Cullin made no answer and Knight went on: "I see you're a civilian again. The last time I saw you, you were flicking the dust off your handkerchief in antic.i.p.ation of polishing a pair of gold oak leaves." "Peacetime armies and ambitious officers aren't compatible," Cullin said, his jaw tightening at the words. "This is especially true if you aren't a Regular Army officer."

"I heard that you never did get those oak leaves; that you got a bawling-out, instead, and a demotion back to second lieutenant. It seems they had something to say to you about 'stupid and unnecessary sacrifice of men.' "

Cullin's face flushed a dull red. "A bunch of sentimental old women. My strategy was sound; I took the hill."

"Yes, you did-didn't we?" Knight agreed, smiling without humor.

"As commanding officer, I would have been stupid to have done anything as vainglorious as to actively engage in the fighting. You should know that. Leaders are not dispensable, while the led are."

"Anyway, you've now forsaken the military career?"

"I've found myself a new field where my abilities are duly appreciated and rewarded."

Cullin volunteered no further information and Knight decided it would gain him nothing to ask. Nor would needling Cullin cause him to reveal the reasons for his presence in Punta Azul; a roundabout and non-hostile approach would be better.

"I ran across an item in the paper three years ago," he remarked to Cullin. "According to it, you had missed a curve and plunged off into the Feather River canyon."

"My car went over the cliff and into the river. The papers erroneously a.s.sumed I had been in it when it left the road. I never did correct them."

"Why didn't you?"

"Why should I?"

"No particular reason to do, I suppose," Knight agreed.

Cullin studied Knight with a calculating look in his eyes, then said in a tone almost friendly, "Obscurity hasn't been your own lot, Knight. The papers are full of the things being done by the Knight-Clarke Computer. They claim it can outthink a thousand men."

Knight kept his face expressionless. He, Knight, wasn't the only one who wanted information; there was something about the Computer that Cullin wanted to know.

"Its knowledge is greater than that of a thousand men," Knight replied, adopting Cullin's own att.i.tude of pseudo-friendliness. "Of course, among a thousand men much of the knowledge they possessed would be common to all of them. The Computer is valuable in that it can combine and correlate the specific knowledge of men in all the different fields of learning."

"I was especially interested in one article. As the Knight of the Knight-Clarke Computer, perhaps you can give me the true facts."

"Which article was that?" Knight asked, then failed to resist the impulse to add, "From me, you get the dope straight from the horse's mouth."

Cullin's face flushed again and the knots of muscle stood out along his jaw. It was with an obvious effort that he forced his voice to retain its conversational tone. "This article came up with the proposition that the Master Computer, with all its knowledge and its ability to devise weapons, could rule the world if it only had a means for manual operations, such as tentacles or hands, and if it had a means of locomotion instead of being bolted to a concrete floor."

"Why should it want to rule the world?" Knight asked.

"The article claimed that it would have absorbed men's motivations along with their knowledge, and it further claimed that no one thousand men can be found who are utterly free of the desire for power over others."

"I read the same article," Knight said, smiling a little. "The writer, as is true of all writers for that particular 'news' weekly, was following the editorial injunction to make it interesting, and never mind the facts. I'm surprised that you were gullible enough to believe it."

"I wasn't gullible enough to believe it. I just wondered if there was any truth at all to it and, if so, why couldn't that characteristic be utilized. You might, say, build such a brain into a tank and use a perfect soldier as its source of knowledge; a soldier who knew tank warfare from A to Z and who fanatically desired to kill as many of the enemy as possible."

"No." Knight shook his head. "The robotic brains don't absorb emotions along with the knowledge. Emotions aren't facts, you know; they're the creation of a sensory body and the nerves and glands that affect the body. We haven't worried about the Computer's lack of emotions-it doesn't need them to accept the data we give it, correlate that data and give us the answer we want.

"But so far as tanks controlled by robotic brains go," he added, "we have one in the experimental stage at Center, now."

"Oh?" Cullin's surprise seemed simulated. "I thought you just inferred they weren't possible?"

"Possible, but not too practical at the present stage. For best results, the robotic brain has to be in close communication with an ordinary flesh-and-blood soldier."

Cullin's surprise became genuine. "You mean your robotic brains aren't thinking units at all, but just a conglomeration of television and radar, operated by remote control?"

"No-the brains can comprehend and obey the most complex orders."

"Then why do you say they aren't practical?" Cullin demanded. "So long as they comprehend and obey, nothing more is needed. What more could you want?"

"The human element-initiative and curiosity."

Cullin's lip curled. " 'The human element!' You were never able to understand the military, Knight. The 'human element' is precisely the thing a good commander tries to weed out among his men. Initiative contrary to given orders cannot be tolerated, neither can questioning of those orders be tolerated. In your robotic brain you have the brain of a perfect solider. It would need only one more thing, and I suppose it has that-an utter lack of fear."

