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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/974205-The-Soulless
Rated: 13+ · Short Story · Sci-fi · #974205
Who makes the worth of any existence? Who has more of a soul the humans or their creation?
“I don’t know what we can do, we’re running out of farmland and there is absolutely no more room in the cities of Earth or our colonized planets Mars and Pluto, or the colony on our moon or the domed cities of the moon’s of Sector Five, Araizon, or Viper 7,” Secretary of Habitation and Housing, Janet Riley, looked at President Dullman, “Mr. President, if we don’t do something soon, we won’t have enough room to hold the upcoming year’s expected population boom.”
President Dullman looked up at the hologram of all of Earth’s colonies and habituated planets. He looked back at Janet, “There’s no way the statistics could be wrong?”
“No, Mr. President, in fact most of the families and individuals we polled were expecting new additions to their families,” she gave Dullman a worried look, “If we don’t have a plan within the next four months we won’t have enough time to be prepared for the majority of the percentage of statistical additions that are expected within the next nine months. And we all know that if we don’t even have enough room to accommodate the expansion of the families then we definitely won’t have enough room to grow or raise food for them all.”
Dullman looked sadly at the Secretary of Agriculture, “Gary?” he asked with hope.
“I’m sorry, Janet’s right,” Gary said folding his hands on top of the large wooden table. The last piece of real wood in the United States. Most of everything was made with plastics and other high tech materials science had created in the last hundred years. Ninety percent of Earth’s wood went into building houses and cities on their many colonies or was used as trade with the Araizonites who let the humans share their planet in return for this new, bewildering material the humans called wood.
President Dullman ran his hand through his graying hair, it had been a dark, shiny brown when he first took office. Now it was a pale gray spreading from the front and almost touching the back. “So, are we on our way to making a new colony?” He looked around the table, his eyes stopped at the Secretary of Colonization. “Linda, what do you propose?”
“Well,” Linda said glancing at the Secretary of Defense who sat next to her on her right, “it would be wise to start a new colony. We have several families ready to be moved to a new colony. We have dozens of waiting lists of people prepared to start new or continue their professions in a new community.”
Dullman looked at the Secretary of Defense, “Marshall do you have anything to add? It seems you and the Secretary of Colonization have already made a decision I should be told about.”
Marshall laughed briefly and straightened his uniform, “Well yes, Mr. President, we’ve been talking about a small planet right outside of the Hidken solar system. It’s made of solid rock with a core somewhat like Earth’s and has our same gases making up the atmosphere. It even has the same weather. It would be the perfect size for a colony, small enough to search and keep up with and just big enough to keep us from this conversation again for almost another hundred years.”
Dullman nodded showing his approval, he leaned back in his chair and folded his hands in his lap, he looked back up at Marshall, “So what’s wrong with it?”
Marshall straightened his uniform jacket again and laughed nervously, “What do you mean Mr. President?”
“Well I can hear it in your voice,” he sat up and pulled his chair up to the table resting his folded hands on it, “and anyway, if everything was perfect, why would the Secretary of Colonization be talking to the Secretary of Defense?” Dullman looked from Linda to Marshall waiting.
“Well, Mr. President, there is a small matter of pre-habitation,” Linda said looking up from the table.
“What small matter?” Dullman insisted.
“There is already a race inhabiting the planet,” Marshall responded.
“So what’s the problem, we can bargain with them or give them something. For Christ sake we only want to share the planet, not invade,” James, the Secretary of State said with a short chuckle.
“That’s where we come to a potential problem,” Linda said looking up at the President cautiously through the tops of her eyes. “You see,” she sat up straight, “about one thousand years ago, around 3027, a scientist, Dr. LeVine, created a small race of robots. It started with only a few, a small cleaning and assisting staff to do chores around the house that he was too busy to do or to help him in his lab. He made them very human like to also be companions, he was a very lonely man. He started to make more of them so that they would be able to have a small community of their own on a piece of property he had. He improved them several times over the years to make them very intelligent, smart enough to think on their own and live on their own and amongst each other…”
“Linda, what does this have to do with the planet,” James said impatiently.
