“Land us at once,” Gregor said. “There’s no time to lose.”
“You should have told me sooner,” the boat said. “I couldn’t guess, you know.” It began to move toward the island.
Gregor could hardly breathe. It didn’t seem possible that the simple trick would work. But then, why not? The lifeboat was built to accept the word of its operators as the truth. As long as the ‘truth’ was consistent with the boat’s operational premises, it would be carried out.
The beach was only fifty yards away now, gleaming white in the cold light of dawn.
Then the boat reversed its engines and stopped. “No,” it said. “No what?”
“I cannot do it.”
“What do you mean?” Arnold shouted. “This is war! Orders—”
“I know,” the lifeboat said sadly. “I am sorry. A different type of vessel should have been chosen for this mission. Any other type. But not a lifeboat.”
“You must,” Gregor begged. “Think of our country, think of the barbaric H’gen—”
“It is physically impossible for me to carry out your orders,” the lifeboat told them. “My prime directive is to protect my occupants from harm. That order is stamped on my every tape, giving priority over all others. I cannot let you go to your certain death.”
THE boat began to move away from the island.
“You’ll be court-martialed for this!” Arnold screamed hysterically. “They’ll decommission you.”
“I must operate within my limitations,” the boat said sadly. “If we find the fleet, I will transfer you to a killerboat. But in the meantime, I must take you to the safety of the south pole.”
The lifeboat picked up speed, and the island receded behind them. Arnold rushed at the controls and was thrown flat. Gregor picked up the canteen and poised it, to hurl ineffectually at the sealed hatch. He stopped himself in mid-swing, struck by a sudden wild thought.
“Please don’t attempt any more destruction,” the boat pleaded. “I know how you feel, but—”
It was damned risky, Gregor thought, but the south pole was certain death anyhow.
He uncapped the canteen. “Since we cannot accomplish our mission,” he said, “we can never again face our comrades. Suicide is the only alternative.” He took a gulp of water and handed the canteen to Arnold.
“No! Don’t!” the lifeboat shrieked. “That’s water! It’s a deadly poison—”
An electrical bolt leaped from the instrument panel, knocking the canteen from Arnold’s hand.
Arnold grabbed the canteen. Before the boat could knock it again from his hand, he had taken a drink.
“We die for glorious Drome!” Gregor dropped to the floor. He motioned Arnold to lie still.
“There is no known antidote,” the boat moaned. “If only I could contact a hospital ship . . .” Its engines idled indecisively. “Speak to me,” the boat pleaded. “Are you still alive?”
Gregor and Arnold lay perfectly still, not breathing.
“Answer me!” the lifeboat begged. “Perhaps if you ate some geezel . . .” It thrust out two trays. The partners didn’t stir.
“Dead,” the lifeboat said. “Dead. I will read the burial service.”
THERE was a pause. Then the lifeboat intoned, “Great Spirit of the Universe, take into your custody the souls of these, your servants. Although they died by their own hand, still it was in the service of their country, fighting for home and hearth. Judge them not harshly for their impious deed. Rather blame the spirit of war that inflames and destroys all Drome.”
The hatch swung open. Gregor could feel a rush of cool morning air.
“And now, by the authority vested in me by the Drome Fleet, and with all reverence, I commend their bodies to the deep.” Gregor felt himself being lifted through the hatch to the deck. Then he was in the air, falling, and in another moment he was in the water, with Arnold beside him.
“Float quietly,” he whispered. The island was nearby. But the lifeboat was still hovering close to them, nervously roaring its engines.
“What do you think it’s up to now?” Arnold whispered.
“I don’t know,” Gregor said, hoping that the Drome peoples didn’t believe in converting their bodies to ashes.
The lifeboat came closer. Its bow was only a few feet away. They tensed. And then they heard it. The roaring screech of the Drome National Anthem.
In a moment it was finished. The lifeboat murmured, “Rest in peace,” turned, and roared away.
