H. Beam Piper

“ Conn Maxwell told them: "There are incredible things still undiscovered; most of the important installations were built in duplicate as a precaution against space attack. I know where all of them are.
"But I could find nothing, not one single word, about any giant strategic planning computer called Merlin!"
Nevertheless the leading men of the planet didn't believe him. They couldn't, for the search for Merlin had become their abiding obsession. Merlin meant everything to them: power, pleasures, and profits unlimited. ”

“ The car Rodney Maxwell got out of the hangar the next morning wasn't the one he and Conn had gone to the meeting in; it was the one he had flown in from Tenth Army HQ at noon of the previous day. An Army reconnaissance job, slim and needlelike, completely enclosed, looking more like a missile than a vehicle, and armored in dazzling, iridescent collapsium. There was something to living on Poictesme, at that; only a millionaire on Terra could have owned a car like that. ”

“ Fifteen or twenty men were clustered around it, with a lifter loaded with ammunition. They looked like any crowd of farm-tramps. Suddenly, one of them saw the snooper, gave a yell, and fired at it with a rifle. Sylvie pulled it back into the shaft; her father and the chief engineer sent the two bomb-robots up onto the gallery. The right-hand robot sped at the airboat; the last thing Conn saw in its screen was a face, bearded and villainous and contorted with fright, looking out the pilot's window of the airboat. ”

“ Brangwyn was insisting. "We'll have to get the others together and see what they think. We have no right to make any decision like this for them."
"They're no more able to make the decision than we are," Conn said.
"But we've got to; they have a right to know...."
"If you decide to destroy Merlin, you'll have to decide to kill me, first," Kurt Fawzi said, his voice deadly calm. "You won't do it while I'm alive." ”

“ Rodney Maxwell said. "Where we're going is full of outlaws; there must be hundreds of them holing up over there. That's where all the trouble on the east coast comes from. Now, outlaws are sure-thing players. They want to be alive to spend their loot, and they won't tackle anything that's too tough for them. A lot of guards and combat equipment may look like a loss on the books, but the books won't show how much of a loss you might take if you didn't have them. I want this operation armed till it'll be too much for all the outlaws on the planet to tackle." ”

“ Conn said. "The War's been over forty years; it's not a military secret any longer. Why would he lie to me?"
"Why did you lie to Kurt Fawzi and the others and tell them there was a Merlin? You lied because telling the truth would hurt them. Maybe Travis had the same reason for lying to you. Maybe Merlin's too dangerous for anybody to be allowed to find."
"Great Ghu, are you beginning to think Merlin is the Devil, or Frankenstein's Monster?"
"It might be something just as bad. Maybe worse. I don't think a man like Foxx Travis would lie if he didn't have some overriding moral obligation to." ”

“ The image faded from the screen. As it did, Conn was looking from one to another of the people in the room with him. All were dumbfounded, most of them frightened.
"They wouldn't do it, would they?" Lorenzo Menardes was asking. "Conn, you know those people. They wouldn't really?"
"Don't depend on it, Lorenzo," Klem Zareff said. "It's hard for a lot of people to shoot somebody ten feet away with a pistol. But just sending off a missile; that's nothing but setting a lot of dials and then pushing a button." ”

“ Judge Ledue said.
As if absolute justice wasn't the last thing anybody in his right senses would want; a robot-judge would have the whole planet in jail inside a month.
"We have a man who joined us after you went off to Koshchei, Conn," Franz Veltrin said. "A Mr. Carl Leibert. He's some kind of a clergyman, from over Morven way. He says that Merlin could formulate an entirely new religion, which would regenerate humanity." ”

“ In peace or war, screen communication was a wonderful thing. The only trouble was that it let in too many kibitzers.
The gallery, when the jeep emerged onto it, was empty except for casualties, a few still alive. The side of the airboat was caved in; the lifter-load of ammunition had gone up with the bomb. He moved the jeep to the right of the shaft and waited for the vehicles behind him, suffering a brief indecision.
Never divide your force in the presence of the enemy. ”

