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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78681 ***
+
+
+
+
+                          The Thinking Machine
+
+                          by Raymond F. Jones
+
+
+
+
+  _Like Robert Heinlein and Harry Bates, Raymond F. Jones can point
+  with pride to a major Hollywood production based upon one of his
+  stories, and more science fantasy anthology inclusions over the past
+  seven or eight years than there are blackbirds in an electronic
+  wizard’s pie. And now he takes a look at the future as excitingly
+  prophetic as the chill alien face which stared remorselessly out
+  at us from the silver screen in_ THIS ISLAND EARTH _and left us
+  wondering far into the night how long the human race would survive._
+
+  =“Leave everything to me!” the Machine seemed to whisper. “Love and
+  marriage, your daily bread.” But there will always be rebels.=
+
+
+
+
+They gave Rick Theron a party before he left.
+
+It wasn’t a rational thing to do, or even completely legal. But they
+were Agros, Sixth Rating, and it was the kind of thing to be expected
+among their class. The Watch Police knew it was going on, and didn’t
+even bother to validate the report to the regional observatory.
+
+So they darkened the windows in Sol Hanara’s house and invited all the
+people from the neighboring farms--the friends that Rick Theron had
+known since he was a child--and gave a farewell party. It was a special
+doings to show the special kind of feeling they had for Rick.
+
+Not that they wouldn’t have liked to do the same thing for everyone who
+went. They would. But it was for Rick that all those accumulated and
+repressed desires were unloosed.
+
+Rick’s father, Sard Theron, drove one of the farm’s big cargo planes
+down from Rillo to RiGrand. He got clearance for the flight as a cargo
+of livestock, but even the traffic officials knew that he was picking
+up a dozen other families from farms along the way. It didn’t really
+matter. The Lonestar Region was among the top producing areas in the
+country. No one could expect its Agros to be civilized as well.
+
+The big plane rolled to a stop, the last of three bringing guests to
+the party, and the farm families climbed down to the solid surface of
+the RiGrand field. They could smell the night-borne scent of the Gulf
+waters and see the distant shimmering of moonlight on its surface.
+
+Rick had always loved it down here. He’d wished ever since he was a boy
+that his family could have transferred assignments to a farm nearer
+the water, but his father preferred the big, open country of Rillo for
+cattle and roughage crops and the gathering in of a plentiful harvest.
+
+Now Rick was through with both kinds of country. He stood a moment at
+the foot of the plane stairs sucking the moist Gulf air into his lungs.
+This was probably the last night he’d ever see this wonderful RiGrand
+Agro area.
+
+“There he is!”
+
+He heard the sounds of voices and running feet, and saw the shapes of
+moving figures in the half light. They came up and swarmed over him,
+slapping him on the back.
+
+“How’s it feel to have your farming days over?”
+
+“Hear you’re picked to pair with a Mech!”
+
+“You’ll get fed and brushed like a prize sire--what a life!”
+
+“They say those Mech women are charged like a parogun. You have to say
+‘yes’m’ and ‘no’m’ or you’re likely to get your head smoked off.”
+
+“Lay off it!” Rick roared, half annoyed by the banter that was supposed
+to be friendly enough but which had the effect of small, hot needles in
+his skin.
+
+A vacuum of sound swelled outward in the wake of his voice. “Sorry,
+guys,” he said. “I didn’t mean it to come out that way. I just don’t
+like it being the last night of my life at RiGrand.”
+
+“Sure, we don’t like it, either. Guess there’s better ways of showing
+it than being damned fools. Let’s go in and have a tall drink.”
+
+They crowded around, taking his arms, urging him on. These were the
+fellows he’d grown up with on the vast farms and ranches of the
+Lonestar Agro Region. They knew how he felt. Or at least they were
+trying. Most of them couldn’t really know. They’d never leave. They’d
+spend the rest of their lives here.
+
+For some inconceivable reason the Machine had picked _him_ to leave. To
+pair with a Mech. What kind of breed was that supposed to produce? A
+Rillo range sire and a salt grass heifer!
+
+He went along into the enormous guest hall of the RiGrand ranch. The
+families left the drinking table and surged about him, shaking his hand
+and offering congratulations as if something wonderful had happened to
+him. It was enough to make a man think they _wanted_ him to leave.
+
+But he knew how they felt. It was just a part of growing up, to them.
+Maybe the trouble with him was that he didn’t want to grow up.
+
+Mendon Carter, RiGrand’s Chief Agro, stood up on the drinking table to
+propose a toast. His mane of white hair was entangled with points of
+quivering, silver light. “To Rick Theron!” he cried. “May a thousand
+Agro sons call him father!”
+
+It wasn’t a good toast. Not for a man who was going to pair with a
+Mech. But Mendon Carter was trying, in the best way he knew how, to
+supply an expression of their love which Rick would have to remember
+and sustain him in the years ahead. Until the time, at least, when he
+would finally all but forget that he had ever been an Agro.
+
+“To Rick!” the others shouted, even more loudly than they intended, in
+order to cover their embarrassment at Mendon’s inept toast.
+
+But Rick pretended there was no cause for discomfort. He leaped to the
+table beside Mendon and held his glass high. “To my sons!” he cried.
+“I’ll send every one of them back to Lonestar!”
+
+That eased their tension, and gave them license to be as gay as they
+liked. They answered back with shouts of laughter and good wishes as
+Rick jumped down from the table, his eyes intent upon the figure he had
+been searching for ever since he came in.
+
+She was standing against the far wall, her face bright with laughter
+that pained him. He forced his way through the crowd to Barie’s side.
+
+“For a little while I thought you weren’t here,” he said.
+
+“You knew better than that,” Barie answered. “Come on.” She took his
+arm. “The orchestra’s going to play. You aren’t going to dance with
+anyone but me tonight. And after tonight you’ll never dance with me as
+long as you live.”
+
+She stepped closer and he took her in his arms as the squeaky, tootling
+orchestra assembled by Mendon Carter at one end of the room took up its
+beat.
+
+
+
+
+                                   II
+
+
+It wasn’t a good orchestra and never would be. It was just some of the
+farm boys who liked to get together on Saturday nights and beat out
+a little whimsey. Sometimes it was at RiGrand; sometimes at Rillo or
+Worth-Dallas. At best it was a five hundred mile round trip, and of
+course the Watch Police knew all about it. They didn’t expect anything
+better from Agros, Sixth Rating.
+
+They were doing something called “The Lass at the Mech-Shake Ball.”
+
+Barie bounced happily to its senseless, repetitious rhythm. Rick felt
+the warm touch and vibration of her body against him, but he couldn’t
+keep time.
+
+“What’s the matter?” Barie said finally. “Don’t you want to dance with
+me tonight?”
+
+To everyone but him it seemed like a time for dancing. “I want to get
+out of here,” he said.
+
+He took her out to the patio under the open sky, where the stars were
+so sweet and clear it made something ache inside a man. They wouldn’t
+look like that anywhere else in the world, even if you roamed the world
+over.
+
+He stopped with Barie just beyond an arbor, from which they could see
+the distant sheet of restless water against the horizon. He touched her
+and drew her close to him. She looked up, smiling, and patted his cheek.
+
+“I don’t think you want to go very badly,” she said.
+
+“Am I supposed to?”
+
+“It’s like growing older every year. You may not want to, but it
+happens just the same.”
+
+“You mean there’s nothing we can do when a machine a thousand miles or
+more from here says one day that Rick Theron is to leave the land he
+loves and go to a city he never wanted to see and there be paired with
+a Mech he never wanted to know?”
+
+Barie laughed softly and pressed a little closer to him. “Rick, you
+talk so silly. I guess that’s why I’ve always liked you. Even the first
+time we met, when Dad took me with him to Rillo to talk about cattle
+with your father. I remember I thought I’d never seen a boy who talked
+like you. I remember how you spoke of the cattle and the land as if
+they were your very own. You were nine then. Do you remember?”
+
+Didn’t she know? Didn’t she know he remembered every glimpse he’d ever
+had of her, every sound her voice had made in his hearing? He gripped
+her arm tightly in his big, rough hand. His eyes swept the fields and
+the grassy plain that led down to the sea.
+
+“Is there anything wrong with having and owning something for your very
+own?” he demanded.
+
+“Who’d want to? You’re hurting my arm, Rick.”
+
+He released her. “I’d want to,” he said. “I’d want some land, some
+cattle that were mine and couldn’t be taken away. Something to love and
+take pride in.”
+
+He turned her so that he could see her eyes by the light from the sky.
+“You don’t know what I’m talking about, even yet, do you?” he said.
+
+Barie shook her head. “I don’t understand you, Rick. Sometimes you
+frighten me with your talk that I can’t make any sense out of. Why
+should you want to _own_ something? It already belongs to you. You work
+the land. You turn in its production. You make your living here.”
+
+“Except that now I have to go away and never come back again.”
+
+“It makes no difference!” Barie cried. “Wherever you go you’ll have
+something to do, something to produce, something that will get you
+your living. If the Machine says you belong in another place, paired
+to a certain Mech, then that’s right. There’s no argument with it. The
+Machine can think better than any man ever could! You know that’s so.”
+
+He regarded her for a long moment. Then swiftly he took her into
+his arms and pressed his mouth hard against hers. She clung to him,
+answering his yearning. But even in the midst of her embrace he felt a
+coldness somewhere that was like a little stab of terror in his mind.
+
+He raised his face from hers. “Does the Machine know how to think about
+love?” he said softly.
+
+“It must.” Barie shrugged and straightened in his arms. “It says a
+certain Mech girl is more right for your arms than I am.”
+
+“And don’t you _hate_ it for saying that?”
+
+“Hate it for knowing more than our poor, stupid brains do? Hate it for
+being right? Would it make sense if you and I went ahead and made a
+dreadful mistake that would bring us misery all our lives?”
+
+“Barie, do you really believe that? In your heart--?”
+
+“I think I almost hate _you_ when you pretend to be so blind,” Barie
+said. “You know it’s true as well as I do.”
+
+“Barie--Barie--has it all been so empty? Has it all been
+meaningless--since that day when I was nine and showed you what land
+and cattle could really mean to a man?”
+
+He had to turn away to keep her from sensing the sudden, quick sob that
+welled up from the depths of him. And then she came to him and stroked
+his long hair with her soft fingers.
+
+“Of course it has not been meaningless and empty,” she said. “It’s been
+wonderful. We’ve been happy. Our childhood has been sweeter because of
+each other. And now it is time to grow up. Do you want childhood to
+last forever, Rick?”
+
+He stood looking down at her face--at her long black hair teasing about
+her shoulders in the soft night wind and her wide dark eyes so full of
+trust for the world to which they were born that she would not listen
+even to her own heart.
+
+It added to the smouldering, uncertain hate in his own heart against
+that same world.
+
+“Is it childishness that we love each other?” he demanded almost
+roughly.
+
+For a moment the expression of calm acceptance on her face seemed to
+break. “It must be,” she whispered at last, “because no one keeps it.
+We have everything else; we mustn’t expect to keep childhood. And even
+if we wanted to, what could we do about it?”
+
+“We can go away! Listen to me, Barie. There hasn’t been much time to
+plan, but I’ve been thinking of this ever since the notification came.
+Tonight’s our chance.”
+
+“What are you talking about? Go where?”
+
+“The Machine doesn’t do the thinking for the whole world. There are
+savages it doesn’t care about. We could be one with them!”
+
+“How?”
+
+He pointed to the dark shapes of the planes beyond the farmhouse. “I’ve
+planned for us to take one of them. We can fill it with spare tanks of
+fuel and fly it as far south as the Andes. They’d never find us there.
+They’d never want to!”
+
+She seemed to hesitate a long time, watching the direction of his
+glance. “How would you get it ready? The escort comes for you in the
+morning. There isn’t time--”
+
+“_They’ll_ help me load fuel.” He nodded toward the farmhouse where the
+music was thumping ecstatically. “Say you’ll go with me, Barie! It’s
+our only chance!”
+
+“All right,” she whispered. “If you can get them to help with making
+the plane ready, I’ll go.”
+
+
+
+
+                                  III
+
+
+Rick almost ran from her, bumping into two figures standing at a corner
+of the house, smoking. It was Len and Sam from his own farm.
+
+“It’s not fair,” Len complained jokingly, “to spend all your time with
+Barie. After all, you _are_ going to be paired with a Mech in a couple
+more days!”
+
+“I’m not!” he cried in exultation. “I’m going with Barie. I need your
+help.” In a tumble of words he told them what he planned. “Get a half
+dozen more guys from inside the house, Sam. Len, you come and help me
+get started. We’ll pump the tanks full and figure out a way to feed
+them from spare barrels inside the plane. There ought to be enough
+barrels around the farm.”
+
+But neither of the men had moved. “Come on!” he said.
+
+“You can’t,” said Sam. “You know better, Rick. It isn’t right. The
+Machine’s told you what’s best. We like you too much to help with a
+fool thing like this. You and Barie--we like you both too much.”
+
+He saw it then, he thought. Sam had always liked Barie. Maybe he
+figured with Rick out of the way the Machine might give her to him.
+
+“It takes something like this to find out who your friends are,” Rick
+cried. “There are plenty of guys who _will_ help me!”
+
+“We’re your friends,” said Len quietly. But he was gone from hearing.
+
+One by one, or in groups of two or three, they were approached by him
+in the hall or out in the yard. They were appalled by the stupidity of
+the thing he asked them to do. He was stunned by their repeated refusal.
+
+In panic, he looked about him. There was still dancing in the hall, but
+it was muted now, and the jumping, frantic rhythm had reduced to a low
+beat that was more felt than heard. Their eyes were upon him, averting
+as he stared back in defiant bewilderment.
+
+He had not asked them all, but word had gone around from mouth to ear,
+until all knew his frantic decision.
+
+He held them in his stare when he had asked his last man, and knew it
+was futile to ask any longer. He whirled from the room and raced out to
+the hangars alone.
+
+The night was half gone and he had only until daylight to work, but he
+had to try. He unreeled the fuel hose and fed it to the partially empty
+tanks of the plane. While it throbbed with the pump’s pulsations, he
+ransacked the tool and supply sheds for drums to fill the cabin.
+
+He gathered some, but there didn’t seem to be nearly enough. What he
+had he wrestled up the landing stairs and through the doorway. He
+lashed them down and went searching for more, then came back to change
+the hose connection on the tanks.
+
+The dancing had ceased inside the house. All the guests, those who
+were his friends and had known him all his life, came out and stood in
+silent knots watching his frantic movements silhouetted against the
+night sky as he tried to prepare the plane alone.
