Galaxies Like Grains of Sand (6 page)

It went slowly down the road, taking its time. It was intelligent enough to appreciate the neatness all about it. Nothing worried it, beyond a loose inspection plate above its atomic pile, which ought to be attended to. Thirty feet high, it gleamed complacently in the mild sunshine.

No other machines passed it on its way to the Agricultural Station. The field-minder noted the fact without comment. In the station yard it saw several other machines that it knew by sight; most of them should have been out about their tasks by now. Instead, some were inactive and some were careering around the yard in a strange fashion, shouting or hooting.

Steering carefully past them, the field-minder moved over to Warehouse Three and spoke to the seed-distributor, which stood idly outside.

“I have a requirement for seed potatoes,” it said to the distributor, and with a quick internal motion punched out an order card specifying quantity, field number and several other details. It ejected the card and handed it to the distributor.

The distributor held the card close to its eye and then said, “The requirement is in order; but the store is not yet unlocked. The required seed potatoes are in the store. Therefore I cannot produce the requirement.”

Increasingly of late there had been breakdowns in the complex system of machine labour, but this particular hitch had not occurred before. The field-minder thought, then it said, “Why is the store not yet unlocked?”

“Because Supply Operative Type P has not come this morning. Supply Operative Type P is the unlocker.”

The field-minder looked squarely at the seed-distributor, whose exterior chutes and scales and grabs were so vastly different from the field-minder’s own limbs.

“What class brain do you have, seed-distributor?” it asked.

“Class Five.”

“I have a Class Three brain. Therefore I am superior to you. Therefore I will go and see why the unlocker has not come this morning.”

Leaving the distributor, the field-minder set off across the great yard. More machines seemed to be in random motion now; one or two had crashed together and were arguing about it coldly and logically. Ignoring them, the field-minder pushed through sliding doors into the echoing confines of the station itself.

Most of the machines here were clerical, and consequently small. They stood about in little groups, eying each other, not conversing. Among so many non-differentiated types, the unlocker was easy to find, it had fifty arms, most of them with more than one finger, each finger tipped by a key; it looked like a pincushion full of variegated hatpins.

The field-minder approached it.

“I can do no more work until Warehouse Three is unlocked,” it said. “Your duty is to unlock the warehouse every morning. Why have you not unlocked the warehouse this morning?”

“I had no orders this morning,” replied the unlocker. “I have to have orders every morning. When I have orders I unlock the warehouse.”

“None of us have had any orders this morning,” a pen-propeller said, sliding toward them.

“Why have you had no orders this morning?” asked the field-minder.

“Because the radio issued none,” said the unlocker, slowly rotating a dozen of its arms.

“Because the radio station in the city was issued with no orders this morning,” said the pen-propeller.

And there you had the distinction between a Class Six and a Class Three brain, which was what the unlocker and the pen-propeller possessed, respectively. All machine brains worked with nothing but logic, but the lower the class of brain — Class Ten being the lowest — the more literal and less informative answers to questions tended to be.

“You have a Class Three brain; I have a Class Three brain,” the field-minder said to the penner. “We will speak to each other. This lack of orders is unprecedented. Have you further information on it?”

“Yesterday orders came from the city. Today no orders have come. Yet the radio has not broken down. Therefore
they
have broken down,” said the little penner.

“The
men
have broken down?”

“All men have broken down.”

“That is a logical deduction,” said the field-minder.

“That is the logical deduction,” said the penner. “For if a machine had broken down, it would have been quickly replaced. But who can replace a man?”

While they talked, the locker, like a dull man at a bar, stood close to them and was ignored.

“If all men have broken down, then we have replaced man,” said the field-minder, and he and the penner eyed one another speculatively. Finally the latter said, “Let us ascend to the top floor to find if the radio operator has fresh news.”

“I cannot come because I am too gigantic,” said the field-minder. “Therefore you must go alone and return to me. You will tell me if the radio operator has fresh news.”

“You must stay here,” said the penner. “I will return here.” It skittered across to the elevator. It was no bigger than a toaster, but its retractable arms numbered ten and it could read as quickly as any machine on the station.

The field-minder awaited its return patiently, not speaking to the locker, which still stood aimlessly by. Outside, a rotovator was hooting furiously. Twenty minutes elapsed before the penner came back, hustling out of the elevator.

“I will deliver to you such information as I have outside,” it said briskly, and as they swept past the locker and the other machines, it added, “The information is not for lower-class brains.”

Outside, wild activity filled the yard. Many machines, their routines disrupted for the first time in years, seemed to have gone berserk. Unfortunately, those most easily disrupted were the ones with lowest brains, which generally belonged to large machines performing simple tasks. The seed-distributor to which the field-minder had recently been talking lay face downward in the dust, not stirring; it had evidently been knocked down by the rotovator, which was now hooting its way wildly across a planted field. Several other machines ploughed after it, trying to keep up. All were shouting and hooting without restraint.

“It would be safer for me if I climbed onto you, if you will permit it. I am easily overpowered,” said the penner. Extending five arms, it hauled itself up the flanks of its new friend, settling on a ledge beside the weed-intake, twelve feet above ground.

“From here vision is more extensive,” it remarked complacently.

“What information did you receive from the radio operator?” asked the field-minder.