As they swam slowly to the island, Gregor saw that the lifeboat was heading south, due south, to the pole, to wait for the Drome fleet.
THE NECESSARY THING
The idea behind the machine was splendid—if only it did not have ideas all its own!
RICHARD Gregor was seated at his desk in the dusty offices of the AAA Ace Interplanetary Decontamination Service, staring wearily at a list. The list included some two thousand three hundred and five separate items.
Gregor was trying to remember what, if anything, he had left out. Anti-radiation salve? Vacuum flares? Water purification kit? Yes, they were all there.
He yawned and glanced at his watch. Arnold, his partner, should have been back by now. Arnold had gone to order the two thousand three hundred and five items and get them stowed safely aboard the spaceship. In a few hours, AAA Ace was scheduled to blast off on another job.
But had he listed everything important? A spaceship is, necessarily, an island unto itself, self-sufficient, self-sustaining. If you ran out of beans on Dementia II, there was no corner store where you could buy more. No Coast Guard hurried out to replace the burned-out lining on your main drive. You had to have another lining on board, and the tools to enable you to replace it, and the manuals telling how. Space was just too big to permit much in the way of rescue operations.
Oxygen extractor? Extra cigarettes? It was like putting jets on a department store, Gregor thought. He pushed the list aside, found a pack of tattered cards, and laid out a complex solitaire of his own devising.
Minutes later, Arnold stepped jauntily in.
GREGOR looked at his partner with suspicion. When the little chemist walked with that peculiar bouncing step, his round face beaming happily, it often resulted in trouble for AAA Ace.
“Did you get the stuff?” Gregor asked.
“I did better than that,” Arnold said proudly. “I have just saved us a considerable sum of money.”
“Oh, no,” Gregor sighed. “What have you done?”
“Consider,” Arnold said impressively, “just consider the sheer waste in equipping the average expedition. We pack two thousand three hundred and five items, just on the off chance we may need one. Our payload is diminished, our living space is cramped, and most of the stuff never gets used.”
“Except for once or twice,” Gregor said, “when it just happens to save our lives.”
“I took that into account. I gave the whole problem careful study. And, through a bit of luck, I found the one and only thing an expedition needs. The necessary thing.”
Gregor arose and towered over his partner. Visions of mayhem danced through his brain, but he controlled himself with an effort. “Arnold, I don’t know what you’ve done. But you’d better get those two thousand three hundred and five items on board and get them fast.”
“Can’t do it,” Arnold said with a nervous little laugh. “The money’s gone. This thing will pay for itself, though.”
“What thing?”
“The one really necessary thing. Come out to the ship and I’ll show you.”
Gregor couldn’t get another word out of him. Arnold smiled mysteriously on the long drive to Idlewild Spaceport. Their ship was already in a blast pit, scheduled for takeoff in a few hours.
Arnold swung the port open with a flourish. “There! Behold the answer to an expedition’s prayers.”
Gregor stepped inside. He saw a large and fantastic-looking machine with dials, lights and indicators scattered haphazardly over it.
“Isn’t it a beauty?” Arnold patted the machine affectionately. “Joe the Interstellar Junkman happened to have it tucked away. I conned it out of him for a song.”
THAT settled it as far as Gregor was concerned. He had dealt with Joe the Interstellar Junkman before, and had inevitably come out on the shortest end of the deal. Joe’s gadgets worked, but when, how often, and with what kind of attitude, was something else again.
Gregor was stern. “No gadget of Joe’s is going into space with me. Not again. Maybe we can sell it for scrap metal.” He began to hunt around for a wrecking bar.
“Wait,” Arnold begged. “Let me show you. Consider. We are in deep space. The main drive falters and fails. Upon examination, we find that a quarter-inch durraloy nut has worked its way off the number three pinion. We can’t find the nut. What do we do?”
“We take a new nut from the two thousand three hundred and five items we’ve packed for emergencies just like this,” Gregor said.
