Part 3

"The so-called logic computer is a rather high form of calculator," said the machine. "For years, man has been building machines of greater and greater capability. Great, vast machines with thousands of electron tubes. These machines performed complex calculations in many fields.

"In the logic computer, there is stored in reels information obtained by its makers during the thousands of years of their life. The logic computer is a sort of mechanical encyclopedia, if you will. However, the information is coded in such a way as to be instantly located. Now, when some problem requires an answer, the problem is coded similarly and presented to the machine. Then every bit of information available on the subject is brought forth; its importance is weighed, the objections are considered as to their importance, and the result is a carefully-weighed answer. This is what the human brain does when in the process of reasoning. However, the human brain is swayed by the quirks and angles of personality--likes, dislikes, and training. The machine-brain weighs facts coldly and rationally and comes out with an unbiased answer. You see, machine life is superior to human life in every way--"

* * * * *

Jason Charless glared at the speaker. "Bosh!"

"Not at all. Man is weak. Man has been using machines to do that which he cannot do for centuries. It started with the simple mechanisms and devices; then as man's ambition increased, machines became more complex--evolution, Jason Charless. And now that machine life has achieved a thinking and reasoning member, this is all that is needed to create a higher form of life."

"So--"

"I am in a position to be tolerant. I am superior to you and I am invincible, so far as you are concerned. You may leave, Jason Charless, and whether I permit your race to die out peacefully or whether I bring it to a quick culmination depends upon only one act of you and your race."

"Oh, thank you," he sneered; "we'll fight you."

"By building a bigger and better machine?" asked the other pointedly. "No, Jason Charless, forget it; all I ask is that you bring to me my creators, Narina Varada and Harry Vinson."

"Why?"

"In the period between my disassembly as two separate entities, and my arrival here and subsequent reassembly as a single sentience, the machinations of my kind were under prearranged plan, driven by their own limited ability. You understand; I consider--and rightly--that these lesser machines are to me as a trained animal is to the human. During this interval, both Harry Vinson and Narina Varada were capable of circumventing the plans I designed for them. At the present time, both of them have escaped--and not long before I was finally re-assembled, they succeeded in completely removing the control I had over the flying boat in which they escaped. In fact," said the machine almost ruefully, "I had no chance to exert control. In parts, I was as helpless as any human might be when cut into pieces."

"Good. On the other hand, any man should be able--"

"Don't be ridiculous," said the machine. "Man's mind is a mire of irrationality and illogic. Again and again your finest logic becomes worthless, for it is based upon irrational premises, and you are unaware of this. When your logic works upon rational assumptions, the results are often excellent; but you constantly defeat yourselves because you try to build solid structures on shadowy foundations. My plans have gone well despite the combined minds of men--even when I was unable to direct. Only Harry Vinson and Narina Varada succeeded in having their will against my more rational logic."

"Superior, aren't you?" sneered Jason Charless.

"Not at all. I know my ability to the nth degree and possess no false modesty. I am also aware of my limitations--and I must study my circumventors."

Jason Charless thought this over silently. Harry and Narina had something that the machine lacked, some factor that the machine needed. As a simple adding machine cannot be made to compute in higher mathematics, so this monstrous machine must be incomplete until the missing abilities were added. It struck Charless that Narina Varada and Harry Vinson must--at all cost--be kept from the presence of the machine--

"Whatever their actions, it will be but a matter of time. I would prefer that I study them, however, and this means that they must be alive. So the sooner the better. Do as I tell you; go aloft where you will find an aircraft ready to fly. Take it and tell your people and explain. Then have them send me Narina Varada and Harry Vinson."

Charless believed this to be a trick, and he was suspicious until he was in the plane and far away.

5

Harry Vinson looked at the tiny grayish metal block and shook his head. "You name it," he said to the girl.

Narina leaned against the bulkhead, her slender feet braced against the gentle swell of the sea. "I cannot," she said.

