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Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _A Martian Odyssey and Others_ published in 1949. 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.
THE IDEAL
_"This," said the Franciscan, "is my Automaton, who at the proper timewill speak, answer whatsoever question I may ask, and reveal all secretknowledge to me." He smiled as he laid his hand affectionately on theiron skull that topped the pedestal._
_The youth gazed open-mouthed, first at the head and then at the Friar."But it's iron!" he whispered. "The head is iron, good father."_
_"Iron without, skill within, my son," said Roger Bacon. "It will speak,at the proper time and in its own manner, for so have I made it. Aclever man can twist the devil's arts to God's ends, thereby cheatingthe fiend--Sst! There sounds vespers!_ Plena gratia, ave Virgo--"
_But it did not speak. Long hours, long weeks, the_ doctor mirabilis_watched his creation, but iron lips were silent and the iron eyes dull,and no voice but the great man's own sounded in his monkish cell, norwas there ever an answer to all the questions that he asked--until oneday when he sat surveying his work, composing a letter to Duns Scotus indistant Cologne--one day--_
_"Time is!" said the image, and smiled benignly._
_The Friar looked up. "Time is, indeed," he echoed. "Time it is that yougive utterance, and to some assertion less obvious than that time is.For of course time is, else there were nothing at all. Without time--"_
_"Time was!" rumbled the image, still smiling, but sternly at the statueof Draco._
_"Indeed time was," said the Monk. "Time was, is, and will be, for timeis that medium in which events occur. Matter exists in space, butevents--"_
_The image smiled no longer. "Time is past!" it roared in tones deep asthe cathedral bell outside, and burst into ten thousand pieces_.
* * * * *
"There," said old Haskel van Manderpootz, shutting the book, "is myclassical authority in this experiment. This story, overlaid as it iswith mediaeval myth and legend, proves that Roger Bacon himself attemptedthe experiment--and failed." He shook a long finger at me. "Yet do notget the impression, Dixon, that Friar Bacon was not a great man. Hewas--extremely great, in fact; he lighted the torch that his namesakeFrancis Bacon took up four centuries later, and that now van Manderpootzrekindles."
I stared in silence.
"Indeed," resumed the Professor, "Roger Bacon might almost be called athirteenth century van Manderpootz, or van Manderpootz a twenty-firstcentury Roger Bacon. His _Opus Majus_, _Opus Minus_, and _OpusTertium_--"
"What," I interrupted impatiently, "has all this to do with--that?" Iindicated the clumsy metal robot standing in the corner of thelaboratory.
"Don't interrupt!" snapped van Manderpootz. "I'll--"
At this point I fell out of my chair. The mass of metal had ejaculatedsomething like "_A-a-gh-rasp_" and had lunged a single pace toward thewindow, arms upraised. "What the devil!" I sputtered as the thingdropped its arms and returned stolidly to its place.
"A car must have passed in the alley," said van Manderpootzindifferently. "Now as I was saying, Roger Bacon--"
I ceased to listen. When van Manderpootz is determined to finish astatement, interruptions are worse than futile. As an ex-student of his,I know. So I permitted my thoughts to drift to certain personal problemsof my own, particularly Tips Alva, who was the most pressing problem ofthe moment. Yes, I mean Tips Alva the 'vision dancer, the little blondeimp who entertains on the Yerba Mate hour for that Brazilian company.Chorus girls, dancers, and television stars are a weakness of mine;maybe it indicates that there's a latent artistic soul in me. Maybe.
I'm Dixon Wells, you know, scion of the N. J. Wells Corporation,Engineers Extraordinary. I'm supposed to be an engineer myself; I saysupposed, because in the seven years since my graduation, my fatherhasn't given me much opportunity to prove it. He has a strong sense ofvalue of time, and I'm cursed with the unenviable quality of being lateto anything and for everything. He even asserts that the occasionaldesigns I submit are late Jacobean, but that isn't fair. They'rePost-Romanesque.
Old N. J. also objects to my penchant for ladies of the stage and'vision screen, and periodically threatens to cut my allowance, thoughthat's supposed to be a salary. It's inconvenient to be so dependent,and sometimes I regret that unfortunate market crash of 2009 that wipedout my own money, although it did keep me from marrying Whimsy White,and van Manderpootz, through his subjunctivisor, succeeded in provingthat that would have been a catastrophe. But it turned out nearly asmuch of a disaster anyway, as far as my feelings were concerned. It tookme months to forget Joanna Caldwell and her silvery eyes. Just anotherinstance when I was a little late.
Van Manderpootz himself is my old Physics Professor, head of theDepartment of Newer Physics at N. Y. U., and a genius, but a biteccentric. Judge for yourself.
"And that's the thesis," he said suddenly, interrupting my thoughts.
"Eh? Oh, of course. But what's that grinning robot got to do with it?"
He purpled. "I've just told you!" he roared. "Idiot! Imbecile! To dreamwhile van Manderpootz talks! Get out! Get out!"
I got. It was late anyway, so late that I overslept more than usual inthe morning, and suffered more than the usual lecture on promptness frommy father at the office.
* * * * *
Van Manderpootz had forgotten his anger by the next time I dropped infor an evening. The robot still stood in the corner near the window,and I lost no time asking its purpose.
"It's just a toy I had some of the students construct," he explained."There's a screen of photoelectric cells behind the right eye, soconnected that when a certain pattern is thrown on them, it activatesthe mechanism. The thing's plugged into the light-circuit, but it reallyought to run on gasoline."
"Why?"
"Well, the pattern it's set for is the shape of an automobile. Seehere." He picked up a card from his desk, and cut in the outlines of astreamlined car like those of that year. "Since only one eye is used,"he continued, "The thing can't tell the difference between a full-sizedvehicle at a distance and this small outline nearby. It has no sense ofperspective."
He held the bit of cardboard before the eye of the mechanism. Instantlycame its roar of "_A-a-gh-rasp!_" and it leaped forward a single pace,arms upraised. Van Manderpootz withdrew the card, and again the thingrelapsed stolidly into its place.
"What the devil!" I exclaimed. "What's it for?"
"Does van Manderpootz ever do work without reason back of it? I use itas a demonstration in my seminar."
"To demonstrate what?"
"The power of reason," said van Manderpootz solemnly.
"How? And why ought it to work on gasoline instead of electric power?"
"One question at a time, Dixon. You have missed the grandeur of vanManderpootz's concept. See here, this creature, imperfect as it is,represents the predatory machine. It is the mechanical parallel of thetiger, lurking in its jungle to leap on living prey. _This_ monster'sjungle is the city; its prey is the unwary machine that follows thetrails called streets. Understand?"
"No."
"Well, picture this automaton, not as it is, but as van Manderpootzcould make it if he wished. It lurks gigantic in the shadows ofbuildings; it creeps stealthily through dark alleys; it skulks ondeserted streets, with its gasoline engine purring quietly. Then--anunsuspecting automobile flashes its image on the screen behind itseyes. It leaps. It seizes its prey, swinging it in steel arms to itssteel jaws. Through the metal thr
oat of its victim crash steel teeth;the blood of its prey--the gasoline, that is--is drained into itsstomach, or its gas-tank. With renewed strength it flings away the huskand prowls on to seek other prey. It is the machine-carnivore, the tigerof mechanics."
I suppose I stared dumbly. It occurred to me suddenly that the brain ofthe great van Manderpootz was cracking. "What the--?" I gasped.
"That," he said blandly, "is but a concept. I have many another use forthe toy. I can prove anything with it, anything I wish."
"You can? Then prove something."
"Name your