The Lost Machine

DISAPPOINTMENT

For a day and a night I conti­nued on among the hard stemmed growths.

For the first time since my making, I was com­pletely out of touch with human control, and my exis­tence seemed mean­ing­less. The humans have a curious force they call ambi­tion. It drives them, and, through them, it drives us.

This force which keeps them active, we lack. Perhaps, in time, we machines will acquire it. Some­thing of the kind – self­preser­vation which is allied to it – must have made me leave the man with the explo­sive tube and taken me into the strange country. But it was not enough to give me an objec­tive. I seemed to go on because — well, because my mach­inery was con­struc­ted to go on.

On the way I made some odd disco­veries.

Every now and then my path would be crossed by a band of hard matter, serving no use­ful purpose which I could then under­stand. Once, too, I found two unend­ing rods of iron fixed hori­zon­tally to the ground and stretch­ing away into the distance on either side. At first I thought they might be a method of guard­ing the land beyond, but they presented no obstacle.

Also, I found that the frequent out­crop­pings of stone were not natural, but labo­riously con­struc­ted. Obviously this primi­tive race, with insuffi­cient caves to hold its growing numbers, had been driven to con­struct arti­fi­cial caves. The puzzl­ing smoke arose from their method of heat­ing these dwellings with naked fire – so wasteful a system of gene­rating heat that no flame has been seen on the fourth planet, ^* save in an acci­dent, for thousands of years.

^{[* Mars.]}

It was during the second day that I saw my first machine on this planet.

It stood at the side of one of the hard strips of land which had caused me so much wonder. The glitter of light upon its bright parts caught my lenses as I came through the bushes. My delight knew no bounds – at last I had found a being of my own kind. In my excite­ment I gave a call to attract its atten­tion.

There was a flurry of move­ment round the far side and a human figure raised its head to look at me.

I was able to tell that she was a woman despite the strange cover­ings that the third planet humans put upon them­selves. She stared at me, her eyes widen­ing in sur­prise while I could feel the shock in her mind. A spanner dropped from her hand and then, in a flash, she was into the machine, slamming the door behind her. There came a frantic whirring as she pressed a knob, but it produced no other result.

Slowly I conti­nued to advance and as I came, the agita­tion in her mind increased. I had no wish to alarm her – it would have been more peace­ful had her thought waves ceased to bom­bard me – but I was deter­mined to know this machine.

As I drew clear of the bushes, I obtained a full view of the thing for the first time and disap­point­ment hit me like a blow. The thing had wheels. Not just neces­sary parts of its inter­nal arrange­ments, but wheels actually in contact with the ground. In a flash the expla­nation of all these hard streaks came to me. Unbelievable though it may seem, this thing could only follow a track specially built for it.

Later I found this was more or less true of all third planet ^* land machines, but my first dis­courage­ment was painful. The primitive barba­rity of the thing saddened me more than any disco­very I had yet made.

^{[* The earth.]}

Forlornly, and with little hope, I spoke to it.

There was no answer.

It stood there dumbly inert upon its. foolish wheels as though it were a part of the ground itself.

Walking closer, I began to exa­mine with growing dis­gust its crude inter­nal arrange­ments. Incre­dibly, I found that its only means of propul­sion was by a series of jerks from frequent explo­sions. More­over, it was so ludi­crously unor­ga­nized that both driving engine and brakes could be applied at the same time.

Sadly, as I gazed at the ponde­rous parts within, I began to feel that I was indeed alone. Until this encounter, my hope of disco­vering an intelli­gent machine had not really died. But now I knew that such a thing could not exist in the same world with this monster.

One of my fore-rods brushed against a part of it with a rasping sound and there came a startled cry of alarm from within. I looked up to the glass front where the woman's face peered affright­edly. Her mind was in such a state of con­fusion that it was diffi­cult to know her wants clearly.

She hoped that I would go away – no, she wished the car would start and carry her away – she wondered whether I were an animal, whether I even really existed. In a jumble of emo­tions she was afraid and at the same time was angry with herself for being afraid. At last I managed to grasp that the machine was unable to run. I turned to find the trouble.

As I laboured with the thing's horrible vitals, it became clear to me why men, such as I had met, showed fear of me. No wonder they feared machines when their own mecha­nisms were as ineffi­cient and futile as this. What reliance or trust could they place in a machine so erratic – so helpless that it could not even tempo­rarily repair itself? It was not under its own control and only partially under theirs. Third planet men's attitude became under­standable – commendable – if all their machines were as uncer­tain as this.

The alarm in the woman's mind yielded to amaze­ment as she leaned forward and watched me work. She seemed to think me unreal, a kind of hallu­ci­na­tion:

“I must be dreaming,” she told herself. “That thing can't really be mending my car for me. It's impossible; some kind of horrid nightmare...”

There came a flash of panic at the thought of mad­ness, but her mind soon rebalanced.

“I just don't under­stand it,” she said firmly and then, as though that settled it, proceeded to wait with a growing calm.

At last I had finished. As I wiped the thing's coarse, but neces­sary oil from my fore-rods, I signalled her to push again on the black knob. The whirr this time was succeeded by a roar – never would I have believed that a machine could be so ineffi­cient.

Through the pande­monium I received an impres­sion of grati­tude on my thought plate. Mingling traces of nervous­ness remained, but first stood grati­tude.

Then she was gone. Down the hard strip I watched the disgus­ting machine dwindle away to a speck.

Then I turned back to the bushes and went slowly on my way. Sadly I thought of the far away, red fourth planet and knew that my fate was sealed. I could not build a means of return. I was lost – the only one of my kind upon this primitive world.