“My dear sir,” said Professor Baumeister, “you must understand that those devices were dependent upon a supply of replacement parts consisting of the most delicate subminiature electronic components. These have not been produced now for over a hundred years—indeed, some of them have been unavailable longer.”
“Ah,” Herr Heitzmann said (mostly to himself, it seemed, but you could hear him in the kitchen). “Then I have the only one.”
Professor Baumeister attempted to ignore this amazing remark, as not having been addressed to himself; but Dr. Eckardt, who is of an inquisitive disposition, said boldly, “You have such a machine, Herr . . .?”
“Heitzmann. Originally of Berlin, now come from Zurich. And you, my good sir?”
Dr. Eckardt introduced himself, and Professor Baumeister too, and Herr Heitzmann clasped them by the hand. Then the doctor said to Professor Baumeister, “You are certain that no computers remain in existence, my friend?”
The professor said, “I am referring to working computers—machines in operating condition. There are plenty of old hulks in museums, of course.”
Herr Heitzmann sighed, and pulled out a chair and sat down at the table with them, bringing his beer. “Would it not be sad,” he said, “if those world-ruling machines were lost to mankind forever?”
Professor Baumeister said drily, “They based their extrapolations on numbers. That worked well enough as long as money, which is easily measured numerically, was the principal motivating force in human affairs. But as time progressed, human actions became responsive instead to a multitude of incommensurable vectors; the computers’ predictions failed, the civilization they had shaped collapsed, and parts for the machines were no longer obtainable or desired.”
“How fascinating!” Herr Heitzmann exclaimed. “Do you know, I have never heard it explained in quite that way. You have provided me, for the first time, with an explanation for the survival of my own machine.”
Dr. Eckardt said, “You have a working computer, then?”
“I do. You see, mine is a specialized device. It was not designed, like the computers the learned professor spoke of just now, to predict human actions. It plays chess.”
“And where do you keep this wonderful machine?” By this time everyone else in the room had fallen silent. Even Scheer took care not to allow the glasses he was drying to clink, and Gretchen, the fat blond serving girl who usually cracked jokes with the soldiers and banged down their plates, moved through the pipe smoke among the tables as quietly as the moon moves in a cloudy sky.
“Outside,” Herr Heitzmann replied. “In my conveyance. I am taking it to Dresden.”
“And it plays chess.”
“It has never been defeated.”
“Are you aware,” Professor Baumeister inquired sardonically, “that to program a computer to play chess—to play well—was considered one of the most difficult problems? That many judged that it was never actually solved, and that those machines which most closely approached acceptable solutions were never so small as to be portable?”
“Nevertheless,” Herr Heitzmann declared, “I have such a machine.”
“My friend, I do not believe you.”
“I take it you are a player yourself,” Herr Heitzmann said. “Such a learned man could hardly be otherwise. Very well. As I said a moment ago, my machine is outside.” His hand touched the table between Professor Baumeister’s glass and his own, and when it came away five gold kilomarks stood there in a neat stack. “I will lay these on the outcome of the game, if you will play my machine tonight.”
“Done,” said Professor Baumeister.
“I must see your money.”
“You will accept a draft on Streicher’s, in Furstenwalde?”
A
nd so it was settled. Dr. Eckardt held the stakes, and six men volunteered to carry the machine into the inn parlor under Herr Heitzmann’s direction.
Six were not too many, though the machine was not as large as might have been expected—not more than 120 centimeters high, with a base, as it might be, a meter on a side. The sides and top were all of brass, set with many dials and other devices no one understood.
When it was at last in place, Professor Baumeister viewed it from all sides and smiled. “This is not a computer,” he said.
“My dear friend,” said Herr Heitzmann, “you are mistaken.”
“It is several computers. There are two keyboards and a portion of a third. There are even two nameplates, and one of these dials once belonged to a radio.”
Herr Heitzmann nodded. “It was assembled at the very close of the period, for one purpose only—to play chess.”
“You still contend that this machine can play?”
“I contend more. That it will win.”
“Very well. Bring a board.”
“That is not necessary,” Herr Heitzmann said. He pulled a knob at the front of the machine, and a whole section swung forward, as the door of a vegetable bin does in a scullery. But the top of the bin was not open as though to receive the vegetables: it was instead a chessboard, with the white squares of brass, and the black of smoky glass, and on the board, standing in formation and ready to play, were two armies of chessmen such as no one in our village had ever seen, tall metal figures so stately they might have been sculptured apostles in a church, one army of brass and the other of some dark metal. “You may play white,” Herr Heitzmann said. “That is generally considered an advantage.”
