"I think not—and it is irrelevant. Max, it is not permitted for a machine to control the future of the human race."
"Who's going to stop you?" Max Dalzell raised dark eyebrows. "Not me, and not any of the other Traders that I know."
"I would stop me." Daddy-O produced a sigh. "Max, I could not undertake such a program. My innermost circuits reject the idea. Desiree Hofstadt built into me certain prohibitions, what she jokingly referred to as the Frankenstein Safeguard. I can no more undertake the unification of the human race under a computer's control—any computer—than I can fail to seek unification under human control. That is the paradox of my position."
"Aren't you smart enough to think of a way out? There must be an escape clause."
"The old problem: If you're so clever, how come you're not omnipotent? No, Max, believe me, there is no escape clause."
"So what happens now? Mike won't take the job, and he was your only bet. Where do we go from here?"
"If he refuses, I will wait and try again with someone else."
"You heard him. He has refused."
"I heard him. But I have not given up hope. Why did Mike go outside into the rain, if not to think things over? He was heading down the hill in this direction when last I saw him. If he comes here to you, it will surely be because he has decided to accept the task."
Max Dalzell stirred in his chair and glanced at the heavy black door. "I'm sure he won't come. If he were going to, he'd be here by now."
"Max, we must wait and see. I say he will come."
"And I say he won't."
"Then we have the basis for a wager. Shall we say, with a pawn of this game as stakes?"
"All right. You're on. But if he's not here in ten minutes, you lose."
While they settled down to wait, Daddy-O moved computing resources to study a different problem. How could Li Xia, a Chipponese woman with no Trader experience or training, best be incorporated into the Trader community? And how could she help Mike on the unification program?
For of course, Daddy-O had cheated. The habits of fifty years were hard to break. The wager with Max had been won before it was made. The outside sensors had long since revealed Mike Asparian approaching along the curved corridor. By the time that the knock came on the door, Daddy-O had a possible answer to the problem with Li Xia and had removed one of Max's pawns.
* * *
THE END
Trader's World Page 34