"It has no conception of any such emotion as fear."

"A complete lack of fear, an intelligence great enough to understand the orders given it, and unquestioning obedience in following those orders-those are the three characteristics of the perfect soldier, Knight."

Knight shrugged. "A matter of opinion. You're presuming a machine's actions would be the same as a man's actions." "They are the same. I've found that humans serve in exactly the same manner as machines. There is no difference, once the human has been conditioned into obedience."

Knight switched the subject abruptly, feeling that the talk of Center was not going far enough toward causing Cullin to reveal his business in Punta Azul. "I see that Premier Dovorski is doing a good job of applying that philosophy to the Russo-Asians," he remarked. "He's really making robots out of the people."

"So I've heard," Cullin said, making no other comment but his eyes suddenly more watchful.

"I suppose there will be war again within ten years." Knight idly swirled the beer in his gla.s.s. "We'll be outnumbered four to one, but maybe we can have the Computer give us something that will even the odds."

Cullin hesitated, then said: "I hear rumors that you have both a s.p.a.ceship and a disintegrator ray on the drawing board. The disintegrator ray should even the odds, if it's as good as the rumors say. Of course, I suppose these rumors usually exaggerate the true facts?"

"I suppose." Knight ignored the question. "Sometimes we deliberately create rumors to throw Dovorski's spies off on false leads, too. One was caught in Center yesterday. He made the mistake of trying to shoot it out with the Center police, but he lived long enough to talk a little."

Suspicion blazed in Cullin's eyes, and there was menace in the way he silently waited for Knight to continue.

"We didn't think he would know the ident.i.ty of the head of the Russo-Asian spy ring, but we asked him, anyway," Knight said, still swirling his beer.

Cullin stared at him and waited, as a rattlesnake might wait, poised to strike. The bulge of his hand in his coat pocket showed that his finger was on the trigger and Knight could hear the sound of his own breathing in the silence. A fly droned loudly across the room and out the door, while Carlos' low humming made an incongruously melodious background to the deadly tension.

He ceased swirling the beer in his gla.s.s and looked Cullin full in the eyes, grinning mockingly at him.

"He gave us a name, Cullin."

"So you were leading me on?" Cullin hissed. "You've just written out your own death warrant-fool! You're going with me!"

"And espionage is the new field where your abilities are appreciated and rewarded?"

Knight shook his head with feigned sympathy. "You really had no reason to give yourself away. I came down here on a suspicion of 'fishermen' who hire boats from the Mexicans at regular intervals. I wouldn't have connected you with it if you hadn't been so curious about the Computer, and then naive enough to fall into my crude little trap. I told you the spy gave us a name-he did. He told us his own name, then he died."

"I'm afraid your cleverness has backfired on you, Knight, but enjoy it while you can.

You can go to the beach with me and prolong your life for a little while, or you can take it here and now-which?" "I'm not too fond of the idea of taking it either place, but I wouldn't want to mess up Carlos' floor." Knight swirled the warm beer again and held it up to the light. "Flat. The Greeks had an expression for everything, didn't they?" he asked, smiling, then said something swiftly in a foreign tongue.

Cullin reacted as quickly as a cat, the pistol out of his pocket and hard against Knight's stomach, his head jerking around to watch Carlos.

Carlos was still polishing his cerveza gla.s.ses, his back turned to them and his humming continuing unbroken.

Cullin turned back to Knight. "That didn't sound like Greek to me. If your friend tries anything, you know where you'll get it."

"You would prefer to not arouse the village by doing any shooting in here, wouldn't you?" Knight asked. "These Mexicans might not like the idea of a stranger shooting up their town."

"I'm not worried about these sleepy Mexicans. And I've changed my mind about killing you-if you co-operate with me. Tell me all the things I want to know, and I'll let you go free."

"Under such circ.u.mstances, the gun in your hand is no threat," Knight pointed out.

"Dead, I can't answer your questions. Alive, why should I?"

"Alive and not answering my questions, you are of no value to me," Cullin said grimly. "I came here to hire a boat to take me to a certain place several miles down the beach where a submarine will pick me up. This was both my first and last trip down here.

I can get by without hiring a boat-I have a truck with a four-wheel drive and oversize tires for sand. I can kill you and be in it and gone before these Mexicans wake up, and they could never follow me through that sand in your own pickup.

"So-you can go with me and be released after you answer our questions on the submarine or you can refuse and I'll let you have it now, with nothing to lose."

"I'm pretty sure that my release from the submarine would be over the side of it with my hands tied behind my back and a weight tied to my neck, Cullin. That's why I quoted the pseudo-Greek phrase. I have a Papago boy working in my department at Center, and Carlos' mother was a Papago. Have you noticed him lately?"

