The Best of Gene Wolfe

by Gene Wolfe

  Haven’t I mentioned Professor Baumeister before? Have you not noticed that in a village such as ours there are always a dozen celebrities? Always a man who is strong (with us that is Willi Schacht, the smith’s apprentice), one who eats a great deal, a learned man like Dr. Eckardt, a ladies’ man, and so on. But for all these people to be properly admired, there must also be a distinguished visitor to whom to point them out, and here in Oder Spree that is Professor Baumeister, because our village lies midway between the university and Fürstenwalde, and it is here that he spends the night whenever he journeys from one to the other, much to the enrichment of Scheer the innkeeper. The fact of the matter is that Professor Baumeister has become one of our celebrities himself, only by spending the night here so often. With his broad brown beard and fine coat and tall hat and leather riding breeches, he gives the parlor of our inn the air of a gentlemen’s club.

  I have heard that it is often the case that the beginning of the greatest drama is as casual as any commonplace event. So it was that night. The inn was full of off-duty soldiers drinking beer, and because of the heat all the windows were thrown open, though a dozen candles were burning. Professor Baumeister was deep in conversation with Dr. Eckardt: something about the war. Herr Heitzmann the mountebank—though I did not know what to call him then—had already gotten his half liter when I came in, and was standing at the bar.

  At last, when Professor Baumeister paused to emphasize some point, Herr Heitzmann leaned over to them, and in the most offhand way asked a question. It was peculiar, but the whole room seemed to grow silent as he spoke, so that he could be heard everywhere, though it was no more than a whisper. He said: “I wonder if I might venture to ask you gentlemen, you both appear to be learned men, if, to the best of your knowledge, there still exists even one of those great computational machines which were perhaps the most extraordinary—I trust you will agree with me?—creations of the age now past.”

  Professor Baumeister said at once, “No, sir. Not one remains.”

  “You feel certain of this?”

  “My dear sir,” said Professor Baumeister, “you must understand that those devices were dependent upon a supply of replacement parts consisting of the most delicate subminiature electronic components. These have not been produced now for over a hundred years—indeed, some of them have been unavailable longer.”

  “Ah,” Herr Heitzmann said (mostly to himself, it seemed, but you could hear him in the kitchen). “Then I have the only one.”

  Professor Baumeister attempted to ignore this amazing remark, as not having been addressed to himself; but Dr. Eckardt, who is of an inquisitive disposition, said boldly, “You have such a machine, Herr . . .?”

  “Heitzmann. Originally of Berlin, now come from Zurich. And you, my good sir?”

  Dr. Eckardt introduced himself, and Professor Baumeister too, and Herr Heitzmann clasped them by the hand. Then the doctor said to Professor Baumeister, “You are certain that no computers remain in existence, my friend?”

  The professor said, “I am referring to working computers—machines in operating condition. There are plenty of old hulks in museums, of course.”

  Herr Heitzmann sighed, and pulled out a chair and sat down at the table with them, bringing his beer. “Would it not be sad,” he said, “if those world-ruling machines were lost to mankind forever?”

  Professor Baumeister said drily, “They based their extrapolations on numbers. That worked well enough as long as money, which is easily measured numerically, was the principal motivating force in human affairs. But as time progressed, human actions became responsive instead to a multitude of incommensurable vectors; the computers’ predictions failed, the civilization they had shaped collapsed, and parts for the machines were no longer obtainable or desired.”

  “How fascinating!” Herr Heitzmann exclaimed. “Do you know, I have never heard it explained in quite that way. You have provided me, for the first time, with an explanation for the survival of my own machine.”

  Dr. Eckardt said, “You have a working computer, then?”

  “I do. You see, mine is a specialized device. It was not designed, like the computers the learned professor spoke of just now, to predict human actions. It plays chess.”

