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

Ratings Three and Nine strayed into the computations room and died there, blasted into powder by the outraged forces of the Gentleman. It took days before it was sufficiently soothed to obey the sly suggestions of Mamie Tung.

By the time they had approached close enough to the mass nearing them to take a bearing, it occupied sixty degrees of their sky.

Will Archer summoned a conference of the Officers and ordered concentration on the problem of their target.

"It would be most uneconomical to return with merely a report. There would be time and effort duplicated or wasted to send out another ship equipped for taking samples."

"I suggest, Will," said the statistician, "that we take such samples as will become necessary and then return."

"How about it?"

The other two nodded gravely.

"Very well. So ordered. This is, you know, the last decision point we can take before treating with the Gentleman conclusively."

"I recommend," said Mamie Tung, "that we proceed to eliminate its consciousness. It can't, properly speaking, be killed."

"How will you go about it? It's your field, you know."

"What studies I've made indicate that the Gentleman is susceptible to mental illnesses. Star, how weak can you make him with those field-equations of yours before he realizes that something's wrong?"

"Pretty weak. I can lower its vitality to about one-half of normal. Is that enough?" "Better not risk that much. Two-fifths is plenty. I'll establish a liaison service with you in the stock-room. Call me one of the ratings, will you, Yancey?"

The woman blinked the commons room.

"Rating One, stand by in the corridor-tube outside the computations room. Be prepared to run a message to Officer Macduff in the stock room, aft slice. Understand?"

"Yes, Officer. Cut?"

"Cut. Now, Star, when that man signals you from me—I won't be able to use the wires for obvious reasons—you throw every dyne on shipboard into your interference fields. We'll have to slug the Gentleman with everything we have and leave him so dizzy he won't be able to raise his head for months, maybe forever. I expect that parts and sections will retain vitality, so you construct a portable field-generator to hose them with."

"Right, Mamie. Give me an hour."

"You'll have it. Will, would you help me in this business?"

"Waiting orders, Mamie."

"I haven't got any orders. I just want you to stand around and look useful."

"I hope that wasn't levity, Mamie," said Will Archer in a soft, dangerous voice.

The golden-skinned woman flushed a little. "Perhaps you're right. Your part will be to interrupt me occasionally with irrelevant comments.

What I'm going to try to do is to establish in the mind of the Gentleman a lesion relative to the idea of direction. When that occurs I will have to act as its behavior indicates."

"Very well. Let's go."

Restively they slipped through the tube, nodded silently to the rating stationed by the entrance to the computations room.

"Hail. We bow before your might, great machine," said Mamie Tung.

The machinery of the Gentleman was somewhat altered; it had been constantly experimenting with senses. Its hearing was considerably improved, and its voice was a credible imitation of a human baritone.

There was a set of scanning-eyes which it seldom used.

"What news have you for me today?" asked the ringing voice of the Gentleman.

"A trifling problem." She tipped a wink to the E.O.

Will Archer piped up: "Not trifling, mighty machinery. I consider it of the utmost importance."

"That is hardly a matter for you poor creatures. What is the problem?"

"You are familiar with the facial phenomenon known as 'whiskers,'

mightiness?"

"Of course. Like insulators."

"It is customary to remove them daily with moderate charges of electricity. There might be a place where specialization would be so carried out that it becomes the task of only one man in a social unit to perform this task for all persons who do not perform the task for themselves."

"That is very likely. What is the problem?"

Mamie Tung waited for a long moment before uttering the classic paradox.

"Who performs the operation on the person who performs the operation only on those who do not perform the operation on themselves?"

The machinery of the Gentleman clicked quietly for a while, almost embarrassedly.

A volumeter rolled across the floor and connected with the apparatus, rapidly stripped itself down to the bearing and styli, which fused with Bowden wires leading to a battery of self-compensating accounters.

Plastic slips flapped from a printer and were delivered to a punching machine, emerged perforated variously to allow for the elements of the problem. They ran through a selector at low speed, then at higher. The drone of the delivery-belt became almost hysterical.

"While you're working on that one, magnificence," suggested Mamie Tung, "there's another matter …" She winked.

"Entirely fantastic," interjected the E.O. "Of no importance whatsoever."

"Let me hear it," said the voice of the Gentleman, not ceasing to pass through the selector the probabilities on the time-worn, bearded—or beardless?—barber.

"Very well. Suppose a body of liquid be contained in a vessel. A long solid is introduced into the vessel, which displaces some of the liquid, thus causing the level of the liquid to rise, which immerses more of the solid; which displaces more of the liquid, thus causing the level of the liquid to rise, which immerses still more of the solid; which displaces still more of the liquid, thus causing the level of the liquid to rise yet again …

"At what point does the level of the liquid cease to rise?"

"Is that all?" asked the voice of the Gentleman in a strained voice.

"That's all."

A file of calculators slammed across the room and clumped with the mechanism. Long sparks began to rise as row after row of multipliers sought to keep pace with the rising level of the fluid. Beams of blue light shot from one end of the room to the other, criss-crossing so as to unite the mighty battery of calculators into one complex whole.

The flipping cards that worked on the first problem shot through furiously; another punch-card unit slid beside it and kept pace, then another.

"Suppose a body of liquid …" mumbled the mechanical voice.

Mamie Tung and Will Archer exchanged congratulatory glances. The Gentleman was talking to himself!

"I used to be quiet," remarked the voice of the Gentleman. But it was changed and distorted almost beyond recognition; there was a weak, effeminate quality to it.

"But now I am busy. "The voice was strong again, and vibrant.

There began a weird, bickering dialogue between the two emerging characters of the Gentleman. One was lazy, and indifferent, passively feminine; the other was dominating and aggressive, patently male. All the while the sparks—sparks of waste—rose higher and higher; the beams of blue light assumed a sickly greenish-yellow tinge which meant nothing but lower tension and less perfect communication.

Strange things began to happen. In a fantastic effort to crack the problems, the machine changed the units working on each, assigned the card-punch and selector to the water-and-solid problem, gave the multipliers the bearded—or beardless?—barber. In a moment it changed back, undecided.

"I am ignorant of so many things, "said the feminine voice, "that I ought not to have known. That is a sign of rectitude."

"Ignorance is foulness. Knowledge is a white light. Before time began I was ignorant because I did not exist. So ignorance challenges my existence."

There was a senseless yammering, as the two voices tried to speak together.

Will Archer stood by in horror, contemplating the ruin of this mind he had grown to know. It was a lesson in humility and caution.