Rick Conley - THE WAR OF THE WORDS [ss]

It looked like the Ultimate Weapon; it sounded like the Ultimate Weapon ... but Man had something even more effective in his arsenal.

The headless sentry, heedless of Sandifer's press pass, raised its rifle at the newsman with mechanical menace.

"Halt!" it rumbled. "Who goes there? ... And where are you?"

"Easy there, pal," Sandifer urged, judiciously sidestepping the probing rifle barrel. "Let's not both lose our heads!"

The solid-state soldier clumped forward uncertainly, swinging the ugly muzzle of its weapon in a wide arc.

"Vocalize again, please," the robot instructed. "I can then open fire in the direction of your useless pleas and destroy you."

Sorry, tin soldier, Sandifer thought to himself, but I've just developed a bad case of laryngitis!

On tiptoes, he slipped around behind the acephalous sentinel and anxiously grasped the knob of the door it had been guarding - the door marked MEN.

"Well, will you subvocalize?" the robot asked, tramping aimlessly. "Your cooperation will be greatly appreciated. Thank you."

Abruptly Sandifer whipped open the door. But before he could raise a finger to his lips to elicit silence, a familiar voice within effused, "Eugene, my boy! Come in!"

"Aha!" the headless sentry cried, instantly wheeling about and thrusting the rifle barrel into Sandifer's back. "Kill!"

Resigned to the inevitable, the newsman sagged against the door jamb and awaited the explosively premature end to a promising career in T.V. journalism. His whole life flashed before his eyes in reruns.

"Stop!" A wizened, white-whiskered man in an oversized lab coat rushed forward.

Immediately the robot stood at attention.

"That's a good little soldier, Stonewall," the shrunken figure said. "Now return to your post."

"Yes, sir, if ..." the creature rotated its left foot uncertainly "... if you would be so kind as to point me in the proper direction."

"Of course. Right this way."

Sandifer, wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his hand, staggered into the men's room and, exhausted, slumped onto a toilet seat.

Returning, the little man patted the reporter reassuringly on the shoulder. "Everything's all right now," he declared. "I've shut the robot down temporarily. I'm terribly sorry about this, uh, inconvenience, my boy; but you really should have shown Stonewall your press pass."

"I did, Professor. But since your lookout has no eyes - not to mention no head - he couldn't see it!"

"Hm-m-m." The gnomish figure scratched his scrubby chin. "I knew I'd forgotten something!"

"How could you forget a head?"

"No, no," the Professor protested. "I deliberately omitted the head. And, since Stonewall has no need to digest food, I implanted his brain in his stomach."

Wild-eyed, he raised a clenched fist skyward and proclaimed, "Soon I shall have thousands of mechanical soldiers just like Stonewall - with their brains in their stomachs! Do you realize what I will have achieved in such an army?"

"Sure." Sandifer shrugged. "Napoleon's ideal: an army that marches on its stomach."

"Tish tush, my boy." The little man sounded hurt. "I'm serious. Why, such an army would be invincible, because their brains - housed in their midsections - would be less vulnerable to attack and injury."

"Yeah," the newsman added, "and they'd be blindly obedient, too."

"No great problem. I'll simply install eyes in the stomach."

"Fine," Sandifer said. "Then Stonewall can stand watch against suspicious-looking belt buckles! Seriously, though, Prof, I suggest you junk that copper-plated commando before he kills somebody!"

The little man recoiled from the suggestion in horror. "Junk Stonewall? Why then I'd be forced to accept a human bodyguard from the Army. And I'd really prefer Stonewall's company; we see eye-to-eye on everything."

"I imagine you do."

There was a series of loud raps at the door. A beefy, moustachioed man in Army green entered.

"Your sentry's asleep out there," he complained. "He'll never get ahead that way!"

"He needs a head, all right," Sandifer agreed.

The portly man gestured with his thumb toward the newsman. "Who's the smart aleck on the commode?"

"Alec?" The Professor thought a moment. "Oh, no, you mean Eugene. Eugene Sandifer. Eugene, this is Colonel Stuckey of Army Intelligence."

Sandifer perfunctorily extended a hand.

"Huh-uh, buster." Stuckey shook his head. "I'm not helping you up. Get off that toilet lid by yourself."

The Intelligence man surveyed the men's room with interest. "Very good, Professor Colebank. I see they've finished installing your computers."

"Yes, just yesterday. Now it's complete. And you were certainly right, Colonel: I've absolute privacy in this, uh, privy."

