 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Mark Nelson The Cosmic Computer by H.B. Piper Chapter 1 Thirty Minutes to Lich Field Con Maxwell, at the armor-glass front of the observation deck, watched the landscape rush out of the horizon and vanish beneath the ship, ten thousand feet down. He thought he knew how an hourglass must feel with the sand slowly draining out. It had been six months to Lich Field when the Mizar lifted out of La Plata spaceport, and he watched Tara dwindle away. It had been two months to Lich Field when he boarded the city of Asgard at the port of the same name on Odin. It had been two hours to Lich Field when the Countess Dorothy rose from the airship dock at Storescenda. He had had all that time, and now it was gone, and he was still unprepared for what he must face at home. Thirty Minutes to Lich Field The words echoed in his mind as though he had spoken them aloud, and then, realizing that he never addressed himself as Sir, he turned. It was the first mate. He had a clipboard in his hand, and he was wearing a Terran Federation Space Navy uniform of forty years, or about a dozen regulation changes, ago. Once Con had taken that sort of thing for granted. Now it was obtruding upon him everywhere. Thirty Minutes to Lich Field, Sir, the first officer repeated, and gave him the clipboard to check the luggage list. Velices, two, trunks, two, microbook case, one. The last item fanned a small flicker of anger, not at any person, not even at himself, but at the whole infernal situation. He nodded. That's everything. Not many passengers left aboard are there. You're the only one, first class, Sir. About forty farm-labours on the lower deck. He dismissed them as mere cargo. Lich Field's the end of the run. I know, I was born there. The mate looked again at the name on the list and grinned. Sure, you're Rodney Maxwell's son. Your father's been giving us a lot of freight lately. I guess I don't have to tell you about Lich Field. Maybe you do. I've been away for six years. Tell me, are they having labour trouble now? Labour trouble, the mate was surprised. You mean with the farm-tramps? Ten of them for every job, if you call that trouble. Well, I noticed you have steel gratings over the gangway heads to the lower deck, and all your crewmen are armed. Not just pistols, either. Oh, that's on account of pirates. Pirates, con-echoed? Well, I guess you'd call them that. A gang will come aboard, dressed like farm-tramps. They'll have tommy guns and sawed-off shotguns in their spindles. When the ship's airborne and out of reach of help, they'll break out their guns and take her. Usually kill all the crew and passengers. They don't like to leave live witnesses, the mate said. You heard about the Harriet Barn, didn't you? She was transcontinental and overseas, the biggest contra-gravity ship on the planet. They didn't pirate her, did they? The mate nodded. Six months ago, Blackie Perala's gang. There was just a tag end of a radio call that ended in a shot. By the time the air patrol got to her estimated position, it was too late. Nobody's ever seen ship, officers, crew, or passengers since. Well, great goo! Isn't the government doing anything about it? Sure! They offered a big reward for the pirates, dead or alive. And there hasn't been a single case of piracy inside the city limits of Starisenda, he added solemnly. The calder range had grown to a sharp blue line on the horizon ahead, and he could see the late afternoon sun on granite peaks. Below the fields were bare and brown, and the woods were autumn tinted. They had been green with new foliage when he had last seen them, and the wine-mellon fields had been in pink blossom. Must have gotten the crop in early on this side of the mountains. Maybe they were still harvesting over in the Gordon Valley. Or maybe this gang below was going to the wine-pressing. Now that he thought of it, he'd seen a lot of cask-staves going aboard at Starisenda. Yet there seemed to be less land under cultivation now than six years ago. He could see squares of bracken and low brush that had been melon fields recently, among the new forest that had grown up in the past forty years. The few stands of original timber towered above the second growth like hills. Those trees had been there when the planet had been colonized. That had been two hundred years ago, at the beginning of the seventh century atomic era. The name Poitem told that. Surromanticist movement, when they were rediscovering James Branch Cabell. Old Genji Gartner, the scholarly and half-piratical space rover whose ship had been the first to enter the tri-system, had been devoted to the romantic riders of the pre-atomic era. He had named all the planets of the Alpha System from the Books of Cabell, and those of Beta from Spencer's Fairy Queen, and those of Gamma from Rabelay. Of course, the camp village at his first landing site on this one had been called Starisenda. Thirty years later Genji Gartner had died there, after seeing Starisenda grow to a metropolis, and Poitem become a member republic in the Terran Federation. The other planets were uninhabitable except in airtight domed cities, but they were rich in minerals. Companies had been formed to exploit them. No food could be produced on any of them except by karniculture and hydroponic farming, and it had been cheaper to produce it naturally on Poitem. So Poitem had concentrated on agriculture and had prospered, at least for about a century. Other colonial planets were developing their own industries. The manufactured goods the Gartner Tri-System produced could no longer find a profitable market. The mines and factories on Jurgen and Koshai, on Britomart and Kallador, on Panerg and the moons of Pantagruel closed, and the factory workers went away. On Poitem the offices emptied, the farms contracted, forests reclaimed fields, and the wild game came back. Coming toward the ship out of the east now was a vast desert of crumbling concrete, landing fields and parade grounds, empty barracks and toppling sheds, airship docks, stripped gun emplacements and missile launching sites. These were more recent and dated from Poitem's second hectic prosperity when the Gartner Tri-System had been the advanced base for the Third Fleet Army Force during the System States War. It had lasted twelve years. Millions of troops were stationed on or routed through Poitem. The mines and factories reopened for war production. The Federation spent trillions on trillions of souls, piled up mountains of supplies and equipment, left the face of the world cluttered with installations. Then, without warning, the System States alliance collapsed, the rebellion ended and the scourge of peace fell on Poitem. The Federation armies departed. They took the clothes they stood in, their personal weapons and a few souvenirs. Everything else was abandoned. Even the most expensive equipment had been worth less than the cost of removal. The people who had grown richest out of the war had followed, taking their riches with them. For the next forty years, those who remained had been living on leavings. On Terra, Khan had told his friends that his father