+
+But it was too much of a task. Dawn came, and he hadn’t found enough
+barrels. He hadn’t filled those he had, and he hadn’t devised the way
+to feed their contents to the main tanks from inside the plane.
+
+He was licked, but he was still trying when they saw the plane of the
+Watch Police against the brightening sky, coming to take him to the
+re-orientation center.
+
+He climbed down in defeat and looked slowly about the ring of sober
+faces of his friends who had watched and refused to help. “I could
+have done it,” he cried, “if you’d given me a hand. I leave behind no
+friends at Lonestar--only enemies!”
+
+And then it came to him for the first time, apparently, that Barie
+could have helped, but she hadn’t. He turned to her, in the forefront
+of the group, and seemed to read in her eyes the thing he had always
+known was there but didn’t dare to admit.
+
+She had known it would be this way. She had never intended going with
+him.
+
+“You can’t keep childhood forever, Rick. I had to show you that,” she
+said. “It was the last good thing I could do for you!”
+
+Six days ago he’d had nothing in his heart but love for the land--and
+for Barie. He’d expected he’d have the right to pair with her. If you
+were an Agro, you could afford such hopes. The Machine didn’t bother
+Agros too much. It let them pair often with the ones they had chosen
+themselves.
+
+Only a few were denied it. And fewer still were taken away from the
+Region altogether, to pair and spend the rest of their lives elsewhere.
+Rick remembered those who had gone. Stan More, Daly Croden--not more
+than a couple of dozen since he’d been aware of the kind of world he
+lived in, and the things that sometimes happened to people.
+
+Now, he was one of them, borne through the sky to an alien land that he
+had never seen, never wanted to see. It had happened to him.
+
+He watched the unfamiliar landscape through the windows of the plane. A
+couple of Watch Police were his companions, but they were busy over a
+game and paid no attention to him. His thoughts remained with the world
+he was leaving behind.
+
+There was something wrong with it. He had never been able to put his
+finger on it, but he had always been the odd one, the strange one who
+didn’t fit. He wanted things of his own--in a world where each man
+could say that all the Earth was his, if he remembered his neighbor
+could say it too. He didn’t believe that the great Machine, which they
+told him did the thinking for mankind, could think out his own problems
+as well as he could.
+
+Somehow this wrongness in the world had destroyed Barie. That was the
+sign by which he knew it was the world and not he who was in error. It
+could make her stand and say it was right for someone else to take her
+place in his arms.
+
+Barie--Barie--
+
+It had taken from him every reason for living.
+
+He had no idea what was ahead of him, but in his mind there burned a
+single decision that would cover anything that came up. He would do
+everything in his power to obstruct the goals and purposes to which the
+Machine assigned him. He would break, and destroy, and disobey until
+they either crushed him or let him go back. And he had never heard of
+any who went back.
+
+With this decision clearly made, his mind was free to speculate on what
+he might find. He knew the traditional stories that circulated among
+the Agros regarding the Mech cities and their vast production centers.
+He’d heard tales of the monstrous, unthinkable mechanical brain that
+had finally brought order out of the chaos of human civilization.
+
+The thinking machine, as the Agros called it, had direct control over
+the life of every human being on the face of the Earth. At birth, a
+tape of data based on brain and chromosome mapping was filed with the
+central library which fed the machine. Here it was instantly available
+for optimum meshing with similar data from all other men and women
+currently alive.
+
+In as much detail as the machine considered necessary then, the
+subsequent lives of the people were planned. Their station, occupation,
+matings, permission to reproduce--all of these activities and thousands
+more, at the machine’s option, were precisely dictated and controlled.
+
+Rick was vaguely aware of the history of the changeover from chaos and
+war to order and peace. It had come about as a natural byproduct of the
+Second Industrial Revolution. Men had been searching for the answer for
+all the ages of history, and then suddenly they had it without even
+looking for it.
+
+Automation. Robots took the place of clerks and mechanics in the
+factories. Machines could remember ten thousand times as many facts as
+the most efficient human and apply those facts without error. There was
+dislocation and unrest, but eventually the economy settled down just as
+it had in the First Industrial Revolution.
+
+And then the Great Idea that was so obvious and yet so long delayed.
+Automation in government. Millions of accurate data on tape to
+determine the need for a new law or change in the old one. No Senator
+or Representative could hope to match knowledge with such a device. But
+the one impregnable argument held for many years: This was mere machine
+calculation. You couldn’t depend for lawmaking on an operation in which
+no judgment was involved. Human beings had to be governed by human
+beings. There was no other way.
+
+But finally this limitation, too, was overcome. Marcroft’s invention of
+the judgment circuit made it possible to construct a machine capable of
+duplicating human thought. The chain was complete.
+
+The changeover was almost painless. Automation, conscription, emergency
+regulation had been with the world so long that it had become the
+normal way of life. Here at last was a device that could, without
+error, direct a man’s life in the most useful channels, and do it for
+_all_ men on the globe, without favoritism or bias. Here at last was
+the millennium for which all the prophets and seers had searched.
+
+Only a few, like Rick Theron, felt, burning within them, aching
+remnants of something that was not satisfied or taken into account by
+the Machine.
+
+
+
+
+                                   IV
+
+
+Rick Theron had never been away from the farms before in his life and
+his first sight of the shining city of Sanlou almost took his breath
+away and made him forget momentarily his hate and his resolution to
+defy the Machine. His longing for the fields and ranges, the patient
+cattle and green crops dimmed a trifle. He hadn’t known a city could be
+beautiful, too.
+
+The plane dropped from the sky almost at the base of its outermost
+tall building. Only then was he aware that the Watch Police had been
+observing him closely for a long time.
+
+The plane rolled to a stop.
+
+“Okay. This is it, farmboy,” one of them said. “Let’s go in and get the
+manure cleaned off your feet for the last time.”
+
+There was no clear impression of what followed immediately--a thousand
+blurred details of registration, identification, movement through
+pleasing corridors and rooms, a complete physical examination that
+included everything but a count of his body cells. Then, at the end of
+the day, a moment of rest in the chambers of the Orientation Officer to
+whom he had been assigned.
+
+The man was tall, like Rick. He had lighter hair, but a countenance
+that was no less rugged, as if he knew what it was to work with his
+hands under the open sky.
+
+“I’m Jackson,” he said. “Bernard Jackson. We’re going to work in pretty
+close association for the next few months, so we might as well take it
+as easy as possible. I know a few things about you, but I’d like to
+hear more. And then I’ll tell you anything you want to know about your
+position here. Fair enough?”
+
+Rick found himself liking the man, just as he had the city, in spite of
+his determination to hate everything which had taken him from the farms.
+
+But caution warned him against confiding fully in Jackson. He told
+the story of his life, briefly, confining himself to those aspects of
+it which the man must already know. He said nothing of Barie and his
+terrible disappointment in losing her.
+
+Even this seemed to be known, however. “There was a girl, wasn’t
+there?” said Jackson. “A girl named Barie?”
+
+Rick hesitated. “Yes--there was.”
+
+“How do you feel about parting from her?”
+
+He shrugged and then remembered Barie’s own words. “You can’t keep
+childhood forever.”
+
+He repeated them, convinced that he was saying the right thing. The
+Orientation Officer nodded and smiled. “Sometimes we have a little
+trouble over such situations and corrective steps are necessary.
+Apparently none will be needed in your case.”
+
+He looked directly at Rick.
+
+“As to your own situation now the Machine has discovered an
+extraordinary combination of potential abilities in you, and has been
+able to match them in a very desirable counterpart with whom you will
+be paired.
+
+“You must understand that we are not wholly unhuman and mechanical
+about all of this. You will be properly introduced and given adequate
+opportunity to become well acquainted. We have special areas set aside
+for these courtship preliminaries. Whenever you find it mutually
+agreeable an official sanction is given to your pairing and you are
+then ready for the next step of preparation for your place in our
+society. The getting acquainted period usually takes about two to three
+weeks.”
+
+“What if it doesn’t become mutually agreeable?” Rick asked impulsively
+and wished immediately that he’d held his tongue.
+
+Bernard Jackson was not disturbed by the question, however. He merely
+smiled. “That just doesn’t happen. The Machine doesn’t make mistakes.”
+
+Rick managed to get a good night’s sleep in spite of the experiences
+of the day. A long time later he reminded himself that his ability to
+sleep had been a very fortunate thing, too--considering all that was to
+follow during the next twenty-four hours.
+
+He was introduced to Deva Warel, the woman with whom he was scheduled
+to pair, at noon the following morning.
+
+Bernard Jackson brought them together for lunch. She was seated at a
+table near the window of the dining room in the Orientation Building.
+With her was Jackson’s counterpart, a female Orientation Officer, who
+seemed unhappy about the whole arrangement.
+
+Jackson pointed her out ahead of time, as they came into the room.
+“That’s her, sitting right over there,” he said.
+
+Rick looked. For a moment he seemed to be staring at a small, golden
+sunburst. Then it turned into the reddest head of hair he had ever seen
+or imagined.
+
+“That’s Deva? The one with the red hair?”
+
+“In the flesh.”
+
+He knew at once that the Machine’s traditional infallibility was sheer
+idiocy. This girl was as unlike Barie as it was possible for a woman to
+be, and on her face, as she caught sight of him and turned, was a look
+of total, unadulterated antagonism.
+
+“She has the highest potential value of any Mech designer we have
+discovered for many years,” Jackson whispered as they approached. “So
+you see, you are being entrusted with a very valuable property,” he
+added, with a smile Rick didn’t understand at all.
+
+Introductions were quickly completed. The name of Deva’s companion was
+Flora Johns. She nodded politely, but Deva was openly contemptuous.
+Inside himself, Rick felt like laughing. It occurred to him that the
+machine must give out a good many solutions that human beings found
+difficult to assimilate. This, certainly, was going to be one of the
+most indigestible on record. In a way, he and Deva were going to be
+partners after all.
+
+As soon as the painful meal was over, Jackson cleared his throat. “I
+presume you have carefully explained the preliminaries to Miss Warel,
+Dr. Johns?”
+
+“I’ve explained nothing!” the woman officer snapped. “Deva Warel states
+that she absolutely refuses to go through with this arrangement. She
+had already committed herself to a companion in the University.”
+
+“That’s extremely unfortunate,” Bernard Jackson said. “However, in all
+fairness to my ward, I believe we should go ahead in conformity with
+established custom.”
+
+“You young people,” he said, “will be assigned quarters in the
+orientation area. Every opportunity will be offered you to become
+acquainted and acquire mutual interests. Should this--ah, determination
+of Miss Warel’s not be overcome we shall consult the Machine for other
+arrangements. But let us have a fair trial and see what comes of it.”
+
+
+
+
+                                   V
+
+
+For three days Rick remained in his room without leaving it, except for
+the brief periods he spent in the restaurant. He wondered how long they
+would allow the farce to go on, and what would happen to him after it
+was over.
+
+The fact that Deva Warel was as opposed to the arrangement as he was
+made it a little easier to bear. But all the humor had gone out of
+the situation. His heart was sick and empty for all that he had left
+behind--for the farm, the cattle, even the friends who had refused to
+help him.
+
+On the fourth day he decided he’d at least have to get out in the open
+if he was going to preserve his sanity. He left the building and walked
+out through a large, park-like area enclosed by buildings and masonry
+walls. He passed occasional couples who were apparently becoming
+acquainted and “acquiring mutual interests.” For the most part they
+seemed to exhibit a good deal of enthusiasm about the process.
+
+Then he stopped short. A dozen feet away, seated on the grass with a
+thick book open in her lap, was Deva Warel.
+
+She looked up as he approached and grinned. “Welcome to the bull pen,”
+she said. “I wondered when you were going to come down. Guess I must
+have really scared you, huh?”
+
+“No, I was just taking my time,” he told her. He dropped down beside
+her on the grass and glanced at the title of the book. _Associative
+Reflex Circuits of the Memory Package!_
+
+“That’s too deep for you, farmboy,” she said. “Anyway, since we’re here
+to court, suppose you start courting and get it over with. I’ve heard
+they have some real cute customs down on the farm.”
+
+“I wouldn’t know about that,” said Rick slowly. “But ordinarily we use
+courtesy and kindness to the animals. They’re the only creatures below
+an Agro Sixth Rating, of course.”
+
+She looked at him with an expression of regret in her eyes. “I’m sorry.
+I didn’t mean it that way. Or maybe I _did_. I just don’t know!” She
+turned away again, her expression changing to one of anguish. “You
+couldn’t know anything about what this means to me. A week ago I hoped
+and halfplanned to marry a man of my own status--a Mech, First Rating.
+He’s a genius, and we’ve worked together all our lives.”
+
+“I’m told that’s what you have to expect in return for the benefits of
+the Machine’s great wisdom. But even an Agro can understand what it
+means to rebel. I had hopes too--of marrying the woman I loved.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+She looked up quickly, her eyes searching his face. “I didn’t know.
+That makes us partners in at least one respect, doesn’t it?”
+
+“I guess it does. The question is: What will they do to us for refusing
+to pair with each other? Will it mean prison, or alteration?”
+
+“I don’t really know. It happens so rarely. I don’t suppose you’d marry
+me even to escape imprisonment.”
+
+“Not if the future of the whole race depended on it,” Rick said
+fervently. “An Agro Sixth may not have much to be proud of. But he has
+a great deal of pride, just the same!”
+
+“I thought so,” said Deva. “That makes the feeling _completely mutual_.”
+
+Abruptly, she got up and moved to a more open spot away from the trees
+and bushes. She gestured to him to follow her. Irritated, he almost
+decided to walk back to the building, but his curiosity got the better
+of him.
+
+“Closer,” she said as he approached. “This place is wired for sound
+in every bush and pebble. They’re watching us from observation posts
+on the walls and in the buildings--and they are taking continuous
+pictures. They’re interested in the progress of our courtship, you see.”
+
+Rick straightened in sudden anger. The whole ordeal was becoming more
+disgusting by the minute.
+
+“No, be careful!” Deva said. She put her hands up and drew his head
+closer to her. “Pretend you are whispering endearments in my ear,” she
+said. “Keep your face down so they can’t get your lips on the film.
+They won’t be able to read your words then.”
+
+He did as she advised. She turned her face downward, too, and plucked
+idly at blades of grass as if they were exchanging only words of love
+and discussing the most blissful of futures.
+
+“We’ve a chance to get away,” Deva said, “if you have the courage to
+risk it.”
+
+“I’ve already made one try,” Rick told her. “It failed because I didn’t
+prepare far enough ahead.” He described his desperate, last-minute
+attempt to get the plane ready.