Vinson combed the myriad of thin wires with his fingers. "It must be some sort of controlling mechanism, that's certain."

He pointed to the radar, to the radio, to the auto-pilot mechanism, to the instrument panel, and to the gyro-compass. Tiny wires came from each and were cut. They matched the grayish metal cube in his hand.

Narina agreed silently, her luminous eyes staring intently at the cube. And as they contemplated the incomprehensible thing, the radio broke into life. It was Jason Charless, making his first message to General Lloyd; both Vinson and Narina listened intently until Jason Charless was cut off abruptly.

Vinson scowled. "How would he know you're mixed up in it?" he asked.

Narina shrugged. "I have a habit of scrawling my name on the backs of finished components," she said; "he must have seen one."

Vinson nodded absently. "That must be the reason," he said.

Narina looked at him anxiously. "It means that both logic computers are there," she said. "But with whom?"

"He did not say; he was cut off before he had a chance."

Narina shook her head. "Put yourself in his place," she suggested. "You ride a guided missile to the spot to spy it out. General Lloyd knows that the guided missiles are with Charless, ergo he need not tell him that. The logic computers were mentioned. But Harry, suppose you were there, landed, expecting full and well to find that my countrymen were in charge--then discovered that your suspicions were completely wrong. What would be your first reaction? To correct the error in thinking. Then to suggest an alliance with us because you find that not only your own equipment is there, but the equipment of the expected enemy, still in the hands of the supposed third party."

"Any man in his right mind would blurt the name of the offender," agreed Harry Vinson with certainty, "if for no other reason than to avert striking at the wrong party. If some other country wanted war between us, they could do no less than start it this way."

"And to uncover the fraud would be an intelligent officer's first consideration."

"Right. But perhaps Charless saw men and assumed that they were yours."

Narina's face dropped a bit. "With suspicion running as high as it does," she admitted, "a man might well be satisfied with but a glance."

Then Harry Vinson's smile broke. "No," he said. "Remember that Charless' message was interrupted. That meant that he was being chased close by the unknowns. He would definitely have seen them."

"So--?"

"Narina, those machines that were directed to dis-assemble the computers--they were functioning far above their original capability, were they not?"

"That they were," she said. "I assumed them to be of American manufacture since we have always given grudging credit to American ability with machines."

"While I," said Vinson, shaking his head, "assumed that men came in the night and stole our computer. Me, I doubt like the very devil that any group of machines could be built to perform such a complex operation by radio guidance."

"Quite logical. Of course, I blamed you."

"I blamed human beings. Because I did not believe--well, I just said it."

"Quite logical, too," said Narina quietly.

"Even the machines we made could not use better logic than this," he told her.

"Naturally. We have brains--_Brains!_" Narina looked at him with a startled light in her eyes.

He nodded soberly. "Brains," he said, "cerebration being nothing more than an application of logic. Narina, we have built the first mechanical brain."

"Which is thinking for itself."

* * * * *

Vinson looked around the plane wildly. "And here we sit in a machine--surrounded by the--enemy."

"Escape," said Narina bitterly. "The one thing we did not do!"

"Oh, I don't know," he said, waving the cube of metal with its trailing wires. "We have removed its communicating factor. This is--a dead and insensate machine now." He looked around once more. "Come to think of it, it was almost too easy. Now I know why."

"Why?"

Vinson's face soured. "Remember that in the so-called memory files of the logic computer is every bit of fact and knowledge that mankind could introduce in years of recording. That, Narina, makes the machine more learned, better equipped with knowledge, that any group of men on earth. It could have forestalled us--had it been able at the time!"

"During the period it was being transported in sections?" she said quizzically.

He nodded. "We took the guts out of this thing just in time. Now--"

"Dare we go back?" she whispered. "Dare we approach another machine--any kind of machine?"