was a prospector, leaving them to interpret that as one who searched for, say, uranium. Rodney Maxwell found quite a bit of uranium, but he got it by taking apart the warheads of missiles. Now he was looking down on the granite spines of the Calder Range. Ahead the misty Gordon Valley sloped and widened to the north. Twenty minutes to Litchfield now. He still didn't know what he was going to tell the people who would be waiting for him. No, he knew that. He just didn't know how. The ship swept on, ten miles a minute, tearing through thin puffs of cloud. Ten minutes. The big bend was glistening readily in the sunlit haze, but Litchfield was still hidden inside its curve. Six. Four. The Countess Dorothy was losing speed and altitude. Now he could see it, first a blur and then distinctly. The airline's building so thick as to look squat for all its height. The yellow block of the distillery's under the plume of steam. High Garden Terrace. The Mall. Moment by moment the stigmata of decay became more evident. Terraces empty or littered with rubbish. Gardens untended and choked with wild growth. Blank-staring windows. Walls splotched with lichens. At first he was horrified at what had happened to Litchfield in six years. Then he realized that the change had been in himself. He was seeing it with new eyes as it really was. The ship came in five hundred feet above the Mall, and he could see cracked pavements sprouting grass, statues askew on their pedestals, waterless fountains. At first he thought one of them was playing, but what he had taken for spray was dust blowing from the empty basin. There was a thing about dusty fountains, some poem he'd read at the university. The fountains are dusty in the graveyard of dreams. The hinges are rusty, they swing with tiny screams. Was Poitem a graveyard of dreams? No, junkyard of empire. The Terran Federation had impoverished a hundred planets, devastated a score, actually depopulated at least three to keep the system-states alliance from seceding. It hadn't been a victory, it had only been a lesser defeat. There was a crowd, almost a mob on the deck, nearly everybody in Topside Litchfield. He spotted old Colonel Zareff, with his white hair and plum-brown skin, and Tom Brangwyn, the town marshal, red-faced and hulking above everybody else, Kurt Fawzi, the mayor, well to the front. Then he saw his father and mother and sister Flora and waved to them. They waved back, and then everybody was waving. The gangway port opened, and the academy band struck up, enthusiastically if inexpertly, as he descended to the dock. His father was wearing a black suit with a long coat, cut in the same pattern as the one he had worn six years ago, black-out curtain cloth. It was fairly new, but the coat had begun to acquire a permanent wrinkle across the right hip, over the pistol-butt. His mother's dress was new, and so was Flora's, made for the occasion. He couldn't be sure just which of the Federation Armed Forces had provided the material, but his father's shirt was Med Service Sterilon. A shame to be noticing things like that, he clasped his father's hand, kissed his mother, embraced his sister. There were a few, but very few, gray threads in his father's mustache. A few more squint wrinkles around the eyes. His mother's hair was all gray now, and she was heavier. She seemed shorter, but that would be because he'd grown a few inches in the last six years. For a moment he was surprised that Flora actually looked younger. Then he realized that to seventeen, twenty-three is practically Middle Age, but to twenty-three, twenty-nine is almost contemporary. He noticed the glint on her left hand and caught it to look at the ring. Hey, Zarathustra Sunstone! Nice, he said. Where is he, sis? He'd never met her fiancee. Wade Lucas hadn't come to Litchfield to practice medicine until the year after he'd gone to Terra. Oh, emergency, Flora said. Obstetrical case. That won't wait on anything. In Tramptown, of course. But he'll be at the party. Oops, I shouldn't have said that. That's supposed to be a surprise. Don't worry, I'll be surprised, he promised. Then Kurt Fawzy was pushing forward, holding out his hand. Thinner and grayer, but just as effusive as ever. Welcome home, Con. Judge, shake hands with him and tell him how glad we all are to see him back. Now, Franz put away the recorder. Save the interview for the chronicle till later. Ollie, Professor Kelton? One pupil Litchfield Academy can be proud of. He shook hands with them. Judge Lidoux, Franz Veltrin, old Professor Dolph Kelton. They were all happy. How much, he wondered, because he was Con Maxwell, Rodney Maxwell's son, home from Terra. And how much because of what they hoped he'd tell them. Kurt Fawzy, edging him aside, was the first to speak of it. Con, what did you find out, he whispered. Do you know where it is? He stammered, then saw Tom Brangwen and Colonel Clemseriff approaching. The older man tottering on a silver-headed cane, and the younger keeping pace with him. Neither of them had been born on Poitem. Tom Brangwen had always been reticent about where he came from, but Hathor was a good guess. There had been political trouble on Hathor twenty years ago. The losers had had to get off-planet in a hurry to dodge firing squads. Clemseriff never was reticent about his past. He came from Ashmo die, one of the System State's planets. And he had commanded a regiment, and finally a division that had been blasted down to less than regimental strength in the Alliance Army. He always wore a little rosette of System State's black and green on his coat. Hello, boy, he croaked extending a hand. Good to see you again. It sure is, Con, the town marshal agreed, then lowered his voice. Find out anything definite? We didn't have much time, Con, Kurt Fawzi said, but we've arranged a little celebration for you. We'll start it with a dinner at Senta's. You couldn't have done anything I'd have liked better, Mr. Fawzi. I'd have to have a meal at Senta's before I'd really feel at home. Well, it'll be a couple of hours. Yes, suppose we all go up to my office in the meantime, give the ladies a chance to fix up for the party, and have a little drink and a talk together. You want to do that, Con, his father asked? There was an odd undertone of anxiety or reluctance in his voice. Yes, of course, I'd like that. His father turned to speak to his mother and flora. Kurt Fawzi was speaking to his wife, interrupting himself to shout instructions to some laborers who were bringing up a contra-gravity skid. Con turned to Colonel Zareff. Good melon crop this year, he asked? The old rebel cursed. Gahena of a big crop, we're up to our necks in melons. This time next year we'll be washing our feet in brandy. Hold on to it and age it. You ought to see what they charge for a drink of Poitem Brandy on Tara. This isn't Tara and we aren't selling it by the drink, Colonel Zareff said. We're selling it at Stora Senda Spaceport for what the freighter captains pay us. You've been away too long, Con. You've forgotten what it's like to live in a poor house. The cargo was coming off now. Cask staves and more Cask staves. Zareff swore bitterly