Cullin turned his head quickly, but the muzzle of his pistol remained shoved hard against Knight's stomach.

Carlos was still humming, but he was no longer polishing gla.s.ses. One elbow was leaning on the bar and in the hand of that arm he held an ancient .45 revolver. The muzzle gaped blackly at Cullin's back and the big spiked hammer was reared back. Carlos was peering down the sights of it with a malevolently glittering black eye and there was satanic antic.i.p.ation in the arch of his heavy black brows.

Cullin turned slowly back to Knight. "I should have had sense enough to cover you both. And now what? I'm not going to take my gun out of your stomach until your friend takes his gun off my back. It seems to be a stalemate, Knight."

"Looks like it, doesn't it?"

"Stalemate," Cullin repeated. "So we'll just have to settle for me letting you live and your friend letting me live. It doesn't matter much-I've built up an espionage system that consistently gives satisfactory results. I've liquidated the weak and the incompetent and my work here is done; this was to be my last trip, as I said. I'm changing sides, Knight- I'm going across to where the ability to achieve results is rewarded; where a leader is expected to use his men, not pamper them."

"You ought to enjoy that."

"I will. Over there I'll have a free hand-no more hiding or secrecy. Before I'm through I'll be head of Dovorski's State Police, and the man who controls a state's police can control the state in the end. I'll use them to make every man, woman and child in Russo-Asia a cog in my machine."

"You sound rather vainglorious-but go on."

"Is there anything vainglorious about what I've done so far? When you say I'm vainglorious, you're engaging in some wishful thinking. I used my company in Korea to get what I wanted-until the very last when the old women in regimental headquarters decided sentiment was more important than competence. I've used the spy organization in this country-I used it, I didn't pet it. That's what convinced Dovorski he needed me over there. I've done everything I claim to have done and I'll do everything I claim I'm going to do. You know that, don't you?"

Knight had the unpleasant feeling that he did, but he only said, "The proof of the pudding is in the eating."

"In a few years you'll be eating it and you'll find it a bitter dish. And now-we've chatted long enough." Cullin got to his feet, slowly, so as to not excite the trigger finger of Carlos, keeping his own pistol trained on Knight. He spoke to Carlos in Spanish. "I'm leaving. If you try anything, I'll kill your friend."

Carlos looked questioningly at Knight and Cullin smiled thinly. "Do you want to be a hero and die to have him stop me, Knight? You can, you know."

Knight's answer was to Carlos. "Keep your gun on him. If he goes out peacefully, don't shoot him. If he makes any suspicious move, kill him."

Carlos nodded, then laughed, but the revolver in his hand remained as steady as a rock.

"What's he laughing about?" Cullin demanded.

"I think it amuses him to think of the results, should he pull the trigger."

"You wouldn't be around long enough to join in his merriment, Knight-remember that."

Knight smiled without answering and Cullin backed to the door, keeping his pistol leveled on him. Carlos remained at the bar, following Cullin with the sights of his revolver. Cullin reached the door and paused a moment in it to say, "You'll be hearing about me-more and more every year and you won't like what you hear."

Then he was gone and the roar of his truck came seconds later. Knight listened to the sound of it as it took the almost-impa.s.sable road along the sh.o.r.e line. There would be no use trying to follow over such a road in his own pickup.

"You saved my life, Carlos," he said. "I don't intend to forget it."

Carlos laughed and slapped the revolver down on the bar. "It's a fortunate thing, my friend, that my mild nature is belied by a fierce and mustachioed countenance. Otherwise, he might have killed us both."

"It is," Knight agreed, "but I wish we could have stopped him some way."

He sighed morosely and frowned at the revolver on the bar.

"The next time I come down this way, I'm going to bring you some cartridges and a firing spring for that thing."

3.

The doctor was waiting for him to speak.

What thoughts lay behind those staring eyes as the doctor waited? Was the doctor aware of how swiftly death was approaching? But of course-the doctor had changed the words on the communications panel in front of the empty pilot's chair. They now read: OBSERVER HAS A LIFE EXPECTANCY OF ONE HUNDRED HOURS AT.

PRESENT ACCELERATION. DEATH FOR OBSERVER WILL RESULT UNLESS.

ACCELERATION IS REDUCED WITHIN THAT PERIOD.

The doctor would watch over him during the next one hundred hours, waiting for a pilot he knew did not exist to reduce the acceleration. For one hundred hours the doctor would wait, knowing as fully as he that no spectral finger would reach out from the empty chair and press the deceleration b.u.t.ton.

The doctor could reduce the acceleration. The doctor knew he wanted it done but the doctor was waiting to be ordered to do so. He had only to speak two words: "Reduce acceleration." The doctor would obey at once-the doctor was patiently waiting for him to speak the words.

But the doctor knew he couldn't speak!