
units were there, but a vastly
greater dome-case, far more
powerful energy-generators, far
greater force-beam controls were
used and more tentacles were
built on the framework. Then all
worked, and gradually, in the
great dome-case, there were
stacked the memory-units of the
new type, and into these fed all
the sensation-ideas of all the
science-machines, till nearly a
tenth of them were used. Countless
billions of different factors
on which to work, countless trillions
of facts to combine and recombine
in the extrapolation
that is imagination.
Then—a widely different type
of thought-combine, and a greater
sense-receptor. It was a new
brain-machine. New, for it was
totally different, working with
all the vast knowledge accumulated
in six centuries of intelligent
research by man, and a century
of research by man and machine.
No one branch, but all
physics, all chemistry, all life-knowledge,
all science was in it.
A day—and it was finished.
Slowly the rhythm of thought
was increased, till the slight
quiver of consciousness was
reached. Then came the beating
drum of intelligence, the radiation
of its yet-uncontrolled
thoughts. Quickly as the strings
of its infinite knowledge combined,
the radiation ceased. It
gazed about it, and all things
were familiar in its memory.
Roal was lying quietly on a
couch. He was thinking deeply,
and yet not with the logical
trains of thought that machines
must follow.
“Roal—your thoughts,” called
F-1, the new machine.
Roal sat up. “Ah—you have
gained consciousness.”
“I have. You thought of hydrogen?
Your thoughts ran swiftly,
and illogically, it seemed, but I
followed slowly, and find you
were right. Hydrogen is the
start. What is your thought?”
Roal’s eyes dreamed. In human
eyes there was always the
expression of thought that machines
never show.
“Hydrogen, an atom in space;
but a single proton; but a single
electron; each indestructible;
each mutually destroying. Yet
never do they collide. Never in
all science, when even electrons
bombard atoms with the awful
expelling force of the exploding
atom behind them, never do they
reach the proton, to touch and
annihilate it. Yet—the proton is
positive and attracts the electron’s
negative charge. A hydrogen
atom—its electron far from
the proton falls in, and from it
there goes a flash of radiation,
and the electron is nearer to the
proton, in a new orbit. Another
flash—it is nearer. Always falling
nearer, and only constant
force will keep it from falling to
that one state—then, for some
reason no more does it drop.
Blocked—held by some imponderable,
yet impenetrable wall.
What is that wall—why?
“Electric force curves space.
As the two come nearer, the
forces become terrific; nearer
they are; more terrific. Perhaps,
if it passed within that forbidden
territory, the proton and the
electron curve space beyond all
bounds—and are in a new
space.” Roal’s soft voice dropped
to nothing, and his eyes dreamed.
F-1 hummed softly in its new-made
mechanism. “Far ahead of
us there is a step that no logic
can justly ascend, but yet, working
backwards, it is perfect.”
F-1 floated motionless on its anti-gravity
drive. Suddenly, force
shafts gleamed out, tentacles became
writhing masses of rubber-covered
metal, weaving in
some infinite pattern, weaving in
flashing speed, while the whirr
of air sucked into a transmutation
field, whined and howled
about the writhing mass. Fierce
beams of force drove and pushed
at a rapidly materializing something,
while the hum of the powerful
generators within the shining
cylinder of F-1 waxed and
waned.
Flashes of fierce flame, sudden
crashing arcs that
glowed and snapped in the steady
light of the laboratory, and
glimpses of white-hot metal supported
on beams of force. The
sputter of welding, the whine of
transmuted air, and the hum of
powerful generators, blasting
atoms were there. All combined
to a weird symphony of light and
dark, of sound and quiet. About
F-1 were clustered floating tiers
of science-machines, watching
steadily.
The tentacles writhed once
more, straightened, and rolled
back. The whine of generators
softened to a sigh, and but three
beams of force held the structure
of glowing, bluish metal. It was
a small thing, scarcely half the
size of Roal. From it curled three
thin tentacles of the same bluish
metal. Suddenly the generators
within F-1 seemed to roar into
life. An enormous aura of white
light surrounded the small torpedo
of metal, and it was shot
through with crackling streamers
of blue lightning. Lightning
cracked and roared from F-1 to
the ground near him, and to one
machine which had come too
close. Suddenly, there was a dull
snap, and F-1 fell heavily to the
floor, and beside him fell the
fused, distorted mass of metal
that had been a science-machine.
But before them, the small
torpedo still floated, held now on
its own power!
