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Science Fiction
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"SF looks towards an imaginary future, while fantasy, by and large, looks towards an imaginary past."
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This is a relatively early description of the idea of a robot that is controlled by a human brain.
It all starts in Amos Klegg's laboratory...
Tlie case, I saw then, was full of a colorless fluid. And there was more, soaking
placidly in the fluid, than a pair of eyeballs.
There was a brain behind the eyeballs,
for one thing. A naked human brain, looking like the specimens you see pickled in
glass jars at a medical school. The brain
rested on a glass shelf near the top of the
case. The eyes projected from the forepart of the wrinkled, grayish lump on
two stalks that resembled antennas. The
stalks, I recognized, were the optic nerves.
Leading down from the brain, like
small trailing power cables, were a score
or more of grayish-white, elastic-looking
tubes. These, as they descended, branched
into four main tubes. And these main
tubes were finally rooted in—a human
heart!
Yes, there was no mistaking it. Lying
on the floor of the case, like a pallid mushroom growth tinged with red, was a
human heart. And what was more—it
was beating.
...Klegg said "It’s the
brain of Tuzloff. You’ve heard of him?”
My eyes opened at that. Heard of
him? Who has not! Bomber, murderer,
outlaw, he had left a grim trail of death
behind him for two years, until an outraged state had finally captured and executed him.
And what would you do with this setup? Put it inside a giant metal robot? Of course you would.
What keeps it from falling over? A gyroscope, run by storage batteries in its chest.
I don't need to tell you, gentle reader, that it all ends badly. The scientist is murdered after he installs the brain in the robot.
Yes, there was mayhem and destruction.
Glinting dully in the reflected light of
street lamps and electric signs was the
iron man, stalking down the street ahead
of me.
Two stories up swayed the cylindrical
head in which were the artificially preserved heart and the mad brain. "Two
stories tall the figure teetered down the
street, like a reeling tower. A three-yard
step. Five seconds while the counterbalanced weights slid in accordance to the
magnetic controls, lifting the other leg
high and lowering it in advance. Another
step. Five seconds. Another step. And
with every step a crashing boom of
twenty tons of metal banging down on
stone paving—or on an automobile or
human body.
Slowly the tower of the body leaned
forward like a falling cliff with each advancing step, straightened as the stride
was taken, leaned backward as the next
was begun. Its giant arms, ending in the
mighty pincers, clanged against its metal
sides as it moved. Back and forth, back
and forth, with each forward lunge carrying it farther toward the heart of the
downtown district—and the theater and
supper crowds teeming there.
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