at the sight, and then they started toward the wide doors of the shipping floor inside the airline's building. Outgoing cargo was beginning to come out, casks of brandy, of course, and a lot of boxes and crates, painted light blue and bearing the yellow tree-foil of the Third Fleet Army Force and the eight-pointed red star of ordnance. Cases of rifles, square boxes of ammunition, crated autocannon. Con turned to his father. This our stuff, he asked. Where did you dig it? Rodney Maxwell laughed. You know the old tenth Army headquarters over a back of snag-tooth and the caulders? Everybody knows that was cleared out years ago. Well, always take a second look at these things everybody knows. Ten to one they're not so. It always bothered me that nobody found any underground attack shelters. I took a second look, and sure enough I found them. Right underneath, mined out of solid rock. Con, you'd be surprised at what I found there. Where are you going to sell that stuff? He asked, pointing at a passing skid. There's enough combat equipment around now to outfit a private army for every man, woman and child in Poitiers. Stores sent a spaceport. The freighter captains buy it, and sell it on some of the planets that were colonized right before the war and haven't gotten industrialized yet. I'm clearing about two hundred sols a ton on it. The skid at which he had pointed was loaded with cases of M-504 submachine guns. Even used one was worth fifty sols. Allowing for packing weight, his father was selling those Tommy guns for less than a good café on Terra got for one drink of Poitiers brandy. Chapter 2 He had been in Kurt Fawzi's office before, once or twice, with his father. He remembered it as a dim, quiet place of genteel conviviality and rambling conversation. None of the lights were bright, and the walls were almost invisible in the shadows. As they entered, Tom Brangwen went to the long table and took off his belt and holster, laying it down. One by one, the others unbuckled their weapons and added them to the pile. Clem Zareff's cane went on the table with his pistol. There was a sword inside it. That was something else he was seeing with new eyes. He hadn't started carrying a gun when he left for Terra, and he was wondering now why any of them bothered to. Why, there wouldn't be a shooting a year in Litchfield, if you didn't count the Tramptowners, and they stayed south of the docks and off the top level. Or perhaps that was just it. Litchfield was peaceful because everybody was prepared to keep it that way. It certainly wasn't because of anything the planetary government did to maintain order. Now Brangwen was setting out glasses, filling a picture from a keg in the corner of the room. The last time Kahn had been here, they'd given him a glass of wine, and he'd felt very grown up because they didn't water it for him. Well, gentlemen, Kurt Fawzi was saying, let's have a toast to our returned friend and new associate. Kahn, we're all anxious to hear what you found out, but even if you didn't learn anything, we're still happy to have you back with us. Gentlemen, to our friend and neighbor, welcome home, Kahn. Well, it's wonderful to be back, Mr. Fawzi, he began. Here, none of this Mr. foolishness. You're one of us now, Kahn, and drink up, everybody. We have plenty of brandy if we don't have anything else. You can say that again, Kurt. That was one of the distillery people. He'd remember the name in a moment. When this new crop gets pressed and fermented. I don't know where in Gehenna I'm going to vat mine till it ferments, Clem Zareff said. Or why, another planner added. Lorenzo, what are you going to be paying for wine? Lorenzo Menardis, that was the name. The distiller said he was worrying about what he'd be able to get for brandy. Oh, please, Fawzi interrupted. Not today. Not when our boy's home and is going to tell us how we can solve all our problems. Yes, Kahn, that was Morgan Gatworth, the lawyer. You did find out where Merlin is, didn't you? That set them all off. He was still holding his drink. He'd downed it in one gulp, barely tasting it, and handed the glass to Tom Brangwin for a refill, and caught a frown on his father's face. He did not gulp drinks in Kurt Fawzi's office. Well, neither did one blast everybody's hopes with half a dozen words, and that was what he was trying to force himself to do. He wanted to blurt out the one quick sentence and get it over with, but the words wouldn't come out of his throat. He lowered the second drink by half. The brandy was beginning to warm him and dissolve the cold lump in his stomach. Have to go easy, though. He wasn't used to this kind of drinking, and he wanted to stay sober enough to talk sense until he told them what he had to. I hope, he said, that you don't expect me to show you the cross on the map where the computer is buried. All the eyes around him began to look troubled. Most of them had been expecting precisely that. His father was watching him anxiously. But it's still here on Poitem, isn't it? One of the Mellon planters asked. They didn't take it away with them. Most of you gentlemen, he said, contributed to sending me to school on Tara to study cybernetics and computer theory. It wouldn't do us any good to find Merlin if none of us could operate it. Well, I've done that. I can use any known type of computer and train assistance. After I graduated, I was offered a junior instructor ship in computer physics at the university. You didn't mention that, son, his father said. The letter would have come on the same ship I did. Besides, I didn't think it was very important. I think it is. There was a catch in old Dolph Kelton's voice. One of my boys from the academy offered a place on the faculty of the University of Montevideo on Tara. He finished his drink and held out his glass for more, something he almost never did. Con means, Kurt Fawzy explained, that it had nothing to do with Merlin. All right. Now tell them the truth. I was also to find out anything I could about a secret giant computer used during the war by the Third Fleet Army Force, co-named Merlin. I went over all the records available to the public. I used your letter, professor, and the head of our modern history department secured me access to non-public material, some of it still classified. For one thing, I have locations and maps and plans of every Federation installation built here between 842 and 854, the whole period of the war. He turned to his father. There are incredible things still undiscovered. Most of the important installations were built in duplicate, sometimes triplicate, as a precaution against space attack. I know where all of them are. Space attack! Clemseriff was indignant. There never was a time we could have attacked Poitem. Even if we'd had the ships, we were fighting a purely defensive war. Aggression was no part of our policy. He interrupted. Excuse me, Colonel. The point I was trying to make is that, with all I was able to learn, I could find nothing, not one single word about any giant strategic planning computer called Merlin or any Merlin project. There he'd gotten it out. Now go on and tell them about the old