“Ah! But you didn’t include any quarter-inch durraloy nuts!” Arnold was triumphant. “I checked the list. What then?”
“I don’t know, you tell me.” Arnold stepped up to the machine, punched a button and said in a loud, clear voice, “Durraloy nut, quarter-inch diameter.”
The machine murmured and hummed—Lights flashed—A panel slid back, revealing a bright, freshly machined durraloy nut.
“That’s what we do,” Arnold said.
“Hmm,” Gregor was not particularly impressed. “So it manufactures nuts. What else does it do?”
Arnold pressed the button again. “A pound of fresh shrimp.”
When he slid back the panel, the shrimp were there.
“I should have had it peel them,” Arnold said. “Oh, well.” He pressed the button. “A graphite rod, four feet long with a diameter of two inches.”
The panel opened wider this time to let the rod come through.
“What else can it do?” Gregor asked.
“What else would you like?” Arnold said. “A small tiger cub? A Model-A updraft carburetor? Possibly a 25-watt light bulb? Or a stick of chewing gum?”
“You mean it’ll turn out anything?” Gregor asked.
“Anything at all. It’s a Configurator. Go ahead, try it yourself.”
Gregor tried and produced in rapid succession, a pint of fresh water, a wrist watch, and a jar of Mother Merton’s cocktail sauce.
“Hmm,” he said.
“See what I mean? Isn’t this better than packing two thousand three hundred and five items? Isn’t it simpler and more logical to produce what you need when you need it?”
“It seems good,” Gregor said. “But . . .”
“But what?”
Gregor shook his head. What indeed? He had no idea. It had simply been his sad experience that gadgets are never as useful, reliable or consistent as they seem at first glance.
He thought deeply, then punched the button. “A transistor, series GE 1324E.”
The machine hummed. And there was the tiny transistor.
“Seems pretty good,” Gregor admitted. “What are you doing, now?”
“I’m peeling the shrimp,” Arnold said.
After enjoying a tasty shrimp cocktail, the partners received their clearance from the tower. In an hour, the ship was in space.
THEY were bound for Dennett IV, an average-sized world in the Sycophax cluster. Dennett was a hot, steamy, fertile planet, suffering from only one major difficulty: Too much rain. It rained on Dennett nine-tenths of the time, and when it wasn’t raining, it was threatening rain.
Fortunately, the principles of climate control were well-known, since many worlds suffered from similar difficulties. It would take only a few days for AAA Ace to interrupt and alter the climate pattern.
After an uneventful trip, Dennett came into view. Arnold relieved the automatic pilot and brought the ship down through thick cloud banks. They dropped through miles of pale, gossamer mist. At last, mountain-tops began to appear, and then they saw a level, barren gray plain.
“Odd color for a landscape,” Gregor said.
Arnold nodded. With practiced ease he spiraled, leveled out, came down neatly above the plain and, with his forces balanced, cut the drive.
Gregor had a sudden premonition of disaster. “Take her up!” he shouted. Reacting instinctively, Arnold jabbed at the firing control and missed. The ship hung for a moment, then dropped through the plain and fell another eight feet toward the ground.
The plain, it seemed, was fog of a density only Dennett could produce.
Hastily they unbuckled themselves and tested various teeth, bones and ligatures. Upon finding that nothing personal was broken, they thoroughly checked the ship.
The impact hadn’t done their old spaceship any good. The radio and automatic pilot were a complete loss. Several stern plates had buckled and, worst of all, some delicate components in the turn-drive control were shattered.
“We were lucky at that,” Arnold said.
“Yeah.” Gregor peered through the blanketing mist. “But next time we use radar.”
“In a way I’m glad it happened,” Arnold said. “Now you’ll see what a lifesaver the Configurator really is. Let’s get to work.”
THEY listed all the damaged parts. Arnold stepped up to the Configurator, pressed the button and said, “A drive plate, five inches square, half-inch diameter, steel alloy 342.”
The machine quickly turned it out.
