William Morrison: The Sack

“None,” said the Sack.

Senator Horrigan looked blank. One of the other senators flushed, and asked, “Who has?”

“Siebling.”

Senator Horrigan forgot his awe of the Sack, and shouted, “This is a put-up job!”

The other senator who had just spoken now said suddenly, “How is it that there are no other questioners present? Hasn’t the Sack’s time been sold far in advance?”

Siebling nodded. “I was ordered to cancel all previous appointments with the Sack, sir.”

“By what idiot’s orders?”

“Senator Horrigan’s, sir.”

At this point the investigation might have been said to come to an end. There was just time, before they turned away, for Senator Horrigan to demand desperately of the Sack, “Sir, will I be re-elected?” But the roar of anger that went up from his colleagues prevented him from hearing the Sack’s answer, and only the question was picked up and broadcast clearly over the interplanetary network.

It had such an effect that it in itself provided Senator Horrigan’s answer. He was not re-elected. But before the election he had time to cast his vote against Siebling’s designation to talk with the Sack for one hour out of every twenty. The final committee vote was four to three in favor of Siebling, and the decision was confirmed by the Senate. And then Senator Horrigan passed temporarily out of the Sack’s life and out of Siebling’s.

Siebling looked forward with some trepidation to his first long interview with the Sack. Hitherto he had limited himself to the simple tasks provided for in his directives—to the maintenance of the meteor shelter dome, to the provision of a sparse food supply, and to the proper placement of an army and Space Fleet Guard. For by this time the great value of the Sack had been recognized throughout the system, and it was widely realized that there would be thousands of criminals anxious to steal so defenseless a treasure.

Now, Siebling thought, he would be obliged to talk to it, and he feared that he would lose the good opinion which it had somehow acquired of him. He was in a position strangely like that of a young girl who would have liked nothing better than to talk of her dresses and her boy friends to someone with her own background, and was forced to endure a brilliant and witty conversation with some man three times her age.

But he lost some of his awe when he faced the Sack itself. It would have been absurd to say that the strange creature’s manner put him at ease. The creature had no manner. It was featureless and expressionless, and even when part of it moved, as when it was speaking, the effect was completely impersonal. Nevertheless, something about it did make him lose his fears.

For a time he stood before it and said nothing. To his surprise, the Sack spoke—the first time to his knowledge that it had done so without being asked a question. “You will not disappoint me,” it said. “I expect nothing.”

Siebling grinned. Not only had the Sack never before volunteered to speak, it had never spoken so dryly. For the first time it began to seem not so much a mechanical brain as the living creature he knew it to be. He asked, “Has anyone ever before asked you about your origin?”

“One man. That was before my time was rationed. And even he caught himself when he realized that he might better be asking how to become rich, and he paid little attention to my answer.”

“How old are you?”

“Four hundred thousand years. I can tell you to the fraction of a second, but I suppose that you do not wish me to speak as precisely as usual.”

The thing, thought Siebling, did have in its way a sense of humor. “How much of that time,” he asked, “have you spent alone?”

“More than ten thousand years.”

“You told someone once that your companions were killed by meteors. Couldn’t you have guarded against them?”

The Sack said slowly, almost wearily, “That was after we had ceased to have an interest in remaining alive. The first death was three hundred thousand years ago.”

“And you have lived, since then, without wanting to?”

“I have no great interest in dying either. Living has become a habit.”

“Why did you lose your interest in remaining alive?”

“Because we lost the future. There had been a miscalculation.”

“You are capable of making mistakes?”

“We had not lost that capacity. There was a miscalculation, and although those of us then living escaped personal disaster, our next generation was not so fortunate. We lost any chance of having descendants. After that, we had nothing for which to live.”

Siebling nodded. It was a loss of motive that a human being could understand. He asked, “With all your knowledge, couldn’t you have overcome the effects of what happened?”

The Sack said, “The more things become possible to you, the more you will understand that they cannot be done in impossible ways. We could not do everything. Sometimes one of the more stupid of those who come here asks me a question I cannot answer, and then becomes angry because he feels that he has been cheated of his credits. Others ask me to predict the future. I can predict only what I can calculate, and I soon come to the end of my powers of calculation. They are great compared to yours; they are small compared to the possibilities of the future.”

“How do you happen to know so much? Is the knowledge born in you?”

“Only the possibility for knowledge is born. To know, we must learn. It is my misfortune that I forget little.”

“What in the structure of your body, or your organs of thought, makes you capable of learning so much?”

The Sack spoke, but to Siebling the words meant nothing, and he said so. “I could predict your lack of comprehension,” said the Sack, “but I wanted you to realize it for yourself. To make things clear, I should be required to dictate ten volumes, and they would be difficult to understand even for your specialists, in biology and physics and in sciences you are just discovering.”

Siebling fell silent, and the Sack said, as if musing, “Your race is still an unintelligent one. I have been in your hands for many months, and no one has yet asked me the important questions. Those who wish to be wealthy ask about minerals and planetary land concessions, and they ask which of several schemes for making fortunes would be best. Several physicians have asked me how to treat wealthy patients who would otherwise die. Your scientists ask me to solve problems that would take them years to solve without my help. And when your rulers ask, they are the most stupid of all, wanting to know only how they may maintain their rule. None ask what they should.”

“The fate of the human race?”

“That is prophecy of the far future. It is beyond my powers.”

“What should we ask?”

“That is the question I have awaited. It is difficult for you to see its importance, only because each of you is so concerned with himself.” The Sack paused, and murmured, “I ramble as I do not permit myself to when I speak to your fools. Nevertheless, even rambling can be informative.”

“It has been to me.”

“The others do not understand that too great a directness is dangerous. They ask specific questions which demand specific replies, when they should ask something general.”

“You haven’t answered me.”

“It is part of an answer to say that a question is important. I am considered by your rulers a valuable piece of property. They should ask whether my value is as great as it seems. They should ask whether my answering questions will do good or harm.”

“Which is it?”

“Harm, great harm.”

Siebling was staggered. He said, “But if you answer truthfully—”