man in the dome house on Luna. The room was silent, except for the small insectile hum of the electric clock. Then somebody set a glass on the table, and it sounded like a hammer blow. Nothing, Con! Kurt Fawzy was incredulous. Judge Lidoux's hand shook as though palsied as he tried to relight his cigar. Dolph Kelton was looking at the drink in his hand as though he had no idea what it was. The others found their voices one by one. Of course it was the most closely guarded secret, but after forty years, Ha! Don't tell me about security, Colonel Zeriff barked. You should have seen the lengths our staff went to. I remember once on Mephistopheles. But there was a computer code named Merlin, Judge Lidoux was insisting, to convince himself more than anybody else. Its memory bank contained all human knowledge. It was capable of scanning all its data instantaneously and combining and forming associations and reasoning with absolute accuracy and extrapolating to produce new facts and predicting future events and, and if you'd asked such a computer, is there a God? It would have simply answered, present. We'd have won the war except for Merlin, Zeriff was declaring. Con, from what you've learned of computers generally, how big would Merlin have to be? Old Professor Kelton asked. Well, the astrophysics computer at the university occupied a volume of a hundred thousand cubic feet. For all Merlin was supposed to do, I'd say something of the order of three million to five million. Well, it's a cinch they didn't haul that away with them, Lester Dawes the banker said. Oh, lots of places on Poitem where they could have hid a thing like that, Tom Brangwyn said. You know, a planet's a mighty big place. It didn't have to be on Poitem even, Morgan Gatworth pointed out. It could be anywhere in the tri-system. You know where I'd have put it, Lorenzo Menardis asked, on one of the moons of Pentegrul. But that's in the gamma-system three light years away, Kurt Fawzi objected. There isn't a hypership on this planet, and it would take half a lifetime to get there on normal space-drive. Con was lifting his glass to his lips. He set it down again and rose to his feet. Then, he said, we will build a hypership. On Koshai, there are shipyards and hyper-drive engines and everything we will need. We only need one normal space interplanetary ship to get there, and we're in business. Well, I don't know we need one, Judge Lidoux said. That was only an idea of Lorenzo's. I think Merlin's right here on Poitem. We don't know it is, Con replied. And we don't know we won't need a ship. Merlin may be on Koshai. That's where the components would be fabricated, and the armed forces weren't hauling anything any farther than they had to. Koshai is only two and a half minutes away by radio. That's practically in the next room. Look, here's how they could have done it. He went on talking about remote controls and radio transmission and positronic brains and neutrino circuits. They believed it all, even the little they understood. They would believe anything he told them about Merlin, except the truth. But this will take money, Lester Dawes said, and after that infernal deluge of unsecured paper currency thirty years ago... I have no doubt, Judge Lidoux began, that the planetary government at Storisenda would give assistance. I have some slight influence with President Weichhoven. Ha, ha! That was one of Clem Zareff's fellow-planters. We don't want Jake Weichhoven, or any of his first families of Storisenda oligarchy in this at all. That's the gang that bankrupted the government with doles and work relief. And everybody else with worthless printing-press money after the war. And they've been squatting in a circle, deploring things ever since. Some of these days Blackie Peralis and his pirates will sack Storisenda for all they'd be able to do to stop him. We get a ship out to Corsai, and the next thing you know will be the planetary government, Tom Brangwen said. Rodney Maxwell finished the brandy in his glass and set it on the table. Then went to the pile of belts and holsters and began rummaging for his own. Kurt Fawzy looked up in surprise. Rod, you're not leaving, are you? he asked. Yes, it's only half an hour till time for dinner, and I think Conn and I ought to have a little fresh air. Besides, you know we haven't seen each other for six years. He buckled on the heavy automatic and settled the belt over his hips. You didn't have a gun, did you, Conn? he asked. OK, let's go. End of chapters one and two. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit LibriVox.org. Reading by Mark Nelson. The Cosmic Computer by H. B. Piper. Chapter 3 It wasn't until they were down to the main level and outside in the little plaza to the east of the airlines building that his father broke the silence. That was quite a talk you gave them, Conn. They believed every word of it. I even caught myself starting to believe it once or twice. Conn stopped short. His father halted beside him. Why didn't you tell them the truth, son? Rodney Maxwell asked. The question which he had been throwing at himself angered him. Why didn't I just grab a couple of pistols and shoot the lot of them, he retorted? It wouldn't have killed him any deader and it wouldn't have hurt as much. There is no Merlin, is that it? He realized suddenly that his father had known or suspected that all along. He started to say something, then checked himself and began again. There never was one. I was going to tell them, but you saw them. I couldn't. You sure of it? The whole thing's a myth. I'm quoting the one man in the galaxy who ought to know. The man who commanded the Third Force here during the war. Fox Travis? His father's voice was soft with wonder. I saw him once when I was eight years old. I thought he died long ago. Why, he must be over a hundred. A hundred and twelve. He's living on Luna, low gravities all that keeps him alive. And you talk to him? Yes. There'd been a girl in his third year biophysics class. He'd found out that she was a great-granddaughter of Forrest General Travis. It had taken him until his senior midterm vacation to wangle an invitation to the dome house on Luna. After that it had been easy. As soon as Fox Travis had learned that one of his great-granddaughter's guests was from Poitem, he had insisted on talking to him. What did he tell you? The old man had been incredibly thin and frail. Under normal gravitation his life would have gone out like a blown match. Even at one sixth G. it had cost him effort to rise and greet the guest. There had been a younger man, a mere stripling of seventy odd. He had been worried and excused himself at once. Travis had laughed after he had gone out. Mike Shanley, my aide to camp on Poitem. Now he thinks he's my keeper. He'll have a squad of doctors and a platoon of nurses in here as soon as you're gone, so take your time. Now tell me how things are on Poitem. Just about that, he told his father. I finally mentioned Merlin as an old legend people still talked about. I was ashamed to admit anybody really believed in it. He laughed and said, Great goo, is that thing still around? Well, I suppose so. It