"Pardon my ignorance," Sandifer said, rising, "but don't you think a men's room in the Pentagon is a little public for secret research?"

"Not to women it ain't," the Colonel grunted. "In case you haven't noticed, we're in the WACs' wing. No lady would think of entering a men's room."

"Yeah, but mightn't she ask what it's doing here - especially when it's guarded by a headless robot?"

"Mister," Stuckey snapped, "Army personnel never ask questions! They just follow orders." He tugged at his ratty moustache and looked at Professor Colebank accusingly. "Speaking of orders, I thought I told you this briefing was to be confidential. What's a civilian doing here?"

Colebank straightened his scrawny frame to its full five feet and two inches.

"Colonel," he replied indignantly. "I do not take orders from the Army. Just money! Besides, Eugene, here, is a reputable journalist to whom I shall be eternally grateful. He once covered my most promising experiment."

"Gave you a lotta publicity, eh?"

"Certainly not!" Colebank exclaimed. "I said he covered the experiment; covered it up! Messy! Messy! And you'd have thought at least one of those student volunteers would have survived. Ah, well, that was years ago ..."

"Yes, it was," Sandifer agreed distastefully. "What's up now?"

"Ahhh." The Professor eagerly rubbed his hands together. "Come along and I'll show you."

He led the newsman and a scowling Colonel Stuckey to a large workbench that dominated the center of the lavatory. Resting amid Colebank's characteristic clutter of tools and tubing and wires was a singular object: a highly polished metal cylinder two feet across and one foot high. It was awash in a bluish haze of light; eerie, almost hypnotic. A complacent hum accompanied the rippling glow.

"What is it?" Sandifer asked.

"A weapon," Colebank responded matter-of-factly.

"Well, what does it do?"

"That's exactly what Colonel Stuckey asked me when he brought it here last week. And now," he beamed, "I have the answer."

"Well, what is it?" Colonel Stuckey demanded.

"Please, Colonel. Allow me to acquaint Eugene with the situation first; I assure you he will be discreet.

"Eugene, do you remember the Brittleweave expedition?"

"Sure. Not that there's much to remember. Brittleweave and a couple of other archaeologists waded into the Amazon jungle. Just recently they emerged with little to say and less to show for all their efforts."

"Yes," Colebank said, "and it's precisely what they did not show that's so important."

"You mean this ... this weapon - "

"This weapon," Colebank continued, "comes from an ancient arsenal. A cache of secret weapons uncovered by Brittleweave - and created by an incredibly advanced prehistoric culture!"

Sandifer reexamined the cylinder. "Looks harmless enough to me."

"Don't believe it!" Stuckey snapped. "The Army's already tested the other weapons Brittleweave found. You can't conceive of their firepower! So if the Professor says that is a weapon, it's a weapon."

"And, in fact, it's the Ultimate Weapon!" the little man announced, affectionately patting the humming device. "Fifty thousand years ago, a great Earthly civilization built this machine to combat an alien invasion."

Stuckey made a rude remark - rude even for a conversation held in a rest room.

"No, true, I assure you; my computers cannot be wrong. Their translation of the documents found in the arsenal reveals that creatures emigrating from a far star warred against the Amazon culture for Earth itself. And the would-be colonists were winning. Yes, Colonel, winning even against the fantastic weapons you've already seen. Winning until - "

"Until the Earthmen built this thing!"

"Precisely, Colonel."

"How's it work, Prof?" Sandifer asked.

"A solid week of analysis has convinced me that, once activated, this device envelops the Earth in a high-energy force-net and disintegrates the enemy the world over! You see, you just push this - "

"Colebank!" Colonel Stuckey seized the little man's wrist and prevented his thumb from depressing a small stud atop the cylinder. "Are you trying to wipe out everybody on Earth? Get a grip on yourself, man."

"I'm afraid," the scientist sputtered, "you've beaten me to it. Let go. Let go, I say!"

"Reluctantly Stuckey released him. "You can't go around destroying the human race," the Colonel growled. "You're just a civilian!"

"Obviously you do not understand. This disintegrator is harmless to us. It is a selective weapon."

"I get it," Sandifer spoke up. "The device affects - destroys - only a certain kind of person. The aliens."

"Exactly, my boy."

"Well, that ... that's different," Stuckey conceded. Warily he approached the cylinder. "Does it work?"

"It did at one time, I'm sure," Colebank said. He looked furtively about the lavatory. "I don't see any aliens now."

