He turned toward the lip of the Tube. A row of D-class leadies was standing in front of it, immobile and silent. Franks stopped, moving back. He looked around. An A-class leady was coming toward him.
"Tell them to get out of the way," Franks said. He touched his gun. "You had better move them."
Time passed, an endless moment, without measure. The men stood, nervous and alert, watching the row of leadies in front of them.
"As you wish," the A-class leady said. It signaled and the D-class leadies moved into life. They stepped slowly aside.
Moss breathed a sigh of relief.
"I'm glad that's over," he said to Franks. "Look at them all. Why don't they try to stop us? They must know what we're going to do."
Franks laughed. "Stop us? You saw what happened when they tried to stop us before. They can't; they're only machines. We built them so they can't lay hands on us, and they know that."
His voice trailed off.
The men stared at the Tube entrance. Around them the leadies watched, silent and impassive, their metal faces expressionless.
For a long time the men stood without moving. At last Taylor turned away.
"Good God," he said. He was numb, without feeling of any kind.
The Tube was gone. It was sealed shut, fused over. Only a dull surface of cooling metal greeted them.
The Tube had been closed.
Franks turned, his face pale and vacant.
The A-class leady shifted. "As you can see, the Tube has been shut. We were prepared for this. As soon as all of you were on the surface, the order was given. If you had gone back when we asked you, you would now be safely down below. We had to work quickly because it was such an immense operation."
"But why?" Moss demanded angrily.
"Because it is unthinkable that you should be allowed to resume the war. With all the Tubes sealed, it will be many months before forces from below can reach the surface, let alone organize a military program. By that time the cycle will have entered its last stages. You will not be so perturbed to find your world intact.
"We had hoped that you would be undersurface when the sealing occurred. Your presence here is a nuisance. When the Soviets broke through, we were able to accomplish their sealing without--"
"The Soviets? They broke through?"
"Several months ago, they came up unexpectedly to see why the war had not been won. We were forced to act with speed. At this moment they are desperately attempting to cut new Tubes to the surface, to resume the war. We have, however, been able to seal each new one as it appears."
The leady regarded the three men calmly.
"We're cut off," Moss said, trembling. "We can't get back. What'll we do?"
"How did you manage to seal the Tube so quickly?" Franks asked the leady. "We've been up here only two hours."
"Bombs are placed just above the first stage of each Tube for such emergencies. They are heat bombs. They fuse lead and rock."
Gripping the handle of his gun, Franks turned to Moss and Taylor.
"What do you say? We can't go back, but we can do a lot of damage, the fifteen of us. We have Bender guns. How about it?"
He looked around. The soldiers had wandered away again, back toward the exit of the building. They were standing outside, looking at the valley and the sky. A few of them were carefully climbing down the slope.
"Would you care to turn over your suits and guns?" the A-class leady asked politely. "The suits are uncomfortable and you'll have no need for weapons. The Russians have given up theirs, as you can see."
Fingers tensed on triggers. Four men in Russian uniforms were coming toward them from an aircraft that they suddenly realized had landed silently some distance away.
"Let them have it!" Franks shouted.
"They are unarmed," said the leady. "We brought them here so you could begin peace talks."
"We have no authority to speak for our country," Moss said stiffly.
"We do not mean diplomatic discussions," the leady explained. "There will be no more. The working out of daily problems of existence will teach you how to get along in the same world. It will not be easy, but it will be done."
The Russians halted and they faced each other with raw hostility.
"I am Colonel Borodoy and I regret giving up our guns," the senior Russian said. "You could have been the first Americans to be killed in almost eight years."
"Or the first Americans to kill," Franks corrected.
"No one would know of it except yourselves," the leady pointed out. "It would be useless heroism. Your real concern should be surviving on the surface. We have no food for you, you know."
Taylor put his gun in its holster. "They've done a neat job of neutralizing us, damn them. I propose we move into a city, start raising crops with the help of some leadies, and generally make ourselves comfortable." Drawing his lips tight over his teeth, he glared at the A-class leady.
"Until our families can come up from undersurface, it's going to be pretty lonesome, but we'll have to manage."
"If I may make a suggestion," said another Russian uneasily. "We tried living in a city. It is too empty. It is also too hard to maintain for so few people. We finally settled in the most modern village we could find."
"Here in this country," a third Russian blurted. "We have much to learn from you."
The Americans abruptly found themselves laughing.
"You probably have a thing or two to teach us yourselves," said Taylor generously, "though I can't imagine what."
The Russian colonel grinned. "Would you join us in our village? It would make our work easier and give us company."
"Your village?" snapped Franks. "It's American, isn't it? It's ours!"
The leady stepped between them. "When our plans are completed, the term will be interchangeable. 'Ours' will eventually mean mankind's." It pointed at the aircraft, which was warming up. "The ship is waiting. Will you join each other in making a new home?"
The Russians waited while the Americans made up their minds.
"I see what the leadies mean about diplomacy becoming outmoded," Franks said at last. "People who work together don't need diplomats. They solve their problems on the operational level instead of at a conference table."