+
+Deva looked up in surprise, and then quickly lowered her head again.
+“You’re a bigger boy than I thought,” she said. “Gerald wouldn’t take
+the chance either. He had that much in common with Barie.”
+
+“Gerald?”
+
+“The man I worked with and loved.”
+
+Rick looked at her. “Where did you want to go?” he asked. “Tell me,
+Deva.”
+
+“There are ten thousand square miles of open country outside the
+cities. They aren’t patroled very well, because the Machine doesn’t
+consider the area a vital factor. You’d be surprised how many have
+escaped and are living in perfect freedom between the cities. Gerald
+and I could have joined them if he had possessed the nerve--and had
+loved me enough.”
+
+“Why did he back down?” Rick asked, knowing in advance what her answer
+would be.
+
+“He said there was no future for us out there. We were civilized
+citizens of a great community, and had an obligation to do our part. If
+that obligation included bowing to the superior wisdom of the Machine
+our only alternative was to obey. Can you imagine a weak-kneed evasion
+like that from a man who _knows_ Mech theory and operation. But of
+course _you_ wouldn’t understand how that knowledge should have made
+him scorn the Machine. Gerald said he had his work to consider.”
+
+“It hit pretty hard?” said Rick. “Yes--I can see that it did.”
+
+“When he heard I’d been scheduled to pair with an Agro Sixth he acted
+as if he’d just had a very narrow escape--as if I’d suddenly become
+unclean. I’d loved him since I was a little girl. But I could have
+killed him then.”
+
+“You’d take him back, though--if you had the chance?”
+
+Deva nodded. “I’d be fool enough to take him back in a minute if he had
+the courage to go with me.”
+
+“But he hasn’t,” Rick said, thinking of Barie. “And you haven’t
+answered my first question. Just what do we do?”
+
+“_We_ can go out there,” Deva said fiercely. “We can help each other
+escape from the city. After that, we can split up and go our separate
+ways. I haven’t quite figured out what I’ll do with the rest of my
+life. But I’d rather be a wilderness outcast than remain chained here,
+forced to obey every life-denying whim of the Machine.”
+
+“Married to an Agro Sixth, of course.”
+
+Deva nodded. “Married to an Agro Sixth. Do you know what you’ll do?
+Have you given it serious thought?”
+
+He shook his head, thinking suddenly of all the blank years ahead,
+without Barie, without home or land or friends. But what Deva said was
+true. Anything would be better than a life of blind obedience to the
+whims of the Machine.
+
+“You don’t believe then that the Machine is the infallible god it’s
+supposed to be?” he asked curiously. “I thought all Mechs bowed to it
+three times upon arising, and before going to bed.”
+
+Deva’s lips tightened in disgust. “It’s a man-made machine, and only a
+fool would let it dictate his life for him.”
+
+“There are a good many fools, apparently.”
+
+“Millions of them,” Deva agreed.
+
+“Including Gerald?”
+
+“Including both Gerald and Barie,” said Deva.
+
+Rick started to protest, then grinned. “I think we’ll manage this
+getaway if it’s physically possible. Just what are your plans?”
+
+“Because you’re an Agro it will be possible for me to get permission to
+take you out in the city--away from the bull pen. We’ll make several
+trips, and come back each time. But on the final trip, we’ll just keep
+going.”
+
+“Is it that easy?”
+
+“There’ll be a search, of course. A search is routine, but it’s never
+very intensive. After that, however, it’s a long way to the nearest
+Outlander post and decent food and shelter. You won’t think it’s easy
+when it’s over.”
+
+“I’m ready to start now,” Rick said, pressing her hand.
+
+She shook her head. “No. Our wisest course is to separate now. Tonight
+there will be a musical show put on for the benefit of all the gay
+lovers in the bull pen. You’ll take me to that.”
+
+“Fine. We’ll go on our first tour tomorrow?”
+
+“I’ll see about the arrangements. You’d better pretend to steal a kiss
+now--just to make it look real.”
+
+Rick complied. After a moment Deva broke away, protesting, with fire in
+her eyes. “It doesn’t have to be _that_ real, farmer-boy! You’ll behave
+yourself--or find yourself left here alone.”
+
+Rick grinned. “From what you have just told me, you’d have great
+difficulty in escaping without me. So I don’t intend to worry.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Even in the sanctuary of his own apartment Rick forced himself to
+suppress his excitement over the prospects of immediate escape. From
+what Deva had said, he was certain that the watch circuits were
+observing him constantly--here as well as out in the park.
+
+He smiled to himself at the memory of Deva’s name for it. The bull pen.
+Well, what could be more appropriate? He looked down at the strolling
+couples walking arm-in-arm, as if the whole revolting spectacle had
+been entirely their idea. In disgust he turned away again. How could
+men and women make love at the dictates of a machine? What had happened
+to the human race, anyway?
+
+At least he had to admire and respect Deva. She had courage enough to
+rebel against the system, despite her certain knowledge that she would
+lose her place in the only kind of society she knew. And perhaps the
+price would be death.
+
+Inevitably, his thoughts went back to Barie. He imagined her in a
+similar position, facing the same kind of challenge. What if the
+Machine actually should call her up. It could happen!
+
+He went on to imagine her walking down through the gardens and along
+the flower-scented paths with some man she’d never even seen before, a
+love choice selected for her by a mindless machine.
+
+The thoughts made him almost physically ill and sharply increased his
+bitterness.
+
+That night at the entertainment Deva had reassuring news. She had been
+granted permission to take Rick on extensive tours of the city to
+acquaint him with the unfamiliar civilization he would soon be expected
+to embrace as his own. This orientation preliminary was acceptable as
+part of their courtship period, since he was an Agro.
+
+“But we’ll have to wait another four or five days,” Deva said. “They
+want us to become better acquainted in the gardens where there are
+not too many other distractions. So just be patient,” she said as he
+frowned wryly. “It won’t embitter you for life to endure my company for
+a few extra days!”
+
+She’s right, he thought with a grin as he tucked her arm in his. She
+was going to be real easy to get along with.
+
+The show was not too bad, he guessed. He’d never seen anything quite
+like it, but it wouldn’t matter if he never repeated the experience,
+either. His mind refused to remain passive. It lunged about, from
+considerations of his vague and shadowy future to Lonestar and Barie,
+and then back to the strange little Mech girl sitting beside him. He
+wondered what would become of her when once they were safely away into
+the Outlander country. Had she some secret plan of her own?
+
+During the succeeding days they spent most of their time together
+discussing with each other their past lives in the widely divergent
+worlds from which they had come. They spent long, idle hours in the
+gardens or at the music bar. They ate together and Deva read to Rick
+poems and stories that opened up a new world of beauty to him.
+
+The time passed more quickly than he could have dreamed. Then on the
+fifth day Deva said, “Tomorrow we can take a trip through the city. I
+don’t suppose I’ll need a leash--”
+
+He laughed and drew her to him and kissed her soundly as had become
+their custom at parting--solely to impress the watchers who recorded
+all their actions.
+
+“I told you to behave!” Deva said, how angrily he could only guess.
+
+“Tomorrow,” Rick promised.
+
+
+
+
+                                   VI
+
+
+It was almost like being let out of jail. The administrator, Bernard
+Jackson, gave them a few brief instructions and showed them the way out
+of the building.
+
+“Just a kind of once-over-lightly today,” Deva said. “We’ll just go
+along the streets and through some of the shops to give you an idea of
+what things are like here.”
+
+“I’d be a lot more interested in seeing--”
+
+“Hush! General sightseeing is _expected_ of us. Do you want to ruin
+everything?”
+
+He found himself fascinated by the sights and sounds of the city in
+spite of his reluctant interest. The metropolis was built like a
+machine itself, with precision-placed masses of pleasant-hued steel
+and concrete flung against the sky and linked with a lacy network of
+connecting ways up to the highest levels. There was no darkness or
+filth or visible deterioration anywhere.
+
+“There was a time when big, massed cities like this were considered
+failures,” Deva said. “It was all the fashion to abandon them, tear
+them down, and spread the buildings out all over the landscape. That
+was before we understood the true function of a city. Now we know it
+can be both a thing of supreme beauty and of maximum efficiency. It’s
+a device for civilized living. But today’s model compares with a city
+before the Atom War in about the same way that a starship compares with
+the first wooden cartwheels.”
+
+“Are you trying to sell me something?” Rick asked.
+
+Deva shook her head. “I’d like to sell it to myself.”
+
+“Why can’t you?”
+
+“Because of the Machine. It’s inexplicable. The Machine actually made
+possible the cities we have now. And yet because of the Machine I can’t
+bear to live here any longer. It just doesn’t make sense!”
+
+“Everybody seems happy enough.” Rick said.
+
+And it was true. The people he passed on the street seemed universally
+content and peaceful--to judge by their expressions. Within a block
+or two a hundred strangers had smiled and nodded to him. The city was
+certainly not a place of violent discontent.
+
+“It’s me and you!” said Deva bitterly. “Even Barie is happy to conform
+to the will of the Machine. But you’re not. Gerald is glad to be free
+of me because he’s convinced that Utopia has come. And maybe it has!
+No one lacks food, shelter, luxuries, aggressive outlets. Nothing is
+lacking--except whatever is tormenting you and me.”
+
+Rick smiled at her outburst. “In the Agro regions you have a chance
+to become very wise,” he said quietly. “There’s something lacking,
+all right--something most people don’t even know exists. The love of
+something that belongs to you alone. You take pride in moulding it to a
+state of perfection. Pride in yourself because you’re not _owned_.”
+
+“Owned?”
+
+“Of course. All men are property now. Don’t you see? They belong
+to the Machine and can be dispensed and manipulated as the Machine
+decides through its all-powerful wisdom. A man cannot have pride if he
+is owned--and by a mere automaton, at that! He can’t even experience
+love, because he hasn’t the right to offer himself. He’s no longer the
+proprietor of his own being.”
+
+Deva walked slowly beside him, her face sober with thought. “I don’t
+know. That may be the answer. It _would_ be strange if it took an Agro
+to show us what was wrong!”
+
+They walked all day--to the outskirts of the city and back. They stood
+silently at the edge of the great mass, where the towers dwindled to a
+thin layer of individual homes. Beyond these stretched the river and
+the highways leading north and south. Their eyes scanned the distances
+in silence, each sensing the thoughts of the other, and each saying
+nothing.
+
+They went more deeply into the heart of the city on the following days.
+Deva showed Rick the factories and plants that worked in total silence
+and without attendants, each throwing up a mountain of goods that were
+automatically inspected, packed and shipped to locations within the
+city itself or across the continent without a single human voice to
+guide them.
+
+On the last day she took him to the headquarters of the Machine. These
+were many tiers of banked memory circuits and blinking lights below
+the surface of the city itself, in the depths of the solid rock where
+nothing short of a convulsion of the Earth could disturb the intricate
+mechanism.
+
+But there wasn’t a great deal to see. And the Machine’s more intangible
+aspects were totally foreign to Rick’s mind. They stood in the
+visitors’ gallery, behind the impregnable plastic sheets which afforded
+them a clear view of the mechanisms and the attendants on the other
+side.
+
+“There is really no such thing as _the_ Machine,” Deva said. “In
+reality there are many hundreds of machines. Every city has one. Its
+storage vaults contain data on each and every resident. It computes
+upon that data, and its judgment circuits render decisions based upon
+its final computations.
+
+“Each machine is interconnected with all others in the nation by
+tremendous microwave cables. A main clearing panel located somewhere
+in Kansas links the function of all local machines to a central,
+coordinating unit.
+
+“In addition, there is a worldwide network of interconnections between
+New York, London, Paris, Rome, and Moscow. It even extends to Africa
+and the cities of Central Asia. Actually, for instance, a Mech, First
+Rating, could be checked out for pairing against a South African native
+if the Machine so decided. It’s never happened as far as I know. But it
+could happen.”
+
+“It’s _the_ Machine, all right,” said Rick bitterly. “I never quite
+realized before how viciously it has succeeded in wrapping itself
+around the whole world. You can almost feel it strangling, crushing--”
+
+“Hush!” Deva warned, her fingers tightening in his clasp.
+
+They stood apart from the other visitors to the gallery. But Rick could
+almost feel invisible eyes and ears ominously recording their every
+change of expression. He understood Deva’s caution.
+
+“There must be some kind of human administration involved in the
+operation of the Machine,” he said more quietly.
+
+Deva nodded. “There is, of course. In the beginning they were the
+elected representatives of the people--the remnants of the old
+democratic system.” She tried to keep the bitterness out of her voice.
+“But now that human safeguard doesn’t even exist any more. The machine
+picks its own personnel. The original administrators spent most of
+their time watching and checking on each other to see that no tampering
+with the mandates occurred. The Machine decided it could do much better
+by picking men who would not be tempted to tamper.”
+
+The Machine seemed so harmless, with its rows on rows of black panels
+and glowing tubes and murmuring relays! But it was the enemy. Its very
+existence had made it forever impossible for him to possess Barie
+as his own. From every man upon the face of the Earth it had taken
+something. A desire, a dream, a woman, a treasured possession.
+
+They left the gallery quietly, for they had seen all that they cared to
+see. They went quickly out and up to the street level and took one of
+the cars that were freely available to the citizens. Rick glanced at
+his watch. “It’s almost time to get back to the bull pen,” he said.
+
+Deva did not reply. Her lips were compressed, and she was staring
+straight ahead of her. Rick looked around at the magnificent towers and
+airy bridges of the city.
+
+“No regrets?” he whispered.
+
+“No,” Deva said. “No regrets.”
+
+She started the motor of the car, punched the button for the lane and
+route she desired, and leaned back against the seat with her eyes
+closed. Swiftly the car moved out into the stream of traffic, and
+picked up speed.
+
+
+
+
+                                  VII
+
+
+Rick could not shake off a chill sense of foreboding as the mass of the
+city was left behind. It did not seem possible they could so easily
+escape a monster whose tentacles encircled the earth. Might it not even
+now be watching them through unseen eyes in the walls of the great
+buildings? When they had gone far enough would it not jerk them back,
+willing to play a cat-and-mouse game with them until they no longer had
+energies enough left to continue the fight?
+
+He told himself that he was taking too despairing a view. Deva had
+lived all her life here, and had been trained as a technical designer
+of circuits such as those employed by the Machine. She understood its
+workings, and knew that it could be misled and deceived.
+
+He hoped, too, that someday men would do more than just run away from
+the Machine. A vague but burning desire had been kindled to activity
+within him. He would have given his life to be an instrument, no matter
+how small, in its destruction. But he knew that in his lifetime such a
+rebellion by the many might well remain only a dream.
