Ed M. Clinton

“ Walker spread his hands. "Dr. Millet, you have put it in a nutshell."
Millet shook his head, and for the first time since their conversation had started he frowned. "Walker, you know how I feel about developing weapons. I'm just plain opposed to it."
"The soldier is opposed to losing his life, but many have to do just that in the interests of civilization."
"That serious, eh?"
Walker crumpled under the weight of his fear. "That serious," he said wearily.
Millet thoughtfully relit his pipe. "Of course, I'm not at all sure that United Terra is very right in this thing." ”

“ For one soaring moment, he was all awareness—every function, every circuit, every element of his magnificent electronic physiology available for use by the fractional portion of him that had become something more than just a feedback device. ”

“ Joe Gaines, who was as short and skinny and dark-haired as his colleague was tall and heavily muscled and blond, shuddered at the sound. Sokolski grinned wickedly at his flinching.
"Check-up time, I suppose," muttered Gaines without looking up from the magazine he held propped on his knees. He finished the paragraph, snapped the magazine shut, and swung his legs down from the railing that ran along in front of the data board. "Dirty work for white-collar men like us."
Sokolski snorted. "You haven't worn a white shirt in the last six years," he growled, rising and going to the supply closet. ”

“ Walker stared at the typed statement on his desk. It was a decoded intelligence message from United Terra's prime agent in the Interplanetary Confederation, and it was very brief: the Confederation had developed a long-range neural weapon effectively cancelling out every armament development achieved by United Terra in fifteen years of a cold war that of late had become bitter cold. The all-but-autonomous colonies of Mars and Venus, united now for twenty years in an economic league, had been itching for independence for a quarter of a century. ”

“ He burst into a huge room, a room filled with roaring, rattling sounds that meant nothing to him.
Two men stood before him, making loud noises. He searched his memory, and discovered only fragments of the sounds they made filed there. His curiosity, bursting, was boundless, and for a moment he was unable to decide which thing in this expanding universe to pursue first. Attracted by their movement, he swung ominously toward the men.
They fled, making more noises. This, too, was data, and he filed it.
-75 did not immediately follow Gaines and Sokolski out of the room. ”

“ You see, I've been involved in an expensive research program."
"Ah." Walker sat forward and smashed out his cigarette. "This may be important."
"Oh, it is, it is. But not, I am afraid, in the way you mean."
"You can never tell. What have you been doing?"
"Completing a unified theory of life. Why a crystal grows but isn't alive, why an organism that dies isn't like a crystal. What is the process we call life? What is its relationship to the space-time continuum—"
He said it so casually that Walker was caught off his guard completely. "Are you serious, Millet?" ”

“ Gaines grinned and slouched over to the big man's side. "Think of how much more expensive you are to the government than me," he chortled as he bent over to strap on heavy, leaded shoes. "Big fellow like you must cost 'em twice as much to outfit for this job."
Sokolski grunted and struggled into the thick, radiation-resistant suit. "Think how lucky you are, runt," he responded as he wriggled his right arm down the sleeve, "that they've got those little servomechs in there to do the real dirty work. ”

“ Meriwether continued, his face still set, "of our feeling that the Confederation has been eager to take on Terra. They've clearly been waiting for some positive advantage to offset our pure strength-in-numbers."
It was a touchable touching an untouchable. Both scientist and general were doing their own version of right.... Walker forced his eyes upward and stared at his superior. "Your tone says that such a war might be—"
"Unwelcome at this time. Unwelcome at this time." Meriwether shifted around in his chair, and scratched at its leather arms with the manicured tips of his gnarled fingers. ”

“ He jerked on the handle and Gaines seized the second handle and added his own strength. The huge door slid unwillingly back.
The silent sound of the Hot Room surged out over them—the breathless whisper of chained power struggling to burst its chains. Sokolski checked his neutron tab and his gamma reader and they stepped over the threshold. They leaned into the door until it had slid shut again.
"I'll take the servomechs, Bert," piped Gaines, tramping clumsily toward the nearest of the gyro-balanced single-wheeled robots.
"You always do, it being the easiest job. Okay, I'll work the board." ”

“ Walker, I don't have to tell you that this weapon, if it is what our agent infers—and there is no reason to believe otherwise—that this weapon makes it impossible for us to go to war with the Confederation—unless, as Chief of Weapons Development, you can tell me that we have something in our arsenal to combat it. ”