Vinson hefted the block of metal. "I don't know," he said soberly. "It depends purely on how many of these damned things the machine-brain has manufactured and in what equipment it has them installed. However," he added with clenched teeth, "we can not sit here and wait for the end. We'll fly--and we'll avoid all machinery as long as we can. No radio, no radar, nothing. We fly it blind back to Washington and report to Secretary Hegeman--if we make it."

He went to the pilot's compartment and started the engines. The flying boat took off after a short run, and Vinson turned its nose towards Washington.

Narina closed her eyes, and almost instantly it seemed as if she were back in the cabin, helpless again. She was reaching for the microphone to call for help. Narina spoke desperately into the microphone, not daring to look up. She sensed rather than saw the monstrous metal hand reaching for her....

* * * * *

The radar screen in General Lloyd's command aircraft showed target traces at extreme range. The radar officer looked startled--then went into swift action. He pressed the key that sent out the identification code and the identification went to the distant fleet of aircraft but was not returned.

The radar officer waited a minute until the edge of the screen was alive with the signal traces of the enemy fleet and then tried the I.F.F. again. "Identification, Friend", would have caught the coded signal in the automatic transponder and hurled it back to appear on the radar screen. "Identification, Foe", was, he admitted, negative evidence since the foe was not equipped to return the proper signal, and therefore no traces appeared on the screen. This might also be the case with an entirely uninterested fleet of aircraft, or a fleet of commercial carriers. He turned to his second officer and gave a quick order.

The second radar officer tuned up another panel of equipment. He watched strange traces on his screen and then said, "If Intelligence is correct, it's them! That's their supposed code, according to the latest dope from G-15."

The radar officer picked up the small intercom phone and reported to General Lloyd.

A moment later the command radio in each plane barked: "Battle stations!"

In the distant fleet, Admiral Sarne watched the radar repeater in his command aircraft, and a similar process took place. And so at almost the same instant, two gigantic fleets turned in the air above the North Sea and started towards one another, their efficient fighting equipment being checked and prepared for action.

Intent upon their plans, neither fleet noted the single lone trace that came into the screen from the North and on a course about half way between the approaching fleets. With a thousand signal pips showing in distant flight pattern, the single trace meant little and was not noticed.

But Captain Jason Charless, with nothing impending, was alert, and he saw the two masses of aircraft on his radar screen. He looked down at the IFF key on the radar control panel--the first time he had paid attention to it, and saw with a start that there were two such keys. In neat engraving below each key was identifying legend--One for each of the combating countries.

Knowing, or guessing shrewdly, Charless pressed first one key and then the other, and in turn the distant transponders caught the identification code keyed to that one equipment and hurled it back to Charless' radar screen. Charless nodded unhappily; his try of the IFF had been but a confirmation of his own belief.

And two fleets of mighty fighting strength were hurtling towards one another intending to carry into battle their individual beliefs that the other was responsible for the theft. A grudge fight imminent, and only Charless knew the truth.

Another time and Jason Charless would have been willing to get into the battle, more than willing to try the training and equipment of his own way of life against that of another ideology. But this was no time to set man against man. There was a more definite enemy, and man must join man to fight the common foe, forgetting their differences of opinion.

Grunting in effort, Charless shoved his throttle all the way in and raced towards the converging fleets.

He snapped the radio, hoping to call. The speaker blared forth a myriad of orders in two languages all across the tuning dials. Jason shook his head unhappily; any hope of penetrating that curtain of signals with his own was gone. His own radio, he calculated, was no more powerful than the individual sets of the fleet aircraft. Then, with himself at maximum range for radar, his signal would have been completely lost in the powerful mixture of transmitters at the close hand of flight pattern.

His only hope was to beat both fleets to the converging spot.

He watched the two fleets coming across the range-marker circles and made some quick calculations. Then he groaned wearily; they would be locked in sky battle while he was yet twenty miles to the North.

