Short Fiction - Fritz Leiber (desktop ebook reader .TXT) 📗

a psychologist has spoiled me for that sort of thing. I’m not as good as I once was at beating people over the head with my ego.”

“You didn’t do too badly,” Doc said.

“Thanks. Actually, W.B.M. is very much pleased with the Machine’s performance. The Machine’s flaws made it seem more real and more newsworthy, especially how it functioned when the going got tough⁠—those repairs the boys made under time pressure in your game, Savilly, will help sell W.B.M. computers or I miss my guess. In fact nobody could have watched the tournament for long without realizing there were nine smart rugged men out there, ready to kill that computer if they could. The Machine passed a real test. And then the whole deal dramatizes what computers are and what they can and can’t do. And not just at the popular level. The W.B.M. research boys are learning a lot about computer and programming theory by studying how the Machine and its programmer behave under tournament stress. It’s a kind of test unlike that provided by any other computer work. Just this morning, for instance, one of our big mathematicians told me that he is beginning to think that the Theory of Games does apply to chess, because you can bluff and counterbluff with your programming. And I’m learning about human psychology.”

Doc chuckled. “Such as that even human thinking is just a matter of how you program your own mind?⁠—that we’re all like the Machine to that extent?”

“That’s one of the big points, Savilly. Yes.”

Doc smiled at Sandra. “You wrote a nice little news-story, dear, about how Man conquered the Machine by a palpitating nose and won a victory for international amity.

“Now the story starts to go deeper.”

“A lot of things go deeper,” Sandra replied, looking at him evenly. “Much deeper than you ever expect at the start.”

The big electric Scoreboard lit up.

Final Standing Player Wins Losses Angler 6 3 Votbinnik 6 3 Jal 5½ 3½ Machine 5½ 3½ Lysmov 5 4 Serek 4½ 4½ Sherevsky 4½ 4½ Jandorf 3½ 5½ Krakatower 2½ 6½ Grabo 2 7

“It was a good tournament,” Doc said. “And the Machine has proven itself a grandmaster. It must make you feel good, Simon, after being out of tournament chess for twenty years.”

The psychologist nodded.

“Will you go back to psychology now?” Sandra asked him.

Simon Great smiled. “I can answer that question honestly, Miss Grayling, because the news is due for release. No. W.B.M. is pressing for entry of the Machine in the Interzonal Candidates’ Tournament. They want a crack at the World’s Championship.”

Doc raised his eyebrows. “That’s news indeed. But look, Simon, with the knowledge you’ve gained in this tournament won’t you be able to make the Machine almost a sure winner in every game?”

“I don’t know. Players like Angler and Lysmov may find some more flaws in its functioning and dream up some new stratagems. Besides, there’s another solution to the problems raised by having a single computer entered in a grandmaster tournament.”

Doc sat up straight. “You mean having more programmer-computer teams than just one?”

“Exactly. The Russians are bound to give their best players computers, considering the prestige the game has in Russia. And I wasn’t asking Willie that question about I.B.M. just on a hunch. Chess tournaments are a wonderful way to test rival computers and show them off to the public, just like cross-country races were for the early automobiles. The future grandmaster will inevitably be a programmer-computer team, a man-machine symbiotic partnership, probably with more freedom each way than I was allowed in this tournament⁠—I mean the man taking over the play in some positions, the machine in others.”

“You’re making my head swim,” Sandra said.

“Mine is in the same storm-tossed ocean,” Doc assured her. “Simon, that will be very fine for the master who can get themselves computers⁠—either from their governments or from hiring out to big firms. Or in other ways. Jandorf, I’m sure, will be able to interest some Argentinian millionaire in a computer for him. While I⁠ ⁠… oh, I’m too old⁠ ⁠… still, when I start to think about it⁠ ⁠… But what about the Bela Grabos? Incidentally, did you know that Grabo is contesting Jandorf’s win? Claims Jandorf discussed the position with Serek. I think they exchanged about two words.”

Simon shrugged, “The Bela Grabos will have to continue to fight their own battles, if necessary satisfying themselves with the lesser tournaments. Believe me, Savilly, from now on grandmaster chess without one or more computers entered will lack sauce.”

Dr. Krakatower shook his head and said, “Thinking gets more expensive every year.”

From the floor came the harsh voice of Igor Jandorf and the shrill one of Bela Grabo raised in anger. Three words came through clearly: “… I challenge you⁠ ⁠…”

Sandra said, “Well, there’s something you can’t build into a machine⁠—ego.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” said Simon Great.

The Snowbank Orbit I

The pole stars of the other planets cluster around Polaris and Octans, but Uranus spins on a snobbishly different axis between Aldebaran and Antares. The Bull is her coronet and the Scorpion her footstool. Dear blowzy old bitch-planet, swollen and pale and cold, mad with your Shakespearean moons, white-mottled as death from Venerean Plague, spinning on your side like a poisoned pregnant cockroach, rolling around the sun like a fat drunken floozie with green hair rolling on the black floor of an infinite barroom, what a sweet last view of the Solar System you are for a cleancut young spaceman⁠ ⁠…

Grunfeld chopped off that train of thought short. He was young and the First Interstellar War had snatched him up and now it was going to pitch him and twenty other Joes out of the System on a fast curve breaking around Uranus⁠—and so what! He shivered to get a little heat and then applied himself to the occulted star he was tracking through Prospero’s bridge telescope. The star was a twentieth planetary diameter into Uranus, the crosslines showed⁠—a glint almost lost in pale green. That meant its light was bulleting 1600 miles deep through the seventh planet’s thick hydrogen atmosphere, unless he were seeing the star on a mirage trajectory⁠—and at least its