by Sam Merwin
fifteen-foot sunken tub and a small semicircular bar,fully equipped.
On entering Maria unfastened her harness and coverall and stood beforethem, a sweet-bodied dark-eyed girl in her early twenties, clad inshorts and halter. "Lord!" she exclaimed, pushing dark hair back fromher broad low forehead, "It feels good to relax. Zalen, I want to talkto you."
"Delighted," said Lindsay, mildly surprised at the use of his Martianfirst name.
"I've got something to tell him first," said Anderson, unhitching hisown harness and emerging as a lean medium-sized man in good conditionfor his forty years. "I got word just before I flew up here tonight thatyour life may be in danger, Zalen."
* * * * *
Lindsay accepted the arrack-fizz Maria handed him, said "That makeswarning number two, Senator. Du Fresne talked to me about it thisafternoon."
Maria paled visibly. She said, "It sounds impossible!"
"It backs up the judgment of my own group," said Senator Anderson. "DuFresne is just about the smartest computerman we have." He eyed Lindsayspeculatively, added, "You don't seem much impressed by your danger,Zalen."
"How can I be?" Lindsay countered. "After all, Earth is supposed to bemuch further advanced than Mars in civilization. And we have had nopolitical murder on Mars in more than fifty years."
Maria made a despairing gesture. "Oh, dear!" she exclaimed. "You _don't_understand, Zalen. On Mars you have both room and time to settle yourpolitical conflicts. And you don't have computers."
"We have some pretty sharp rows," Lindsay told her. "But we don't haveanyone assassinated." He paused, looked at them both, added, "Do youhave many of them here?"
"Not many," said Anderson. "But there is a growing tendency to go alongwith computer verdicts, no matter how extreme."
"And you believe the British computers are giving accurate answers whenthey recommend the dumping of millions of pairs of utterly uselesshunting boots on Mars? Or those rubber shower curtains they unloaded onus two years ago?"
The Senator said, "There is, unfortunately, no question as to theaccuracy of computer answers. The trouble seems to lie in some specialcondition, local to Britain, that effects computers."
"But if the British computers are wrong, why doesn't somebody dosomething about it?" Lindsay asked.
Anderson said, "If it were that simple, Zalen...." His smile was rueful."Unfortunately our English friends--or their rulers at any rate--aredetermined that socialism is the only government suitable to theircountry. Actually it is nothing of the sort--they can thrive only with amercantile capitalism under a nominal constitutional monarchy."
"In that case I still don't see--" Lindsay began.
"Contrary to what you're thinking, their leaders are not villains,"Anderson told him. "They are men and women obsessed with an ideal thathas hampered them for almost two centuries. And they are incapable ofaccepting any conclusion counter to their ideals."
"Even to impoverishing an entire planet?" Lindsay asked.
Anderson shrugged. "A penalty of their insularity," he replied. "Thereason for this little meeting, Zalen, is to explain that not all of usare in favor of supporting Britain and its absurd production bungling atthe expense of Mars. A few of us are becoming singularly fed up with thecomputer neurosis that seems to have this planet in its grip."
Maria leaned forward, her dark eyes brilliant in their intensity. Shesaid, "Can't you see, Zalen, _that_ is why we are so concerned with yourpossible assassination? We fear the whole of Earth is on the lip of anervous breakdown. Unless the grip of the computers is broken anythingmight happen. And we're counting on you, with your fresh viewpoint andprestige, to help us."
"I was hoping you might be concerned about _me_," said Lindsay softly."After all, I'm the one who is supposed to be killed." He watched asudden flush of embarrassment add charming brilliance to the vividnessof the Secretary General's daughter.
"Of course we're concerned," she said defensively. "We're not reallymonsters, Zalen."
"What Maria means," said Anderson swiftly, "is that if the worst_should_ happen it will go a long way toward making Earth entirelycomputer-dependent, if du Fresne's prophecy is fulfilled a lot of peoplewho might go on fighting will simply give up."
"Just what is your stake in this, Senator?" Lindsay asked.
* * * * *
Anderson said, "I could give you a score of 'good' reasons, Zalen. Butmy real reason is this--I'm damned if I want to see professionalpoliticians become rubber-stamps to a computer. When Sylac was firstused officially three decades ago, it looked as if it might be a help.All we had to do was palm off all unpopular decisions on the machine.
"Elsac, however, has proved to be something else," he went on. "It ismaking too damned many of our decisions for us--and thanks to our havingset Sylac up as a master-brain god we can't controvert its judgment.When President Giovannini gets his new Giac computer working we might aswell shut up shop. And the announcement that Giac is in operation maycome at any time now."
Lindsay studied him, then said, "Your real complaint then, Fernando, isthat the computers deprive you of patronage and power."
"That's about it," said the senator from New Mexico. "We'll be reducedto the level of the political commissars of the Soviet nations. Thescientists and symbolic logicians who feed and tend the computers willactually be running the country. _And_ the world."
"And just where do I come into this?" Lindsay asked.
"You, Zalen, are the last representative of the last sizeable andimportant human organism that is not dependent upon computer judgment,"said Anderson. "That's our side of it. From your own side--if youalready distrust computer decisions, as in the case of the Britishhunting boots--you surely don't want to see them in full control."
"Hardly," said Lindsay. "But at the same time I have no desire to beassassinated or to be the cause of an Earth-Mars war."
"Think it over, Zalen," said Anderson. "I need hardly tell you that I amnot speaking for myself alone." He got up, put down his glass, badeMaria farewell and left the Martian alone with her.
When he had gone Lindsay looked at the girl, who returned his gaze quiteopenly for a long moment before her eyes fell away. He said, "Somehowthe senator and you seem an odd combination."
She made no pretense of misunderstanding but said candidly, "Perhaps Iam neurotic in my distrust of computers but I cannot help that. Those ofus who have any true sensitivity unblunted by the psycho-mechanistics ofthe era all share this distrust. It is natural, since we are few andweak, that we should seek what allies we can find among the strong."
"I've always heard that politics makes strange bedfellows," said Lindsaycasually.
It was obvious that he had committed a _faux pas_. Maria's blushreturned and her expression froze. Lindsay cursed himself for a fool.With the development of all sorts of pneumatic resting devices the word_bed_ had become not only obsolete but definitely distasteful inwell-bred Tellurian circles. Its use was as decried as was that of theword _bloody_ in Victorian England.
She said angrily, "I assure you, Mr. Lindsay, that Senator Anderson andI have never...." Voice and anger faded alike as she apparently realizedthat Lindsay had not intended insult.
He let her mix a second drink for both of them. Then, standing close toher and noting the smooth perfection of her creamy white skin, "I wonderif your father knows that he is nourishing a subversive in his family."
She said with a trace of impatience, "Oh, poor papa never sees the treesfor the forest."
"You're a damned unhappy girl, aren't you?" he asked her. He didn't needan answer, but realized she wanted to talk about it.
She said, her eyes shining suspiciously, "You're right, of course, I'mvery unhappy--constricted in behavior by my father's position, unable tosay aloud what I really think, how I really feel. Sometimes I think Imust be living in some Gothic poet's dream of loneliness."
"Contrary to the beliefs of most psychiatrists," said Lindsay,half-touched, half-appall
ed by Maria's intensity, "we are all of usalone."
"Somehow I _knew_ you'd understand!" she exclaimed, without taking herdark eyes from his. "I'm not allowed to date gladiators, of course.You're the only man I've ever been with who was not afraid to look as heis."
"You'd better come to Mars," he suggested, shying away a little from thehigh voltage the Secretary General's daughter seemed to be