+
+He turned his attention to the road as they cleared the advancing edges
+of the residential section and moved out onto the express highway,
+heading south.
+
+Deva slowed the car. “We’ll be checked at the first automatic station,”
+she said. “The scanners will note that this is a car from the city and
+record our basic identification. We’ll have to abandon the car before
+then. But that won’t be safe, either--until after dark.”
+
+His spirits rose as darkness descended and the countryside became more
+open. The sense of confinement, which had been with him ever since
+he entered the city, dropped away and he began to feel as free as he
+had felt during all the years of his childhood in the open country of
+Lonestar.
+
+“We’ll have to turn off soon,” said Deva. “Keep on the alert for some
+kind of trail that might lead down to the river. We’ll run the car into
+the water if we can get it safely down the bank.”
+
+A few minutes later, in the glow of the car’s headlights, Rick called
+attention to a sharp turn-off directly ahead. Deva took the controls
+and in another moment they had come to a halt by the bank of the river.
+
+She directed Rick to get out, and then set the car in motion again. He
+held his breath as it descended the steep bank. He thought for a moment
+she had stayed with it too long, but her running figure stumbled to the
+ground an instant before it struck the water with a resounding splash,
+and vanished from sight in the swirling dark current.
+
+“Are you hurt?” he called, hastening down the bank.
+
+“My wrist--” she answered in momentary agony. Then, as he reached her
+side: “I’ll be all right. We’ve got to keep moving as fast as we can.”
+
+Her speed and endurance astonished him as they moved through the
+sheltering brush in the darkness. He wondered how her city life could
+have endowed her with such stamina. But there was little time for
+questions.
+
+“There’s the check station,” she said, a few minutes later. “That red
+light over on the highway about a half mile down. Our best bet would be
+to get in the water and float past it. They might have detectors out if
+our absence has been broadcast.”
+
+“Can you swim that far in the dark?” he asked.
+
+“We’ll find a driftlog--if we can,” she said.
+
+They found a suitable log in the next few minutes. They made bundles of
+their clothes, so that they could be held out of the water and kept dry
+as long as possible. Then they slipped soundlessly into the cold, muddy
+waters, pushing the log forward laboriously between them.
+
+They kept silent, paddling slowly through what seemed an eternity
+of cold and darkness, letting the current do most of the work. Rick
+tried to estimate the distance they had traveled, but the light of the
+inspection station was invisible from the level of the water’s surface.
+
+At last Deva spoke, her voice thin with cold and anxiety. “This is far
+enough. I’m sure we must be well past the station.”
+
+They climbed out on the bank once more and saw the signal light a
+satisfying distance behind them. They dried themselves hastily against
+the chill of the night and donned their clothes, which had remained
+fairly dry.
+
+“Don’t you want to rest for a while?” Rick asked.
+
+“No time for that,” Deva said. “We’ve got to put as much distance as
+possible between ourselves and that station before daylight. We can
+find a place to rest and hide all day tomorrow.”
+
+As dawn approached, Deva could no longer conceal her fatigue. They had
+not slowed during the night, but now they began searching for adequate
+shelter to protect them from observation during the day. They found it
+at last in a thick cluster of foliage by the river bank. So dense was
+its canopy of leaves that even the sky was hidden from their sight when
+they were at rest in its center.
+
+They ate a small quantity of the food concentrate which they had
+smuggled out, and almost immediately afterwards Deva fell into a deep
+sleep.
+
+Rick remained awake until the sun was high overhead, keeping an alert
+lookout for possible pursuit. There was no sign of a hue and cry from
+any direction. He began to let himself think that they were no longer
+in any immediate danger. Possibly the Machine and the Watch Police were
+not even very much concerned about an escape such as theirs. Citizens
+who wanted to run away were probably considered of very little value to
+society.
+
+He allowed drowsiness to creep upon him as he contemplated his
+future plans. His first and major obligation was to see Deva to the
+nearest settlement of the Outlanders at which she wished to stay.
+Then he’d drift on. No place in particular. Eventually, he supposed,
+he’d have to throw in with the Outlanders somewhere. But until that
+day arrived--well, he’d always wanted to see as much of the land as
+possible.
+
+He thought, too, of Deva. She had remarkable courage and an amazing
+spirit of independence, he admitted in admiration. He might even find
+himself missing that fiery mop of hair and equally burning temper. In
+any event, he owed her a debt of gratitude he could never repay.
+
+He was aware next of darkness and of hands tugging at him in ungentle
+persistence. Deva’s voice whispered impatiently in his ear. “Come on,
+it’s time we were on our way!”
+
+He struggled awake, and snatched up a food concentrate. He munched on
+it as they made their way cautiously out of the shelter.
+
+“How much farther must we go before we start hitting Outlander
+settlements?” he asked.
+
+“It’s hard to tell,” she replied. “They move around. But we should be
+on the edge of their country by morning.”
+
+They moved rapidly through the wilderness again, following the course
+of the river, but Deva tired more quickly now. She was willing to stop
+for rest occasionally but not for long. It was approaching dawn when
+they heard the first faint thread of unfamiliar sound in the air. Deva
+paused in alarm and glanced up to the sky, listening.
+
+“What is it?” Rick asked.
+
+“I don’t know. Wait--yes, I do. They’re after us! That’s a helicopter,
+and it’s heading straight this way.”
+
+Frantically, she raced toward the heavy foliage on the shore. The sound
+increased and seemed to arrow toward them. They settled in a crouch
+under the densest cover they could find. But still the sound came on.
+
+Suddenly Deva gasped. “I should have remembered--!”
+
+“Remembered what?”
+
+“Quick!” she urged, grasping his arm. “Into the water!”
+
+Not understanding, Rick stumbled riverward through the brush. “What
+for?” he asked.
+
+“Infra-red detectors. They’re certain to have them. They may be trained
+on us already. The water may not mask us. But it’s our only chance.”
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were out of the underbrush now and descending the sloping bank.
+The sound of the beating vanes was so loud in their ears that it seemed
+almost upon them. Suddenly a tiny spurt of light snapped out of the
+sky. Momentarily it cast a ball of flaming brilliance about Deva. Then
+she cried out and fell to the ground.
+
+“I’m hit! Go on, Rick. Into the water. Forget about me--”
+
+
+
+
+                                  VIII
+
+
+In his office high in the tower of Orientation Center, Dr. Bernard
+Jackson put down the report of the Twelfth Sector Watch Police and
+sighed. He removed his glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose, his
+features haggard with strain.
+
+“Action completed,” he said finally to Dr. Flora Johns, who occupied a
+chair nearby. “Everything went precisely according to schedule. I hope
+it works out. I liked those two. Remember what he called himself and
+the girl? A Rillo range sire and a salt grass heifer! I’ve got an idea
+he’ll change his mind about her before long!”
+
+“I fail to see why it was necessary to order the Police to deliberately
+shoot her,” Flora Johns said with a tartness that verged on bitterness.
+“She might have been killed. We don’t know yet how serious the injury
+was. The Police aren’t that good at shooting a moving target from a
+plane.”
+
+“It was a necessary risk. You know that. You read the Machine’s
+instructions.”
+
+“But I don’t always believe them!”
+
+“It was necessary because he would have taken her to the first
+Outlander Settlement, left her there, and gone on his own way. And if
+he had suggested anything else she would have opposed it.
+
+“It was absolutely necessary to put her in a state of complete
+dependency on him for a long enough period to enable her to overcome
+her resistance to his presence. The injury was the only available
+means.”
+
+“So says that idiot Machine!”
+
+Dr. Jackson smiled.
+
+“Careful, Flora--even the walls have ears. Or so it is said.”
+
+“I don’t care! If the Machine was going to drag us in for
+insubordination it would have happened long ago. Sometimes I wonder
+just what the devilish thing is up to, anyway!”
+
+“That’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” he said
+slowly. “And I think that with this present case I’ve been able to
+figure it out.”
+
+“What have you figured out?”
+
+“The Machine has recognized from the beginning that we’ve asked it for
+more than it could deliver. We’ve always assumed that we had succeeded
+in creating a Machine that could think like a man. We forgot there
+are two answers to the problem of creating equal thinking in men and
+machines.
+
+“We haven’t built a Machine that thinks like a man. Instead, we’ve
+developed a generation of men that think like machines!”
+
+“What are you talking about?”
+
+“Just that. We’ve leveled men and machines to the same category, but
+not by raising machine thinking. We’ve done it by lowering men. So
+today we have thinking machines, all right. Millions of them. All over
+the globe. We call them men!”
+
+“The Machine has its judgment circuits--”
+
+“Fortunately, yes. And this gives it just sufficient ability to
+recognize its own failure--and wisdom enough to turn the problem back
+where it belongs.
+
+“What essential difference there is between true human thought, and
+the kind of thought we’ve developed in the Machine, I don’t know. And
+I don’t think the Machine knows. But it’s throwing the problem back to
+the only possible source of solution: human beings. Don’t you see?”
+
+Dr. Flora Johns was staring through the windows of the tower to the
+glistening city beyond. “If only you were right!” she whispered.
+
+“I have to be right!” Dr. Jackson exclaimed. “It’s the only possible
+answer. If it weren’t, you and I would have been ordered drawn and
+quartered long ago. But the Machine picked us--and scores of others
+like us.
+
+“It keeps us in our present positions and gives out wholly insane
+instructions--by accepted understanding of its purposes. It gives out
+pairings like this one we’ve just handled. And provides a clear path
+for their escape to the Outlander settlements, and insures that they
+will stay together in spite of themselves. I tell you the Machine is
+bent on seeing that we somehow rectify our own mistakes and make men
+out of those millions of thinking machines that inhabit the world!”
+
+“But to what purpose?” Flora Johns cried. “We’ll be going back to the
+chaos from which we escaped by the very creation of the Machine. It
+has showed us how to insure peace, prosperity, happiness. We’ve got
+the perfection of society that men struggled for thousands of years to
+obtain!”
+
+Dr. Jackson shook his head.
+
+“No. What we _have_ got isn’t it. We may have come close, but for all
+practical purposes we’ve run up a blind alley. We can thank whatever
+Providence is watching over us that the Machine has been capable of
+recognizing that fact.
+
+“Our failure is in turning over final thought and judgment to something
+outside ourselves. Until we are able to take the responsibility and
+work out answers with our own personal gray matter, we have not solved
+the problem. Certainly, our existing solution is a failure.
+
+“Maybe a definite, positive solution is unobtainable. Perhaps the only
+answer is in the continued searching for an answer. I don’t know, and
+I feel certain the Machine doesn’t know. But it’s trying to develop a
+sector of humanity that might be able to find out!”
+
+“It sounds right,” Flora Johns whispered again, and now her eyes were
+aglow. “It _has_ to be right!”
+
+
+
+
+                                   IX
+
+
+A full harvest season had come and gone, and Rick Theron had stayed
+with the Outlanders far longer than he had at first had any intention
+of doing. Deva was on her feet again. She had a little limp, but it had
+been a long time since her injury had kept her from running and working
+with the strongest of the Outlander women.
+
+It was time to be moving on.
+
+Yet, as Rick saw her coming from the cabin he’d helped build for her,
+something caught again deep in the middle of his chest. He wondered
+what the day would be like that denied him the sight of that red crest
+of hair, tumbled by the wind, or bound in tender curls.
+
+He moved toward her resolutely.
+
+“You’re on your way?” she asked.
+
+“Deva,” he said. “I’ve been doing some thinking. We don’t know yet
+where we’re going to end up, and you and I haven’t got any better
+friends out here than each other. We’ve made out pretty good so far.
+Why don’t we just kind of stick together and see what comes of it?”
+
+She looked at him almost shyly, with a slow smile starting at the
+corners of her mouth. “I was just about to suggest the same thing,” she
+said.
+
+“You think it could be that the Machine was right about us, after all?”
+
+“It might be wise not to be hasty in going against it,” Deva said.
+
+He reached for her suddenly and gathered her into his arms and kissed
+her long, and passionately.
+
+“Yes,” she said. “I think I could even learn to like that. In time and
+with practice, darling.”
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Note:
+
+
+ This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, July 1956 (Vol. 5,
+No. 6). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed.
+
+ Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor
+inconsistencies have been retained as printed.
+
+ The chapter heading =IX= has been added in this version.
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78681 ***
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78681 ***</div>
+
+
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowe116_3125" id="cover">
+  <img class="w20" src="images/cover.jpg" alt="">
+  <figcaption>
+      Transcribed from Fantastic Universe, July 1956 (Vol. 5, No. 6).
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<h1>
+The Thinking Machine
+</h1>
+
+
+<p class="f15 center">by <strong>Raymond F. Jones</strong></p>
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p><i>Like Robert Heinlein and Harry Bates, Raymond F. Jones can point with
+pride to a major Hollywood production based upon one of his stories,
+and more science fantasy anthology inclusions over the past seven or
+eight years than there are blackbirds in an electronic wizard’s pie.
+And now he takes a look at the future as excitingly prophetic as the
+chill alien face which stared remorselessly out at us from the silver
+screen in</i> <span class="allsmcap">THIS ISLAND EARTH</span> <i>and left us wondering far into the night
+how long the human race would survive.</i></p>
+
+<p class="p2"><b>“Leave everything to me!” the Machine seemed to whisper. “Love and
+marriage, your daily bread.” But there will always be rebels.</b></p>
+</blockquote>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"><div class="chapter"></div>
+
+
+<p>They gave Rick Theron a party before he left.</p>
+
+<p>It wasn’t a rational
+thing to do, or even completely legal. But they were Agros, Sixth
+Rating, and it was the kind of thing to be expected among their
+class. The Watch Police knew it was going on, and didn’t even bother
+to validate the report to the regional observatory.</p>
+
+<p>So they darkened
+the windows in Sol Hanara’s house and invited all the people from the
+neighboring farms—the friends that Rick Theron had known since he
+was a child—and gave a farewell party. It was a special doings to show
+the special kind of feeling they had for Rick.</p>
+
+<p>Not that they wouldn’t
+have liked to do the same thing for everyone who went. They would. But
+it was for Rick that all those accumulated and repressed desires were
+unloosed.</p>
+
+<p>Rick’s father, Sard Theron, drove one of the farm’s big cargo
+planes down from Rillo to RiGrand. He got clearance for the flight as
+a cargo of livestock, but even the traffic officials knew that he was
+picking up a dozen other families from farms along the way. It didn’t
+really matter. The Lonestar Region was among the top producing areas
+in the country. No one could expect its Agros to be civilized as well.</p>
+
+<p>The big plane rolled to a stop, the last of three bringing guests to
+the party, and the farm families climbed down to the solid surface of
+the RiGrand field. They could smell the night-borne scent of the Gulf
+waters and see the distant shimmering of moonlight on its surface.</p>
+
+<p>Rick
+had always loved it down here. He’d wished ever since he was a boy
+that his family could have transferred assignments to a farm nearer
+the water, but his father preferred the big, open country of Rillo for
+cattle and roughage crops and the gathering in of a plentiful harvest.</p>
+
+<p>Now Rick was through with both kinds of country. He stood a moment
+at the foot of the plane stairs sucking the moist Gulf air into his
+lungs. This was probably the last night he’d ever see this wonderful
+RiGrand Agro area.</p>
+
+<p>“There he is!”</p>
+
+<p>He heard the sounds of voices and
+running feet, and saw the shapes of moving figures in the half light.
