Astounding Science Fiction, February 1952 (British Edition) — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

54 ASTOUNDING SCIENCE FICTION finger at him in reproof. “I’ve got you now. You’ve been laying down on the job. You're the only one here; so if you don’t take observations, who does?” “You idiot!” said Burke. “The machine does, of course. These stations have a Brain to do that.” “That’s worse,” Cary answered. “You’ve been sitting here warm and comfortable While some poor little Brain scurries around outside in the snow and does all your work for you.” “Ob, shut up!” Burke said. “As a matter of fact you’re closer to the truth than you think; and it wouldn’t do you any harm to learn a few things about the mechanical miracles that let you lead a happy ignorant life. Some wonderful things have been done lately in the way of equipping these stations.” Cary smiled mockingly. “I mean it,’ Burke went on, his face lighting up. “The Brain we’ve got here now is the last word in that type of in- stallation. As a matter of fact, it was just put in recently—up until a few months back we had to work with a job that was just a collector and computer. That is, it collected the weather data around this station and presented it to you. Then you had to take it and prepare it for the cal- culator, which would chew on it for a while and then pass you back results which you again, had to prepare for transmission downstairs to the Center.” “Fatiguing, I’m sure,” murmured Cary, reaching for the drink placed handily on the end table beside his chair. Burke ignored him, caught up in his own appreciation of the mechanical development about which he was talking. “It kept you busy, for the data came in steadily; and you were always behind since a batch would be accumulating while you were working up the previous batch A station like this is the center-point for ob- servational mechs posted at points over more than five hundred square miles of territory; and, being human, all you had time to do was skim the cream off the reports and submit a sketchy picture to the calculator. And then there was a certain responsibility involved in taking care of the station and yourself. “But now’—Burke leaned forward de- terminedly and stabbed a thick index finger at his visitor—‘“we’ve got a new installa- tion that takes the data directly from the observational mechs—all of it—resolves it into the proper form for the calculator to handle it, and carries it right on through to the end results. All I still have to do is prepare the complete picture from the results and shoot it downstairs. “In addition, it runs the heating and lighting plants, automatically checks on the maintenance of the station. It makes repairs and corrections on verbal command and has a whole separate section for the con- sideration of theoretical problems.” “Sort of a little tin god,” said Cary, nastily. He was used to attention and sub- consciously annoyed by the fact that Burke seemed to be waxing more rhapsodic over his machine than the brilliant and enter- taining guest who, as far as the meteorolo- ‘gist could know, had dropped in under the kind impulse to relieve a hermit’s boring existence. Unperturbed, Burke looked at him and chuckled. “No,” he replied. “ A big tin god, Cary.” The-lawyer stiffened slightly in his chair. Like most people who are fond of poking malicious fun at others, he gave evidence of a very thin skin when the tables were turned. 3 “Sees all, knows all, tells all, 1 suppose,” he said sarcastically. “Never makes a mis- take. Infallible.” “You might say that,’ answered Burke, still with a grin on his face. He was enjoy- ing the unusual pleasure of having the other on the defensive. But Cary, adept at verbal battles, twisted like an eel. “Too bad, Burke,” he said. “But those qualities alone don’t quite suffice for ele- vating your gadget to godhood. One all-important attribute is lacking—invulner- ability. Gods never break down.” “Neither does this.” “Come now, Burke,” chided Cary, “you mustn’t let your enthusiasm lead you into falsehood. No machine is perfect. A crossed couple of wires, a burnt out tube and where is your darling? Plunk! Out of action.” Burke shook his head. “There aren’t any wires,’ he said. “It uses beamed connections. And as for burnt out tubes, they don’t even halt considera- tion of a problem. The problem is just shifted over to a bank that isn’t in use at the time; and automatic repairs are made by the machine itself. You see, Cary, in this model, no bank does one specific job, alone. Any one of them—and there’s twenty, half again as many as this station Eomichbooks.co