  “And where do you keep this wonderful machine?” By this time everyone else in the room had fallen silent. Even Scheer took care not to allow the glasses he was drying to clink, and Gretchen, the fat blond serving girl who usually cracked jokes with the soldiers and banged down their plates, moved through the pipe smoke among the tables as quietly as the moon moves in a cloudy sky.

  “Outside,” Herr Heitzmann replied. “In my conveyance. I am taking it to Dresden.”

  “And it plays chess.”

  “It has never been defeated.”

  “Are you aware,” Professor Baumeister inquired sardonically, “that to program a computer to play chess—to play well—was considered one of the most difficult problems? That many judged that it was never actually solved, and that those machines which most closely approached acceptable solutions were never so small as to be portable?”

  “Nevertheless,” Herr Heitzmann declared, “I have such a machine.”

  “My friend, I do not believe you.”

  “I take it you are a player yourself,” Herr Heitzmann said. “Such a learned man could hardly be otherwise. Very well. As I said a moment ago, my machine is outside.” His hand touched the table between Professor Baumeister’s glass and his own, and when it came away five gold kilomarks stood there in a neat stack. “I will lay these on the outcome of the game, if you will play my machine tonight.”

  “Done,” said Professor Baumeister.

  “I must see your money.”

  “You will accept a draft on Streicher’s, in Fürstenwalde?”

  * * *

  And so it was settled. Dr. Eckardt held the stakes, and six men volunteered to carry the machine into the inn parlor under Herr Heitzmann’s direction.

  Six were not too many, though the machine was not as large as might have been expected—not more than 120 centimeters high, with a base, as it might be, a meter on a side. The sides and top were all of brass, set with many dials and other devices no one understood.

  When it was at last in place, Professor Baumeister viewed it from all sides and smiled. “This is not a computer,” he said.

  “My dear friend,” said Herr Heitzmann, “you are mistaken.”

  “It is several computers. There are two keyboards and a portion of a third. There are even two nameplates, and one of these dials once belonged to a radio.”

  Herr Heitzmann nodded. “It was assembled at the very close of the period, for one purpose only—to play chess.”

  “You still contend that this machine can play?”

  “I contend more. That it will win.”

  “Very well. Bring a board.”

  “That is not necessary,” Herr Heitzmann said. He pulled a knob at the front of the machine, and a whole section swung forward, as the door of a vegetable bin does in a scullery. But the top of the bin was not open as though to receive the vegetables: it was instead a chessboard, with the white squares of brass, and the black of smoky glass, and on the board, standing in formation and ready to play, were two armies of chessmen such as no one in our village had ever seen, tall metal figures so stately they might have been sculptured apostles in a church, one army of brass and the other of some dark metal. “You may play white,” Herr Heitzmann said. “That is generally considered an advantage.”

  Professor Baumeister nodded, advanced the white king’s pawn two squares, and drew a chair up to the board. By the time he had seated himself the machine had replied, moving so swiftly that no one saw by what mechanism the piece had been shifted.

  The next time Professor Baumeister acted more slowly, and everyone watched, eager to see the machine’s countermove. It came the moment the professor had set his piece in its new position—the black queen slid forward silently, with nothing to prop
el it.

  After ten moves Professor Baumeister said, “There is a man inside.”

  Herr Heitzmann smiled. “I see why you say that, my friend. Your position on the board is precarious.”

  “I insist that the machine be opened for my examination.”

  “I suppose you would say that if a man were concealed inside, the bet would be canceled.” Herr Heitzmann had ordered a second glass of beer, and was leaning against the bar watching the game.

  “Of course. My bet was that a machine could not defeat me. I am well aware that certain human players can.”

  “But conversely, if there is no man in the machine, the bet stands?”

  “Certainly.”

  “Very well.” Herr Heitzmann walked to the machine, twisted four catches on one side, and with the help of some onlookers removed the entire panel. It was of brass, like the rest of the machine, but, because the metal was thin, not so heavy as it appeared.

