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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/78681-0.txt b/78681-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..049321d --- /dev/null +++ b/78681-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,1443 @@ +*** 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 *** diff --git a/78681-h/78681-h.htm b/78681-h/78681-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d9e598a --- /dev/null +++ b/78681-h/78681-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,1717 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1"> + <title> + The Thinking Machine | Project Gutenberg + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> + +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; +} + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} +.f15 {font-size: 1.5em;} +img.w20 {width: 20em;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 45%; margin-left: 27.5%; margin-right: 27.5%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +@media print { hr.chap {display: none; visibility: hidden;} } + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + + +blockquote { + margin-top: 0; + margin-bottom: 0; + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + + +.center {text-align: center;} + +.allsmcap {font-variant: small-caps; text-transform: lowercase;} + +figcaption {font-weight: bold;} +figcaption p {margin-top: 0; margin-bottom: .2em; text-align: inherit;} + +/* Images */ + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + + +/* Transcriber's notes */ +.transnote {background-color: #E6E6FA; + color: black; + font-size:small; + padding:0.5em; + margin-bottom:5em; + font-family:sans-serif, serif; +} + + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe116_3125 {width: 116.3125em;} + </style> +</head> + +<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> diff --git a/78681-h/images/cover.jpg b/78681-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9d1bdd --- /dev/null +++ b/78681-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6c72794 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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