+They came up and swarmed over him, slapping him on the back.</p>
+
+<p>“How’s it feel to have your farming days over?”</p>
+
+<p>“Hear you’re picked to pair with a Mech!”</p>
+
+<p>“You’ll get fed and brushed like a prize sire—what a life!”</p>
+
+<p>“They say those Mech women are charged like a parogun. You have
+to say ‘yes’m’ and ‘no’m’ or you’re likely to get your head smoked
+off.”</p>
+
+<p>“Lay off it!” Rick roared, half annoyed by the banter that was
+supposed to be friendly enough but which had the effect of small, hot
+needles in his skin.</p>
+
+<p>A vacuum of sound swelled outward in the wake of
+his voice. “Sorry, guys,” he said. “I didn’t mean it to come out that
+way. I just don’t like it being the last night of my life at RiGrand.”</p>
+
+<p>“Sure, we don’t like it, either. Guess there’s better ways of showing
+it than being damned fools. Let’s go in and have a tall drink.”</p>
+
+<p>They
+crowded around, taking his arms, urging him on. These were the fellows
+he’d grown up with on the vast farms and ranches of the Lonestar Agro
+Region. They knew how he felt. Or at least they were trying. Most of
+them couldn’t really know. They’d never leave. They’d spend the rest of
+their lives here.</p>
+
+<p>For some inconceivable reason the Machine had picked
+<i>him</i> to leave. To pair with a Mech. What kind of breed was that supposed
+to produce? A Rillo range sire and a salt grass heifer!</p>
+
+<p>He went along
+into the enormous guest hall of the RiGrand ranch.
+The families left the drinking table and surged about him, shaking
+his hand and offering congratulations as if something wonderful had
+happened to him. It was enough to make a man think they <i>wanted</i> him to
+leave.</p>
+
+<p>But he knew how they felt. It was just a part of growing up, to
+them. Maybe the trouble with him was that he didn’t want to grow up.</p>
+
+<p>Mendon Carter, RiGrand’s Chief Agro, stood up on the drinking table to
+propose a toast. His mane of white hair was entangled with points of
+quivering, silver light. “To Rick Theron!” he cried. “May a thousand
+Agro sons call him father!”</p>
+
+<p>It wasn’t a good toast. Not for a man who
+was going to pair with a Mech. But Mendon Carter was trying, in the
+best way he knew how, to supply an expression of their love which
+Rick would have to remember and sustain him in the years ahead. Until
+the time, at least, when he would finally all but forget that he had
+ever been an Agro.</p>
+
+<p>“To Rick!” the others shouted, even more loudly
+than they intended, in order to cover their embarrassment at Mendon’s
+inept toast.</p>
+
+<p>But Rick pretended there was no cause for discomfort.
+He leaped to the table beside Mendon and held his glass high. “To
+my sons!” he cried. “I’ll send every one of them back to Lonestar!”</p>
+
+<p>That eased their tension, and gave them license to be as gay as they
+liked. They answered back with shouts of laughter and good wishes
+as Rick jumped down from the table, his eyes intent upon the figure
+he had been searching for ever since he came in.</p>
+
+<p>She was standing
+against the far wall, her face bright with laughter that pained him. He
+forced his way through the crowd to Barie’s side.</p>
+
+<p>“For a little while
+I thought you weren’t here,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“You knew better than that,”
+Barie answered. “Come on.” She took his arm. “The orchestra’s going to
+play. You aren’t going to dance with anyone but me tonight. And after
+tonight you’ll never dance with me as long as you live.”</p>
+
+<p>She stepped
+closer and he took her in his arms as the squeaky, tootling orchestra
+assembled by Mendon Carter at one end of the room took up its beat.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="II">
+    II
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>It wasn’t a good orchestra and never would be. It was just some of
+the farm boys who liked to get together on Saturday nights and beat
+out a little whimsey. Sometimes it was at RiGrand; sometimes at Rillo
+or Worth-Dallas. At best it was a five hundred mile round trip, and of
+course the Watch Police knew all about it. They didn’t expect anything
+better from Agros, Sixth Rating.</p>
+
+<p>They were doing something called “The Lass at the Mech-Shake Ball.”</p>
+
+<p>Barie bounced
+happily to its senseless, repetitious rhythm. Rick felt the warm touch
+and vibration of her body against him, but he couldn’t keep time.</p>
+
+<p>“What’s the matter?” Barie said finally. “Don’t you want to dance with
+me tonight?”</p>
+
+<p>To everyone but him it seemed like a time for dancing.
+“I want to get out of here,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>He took her out to the patio
+under the open sky, where the stars were so sweet and clear it made
+something ache inside a man. They wouldn’t look like that anywhere else
+in the world, even if you roamed the world over.</p>
+
+<p>He stopped with Barie
+just beyond an arbor, from which they could see the distant sheet of
+restless water against the horizon. He touched her and drew her close
+to him. She looked up, smiling, and patted his cheek.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think
+you want to go very badly,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“Am I supposed to?”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s like
+growing older every year. You may not want to, but it happens just the
+same.”</p>
+
+<p>“You mean there’s nothing we can do when a machine a thousand
+miles or more from here says one day that Rick Theron is to leave the
+land he loves and go to a city he never wanted to see and there be
+paired with a Mech he never wanted to know?”</p>
+
+<p>Barie laughed softly and
+pressed a little closer to him. “Rick, you talk so silly. I guess
+that’s why I’ve always liked you. Even the first time we met, when Dad
+took me with him to Rillo to talk about cattle with your father. I
+remember I thought I’d never seen a boy who talked like you. I remember
+how you spoke of the cattle and the land as if they were your very own.
+You were nine then. Do you remember?”</p>
+
+<p>Didn’t she know? Didn’t she know
+he remembered every glimpse he’d ever had of her, every sound her voice
+had made in his hearing? He gripped her arm tightly in his big, rough
+hand. His eyes swept the fields and the grassy plain that led down to
+the sea.</p>
+
+<p>“Is there anything wrong with having and owning something for
+your very own?” he demanded.</p>
+
+<p>“Who’d want to? You’re hurting my arm,
+Rick.”</p>
+
+<p>He released her. “I’d want to,” he said. “I’d want some land,
+some cattle that were mine and couldn’t be taken away. Something to
+love and take pride in.”</p>
+
+<p>He turned her so that he could see her eyes
+by the light from the sky. “You don’t know what I’m talking about,
+even yet, do you?” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Barie shook her head. “I don’t understand
+you, Rick. Sometimes you frighten me with your talk that I can’t make
+any sense out of. Why should you want to <i>own</i> something? It already
+belongs to you. You work the land. You turn in
+its production. You make your living here.”</p>
+
+<p>“Except that now I have
+to go away and never come back again.”</p>
+
+<p>“It makes no difference!”
+Barie cried. “Wherever you go you’ll have something to do, something
+to produce, something that will get you your living. If the Machine
+says you belong in another place, paired to a certain Mech, then that’s
+right. There’s no argument with it. The Machine can think better than
+any man ever could! You know that’s so.”</p>
+
+<p>He regarded her for a long
+moment. Then swiftly he took her into his arms and pressed his mouth
+hard against hers. She clung to him, answering his yearning. But even
+in the midst of her embrace he felt a coldness somewhere that was like
+a little stab of terror in his mind.</p>
+
+<p>He raised his face from hers.
+“Does the Machine know how to think about love?” he said softly.</p>
+
+<p>“It
+must.” Barie shrugged and straightened in his arms. “It says a certain
+Mech girl is more right for your arms than I am.”</p>
+
+<p>“And don’t you <i>hate</i> it for saying that?”</p>
+
+<p>“Hate it for knowing more than our poor, stupid
+brains do? Hate it for being right? Would it make sense if you and I
+went ahead and made a dreadful mistake that would bring us misery all
+our lives?”</p>
+
+<p>“Barie, do you really believe that? In your heart—?”</p>
+
+<p>“I
+think I almost hate <i>you</i> when you pretend to be so blind,” Barie said.
+“You know it’s true as well as I do.”</p>
+
+<p>“Barie—Barie—has it all been so
+empty? Has it all been meaningless—since that day when I was nine and
+showed you what land and cattle could really mean to a man?”</p>
+
+<p>He had to
+turn away to keep her from sensing the sudden, quick sob that welled up
+from the depths of him. And then she came to him and stroked his long
+hair with her soft fingers.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course it has not been meaningless and
+empty,” she said. “It’s been wonderful. We’ve been happy. Our childhood
+has been sweeter because of each other. And now it is time to grow
+up. Do you want childhood to last forever, Rick?”</p>
+
+<p>He stood looking
+down at her face—at her long black hair teasing about her shoulders
+in the soft night wind and her wide dark eyes so full of trust for
+the world to which they were born that she would not listen even to
+her own heart.</p>
+
+<p>It added to the smouldering, uncertain hate in his own
+heart against that same world.</p>
+
+<p>“Is it childishness that we love each
+other?” he demanded almost roughly.</p>
+
+<p>For a moment the expression of calm
+acceptance on her face seemed to break. “It must be,” she whispered at
+last, “because no one keeps it. We have everything else; we mustn’t
+expect to keep childhood. And even if we wanted
+to, what could we do about it?”</p>
+
+<p>“We can go away! Listen to me, Barie.
+There hasn’t been much time to plan, but I’ve been thinking of this
+ever since the notification came. Tonight’s our chance.”</p>
+
+<p>“What are you
+talking about? Go where?”</p>
+
+<p>“The Machine doesn’t do the thinking for the
+whole world. There are savages it doesn’t care about. We could be one
+with them!”</p>
+
+<p>“How?”</p>
+
+<p>He pointed to the dark shapes of the planes beyond
+the farmhouse. “I’ve planned for us to take one of them. We can fill it
+with spare tanks of fuel and fly it as far south as the Andes. They’d
+never find us there. They’d never want to!”</p>
+
+<p>She seemed to hesitate a
+long time, watching the direction of his glance. “How would you get
+it ready? The escort comes for you in the morning. There isn’t time—”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>They’ll</i> help me load fuel.” He nodded toward the farmhouse where the
+music was thumping ecstatically. “Say you’ll go with me, Barie! It’s
+our only chance!”</p>
+
+<p>“All right,” she whispered. “If you can get them
+to help with making the plane ready, I’ll go.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="III">
+    III
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Rick almost ran
+from her, bumping into two figures standing at a corner of the house,
+smoking. It was Len and Sam from his own farm.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s not fair,” Len
+complained jokingly, “to spend all your time with Barie. After all,
+you <i>are</i> going to be paired with a Mech in a couple more days!”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m
+not!” he cried in exultation. “I’m going with Barie. I need your help.”
+In a tumble of words he told them what he planned. “Get a half dozen
+more guys from inside the house, Sam. Len, you come and help me get
+started. We’ll pump the tanks full and figure out a way to feed them
+from spare barrels inside the plane. There ought to be enough barrels
+around the farm.”</p>
+
+<p>But neither of the men had moved. “Come on!” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“You can’t,” said Sam. “You know better, Rick. It isn’t right.
+The Machine’s told you what’s best. We like you too much to help with
+a fool thing like this. You and Barie—we like you both too much.”</p>
+
+<p>He
+saw it then, he thought. Sam had always liked Barie. Maybe he figured
+with Rick out of the way the Machine might give her to him.</p>
+
+<p>“It takes
+something like this to find out who your friends are,” Rick cried.
+“There are plenty of guys who <i>will</i> help me!”</p>
+
+<p>“We’re your friends,” said
+Len quietly. But he was gone from hearing.</p>
+
+<p>One by one, or in groups of
+two or three, they were approached by him in the
+hall or out in the yard. They were appalled by the stupidity of the
+thing he asked them to do. He was stunned by their repeated refusal.</p>
+
+<p>In
+panic, he looked about him. There was still dancing in the hall, but
+it was muted now, and the jumping, frantic rhythm had reduced to a low
+beat that was more felt than heard. Their eyes were upon him, averting
+as he stared back in defiant bewilderment.</p>
+
+<p>He had not asked them all,
+but word had gone around from mouth to ear, until all knew his frantic
+decision.</p>
+
+<p>He held them in his stare when he had asked his last man,
+and knew it was futile to ask any longer. He whirled from the room and
+raced out to the hangars alone.</p>
+
+<p>The night was half gone and he had
+only until daylight to work, but he had to try. He unreeled the fuel
+hose and fed it to the partially empty tanks of the plane. While it
+throbbed with the pump’s pulsations, he ransacked the tool and supply
+sheds for drums to fill the cabin.</p>
+
+<p>He gathered some, but there didn’t
+seem to be nearly enough. What he had he wrestled up the landing stairs
+and through the doorway. He lashed them down and went searching for
+more, then came back to change the hose connection on the tanks.</p>
+
+<p>The
+dancing had ceased inside the house. All the guests, those who were his
+friends and had known him all his life, came out and stood in silent
+knots watching his frantic movements silhouetted against the night
+sky as he tried to prepare the plane alone.</p>
+
+<p>But it was too much of a
+task. Dawn came, and he hadn’t found enough barrels. He hadn’t filled
+those he had, and he hadn’t devised the way to feed their contents
+to the main tanks from inside the plane.</p>
+
+<p>He was licked, but he was
+still trying when they saw the plane of the Watch Police against the
+brightening sky, coming to take him to the re-orientation center.</p>
+
+<p>He
+climbed down in defeat and looked slowly about the ring of sober faces
+of his friends who had watched and refused to help. “I could have done
+it,” he cried, “if you’d given me a hand. I leave behind no friends
+at Lonestar—only enemies!”</p>
+
+<p>And then it came to him for the first time,
+apparently, that Barie could have helped, but she hadn’t. He turned to
+her, in the forefront of the group, and seemed to read in her eyes the
+thing he had always known was there but didn’t dare to admit.</p>
+
+<p>She had
+known it would be this way. She had never intended going with him.</p>
+
+<p>“You
+can’t keep childhood forever, Rick. I had to show you that,” she said.