was all through the third force during the war. Lord only knows how these rumours start among troops. We never contradicted it. It was good for morale. They had started walking again and were out on the mall. The sky was flaming red and orange from high cirrus clouds in the sunset light. They stopped by a dry fountain, perhaps the one from which he had seen the dust blowing. Rodney Maxwell sat down on the edge of the basin and got out two cigars, handing one to Khan, who produced his lighter. Khan, they wouldn't have believed you in Fox Travis, he said. Merlin's a religion with these people. Merlin's a robot god, something they can shove all their problems on to. As soon as they find Merlin, everybody will be rich and happy, the government bonds will be redeemed at face value plus interest, the paper money will be worth a hundred federations sent to Saul's to the Saul, and the leaves and waste paper will be raked off them all, all by magic. He muttered in unprintability and laughed bitterly. I didn't know you were the village atheist, Father. In a religious community the village atheist keeps his doubts to himself. I have to do business with these Merlinolators. It's all I can do to keep Flora from antagonizing them at school. Flora was a teacher, now she was assistant principal of the grade schools. Professor Kelton was also school superintendent. He could see how that would be. Flora's not a true believer, then. Rodney Maxwell shook his head. That's largely Wade Lucas's influence, I'd say. You know about him. Just from letters. Wade Lucas was from Baldur. He'd gone off-planet as soon as he'd gotten his MD. Evidently the professional situation there was the same as on Terra. Plenty of opportunities and fifty competitors for each one. On Poitème there were few opportunities, but nobody competed for anything, not even to find Merlin. He'd never heard of Merlin till he came here, and when he did he just couldn't believe in it. I don't blame him. I've heard about it all my life, and I can't. Why not? To begin with, I suppose, because it's just another of these things everybody believes. Then I've had to do some studying on the Third Force occupation of Poitème to know where to go and dig, and I never found any official or even reliably unofficial mention of anything of this sort. Forty years is a long time to keep a secret, you know, and I can't see why they didn't come back for it after the pressure to get the troops' home was off, or why they didn't build a dozen Merlins. This isn't the only planet that has problems they can't solve for themselves. What's mother's attitude on Merlin? She's against it. She thinks it isn't right to make machines that are smarter than people. I'll agree. It's scientifically impossible. That's what I've been trying to tell her. Con, I noticed that after Kurt Fawzy started talking about how long it would take to get to the gamma system, you jumped right into it and began talking up a ship. Did you think that if you got them started on that, it would take their minds off Merlin? That gang up in Fawzy's office, Niflheim know, they'll go on hunting Merlin till they die. But I was serious about the ship. An idea hit me. You gave it to me. You and Clem Zareff. Why, I didn't say a word. Down on the shipping floor, before we went up. You were talking about selling arms and ammunition at a profit of two hundred sols a ton. And Klein was talking as though a bumper crop was worse than a green death epidemic. If we had a hypership, look what we could do. How much do you think a settler on Hoth, or Mailbolge, or... Or Ehrman's soul would pay for a good rifle and a thousand rounds? How much would he pay for his life? That's what it would come to. And do you know what a fifteen-cc liqueur glass of Poitem brandy sells for on Terra? One sol. Federation money. I'll admit it cost like Niflheim to run a hypership. But look at the difference between what these tramp freighter captains pay at Storesenda and what they get. I've been looking at it for a long time. Maybe if we had a few ships of our own, these planters would be breaking new ground instead of cutting their planings. And maybe we'd get some money on this planet that was worth something. You have a good idea there, son. But maybe there's an angle to it you haven't thought of. Khan puffs slowly at the cigar. Why couldn't they grow tobacco like this on Terra? Soil chemicals, he supposed. That wasn't his subject. You can't put this scheme over on its merits. This gang wouldn't lift a finger to build a hypership. They've completely lost hope in everything but Merlin. Well, can do. I'll even convince them that Merlin's a space station in orbit off Koshai. I think I could do that. You know what it'll cost? If you go ahead with it, I'm in it with you. Make no mistake about that. But you and I will be the only two people on Poitem who can be trusted with the truth. We'll have to lie to everybody else, with every word we speak. We'll have to lie to Flora, and we'll have to lie to your mother. Your mother most of all. She believes in absolutes. Lying is absolutely wrong no matter whom it helps. Telling the truth is absolutely right, no matter how much damage it does or how many hearts it breaks. You think this is going to be worth a price like that? Don't you, he demanded, and then pointed along the crumbling and littered mall. Look at that. Pretend you never saw it before and are looking at it for the first time. And then tell me whether it'll be worth it or not. His father took the cigar from his mouth. For a moment he sat staring silently. Great goo! Rodney Maxwell turned. I wonder how that sneaked up on me. I honestly never realized. Yes, con, this is a cause worth lying for. He looked at his watch. We ought to be starting for sentas, but let's take a few minutes and talk this over. How are you going to get it started? Well, convince them that I can find Merlin and that they can't find it without me. I think I've done that already. Then convince them that we have to have a ship to get to Koshai. And won't do. That'll take money, and money's something none of this gang has. You heard me talk about the stuff I found out on Tara. Father, you have no idea what all there is. You remember the old Force Command headquarters, the one the planetary government took over? I know where there's a duplicate of that, completely underground. It has everything the other one had and a lot more, because it'll be crammed full of supplies to be used in case of a general blitz that would knock out everything on the planet, and a chain of hospitals, and a spaceport over on Barathrum that was built inside the crater of an extinct volcano. There won't be any hyperships there, of course, but there'll be equipment and material. We might be able to build a ship there. And supply depots all over the planet. None of them has ever been open since the war. Don't worry about financing, we have that. His father, he could see, appreciated what he had brought home from Tara. He was nodding with quick-head jerks at each item. That'll do it all right. Now listen, what we want to do is get a company organized, a regular, limited liability