Linda gave James a mean look, switched her gaze to the President on his left and continued, “The robots were such good friends to the doctor that he wanted to protect them from the rest of society and from being made into appliances or experiments. So before he died he built the robotic community a space capsule that would take them to any planet they found fit to inhabit them and made some last adjustments. When he died the robots were to leave Earth and go to another planet to live amongst themselves.”
Dullman covered his face with his hand and sighed, “Wait,” he said through his right hand, pressing the palm of his open left hand on the table, “let me guess, they now live on the planet we want.”
Linda started to give a long, explaining answer but thought better of it and said shortly, “Yes.”
Dullman slammed his right hand down on the wooden table and slid both of his extended hands back to him so that he was sitting up straight. “So what can we offer them?”
“I don’t think there’s much we can offer them,” Linda said looking unsure.
“Why not?” Dullman said with a heavy sigh.
“Dr. LeVine, like I mentioned before, was a lonely man, a very angry man. He had been rejected by many publishers for many books he had written and rejected by universities to be a professor, he experienced a lot of unfair rejection. After a high school sweetheart humiliated him and turned down his proposal, he became a recluse and despised all man kind. He may have taught his robots to do the same.”
“We need this planet, we need to make something work,” Dullman said looking at his cabinet for answers.
“Wait,” James said before Linda could respond, “why do we have to offer them anything?”
“What do you suppose we do?” Gary said, timid and quiet as usual.
James looked around the table with his dark, half smile, “They’re a bunch of robots, tell them to give us the planet or else.”
“Or else what?” Marshall said challenging James.
James chuckled, “We bring the wrath of the good ol’ US of A on their sorry heads.”
“Why does he always have to be such an asshole about everything?” Linda whispered to Marshall.
James turned to Linda as if he had heard her, “That’s what you were going to say wasn’t,” he gestured to Marshall, “that’s why you were talking to him wasn’t it?”
Marshall started to defend Linda when Linda interrupted him, “It would be a last resort, maybe an ultimatum, an empty threat. I thought that if as a last resort we threaten them, they might be able to defend themselves and strike us first. I was concerned so I approached our Secretary of Defense, not to surprise him at the last minute.”
James turned to Dullman, “Mr. President, there would be no harm done, they’re robots, it’s not like it would be taking real lives, they aren’t alive. They’re wires and buttons and tin.”
Dullman stopped James and nodded toward Linda, “It’ll be a last resort. First I want to contact these robots, see if we can work something out.” He nodded to a uniformed man standing at the door of the room, sending him out to find a way to contact the planet. Reaching under the table, Dullman pressed a small blue button that made the hologram above the table disappear. He shook his head at Linda, “You said something about final adjustments he made to the robots before he died and they left.”
Linda nodded confirming the President’s inquiry, “Yes, the information I have was taken from journals found buried on what used to be his property, research and records. Some was very unclear, all I know is that before he died he made a few last adjustments, we don’t know what they were.”
“Okay, so soon we should be making some kind of contact with these robots…” Dullman started.
Linda interrupted him, “Inorganics,” she corrected him.
Everyone at the table looked at Linda, “Excuse me?” Dullman said turning his chair back to her.
“They would prefer to be called inorganics,” Linda began to explain, “Dr. LeVine taught them that the word ‘robot’ was very misguiding and tended to be the equivalent of a racial slur. He taught them to respond only to ‘inorganic’ and be offended by ‘robot’.”
“Now we’re going to treat them with respect,” James looked at Dullman disbelievingly, “you can’t be serious.”
Dullman held his hand up to stop James, “Thank you, Linda.”
A small, uniformed, young man stepped into the room carefully closing the door behind him, “Mr. President we have contact.”
“Thank you,” Dullman buttoned his suit jacket and sat up straight waiting for the transmission.
