They were in the garden and he looked at the light flooding the house,
shaking his head slowly. "One point that's not clear yet is whether or
not they used the weapon finally developed for use against the robots.
I'm personally inclined to think that it wasn't."
"Perhaps it won't work," Don said.
"I'm quite sure that it will; in fact, we're in full production right
now. You see, Don, the formula was discovered weeks ago by someone
else so there was no holding it back from the government."
"You mean that Earth has a weapon that will destroy all the roboes?"
anxiously inquired Don.
"Completely."
"But, but--that means that it would also...."
The old man's head dropped, "I know, Donald. It means Shiela too
unless they escape, which is unlikely with all the searcher rockets
now in space." He held up a hand as the younger man opened his mouth.
"No, there's nothing I can do to stop it; the others have sufficient
knowledge to carry on the project without my help."
"Couldn't we warn the roboes? After all, they've not attempted to harm
anyone, in fact no one has been killed yet."
* * * * *
Dr. Stone's head came up hopefully, then dropped. "No, Don, it
wouldn't work. This way will be kinder since they'll never know what
happened to them. There's no possible way they could escape even if
they knew. The notes of this ancient scientist indicate that he, too,
faced the moral problem of whether their robots deserved equal right
to live. In fact, when the decision had to be made, he decided that
total annihilation of the robots was foolish since the master race was
already dead with the exception of himself."
"Is that the reason for all of the hurried construction that's been
going on all over the country?"
"Yes; towers are being built within 500 miles of each other, ostensibly
as a new radar network. Actually, however, the ancient weapon was
designed to work on the type of brain radiation peculiar to the robot
and cause almost instant death."
"Then perhaps it won't work on the roboes; they may be different."
Stone hesitated, "That may be, and ordinarily we'd test it first, but
there's no roboes left in captivity and no time to construct others.
But, it'll only be a small matter to change the settings to correspond
to the roboes' minds if this first attempt fails. Somehow I have an
idea that it will function as the ancients designed it to--horrible as
that may be. But before that happens, son, there's something I must
tell you."
A heavy voice broke in, "At least you won't be around when it does
occur, Dr. Stone."
Their heads snapped around in the dim light to see a small detachment
of soldiers led by the general. "I can promise you that your trial will
be short and there is only one sentence for treasonable thoughts. Come."
"This is utterly foolish," snapped the scientist; "I demand to see the
Undersecretary immediately."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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