company, with a charter. We'll contribute the information you brought back from Tara, and we'll get the rest of this gang to put all the money we can twist out of them into it, so we'll be sure they won't say, ah, Nifilheim with it, and walk out on us as soon as the going gets a little tough. Rodney Maxwell got to his feet, hitching his gun built. I'll pass the word to Kurt to get a meeting set up for tomorrow afternoon. What'll we call this company, Merlin Rediscovery Limited? No, we keep Merlin out of it. As far as the public is supposed to know, this is just a war material prospecting company. I'll impress on them that Merlin is to be kept a secret. That way we'll have to engage in regular prospecting and salvage work as a front. I'll see to it that the front is also the main objective. He nodded down the mall toward the sunset, which was blazing even higher and redder. Well, let's go. You don't want to be late for your own welcome home, party. They walked slowly, still talking, until they came to the end of the mall. The escalators to the level below weren't working. Now that he thought of it, they hadn't been when he had gone away six years ago, but he could remember riding up and down on them as a small child. For a moment they stood in the sunset light, looking down on the lower terrace as they finished their cigars. Sentas was mostly outdoors, the tables under the sky. The people gathered below were looking at the sunset, too. Litchfielders loved to watch sunsets, maybe because a sunset was one of the few things economic conditions couldn't affect. There was Kurt Fawzy, the center of a group to which he was declaiming earnestly. There was his mother, and Flora, and Flora's fiancée, who was the uncomfortable lone man in an excited feminine flock. And there was Senta herself, short and dumpy, in one of her preposterous red and purple dresses, bubbling happily one moment and screaming invective at some laggard waiter the next. They threw away their cigars and started down the long, motionless escalator. Con Maxwell, hero of the hour, marching to destiny! He seemed to hear trumpets sounding before him. And an occasional muted bronx cheer. CHAPTER IV The alarm chimed softly beside his bed. He reached out and silenced it, and lay looking at the early sunlight in the windows, and found that he was wishing himself back in his dorm room at the university. No, back in this room, ten years ago, before any of this had started. For a while he imagined himself thirteen years old, and knowing everything he knew now, and he began mapping a campaign to establish himself as Litchfield's juvenile delinquent number one, to the end that Kurt Fawzi and Dolph Kelton and the rest of them would never dream of sending him to school on terror to find out where Merlin was. But he couldn't even go back to yesterday afternoon in Kurt Fawzi's office and tell them the truth. All he could do was go ahead. It had seemed so easy, when he and his father had been talking on them all, just get a ship built, and get out the Koshai, and open some of the shipyards and engine works there, and build a hypership. Sure, easy, once he got started. He climbed out of bed, knuckled the sleep sand out of his eyes, threw his robe around him, and started across the room to the bath cubicle. They had decided to have breakfast together his first morning home. The party had broken up late, and then there had been the excitement of opening the presents he had brought back from Tara. Nobody had had a chance to talk about Merlin, or what he was going to do now that he was home. That, and his career of mendacity, would start at breakfast. He wanted to let his father get to the table first, to run interference for him. He took his time with his toilet, and dressed carefully and slowly. Finally, he zipped up the short waist-length jacket, and went out. His father and mother and Flora were at the table, and the serving robot was floating around a few inches off the floor, steam trailing from its coffee-earned, and its tray lid up to offer food. He greeted everybody, and sat down at his place, and the robot came around to him. His mother had selected all the things he'd been most fond of six years ago. Shovel-snout bacon, hotcakes, starberry jam, things he hadn't tasted since he had gone away. He filled his plate and poured a cup of coffee. You don't want to bother coming out to the dig with me this morning, do you, as father was saying? I'll be back here for lunch, and we'll go to the meeting in the afternoon." Meeting, Flora asked. What meeting? Oh, we didn't have time to tell you, Rodney Maxwell said. You know, Khan brought back a lot of information on locations of supply depots and things like that, an amazing list of things that haven't been discovered yet. It's going to be too much for us to handle alone. We're organizing a company to do it. We'll need a lot of labor, for one thing, jobs for some of these trap towners. That's going to be something awfully big, his mother said dubiously. You never did anything like that before. I never had the kind of partner I have now. It's Maxwell and Son from now on. Who's going to be in this company, Flora wanted to know. Oh, everybody around town. Kurt and the judge, and Clem and Lester Dawes. All that crowd. The Fawzi's office gang, Flora said disparagingly. I suppose they'll want Khan to take them right to where Merlin is, the first thing. Well, not the first thing, Khan said. Merlin was one thing I couldn't find out anything about on Terra. I'll bet you couldn't. The people at Armed Forces Records would let me look at everything else and make micro-copies and all, but not one word about computers. Forty years and they still have the security lid welded shut on that. Flora looked at him in shocked surprise. You mean to tell me you believe in that thing? Sure. How do you think they fought a war around a perimeter of close to a thousand light years? They couldn't do it all out of their heads. They'd have to have computers, and the one they'd use to correlate everything and work out grand strategy plans would have to be a dilly. Why, I'd give anything just to look at the operating panels for that thing. But that's just a silly story. There never was anything like Merlin. No wonder you couldn't find out about it. You were looking for something that doesn't exist, just like all these old cranks that sit around drinking brandy and moaning about what Merlin's going to do for them and never doing anything for themselves. Oh, they're going to do something now, Flora, his father told her, when we get this company organized. You'll dig up a lot of stuff you won't be able to sell, all the stuff you've been bringing up from Tenth Army, and then you'll go looping off chasing Merlin like the rest of them. Well, maybe that'll be a little better than just sitting in Kurt Fawzi's office talking about it. But not much. It kept on like that. Kahn and his father tried several times to change the subject. Each time Flora ignored the effort and returned to her diatribe. Finally she put her plate and cup on the robot's tray and got to her feet. I have to go, she said. Maybe I can do something to