  There was more room inside than might have been thought, yet withal a considerable amount of mechanism: things like shingles the size of little tabletops, all covered with patterns like writing (Lame Hans has told me since that these are called circuit cards). And gears and motors and the like.

  When Professor Baumeister had poked among all these mechanical parts for half a minute, Herr Heitzmann asked, “Are you satisfied?”

  “Yes,” answered Professor Baumeister, straightening up. “There is no one in there.”

  “But I am not,” said Herr Heitzmann, and he walked with long strides to the other side of the machine. Everyone crowded around him as he released the catches on that side, lifted away the panel, and stood it against the wall. “Now,” he said, “you can see completely through my machine—isn’t that right? Look, do you see Dr. Eckardt? Do you see me? Wave to us.”

  “I am satisfied,” Professor Baumeister said. “Let us go on with the game.”

  “The machine has already taken its move. You may think about your next one while these gentlemen help me replace the panels.”

  Professor Baumeister was beaten in twenty-two moves. Albricht the moneylender then asked if he could play without betting and, when this was refused by Herr Heitzmann, bet a kilomark and was beaten in fourteen moves. Herr Heitzmann asked then if anyone else would play and, when no one replied, requested that the same men who had carried the machine into the inn assist him in putting it away again.

  “Wait,” said Professor Baumeister.

  Herr Heitzmann smiled. “You mean to play again?”

  “No. I want to buy your machine. On behalf of the university.”

  Herr Heitzmann sat down and looked serious. “I doubt that I could sell it to you. I had hoped to make a good sum in Dresden before selling it there.”

  “Five hundred kilomarks.”

  Herr Heitzmann shook his head. “That is a fair proposition,” he said, “and I thank you for making it. But I cannot accept.”

  “Seven hundred and fifty,” Professor Baumeister said. “That is my final offer.”

  “In gold?”

  “In a draft on an account the university maintains in Fürstenwalde—you can present it there for gold the first thing in the morning.”

  “You must understand,” said Herr Heitzmann, “that the machine requires a certain amount of care, or it will not perform properly.”

  “I am buying it as is,” said Professor Baumeister. “As it stands here before us.”

  “Done, then,” said Herr Heitzmann, and he put out his hand.

  The board was folded away, and six stout fellows carried the machine into the professor’s room for safekeeping, where he remained with it for an hour or more. When he returned to the inn parlor at last, Dr. Eckardt asked if he had been playing chess again.

  Professor Baumeister nodded. “Three games.”

  “Did you win?”

  “No, I lost them all. Where is the showman?”

  “Gone,” said Father Karl, who was sitting near them. “He left as soon as you took the machine to your room.”

  Dr. Eckardt said, “I thought he planned to stay the night here.”

  “So did I,” said Father Karl. “And I confess I believed the machine would not function without him. I was surprised to hear that our friend the professor had been playing in private.”

  Just then a small, twisted man, with a large head crowned with wild black hair, limped into the inn parlor. It was Lame Hans, but no one knew that then. He asked Scheer the innkeeper for a room.

  Scheer smiled. “Sitting rooms on the first floor are a hundred marks,” he said. He could see by Lame Hans’s worn clothes that he could not afford a sitting room.

  “Something cheaper.”

  “My regular rooms are thirty marks. Or I can let you have a garret for ten.”

  Hans rented a garret room, and ordered a meal of beer, tripe, and kraut. That was the last time anyone except Gretchen noticed Lame Hans that night.

  * * *

  And now I must leave off recounting what I myself saw and tell many things that rest solely on the testimony of Lame Hans, given to me while he ate his potato soup in his cell. But I believe Lame Hans to be an honest fellow, and as he no longer, as he says, cares much to live, he has no reason to lie.

  One thing is certain. Lame Hans and Gretchen the serving girl fell in love that night. Just how it happened I cannot say—I doubt that Lame Hans himself knows. She was sent to prepare the cot in his garret. Doubtless she was tired after drawing beer in the parlor all day and was happy to sit for a few moments and talk with him. Perhaps she smiled—she was always a girl who smiled a great deal—and laughed at some bitter joke he made. And as for Lame Hans, how many blue-eyed girls could ever have smiled at him, with his big head and twisted leg?