“ Conn turned to Colonel Zareff.
"Good melon crop this year?" he asked.
The old Rebel cursed. "Gehenna of a big crop; we're up to our necks in melons. This time next year we'll be washing our feet in brandy."
"Hold onto it and age it; you ought to see what they charge for a drink of Poictesme brandy on Terra."
"This isn't Terra, and we aren't selling it by the drink," Colonel Zareff said. "We're selling it at Storisende Spaceport, for what the freighter captains pay us. You've been away too long, Conn. You've forgotten what it's like to live in a poor-house." ”

“ Robots that would answer when she spoke to them were a lot more companionable. She didn't seem to think, however, that Sylvie's mechanical skills were ladylike accomplishments. Nice girls, Litchfield model, weren't quite so handy with a spot-welder. That was what Conn liked about Sylvie; she was like the girls he'd known at the University.
They were strolling after dinner, down the Mall. The air was sharp and warned that autumn had definitely arrived; the many brilliant stars, almost as bright as the moon of Terra, were coming out in the dusk.
"Conn, this thing about Merlin," she began. ”

“ You let the older and wiser heads run things. You can't begin to hope to foul things up the way they can. Look at all the experience they've had."
"But we've got to have a ship. Everything depends on that."
"I know it does. We'll get a ship. Let Kurt Fawzi and Klem Zareff and the rest of them have this duplicate Force Command thing first, though. Keep them happy. As soon as we have that opened, you can take a gang and run over to Barathrum and grab your spaceport. Wait till they find out that Merlin isn't at Force Command Duplicate. Then you can convince them it's really on Koshchei." ”

“ Merlin was being transported to Storisende to be installed as arbiter of the Government. Merlin the Monster was destroying the planet. Merlin the Devil was unchained.
Conn and Kurt Fawzi and Dolf Kellton and Judge Ledue and Tom Brangwyn clustered together, talking in whispers. They had told nobody, yet, of the interview with Shanlee.
"You think it would make all that trouble?" Kellton was asking anxiously, hoping that the others would convince him that it wouldn't.
"Maybe we had better destroy it," Judge Ledue faltered. "You see what it's done already; the whole planet's in anarchy. ”

“ A Federation Army officer's uniform had been found reasonably close to his size, and somebody had even provided him with the four stars of his retirement rank. He was, again, the man Conn had seen in the dome-house on Luna.
"Well, you got it open," he said, climbing down from the airjeep that had brought him. "Now, what are you going to do with it?"
"We can't make up our minds," Conn said. "We're going to let the computer tell us what to do with it."
Shanlee looked at him, startled. "You mean, you're going to have Merlin judge itself and decide its own fate?" he asked. ”

“ Rodney Maxwell sat down on the edge of the basin and got out two cigars, handing one to Conn, who produced his lighter.
"Conn, they wouldn't have believed you and Foxx Travis," he said. "Merlin's a religion with those people. Merlin's a robot god, something they can shove all their problems onto. As soon as they find Merlin, everybody will be rich and happy, the Government bonds will be redeemed at face value plus interest, the paper money'll be worth a hundred Federation centisols to the sol, and the leaves and wastepaper will be raked off the Mall, all by magic." ”

“ His mother went toward the rear of the house—more soulless machines, like the housecleaning-robot, and the laundry-robot, to look after. He went into his father's office and found the cigar humidor, just where it had been when he'd stolen cigars out of it six years ago and thought his father never suspected what he was doing.
Now, why didn't they export this tobacco? It was better than anything they grew on Terra; well, at least it was different, just as Poictesme brandy was different from Terran bourbon or Baldur honey-rum. ”

