The Lost Machine

FLIGHT

Banuff lay in a ring of scattered debris.

Gently I raised him on my fore-rods. A very little exami­nation showed that it was use­less to attempt any assis­tance: he was too badly broken. He managed to smile faintly at me and then slid into uncon­scious­ness.

I was sorry. Though Banuff was not of my own kind, yet he was of my own world and on the long trip I had grown to know him well. These humans are so fragile. Some little thing here or there breaks — they stop working and then, in a short time, they are decom­posing. Had he been a machine, like myself, I could have mended him, replaced the broken parts and made him as good as new, but with these animal struc­tures one is almost help­less.

I became aware, while I gazed at him, that the crowd of men and women had drawn closer and I began to suffer for the first time from what has been my most severe disa­bility on the third planet — I could not commu­nicate with them.

Their thoughts were under­stand­able, for my sensi­tive plate was tuned to receive human mental waves, but I could not make myself under­stood. My language was unin­telli­gible to them, and their minds, either from lack of develop­ment or some other cause, were unrecep­tive of my thought-radia­tions.

As they approached, huddled into a group, I made an astonish­ing discovery – they were afraid of me.

Men afraid of a machine.

It was incompre­hensible. Why should they be afraid? Surely man and machine are natural comple­ments: they assist one another. For a moment I thought I must have mis­read their minds — it was possible that thoughts registered diffe­rently on this planet, but it was a possi­bility I soon dismissed.

There were only two reasons for this appre­hen­sion. The one, that they had never seen a machine or, the other, that third planet machines had pursued a line of develop­ment inimical to them.

I turned to show Banuff lying inert on my fore-rods. Then, slowly, so as not to alarm them, I approached. I laid him down softly on the ground near by and retired a short distance. Expe­rience has taught me that men like their own broken forms to be dealt with by their own kind. Some stepped forward to exa­mine him, the rest held their ground, their eyes fixed upon me.

Banuff’s dark colour­ing appeared to excite them not a little. Their own skins were pallid from lack of ultra-violet rays in their dense atmo­sphere.

“Dead?” asked one.

“Quite dead,” another one nodded. “Curious-looking fellow,” he conti­nued. “Can't place him ethno­logic­ally at all. Just look at the frontal form­ation of the skull – very odd. And the size of his ears, too, huge: the whole head is abnor­mally large.”

“Never mind him now,” one of the group broke in, “he'll keep. That's the thing that puzzles me,” he went on, looking in my direction. “What the devil do you suppose it is?”

They all turned wonder­ing faces towards me. I stood motion­less and waited while they summed me up.

“About six feet long,” ran the thoughts of one of them. “Two feet broad and two deep. White metal, might be – (his thought con­veyed noth­ing to me). Four legs to a side, fixed about half­way up – jointed rather like a crab's, so are the arm-like things in front: but all metal. Wonder what the array of instru­ments and lenses on this end are? Anyhow, whatever kind of power it uses, it seems to have run down now...”

Hesitatingly he began to advance.

I tried a word of encourage­ment.

The whole group froze rigid.

“Did you hear that?” some­body whisp­ered. “It – it spoke.”

“Loud­speaker,” replied the one who had been making an inven­tory of me. Suddenly his expression brightened.

“I've got it,” he cried. “Remote control – a telep­hony and tele­vision machine worked by remote control.”

So these people did know some­thing of machi­nery, after all. He was far wrong in his guess, but in my relief I took a step for­ward.

An explo­sion roared: some­thing thudded on my body case and whirred away. I saw that one of the men was point­ing a hollow rod at me and I knew that he was about to make another explo­sion.

The first had done no injury but another might crack one of my lenses.

I turned and made top speed for the high, green vege­ta­tion. Two or three more bursts roared behind, but nothing touched me. The weapon was very primi­tive and grossly inaccu­rate.