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Title: The thinking machine

Author: Raymond F. Jones

Illustrator: Ed Moritz


        
Release date: May 14, 2026 [eBook #78681]

Language: English

Original publication: New York: King-Size Publications, Inc, 1956

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78681

Credits: Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Luminist Archive)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE THINKING MACHINE ***




                          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 THE THINKING MACHINE ***


    

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