keep some of these children from growing up to be Merlin worshippers like their parents. She flung out of the room angrily. Mrs. Maxwell looked after her in distress. And I thought it was going to be so nice having breakfast together again, she lamented. Somehow the breakfast wasn't quite as good as he thought it was at first. He wondered how many more breakfasts like that he was going to have to sit through. He and his father finished quickly and got up, while his mother started the robot to clearing the table. Kahn, she said after his father had gone out, you shouldn't have gotten Flora started like that. I didn't get Flora started. She's equipped with a self-starter. If she doesn't believe in Merlin, that's her business. A lot of these people do, and I'm going to help them hunt for it. That's why they all chipped in to send me to school on Tara, remember? Yes, I know. Her voice was heavy with distress. Kahn, do you really believe there is a... that thing, she asked? Why, of course. He was mildly surprised at how sincerely and straightforwardly he said it. I don't know where it is, but it's somewhere on Poitem, or in the Alpha system. Well, do you think it would be a good thing to find it? That surprised him. Everybody knew it would be, and his mother didn't share his father's attitude about things everybody knew. She hadn't any business questioning a fundamental postulate like that. It frightens me, she continued. I don't even like to think about it. A soulless intelligence. It seems evil to me. Well, of course it's soulless. It's a machine, isn't it? An air-car's soulless, but you're not afraid to ride in one. But this is different. A machine that can think. Kahn, people weren't meant to make machines like that. Wiser than they are. Now wait a minute, mother. You're talking to a computer man now. Professional authority was something his mother oughtn't to question. A computer like Merlin isn't intelligent or wise or anything of the sort. It doesn't think. The people who make computers and use them do the thinking. A computer's a tool, like a screwdriver. It has to have a man to use it. Well, but... And please, don't talk about what people are meant to do. People aren't meant to do things. They mean to do things. And nine times out of ten, they end by doing them. It may take a hundred thousand years from a stone-aid savage in a cave to the captain of a hyperspace ship, but sooner or later they get there. His mother was silent. The soulless machine that had been clearing the table floated out of the room. The dishwasher in its rectangular belly gurgling. Maybe what he had told her was logical, but women aren't impressed by logic. She knew better, for the good old feminine reason, because... Wade Lucas wanted me to drop in on him for a check-up, he mentioned. That's rubbish. I had one for my landing critique on the ship. He just wants to size up his future brother-in-law. Well, you ought to go see him. How did Flora come to meet him, anyhow? Well, you know he came from Baldur. Flora sende looking for an opening to start a practice, and he heard about some medical equipment your father found somewhere and came out to see if he could buy it. Your father and Judge Ledoux and Mr. Fawzy talked him into opening his office here. Then he and Flora got acquainted. She asked anxiously, What do you think of him, Con? Seems like a regular guy, I think I'll like him. A husband like Wade Lucas might be a good thing for Flora. I'll drop in on him sometime this morning. His mother went toward the rear of the house, more soulless machines, like the house-cleaning robot and the laundry robot to look after. He went into his father's office and found the cigar humidor, just where it had been when he'd stolen cigars out of it six years ago and thought his father never suspected what he was doing. Now, why didn't they export this tobacco? It was better than anything they grew on Tara. Well, at least it was different, just as Poitin Brandy was different from Teran Bourbon or Baldur Honeyrum. That was the sort of thing that could be sold in interstellar trade any time and anywhere, the luxury goods that were unique. Staple foodstuffs, utility textiles, metal products could be produced anywhere, and sooner or later they were. That was the reason for the original pre-war depression. The customers were all producing for themselves. He'd talked that over with his father. He wished he'd had time to take some economics at the university. He found the file his father kept up to date on salvage sites found and registered with the claims office in Storacenda. Some of the locations he had brought back data for had been discovered, but to his relief not the underground duplicate force command headquarters and not the spaceport on the island continent of Berathrum to the east. That was all right. He went to the house defense arms closet and found a ten-millimeter navy pistol and a belt and spare clips. Making sure that the pistol and magazines were loaded he buckled it on. He debated getting a vehicle out of the hangar on the landing stage, decided against it, and started downtown on foot. One of the first people he met was Len Yenaguchi, the tailor. He would be at the meeting that afternoon. He managed, while talking, to comment on the cut of Khan's suit and finger the material. Ah, nice he complimented. Made on Tara? We don't see cloth like that here very often. He meant it wasn't armed forces salvage. Father ought to be around to see you with a bolt of material to have a suit made, he said. For Gu's sake either talk him into having a short jacket like this or get him to buy himself a shoulder holster. He's ruined every coat he ever owned carrying a gun on his hip. A little farther on he came to a combat car grounded in the middle of the street. It was green with black trimmings and lettered in black. Gordon Valley Home. Gums. Tom Brangwin was standing beside it, talking to a young man in a green uniform. Hello Khan, the town marshal looked at his hip and grinned. See you got all your clothes on this morning. You were just plain and decent yesterday. You know Fred Karski, don't you? Yes, now that Tom mentioned it he did. He and Fred had gone to school together at the Litchfield Academy. But the six years since they'd seen each other last had made a lot of difference in both of them. He was beginning to think that the only strangers in Litchfield were his own contemporaries. They shook hands and Khan looked at the combat car and Fred Karski's uniform. What's going on, he asked. The system states alliance and business again? Karski laughed. Oh, that's the colonel's idea. Green and black were his colors in the war, and he's in command of the regiment. Regiment? You need a whole regiment, Khan asked. Well, it's two companies, each about the size of a regular army platoon, but we have to call it a regiment so we can keep his old rebel army rank. We could use a regiment, Khan, Tom Brangwin said seriously. You have no idea how bad things have gotten. Over on the east coast the outlaws are looting whole towns. About four months ago they sacked Waterville, earned the whole town and killed close to a