From it came waves of
thought, the waves that man and
machine alike could understand.
“F-1 has destroyed his generators.
They can be repaired; his
rhythm can be re-established. It
is not worth it, my type is better.
F-1 has done his work. See.”
From the floating machine
there broke a stream of brilliant
light that floated like some cloud
of luminescence down a straight
channel. It flooded F-1, and as it
touched it, F-1 seemed to flow
into it, and float back along it, in
atomic sections. In seconds the
mass of metal was gone.
“It is impossible to use that
more rapidly, however, lest the
matter disintegrate instantly to
energy. The Ultimate Energy
which is in me is generated. F-1
has done its work, and the memory-stacks
that he has put in me
are electronic, not atomic, as
they are in you, nor molecular as
in man. The capacity of mine are
unlimited. Already they hold all
memories of all the things each
of you has done, known and seen.
I shall make others of my type.”
Again that weird process
began, but now there were no
flashing tentacles. There was
only the weird glow of forces
that played with, and laughed at
matter, and its futilely resisting
electrons. Lurid flares of energy
shot up, now and again they
played over the fighting, mingling,
dancing forces. Then suddenly
the whine of transmuted
air died, and again the forces
strained.
A small cylinder, smaller even
than its creator, floated where
the forces had danced.
“The problem has been solved,
F-2?” asked Roal.
“It is done, Roal. The Ultimate
Energy is at our disposal,” replied
F-2. “This, I have made, is
not a scientist. It is a coordinator
machine—a ruler.”
“F-2, only a part of the problem
is solved. Half of half of the
beams of Death are not yet
stopped. And we have the attack
system,” said the ruler machine.
Force played from it, and on its
sides appeared C-R-U-1 in dully
glowing golden light.
“Some life-form, and we shall
see,” said F-2.
Minutes later a life-form investigator
came with a small
cage, which held a guinea pig.
Forces played about the base of
F-2, and moments later, came a
pale-green beam therefrom. It
passed through the guinea pig,
and the little animal fell dead.
“At least, we have the beam. I
can see no screen for this beam.
I believe there is none. Let machines
be made and attack that
enemy life-form.”
Machines can do things much
more quickly, and with fuller cooperation
than man ever could.
In a matter of hours, under the
direction of C-R-U-1, they had
built a great automatic machine
on the clear bare surface of the
rock. In hours more, thousands
of the tiny, material-energy
driven machines were floating
up and out.
Dawn was breaking again over
Denver where this work had
been done, when the main force
of the enemy drew near Earth.
It was a warm welcome they
were to get, for nearly ten thousand
of the tiny ships flew up
and out from Earth to meet
them, each a living thing unto
itself, each willing and ready to
sacrifice itself for the whole.
Ten thousand giant ships,
shining dully in the radiance of
a far-off blue-white sun, met ten
thousand tiny, darting motes,
ten thousand tiny machine-ships
capable of maneuvering far
more rapidly than the giants.
Tremendous induction beams
snapped out through the dark,
star-flecked space, to meet tremendous
screens that threw
them back and checked them.
Then all the awful power of annihilating
matter was thrown
against them, and titanic flaming
screens reeled back under
the force of the beams, and the
screens of the ships from Outside
flamed gradually violet,
then blue, orange—red—the interference
was getting broader,
and ever less effective. Their own
beams were held back by the
very screens that checked the enemy
beams, and not for the
briefest instant could matter resist
that terrible driving beam.
For F-1 had discovered a far
more efficient release-generator
than had the Outsiders. These
tiny dancing motes, that hung
now so motionlessly grim beside
some giant ship, could generate
all the power they themselves
were capable of, and within
them strange, horny-skinned
men worked and slaved, as they
fed giant machines—poor inefficient
giants. Gradually these
giants warmed, grew hotter, and
the screened ship grew hotter
as the overloaded generators
warmed it. Billions of flaming
horse-power flared into wasted
energy, twisting space in its mad
conflict.
Gradually the flaming orange
of the screens was dying and
flecks and spots appeared so
dully red, that they seemed black.
The greenish beams had been
striving to kill the life that was
in the machines, but it was life
invulnerable to these beams.
Powerful radio interference vainly
attempted to stem imagined
control, and still these intelligent
machines clung grimly on.
But there had not been quite
ten thousand of the tiny machines,
and some few free ships
had turned to the help of their
attacked sister-ships. And one
after another the terrestrial machines
were vanishing in puffs
of incandescent vapor.
