Galaxy Science Fiction, December, 1964, Featuring “To Avenge Man” by Lester del Rey [Richard McKenna]

“To Avenge Man”, the inspiration for Richard McKenna’s cover art of the December, 1964, issue of Galaxy, is a brief, but well-written story. The protagonist is the robot who is depicted on the cover kneeling amidst the ruins of a desolate and abandoned moon-base, his pensive gaze directed somewhere between the earth overhead and, the flaccid remnants of a discarded spacesuit lying before him. Though the scene doesn’t exactly parallel the events of the story, in symbolism and setting it well captures the meaning of Del Rey’s tale.

As to the story itself, after an introduction which will hint at its eventual outcome, the first part builds slowly and in a straightforward fashion, but with a meaningful twist: It’s a tale of isolation, solitude, and survival: Specifically, the survival – mechanical and electronic such as it is, but survival nonetheless – of “Sam”, a unique, singular, and entirely sentient robot, after a scientific expedition has abandoned a lunar settlement to return to the Earth, during a time of war. Then, amidst a global war, all contact with men, from men, by men, and between men, completely vanishes. However, the actual nature and origin of the war is deliberately left ambiguous, and touched upon only slightly.

And, though Sam is by definition and design an artificial being – does he have a soul? – Del Rey does a fine job of showing the evolution and eventual creation of Sam’s personality, which is characterized by a combination of naïveté, a complete and altruistic devotion to humanity, and unrelenting intellectual curiosity – the latter quality manifested in Sam’s reading of science-fiction (yes, seriously) from the 1930s and 1940s. Eventually, perhaps inevitably, Sam comes under a kind of monomaniacal spell which compels him to return to Earth to find men, contact men, aid men, determine the nature and origin of the war, and, defend men against all enemies. Enemies, that is, as Sam has perceived, interpreted, and fully anticipated through the tales of Edward E. Smith and Edgar Rice Burroughs. Enemies which, he believes, are entirely real.

Sam eventually cobbles together a one-robot spacecraft (hey, life support is of no consideration here!) and does return to Earth. And from this point on, Del Rey’s tale rapidly moves from a story of endurance and survival to one of slightly mythic tones. The final direction of the story soon becomes apparent, and its ultimate conclusion – apparent through a careful reading and contemplation of the above-mentioned introduction – while not wholly unexpected, is wholly well told.