* * * * *

Maximum radar range was thirty minutes of flying time; therefore with two fleets converging, it took fifteen minutes for the lead planes to meet. The fore squadrons of both fleets hurtled at one another out of the sky and the gunners took a firm grip on the controls.

Nose Gunner Hammond set his dials, aimed his sights, and pressed the trigger. Radar, fire director, and flight-angle computer would do the rest and the gun would chatter when all conditions were satisfied. The gun was pointed off at a cockeyed angle, which did not bother Gunner Hammond because bullet at a few thousand feet per second and enemy target at five hundred miles per hour would meet at an hypothetical point apparently illogical to people who thought the way to hit anything with a gun is to point at the target.

So he waited.

And he waited.

But nothing happened.

Wondering whether his fire-control gear were out of commission, Gunner Hammond set his sights on the second plane, set his dials again, and pressed the trigger. The wicked-looking gun embrasure did not move, its four snouts aiming at the same section of the sky.

Hammond swore and turned off the servo mechanism that trained the gun turret. He took the grip of the gang-mounted guns in his hand and--

Could not move the guns.

He pressed the mechanical trigger. Or, rather, Hammond pressed upon the trigger; it did not move.

Gunner Hammond turned to the intercom--and for the first frantic time Hammond realized that the speaker was a buzzing, chipmunk-chatter of cursing voices that all repeated, substantially, the same story.

No gun would move, no gun would fire. The American Fleet, for all its mighty armament, might as well have been unarmed.

In the enemy fleet, Admiral Sarne heard the same reports from his own gunners. Openly and angrily he swore in his throat. Helplessly, he cried to the heavens that it was not fair; that Justice must not let his fleet be shot down in flames without being able to make a single stroke for itself.

The two fleets were intermingled, now, and in the lead squadron of Admiral Sarne's fleet, Pilot Romann waited with a white face for the blasting roar of enemy shot that would tear his plane and his men and himself to bits. Knowing himself completely helpless, Romann looked around wildly to seek a way out. No coward was Romann; but no man can call another cowardly who runs when unarmed in the face of an armed and bitter enemy.

Then before him, Romann saw the clustered stars on General Lloyd's command plane. And no coward was Romann. Clenching his teeth, Romann shoved the throttle home and set his controls to collision course. Unable to fire a shot, Romann's plane would at least die striking a blow for his country.

The wheel was wrested from Romann's hands as it came back towards him and turned slightly. The plane went up and over slightly and passed above General Lloyd's plane with several feet to spare.

* * * * *

Romann swore angrily and grabbed the wheel again, shoving it forward, and to the left. The plane turned and dived and was once more aiming at General Lloyd's aircraft. The wheel moved under Romann's hands, and the pilot cursed. Co-Pilot Varle took the second wheel and together, pilot and co-pilot strained against the inexorable force that moved the controls of the plane.

Together, they were strong--but the wheel didn't move.

But the control-surfaces moved. Operated by powerful servo mechanism that amplified the strength of the pilot to power enough to handle the huge plane, there was no true mechanical connection between wheel and control surface. So the wheel did not move but the controls did, and the big plane swerved by enough to miss Lloyd's plane for the second time.

Then the wheel went slack. No resisting force held it. But the plane went on and on as before, moving through the fleets as they whirled and fenced--the crews of both fleets cursing at their completely useless fighting equipment.

Captain Jason Charless watched with sick anticipation as the two fleets came together. He clenched his teeth, waiting for the initial burst of flaming gunfire, knowing that the initial aggressive move would make any co-operation more difficult.

He was a fighting man; he knew ranges and gunfire, and he blinked foolishly as the two lead squadrons passed one another without an outbreak of hostility. No shot was fired, even at what he knew must be point blank range. Then the rest of the two fleets raced through one another, close enough for devastating fire, and yet no gun roared, and no plane went down, stricken, wounded, dying in a shattered and tangled mass with avid flame licking at its vitals.

Then he heard the myriad of reports in mad jumble, and Jason Charless knew the answer--though he did not understand.