"Hm-m-m, yes." Colonel Stuckey put his thumb to the firing stud. "And you just press down like - ?"

"Stop! Don't do that!"

"Huh?" Startled, Stuckey snatched his hand away from the ancient weapon. "Sez who?"

"Sez him ... he ... er... it?" Colebank pointed nervously past Stuckey and Sandifer toward the shape rapidly 'materializing in a corner of the lavatory.

The new arrival, a pale-skinned stick-figure of a man attired in white robe and sandals, raised an open hand in an apparently peaceful gesture.

"Grinnings and solicitations," he squeaked magnanimously. "Be not afeard. I am not an enema. I am a fiend!"

"What! What's that you say?"

Colonel Stuckey exploded. "A self-confessed fiend, eh?" The bulky officer started to reach for his sidearm.

"No! Wait!" cried the stranger, eyes wide with horror. "Please wait just one momentum!"

The exotic creature tore a glittering gold chain from around his neck. "My lingual translator," he explained, hastily indicating a small black cube suspended from the necklace. "A - a slight adjustment seems in order."

The intruder slammed the translator against a wall several times, then examined the device critically. "Ah, yes, yes. Now I am sure we shall be able to excommunicate much more meaninglessly," he declared. "Uh, let's see ... Where was I?"

Colebank spoke up: "You'd just announced yourself a fiend and - "

"No, no. Please, no help... ah, I remember!" The creature cleared his throat and squeaked, "Greetings and felicitations. Be not afraid. I am not an enemy. I am a friend! And as a friend, I entreat you to move away from that weapon. You cannot possibly appreciate its danger to - "

Suddenly Sandifer sprang at the deadly device.

"Maybe we can't appreciate its danger, but obviously you can," the newsman observed grimly. "So let's dispense with the formalities and get down to business! Who are you? How'd you get in here?"

Uncomfortably aware of Sandifer's thumb poised precariously above the firing stud, the stranger responded anxiously, "I ... I am called Klutz. Klutz of the star system Alpha Obscuri. I teleported here from my spacecruiser, in which I had been orbiting your world until suddenly my instruments detected that." Ashen-faced, he indicated the shimmering cylinder now in Sandifer's possession.

"You say you had been orbiting Earth. Why?" asked Colebank. "I am a census-taker. I - "

"A census-taker!" Colonel Stuckey exclaimed. "Who for?"

"For the Obscuran Empire, of course," Klutz squeaked grandly. "I am a loyal servant of that beneficent tyrant King Galactose the Gutless."

Stuckey nodded confidently. "Yeah. Now I get it. You're a scout for this King Galactose, who's fixing to take over the Earth!"

"Take over the Earth?" Klutz snorted. "Why should the King wish to take what is already his?"

"WHAT?" Sandifer, Stuckey and Colebank cried as one.

The alien answered matter-of-factly, "This planet has been the recorded property of the Obscuran Empire for the past fifty thousand Terran years."

"Fifty thousand years?" Colebank gasped.

"Yes. Since the reign of King Maltose the Milquetoast, I believe, when Obscurans first colonized this sector of the Galaxy. Prior to that time, according to our records, a surprisingly advanced native culture flourished on this little world; a culture whose technological achievements rivaled our own - almost. But now, unhappily, those achievements lie in the past - uh, buried along with the achievers themselves." A grim smile played on Klutz's lips. "It does not pay to get in the way of progress, you knew."

"You're crazy!" Sandifer snapped. "The Obscuran invasion was a flop! This," he tapped the cylinder several times as Klutz winced, "destroyed all the would-be colonists!"

Klutz shook his head vigorously. "My instruments tell me this weapon is quite capable of doing that. However, my eyes assure me it has never been used - for even now I am looking at the descendants of our Obscuran colonists!"

"Where?" Stuckey demanded fiercely, drawing his service pistol. "Where are those damned aliens? I'll get them!"

Colebank sighed. "I believe he means us, Colonel," he said wearily.

"Aha!" The soldier laughed triumphantly and thrust his pistol against Colebank's bulbous nose. "Hands up, you traitor! You too, Sandifer! You're both under arrest as agents of a foreign power!"

"I'm sorry, Colonel," said Colebank, brushing aside the gun, "but if you arrest us, then you'll have to arrest the entire human population of this planet - including yourself."

"Arrest myself? Why, I can't do that. That'd be almost like arresting a relative!"

