The Ultimate Experiment

The Ultimate Experiment, by
Thornton DeKy

The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ultimate Experiment, by
Thornton DeKy This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no
cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give
it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License
included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
Title: The Ultimate Experiment
Author: Thornton DeKy
Release Date: August 31, 2007 [EBook #22466]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE
ULTIMATE EXPERIMENT ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

[Illustration]

THE ULTIMATE EXPERIMENT
by
THORNTON DeKY

No living soul breathed upon the earth. Only robots, carrying on the
last great order.
"They were all gone now, The Masters, all dead and their atoms
scattered to the never ceasing winds that swept the great crysolite city
towers in ever increasing fury. That had been the last wish of each as he
had passed away, dying from sheer old age. True they had fought on as
long as they could to save their kind from utter extinction but the comet
that had trailed its poisoning wake across space to leave behind it, upon
Earth, a noxious, lethal gas vapor, had done its work too well."
No living soul breathed upon the Earth. No one lived here now, but
Kiron and his kind.
"And," so thought Kiron to himself, "he might as well be a great
unthinking robot able to do only one thing instead of the mental giant
he was, so obsessed had he become with the task he had set himself to
do."
Yet, in spite of a great loneliness and a strong fear of a final frustration,
he worked on with the others of his people, hardly stopping for
anything except the very necessities needed to keep his big body
working in perfect coordination.
Tirelessly he worked, for The Masters had bred, if that is the word to
use, fatigue and the need for restoration out of his race long decades
ago.
Sometimes, though, he would stop his work when the great red dying
sun began to fade into the west and his round eyes would grow wistful
as he looked out over the great city that stretched in towering minarets

and lofty spires of purest crystal blue for miles on every side. A fairy
city of rarest hue and beauty. A city for the Gods and the Gods were
dead. Kiron felt, at such times, the great loneliness that the last Master
must have known.
They had been kind, The Masters, and Kiron knew that his people, as
they went about their eternal tasks of keeping the great city in perfect
shape for The Masters who no longer needed it, must miss them as he
did.
Never to hear their voices ringing, never to see them again gathered in
groups to witness some game or to play amid the silver fountains and
flowery gardens of the wondrous city, made him infinitely saddened. It
would always be like this, unless....
But thinking, dreaming, reminiscing would not bring it all back for
there was only one answer to still the longing: work. The others worked
and did not dream, but instead kept busy tending to the thousand and
one tasks The Masters had set them to do--had left them doing when
the last Master perished. He too must remember the trust they had
placed in his hands and fulfill it as best he could.
From the time the great red eye of the sun opened itself in the East until
it disappeared in the blue haze beyond the crysolite city, Kiron labored
with his fellows. Then, at the appointed hour, the musical signals would
peal forth their sweet, sad chimes, whispering goodnight to ears that
would hear them no more and all operations would halt for the night,
just as it had done when The Masters were here to supervise it.
Then when morning came he would start once more trying, testing,
experimenting with his chemicals and plastics, forever following
labyrinth of knowledge, seeking for the great triumph that would make
the work of the others of some real use.
His hands molded the materials carefully, lovingly to a pattern that was
set in his mind as a thing to cherish. Day by day his experiments in
their liquid baths took form under his careful modeling. He mixed his
chemicals with the same loving touch, the same careful concentration

and painstaking thoroughness, studying often his notes and analysis
charts.
Everything must be just so lest his experiment not turn out perfectly.
He never became exasperated at a failure or a defect that proved to be
the only reward for his faithful endeavors but