Astounding Science Fiction (British Edition) — page 25: what you’re looking at

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

THE GULF BETWEEN 223 “Well—you should know if it’s impossible,” the general said, but he did not sound entirely convinced. “We have a slogan—a philosophy, you might say. Mr. Knight suggested it several years ago and we have it plastered on the Master Computer itself, to keep us reminded of the gulf that will always separate Man from Machine. You saw it, general—a simple little five-word sentence.” “IT remember it. It seems to me you're exaggerating the importance of it, but I’m a military man and cer- tainly in no position to argue the characteristics of robots with the men who created them.” He looked up at the ship again and changed the sub- ject. “Are the disintegrator ray pro- jectors installed?” “Not yet,”’ Clarke answered. ““We’ve given the Computer the job of devising a safety gadget that will prevent the operation of the ray projectors whenever the ship is within an atmosphere dense enough to produce a feedback of the rays.” “Although the situation is looking less and less like war, you can never tell,’ the general said. “The dis- integrators would serve as a terrible threat of retaliation. However, rather than having the rays as a strictly offensive weapon used from a space- ship, it would be more desirable to have ray projectors mounted along the borders of this country. They would make the perfect defense wea- pon—no force by air, land or water could get past them.” “Except for the feedback,” Clarke said. “Except for the feedback—and I know without asking that you haven’t been able to do anything about it.” “This chain-reaction feedback is a EComichooks.co im