The leady led them toward the ship. "It is the goal of history, unifying the world. From family to tribe to city-state to nation to hemisphere, the direction has been toward unification. Now the hemispheres will be joined and--"
Taylor stopped listening and glanced back at the location of the Tube. Mary was undersurface there. He hated to leave her, even though he couldn't see her again until the Tube was unsealed. But then he shrugged and followed the others.
If this tiny amalgam of former enemies was a good example, it wouldn't be too long before he and Mary and the rest of humanity would be living on the surface like rational human beings instead of blindly hating moles.
"It has taken thousands of generations to achieve," the A-class leady concluded. "Hundreds of centuries of bloodshed and destruction. But each war was a step toward uniting mankind. And now the end is in sight: a world without war. But even that is only the beginning of a new stage of history."
"The conquest of space," breathed Colonel Borodoy.
"The meaning of life," Moss added.
"Eliminating hunger and poverty," said Taylor.
The leady opened the door of the ship. "All that and more. How much more? We cannot foresee it any more than the first men who formed a tribe could foresee this day. But it will be unimaginably great."
The door closed and the ship took off toward their new home.
Mr. Spaceship
Kramer leaned back. "You can see the situation. How can we deal with a factor like this? The perfect variable."
"Perfect? Prediction should still be possible. A living thing still acts from necessity, the same as inanimate material. But the cause-effect chain is more subtle; there are more factors to be considered. The difference is quantitative, I think.
The reaction of the living organism parallels natural causation, but with greater complexity."
Gross and Kramer looked up at the board plates, suspended on the wall, still dripping, the images hardening into place. Kramer traced a line with his pencil.
"See that? It's a pseudopodium. They're alive, and so far, a weapon we can't beat. No mechanical system can compete with that, simple or intricate. We'll have to scrap the Johnson Control and find something else."
"Meanwhile the war continues as it is. Stalemate. Checkmate. They can't get to us, and we can't get through their living minefield."
Kramer nodded. "It's a perfect defense, for them. But there still might be one answer."
"What's that?"
"Wait a minute." Kramer turned to his rocket expert, sitting with the charts and files. "The heavy cruiser that returned this week. It didn't actually touch, did it? It came close but there was no contact."
"Correct." The expert nodded. "The mine was twenty miles off. The cruiser was in space-drive, moving directly toward Proxima, line-straight, using the Johnson Control, of course. It had deflected a quarter of an hour earlier for reasons unknown. Later it resumed its course. That was when they got it."
"It shifted," Kramer said. "But not enough. The mine was coming along after it, trailing it. It's the same old story, but I wonder about the contact."
"Here's our theory," the expert said. "We keep looking for contact, a trigger in the pseudopodium. But more likely we're witnessing a psychological phenomena, a decision without any physical correlative. We're watching for something that isn't there. The mine decides to blow up. It sees our ship, approaches, and then decides."
"Thanks." Kramer turned to Gross. "Well, that confirms what I'm saying. How can a ship guided by automatic relays escape a mine that decides to explode? The whole theory of mine penetration is that you must avoid tripping the trigger. But here the trigger is a state of mind in a complicated, developed life-form."
"The belt is fifty thousand miles deep," Gross added. "It solves another problem for them, repair and maintenance. The damn things reproduce, fill up the spaces by spawning into them. I wonder what they feed on?"
"Probably the remains of our first-line. The big cruisers must be a delicacy. It's a game of wits, between a living creature and a ship piloted by automatic relays. The ship always loses." Kramer opened a folder. "I'll tell you what I suggest."
"Go on," Gross said. "I've already heard ten solutions today. What's yours?"
"Mine is very simple. These creatures are superior to any mechanical system, but only because they're alive. Almost any other life-form could compete with them, any higher life-form. If the yuks can put out living mines to protect their planets, we ought to be able to harness some of our own life-forms in a similar way. Let's make use of the same weapon ourselves."
"Which life-form do you propose to use?"
"I think the human brain is the most agile of known living forms. Do you know of any better?"
"But no human being can withstand outspace travel. A human pilot would be dead of heart failure long before the ship got anywhere near Proxima."
"But we don't need the whole body," Kramer said. "We need only the brain."
"What?"
"The problem is to find a person of high intelligence who would contribute, in the same manner that eyes and arms are volunteered."
"But a brain..."
"Technically, it could be done. Brains have been transferred several times, when body destruction made it necessary. Of course, to a spaceship, to a heavy outspace cruiser, instead of an artificial body, that's new."
The room was silent.
"It's quite an idea," Gross said slowly. His heavy square face twisted. "But even supposing it might work, the big question is whose brain?"
It was all very confusing, the reasons for the war, the nature of the enemy. The Yucconae had been contacted on one of the outlying planets of Proxima Centauri. At the approach of the Terran ship, a host of dark slim pencils had lifted abruptly and shot off into the distance. The first real encounter came between three of the yuk pencils and a single exploration ship from Terra. No terrans survived. After that it was all out war, with no holds barred.