“ Then they were staring for what seemed like an eternity, utterly overwhelmed by its very impossibility, at a sight they had never imagined they might ever see: a pile servomech wheeling silently around the last bend in the maze and straight toward them.
Sokolski had sense enough to push the red emergency button as they fled past it.
he command sequence fulfilled, M-75 turned away from the repaired board. He sensed again that disconcerting shift of orientation as he faced the light-studded panel. ”

“ They drank, and Walker said: "I feel a bit freer to say what I have come for."
"Shoot," nodded Millet, sipping his drink.
"For security reasons, I'll talk in generalities. But the basic fact is, United Terra is faced with a serious situation. It is most desirable that the research you were conducting when you left us, be continued."
"There are a lot of other capable physicists, both eager to be a part of such activity and blessed with security clearances."
"You know very well, Millet, that this was an unique, almost independent line of development that comes to a stop in your brain. ”

“ He brooded on why each signal from the board brought forth from him these specific responses, actions completely beyond the touch of his new and uncertain faculty. When he did not brood, he watched the other two robots, performing their automatic functions, seeing their responses, like his, were triggered by the lights on the big board and by the varying patterns of sound that issued periodically from overhead.
It was the sounds which were his undoing. The colored lights, with their monotonous regularity, failed to rouse him. ”

“ He reactivated the servo and went on to M-19.
"If you think it's so great, why don't you volunteer?" countered Sokolski, a trifle sourly. "Incidentally, it's a good thing we came in, Joe. There's half a dozen units here working on reserve transistors."
Their sporadic conversation lapsed; it was exacting work and they could remain for only a limited time under that lethal radiation. Then, almost sadly, Gaines said, "Looks like the end of the road for M-75."
"Oh?" Sokolski came over beside him and peered through the violet haze of his viewing glass. "He's an old timer." ”

“ Besides," and suddenly he felt silly, "the lines of communication for research which might enable us to pick up where you left off, in time—too much time—are somewhat entangled in security." He glared. "Don't laugh, Millet; it's a fact of life which must be faced." ”

“ There began to grow within him a sensation of too much to be done in too little time.
He became frantic, his reactions were too fast! He rolled from end to middle of the board, now back-tracking, now spinning on his single wheel, turning uncertainly from one side to the other, jerking and gyrating. ”

“ But the sounds were something else, for even as he responded to them, doing things to the control board in patterned reaction to particular combinations of particular sounds, he was struck with the wonderful variety and the maze of complexity in those sounds; a variety and complexity far beyond that of the colored lights. ”

“ Others have contributed. Some pioneers long dead, some among the living." His eyes twinkled. "You see, important things beside the development of weapons of destruction do continue in the scientific world. Did you think that was the end of everything for me, ten years ago?" He shook his head in mock gravity. "It was just the beginning. I wanted out, you see."
"You wanted out?" Walker leaned forward, unwilling to believe what he had heard. "Are you trying to tell me that you arranged your discharge?"
Millet shrugged. "Why, of course. ”

“ Abruptly, then, the voice came again, and he struggled to file for future reference sound patterns which, although meaningless to him, his selector circuits no longer disregarded. "Bert, M-75 can't manage half the board in his condition. Better put him on the repairs."
"Yeah. Hadn't thought about that." Sokolski cleared his throat. "M-11 will return to standard function."
M-11 spun back to the panel and M-75 felt the tension slacken, the fear vanish. Utter relief swept over him, and he let himself be submerged in purest automatic activity. ”

“ Millet waved his pipe. "Good. Afterwards, you can stop beating around the bush, eh?"
"Yes, of course," mumbled Walker.
"You know," said Millet as he got up and went to a bookcase, "a man's got to earn a living. Do much reading?"
"Not these days. Used to." He scratched a cigarette on the sole of his shoe and inhaled hugely. "Not enough time these days for reading."
Millet reached into the bookcase and came out with a stack of magazines. "Well, that's how I make my living." He handed the stack to Walker. "Writing. ”

“ Thus, being something of an advanced analytic calculator and being, by virtue of his superior feedback system, something considerably more than a simple machine (though he perhaps fell short of those requisites of life so rigorously held by moralists and biologists alike) he began to investigate the meaning of the sounds.
ert Sokolski signed the morning report and dropped it into the transmitter. He swung around on his desk stool; he was a big man, and the stool squealed in sharp protest to his shifting weight. ”

“ He turned, stamping angrily as he did so, and was startled to see a man, wearing work clothes and holding a pair of heavy soiled gloves in his left hand, standing on the ground by the end of the porch. ”