IV
The alarm chimed softly beside his bed; he reached out and silencedit, and lay looking at the early sunlight in the windows, and foundthat he was wishing himself back in his dorm room at the University.No, back in this room, ten years ago, before any of this had started.For a while, he imagined himself thirteen years old and knowingeverything he knew now, and he began mapping a campaign to establishhimself as Litchfield's Juvenile Delinquent Number One, to the endthat Kurt Fawzi and Dolf Kellton and the rest of them would neverdream of sending him to school on Terra to find out where Merlin was.
But he couldn't even go back to yesterday afternoon in Kurt Fawzi'soffice and tell them the truth. All he could do was go ahead. It hadseemed so easy, when he and his father had been talking on the Mall;just get a ship built, and get out to Koshchei, and open some of theshipyards and engine works there, and build a hypership. Sure;easy--once he got started.
He climbed out of bed, knuckled the sleep-sand out of his eyes, threwhis robe around him, and started across the room to the bath cubicle.
They had decided to have breakfast together his first morning home.The party had broken up late, and then there had been the excitementof opening the presents he had brought back from Terra. Nobody had hada chance to talk about Merlin, or about what he was going to do, nowthat he was home. That, and his career of mendacity, would start atbreakfast. He wanted to let his father get to the table first, to runinterference for him; he took his time with his toilet and dressedcarefully and slowly. Finally, he zipped up the short waist-lengthjacket and went out.
His father and mother and Flora were at the table, and theserving-robot was floating around a few inches off the floor, steamtrailing from its coffee urn and its tray lid up to offer food. Hegreeted everybody and sat down at his place, and the robot came aroundto him. His mother had selected all the things he'd been most fond ofsix years ago: shovel-snout bacon, hotcakes, starberry jam, things hehadn't tasted since he had gone away. He filled his plate and poured acup of coffee.
"You don't want to bother coming out to the dig with me this morning,do you?" his father was saying. "I'll be back here for lunch, andwe'll go to the meeting in the afternoon."
"Meeting?" Flora asked. "What meeting?"
"Oh, we didn't have time to tell you," Rodney Maxwell said. "You know,Conn brought back a lot of information on locations of supply depotsand things like that. An amazing list of things that haven't beendiscovered yet. It's going to be too much for us to handle alone;we're organizing a company to do it. We'll need a lot of labor, forone thing; jobs for some of these Tramptowners."
"That's going to be something awfully big," his mother said dubiously."You never did anything like that before."
"I never had the kind of a partner I have now. It's Maxwell & Son,from now on."
"Who's going to be in this company?" Flora wanted to know.
"Oh, everybody around town; Kurt and the Judge and Klem, and LesterDawes. All that crowd."
"The Fawzis' Office Gang," Flora said disparagingly. "I supposethey'll want Conn to take them right to where Merlin is, the firstthing."
"Well, not the first thing," Conn said. "Merlin was one thing Icouldn't find out anything about on Terra."
"I'll bet you couldn't!"
"The people at Armed Forces Records would let me look at everythingelse, and make microcopies and all, but not one word about computers.Forty years, and they still have the security lid welded shut onthat."
Flora looked at him in shocked surprise. "You don't mean to tell meyou believe in that thing?"
"Sure. How do you think they fought a war around a perimeter of closeto a thousand light-years? They couldn't do all that out of theirheads. They'd have to have computers, and the one they'd use tocorrelate everything and work out grand-strategy plans would have tobe a dilly. Why, I'd give anything just to look at the operatingpanels for that thing."
"But that's just a silly story; there never was anything like Merlin.No wonder you couldn't find out about it. You were looking forsomething that doesn't exist, just like all these old cranks that sitaround drinking brandy and mooning about what Merlin's going to dofor them, and never doing anything for themselves."
"Oh, they're going to do something, now, Flora," his father told her."When we get this company organized--"
"You'll dig up a lot of stuff you won't be able to sell, like thatstuff you've been bringing in from Tenth Army, and then you'll golooping off chasing Merlin, like the rest of them. Well, maybe that'llbe a little better than just sitting in Kurt Fawzi's office talkingabout it, but not much."
It kept on like that. Conn and his father tried several times tochange the subject; each time Flora ignored the effort and returned toher diatribe. Finally, she put her plate and cup on the robot's trayand got to her feet.
