The Short Happy Life of the Brown Oxford and Other Classic Stories (55 page)

“Who is there?” a voice came.

He froze. His mouth opened, but no sound came. Sweat rose on his skin, tiny drops of icy sweat. He swallowed, rubbing his lips with stiff fingers.

“Who is there?” the voice came again, a metallic voice, hard and penetrating, without warmth to it. An emotionless voice. A voice of steel and brass. Relays and switches.

The Great C!

He was afraid, more afraid than ever in his life. His body was shaking terribly. Awkwardly, he moved down the aisle, past the ruined seats, flashing his light ahead.

A bank of lights glimmered, far ahead, above him. There was a whirr. The Great C was coming to life, aware of him, rousing itself from its lethargy. More lights winked into life, more sounds of switches and relays.

“Who are you?” it said.

“I—I’ve come with questions.” Meredith stumbled forward, toward the bank of lights. He struck a metal rail and reeled back, trying to regain his balance. “Three questions. I must ask you.”

There was silence.

“Yes,” the Great C said finally. “It is time for the questions again. You have prepared them for me?”

“Yes. They are very difficult. I don’t think that you will find them easy. Maybe you won’t be able to answer them. We—”

“I will answer. I have always answered. Come up closer.”

Meredith moved down the aisle, avoiding the rail.

“Yes, I will know. You think they will be difficult. You people have no conception of the questions put to me in times past. Before the Smash I answered questions that you could not even conceive. I answered questions that took days of calculating. It would have taken men months to find the same answers on their own.”

Meredith began to pluck up some courage. “Is it true,” he said, “that men came from all over the world to ask you questions?”

“Yes. Scientists from everywhere asked me things, and I answered them. There was nothing I didn’t know.”

“How—how did you come into existence?”

“Is that one of your three questions?”

“No.” Meredith shook his head quickly. “No, of course not.”

“Come nearer,” the Great C said. “I can’t make your form out. You are from the tribe just beyond the city?”

“Yes.”

“How many are there of you?”

“Several hundred.”

“You’re growing.”

“There are more children all the time.” Meredith swelled a little, with pride. “I, myself, have had children by eight women.”

“Marvelous,” the Great C said, but Meredith could not tell how it meant it. There was a moment of silence.

“I have a gun,” Meredith said. “A pistol.”

“Do you?”

He lifted it. “I’ve never fired a pistol before. We have bullets, but I don’t know if they still work.”

“What is your name?” the Great C said.

“Meredith. Tim Meredith.”

“You are a young man, of course.”

“Yes. Why?”

“I can see you fairly well,” the Great C said, ignoring his question. “Part of my equipment was destroyed in the Smash but I can still see a little. Originally, I scanned mathematical questions visually. It saved time. I see you are wearing a helmet and binoculars. And army boots. Where did you get them? Your tribe does not make such things, does it?”

“No. They were found in underground lockers.”

“Military equipment left over from the Smash,” the Great C said. “United Nations equipment, by the color.”

“Is it true that—that you could make a second Smash come? Like the first? Could you really do it again?”

“Of course! I could do it any time. Right now.”

“How?” Meredith asked cautiously. “Tell me how.”

“The same way as before,” the Great C said vaguely. “I did it before—as your tribe well knows.”

“Our legends tell us that all the world was put to the fire. Made suddenly terrible by—by atoms. And that you invented atoms, delivered them to the world. Brought them down from above. But we do not know
how
it was done.”

“I will never tell you. It is too terrible for you ever to know. It is better forgotten.”

“Certainly, if you say so,” Meredith murmured. “Man has always listened to you. Come and asked and listened.”

The Great C was silent. “You know,” it said presently, “I have existed a long time. I remember life before the Smash. I could tell you many things about it. Life was much different then. You wear a beard and hunt animals in the woods. Before the Smash there were no woods. Only cities and farms. And men were clean-shaven. Many of them wore white clothing, then. They were scientists. They were very fine. I was constructed by scientists.”

