choking gasp was all his yellowing tongue could utter.
'He didn't trust ye,' said Hogan sadly. 'He thought ye meant him evil when ye told him the simple truth about the machine's operation. And that's why Mr. Hartly is now a statue of the purest yellow gold. The beast must weigh a ton at least.'
'Hartly's never trusted anyone,' said Train. 'I knew that he'd never take my word, so took a chance for all of us. Now he makes a very interesting statue.'
'It's horrible,' said Ann. 'We'll have them take it away.'
'No,' replied Train. 'It must stay here. There's a new life beginning now—at last the youth will be free to work at what they want and the era of Syndicate regimentation is over.
'Let that statue remain there—as a picture of the old order and as a warning to the new.'
The Core
1
Vistas unthinkable—speed beyond all imagining—Sphere Nine followed its course. Unrelieved blackness alternated with dazzling star-clusters; from rim to rim of the universe stretched the thin line that marked the hero's way.
Heroism died, they say, when the 'superiors' opened up the last few stubborn cubic centimeters of brain cells; it died when the last of the
'ordinaries' died with a curse on his lips. Well, so perhaps it was. But this is a story of the days when superiors were new and a little odd, when they were the exception to Homo sapiens.
On Sphere Nine there were four superiors and a dozen ordinaries. Will Archer, executive officer, was a superior of the third generation, big-browed, golden-eyed. Mamie Tung was an experiment, the psychologist, court of last appeal in all emotional disputes. From what records we have, it appears that Mamie Tung was of average height, slender to emaciation.
Star Macduff, the calculating officer, had three strong superior strains and as many of ordinary. But it was necessary that he be of the complement, for there wasn't another man in the solar system who could touch him for math. Yancey Meats, white female superior, was the clericalist and tabulator, serving as many as needed her, at the same time doing her own work of photographing and mapping the unfamiliar stars.
The ordinaries surrendered their names on entering Sphere Nine; they were known as Ratings One–Twelve.
Very gravely Will Archer cocked his cap and leaned back. 'Rating Seven, what have you to say for yourself?'
The knotty-muscled man wrung his hands nervously, stammered something unintelligible.
Archer blinked for Mamie Tung.
The golden-skinned woman slipped through the pipe, sized up the situation in one practiced glance. 'What's your number, handsome?'
That was the way the psychologist worked; flattery, humor, and an easy job of fact-finding at first. And the man would gain confidence from the very sound of his number as she spoke it. You can't find anything out from a man paralyzed with terror.
'Seven, madame.'
'Quite a builder, aren't you, Seven?'
'I'm sorry, madame—I didn't mean to let them loose …'
'How many are there?'
'Ten. We used to watch them fight …'
A little metallic streak scrambled across the floor. Will Archer, in less than a split second, had hurled a filing- case at it. It buzzed, sparked and was still.
It was indeed a greatly-improved specimen of a tinc, the strange, actually living mechanisms which had been developed back on Earth for amusements. The Terrestrial tincs had something less than the intelligence of a dog, but could be trained for combat with fellow machines. Tinc-fights were all the rage.
But what Rating Seven had done, Archer realized at once, had been to raise both the intelligence and the capacity of the tinc to a point where it could easily become a first-class menace. These mechanisms were independent, inventive, and capable of reproduction; all ten must be found and destroyed at once.
Mamie Tung picked it up with a pair of insulated pliers. 'Very good workmanship. Admirable. But now that they're scattered all over the ship what are you going to do about it?'
Rating Seven cleared his throat noisily. 'They only have two directives, madame. One's interspecific fighting and the other's avoiding cold. I was thinking that maybe I could make a kind of bigger one to hunt them down …'
'No,' said Will Archer conclusively. 'You're pretty good, but I wouldn't trust you not to make something that chewed up relays or Bohlmann metal. You may go.'
Mamie Tung flopped on a couch. 'Glory! The things we have to do!'
'Don't get any qualms now. I'll make some kind of magnet that'll draw their visual elements. Then we can bat them to pieces. Blink Star, will you?'
Mamie Tung extended a golden arm to signal the calculator in his quarters. She wrinkled her pugged nose curiously: 'Just how good is that Rating Seven?'
'Very good indeed,' said Will Archer, turning the little machine over in his hands. 'Fine workmanship. He knew when to stop, too. Could've stuck ears on it, given it lights—too bad.'
'Seven goes?'
'I'll dispose of him in a few weeks. Make it look like an accident.'
The Calculator slid through the tube, made a mock salute. He was surprisingly young. 'Welcome, Star. Give me all relevant math for this tinc.'
'Very neat …haven't seen one on the ship yet. They must be fast.'
Mamie Tung yawned a little. 'Will's going to liquidate Rating Seven.'
'Is that so? Necessary, I suppose?'
The psychologist smiled quietly and shrugged.
'Aren't you going to give him any leeway, Archer?'
'I'd rather not. It won't endanger the ship to lose him; keeping him on might. He's maladjusted—that's very plain. This business with the tincs—he's too bright. If you wish I'll hold a vote.'
The Calculator nodded. Mamie Tung blinked for Yancey Mears.
'Report on Rating Seven, Mamie.'
Rolling back her eyes a little, the Psychologist announced in a monotone:
'Physical condition, adequate. Emotional adjustment, seemingly imperfect. Submitted to glandular atonic treatment on the 23rd inst, submitted to repeated treatment on the 87th inst. Reading shows little difference in emotional level. Attitude: morose and incompatible.
Occasionally aggressive. Alternate periods of subnormal servility and abnormal independence. Corresponds to a certain preliminary stage of a type of manic-depressive. Psychologist recommends liquidation, as treatment would substitute an equally dangerous attitude of frustrated egotism.'
'But can't you reason with him?' burst out Star Macduff.
'Stick to your math,' said Yancey Mears as she entered. 'I greet you, vanguard of mankind. Kill the midwit, I