"I have to go," she said. "Maybe I can do something to keep some ofthese children from growing up to be Merlin-worshipers like theirparents."
She flung out of the room angrily. Mrs. Maxwell looked after her indistress.
"And I thought it was going to be so nice, having breakfast togetheragain," she lamented.
Somehow the breakfast wasn't quite as good as he'd thought it was atfirst. He wondered how many more breakfasts like that he was going tohave to sit through. He and his father finished quickly and got up,while his mother started the robot to clearing the table.
"Conn," she said, after his father had gone out, "you shouldn't havegotten Flora started like that."
"I didn't get Flora started; she's equipped with a self-starter. Ifshe doesn't believe in Merlin, that's her business. A lot of thesepeople do, and I'm going to help them hunt for it. That's why they allchipped in to send me to school on Terra; remember?"
"Yes, I know." Her voice was heavy with distress. "Conn, do you reallybelieve there is a ... that thing?" she asked.
"Why, of course." He was mildly surprised at how sincerely andstraightforwardly he said it. "I don't know where it is, but it'ssomewhere on Poictesme, or in the Alpha System."
"Well, do you think it would be a good thing to find it?"
That surprised him. Everybody knew it would be, and his mother didn'tshare his father's attitude about things everybody knew. She hadn'tany business questioning a fundamental postulate like that.
"It frightens me," she continued. "I don't even like to think aboutit. A soulless intelligence; it seems evil to me."
"Well, of course it's soulless. It's a machine, isn't it? An aircar'ssoulless, but you're not afraid to ride in one."
"But this is different. A machine that can think. Conn, people weren'tmeant to make machines like that, wiser than they are."
"Now wait a minute, Mother. You're talking to a computerman now."Professional authority was something his mother oughtn't to question."A computer like Merlin isn't intelligent, or wise, or anything of thesort. It doesn't think; the people who make computers and use them dothe thinking. A computer's a tool, like a screwdriver; it has to havea man to use it."
"Well, but...."
"And please, don't talk about what people are _meant_ to do. Peoplearen't _meant_ to do things; they _mean_ to do things, and nine timesout of ten, they end by doing them. It may take a hundred thousandyears from a Stone Age savage in a cave to the captain of a hyperspaceship, but sooner or later they get there."
His mother was silent. The soulless machine that had been clearing thetable floated out of the room, the dishwasher in its rectangular bellygurgling. Maybe what he had told her was logical, but women aren'timpressed by logic. She knew better--for the good old feminine reason,_Because_.
"Wade Lucas wanted me to drop in on him for a checkup," he mentioned."That's rubbish; I had one for my landing pratique on the ship. Hejust wants to size up his future brother-in-law."
"Well, you ought to go see him."
"How did Flora come to meet him, anyhow?"
"Well, you know, he came from Baldur. He was in Storisende, lookingfor an opening to start a practice, and he heard about some
medicalequipment your father had found somewhere and came out to see if hecould buy it. Your father and Judge Ledue and Mr. Fawzi talked himinto opening his office here. Then he and Flora got acquainted...."She asked, anxiously: "What did you think of him, Conn?"
"Seems like a regular guy. I think I'll like him." A husband like WadeLucas might be a good thing for Flora. "I'll drop in on him, sometimethis morning."
His mother went toward the rear of the house--more soulless machines,like the housecleaning-robot, and the laundry-robot, to look after. Hewent into his father's office and found the cigar humidor, just whereit had been when he'd stolen cigars out of it six years ago andthought his father never suspected what he was doing.
Now, why didn't they export this tobacco? It was better than anythingthey grew on Terra; well, at least it was different, just as Poictesmebrandy was different from Terran bourbon or Baldur honey-rum. That wasthe sort of thing that could be sold in interstellar trade anytime andanywhere; the luxury goods that were unique. Staple foodstuffs,utility textiles, metal products, could be produced anywhere, andsooner or later they were. That was the reason for the original,pre-War depression: the customers were all producing for themselves.He'd talk that over with his father. He wished he'd had time to takesome economics at the University.
He found the file his father kept up-to-date on salvage sites foundand registered with the Claims Office in Storisende. Some of thelocations he had brought back data for had been discovered, but, tohis relief, not the underground duplicate Force Command Headquarters,and not the spaceport on the island continent of Barathrum, to theeast. That was all right.