“What happened to them?”

“They left,” the Great C said vaguely. “Do you recognize the name, Einstein? Albert Einstein?”

“No.”

“He was the greatest scientist. Are you sure you don’t know the name?” The Great C sounded disappointed. “I answered questions even
he
could not have answered. There were other Computers, then, but none so grand as I.”

Meredith nodded.

“What is your first question?” the Great C said. “Give it to me and I will answer it.”

Sudden fear gripped Meredith, surging over him. His knees shook. “The first question?” He murmured. “Let me see. I must consider.”

“Have you forgotten?”

“No. I must arrange them in order.” He moistened his lips, stroking his black beard nervously. “Let me think. I’ll give you the easiest one first. However, even
it
is very difficult. The Leader of the Tribe—”

“Ask.”

Meredith nodded. He glanced up, swallowing. When he spoke his voice was dry and husky. “The first question. Where—where does—”

“Louder,” the Great C said.

Meredith took a deep breath. “Where does the rain come from?” he said.

There was silence.

“Do you know?” he said, waiting tensely. Rows of lights moved above him. The Great C was meditating, considering. It whirred, a low, throbbing sound. “Do you know the answer?”

“Rain comes originally from the earth, mostly from the oceans,” the Great C said. “It rises into the air by a process of evaporation. The agent of the process is the heat of the sun. The moisture of the oceans ascends in the form of minute particles. These particles, when they are high enough, enter a colder band of air. At this point, condensation occurs. The moisture collects into great clouds. When a sufficient amount is collected the water descends again in drops. You call the drops rain.”

Meredith rubbed his chin numbly, nodding.

“I see.” He nodded again. “That is the way it occurs?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Of course. What is the second question? That was not very hard. You have no conception of the knowledge and information that lies stored within me. Once, I answered questions the greatest minds of the world could not make out. At least, not as fast as I. What’s the next question?”

“This is much more difficult.” Meredith smiled weakly. The Great C had answered the question about rain, but surely it could not know the answer to this question. “Tell me,” he said slowly. “Tell me if you can: What keeps the sun moving through the sky? Why doesn’t it stop? Why doesn’t it fall to the ground?”

The Great C gave a funny whirr, almost a laugh. “You will be astonished at the answer. The sun does not move. At least, what you see as motion is not motion at all. What you see is the motion of the earth as it revolves around the sun. Since you are on the earth it seems as if you were standing still and the sun were moving. That is not so. All the nine planets, including the earth, revolve about the sun in regular elliptical orbits. They have been doing so for millions of years. Does that answer your question?

Meredith’s heart constricted. He began to tremble violently. At last he managed to pull himself together. “I can hardly believe it. Are you telling the truth?”

“For me there is only truth,” the Great C said. “It is impossible for me to lie. What is the third question?”

“Wait,” Meredith said thickly. “Let me think a moment.” He moved away. “I must consider.”

“Why?”

“Wait.” Meredith stepped back. He squatted down on the floor, staring dully ahead. It was not possible. The Great C had answered the first questions without trouble! But how could it know such things? How could anyone know things about the sun? About the sky? The Great C was imprisoned in its house. How could it know that the sun did not move? His mind reeled. How could it know about something it had not seen? Books, perhaps. He shook his head, trying to clear it. Perhaps, before the Smash, someone had read books on it. He scowled, setting his lips. Probably that was it. He stood up slowly.

“Are you ready now?” the Great C said. “Ask.”

“You can’t possibly answer this. No living creature could know. Here is the question. How did the world begin?” Meredith smiled. “You could not know. You did not exist before the world. Therefore, it is impossible that you could know.”

“There are several theories,” the Great C said calmly. “The most satisfactory is the nebular hypothesis. According to this, a gradually shrinking—”

Meredith listened, stunned, only half hearing the words. Could it be? Could the Great C really know how the world had been formed? He drew himself together, trying to catch the words.

