The Cosmic Computer - H. Beam Piper (best black authors txt) 📗

As soon as Foxx Travis had learned that one of his great-granddaughter’s guests was from Poictesme, he had insisted on talking to him.

“What did he tell you?”

The old man had been incredibly thin and frail. Under normal gravitation, his life would have gone out like a blown match. Even at one-sixth G, it had cost him effort to rise and greet the guest. There had been a younger man, a mere stripling of seventy-odd; he had been worried, and excused himself at once. Travis had laughed after he had gone out.

“Mike Shanlee; my aide-de-camp on Poictesme. Now he thinks he’s my keeper. He’ll have a squad of doctors and a platoon of nurses in here as soon as you’re gone, so take your time. Now, tell me how things are on Poictesme⁠ ⁠…”

“Just about that,” he told his father. “I finally mentioned Merlin, as an old legend people still talked about. I was ashamed to admit anybody really believed in it. He laughed, and said, ‘Great Ghu, is that thing still around? Well, I suppose so; it was all through the Third Force during the War. Lord only knows how these rumors start among troops. We never contradicted it; it was good for morale.’ ”

They had started walking again, and were out on the Mall; the sky was flaming red and orange from high cirrus clouds in the sunset light. They stopped by a dry fountain, perhaps the one from which he had seen the dust blowing. Rodney Maxwell sat down on the edge of the basin and got out two cigars, handing one to Conn, who produced his lighter.

“Conn, they wouldn’t have believed you and Foxx Travis,” he said. “Merlin’s a religion with those people. Merlin’s a robot god, something they can shove all their problems onto. As soon as they find Merlin, everybody will be rich and happy, the government bonds will be redeemed at face value plus interest, the paper money’ll be worth a hundred Federation centisols to the sol, and the leaves and wastepaper will be raked off the Mall, all by magic.” He muttered an unprintability and laughed bitterly.

“I didn’t know you were the village atheist, Father.”

“In a religious community, the village atheist keeps his doubts to himself. I have to do business with these Merlinolators. It’s all I can do to keep Flora from antagonizing them at school.”

Flora was a teacher; now she was assistant principal of the grade schools. Professor Kellton was also school superintendent. He could see how that would be.

“Flora’s not a True Believer, then?”

Rodney Maxwell shook his head. “That’s largely Wade Lucas’s influence, I’d say. You know about him.”

Just from letters. Wade Lucas was from Baldur; he’d gone off-planet as soon as he’d gotten his M.D. Evidently the professional situation there was the same as on Terra; plenty of opportunities, and fifty competitors for each one. On Poictesme, there were few opportunities, but nobody competed for anything, not even to find Merlin.

“He’d never heard of Merlin till he came here, and when he did, he just couldn’t believe in it. I don’t blame him. I’ve heard about it all my life, and I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“To begin with, I suppose, because it’s just another of these things everybody believes. Then, I’ve had to do some studying on the Third Force occupation of Poictesme to know where to go and dig, and I never found any official, or even reliably unofficial, mention of anything of the sort. Forty years is a long time to keep a secret, you know. And I can’t see why they didn’t come back for it after the pressure to get the troops home was off, or why they didn’t build a dozen Merlins. This isn’t the only planet that has problems they can’t solve for themselves.”

“What’s Mother’s attitude on Merlin?”

“She’s against it. She thinks it isn’t right to make machines that are smarter than people.”

“I’ll agree. It’s scientifically impossible.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell her. Conn, I noticed that after Kurt Fawzi started talking about how long it would take to get to the Gamma System, you jumped right into it and began talking up a ship. Did you think that if you got them started on that it would take their minds off Merlin?”

“That gang up in Fawzi’s office? Nifflheim, no! They’ll go on hunting Merlin till they die. But I was serious about the ship. An idea hit me. You gave it to me; you and Klem Zareff.”

“Why, I didn’t say a word⁠ ⁠…”

“Down on the shipping floor, before we went up. You were talking about selling arms and ammunition at a profit of two hundred sols a ton, and Klem was talking as though a bumper crop was worse than a Green Death epidemic. If we had a hypership, look what we could do. How much do you think a settler on Hoth or Malebolge or Irminsul would pay for a good rifle and a thousand rounds? How much would he pay for his life?⁠—that’s what it would come to. And do you know what a fifteen-cc liqueur glass of Poictesme brandy sells for on Terra? One sol; Federation money. I’ll admit it costs like Nifflheim to run a hypership, but look at the difference between what these tramp freighter captains pay at Storisende and what they get.”

“I’ve been looking at it for a long time. Maybe if we had a few ships of our own, these planters would be breaking new ground instead of cutting their plantings, and maybe we’d get some money on this planet that was worth something. You have a good idea there, son. But maybe there’s an angle to it you haven’t thought of.”

Conn puffed slowly at the cigar. Why couldn’t they grow tobacco like this on Terra? Soil chemicals, he supposed; that wasn’t his subject.

“You can’t put this scheme over on its own merits. This gang wouldn’t lift a finger to build a hypership. They’ve completely lost hope in everything but Merlin.”

“Well, can do. I’ll even convince them