+“It was the last good thing I could do for you!”</p>
+
+<p>Six days ago he’d
+had nothing in his heart but love for the land—and for Barie. He’d
+expected he’d have the right to pair with her.
+If you were an Agro, you could afford such hopes. The Machine didn’t
+bother Agros too much. It let them pair often with the ones they had
+chosen themselves.</p>
+
+<p>Only a few were denied it. And fewer still were
+taken away from the Region altogether, to pair and spend the rest of
+their lives elsewhere. Rick remembered those who had gone. Stan More,
+Daly Croden—not more than a couple of dozen since he’d been aware of
+the kind of world he lived in, and the things that sometimes happened
+to people.</p>
+
+<p>Now, he was one of them, borne through the sky to an alien
+land that he had never seen, never wanted to see. It had happened to
+him.</p>
+
+<p>He watched the unfamiliar landscape through the windows of the
+plane. A couple of Watch Police were his companions, but they were
+busy over a game and paid no attention to him. His thoughts remained
+with the world he was leaving behind.</p>
+
+<p>There was something wrong with
+it. He had never been able to put his finger on it, but he had always
+been the odd one, the strange one who didn’t fit. He wanted things of
+his own—in a world where each man could say that all the Earth was
+his, if he remembered his neighbor could say it too. He didn’t believe
+that the great Machine, which they told him did the thinking for
+mankind, could think out his own problems as well as he could.</p>
+
+<p>Somehow
+this wrongness in the world had destroyed Barie. That was the sign by
+which he knew it was the world and not he who was in error. It could
+make her stand and say it was right for someone else to take her place
+in his arms.</p>
+
+<p>Barie—Barie—</p>
+
+<p>It had taken from him every reason for living.</p>
+
+<p>He had no idea what was ahead of him, but in his mind there burned a
+single decision that would cover anything that came up. He would do
+everything in his power to obstruct the goals and purposes to which
+the Machine assigned him. He would break, and destroy, and disobey
+until they either crushed him or let him go back. And he had never
+heard of any who went back.</p>
+
+<p>With this decision clearly made, his mind
+was free to speculate on what he might find. He knew the traditional
+stories that circulated among the Agros regarding the Mech cities and
+their vast production centers. He’d heard tales of the monstrous,
+unthinkable mechanical brain that had finally brought order out of the
+chaos of human civilization.</p>
+
+<p>The thinking machine, as the Agros called
+it, had direct control over the life of every human being on the face
+of the Earth. At birth, a tape of data based on brain and chromosome
+mapping was filed with the central library which
+fed the machine. Here it was instantly available for optimum meshing
+with similar data from all other men and women currently alive.</p>
+
+<p>In as
+much detail as the machine considered necessary then, the subsequent
+lives of the people were planned. Their station, occupation, matings,
+permission to reproduce—all of these activities and thousands more, at
+the machine’s option, were precisely dictated and controlled.</p>
+
+<p>Rick
+was vaguely aware of the history of the changeover from chaos and war
+to order and peace. It had come about as a natural byproduct of the
+Second Industrial Revolution. Men had been searching for the answer
+for all the ages of history, and then suddenly they had it without
+even looking for it.</p>
+
+<p>Automation. Robots took the place of clerks and
+mechanics in the factories. Machines could remember ten thousand
+times as many facts as the most efficient human and apply those facts
+without error. There was dislocation and unrest, but eventually the
+economy settled down just as it had in the First Industrial Revolution.</p>
+
+<p>And then the Great Idea that was so obvious and yet so long delayed.
+Automation in government. Millions of accurate data on tape to
+determine the need for a new law or change in the old one. No Senator
+or Representative could hope to match knowledge with such a device.
+But the one impregnable argument held for many years: This was mere
+machine calculation. You couldn’t depend for lawmaking on an operation
+in which no judgment was involved. Human beings had to be governed by
+human beings. There was no other way.</p>
+
+<p>But finally this limitation, too,
+was overcome. Marcroft’s invention of the judgment circuit made it
+possible to construct a machine capable of duplicating human thought.
+The chain was complete.</p>
+
+<p>The changeover was almost painless. Automation,
+conscription, emergency regulation had been with the world so long
+that it had become the normal way of life. Here at last was a device
+that could, without error, direct a man’s life in the most useful
+channels, and do it for <i>all</i> men on the globe, without favoritism or
+bias. Here at last was the millennium for which all the prophets and
+seers had searched.</p>
+
+<p>Only a few, like Rick Theron, felt, burning within
+them, aching remnants of something that was not satisfied or taken
+into account by the Machine.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="IV">
+    IV
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Rick Theron had never been away from
+the farms before in his life and his first sight of the shining city
+of Sanlou almost took his breath away and made him forget momentarily
+his hate and his resolution to defy the Machine. His longing for the
+fields and ranges, the patient cattle and green
+crops dimmed a trifle. He hadn’t known a city could be beautiful, too.</p>
+
+<p>The plane dropped from the sky almost at the base of its outermost
+tall building. Only then was he aware that the Watch Police had been
+observing him closely for a long time.</p>
+
+<p>The plane rolled to a stop.</p>
+
+<p>“Okay. This is it, farmboy,” one of them said. “Let’s go in and get
+the manure cleaned off your feet for the last time.”</p>
+
+<p>There was no clear
+impression of what followed immediately—a thousand blurred details of
+registration, identification, movement through pleasing corridors and
+rooms, a complete physical examination that included everything but
+a count of his body cells. Then, at the end of the day, a moment of
+rest in the chambers of the Orientation Officer to whom he had been
+assigned.</p>
+
+<p>The man was tall, like Rick. He had lighter hair, but a
+countenance that was no less rugged, as if he knew what it was to work
+with his hands under the open sky.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m Jackson,” he said. “Bernard
+Jackson. We’re going to work in pretty close association for the next
+few months, so we might as well take it as easy as possible. I know a
+few things about you, but I’d like to hear more. And then I’ll tell
+you anything you want to know about your position here. Fair enough?”</p>
+
+<p>Rick found himself liking the man, just as he had the city, in spite
+of his determination to hate everything which had taken him from the
+farms.</p>
+
+<p>But caution warned him against confiding fully in Jackson. He
+told the story of his life, briefly, confining himself to those aspects
+of it which the man must already know. He said nothing of Barie and his
+terrible disappointment in losing her.</p>
+
+<p>Even this seemed to be known,
+however. “There was a girl, wasn’t there?” said Jackson. “A girl named
+Barie?”</p>
+
+<p>Rick hesitated. “Yes—there was.”</p>
+
+<p>“How do you feel about
+parting from her?”</p>
+
+<p>He shrugged and then remembered Barie’s own words.
+“You can’t keep childhood forever.”</p>
+
+<p>He repeated them, convinced that he
+was saying the right thing. The Orientation Officer nodded and smiled.
+“Sometimes we have a little trouble over such situations and corrective
+steps are necessary. Apparently none will be needed in your case.”</p>
+
+<p>He looked directly at Rick.</p>
+
+<p>“As to your own situation now the Machine
+has discovered an extraordinary combination of potential abilities in
+you, and has been able to match them in a very desirable counterpart
+with whom you will be paired.</p>
+
+<p>“You must understand that we are not
+wholly unhuman and mechanical about all of this. You will be properly
+introduced and given adequate opportunity to
+become well acquainted. We have special areas set aside for these
+courtship preliminaries. Whenever you find it mutually agreeable an
+official sanction is given to your pairing and you are then ready
+for the next step of preparation for your place in our society. The
+getting acquainted period usually takes about two to three weeks.”</p>
+
+<p>“What if it doesn’t become mutually agreeable?” Rick asked impulsively
+and wished immediately that he’d held his tongue.</p>
+
+<p>Bernard Jackson was
+not disturbed by the question, however. He merely smiled. “That just
+doesn’t happen. The Machine doesn’t make mistakes.”</p>
+
+<p>Rick managed to
+get a good night’s sleep in spite of the experiences of the day. A
+long time later he reminded himself that his ability to sleep had been
+a very fortunate thing, too—considering all that was to follow during
+the next twenty-four hours.</p>
+
+<p>He was introduced to Deva Warel, the woman
+with whom he was scheduled to pair, at noon the following morning.</p>
+
+<p>Bernard Jackson brought them together for lunch. She was seated at a
+table near the window of the dining room in the Orientation Building.
+With her was Jackson’s counterpart, a female Orientation Officer, who
+seemed unhappy about the whole arrangement.</p>
+
+<p>Jackson pointed her out
+ahead of time, as they came into the room. “That’s her, sitting right
+over there,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Rick looked. For a moment he seemed to be staring
+at a small, golden sunburst. Then it turned into the reddest head of
+hair he had ever seen or imagined.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s Deva? The one with the red hair?”</p>
+
+<p>“In the flesh.”</p>
+
+<p>He knew at once that the Machine’s traditional
+infallibility was sheer idiocy. This girl was as unlike Barie as it
+was possible for a woman to be, and on her face, as she caught sight
+of him and turned, was a look of total, unadulterated antagonism.</p>
+
+<p>“She
+has the highest potential value of any Mech designer we have discovered
+for many years,” Jackson whispered as they approached. “So you see,
+you are being entrusted with a very valuable property,” he added, with
+a smile Rick didn’t understand at all.</p>
+
+<p>Introductions were quickly
+completed. The name of Deva’s companion was Flora Johns. She nodded
+politely, but Deva was openly contemptuous. Inside himself, Rick felt
+like laughing. It occurred to him that the machine must give out a
+good many solutions that human beings found difficult to assimilate.
+This, certainly, was going to be one of the most indigestible on
+record. In a way, he and Deva were going to be partners after all.</p>
+
+<p>As soon as the painful meal was over, Jackson cleared his throat.
+“I presume you have carefully explained the
+preliminaries to Miss Warel, Dr. Johns?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve explained nothing!” the
+woman officer snapped. “Deva Warel states that she absolutely refuses
+to go through with this arrangement. She had already committed herself
+to a companion in the University.”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s extremely unfortunate,”
+Bernard Jackson said. “However, in all fairness to my ward, I believe
+we should go ahead in conformity with established custom.”</p>
+
+<p>“You young
+people,” he said, “will be assigned quarters in the orientation area.
+Every opportunity will be offered you to become acquainted and acquire
+mutual interests. Should this—ah, determination of Miss Warel’s not
+be overcome we shall consult the Machine for other arrangements. But
+let us have a fair trial and see what comes of it.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="V">
+    V
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>For three days Rick remained in his room without leaving it, except for the brief
+periods he spent in the restaurant. He wondered how long they would
+allow the farce to go on, and what would happen to him after it was
+over.</p>
+
+<p>The fact that Deva Warel was as opposed to the arrangement as
+he was made it a little easier to bear. But all the humor had gone
+out of the situation. His heart was sick and empty for all that he
+had left behind—for the farm, the cattle, even the friends who had
+refused to help him.</p>
+
+<p>On the fourth day he decided he’d at least have
+to get out in the open if he was going to preserve his sanity. He left
+the building and walked out through a large, park-like area enclosed
+by buildings and masonry walls. He passed occasional couples who were
+apparently becoming acquainted and “acquiring mutual interests.” For
+the most part they seemed to exhibit a good deal of enthusiasm about
+the process.</p>
+
+<p>Then he stopped short. A dozen feet away, seated on the
+grass with a thick book open in her lap, was Deva Warel.</p>
+
+<p>She looked up
+as he approached and grinned. “Welcome to the bull pen,” she said. “I
+wondered when you were going to come down. Guess I must have really
+scared you, huh?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, I was just taking my time,” he told her. He
+dropped down beside her on the grass and glanced at the title of the
+book. <i>Associative Reflex Circuits of the Memory Package!</i></p>
+
+<p>“That’s too
+deep for you, farmboy,” she said. “Anyway, since we’re here to court,
+suppose you start courting and get it over with. I’ve heard they have
+some real cute customs down on the farm.”</p>
+
+<p>“I wouldn’t know about that,”
+said Rick slowly. “But ordinarily we use courtesy and kindness to the
+animals. They’re the only creatures below an
+Agro Sixth Rating, of course.”</p>
+
+<p>She looked at him with an expression of
+regret in her eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. Or maybe I
+<i>did</i>. I just don’t know!” She turned away again, her expression changing
+to one of anguish. “You couldn’t know anything about what this means
+to me. A week ago I hoped and halfplanned to marry a man of my own
+status—a Mech, First Rating. He’s a genius, and we’ve worked together
+all our lives.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m told that’s what you have to expect in return
+for the benefits of the Machine’s great wisdom. But even an Agro can
+understand what it means to rebel. I had hopes too—of marrying the
+woman I loved.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>She looked up quickly, her eyes searching his face. “I
+didn’t know. That makes us partners in at least one respect, doesn’t
+it?”</p>
+
+<p>“I guess it does. The question is: What will they do to us for
+refusing to pair with each other? Will it mean prison, or alteration?”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t really know. It happens so rarely. I don’t suppose you’d marry
+me even to escape imprisonment.”</p>
+
+<p>“Not if the future of the whole race
+depended on it,” Rick said fervently. “An Agro Sixth may not have much
+to be proud of. But he has a great deal of pride, just the same!”</p>
+
+<p>“I
+thought so,” said Deva. “That makes the feeling <i>completely mutual</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>Abruptly, she got up and moved to a more open spot away from the trees
+and bushes. She gestured to him to follow her. Irritated, he almost
+decided to walk back to the building, but his curiosity got the better
+of him.</p>
+
+<p>“Closer,” she said as he approached. “This place is wired for
+sound in every bush and pebble. They’re watching us from observation
+posts on the walls and in the buildings—and they are taking continuous
+pictures. They’re interested in the progress of our courtship, you
+see.”</p>
+
+<p>Rick straightened in sudden anger. The whole ordeal was becoming
+more disgusting by the minute.</p>
+
+<p>“No, be careful!” Deva said. She put her
+hands up and drew his head closer to her. “Pretend you are whispering
+endearments in my ear,” she said. “Keep your face down so they can’t
+get your lips on the film. They won’t be able to read your words then.”</p>
+
+<p>He did as she advised. She turned her face downward, too, and plucked
+idly at blades of grass as if they were exchanging only words of love
+and discussing the most blissful of futures.</p>
+
+<p>“We’ve a chance to get
+away,” Deva said, “if you have the courage to risk it.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve already
+made one try,” Rick told her. “It failed because I didn’t prepare
+far enough ahead.” He described his desperate,
+last-minute attempt to get the plane ready.</p>
+
+<p>Deva looked up in surprise,
+and then quickly lowered her head again. “You’re a bigger boy than I
+thought,” she said. “Gerald wouldn’t take the chance either. He had
+that much in common with Barie.”</p>
+
+<p>“Gerald?”</p>
+
+<p>“The man I worked with and
+loved.”</p>
+
+<p>Rick looked at her. “Where did you want to go?” he asked.
