The Invincible

were prevented from getting access to the dry land. This would explain that atmosphere’s moderate oxygen content, which is a by-product of the photosynthesis taking place in the algae and plankton living in the ocean. It also would account for the conditions on the continent’s surface. Naturally it’s nothing but one vast desert — these systems do not build up anything, have no civilization and do not create anything of value, having nothing but themselves. That’s why we should regard them as forces of nature. Nature herself never creates values. These structures are their own raison d’etre; they simply exist for themselves, and they behave the way they do simply in order to continue to exist…”

“How would you explain the destruction of our scouter planes? They were inside their protective energy field the whole time, as we know.”

“One energy field can be extinguished by another. And if you want to erase the entire memory bank of a man’s brain instantaneously, you have to surround his head with a magnetic field so powerful it would be difficult to produce even with all the means we have here on board. For that you would need gigantic transformers and electromagnets.”

“Do you mean to say that these structures have all that at their disposal?”

“Of course not. They don’t ‘have’ anything. They are nothing more than building blocks that combine to form whatever the circumstances of any given moment require. A danger signal simply means that ‘something has come up.’ They register changes in their environment — changes in the electrostatic field, for example. The flying swarm is immediately sent into the ‘cloud-brain’ formation and its collective memory reawakens: yes, we’ve encountered this organism before, dealt with them in such and such a manner, annihilated them — then they just repeat the procedure.”

“All right,” said Horpach, who had not been listening to the biologist’s explanations for some time. “I’m going to postpone departure. Now we’ll have a meeting, though I’d rather not, since it means another one of those endless disputes. The scientists will get upset again, but I don’t know what else to do. I’ll see you in the main library in thirty minutes, Dr. Lauda.”

“If they can convince me that my hypothesis is wrong, you’ll have a truly happy man on board.” Dr. Lauda spoke these words softly and left the cabin as quietly as he had come. Horpach walked over to the intercom at the other wall, pushed the receiver button and called the scientists in to a meeting.

It soon became evident that Dr. Lauda’s assumptions were shared by most of his colleagues: he was merely the first to express them in such a determined manner. The only differences of opinion concerned the question whether the cloud could be considered to have consciousness or not. The cyberneticists were inclined to view the cloud as a thinking system, capable of strategic planning. Lauda was subjected to vigorous attacks. Horpach realized that the basis for their violent arguments was not so much their objections to Lauda’s explanations as the fact that he had discussed them first with the commander rather than with his colleagues. Despite their good relations with the rest of the crew, the scientists formed a “state within a state” on board ship and followed a definite unwritten code of behavior.

Kronotos, the senior cyberneticist, asked Lauda how the cloud could have learned to attack men if it were devoid of intellect.

“Quite simple,” answered the biologist. “It’s done nothing else for millions of years. I’m referring to their fight against the original denizens of Regis III, animals with a central nervous system. The cloud learned to attack them the same way a terrestrial insect will attack its victim, and with the same precision with which a wasp injects its poison into the nerve fibers of a cricket or a grasshopper. No intelligence is needed for that, just instinct.”

“But where did they learn to attack planes? Surely they’ve never met up with aircraft before.”

“How can you be sure of that? The cloud fought on two fronts, as I’ve already pointed out, my dear colleague. Against the organic inhabitants of Regis III, and against the inorganic kind — the automatons, the robots. These robots must necessarily have resorted to all kinds of defensive and offensive means.”

“But if there were no flying robots among them — ”

“I see the point Dr. Lauda wants to make here,” remarked Saurahan, the assistant cyberneticist. These giant robots, macro-automatons, must have established some means of communication with each other in order to work together. They could be most efficiently destroyed through isolation, and that could be best accomplished by blocking their communication system — ”

“Whether the cloud’s behavior is triggered by conscious mental activity or not is completely immaterial at this point,” Kronotos countered. “Our present task is not to find a single hypothesis that will answer all our problems, but rather one that will guarantee us maximum possible security in the course of our stay on this planet. So it would be wiser for us to assume that the cloud does have a certain degree of intelligence. We’ll probably exercise greater caution that way. If, on the other hand, we go along with Dr. Lauda’s belief that the cloud does not possess any reasoning power, and if he turns out to be in error, we may have to pay a terribly high price for that error. I am speaking now not as a theorist but as a tactician.”

“Which of us are you setting up camp against — myself or the cloud?” replied Lauda calmly. “I’m not opposed to caution, but this cloud has as much intelligence as an insect, and not even an individual insect, but, say, an anthill. Otherwise we would all be dead by now.”

“Where’s your proof?”

“We were not the cloud’s first human opponents. May I remind you that the Condor landed on this planet before us. The microscopic “flies” should have learned then, if they had any reasoning power, that they could penetrate the energy field by simply burrowing through the sand. After all, the energy field reached only as far as the surface of the ground. The flies knew the extent of the Condor’s energy field; they could have figured out the appropriate action. Yet they failed to do so. Therefore we must assume the cloud does not have a mind; it acts by sheer instinct.”

Kronotos was not ready to give up but Horpach intervened and suggested that they continue the discussion some other time. He asked for concrete suggestions based on the conditions they had discussed.

Nygren asked whether the men could be equipped with metal helmets in order to counteract the effect of a magnetic field, but the physicists thought this would be useless, since a strong field would produce currents in the metal that in turn would heat the helmets to temperatures so uncomfortable that the men would tear them off. One could easily imagine what the result would be.

It was already evening. Horpach was talking with Lauda and the physicians in one corner of the room, while the cyberneticists formed another group.

“You know, it is strange that the more intelligent ones, the macro-automatons didn’t come out on top of this conflict,” said one of the cyberneticists. “That would be the exception to the rule whereby evolution proceeds toward greater complexity, higher specialization, thus perfecting homeostasis and making better use of available information.”

“These machines didn’t have a chance; they were too complicated and too highly developed from the start,” argued Saurahan. “Don’t forget that they were highly specialized, and had been designed to serve their creators, the inhabitants of the Lyre. Once their masters ceased to exist, the robots were crippled. Like a body without a head. The precursors of the present “flies” — not that they existed at that time; on the conrary, they must have developed at a much later stage — these precursors were relatively primitive. That is precisely why they had such a tremendous potential to develop in many different directions.”

“Still another, even more important factor may have played a role there,” interjected Dr. Sax, who had just joined the group. “We are dealing here with mechanisms, which are incapable of regenerating themselves in the manner of organic beings, or living tissue that can renew and heal itself. Even if a macro-automaton could have repaired a damaged robot, he would have needed the proper tools; probably a lot of complicated machinery. Consequently, it would have sufficed to separate these macromachines from their tools in order to put them out of action. Thus they became the defenseless victims of these tiny flying creatures, who in turn were hardly affected if they were damaged.”

“Very interesting,” spoke up Saurahan. “From what you say it follows that robots should be constructed quite differently from the way we’ve been doing it in order to be really universal: you’d have to start with tiny elementary building blocks, primary units, pseudo-cells that can replace each other, if necessary.”

“That’s not such a new idea,” replied Sax with a smile. “It’s the same way organic forms develop — and it’s no accident, either. Neither is it merely by chance that this cloud is composed of such interchangeable units. It is a question of the proper materials: a damaged robot needs parts that can only be produced by a highly advanced