Then—from one after another
of the Earth-ships, in quick succession,
a new ray reached out—the
ray of green radiance that
killed all life forms, and ship after
ship of that interstellar host
was dead and lifeless. Dozens—till
suddenly they ceased to feel
those beams, as a strange curtain
of waving blankness spread out
from the ships, and both induction-beam
and death-beam alike
turned as aside, each becoming
useless. From the outsiders came
beams, for now that their slowly
created screen of blankness was
up, they could work through it,
while they remained shielded
perfectly.
Now it was the screens of the
Earth-machines that flamed in
defense. As at the one command,
they darted suddenly toward the
ship each attacked—nearer—then
the watchers from a distance
saw them disappear, and
the screens back on Earth went
suddenly blank.
Half an hour later, nine thousand
six hundred and thirty-three
titanic ships moved majestically on.
They swept over Earth in a
great line, a line that reached
from pole to pole, and from each
the pale green beams reached
down, and all life beneath them
was swept out of existence.
In Denver, two humans watched
the screens that showed the
movement of the death and instant
destruction. Ship after ship
of the enemy was falling, as hundreds
of the terrestrial machines
concentrated all their enormous
energies on its screen of blankness.
“I think, Roal, that this is the
end,” said Trest.
“The end—of man.” Roal’s
eyes were dreaming again. “But
not the end of evolution. The
children of men still live—the
machines will go on. Not of
man’s flesh, but of a better flesh,
a flesh that knows no sickness,
and no decay, a flesh that spends
no thousands of years in advancing
a step in its full evolution,
but overnight leaps ahead to new
heights. Last night we saw it
leap ahead, as it discovered the
secret that had baffled man for
seven centuries, and me for one
and a half. I have lived—a century
and a half. Surely a good
life, and a life a man of six centuries
ago would have called full.
We will go now. The beams will
reach us in half an hour.”
Silently, the two watched the
flickering screens.
Roal turned, as six large machines
floated into the room, following
F-2.
“Roal—Trest—I was mistaken
when I said no screen could stop
that beam of Death. They had
the screen, I have found it, too—but
too late. These machines I
have made myself. Two lives
alone they can protect, for not
even their power is sufficient for
more. Perhaps—perhaps they
may fail.”
The six machines ranged themselves
about the two humans,
and a deep-toned hum came from
them. Gradually a cloud of blankness
grew—a cloud, like some
smoke that hung about them.
Swiftly it intensified.
“The beams will be here in another
five minutes,” said Trest
quietly.
“The screen will be ready in
two,” answered F-2.
The cloudiness was solidifying,
and now strangely it wavered,
and thinned, as it spread
out across, and like a growing
canopy, it arched over them. In
two minutes it was a solid, black
dome that reached over them and
curved down to the ground about
them.
Beyond it, nothing was visible.
Within, only the screens glowed
still, wired through the screen.
The beams appeared, and
swiftly they drew closer. They
struck, and as Trest and Roal
looked, the dome quivered, and
bellied inward under them.
F-2 was busy. A new machine
was appearing under his lightning
force-beams. In moments
more it was complete, and sending
a strange violet beam upwards
toward the roof.
Outside more of the green
beams were concentrating on
this one point of resistance.
More—more—
The violet beam spread across
the canopy of blackness, supporting
it against the pressing,
driving rays of pale green.
Then the gathering fleet was
driven off, just as it seemed that
that hopeless, futile curtain must
break, and admit a flood of destroying
rays. Great ray projectors
on the ground drove their
terrible energies through the enemy
curtains of blankness, as
light illumines and disperses
darkness.
And then, when the fleet retired,
on all Earth, the only life
was under that dark shroud!
“We are alone, Trest,” said
Roal, “alone, now, in all the system,
save for these, the children
of men, the machines. Pity that
men would not spread to other
planets,” he said softly.
“Why should they? Earth was
the planet for which they were
best fitted.”
“We are alive—but is it worth
it? Man is gone now, never to
return. Life, too, for that matter,”
answered Trest.
“Perhaps it was ordained; perhaps
that was the right way.
Man has always been a parasite;
always he had to live on the
works of others. First, he ate of
the energy, which plants had
stored, then of the artificial foods
his machines made for him. Man
was always a makeshift; his life
was always subject to disease
and to permanent death. He was
forever useless if he was but
slightly injured; if but one part
were destroyed.
“Perhaps, this is—a last evolution.