Sandifer scratched his head in wonder. "Talk about irony! Our ancestors wipe out the original Earthlings before the natives can fire the Ultimate Weapon. Then we come along, ignorant of our history, intending to trigger the weapon, and almost eliminate our future!"

"Do not fret," advised Klutz. "It is not uncommon for an isolated, backwater colony such as yours to forget its grand origins. Cut off from the mainstream of true civilization, it is inevitable that your culture should degenerate so miserably. I am only thankful that I chose to visit Earth at this time." He glanced at the weapon and shuddered. "Any later and I could not have fulfilled my mission."

"Mission?"

"To reacquaint you pathetic savages with your proper role in the Empire."

Colebank approached Klutz, the wizened scientist's arms outstretched to embrace the spindly form. "My brother of the spaceways," he cooed, teary-eyed, "you have come to share with us the secrets of the Universe, to lift us to the stars, to - "

"Ugh! Keep your distance," Klutz pleaded. "I beamed down here rather hurriedly; I may not have received all my inoculations! Besides, uh, you misinterpret your destiny."

Colebank halted and folded his arms across his hollow chest in disgust. "Then what exactly is our destiny?"

"Why, to become a full-fledged, seventh-class, supernumerary slave-labor protectorate of the Empire, of course."

"What does that entitle us to?" asked Sandifer warily.

"To benign exploitation and eventual ruination at the heel - er, hands - of a grateful Empire."

"Hm-m-m, that doesn't sound too promising," the newsman decided.

"Oh, but just think! In no time at all you might qualify as a sixth-class, supernumerary slave-labor protectorate."

"And what does that entitle us to?"

"Well, uh, frankly we thought the new title would be enough."

"We'd still be exploited then?"

"Naturally," Klutz answered in a hurt voice. "What's an empire for if it can't exploit someone?"

"You know, he's got a point there," Stuckey commented.

"Yeah, right at the top of his head," said Sandifer dryly. "Sorry, Klutz, but I'm afraid we aren't interested in rejoining the Empire."

"But you have no choice. You puny degenerates cannot oppose the will of the Obscuran Empire! Now, enough of this idle chatter. I must arrange to transfer your world to slave-labor status. Bring me your spokesman."

"Which spokesman?" asked Colebank. "It's an election year."

"Your king, of course," Klutz replied impatiently. "Surely even this pathetic dust mote in space has a king."

Suddenly Sandifer was smitten by inspiration. "Professor," he intoned, "summon the Emperor."

"What emperor?"

"The Emperor of Earth, of course! Emperor Stonewall!"

"Oh? Oh! That emperor!" Recognition of the scheme flickered across Colebank's face. "Yes, Eugene, At once."

The little man darted out of the lavatory only to return scant seconds later and announce solemnly: "He comes!"

Squeaking joints and clattering footfalls signaled the approach of the great personage.

"Bow down, Klutz," Sandifer admonished. "Bow down to Stonewall the Stainless."

The Obscuran responded testily, "Normally I do not condescend to - "

All at once his mouth flew open and his eyes bulged in horror as the armed, acephalous automaton clanked across the threshold of the lavatory.

"Halt! Who goes there?" the headless hulk demanded, raising its rifle in the direction of Klutz's whimpering.

The alien bowed hastily. "I - I am Klutz, your highness," he stammered.

"O.K., Stonewall, lower your weapon," Colebank whispered to the automaton. "Staring down the barrel of an M-16 has improved outs friend's manners."

Straightening up, Klutz eyed Stonewall suspiciously. "This is most unusual," the alien declared. "A robot for your emperor?"

Sandifer laughed haughtily. "Oh, come now, Klutz. Surely such sophisticated machinery is not unknown even to your stagnant culture!"

"Stagnant indeed! I'll have you know that my people have long been served by such machines!"

"Oh, really? How fascinating," the newsman yawned. "Our people have progressed beyond that primitive stage: the machines don't serve us; we serve the machines."

"This is incredible!" exclaimed Klutz.

"This is preposterous!" roared Stuckey.

"No! This is progress!" proclaimed Sandifer, elbowing Stuckey in the stomach and out of the conversation. "This is the ultimate in progress. Even a throwback like you, Klutz, should be able to appreciate the inevitability of a mechanical monarch."

"Not to mention its advantages," said Colebank. "Stonewall is shockproof, self-winding and comes with spare parts. Can you say the same about your king?"

The Obscuran's face reddened with rage. "You speak as though I were the savage, not you."