He went to the house-defense arms closet and found a 10-mm Navypistol, and a belt and spare clips. Making sure that the pistol andmagazines were loaded, he buckled it on. He debated getting a vehicleout of the hangar on the landing stage, decided against it, andstarted downtown on foot.
One of the first people he met was Len Yeniguchi, the tailor. He wouldbe at the meeting that afternoon. He managed, while talking, tocomment on the cut of Conn's suit, and finger the material.
"Ah, nice," he complimented. "Made on Terra? We don't see cloth likethat here very often."
He meant it wasn't Armed Forces salvage.
"Father ought to be around to see you with a bolt of material, to havea suit made," he said. "For Ghu's sake, either talk him into having ashort jacket like this, or get him to buy himself a shoulder holster.He's ruined every coat he ever owned, carrying a gun on his hip."
A little farther on, he came to a combat car grounded in the middle ofthe street. It was green, with black trimmings, and lettered in black,GORDON VALLEY HOME GUARD. Tom Brangwyn was standing besideit, talking to a young man in a green uniform.
"Hello, Conn." The town marshal looked at his hip and grinned. "Seeyou got all your clothes on this morning. You were just plainindecent, yesterday.... You know Fred Karski, don't you?"
Yes, now that Tom mentioned it, he did. He and Fred had gone to schooltogether at the Litchfield Academy. But the six years since they'dseen each other last had made a lot of difference in both of them. Hewas beginning to think that the only strangers in Litchfield were hisown contemporaries. They shook hands, and Conn looked at the combatcar and Fred Karski's uniform.
"What's going on?" he asked. "The System States Alliance to businessagain?"
Karski laughed. "Oh, that's the Colonel's idea. Green and black werehis colors in the War, and he's in command of the regiment."
"Regiment? You need a whole regiment?" Conn asked.
"Well, it's two companies, each about the size of a regular armyplatoon, but we have to call it a regiment so he can keep his oldRebel Army rank."
"We could use a regiment, Conn," Tom Brangwyn said seriously. "Youhave no idea how bad things have gotten. Over on the east coast, theoutlaws are looting whole towns. About four months ago, they sackedWaterville; burned the whole town and killed close to a hundredpeople. That was Blackie Perales' gang."
"Who is this Blackie Perales? I heard the name mentioned in connectionwith the _Harriet Barne_."
"Blackie Perales is anybody the Planetary Government can't catch,which means practically any outlaw," Fred Karski said.
"No, Fred; there is a Blackie Perales," Tom Brangwyn said. "He used tobe a planter, down in the south. The banks foreclosed on him when hecouldn't pay his notes, and he turned outlaw. That's the way it'sgoing, all around. Every time a planter loses his plantation or afarmer loses his farm, or a mechanic loses his job, he turns outlaw.Take Tramptown, here. We used to plant nothing but melons. Then, whenthe sale for wine and brandy dropped, the melon-planters began cuttingtheir melon crops and raising produce, instead of buying it from upnorth, and turning land into pasture for cattle. The people we used tobuy foodstuffs from couldn't sell all they raised, and that threw alot of farmhands out of work. So they got the idea there was workhere, and they came flocking in, and when they couldn't get jobs, theyjust stayed in Tramptown, stealing anything they could. We don't eventry to police Tramptown any more; we just see to it they don't come uphere."
"Well, where do these outlaws and pirates who are looting whole townscome from?"
"Down in the Badlands, mostly. None of them have been bothering us,since we organized the Home Guard. They tried to, a couple of times,at first. There may have been a few survivors; they spread it aroundthat Gordon Valley wasn't any outlaws' health resort."
"Why don't you join us, Conn?" Fred Karski asked. "All our old gangbelong."
"I'd like to, but I'm afraid I'm going to be kind of busy."
Brangwyn nodded. "Yes. You will be, at that," he agreed.
"So I hear," Fred Karski said. "Do you really know where it is,Conn?"
"Well, no." He went into the routine about Merlin being stillclassified triple-top secret. "But we'll find it. It may take time,but we will."
They talked for a while. He asked more questions about the Home Guard.His father, it seemed, had donated all the equipment. They had ahundred and seventy men on the active list, but they had a reserve ofover eight hundred, and combat vehicles and weapons on all theplantations and in all the towns along the river. The reserve had onlybeen turned out twice; both times, outlaw attacks had been stoppeddead--literally. The Home Guard, it appeared, was not given to makingarrests or taking prisoners. Finally, he parted from them, strollingon along the row of stores and business places, many vacant, under thesouth edge of the Mall, until he saw a fluorolite sign, WADELUCAS, M. D. He entered.