Both sides feverishly constructed defense rings around their systems. Of the two, the Yucconae belt was the better. The ring around Proxima was a living ring, superior to anything Terra could throw against it. The standard equipment by which Terran ships were guided in outspace, the Johnson Control, was not adequate. Something more was needed. Automatic relays were not good enough.
Not good at all, Kramer thought to himself, as he stood looking down the hillside at the work going on below him. A warm wind blew along the hill, rustling the weeds and grass. At the bottom, in the valley, the mechanics had almost finished; the last elements of the reflex system had been removed from the ship and crated up.
All that was needed now was the new core, the new central key that would take the place of the mechanical system. A human brain, the brain of an intelligent, wary human being. But would the human being part with it? That was the problem.
Kramer turned. Two people were approaching him along the road, a man and a woman. The man was Gross, expressionless, heavy-set, walking with dignity. The woman was--He stared in surprise and growing annoyance. It was Dolores, his wife. Since they'd separated he had seen little of her...
"Kramer," Gross said. "Look who I ran into. Came back down with us. We're going into town."
"Hello, Phil," Dolores said. "Well, aren't you glad to see me?"
He nodded. "How have you been? You're looking fine." She was still pretty and slender in her uniform, the blue-gray of Internal Security, Gross's organization.
"Thanks." She smiled. "You seem to be doing all right, too. Commander Gross tells me that you're responsible for this project, Operation Head, as they call it. Whose head have you decided on?"
"That's the problem." Kramer lit a cigarette. "This ship is to be equipped with a human brain instead of the Johnson system. We've constructed special draining baths for the brain, electronic relays to catch the impulses and magnify them, a continual feeding duct that supplies the living cells with everything they need. But--"
"But we still haven't got the brain itself," Gross finished. They began to walk back toward the car. "If we can get that we'll be ready for the tests."
"Will the brain remain alive?" Dolores asked. "Is it actually going to live as part of the ship?"
"It will be alive, but not conscious. Very little life is actually conscious. Animals, trees, insects are quick in their responses, but they aren't conscious. In this process of ours the individual personality, the ego, will cease. We only need the response ability, nothing more."
Dolores shuddered. "How terrible!"
"In time of war everything must be tried," Kramer said absently. "If one life sacrificed will end the war it's worth it. This ship might get through. A couple more like it and there wouldn't be any more war."
They got into the car. As they drove down the road, Gross said, "Have you thought of anyone yet?"
Kramer shook his head. "That's out of my line."
"What do you mean?"
"I'm an engineer. It's not in my department."
"But all this was your idea."
"My work ends there."
Gross was staring at him oddly. Kramer shifted uneasily.
"Then who is supposed to do it?" Gross said. "I can have my organization prepare examinations of various kinds, to determine fitness, that kind of thing--"
"Listen, Phil," Dolores said suddenly.
"What?"
She turned toward him. "I have an idea. Do you remember that professor we had in college? Michael Thomas?"
Kramer nodded.
"I wonder if he's still alive." Dolores frowned. "If he is he must be awfully old."
"Why, Dolores?" Gross asked.
"Perhaps an old person who didn't have much time left, but whose mind was still clear and sharp--"
<
br /> "Professor Thomas," Kramer rubbed his jaw. "He certainly was a wise old duck. But could he still be alive? He must have been seventy, then."
"We could find that out," Gross said. "I could make a routine check."
"What do you think?" Dolores said. "If any human mind could outwit those creatures--"
"I don't like the idea," Kramer said. In his mind an image had appeared, the image of an old man sitting being a desk, his bright gentle eyes moving about the classroom. The old man leaning forward, a thin hand raised--"Keep him out of this," Kramer said.
"What's wrong?" Gross looked at him curiously.
"It's because I suggested it," Dolores said.
"No." Kramer shook his head. "It's not that. I didn't expect anything like this, somebody I knew, a man I studied under. I remember him very clearly. He was a very distinct personality."
"Good," Gross said. "He sounds fine."
"We can't do it. We're asking his death!"
"This is war," Gross said, "and war doesn't wait on the needs of the individual. You said that yourself. Surely he'll volunteer; we can keep it on that
basis."
"He may already be dead," Dolores murmured.
"We'll find that out," Gross said, speeding up the car. They drove the rest of the way in silence.
For a long time the two of them stood studying the small wood house, overgrown with ivy, set back on the lot behind the enormous oak. The little town was silent and sleepy; once in a while a car moved slowly along the distant highway, but that was all.
"This is the place," Gross said to Kramer. He folded his arms. "Quite a quaint little house."
Kramer said nothing. The two Security Agents behind them were expressionless.
Gross started toward the gate. "Let's go. According to the check he's still alive, but very sick. His mind is agile, however. That seems to be certain. It's said he doesn't leave the house. A woman takes care of his needs. He's very frail."
Collected Stories 1 - The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford and Other Classic Stories Page 12