  In the morning the machine would not play chess.

  Professor Baumeister sat before it for a long time, arranging the pieces and making first one opening and then another, and tinkering with the mechanism, but nothing happened.

  And then, when the morning was half-gone, Lame Hans came into the professor’s room. “You paid a great deal of money for this machine,” he said, and sat down in the best chair.

  “Were you in the inn parlor last night?” asked Professor Baumeister. “Yes, I paid a great deal: seven hundred and fifty kilomarks.”

  “I was there,” said Lame Hans. “You must be a very rich man to be able to afford such a sum.”

  “It was the university’s money,” explained Professor Baumeister.

  “Ah,” said Lame Hans. “Then it will be embarrassing for you if the machine does not play.”

  “It does play,” said the professor. “I played three games with it last night after it was brought here.”

  “You must learn to make better use of your knights,” Lame Hans told him, “and to attack on both sides of the board at once. In the second game you played well until you lost the queen’s rook; then you went to pieces.”

  The professor sat down, and for a moment said nothing. And then: “You are the operator of the machine. I was correct in the beginning; I should have known.”

  Lame Hans looked out the window.

  “How did you move the pieces—by radio? I suppose there must still be radio-control equipment in existence somewhere.”

  “I was inside,” Lame Hans said. “I’ll show you sometime; it’s not important. What will you tell the university?”

  “That I was swindled, I suppose. I have some money of my own, and I will try to pay back as much as I can out of that—and I own two houses in Fürstenwalde that can be sold.”

  “Do you smoke?” asked Lame Hans, and he took out his short pipe, and a bag of tobacco.

  “Only after dinner,” said the professor, “and not often then.”

  “I find it calms my nerves,” said Lame Hans. “That is why I suggested it to you. I do not have a second pipe, but I can offer you some of my tobacco, which is very good. You might buy a clay from the innkeeper here.”

  “No, thank you. I fear
I must abandon such little pleasures for a long time to come.”

  “Not necessarily,” said Lame Hans. “Go ahead; buy that pipe. This is good Turkish tobacco—would you believe, to look at me, that I know a great deal about tobacco? It has been my only luxury.”

  “If you are the one who played chess with me last night,” Professor Baumeister said, “I would be willing to believe that you know a great deal about anything. You play like the devil himself.”

  “I know a great deal about more than tobacco. Would you like to get your money back?”

  And so it was that that very afternoon (if it can be credited) the mail coach carried away bills printed in large black letters. These said:

  IN THE VILLAGE OF ODER SPREE

  BEFORE THE INN OF THE GOLDEN APPLES

  ON SATURDAY

  AT 9:00 O’CLOCK

  THE MARVELOUS BRASS CHESSPLAYING AUTOMATON

  WILL BE ON DISPLAY

  FREE TO EVERYONE

  AND WILL PLAY ANY CHALLENGER

  AT EVEN ODDS

  TO A LIMIT OF DM 2,000,000

  Now, you will think from what I have told you that Lame Hans was a cocky fellow, but that is not the case, though like many of us who are small of stature he pretended to be self-reliant when he was among men taller than he. The truth is that though he did not show it, he was very frightened when he met Herr Heitzmann (as the two of them had arranged earlier that he should) in a certain malodorous tavern near the Schwarzthor in Furthenwald.

  “So there you are, my friend,” said Herr Heitzmann. “How did it go?”

  “Terribly,” Lame Hans replied as though he felt nothing. “I was locked up in that brass snuffbox for half the night, and had to play twenty games with that fool of a scholar. And when at last I got out, I couldn’t get a ride here and had to walk most of the way on this bad leg of mine. I trust it was comfortable on the cart seat? The horse didn’t give you too much trouble?”