+“Tell me, Deva.”</p>
+
+<p>“There are ten thousand square miles of open country
+outside the cities. They aren’t patroled very well, because the Machine
+doesn’t consider the area a vital factor. You’d be surprised how many
+have escaped and are living in perfect freedom between the cities.
+Gerald and I could have joined them if he had possessed the nerve—and
+had loved me enough.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why did he back down?” Rick asked, knowing in
+advance what her answer would be.</p>
+
+<p>“He said there was no future for us
+out there. We were civilized citizens of a great community, and had an
+obligation to do our part. If that obligation included bowing to the
+superior wisdom of the Machine our only alternative was to obey. Can
+you imagine a weak-kneed evasion like that from a man who <i>knows</i> Mech
+theory and operation. But of course <i>you</i> wouldn’t understand how that
+knowledge should have made him scorn the Machine. Gerald said he
+had his work to consider.”</p>
+
+<p>“It hit pretty hard?” said Rick. “Yes—I can see that it did.”</p>
+
+<p>“When he heard I’d been scheduled to pair with
+an Agro Sixth he acted as if he’d just had a very narrow escape—as if
+I’d suddenly become unclean. I’d loved him since I was a little girl.
+But I could have killed him then.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’d take him back, though—if you had the chance?”</p>
+
+<p>Deva nodded. “I’d be fool enough to take him back in
+a minute if he had the courage to go with me.”</p>
+
+<p>“But he hasn’t,” Rick
+said, thinking of Barie. “And you haven’t answered my first question.
+Just what do we do?”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>We</i> can go out there,” Deva said fiercely. “We can
+help each other escape from the city. After that, we can split up and
+go our separate ways. I haven’t quite figured out what I’ll do with
+the rest of my life. But I’d rather be a wilderness outcast than remain
+chained here, forced to obey every life-denying whim of the Machine.”</p>
+
+<p>“Married to an Agro Sixth, of course.”</p>
+
+<p>Deva nodded. “Married to an Agro
+Sixth. Do you know what you’ll do? Have you given it serious thought?”</p>
+
+<p>He shook his head, thinking suddenly of all the blank years ahead,
+without Barie, without home or land or friends. But what Deva said was
+true. Anything would be better than a life of
+blind obedience to the whims of the Machine.</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t believe then
+that the Machine is the infallible god it’s supposed to be?” he asked
+curiously. “I thought all Mechs bowed to it three times upon arising,
+and before going to bed.”</p>
+
+<p>Deva’s lips tightened in disgust. “It’s a
+man-made machine, and only a fool would let it dictate his life for
+him.”</p>
+
+<p>“There are a good many fools, apparently.”</p>
+
+<p>“Millions of them,”
+Deva agreed.</p>
+
+<p>“Including Gerald?”</p>
+
+<p>“Including both Gerald and Barie,”
+said Deva.</p>
+
+<p>Rick started to protest, then grinned. “I think we’ll manage
+this getaway if it’s physically possible. Just what are your plans?”</p>
+
+<p>“Because you’re an Agro it will be possible for me to get permission
+to take you out in the city—away from the bull pen. We’ll make several
+trips, and come back each time. But on the final trip, we’ll just keep
+going.”</p>
+
+<p>“Is it that easy?”</p>
+
+<p>“There’ll be a search, of course. A search
+is routine, but it’s never very intensive. After that, however, it’s a
+long way to the nearest Outlander post and decent food and shelter. You
+won’t think it’s easy when it’s over.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m ready to start now,” Rick
+said, pressing her hand.</p>
+
+<p>She shook her head. “No. Our wisest course
+is to separate now. Tonight there will be a musical show put on for
+the benefit of all the gay lovers in the bull pen. You’ll take me to
+that.”</p>
+
+<p>“Fine. We’ll go on our first tour tomorrow?”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll see about the
+arrangements. You’d better pretend to steal a kiss now—just to make it
+look real.”</p>
+
+<p>Rick complied. After a moment Deva broke away, protesting,
+with fire in her eyes. “It doesn’t have to be <i>that</i> real, farmer-boy!
+You’ll behave yourself—or find yourself left here alone.”</p>
+
+<p>Rick grinned.
+“From what you have just told me, you’d have great difficulty in
+escaping without me. So I don’t intend to worry.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Even in the sanctuary
+of his own apartment Rick forced himself to suppress his excitement
+over the prospects of immediate escape. From what Deva had said, he was
+certain that the watch circuits were observing him constantly—here as
+well as out in the park.</p>
+
+<p>He smiled to himself at the memory of Deva’s
+name for it. The bull pen. Well, what could be more appropriate? He
+looked down at the strolling couples walking arm-in-arm, as if the
+whole revolting spectacle had been entirely their idea. In disgust he
+turned away again. How could men and women make love at the dictates of
+a machine? What had happened to the human race, anyway?</p>
+
+<p>At least he
+had to admire and respect Deva. She had courage
+enough to rebel against the system, despite her certain knowledge
+that she would lose her place in the only kind of society she knew.
+And perhaps the price would be death.</p>
+
+<p>Inevitably, his thoughts went
+back to Barie. He imagined her in a similar position, facing the same
+kind of challenge. What if the Machine actually should call her up.
+It could happen!</p>
+
+<p>He went on to imagine her walking down through the
+gardens and along the flower-scented paths with some man she’d never
+even seen before, a love choice selected for her by a mindless machine.</p>
+
+<p>The thoughts made him almost physically ill and sharply increased his
+bitterness.</p>
+
+<p>That night at the entertainment Deva had reassuring news.
+She had been granted permission to take Rick on extensive tours of the
+city to acquaint him with the unfamiliar civilization he would soon
+be expected to embrace as his own. This orientation preliminary was
+acceptable as part of their courtship period, since he was an Agro.</p>
+
+<p>“But we’ll have to wait another four or five days,” Deva said. “They
+want us to become better acquainted in the gardens where there are
+not too many other distractions. So just be patient,” she said as he
+frowned wryly. “It won’t embitter you for life to endure my company for
+a few extra days!”</p>
+
+<p>She’s right, he thought with a grin as he tucked
+her arm in his. She was going to be real easy to get along with.</p>
+
+<p>The show was not too bad, he guessed. He’d never seen anything quite
+like it, but it wouldn’t matter if he never repeated the experience,
+either. His mind refused to remain passive. It lunged about, from
+considerations of his vague and shadowy future to Lonestar and Barie,
+and then back to the strange little Mech girl sitting beside him. He
+wondered what would become of her when once they were safely away into
+the Outlander country. Had she some secret plan of her own?</p>
+
+<p>During the
+succeeding days they spent most of their time together discussing with
+each other their past lives in the widely divergent worlds from which
+they had come. They spent long, idle hours in the gardens or at the
+music bar. They ate together and Deva read to Rick poems and stories
+that opened up a new world of beauty to him.</p>
+
+<p>The time passed more
+quickly than he could have dreamed. Then on the fifth day Deva said,
+“Tomorrow we can take a trip through the city. I don’t suppose I’ll
+need a leash—”</p>
+
+<p>He laughed and drew her to him and kissed her soundly
+as had become their custom at parting—solely to impress the watchers
+who recorded all their actions.</p>
+
+<p>“I told you to behave!” Deva said, how
+angrily he could only guess.</p>
+
+<p>“Tomorrow,” Rick promised.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VI">
+    VI
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>It was almost like being let out of jail. The administrator,
+Bernard Jackson, gave them a few brief instructions and showed them the
+way out of the building.</p>
+
+<p>“Just a kind of once-over-lightly today,” Deva
+said. “We’ll just go along the streets and through some of the shops
+to give you an idea of what things are like here.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’d be a lot more interested in seeing—”</p>
+
+<p>“Hush! General sightseeing is <i>expected</i> of us.
+Do you want to ruin everything?”</p>
+
+<p>He found himself fascinated by the
+sights and sounds of the city in spite of his reluctant interest. The
+metropolis was built like a machine itself, with precision-placed masses
+of pleasant-hued steel and concrete flung against the sky and linked
+with a lacy network of connecting ways up to the highest levels. There
+was no darkness or filth or visible deterioration anywhere.</p>
+
+<p>“There was
+a time when big, massed cities like this were considered failures,”
+Deva said. “It was all the fashion to abandon them, tear them down,
+and spread the buildings out all over the landscape. That was before
+we understood the true function of a city. Now we know it can be both
+a thing of supreme beauty and of maximum efficiency. It’s a device
+for civilized living. But today’s model compares with a city before
+the Atom War in about the same way that a starship compares with the
+first wooden cartwheels.”</p>
+
+<p>“Are you trying to sell me something?” Rick
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>Deva shook her head. “I’d like to sell it to myself.”</p>
+
+<p>“Why can’t you?”</p>
+
+<p>“Because of the Machine. It’s inexplicable. The Machine actually
+made possible the cities we have now. And yet because of the Machine
+I can’t bear to live here any longer. It just doesn’t make sense!”</p>
+
+<p>“Everybody seems happy enough.” Rick said.</p>
+
+<p>And it was true. The people
+he passed on the street seemed universally content and peaceful—to
+judge by their expressions. Within a block or two a hundred strangers
+had smiled and nodded to him. The city was certainly not a place of
+violent discontent.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s me and you!” said Deva bitterly. “Even Barie
+is happy to conform to the will of the Machine. But you’re not. Gerald
+is glad to be free of me because he’s convinced that Utopia has come.
+And maybe it has! No one lacks food, shelter, luxuries, aggressive
+outlets. Nothing is lacking—except whatever is tormenting you and me.”</p>
+
+<p>Rick smiled at her outburst. “In the Agro regions you have a chance
+to become very wise,” he said quietly. “There’s something lacking,
+all right—something most people don’t even know exists. The love of
+something that belongs to you alone. You take pride in moulding it
+to a state of perfection. Pride in yourself because
+you’re not <i>owned</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“Owned?”</p>
+
+<p>“Of course. All men are property now.
+Don’t you see? They belong to the Machine and can be dispensed and
+manipulated as the Machine decides through its all-powerful wisdom. A
+man cannot have pride if he is owned—and by a mere automaton, at that!
+He can’t even experience love, because he hasn’t the right to offer
+himself. He’s no longer the proprietor of his own being.”</p>
+
+<p>Deva walked
+slowly beside him, her face sober with thought. “I don’t know. That
+may be the answer. It <i>would</i> be strange if it took an Agro to show us
+what was wrong!”</p>
+
+<p>They walked all day—to the outskirts of the city and
+back. They stood silently at the edge of the great mass, where the
+towers dwindled to a thin layer of individual homes. Beyond these
+stretched the river and the highways leading north and south. Their
+eyes scanned the distances in silence, each sensing the thoughts of
+the other, and each saying nothing.</p>
+
+<p>They went more deeply into the
+heart of the city on the following days. Deva showed Rick the factories
+and plants that worked in total silence and without attendants, each
+throwing up a mountain of goods that were automatically inspected,
+packed and shipped to locations within the city itself or across the
+continent without a single human voice to guide them.</p>
+
+<p>On the last day
+she took him to the headquarters of the Machine. These were many tiers
+of banked memory circuits and blinking lights below the surface of the
+city itself, in the depths of the solid rock where nothing short of
+a convulsion of the Earth could disturb the intricate mechanism.</p>
+
+<p>But
+there wasn’t a great deal to see. And the Machine’s more intangible
+aspects were totally foreign to Rick’s mind. They stood in the
+visitors’ gallery, behind the impregnable plastic sheets which afforded
+them a clear view of the mechanisms and the attendants on the other
+side.</p>
+
+<p>“There is really no such thing as <i>the</i> Machine,” Deva said. “In
+reality there are many hundreds of machines. Every city has one. Its
+storage vaults contain data on each and every resident. It computes
+upon that data, and its judgment circuits render decisions based upon
+its final computations.</p>
+
+<p>“Each machine is interconnected with all others
+in the nation by tremendous microwave cables. A main clearing panel
+located somewhere in Kansas links the function of all local machines
+to a central, coordinating unit.</p>
+
+<p>“In addition, there is a worldwide
+network of interconnections between New York, London, Paris, Rome,
+and Moscow. It even extends to Africa and the cities of Central Asia.
+Actually, for instance, a Mech, First Rating,
+could be checked out for pairing against a South African native if the
+Machine so decided. It’s never happened as far as I know. But it could
+happen.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s <i>the</i> Machine, all right,” said Rick bitterly. “I never
+quite realized before how viciously it has succeeded in wrapping itself
+around the whole world. You can almost feel it strangling, crushing—”</p>
+
+<p>“Hush!” Deva warned, her fingers tightening in his clasp.</p>
+
+<p>They stood
+apart from the other visitors to the gallery. But Rick could almost
+feel invisible eyes and ears ominously recording their every change
+of expression. He understood Deva’s caution.</p>
+
+<p>“There must be some kind
+of human administration involved in the operation of the Machine,” he
+said more quietly.</p>
+
+<p>Deva nodded. “There is, of course. In the beginning
+they were the elected representatives of the people—the remnants of
+the old democratic system.” She tried to keep the bitterness out of
+her voice. “But now that human safeguard doesn’t even exist any more.
+The machine picks its own personnel. The original administrators spent
+most of their time watching and checking on each other to see that no
+tampering with the mandates occurred. The Machine decided it could do
+much better by picking men who would not be tempted to tamper.”</p>
+
+<p>The
+Machine seemed so harmless, with its rows on rows of black panels and
+glowing tubes and murmuring relays! But it was the enemy. Its very
+existence had made it forever impossible for him to possess Barie
+as his own. From every man upon the face of the Earth it had taken
+something. A desire, a dream, a woman, a treasured possession.</p>
+
+<p>They
+left the gallery quietly, for they had seen all that they cared to
+see. They went quickly out and up to the street level and took one of
+the cars that were freely available to the citizens. Rick glanced at
+his watch. “It’s almost time to get back to the bull pen,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>Deva did not reply. Her lips were compressed, and she was staring
+straight ahead of her. Rick looked around at the magnificent towers
+and airy bridges of the city.</p>
+
+<p>“No regrets?” he whispered.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” Deva said. “No regrets.”</p>
+
+<p>She started the motor of the car, punched the
+button for the lane and route she desired, and leaned back against the
+seat with her eyes closed. Swiftly the car moved out into the stream
+of traffic, and picked up speed.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VII">
+    VII
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>Rick could not shake off a chill
+sense of foreboding as the mass of the city was left behind. It did not
+seem possible they could so easily escape a monster whose tentacles
+encircled the earth. Might it not even now be
+watching them through unseen eyes in the walls of the great buildings?
