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One day you may dig too deep, Mr. Booth. You run the risk of cave-in.
I ll take my chances. What about my analysis?
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Certain shortsighted individuals have often inter-preted the pursuit of great discoveries as piracy. I am
about to prove to you that the ends of science justify the means of science. To be what we are, to
become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end in life. I am risking only my own life to prove
that. With-out purpose this great craft is nothing, a free-floating junkyard, reworked metal ores and as
purposeless as the ores still wasting away in the ground.With purpose it becomes an instrument of man.
With purpose, I can call myself a man. Those men unwilling to commit themselves to a high purpose are
only shadows of men, as the ores are but hints of the refined metals they may one day become.
Durant nodded knowingly at this little speech, his at-titude that of an acolyte preparatory to being
ordained. McCrae acted noncommittal.
This is a dangerous man,Harry Booth thought to himself. He knew well that throughout history any
hu-man being who had ever adhered publicly to the prin-ciple that the end justified the means had
proved himself dangerous. It was a law as immutable as the energy-mass equations, and about as
explosive.
The elevator had carried Holland, Pizer and Vincent below the level of the cross-ship air-car corridor
that had brought them to the command tower. Now they were in the depths of the vast city-ship,
traveling on foot down a much narrower passageway.
Looking around, Holland saw transparent ports and cylinders, part of the superstructure of the great
ship. He recalled many years ago the appellation some eager reporter had hung on theCygnus: the
bridge of glass. The bridge to the stars.
Mankind had since learned that small bridges would serve its designs as well as great ones. Reinhardt
had been right about one thing, though. They were not as pretty.
Holland shrugged. People had starved themselves before in order to honor properly their gods, had
gone without food to decorate their temples. TheCygnus was a monument to another god, a
faster-than-light temple of another kind.
With Reinhardt, he mused, as the High Priest. Rein-hardt would be remembered as master of two
disci-plines: science and salesmanship. Holland was willing to regard him as a friend, assuming the
commander of theCygnus was telling the truth and would truly help them to repair thePalomino.
Despite the fact that Reinhardt seemed to be the only human aboard, the ports they passed showed
evi-dence of considerable activity. Intership air cars and other transports raced back and forth, carrying
robots of varying size and shape to unknown destinations for unrevealed purposes.
Ahead, a group of small maintenance robots appeared and sped by, clinging to a vehicle that itself
possessed a simple mechanical brain.
Holland watched them vanish down the corridor be-hind them. The whine of their transport receded into
the distance, echoing in their wake like the last drops of a fading spring shower.
Pizer noted all the activity, too. He glanced up at the alloyed mastodon convoying them. Pretty busy
around here, aren t you, Max? Awful lot of activity for a ship that doesn t seem to be going anywhere,
and I know old Reinhardt doesn t requirethis much service. What are you gearing up for? Expecting
some more com-pany, maybe? Or afraid of it?
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Maximillian trundled onward without responding. The first officer looked away. Loquacious chap, ain t
he, Dan? You know, they say that machines incapable of communicating via human speech are
degraded, simple brain types, incapable of performing anything beyond the most menial functions.
Still Maximillian did not react. Perhaps he was pro-grammed against such provocations. Perhaps he felt
beyond such pitiful attempts. More likely he was just adhering to his designer s orders that the new
visitors be treated as guests.
Don t bait him, Holland ordered. Reinhardt s control over him may not be as absolute as he d like us
to believe.
Oh, I think it is. Pizer looked back up at Maximil-lian. Max here s just the doc s errand boy and
number one foot-wiper, ain t you, Max?
Still the colossus refused to respond. Pizer gave up trying to provoke it.
Before long they reached another bend in the cor-ridor, turned right into it. Maximillian moved ahead of
them, extended a limb to key a sealed doorway. It opened with a clang, incongruous compared with the
smooth functioning of the other doors they had passed through.
This initial impression that they were entering a rarely visited area was magnified by the state of the
in-terior of the chamber. Rows and rows of shelving and compact crates and containers stared silently
back at the visitors. There was nothing as plebian as a cobweb hanging about, and electrostatic repellers
kept the dust off, but they still had the feeling they were the first people to enter the storage area in some
time.
Stationed behind the desk was a robot. Its head was canted to one side in fair imitation of a human
asleep on the job. For all they knew, the mechanical might have been waiting there behind its desk in that
identi-cal, unvarying position for a dozen years. He looked much like Vincent and gave the impression of
having been used hard with minimal repair.
Maximillian moved forward and swung a thick arm, knocking the quiescent robot to the floor. Its lights
blinked on slowly at first, then with the impetus of in-creasing awareness, it rose to an unsteady hover. Its
optics took in Holland, Pizer, Vincent, then settled inevitably on the ominous maroon form of Maximillian.
It started to back away.
Vincent, stated the humans mechanical associate quickly. Vital Information Necessary Centralized.
La-bor force, human interactive. The Three Ninety-sixth. Latest model, new eighty-nine biomechanical
neuron-ics, floating synapses, heightened initiative-and-aware-ness circuitry.
Maximillian glowered down at Vincent as he con-cluded his terse introduction and self-description. But
though the older machine behind the desk stared with interest at its visitors, it did not respond to
Vincent s sally with an identification of itself. The older machine did not acknowledge in any fashion.
At first Vincent was hurt. That rapidly gave way to worry and concern. But he added nothing to his initial
words, continued to eye the other machine with puzzle-ment.
Tell you what, Charlie. I ll head back to thePalo-mino and start breaking down that busted
regenerator.
Looks like they ll have everything we need here. Hol-land turned to leave. Maximillian immediately
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