The large screen in the front of the room flashed blue and then the words, “Forwarding Transmission” and everyone turned to the front of the room and looked at the screen waiting. A laboratory of sorts popped up on the screen, there was a man sitting in an egg shaped, white chair looking back at them.
President Dullman stood at the presence of his guest, “Greetings, I’m President George Dullman, I requested an audience with the leader of your community.”
“I am he, there’s no need to stand but I appreciate the gesture,” the man said calmly with his hands folded comfortably in his lap. “Although,” he added as Dullman took his seat, “we don’t really have what you would refer to as a leader, I’m more of a representative.”
Dullman smiled politely, “And that’s fine with us.”
The man returned the gesture, “So what could I do for you, President Dullman?”
Dullman was impressed by how human like the robot was. “We were very surprised to find out your planet existed as you may have figured, …” Dullman gestured for the robot to offer a name.
“Oh, Hendell, please excuse my manners, my name is Hendell,” the robot smiled embarrassingly.
“That’s fine,” Dullman said starting to forget Hendell was a robot. “I would like to express every apology for never contacting you sooner. We had just now only discovered your late creator’s, Dr. LeVine’s, many journals and works. Very interesting, I only wish we could have learned of him sooner.”
“He tried but as you may have read, he didn’t get very far,” Hendell said casually.
“And I’m very sorry about that,” Dullman apologized again.
“Oh don’t worry about, it was a different time, much before you, he was a very angry man but he taught us to think for our selves and not to continue his grudges,” Hendell said calmly.
“Well, very fine specimens he created,” Dullman offered.
“Thank you very much,” Hendell said bowing slightly.
“To tell you the truth, we stumbled upon Dr. LeVine’s works by researching your planet. We’ve been researching many planets in our area lately,” Dullman mentioned cautiously. Hendell nodded for Dullman to continue, “Well, Earth has been over crowded for almost seven centuries now and so far we’ve been colonizing many neighboring planets and moons that could support human life. We live very peacefully with many different alien races and with them in their communities.”
“I see,” Hendell said scrunching his eyebrows looking interested.
“But now our population is expected to exceed which we can accommodate and once again, we are looking for a new planet to colonize or co-inhabit if the need be,” Dullman said almost questioningly.
Hendell coughed looking down into his lap, he looked back up at Dullman. “President Dullman, are you asking to co-inhabit Plumaris, our planet?”
Dullman gave a small smile, “Well, yes Hendell, I am.”
“President Dullman, with all due respect, we don’t have the room to co-inhabit with a small community, let alone a race,” Hendell explained.
“It wouldn’t be the entire race just a very small colony,” Dullman said squeezing his fingers together.”
“I’m very sorry President Dullman, we are just getting by for ourselves, I doubt there is any way for that to happen,” Hendell apologized.
“Not even for…” Dullman started.
Hendell interrupted him, “Plumaris is a very small planet.”
“You said there was only doubt,” Dullman tried, “could you check with the rest of your community?”
Hendell shook his head doubtfully, “I will try.”
“Thank you, Hendell, we’ll be in contact,” Dullman said standing. Hendell nodded and the screen went blue again. Dullman sat back down and pulled his chair to the table.
“This is ridiculous,” James said with disgust. “We’re giving them a choice? We shouldn’t even give them a chance. They have lots of room, they’re just carrying on that old man’s damn grudge, I say blow them to pieces.”
“We all know how you feel,” Linda said angrily and turned to Dullman. “Mr. President, maybe we should start to review other options.”
“What other options?” James yelled excitedly. He turned to Dullman, “They’re lying, you can obviously see that, how could they possibly have no room? The old man couldn’t have made more than an army of them, that planet could hold millions, maybe even billions.”
Dullman looked at Linda and Marshall, then at the rest of his cabinet waiting for a response. “You have nothing more to say?” he asked Linda.
Linda looked at her hands on the table and then around the room, her eyes came back to Dullman, “What more is there to say?” Everyone at the table looked at each other and at Dullman happily, they had made their decision. Marshall looked sadly at Linda and waited for Dullman to give orders.
