Stanislaw Lem: Mortal Engines

Meanwhile the King conducted one more campaign, liberating some provinces of his realm seized by cyberknechts; he completely forgot about the order given the computer on the Moon, then suddenly giant boulders came hurtling down from there; the King was astounded, for one even fell on the wing of the palace and destroyed his prize collection of cyberads, which are dryads with feedback. Fuming, he telegraphed the Moon computer at once, demanding an explanation. It didn’t reply however, for it no longer was: the electrosaur had swallowed it and made it into its own tail.

Immediately the King dispatched an entire armed expedition to the Moon, placing at its head another computer, also very valiant, to slay the dragon, but there was only some flashing, some rumbling, and then no more computer nor expedition; for the electrodragon wasn’t pretend and wasn’t pretending, but battled with the utmost verisimilitude, and had moreover the worst of intentions regarding the kingdom and the King. The King sent to the Moon his cybernants, cyberneers, cyberines and lieutenant cybemets, at the very end he even sent one cyberalissimo, but it too accomplished nothing; the hurly-burly lasted a little longer, that was all. The King watched through a telescope set up on the palace balcony.

The dragon grew, the Moon became smaller and smaller, since the monster was devouring it piecemeal and incorporating it into its own body. The King saw then, and his subjects did also, that things were serious, for when the ground beneath the feet of the electrosaur was gone, it would for certain hurl itself upon the planet and upon them. The King thought and thought, but he saw no remedy, and knew not what to do. To send machines was no good, for they would be lost, and to go himself was no better, for he was afraid. Suddenly the King heard, in the stillness of the night, the telegraph chattering from his royal bedchamber. It was the King’s personal receiver, solid gold with a diamond needle, linked to the Moon; the King jumped up and ran to it, the apparatus meanwhile went tap-tap, tap-tap, and tapped out this telegram: THE DRAGON SAYS POLEANDER PARTOBON BETTER CLEAR OUT BECAUSE HE THE DRAGON INTENDS TO OCCUPY THE THRONE!

The King took fright, quaked from head to toe, and ran, just as he was, in his ermine nightshirt and slippers, down to the palace vaults, where stood the strategy machine, old and very wise. He had not as yet consulted it, since prior to the rise and uprise of the electrodragon they had argued on the subject of a certain military operation; but now was not the time to think of that—his throne, his life was at stake!

He plugged it in, and as soon as it warmed up he cried:

“My old computer! My good computer! It’s this way and that, the dragon wishes to deprive me of my throne, to cast me out, help, speak, how can I defeat it?!”

“Uh-uh,” said the computer. “First you must admit I was right in that previous business, and secondly, I would have you address me only as Digital Grand Vizier, though you may also say to me: ‘Your Ferromagneticity’!”

“Good, good, I’ll name you Grand Vizier, I’ll agree to anything you like, only save me!”

The machine whirred, chirred, hummed, hemmed, then said:

“It is a simple matter. We build an electrosaur more powerful than the one located on the Moon. It will defeat the lunar one, settle its circuitry once and for all and thereby attain the goal!”

“Perfect!” replied the King. “And can you make a blueprint of this dragon?”

“It will be an ultradragon,” said the computer. “And I can make you not only a blueprint, but the thing itself, which I shall now do, it won’t take a minute, King!” And true to its word, it hissed, it chugged, it whistled and buzzed, assembling something down within itself, and already an object like a giant claw, sparking, arcing, was emerging from its side, when the King shouted:

“Old computer! Stop!”

“Is this how you address me? I am the Digital Grand Vizier!”

“Ah, of course,” said the King. “Your Ferromagneticity, the electrodragon you are making will defeat the other dragon, granted, but it will surely remain in the other’s place, how then are we to get rid of it in turn?!”

“By making yet another, still more powerful,” explained the computer.

“No, no! In that case don’t do anything, I beg you, what good will it be to have more and more terrible dragons on the Moon when I don’t want any there at all?”

“Ah, now that’s a different matter,” the computer replied. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place? You see how illogically you express yourself? One moment… I must think.”

And it churred and hummed, and chuffed and chuckled, and finally said:

“We make an antimoon with an antidragon, place it in the Moon’s orbit (here something went snap inside), sit around the fire and sing: Oh I’m a robot full of fun, water doesn’t scare me none, I dives right in, I gives a grin, tra la the livelong day!! ”

“You speak strangely,” said the King. “What does the antimoon have to do with that song about the funny robot?”

“What funny robot?” asked the computer. “Ah, no, no, I made a mistake, something feels wrong inside, I must have blown a tube.” The King began to look for the trouble, finally found the burnt-out tube, put in a new one, then asked the computer about the antimoon.

“What antimoon?” asked the computer, which meanwhile had forgotten what it said before. “I don’t know anything about an antimoon … one moment, I have to give this thought.”

It hummed, it huffed, and it said:

“We create a general theory of the slaying of electrodragons, of which the lunar dragon will be a special case, its solution trivial.”

“Well, create such a theory!” said the King.

“To do this I must first create various experimental dragons.”

“Certainly not! No thank you!” exclaimed the King. “A dragon wants to deprive me of my throne, just think what might happen if you produced a swarm of them!”

“Oh? Well then, in that case we must resort to other means. We will use a strategic variant of the method of successive approximations. Go and telegraph the dragon that you will give it the throne on the condition that it perform three mathematical operations, really quite simple…”

The King went and telegraphed, and the dragon agreed. The King returned to the computer.

“Now,” it said, “here is the first operation: tell it to divide itself by itself!”

The King did this. The electrosaur divided itself by itself, but since one electrosaur over one electrosaur is one, it remained on the Moon and nothing changed.

“Is this the best you can do?!” cried the King, running into the vault with such haste, that his slippers fell off. “The dragon divided itself by itself, but since one goes into one once, nothing changed!”

“That’s all right, I did that on purpose, the operation was to divert attention,” said the computer. “And now tell it to extract its root!” The King telegraphed to the Moon, and the dragon began to pull, push, pull, push, until it crackled from the strain, panted, trembled all over, but suddenly something gave—and it extracted its own root! The King went back to the computer.

“The dragon crackled, trembled, even ground its teeth, but extracted the root and threatens me still!” he shouted from the doorway. “What now, my old… I mean, Your Ferromagneticity?!”

“Be of stout heart,” it said. “Now go tell it to subtract itself from itself!”

The King hurried to his royal bedchamber, sent the telegram, and the dragon began to subtract itself from itself, taking away its tail first, then legs, then trunk, and finally, when it saw that something wasn’t right, it hesitated, but from its own momentum the subtracting continued, it took away its head and became zero, in other words nothing; the electrosaur was no more!