+When they had gone far enough would it not jerk them back, willing to
+play a cat-and-mouse game with them until they no longer had energies
+enough left to continue the fight?</p>
+
+<p>He told himself that he was taking
+too despairing a view. Deva had lived all her life here, and had been
+trained as a technical designer of circuits such as those employed by
+the Machine. She understood its workings, and knew that it could be
+misled and deceived.</p>
+
+<p>He hoped, too, that someday men would do more
+than just run away from the Machine. A vague but burning desire had
+been kindled to activity within him. He would have given his life to
+be an instrument, no matter how small, in its destruction. But he knew
+that in his lifetime such a rebellion by the many might well remain
+only a dream.</p>
+
+<p>He turned his attention to the road as they cleared the
+advancing edges of the residential section and moved out onto the
+express highway, heading south.</p>
+
+<p>Deva slowed the car. “We’ll be checked
+at the first automatic station,” she said. “The scanners will note
+that this is a car from the city and record our basic identification.
+We’ll have to abandon the car before then. But that won’t be safe,
+either—until after dark.”</p>
+
+<p>His spirits rose as darkness descended and
+the countryside became more open. The sense of confinement, which had
+been with him ever since he entered the city, dropped away and he began
+to feel as free as he had felt during all the years of his childhood in
+the open country of Lonestar.</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll have to turn off soon,” said Deva.
+“Keep on the alert for some kind of trail that might lead down to the
+river. We’ll run the car into the water if we can get it safely down
+the bank.”</p>
+
+<p>A few minutes later, in the glow of the car’s headlights,
+Rick called attention to a sharp turn-off directly ahead. Deva took
+the controls and in another moment they had come to a halt by the bank
+of the river.</p>
+
+<p>She directed Rick to get out, and then set the car in
+motion again. He held his breath as it descended the steep bank. He
+thought for a moment she had stayed with it too long, but her running
+figure stumbled to the ground an instant before it struck the water
+with a resounding splash, and vanished from sight in the swirling dark
+current.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you hurt?” he called, hastening down the bank.</p>
+
+<p>“My wrist—” she answered in momentary agony. Then, as he reached her side: “I’ll be
+all right. We’ve got to keep moving as fast as we can.”</p>
+
+<p>Her speed and
+endurance astonished him as they moved through the sheltering brush in
+the darkness. He wondered how her city life could
+have endowed her with such stamina. But
+there was little time for questions.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s the
+check station,” she said, a few minutes later. “That red light over on
+the highway about a half mile down. Our best bet would be to get in the
+water and float past it. They might have detectors out if our absence
+has been broadcast.”</p>
+
+<p>“Can you swim that far in the dark?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“We’ll find a driftlog—if we can,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>They found a suitable
+log in the next few minutes. They made bundles of their clothes, so
+that they could be held out of the water and kept dry as long as
+possible. Then they slipped soundlessly into the cold, muddy waters,
+pushing the log forward laboriously between them.</p>
+
+<p>They kept silent,
+paddling slowly through what seemed an eternity of cold and darkness,
+letting the current do most of the work. Rick tried to estimate the
+distance they had traveled, but the light of the inspection station was
+invisible from the level of the water’s surface.</p>
+
+<p>At last Deva spoke,
+her voice thin with cold and anxiety. “This is far enough. I’m sure
+we must be well past the station.”</p>
+
+<p>They climbed out on the bank once
+more and saw the signal light a satisfying distance behind them. They
+dried themselves hastily against the chill of the night and donned
+their clothes, which had remained fairly dry.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you
+want to rest for a while?” Rick asked.</p>
+
+<p>“No time for that,” Deva said.
+“We’ve got to put as much distance as possible between ourselves and
+that station before daylight. We can find a place to rest and hide
+all day tomorrow.”</p>
+
+<p>As dawn approached, Deva could no longer conceal
+her fatigue. They had not slowed during the night, but now they began
+searching for adequate shelter to protect them from observation during
+the day. They found it at last in a thick cluster of foliage by the
+river bank. So dense was its canopy of leaves that even the sky was
+hidden from their sight when they were at rest in its center.</p>
+
+<p>They
+ate a small quantity of the food concentrate which they had smuggled
+out, and almost immediately afterwards Deva fell into a deep sleep.</p>
+
+<p>Rick remained awake until the sun was high overhead, keeping an alert
+lookout for possible pursuit. There was no sign of a hue and cry from
+any direction. He began to let himself think that they were no longer
+in any immediate danger. Possibly the Machine and the Watch Police were
+not even very much concerned about an escape such as theirs. Citizens
+who wanted to run away were probably considered of very little value to
+society.</p>
+
+<p>He allowed drowsiness to creep upon
+him as he contemplated his future plans. His first and major obligation
+was to see Deva to the nearest settlement of the Outlanders at which
+she wished to stay. Then he’d drift on. No place in particular.
+Eventually, he supposed, he’d have to throw in with the Outlanders
+somewhere. But until that day arrived—well, he’d always wanted to see
+as much of the land as possible.</p>
+
+<p>He thought, too, of Deva. She had
+remarkable courage and an amazing spirit of independence, he admitted
+in admiration. He might even find himself missing that fiery mop of
+hair and equally burning temper. In any event, he owed her a debt of
+gratitude he could never repay.</p>
+
+<p>He was aware next of darkness and of
+hands tugging at him in ungentle persistence. Deva’s voice whispered
+impatiently in his ear. “Come on, it’s time we were on our way!”</p>
+
+<p>He
+struggled awake, and snatched up a food concentrate. He munched on it
+as they made their way cautiously out of the shelter.</p>
+
+<p>“How much farther
+must we go before we start hitting Outlander settlements?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s hard to tell,” she replied. “They move around. But we should be
+on the edge of their country by morning.”</p>
+
+<p>They moved rapidly through
+the wilderness again, following the course of the river, but Deva
+tired more quickly now. She was willing to stop for rest occasionally
+but not for long. It was approaching dawn when they heard the first
+faint thread of unfamiliar sound in the air. Deva paused in alarm and
+glanced up to the sky, listening.</p>
+
+<p>“What is it?” Rick asked.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t
+know. Wait—yes, I do. They’re after us! That’s a helicopter, and it’s
+heading straight this way.”</p>
+
+<p>Frantically, she raced toward the heavy
+foliage on the shore. The sound increased and seemed to arrow toward
+them. They settled in a crouch under the densest cover they could find.
+But still the sound came on.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Deva gasped. “I should have
+remembered—!”</p>
+
+<p>“Remembered what?”</p>
+
+<p>“Quick!” she urged, grasping his arm.
+“Into the water!”</p>
+
+<p>Not understanding, Rick stumbled riverward through
+the brush. “What for?” he asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Infra-red detectors. They’re certain
+to have them. They may be trained on us already. The water may not
+mask us. But it’s our only chance.”</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>They were out of the underbrush
+now and descending the sloping bank. The sound of the beating vanes
+was so loud in their ears that it seemed almost upon them. Suddenly
+a tiny spurt of light snapped out of the sky. Momentarily it cast a
+ball of flaming brilliance about Deva. Then she cried out and fell
+to the ground.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m hit! Go on, Rick. Into the
+water. Forget about me—”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="VIII">
+    VIII
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>In his office high in the tower of
+Orientation Center, Dr. Bernard Jackson put down the report of the
+Twelfth Sector Watch Police and sighed. He removed his glasses and
+pinched the bridge of his nose, his features haggard with strain.</p>
+
+<p>“Action completed,” he said finally to Dr. Flora Johns, who occupied
+a chair nearby. “Everything went precisely according to schedule. I
+hope it works out. I liked those two. Remember what he called himself
+and the girl? A Rillo range sire and a salt grass heifer! I’ve got an
+idea he’ll change his mind about her before long!”</p>
+
+<p>“I fail to see why
+it was necessary to order the Police to deliberately shoot her,” Flora
+Johns said with a tartness that verged on bitterness. “She might have
+been killed. We don’t know yet how serious the injury was. The Police
+aren’t that good at shooting a moving target from a plane.”</p>
+
+<p>“It was a
+necessary risk. You know that. You read the Machine’s instructions.”</p>
+
+<p>“But I don’t always believe them!”</p>
+
+<p>“It was necessary because he would
+have taken her to the first Outlander Settlement, left her there, and
+gone on his own way. And if he had suggested anything else she would
+have opposed it.</p>
+
+<p>“It was absolutely necessary to put her in a state
+of complete dependency on him for a long enough period to enable her
+to overcome her resistance to his presence. The injury was the only
+available means.”</p>
+
+<p>“So says that idiot Machine!”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Jackson smiled.</p>
+
+<p>“Careful, Flora—even the walls have ears. Or so it is said.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t
+care! If the Machine was going to drag us in for insubordination it
+would have happened long ago. Sometimes I wonder just what the devilish
+thing is up to, anyway!”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s something I’ve been thinking about
+for a long time,” he said slowly. “And I think that with this present
+case I’ve been able to figure it out.”</p>
+
+<p>“What have you figured out?”</p>
+
+<p>“The Machine has recognized from the beginning that we’ve asked it for
+more than it could deliver. We’ve always assumed that we had succeeded
+in creating a Machine that could think like a man. We forgot there
+are two answers to the problem of creating equal thinking in men and
+machines.</p>
+
+<p>“We haven’t built a Machine that thinks like a man. Instead,
+we’ve developed a generation of men that think like machines!”</p>
+
+<p>“What are you talking about?”</p>
+
+<p>“Just that. We’ve leveled men and machines to
+the same category, but not by raising machine thinking. We’ve done
+it by lowering men. So today we have thinking
+machines, all right. Millions of them. All over the globe. We call them
+men!”</p>
+
+<p>“The Machine has its judgment circuits—”</p>
+
+<p>“Fortunately, yes. And
+this gives it just sufficient ability to recognize its own failure—and
+wisdom enough to turn the problem back where it belongs.</p>
+
+<p>“What
+essential difference there is between true human thought, and the kind
+of thought we’ve developed in the Machine, I don’t know. And I don’t
+think the Machine knows. But it’s throwing the problem back to the only
+possible source of solution: human beings. Don’t you see?”</p>
+
+<p>Dr. Flora
+Johns was staring through the windows of the tower to the glistening
+city beyond. “If only you were right!” she whispered.</p>
+
+<p>“I have to be
+right!” Dr. Jackson exclaimed. “It’s the only possible answer. If it
+weren’t, you and I would have been ordered drawn and quartered long
+ago. But the Machine picked us—and scores of others like us.</p>
+
+<p>“It keeps
+us in our present positions and gives out wholly insane instructions—by
+accepted understanding of its purposes. It gives out pairings like this
+one we’ve just handled. And provides a clear path for their escape to
+the Outlander settlements, and insures that they will stay together
+in spite of themselves. I tell you the Machine is bent on seeing
+that we somehow rectify our own mistakes and make men out of those
+millions of thinking machines that inhabit the world!”</p>
+
+<p>“But to what
+purpose?” Flora Johns cried. “We’ll be going back to the chaos from
+which we escaped by the very creation of the Machine. It has showed us
+how to insure peace, prosperity, happiness. We’ve got the perfection
+of society that men struggled for thousands of years to obtain!”</p>
+
+<p>Dr.
+Jackson shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>“No. What we <i>have</i> got isn’t it. We may have
+come close, but for all practical purposes we’ve run up a blind alley.
+We can thank whatever Providence is watching over us that the Machine
+has been capable of recognizing that fact.</p>
+
+<p>“Our failure is in turning
+over final thought and judgment to something outside ourselves. Until
+we are able to take the responsibility and work out answers with our
+own personal gray matter, we have not solved the problem. Certainly,
+our existing solution is a failure.</p>
+
+<p>“Maybe a definite, positive
+solution is unobtainable. Perhaps the only answer is in the continued
+searching for an answer. I don’t know, and I feel certain the Machine
+doesn’t know. But it’s trying to develop a sector of humanity that
+might be able to find out!”</p>
+
+<p>“It sounds right,” Flora Johns whispered
+again, and now her eyes were aglow. “It <i>has</i> to be right!”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="IX">
+    IX
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p>A full harvest season had come and gone, and Rick Theron
+had stayed with the Outlanders far longer than he had at first had
+any intention of doing. Deva was on her feet again. She had a little
+limp, but it had been a long time since her injury had kept her from
+running and working with the strongest of the Outlander women.</p>
+
+<p>It
+was time to be moving on.</p>
+
+<p>Yet, as Rick saw her coming from the cabin
+he’d helped build for her, something caught again deep in the middle
+of his chest. He wondered what the day would be like that denied him
+the sight of that red crest of hair, tumbled by the wind, or bound in
+tender curls.</p>
+
+<p>He moved toward her resolutely.</p>
+
+<p>“You’re on your way?” she
+asked.</p>
+
+<p>“Deva,” he said. “I’ve been doing some thinking. We don’t know
+yet where we’re going to end up, and you and I haven’t got any better
+friends out here than each other. We’ve made out pretty good so far.
+Why don’t we just kind of stick together and see what comes of it?”</p>
+
+<p>She
+looked at him almost shyly, with a slow smile starting at the corners
+of her mouth. “I was just about to suggest the same thing,” she said.</p>
+
+<p>“You think it could be that the Machine was right about us, after all?”</p>
+
+<p>“It might be wise not to be hasty in going against it,” Deva said.</p>
+
+<p>He
+reached for her suddenly and gathered her into his arms and kissed her
+long, and passionately.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes,” she said. “I think I could even learn to
+like that. In time and with practice, darling.”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter"></div><div class="transnote">
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Transcribers_Note">
+    Transcriber’s Note:
+  </h2>
+
+
+
+<p>This etext was produced from Fantastic Universe, July 1956 (Vol. 5,
+No. 6). Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
+copyright on this publication was renewed.</p>
+
+<p>Obvious errors have been silently corrected in this version, but minor
+inconsistencies have been retained as printed.</p>
+
+<p>The chapter heading <b>IX</b> has been added in this version.</p>
+</div>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78681 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
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+
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+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78681
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78681)