“Marshall prepare your men for missile launching,” Dullman stood again and made sure his suit was straight, “Get me in contact with Hendell again,” he said to the young man in uniform near the door.
“You’re making a fine decision, Mr. President,” James said proudly. The other cabinet members agreed verbally and all turned back to the front of the room to the screen as it flashed the words, “Forwarding Transmission” then showed Hendell now accompanied by four other robots.
“President Dullman,” Hendell said acknowledging Dullman and his cabinet.
“Hendell,” Dullman replied and nodded to the surrounding robots.
“President Dullman, these are my fellow representatives, we’ve discussed your request and we have unanimously agreed, we have no room to spare,” Hendell said respectfully.
“I understand,” Dullman said sitting down.
“Dr. LeVine taught us to be kind, generous and understanding but also to survive and helping your race survive by offering our planet to you would compromise our survival,” a female robot on Hendell’s right, said pleading for Dullman to understand.
“Did you know him personally?” Dullman asked with his fingers pressed together in front of his mouth.
“Yes, I had, we all had,” she said gesturing to the other four robots. “We are the oldest of the population. Made by LeVine himself.”
“So you built more ro… excuse me, inorganics?” Dullman asked genuinely curious. As Hendell began to open his mouth to explain, Dullman held a hand up to stop him, “Never mind it. We have come to a decision of our own, that our survival is more important than yours. We are declaring war on the planet of Plumaris unless you surrender it.”
The robots looked stunned and looked at each other. Hendell stayed calm and looked at Dullman, “We have no weapons, we have tried to build a peaceful, non-violent community. We can only offer to help you find a new planet or become, as you would call it, sitting ducks.”
“Sitting ducks sounds fine to me,” James muttered under his breath.
Dullman ignored James and looked at Hendell, “We feel that we are being treated very unfairly and being lied to. If it wasn’t for this planet you wouldn’t exist, the least you could do is help us.”
“We are willing to help, but we have no where else to go and no room to share,” Hendell pleaded. “There is nothing for us but this planet and the lives we’ve made for…”
“Bullshit,” James said from his seat, he yelled at the screen. Dullman gave him a quieting look.
“Hendell, this is your last chance,” Dullman warned.
“I’m… sorry,” Hendell offered.
Dullman looked down at the table and then back at Hendell, “Well then I’m sorry too.”
Hendell’s eyes grew sadder, “President Dullman…”
“Hendell, did Dr. LeVine ever teach you about survival of the fittest?” James asked calmly with a large, deviant smile.
Hendell ignored James and pleaded again, “Please.”
The screen turned blue again and everyone turned to Dullman at the head of the table. Marshall came into the room and stood with his hands folded in front of him, “We’re waiting for your order, Mr. President.”
Dullman looked at James, “You’re making the right decision, they’re only appliances,” James said shrugging. Dullman looked around the table and all of the cabinet members nodded in agreement except for Linda who stared at the table sadly.
Dullman turned to Marshall at the door, “You’ve got the word.” Marshall went back out the door and down to the missile control room.

“Mr. President,” Linda said, sitting in her usual seat. It had been two weeks since they had bombed Plumaris. They had started making preparations for the moving of families to the new colonies, Linda had been working on it. They would start construction soon and a colony would be finished in a week.
“Yes, Linda,” Dullman said as he sat in his chair at the head of the table. He took a folder from a uniformed man and set it on the table turning his chair to face Linda.
“Sir, we’ve made preparations for the families’ transportation and accommodation but we can’t start building until the surface has been cleaned,” Linda reported.
“Well, that’s fine, I’m sure we’ll be through with that soon enough,” he put on his glasses and opened the folder in front of him, then looked back up at Linda, “Is there anyway we could get this done faster, since we really are pressed for time.”
“Yes sir, we can build on cleared land while other land is being cleared,” she didn’t blame herself for the destruction of Plumaris anymore, she had done all she could have. She had been so busy the last two weeks that she hadn’t had time to think about it until now and she had her job to do..
