JUPITER FOUND
By ROBERT F. YOUNG
Illustrated by FINLAY
Godhead can be more than a guilt complex
growing out of the knowledge of good and
evil. It can also be a sense of fulfillment
that comes from the ability to create.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories March 1963.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
8M sunk a new shaft, lowered his skip-arm into it, and scooped up huge handfuls of iron ore into his blast-furnace belly. Around him swirled the grayish murk that passed for an atmosphere on Jupiter. Dislodged pebbles, propelled by the rampaging wind, pelted ceaselessly against his metal hull. The temperature stood at -169 degrees Fahrenheit.
A picture of himself of old sitting at a roseate fireside flashed upon the screen of his memory. It was superseded by a picture of a pretty girl walking down a springtime street. Resolutely he ignored both sequences. They were remnants of an old movie that had been written around a young man named John Sheldon, and John Sheldon was dead.
8M, nee John Sheldon, chased the ore with several skiploads of limestone and coke from his stock-stomach; then, his blast-furnace belly replete, he stopped to rest. But not for long. The ingots from his last hearth-heat were due to be removed from his soaking pits in a few minutes, and he could not let them over-stay their time. The life of a M.A.N., model 8M, was not an easy one. But then, he had known that when he had bequeathed his brain to the Company.
He was not sorry. Far better to build bases on the wind-torn surface of Jupiter than to lie in cold and eternal oblivion beneath the unheeding surface of Earth. And there was the longevity factor to be considered too. As a man, even if he had lived, he probably wouldn't have reached the age of ninety. As the first M.A.N., however, he might very well reach the age of nine hundred and fifty.