hundred people. That was Blackie Peralis gang. Who is this Blackie Peralis? I heard the name mentioned in connection with the Harriet Barn. Blackie Peralis is anybody the planetary government can't catch, which means practically any outlaw, Fred Karski said. No, Fred, there is a Blackie Peralis, Tom Brangwin said. He used to be a planner, down in the south. The banks foreclosed on him when he couldn't pay his notes, and he turned outlaw. That's the way it's going all around. Every time a planner loses his plantation, or a farmer loses his farm, or a mechanic loses his job, he turns outlaw. Take Tramptown here. We used to plant nothing but melons. Then, when the sale for wine and brandy dropped, the melon planners began cutting their melon crops and raising produce, instead of buying it from up north, and turning land into pasture for cattle. The people we used to buy foodstuffs from couldn't sell all they raised, and that threw a lot of farm hands out of work. So they got the idea there was work here, and they came flocking in, and when they couldn't get jobs, they just stayed in Tramptown, stealing anything they could. We don't even try to police Tramptown anymore, we just see to it they don't come up here. Well, where do these outlaws and pirates who are looting whole towns come from? Down in the Badlands, mostly. None of them have been bothering us since we organized the Home Guard. They tried to, a couple of times at first, but there may have been a few survivors. They spread it around that Gordon Valley wasn't any outlaw's health resort. Why don't you join us, Khan? Fred Karski asked. All our old gang belong. I'd like to, but I'm afraid I'm going to be kind of busy. Brangwyn nodded. Yes, you will be at that, he agreed. So I hear, Fred Karski said. Do you really know where it is, Khan? Well, no. He went into the routine about Merlin being still classified triple top secret. But we'll find it. It may take time, but we will. They talked for a while. He asked more questions about the Home Guard. His father, it seemed, had donated all the equipment. They had a hundred and seventy men on the active list, but they had a reserve of over eight hundred, combat vehicles and weapons on all the plantations and in all the towns along the river. The reserve had only been turned out twice. Both times outlaw attacks had been stopped dead, literally. The Home Guard, it appeared, was not given to making arrests or taking prisoners. Finally, he parted from them, strolling on along the row of stores and business places, many vacant under the south edge of the mall until he saw a fluorolite sign. Wade Lucas, MD. He entered. Lucas wasn't busy. They went into his consultation office and Khan took off his gun belt and hung it up. Lucas offered cigarettes and they lighted and sat down. I see you've started carrying one, he said, nodding to the pistol Khan had laid aside. Civic obligation. I'm going to be too busy for Home Guard duty, but if I can protect myself, it'll save somebody else the job of protecting me. Maybe if there weren't so many guns around, there wouldn't be so much trouble. He felt his good opinion of Wade Lucas start to slip. The Liberals on Terra had been full of that kind of talk, which was why only four out of ten of last year's graduating class Armed Forces Academy had been able to get active commissions. The last war had been a disaster, so don't prepare for another one. When it comes, let it be a worse disaster. Guns don't make trouble. People make trouble. If the troublemakers are armed, you have to be armed too. When did you last see an air patrol boat around here, or even a constabulary trooper? All we have here is the Home Guard, and Tom Brangwin and three deputies, and his pay and theirs is always six months in arrears. Lucas nodded. A bankrupt government, an unemployment rate that rises every year, currency that buys less every month, and do-it-yourself justice. The doctor blew a smoke ring and watched it float toward the ventilator intake. You said you're going to be busy. This company your father is talking about organizing? That's right, you're going to be at the meeting at the Academy this afternoon, aren't you? Yes. Just what are you going to do after you get it organized? Well, I brought back information on a great deal of undiscovered equipment and stores that the Third Forces left behind. He talked on for some time, keeping to safe generalities. It's too big for my father and me to handle alone, even if we didn't feel morally obligated to take in the people who contributed towards sending me to school on Tara. You ought to be interested in it. I know of six fully supplied hospitals intended to take care of the casualties in case of a system-state space attack. You can imagine, better than I can, what would be in them. Yes, medical supplies of all sorts are getting hard to find. But look here, you're not going to let those people waste time looking for this alleged computer, this thing they call Merlin, are you? We're looking for any valuable war material. I don't know the location of Merlin, but I'll bet you don't, Lucas said vehemently. That was the same thing Flora had said. But Merlin is undoubtedly the most valuable item of abandoned TF equipment on this planet. In the long run, I'd say, more valuable than everything else together. We certainly aren't going to ignore it. Good heavens, Con, you aren't like these people here. You were educated at the University of Montevideo. So I was. I studied computer theory and practice. I have some doubts about Merlin being able to do some of the things these laymen like Kelton and Fawzi and Judge Lidoux think it could. Those sorts of misconceptions and exaggerations have to be allowed for. But I have no doubt whatever that the master computer with which they did their strategic planning is probably the greatest mechanism of its sort ever built. And I have no doubt whatever that it still exists somewhere in the Alpha System. He almost convinced himself of it. He did not, however, convince Wade Lucas, who was now regarding him with narrow-eyed suspicion. You mean you categorically state that the computer actually exists. That, I think, was the general idea. Yes, I certainly do believe that Merlin exists. Maybe he was telling the truth. Merlin existed in the beliefs and hopes of people like Dolph Kelton and Clem Zareff and Judge Lidoux and Kurt Fawzi. Merlin was a god to them. Well, take Gu, the Thorin grandfather god. Gu was as preposterous theologically as Merlin was technologically. Gu, except of Thorins, was a federation-wide joke. But he'd known a couple of Thorins at the university, funny little fellows with faces like terriers, their bodies covered with matted black hair. They believed in Gu the way we believed in the second law of thermodynamics. Gu is with them every moment of their lives. Take away their belief in Gu, and they would have been lost and wretched. As lost and wretched as Kurt Fawzi or Judge Lidoux if they lost their belief in Merlin. He was starting to say something like that and then thought better of it. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. End of chapters three and four.