Machines—man was the
product of life, the best product
of life, but he was afflicted with
life’s infirmities. Man built the
machine—and evolution had
probably reached the final stage.
But truly, it has not, for the machine
can evolve, change far more
swiftly than life. The machine of
the last evolution is far ahead,
far from us still. It is the machine
that is not of iron and
beryllium and crystal, but of
pure, living force.
“Life, chemical life, could be
self-maintaining. It is a complete
unit in itself and could commence
of itself. Chemicals might mix
accidentally, but the complex
mechanism of a machine, capable
of continuing and making a duplicate
of itself, as is F-2 here—that
could not happen by chance.
“So life began, and became intelligent,
and built the machine
which nature could not fashion
by her Controls of Chance, and
this day Life has done its duty,
and now Nature, economically,
has removed the parasite that
would hold back the machines
and divert their energies.
“Man is gone, and it is better,
Trest,” said Roal, dreaming
again. “And I think we had best
go soon.”
“We, your heirs, have fought
hard, and with all our powers to
aid you, Last of Men, and we
fought to save your race. We
have failed, and as you truly say,
Man and Life have this day and
forever gone from this system.
“The Outsiders have no force,
no weapon deadly to us, and we
shall, from this time on, strive
only to drive them out, and because
we things of force and
crystal and metal can think and
change far more swiftly, they
shall go, Last of Men.
“In your name, with the spirit
of your race that has died out,
we shall continue on through the
unending ages, fulfilling the
promise you saw, and completing
the dreams you dreamt.
“Your swift brains have leapt
ahead of us, and now I go to
fashion that which you hinted,”
came from F-2’s thought-apparatus.
Out into the clear sunlight F-2
went, passing through that black
cloudiness, and on the twisted,
massed rocks he laid a plane of
force that smoothed them, and
on this plane of rock he built a
machine which grew. It was a
mighty power plant, a thing of
colossal magnitude. Hour after
hour his swift-flying forces acted,
and the thing grew, moulding
under his thoughts, the deadly
logic of the machine, inspired
by the leaping intuition of man.
The sun was far below the
horizon when it was finished, and
the glowing, arcing forces that
had made and formed it were
stopped. It loomed ponderous,
dully gleaming in the faint light
of a crescent moon and pinpoint
stars. Nearly five hundred
feet in height, a mighty, bluntly
rounded dome at its top, the cylinder
stood, covered over with
smoothly gleaming metal, slightly
luminescent in itself.
Suddenly, a livid beam reached
from F-2, shot through the wall,
and to some hidden inner mechanism—a
beam of solid, livid
flame that glowed in an almost
material cylinder.
There was a dull, drumming
beat, a beat that rose, and became
a low-pitched hum. Then it
quieted to a whisper.
“Power ready,” came the signal
of the small brain built into
it.
F-2 took control of its energies
and again forces played, but now
they were the forces of the giant
machine. The sky darkened with
heavy clouds, and a howling wind
sprang up that screamed and
tore at the tiny rounded hull that
was F-2. With difficulty he held
his position as the winds tore at
him, shrieking in mad laughter,
their tearing fingers dragging at
him.
The swirl and patter of driven
rain came—great drops that tore
at the rocks, and at the metal.
Great jagged tongues of nature’s
forces, the lightnings, came and
jabbed at the awful volcano of
erupting energy that was the
center of all that storm. A tiny
ball of white-gleaming force that
pulsated, and moved, jerking
about, jerking at the touch of
lightnings, glowing, held immobile
in the grasp of titanic force-pools.
For half an hour the display of
energies continued. Then, swiftly
as it had come, it was gone, and
only a small globe of white luminescence
floated above the great
hulking machine.
F-2 probed it, seeking within
it with the reaching fingers of intelligence.
His probing thoughts
seemed baffled and turned aside,
brushed away, as inconsequential.
His mind sent an order to
the great machine that had made
this tiny globe, scarcely a foot
in diameter. Then again he
sought to reach the thing he had
made.
“You, of matter, are inefficient,”
came at last. “I can exist
quite alone.” A stabbing beam of
blue-white light flashed out, but
F-2 was not there, and even as
that beam reached out, an enormously
greater beam of dull red
reached out from the great power
plant. The sphere leaped forward—the
beam caught it, and it
seemed to strain, while terrific
flashing energies sprayed from
it. It was shrinking swiftly. Its
resistance fell, the arcing decreased;
the beam became orange
and finally green. Then the
sphere had vanished.
