The City And The Stars - Arthur C. Clarke [77]
‘State your problem,’ said the quiet voice in his ear. It seemed strange that this overwhelming expanse of machinery should sum up its thoughts so softly. Then Alvin realised that he was flattering himself; perhaps not even a millionth part of the Central Computer’s brain was dealing with him. He was just one of the innumerable incidents that came to its simultaneous attention as it watched over Diaspar.
It was hard to talk to a presence who filled the whole of the space around you. Alvin’s words seemed to die in the empty air as soon as he had uttered them.
‘What am I?’ he asked.
If he had put that question to one of the information machines in the city, he knew what the reply would have been. Indeed, he had often done so, and they had always answered, ‘You are a man.’ But now he was dealing with an intelligence of an altogether different order, and there was no need for painstaking semantic accuracy. The Central Computer would know what he meant, but that did not mean that it would answer him.
Indeed, the reply was exactly what Alvin had feared.
‘I cannot answer that question. To do so would be to reveal the purpose of my builders, and hence to nullify it.’
‘Then my role was planned when the city was laid down?’
‘That can be said of all men.’
This reply made Alvin pause. It was true enough; the human inhabitants of Diaspar had been designed as carefully as its machines. The fact that he was a Unique gave Alvin rarity, but there was no necessary virtue in that.
He knew that he could learn nothing further here regarding the mystery of his origin. It was useless to try and trick this vast intelligence, or to hope that it would disclose information it had been ordered to conceal. Alvin was not unduly disappointed; he felt that he had already begun to glimpse the truth, and in any case this was not the main purpose of his visit.
He looked at the robot he had brought from Lys, and wondered how to make his next step. It might react violently if it knew what he was planning, so it was essential that it should not overhear what he intended to say to the Central Computer.
‘Can you arrange a zone of silence?’ he asked.
Instantly, he sensed the unmistakable ‘dead’ feeling, the total blanketing of all sounds, which descended when one was inside such a zone. The voice of the Computer, now curiously flat and sinister, spoke to him: ‘No one can hear us now. Say what you wish.’
Alvin glanced at the robot; it had not moved from its position. Perhaps it suspected nothing, and he had been quite wrong in ever imagining that it had plans of its own. It might have followed him into Diaspar like a faithful, trusting servant, in which case what he was planning now seemed a particularly churlish trick.
‘You must have heard how I met this robot,’ Alvin began. ‘It must possess priceless knowledge about the past, going back to the days before the city as we know it existed. It may even be able to tell us about other worlds than Earth, since it followed the Master on his travels. Unfortunately, its speech circuits are blocked. I do not know how effective that block is, but I am asking you to clear it.’
His voice sounded dead and hollow as the zone of silence absorbed every word before it could form an echo. He waited, within that invisible and unreverberant void, for his request to be obeyed or rejected.
‘Your order involves two problems,’ replied the Computer. ‘One is moral, one technical. This robot was designed to obey the orders of a certain man. What right have I to override them, even if I can?’
It was a question which Alvin had anticipated, and for which he had prepared several answers.
‘We do not know what exact form the Master’s prohibition took,’ he replied. ‘If you can talk to the robot, you may be able to persuade it that the