“We need ten of them,” Gregor said.
“I know.” Again Arnold pressed the button. “Another one.”
The machine did nothing. “Probably have to give the whole command,” Arnold said. He punched the button again and said, “Drive plate, five inches square, half-inch diameter, steel alloy 342.”
The machine was silent. “That’s odd,” Arnold said. “Isn’t it, though?” Gregor had an odd sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach.
Arnold tried again with no success. He thought deeply, then punched the button and said, “A plastic teacup.”
The machine turned out a teacup of bright blue plastic.
“Another one,” Arnold ordered. When the Configurator did nothing, Arnold asked for a wax crayon. The machine gave it to him. “Another wax crayon.” The machine did nothing. “That’s interesting. I suppose someone should have thought of that possibility.”
“What possibility?”
“Apparently the Configurator will turn out anything,” Arnold said. “But only once.”
“That’s fine. We need nine more plates. And the turn-drive controls need four identical parts. What are we going to do?”
“We’ll think of something.”
“I hope so,” Gregor said. Outside the rain began. The partners settled down to think.
“THERE’S only one explanation,” Arnold said several hours later. “Pleasure principle.”
“Huh?” Gregor asked. He had been dozing, lulled by the patter of rain against the hull of their spaceship.
“This machine must have some form of intelligence,” Arnold said. “After all, it receives stimuli, translates ’em into action commands, and fabricates a product from a mental blueprint.”
“Sure it does. But only once.”
“Yes. But why only once? That’s the key to our difficulties. I think it must be a self-imposed limit linked to a pleasure drive.”
“I don’t follow you,” Gregor said.
“Look. The builders wouldn’t have limited their machine in this way purposely. The only possible explanation is this: When a machine is constructed on this order of complexity, it takes on quasihuman characteristics. It derives a mechanical pleasure from producing a new thing. But a thing is only new once. After that, the Configurator wants to do something else.”
Gregor slumped back into his apathetic half-slumber.
Arnold went on talking. “Fulfillment of potential, that’s what a machine wants. The Configurator’s desire is to create everything possible. From this point of view
, repetition would be a waste of time, as well as boring.”
“That’s the most suspect line of reasoning I’ve ever heard,” Gregor said. “But, assuming you are right, what can we do about it?”
“I don’t know,” Arnold said.
“That’s what I thought.”
For dinner that evening, the Configurator turned out a very creditable roast beef. They finished with apple pie a la machina with sharp cheese on the side. Their morale was considerably improved.
“Substitutions,” Gregor said later, smoking a cigar a la machina. “That’s what we’ll have to try. Alloy 342 isn’t the only thing we can use for the plates. There are plenty of materials that’ll last until we get back to Earth.”
THE Configurator couldn’t be tricked into producing a plate of iron, or any of the steel alloys. They asked for and received a plate of bronze. But then the machine wouldn’t give them copper or tin. Aluminum was acceptable, as was cadmium, platinum, gold and silver. A tungsten plate was an interesting rarity; Arnold wished he knew how the machine had cast it. Gregor vetoed plutonium, and they were running short of suitable metals. Arnold hit upon an extra-tough ceramic as a good substitute. And the final plate was pure zinc.
The noble metals would tend to melt in the heat of space, of course. But with proper refrigeration, they might last as far as Earth. All in all, it was a good night’s work, and the partners toasted each other with an excellent, though somewhat oily, sherry.
The next day, they bolted the plates into place and surveyed their handiwork. The rear of their ship looked like a patchwork quilt.
“I think it’s quite pretty,” Arnold said.
“I just hope it’ll last,” said Gregor. “Now for the turn-drive components.”
But that was a different problem altogether. Four identical parts were missing—delicate, precisely engineered affairs of glass and wire. No substitutions were possible.
The Configurator turned out the first without hesitation. But that was all. By noon, both men were disgusted.
“Any ideas?” Gregor asked.
“Not at the moment. Let’s take a break for lunch.”
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