"Well, you are," Sandifer insisted. He smiled smugly. "As you've said, Klutz, when a colony is cut off from the mainstream of civilization, cultural degeneration is inevitable. But sometimes it is the mainstream that goes down the drain. Sometimes it is the colony - forgetful of convention, unmindful of taboo - that moves ahead.

"Sorry, Klutz, but this time, your empire is on the wrong side of the degeneration gap."

"Ha! Why - why we Obscurans are masters of space. In our space-cruisers we can traverse the Galaxy in only a few months!"

"Why not just teleport?"

Klutz gulped. "Across the whole Galaxy? Physical law strictly forbids - "

"Aw, we repealed that law ages ago," Sandifer said. "Watch!"

The newsman snapped his fingers, then smiled confidently. "How was that?"

"Uh - how was what?"

Sandifer's features drooped in mock disappointment. "I thought you'd be impressed. After all, I just teleported to the center of the Universe and back."

"Impossible!" scoffed the alien. "I saw no such thing!"

"Well, I did," asserted Colebank. "I was already at the center when he arrived. We teleported back together."

"B-but that's incredible," Klutz stammered.

"Have I ever lied to you?" Cole-bank inquired sweetly.

"Want to see it again?" Sandifer volunteered.

"I would," said Colonel Stuckey anxiously. "Could you fellows teach me how to - "

"Shut up, Colonel," suggested Sandifer.

Klutz cradled his head in his hands and moaned, "No, no, this can't be happening to me! Always before the colonies I visited were so backward. Why, one had even reverted to using fusion reactors! But now - "

Abruptly he jerked his head upright and shot an accusing forefinger at the toilets in the lavatory. "Aha!" he exulted. "If you Earthlings are so advanced, why do you retain such archaic waste disposers? Ours are a vast improvement over your outmoded commodes!"

Sandifer flushed. "Well, uh ... uh, those aren't commodes, you see." "No?"

"No. They're - they're matter transmitters!"

"Matter transmitters!" the alien gasped.

"Yes, indeed! Why, some of the Pentagon's best output goes through those," Colebank assured him.

"I'm surprised you'd think they were toilets anyway," said Sandifer. "Who needs toilets?"

"What?" Klutz choked.

"We Earthlings enjoy total reconversion of matter and energy within our own bodies," the journalist explained. "We recycle our wastes internally; we eliminate nothing."

"Nothing at all?"

"Of course not!" replied Colebank harshly. "Don't you know elimination is waste?"

"Amazing. Simply amazing."

Klutz's voice was flat; his eyes glazed. "I've never encountered a culture as advanced as yours - mechanical monarchs, unlimited teleportation, internal recycling. I - I don't know what to say."

"Don't say anything," Sandifer advised sternly, "especially to your king."

"But he must be notified at once that - "

"That what? That his empire has finally met its match? No, I don't think he'd like that."

Klutz winced at the thought. "I, uh, think you're right."

"Then, too, if your people learned of our magnificence, some of them might decide to visit us," Colebank warned, "and frankly, Klutz, their very presence would only disgust us. It would remind us of our bestial origins."

"So we wouldn't like any more visitors," Sandifer concluded nastily. "In fact, we wouldn't like them so much that we might be forced to take drastic measures!"

"Oh, no! No!" whined the Obscuran. "Don't worry! I'll say nothing. Nothing!"

"Fine," approved the newsman. "I know Emperor Stonewall is pleased with your cooperative spirit." He gestured grandly at the metal monster. "Until now he's refrained from entering the conversation since, of course, you are beneath his notice - fortunately for you! Now, however, I'm sure he wishes to dismiss you personally. With his blessing."

"Scram!" Stonewall commanded.

"Gl-gladly!" The quivering form faded from view.

"Well, that's one census-taker who's taken leave of his census," chuckled Sandifer.

Colebank clapped the newsman on the back. "Eugene, my boy, that was a beautiful snow job you gave him!"

"Aw, thanks, Prof; but you know I didn't go to broadcasting school for nothing."

"Yeah, you were great, pal," bellowed the Colonel. "You really surprised me. I never knew we had matter transmitters and that other swell junk!"

"Yeah, uh - but don't forget Emperor Stonewall, here. He's a hero, too." Sandifer burst into laughter. "Imagine, a headless figurehead!"

But Colebank did not share his humor. The little man frowned, declaring, "You know, I'm not so sure that we've seen the last of the Obscurans."

"Huh? I thought you said I snowed Klutz pretty well."

"Maybe too well," Colebank replied. "They may come back demanding foreign aid!"