Lucas wasn't busy. They went into his consultation office, and Conntook off his gun-belt and hung it up; Lucas offered cigarettes, andthey lighted and sat down.
"I see you've started carrying one," he said, nodding to the pistolConn had laid aside.
"Civic obligation. I'm going to be too busy for Home Guard duty, butif I can protect myself, it'll save somebody else the job ofprotecting me."
"Maybe if there weren't so many guns around, there wouldn't be so muchtrouble."
He felt his good opinion of Wade Lucas start to slip. The Liberals onTerra had been full of that kind of talk, which was why only four outof ten of last year's graduating class at Armed Forces Academy hadbeen able to get active commissions. The last war had been a disaster,so don't prepare for another one; when it comes, let it be a worsedisaster.
"Guns don't make trouble; people make trouble. If the troublemakersare armed, you have to be armed too. When did you last see an AirPatrol boat around here, or even a Constabulary trooper? All we havehere is the Home Guard and Tom Brangwyn and three deputies, and hispay and theirs is always six months in arrears."
Lucas nodded. "A bankrupt government, an unemployment rate that risesevery year, currency that buys less every month. And do-it-yourselfjustice." The doctor blew a smoke ring and watched it float toward theventilator-intake. "You said you're going to be busy. This companyyour father's talking about organizing?"
"That's right. You're going to be at the meeting at the Academy thisafternoon, aren't you?"
; "Yes. Just what are you going to do, after you get it organized?"
"Well, I brought back information on a great deal of undiscoveredequipment and stores that the Third Force left behind...." He talkedon for some time, keeping to safe generalities. "It's too big for myfather and me to handle alone, even if we didn't feel morallyobligated to take in the people who contributed toward sending me toschool on Terra. You ought to be interested in it. I know of six fullysupplied hospitals, intended to take care of the casualties in case ofa System States space-attack. You can imagine, better than I can, whatwould be in them."
"Yes. Medical supplies of all sorts are getting hard to find. But lookhere; you're not going to let these people waste time looking for thisalleged computer, this thing they call Merlin, are you?"
"We're looking for any valuable war material. I don't know thelocation of Merlin, but--"
"I'll bet you don't!" Lucas said vehemently. That was the same thingFlora had said.
"--but Merlin is undoubtedly the most valuable item of abandoned TFequipment on this planet. In the long run, I'd say, more valuable thaneverything else together. We certainly aren't going to ignore it."
"Good heavens, Conn! You aren't like these people here; you wereeducated at the University of Montevideo."
"So I was. I studied computer theory and practice. I have some doubtsabout Merlin being able to do some of the things these laymen likeKellton and Fawzi and Judge Ledue think it could. Those sorts ofmisconceptions and exaggerations have to be allowed for. But I have nodoubt whatever that the master computer with which they did theirstrategic planning is probably the greatest mechanism of its sort everbuilt, and I have no doubt whatever that it still exists somewhere inthe Alpha System."
He almost convinced himself of it. He did not, however, convince WadeLucas, who was now regarding him with narrow-eyed suspicion.
"You mean you categorically state that that computer actually exists?"
"That, I think, was the general idea. Yes. I certainly do believe thatMerlin exists."
Maybe he was telling the truth. Merlin existed in the beliefs andhopes of people like Dolf Kellton and Klem Zareff and Judge Ledue andKurt Fawzi. Merlin was a god to them. Well, take Ghu, the ThoranGrandfather-God. Ghu was as preposterous, theologically, as Merlin wastechnologically; Ghu, except to Thorans, was a Federation-wide joke.But he'd known a couple of Thorans at the University, funny littlefellows, with faces like terriers, their bodies covered with mattedblack hair. They believed in Ghu the way he believed in the Second Lawof Thermodynamics. Ghu was with them every moment of their lives. Takeaway their belief in Ghu, and they would have been lost and wretched.
As lost and wretched as Kurt Fawzi or Judge Ledue, if they lost theirbelief in Merlin. He started to say something like that, and thenthought better of it.
Yes, Virginia, there _is_ a Santa Claus.