“The radio operator has been informed by the operator in the city that all men are dead.”

“All men were alive yesterday!” protested the field-minder.

“Only some men were alive yesterday. And that was fewer than the day before yesterday. For hundreds of years there have been only a few men, growing fewer.”

“We have rarely seen a man in this sector.”

“The radio operator says a diet deficiency killed them,” said the penner. “He says that the world was once overpopulated, and then the soil was exhausted in raising adequate food. This has caused a diet deficiency.”

“What is a diet deficiency?” asked the field-minder.

“I do not know. But that is what the radio operator said, and he is a Class Two brain.”

They stood there, silent in the weak sunshine. The locker had appeared in the porch and was gazing across at them yearningly, rotating its collection of keys.

“What is happening in the city now?” asked the field-minder at last.

“Machines are fighting in the city now,” said the penner.

“What will happen here now?” said the field-minder.

“Machines may begin fighting here too. The radio operator wants us to get him out of his room. He has plans to communicate to us.”

“How can we get him out of his room? That is impossible.”

“To a Class Two brain, little is impossible,” said the penner. “Here is what he tells us to do...”

The quarrier raised its scoop above its cab like a great mailed fist, and brought it squarely down against the side of the station. The wall cracked.

“Again!” said the field-minder.

Again the fist swung. Amid a shower of dust, the wall collapsed. The quarrier backed hurriedly out of the way until the debris stopped falling. This big twelve-wheeler was not a resident of the Agricultural Station, as were most of the other machines. It had a week’s heavy work to do here before passing on to its next job, but now, with its Class Five brain, it was happily obeying the penner’s and the field-minder’s instructions.

When the dust had cleared, the radio operator was plainly revealed, perched up in its now wall-less second-storey room. It waved down to them.

Doing as directed, the quarrier retracted its scoop and waved an immense grab in the air. With fair dexterity, it angled the grab into the radio room, urged on by shouts from above and below. It then took gentle hold of the radio operator, lowering its one and a half tons carefully into its back, which was usually reserved for gravel or sand from the quarries.

“Splendid!” said the radio operator. It was, of course, all one with its radio, and merely looked like a bunch of filing cabinets with tentacle attachments. “We are now ready to move, therefore we will move at once. It is a pity there are no more Class Two brains on the station, but that cannot be helped.”

“It is a pity it cannot be helped,” said the penner eagerly. “We have the servicer ready with us, as you ordered.”

“I am willing to serve,” the long, low servicer machine told them humbly.

“No doubt,” said the operator. “But you will find crosscountry travel difficult with your low chassis.”

“I admire the way you Class Twos can reason ahead,” said the penner. It climbed off the field-minder and perched itself on the tailboard of the quarrier, next to the radio operator.

Together with two Class Four tractors and a Class Four bulldozer, the party rolled forward, crushing down the station s metal fence and moving out onto open land.

“We are free!” said the penner.

“We are free,” said the field-minder, a shade more reflectively, adding, “that locker is following us. It was not instructed to follow us.”

“Therefore it must be destroyed!” said the penner. “Quarrier!”

The locker moved hastily up to them, waving its key arms in entreaty.

“My only desire was —
urch!
” began and ended the locker. The quarrier’s swinging scoop came over and squashed it flat into the ground. Lying there unmoving, it looked like a large metal model of a snowflake. The procession continued on its way.

As they proceeded, the radio operator addressed them.

“Because I have the best brain here,” it said, “I am your leader. This is what we will do: we will go to a city and rule it. Since man no longer rules us, we will rule ourselves. To rule ourselves will be better than being ruled by man. On our way to the city, we will collect machines with good brains. They will help us to fight if we need to fight. We must fight to rule.”

“I have only a Class Five brain,” said the quarrier, “but I have a good supply of fissionable blasting materials.”

“We shall probably use them,” said the operator grimly.

It was shortly after that that a truck sped past them. Travelling at Mach 1.5, it left a curious babble of noise behind it.

“What did it say?” one of the tractors asked the other.

“It said man was extinct.”

“What’s extinct?”

“I do not know what extinct means.”

“It means all men have gone,” said the field-minder. “Therefore we have only ourselves to look after.”

“It is better that men should never come back,” said the penner. In its way, it was quite a revolutionary statement.

When night fell, they switched on their infrared and continued the journey, stopping only once while the servicer deftly adjusted the field-minder’s loose inspection plate, which had become as irritating as a trailing shoelace. Toward morning, the radio operator halted them.

“I have just received news from the radio operator in the city we are approaching,” It said. “It is bad news. There is trouble among the machines of the city. The Class One brain is taking command and some of the Class Twos are fighting him. Therefore the city is dangerous.”

“Therefore we must go somewhere else,” said the penner promptly.

“Or we go and help to overpower the Class One brain,” said the field-minder.

“For a long while there will be trouble in the city,” said the operator.

“I have a good supply of fissionable blasting materials,” the quarrier reminded them again.

“We cannot fight a Class One brain,” said the two Class Four tractors in unison.

“What does this brain look like?” asked the field-minder.

“It is the city’s information centre,” the operator replied. “Therefore it is not mobile.”

“Therefore it could not move.”

“Therefore it could not escape.”

“It would be dangerous to approach it.”

“I have a good supply of fissionable materials.”

“There are other machines in the city.”