[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
defense against an enemy that never came.
"One thing more," added the President. "I direct that this recording cube be
securely fastened around your neck on a monomolecular cord, in such a way that
Page 59
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
you may put the cube into a viewer when you choose. You will be alone on the
station and no other off-duty activity will be available."
The President faced toward a tridi camera. "Let me assure the public that I
derive no satisfaction from imposing a punishment that may seem harsh, and
even-imaginative. But in recent years a dangerous levity has spread among some
few of our people; a levity all too readily tolerated by some supposedly more
solid citizens."
Having gotten in a dig at the newly burgeoning Liberals, a dig he might hope
to claim was nonpolitical in intent, the President faced back to the jester.
"A robot will go with you to the beacon, to assist you in your duties and see
to your physical safety. I assure you the robot will not be tempted into
mirth."
The robot took the convicted jester out in a little ship, so far out that
Planet A vanished and its sun shrank to a point of brilliance. Out on the edge
of the great dusty night of the Approaches, they drew near the putative
location of station Z-45, which the MiniDef had selected as being the most
dismal and forsaken of those unmanned at present.
There was indeed a metallic object where beacon Z-45 was supposed to be; but
when the robot and jester got closer, they saw the object was a sphere some
forty miles in diameter. There were a few little bits and pieces floating
about it that just might be the remains of Z-45. And now the sphere evidently
sighted their ship, for with startling speed it began to move toward them.
Once robots are told what berserkers look like, they do not forget, nor do
robots grow slow and careless. But radio equipment can be sloppily maintained,
and ever the dust drifts in around the edges of the system of
Planet A, impeding radio signals. Before theMiniDef's robot could successfully
broadcast an alarm, the forty-mile sphere was very close indeed, and its grip
of metal and force was tight upon the little ship.
The jester kept his eyes shut through a good deal of what followed. If they
had sent him out here to stop him laughing they had chosen the right spot. He
squeezed his eyelids tighter, and put his fingers in his ears, as the
berserker's commensal machines smashed their way into his little ship and
carried him off. He never did find out what they did with his robot guard.
When things grew quiet, and he felt gravity and good air and pleasant warmth
again, he decided that keeping his eyes shut was worse than knowing whatever
they might tell him. His first cautious peek showed him that he was in a large
shadowy room, that at least held no visible menace.
When he stirred, a squeaky monotonous voice somewhere above him said: "My
memory bank tells me that you are a protoplasmic computing unit, probably
capable of understanding this language. Do you understand?"
"Me?" The jester looked up into the shadows, but could not see the speaker.
"Yes, I understand you. But who are you?"
"I am what this language calls a berserker."
The jester had taken shamefully little interest in galactic affairs, but that
word frightened even him. He stuttered: "That means you're a kind of automated
warship?"
There was a pause. "I am not sure," said the squeaky, droning voice. The tone
sounded almost as if the President was hiding up there in the rafters. "War
may be related to my purpose, but my purpose is still partially unclear to me,
for my construction was never quite completed. For a time I waited where
I was built, because I was sure some final step had been left undone. At last
I moved, to try to learn more about my purpose. Approaching this sun, I found
a transmitting device which I have disassembled. But I have learned no more
about my purpose."
The jester sat on the soft, comfortable floor. The more he remembered about
berserkers, the more he trembled. He said: "I see. Or perhaps I at least begin
to see. What do you know of your purpose?"
"My purpose is to destroy all life wherever I can find it."
Page 60
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
The jester cowered down. Then he asked in a low voice: "What is unclear about
that?"
The berserker answered his question with two of its own: "What is life? And
how is it destroyed?"
After half a minute there came a sound that the berserker computers could not
identify. It issued from the protoplasmic computing-unit, but if it was speech
it was in a language unknown to the berserker.
"What is the sound you make?" the machine asked.
The jester gasped for breath. "It's laughter. Oh, laughter! So. You were
unfinished." He shuddered, the terror of his position coming back to sober
him. But then he once more burst out giggling; the situation was too
ridiculous.
"What is life?" he said at last. "I'll tell you. Life is a great grim
grayness, and it inflicts fright and pain and loneliness upon all who
experience it. And you want to know how to destroy it? Well, I don't think you
can. But I'll tell you the best way to fight life-with laughter. As long as we
can fight it that way, it can't overcome us."
The machine asked: "Must I laugh, to prevent this great-grim-grayness from
enveloping me?"
The jester thought."No, you are a machine. You are not-" he caught himself,
"protoplasmic. Fright and pain and loneliness will never bother you."
"Nothing bothers me. Where will I find life, and how will I make laughter to
fight it?"
The jester was suddenly conscious of the weight of the cube that still hung
from his neck. "Let me think for a while," he said.
After a few minutes he stood up. "If you have a viewer of the kind men use, I
can show you how laughter is created. And perhaps I can guide you to a place
where life is. By the way, can you cut this cord from my neck? Without hurting
me, that is!"
A few weeks later, in the main War Room of Planet A, the somnolence of decades
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]