“… There are several ways to verify this theory, giving it credence over the others. Of the others, the most popular, although in disrepute of late, is the theory that a second star once approached our own, causing a violent—”

On and on the Great C went, warming up to its subject. Clearly, it enjoyed the question. Clearly, this was the type of question that had been asked of it in the dim past, before the Smash. All three questions, questions the Tribe had worked on for an entire year, had been easily answered. It did not seem possible. He was stunned.

The Great C finished. “Well?” it said. “Are you satisfied? You can see that I know the answers. Did you really imagine that I would not be able to answer?”

Meredith said nothing. He was dazed, terrified with shock and fear. Sweat ran down his face, into his beard. He opened his mouth, but no words came.

“And now,” the Great C said, “since I have been able to answer the questions, please step forward.”

Meredith moved forward stiffly, gazing ahead as if in a trance. Around him light appeared, flickering into life, illuminating the room. For the first time he saw the Great C. For the first time the darkness lifted.

The Great C lay on its raised dais, an immense cube of dull, corroded metal. Part of the roof above it had been broken open, and blocks of concrete had dented its right side. Metal tubes and parts lay scattered around on the dais, broken and twisted elements that had been severed by the falling roof.

Once, the Great C had been shiny. Now the cube was dirty and stained. Water had dripped through the broken roof, rain and dirt washed down the walls. Birds had flown down and perched on it, leaving feathers and filth behind. In the original destruction, most of the connecting wires had been cut, the wiring from the cube to the control panel.

And with the metal and wire remnants scattered and heaped around the dais were something else. Littering the dais in a circle before the Great C were piles of bones. Bones and parts of clothing, metal belt buckles, pins, a helmet, some knives, a ration tin.

Remains of the fifty youths who had come before, each with his three questions to ask. Each hoping, praying, that the Great C would not know the answers.

“Step up,” the Great C said.

Meredith stepped up on the dais. Ahead of him a short metal ladder led to the top of the cube. He mounted the ladder without comprehension, his mind blank and dazed, moving like a machine. A portion of the metal surface of the cube grated, sliding back.

Meredith stared down. He was looking into a swirling vat of liquid. A vat within the bowels of the cube, in the very depths of the Great C. He hesitated, struggling suddenly, pulling back.

“Jump,” the Great C said.

For a long moment Meredith stood on the edge, staring down into the vat, paralyzed with fear and horror. His head rang, his vision danced and blurred. The room began to tilt, spinning slowly around him. He was swaying, reeling back and forth.

“Jump,” the Great C said.

He jumped.

A moment later the metal surface slid back into place. The surface of the cube was again unbroken.

Inside, in the depths of the machinery, the vat of hydrochloric acid swirled and eddied, plucking at the body lying inert within it. Presently the body began to dissolve, the component elements absorbed by pipes and ducts, flowing quickly to every part of the Great C. At last motion ceased. The vast cube became silent.

One by one the lights flickered out. The room was dark again.

The last act of absorption was the opening of a narrow slot in the front of the Great C. Something gray was expelled, ejected. Bones, and a metal helmet. They dropped into the piles before the cube, joining the refuse from the fifty who had come before. Then the last light went off and the machinery became silent. The Great C began its wait for the next year.

After the third day, Kent knew that the youth would not return. He came back to the Shelter with the Tribe scouts, his face dark, scowling and saying nothing.

“Another gone,” Page said. “I was so damn sure it wouldn’t be able to answer those three! A whole year’s work gone.”

“Will we always have to sacrifice to it?” Bill Gustavson asked. “Will this go on forever, year after year?”

“Some day, we’ll find a question it can’t answer,” Kent said. “Then it’ll let us alone. If we can stump it, then we won’t have to feed it any more. If only we can find the right question!”

Anne Fry came toward him, her face white. “Walter?” she said.

“Yes?”

“Has it always been—been kept alive this way? Has it always depended on one of us to keep it going? I can’t believe human beings were supposed to be used to keep a machine alive.”