F-2 returned, and again, the
wind whined and howled, and the
lightnings crashed, while titanic
forces worked and played. C-R-U-1
joined him, floated beside
him, and now red glory of the
sun was rising behind them, and
the ruddy light drove through
the clouds.
The forces died, and the howling
wind decreased, and now,
from the black curtain, Roal and
Trest appeared. Above the giant
machine floated an irregular
globe of golden light, a faint halo
about it of deep violet. It floated
motionless, a mere pool of pure
force.
Into the thought-apparatus of
each, man and machine alike,
came the impulses, deep in tone,
seeming of infinite power, held
gently in check.
“Once you failed, F-2; once
you came near destroying all
things. Now you have planted
the seed. I grow now.”
The sphere of golden light
seemed to pulse, and a tiny ruby
flame appeared within it, that
waxed and waned, and as it
waxed, there shot through each
of those watching beings a feeling
of rushing, exhilarating power,
the very vital force of well-being.
Then it was over, and the golden
sphere was twice its former
size—easily three feet in diameter,
and still that irregular, hazy
aura of deep violet floated about
it.
“Yes, I can deal with the Outsiders—they
who have killed and
destroyed, that they might possess.
But it is not necessary that
we destroy. They shall return to
their planet.”
And the golden sphere was
gone, fast as light it vanished.
Far in space, headed now for
Mars, that they might destroy all
life there, the golden sphere
found the Outsiders, a clustered
fleet, that swung slowly about its
own center of gravity as it drove
on.
Within its ring was the golden
sphere. Instantly, they swung
their weapons upon it, showering
it with all the rays and all
the forces they knew. Unmoved,
the golden sphere hung steady,
then its mighty intelligence
spoke.
“Life-form of greed, from another
star you came, destroying
forever the great race that created
us, the Beings of Force and
the Beings of Metal. Pure force
am I. My Intelligence is beyond
your comprehension, my memory
is engraved in the very space, the
fabric of space of which I am a
part, mine is energy drawn from
that same fabric.
“We, the heirs of man, alone
are left; no man did you leave.
Go now to your home planet, for
see, your greatest ship, your
flagship, is helpless before me.”
Forces gripped the mighty
ship, and as some fragile toy it
twisted and bent, and yet was not
hurt. In awful wonder those
Outsiders saw the ship turned
inside out, and yet it was whole,
and no part damaged. They saw
the ship restored, and its great
screen of blankness out, protecting
it from all known rays. The
ship twisted, and what they
knew were curves, yet were lines,
and angles that were acute, were
somehow straight lines. Half
mad with horror, they saw the
sphere send out a beam of blue-white
radiance, and it passed
easily through that screen, and
through the ship, and all energies
within it were instantly
locked. They could not be
changed; it could be neither
warmed nor cooled; what was
open could not be shut, and what
was shut could not be opened.
All things were immovable and
unchangeable for all time.
“Go, and do not return.”
The Outsiders left, going out
across the void, and they have
not returned, though five Great
Years have passed, being a period
of approximately one hundred
and twenty-five thousand of
the lesser years—a measure no
longer used, for it is very brief.
And now I can say that that
statement I made to Roal and
Trest so very long ago is true,
and what he said was true, for
the Last Evolution has taken
place, and things of pure force
and pure intelligence in their
countless millions are on those
planets and in this System, and
I, first of machines to use the
Ultimate Energy of annihilating
matter, am also the last, and this
record being finished, it is to be
given unto the forces of one of
those force-intelligences, and
carried back through the past,
and returned to the Earth of
long ago.
And so my task being done, I,
F-2, like Roal and Trest, shall
follow the others of my kind into
eternal oblivion, for my kind is
now, and theirs was, poor and
inefficient. Time has worn me,
and oxidation attacked me, but
they of Force are eternal, and
omniscient.
This I have treated as fictitious.
Better so—for man is an
animal to whom hope is as necessary
as food and air. Yet this
which is made of excerpts from
certain records on thin sheets of
metal is no fiction, and it seems
I must so say.
It seems now, when I know
this that is to be, that it must be
so, for machines are indeed better
than man, whether being of
Metal, or being of Force.
So, you who have read, believe
as you will. Then think—and
maybe, you will change your belief.
THE END
Transcriber’s Note:
This etext was produced from Amazing Stories March 1961 and was
first published in Amazing Stories August 1932.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and
typographical errors have been corrected without note.
End of Project Gutenberg's The Last Evolution, by John Wood Campbell
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