“Well it shouldn’t take so long to clear area should it?” he asked Linda looking at her through the tops of his glasses with the folder open in front of him.
“There are a lot of parts everywhere, some could be very dangerous, we want to make sure there isn’t anything left behind that could harm human life forms,” she explained.
“Okay then, we’ll put as many men on it as we can. In other business…” he was interrupted by a young woman in a lab coat.
“Mr. President, sir, there were a few things at the clearing sites of the planet Plumaris that the scientists said you should see,” she held out a brown wrapped package.
Dullman took the package and handed it to another uniformed young man to open. The woman explained what the package was, “This was brought to Dr. Hill’s attention, in fact there are several of them and it seems every one of the robots had one. The scientists describe it as a sort of camera memory base chip. It records glimpses of what the robots see as a sort of memory bank.” She moved so that Dullman could see the young man enter the chip into the system that operated the screen in the front of the room.
“Why is this important?” Dullman said distracted.
“I don’t know, Dr. Hill just wanted me to bring it to you, he thought you would be interested,” the woman said humbly.
Dullman took off his glasses and sat back in his chair, “Let’s see it.”
The screen flashed blue then showed a hand holding up a beaker and swirling a liquid inside. There was a reflection in the beaker. Dullman looked closer and recognized the reflection, it was Hendell’s.
“Dr. Hill said that this might give us a clue on what Dr. LeVine’s last adjustments were,” the lab coated woman added.
Dullman watched the screen, seeing through Hendell’s eyes. There was a piece of paper with formulas on it then more liquids in beakers. Then there was a flash and they could see more robots sitting around a round table talking and laughing. They were humorously discussing vacations, someone made a joke that made everyone else laugh. One of the female robots reminded them that they needed to be working and there was a more serious tone. Hendell started to report the progress he was making in his laboratory but they hadn’t caught the part where he said what he was working on. There was a flash and they could see he was walking into a door with CD035 on it.
He opened the door and closed it behind him as he set a bag down on a small table near the door. He traveled deeper into the house and passed a mirror, he looked at himself and deep into his own eyes. It made Dullman uncomfortable, as if Hendell knew something, as if Hendell were looking directly at him. A female robot came up from behind Hendell and hugged him. He smiled at her touch and turned around to hug her, they embraced and whispered loving things to each other.
The cabinet members sitting at the table started to shift in their seats as they saw Hendell’s life unfold in front of them. They started to feel guiltier, they started to doubt and regret their decision. No one would look each other in the eye as this uncomfortable moment of guilt and regret passed over all of them.
The next flash cleared and they could see that Hendell was in a bedroom, he was sitting on the edge of the bed and it was moving in a bouncing motion. Hendell turned and they all saw what was making the bed move. There was a child, a little girl robot smiling and jumping up and down on the bed laughing.
There were several gasps in the room. The surprise of seeing this sweet, beautiful little girl, what they had carelessly destroyed.
They could hear Hendell laughing with the little girl, she looked to be about two years old. He called her Mana and said for her to stop and lay down but there was laughter in his voice and she wasn’t taking him seriously. She hopped over to him and fell into his arms.
“They were able to reproduce,” Linda said as more of a question, with her hand to her mouth.
Hendell snuggled the little girl and hugged her tight, calling her his little love and daddy’s little girl. The girl’s face floated in front of Hendell’s smiling, they could all see the young slant of her eyes, so beautifully, and her deep blue eyes. Her sweet smile grew as Hendell picked her up and laid her on the bed. He tucked covers all around her and kissed her forehead activating her sleep mode. Hendell walked toward the door but stopped to turn around and whisper, “Goodnight, sweetie,” as he turned out the light.
Dullman couldn’t watch anymore, he looked away from the screen to see Linda glaring at him with tear filled eyes. He looked at the table and could only mutter weakly, “What have we done?”
© Copyright 2005 Dark Obsession (kitak2 at Writing.Com). All rights reserved.
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Printed from https://www.writing.com/main/view_item/item_id/974205-The-Soulless