“ Matsui, back at the power plant, was wanting to know what was wrong. Captain Nichols stopped cursing—or praying?—and said, "Mutiny, that's what! The robots have turned on us!"
He knew what had happened, or was almost sure he did. A radio impulse had gone out, somehow, from the control tower. Something they hadn't checked, that had been left on. There was just enough current-leakage from the units in the robots to keep the receptors active for forty years. The supervisor-robots had gone active, and they had activated the rest. ”

“ Jacquemont nodded. "I know the drill; I've been in Port Oberth on Venus and Skorvann on Loki. Any law we want, we make for ourselves."
"That's about it. I'll see you there. Conn, I wish you'd come with me. Somebody here wants to talk to you."
He wondered if his mother, or Flora, had come to Storisende. When he asked his father as they crossed onto the dock, there was a brief twinge of pain in Rodney Maxwell's face. ”

“ Conn told him about Shanlee; he repeated, almost word for word, the story Shanlee had told.
"Do you believe that?" his father asked.
"Don't you? You were in Storisende when the Travis statement came out; you saw how people acted. If this story gets out, people will be acting the same way on every planet in the Federation. Not just places like Poictesme; planets like Terra and Baldur and Marduk and Odin and Osiris. It would be the end of everything civilized, everywhere."
"Why didn't they use Merlin to save the Federation?"
"It's past saving. It's been past saving since before the War. ”

“ We're looking for something to build a hypership out of. If I had Merlin in my hip pocket right now, I'd trade it for one good ship like the City of Asgard or the City of Nefertiti, and give a keg of brandy and a box of cigars to boot. If we had a ship of our own, we'd be selling lots of both, and not for Storisende Spaceport prices, either."
"But don't you think Merlin's important?" Charley Gatworth, who had overheard him, asked.
"Sure. If we find Merlin, we can run it for President. It would make a better one than Jake Vyckhoven." ”

“ That was one of Klem Zareff's fellow planters. "We don't want Jake Vyckhoven or any of this First-Families-of-Storisende oligarchy in this at all. That's the gang that bankrupted the Government with doles and work relief, and everybody else with worthless printing-press money after the War, and they've been squatting in a circle deploring things ever since. Some of these days Blackie Perales and his pirates'll sack Storisende, for all they'd be able to do to stop him."
"We get a ship out to Koshchei, and the next thing you know we'll be the Planetary Government," Tom Brangwyn said. ”

“ Kurt Fawzi introduced Conn, and Leibert grasped his hand with a grip that was considerably stronger than his voice.
"Bless you, young man! It is to you alone that we owe our thanks that we are about to find the Great Computer. Every sapient being in the Galaxy will honor your name for a thousand years." ”

“ Once they are launched, with the robo-pilots set for targets on Poictesme, you will have a hundred and sixty hours, at the most, to live.
"We will launch them immediately if there is another attack made upon Force Command Duplicate HQ, or upon Interplanetary Building in Storisende, or if Rodney Maxwell is killed, no matter by whom or under what circumstances.
"We beg you, earnestly and prayerfully, not to force us to do this dreadful thing. We speak to each one of you, for each one of you holds the fate of the planet in his own hands." ”

“ A lot of contragravity vehicles circled widely around the spaceport, but except for a few news-service cars, the police were keeping them back of a two-mile radius around the landing-pits. A couple of gunboats were making tight circles above, and on the dock were more vehicles and a horde of police and guards.
When Rodney Maxwell came across the bridge from the dock after they opened the airlocks, he was followed by a dozen Barton-Massarra private police, as villainous-looking a collection of ruffians as Conn had ever seen. ”

“ Retief said. "One man has only two hands, two feet and one brain; he can only handle so much robo-equipment at a time."
"I never expected we'd build a ship ourselves," Conn said. "We came to look the place over and get a few claims staked. When we've done that, we'll go back and get a real gang together."
"I don't know where you'll find them," Jacquemont commented. "We'll need a couple of hundred, and they ought all to be graduate engineers. We can't do this job with farm-tramps."
"You made some good shipyard men out of farm-tramps on Barathrum."
"And what'll you do for supervisors?" ”