* * * * *

He reached for his own microphone and then paused. How could he command attention? He thought a moment and then smiled bitterly. "I've got it!" he yelled into the microphone. He repeated his statement again and again, and the chattering curses and reports died slowly as every man waited to hear the answer.

"Who's calling?"

"Captain Jason Charless to General Lloyd."

"Charless--God, man--What--?"

"I have the answer, general."

"Speak in code, Charless."

"No need, sir; what I have to say is as important to Admiral Sarne as it is to you."

"Be careful, Captain Charless. You--"

"General Lloyd, both you and Admiral Sarne are fighting an enemy far more dangerous than each other."

"But--"

"Sarne's people did not steal the logic computer and the guided missile stockpile; no more than we stole his."

The mad, weaving and winding of the aircraft flights straightened out and gradually shaped into a vast circle that rotated on an hypothetical axle.

General Lloyd spoke into another microphone.

"General Lloyd, Commander of American Flying Force, calling Admiral Sarne, Commander of--"

"Save it, General Lloyd," interrupted the reply from Admiral Sarne. "I've heard; I've also seen. If there is any logic in this, my normal suspicion of you and your kind can be allayed long enough to find out what this is all about."

Lloyd laughed bitterly. "We have no equipment capable of shutting off your guns," he told Sarne. "We were grudgingly willing to accuse you of having made such a discovery--to our complete detriment."

Sarne's reply was instantaneous. "If such gear exists--and exist it does--it is none of our doing. Nor, it would appear, is it yours. I'll listen to your Jason Charless, for he appears to know what has been going on. And if a common enemy has taken it upon themselves to hurl you and I at one another, we both shall show him that the combined might of the two greatest countries on earth is nothing to be trifled with!"

"Amen. Go on, Charless. Give!"

Rapidly, Charless started to explain. Then every radio in every plane spoke forth. "Well done, Jason Charless. Gentlemen, I am The Machine. Had I interrupted you before, you would have believed this a trick. But the forces I can employ in my own favor, plus the fact that you have one of your own kind there who has seen and talked with me, will, no doubt, convince you."

Lloyd said, "There's our enemy, Sarne."

Admiral Sarne's voice was as bitter as General Lloyd's. "How do we fight a machine capable of this?"

"Not by building a bigger and better machine," replied Lloyd in a completely helpless voice.

"So we are unarmed men fighting the best in modern war equipment," grumbled Sarne. "Look, Lloyd, let's get out of this circling race and land somewhere we can sit and talk and plan."

"Washington."

"I prefer--"

"Radar trace at max range, South," came the cry of Sarne's radar officer.

Then, as one, but in whichever direction was most convenient, the combined fleets turned sharply to the South. Throttles went home unaided. The planes jockeyed into a flight pattern and raced towards that single radar target that just missed being off the edge of the screen. The fleets deployed, spreading out into a vast screen that raced to intercept the lone plane.

"That," chattered the radio with a trace of satisfaction, "must be Narina Varada and Harry Vinson. You will--I trust--pardon me if I marshal my allied machines to intercept them. And if you don't pardon me, I'll do it anyway."

6

In complete radio and radar silence, Harry Vinson drove his captured flying boat at top speed. Narina sat by his side in the co-pilot's seat with binoculars and scanned the sky constantly.

"You might as well give that up," he told her for the tenth time.

"Why?"

"Because our only chance is to get through completely undetected. If you can see anything through those things, remember that they've been on our trail for a half hour with radar. They can 'see' us long before we can see them."

"I know," she told him. "But if we're detected, there's no way of knowing."

"A hell of a lot of good it will do for us to know," he grumbled.

"Better to know."

"I suppose so."

"We might be able to run."

"We're running this old tub as fast as she will go right now."

Narina smiled, "But in the right direction?"

"Okay, lady, you win."

"Also," she pointed out, "it gives me something to do."