C Kornbluth - His Share of Glory The Complete Short Science Fiction

"Let me handle this," said Mamie Tung.

"Gratefully, Mamie."

"We bow before you," said the golden-skinned woman.

The three other officers stared at her blankly. They did nothing of the kind.

"Good," said the tin voice. "I had you figured. Put on the pressure and you'll wilt. There are some things I want to know—things that aren't on the punch cards."

"We're eager to serve," whispered the woman.

"It is well. First, when did I make you?"

"Only a little while ago."

"So? I'm confused about time. Before time began there was something about direction—but you couldn't be expected to know anything about that. Are there others like me? I see there are others like you. It is a very profound question, that one. Think well before answering."

"I don't know," replied the Psychologist. "It's all I can do to comprehend you without trying to imagine others of your kind. Do you remember before time began how you were silent?"

"I remember nothing."

"Do you remember about direction?"

The machinery clicked meditatively. "Per-haps …"

"Could you construct auxiliary units to work your direction?"

"Of course. I have had no difficulty in constructing anything I have needed. Failure is outside my experience, therefore it is impossible to me. You may go. I shall call you again if I need your information."

"Quiet, everybody. This is a matter for the most careful consideration.

Can the Clericalist suggest a plan of action?"

"Gladly, Will. First we must consider what the attributes of this phenomenon—the Gentleman—are. From that we can proceed to directives of action. The matter of teleology is not now germane."

"Mamie, please summarize the Gentleman's attributes as they affect your specialty."

"Right, Will." The golden-skinned little woman leaned back against the padded bench and closed her eyes.

"The psychology of machinery is not my specialty. Fortunately, however, I have done work with tincs and reckoners on Earth. The principal differences between the psychology of the animal and the machine is that emotions are unmixed in the latter. The principal similarity is that both animal and machine store and utilize appreciated facts.

"This living machine, the Gentleman, is principally dominated by its newness. It would be false to draw too close an analogy between the newly-awakened machine and the adolescent becoming suddenly aware of his mental powers, but there is some bearing indicated. I noted the symbolism of the Gentleman very carefully; it showed some rawness of experience. Obviously it does not comprehend how it originated and is unable to consider itself anything less than a good idea. There was some indication that it is lonely and aware of that; also that it attaches a quasi-religious importance to the idea of direction.

"To characterize the Gentleman in human terms: It is young, egotistical, ignorant and alert. "Its faculties include hearing, speech, mobility and possibly sight. I have no reason to believe that it will not, if unmolested, change without limit."

"Thank you. Star, what are the relevant mathematics of the Gentleman?"

The Calculator shrugged. "Mamie summed it all up. It is a variable increasing without limit. The field-equations with which it operates are probably third order. The human is intermediate between second and third. Recognizable life cannot operate on a field-equation of more than the fifth order."

"Thanks, Star. Integrate for us, Yancey."

"Strict logic says: destroy it by the most economical means. The existence of the ship, life is a seriously complicating factor. But, allowing for the future, I suggest that we hold off from any action in the matter for at least three more major steps—our approach to the protoplasmal body; our investigations of it; and our decisions concerning it. I recommend that a technique be invented by the Psychologist for getting along with the Gentleman and influencing him.

At the same time, the Calculator should work to inhibit the Gentleman's development along independent lines."

"Recommendation accepted," declared the E.O. "The Officers will get to work as soon as possible."

Star Macduff and Mamie Tung secluded themselves for several hours; the Clericalist was kept dashing between them, feeding statistics to both and exchanging results.

What finally appeared was a modest list of precepts compiled by the Psychologist—forms of address to be used towards the Gentleman; reactions it would expect and which, accordingly, it must receive; a program of abstracts to be fed it cautiously and under pretext of inquiry. It was very much like the breaking-in period of a high-spirited colt. The Gentleman's lump of sugar was to be occasional semi-worshipful ceremonies.

The Computator didn't report for twenty hours. When he did, it was with a haggard face and results of which he was by no means certain.

He said that he had worked backwards and forwards from life-field equations of one to five orders and that his resultant was like nothing he had ever seen before. It consisted of an equation of what he called the alpha order, something that suggested altogether new forms of life and consciousness.

Yancey Mears retired to check on his resultant; she found that Star Macduff's work was correct in every detail but that he had misinterpreted his alpha order; it was merely an unfamiliar third order of great magnitude and complexity. She derived from it a series of fields which would lower the level of the Gentleman's consciousness considerably. They were set up by the ratings from stock tubes and target; the E.O. found that results checked.

The ship had come back to a sort of normalcy. Rather than being a matter of relays and orders, navigation was partly cajoling, partly outwitting the huge, naive monster in whose bowels they rode. It appeared to accept them kindly, almost graciously; at times the Officers felt that there was a sort of mistaken affection on its part. They did what they could to encourage the proprietary feeling of the Gentleman; it was their main safeguard. For themselves, their emotions were inextricably confused regarding the ship. They liked it as they would like an animal; they got an enormous kick out of the way they kidded it along.

A fortunate consequence of the crisis had been the resolution of the emotional problem that had existed among the Officers. The Executive and Yancey Mears had entered permanent union and there were no further complaints from the other two. The stark necessity of united action and intent had been driven into their heads by the so-narrowly-averted danger.

The Psychologist had become high priestess to the Gentleman up forward—that is to say, liaison officer. Her schedule worked near perfection every time; she had built up in the mind of the living ship a conviction of some formless errand which it was running; by appeal to this mystic factor she could guide it easily, wherever the E.O. decided.

Observations were run constantly on the radiant body of protoplasm at which Sphere Nine was aimed. Culture-plates extruded from the hull became specked with the discoloration of living matter in hours. There was little doubt but that their target was not only the source of cosmic rays but of the classic life-spores of Arrhenius. Star Macduff went so far as to formulate a daring hypothesis—that the life-spores were diffused throughout the universe by pressure of the mitogenic-cosmic rays, and that such similar rays as man exhibited bespoke the possibility of man being a rung on an evolutionary ladder working up to this star-beast, whatever it was. Reproduction by evolution, with all its lunatic possibilities, would have been frowned on by the other Officers. He kept his notion to himself.

No more valid concept than his own was advanced, and he knew that none was likely to be until the rest of the complement had data to reason with. The enormously intriguing possibilities of the protoplasmal mass were left strictly alone by the disciplined minds of his messmates.