That was something else he was seeing with new eyes. He hadn't started carrying a gun when he had left for Terra, and he was wondering, now, why any of them bothered to. Why, there wouldn't be a shooting a year in Litchfield, if you didn't count the Tramptowners, and they stayed south of the docks and off the top level.
Or perhaps that was just it. Litchfield was peaceful because[Pg 14] everybody was prepared to keep it that way. It certainly wasn't because of anything the Planetary Government did to maintain order.
Now Brangwyn was setting out glasses, filling a pitcher5 from a keg in the corner of the room. The last time Conn had been here, they'd given him a glass of wine, and he'd felt very grown-up because they didn't water it for him.
"Well, gentlemen," Kurt Fawzi was saying, "let's have a toast to our returned friend and new associate. Conn, we're all anxious to hear what you've found out, but even if you didn't learn anything, we're still happy to have you back with us. Gentlemen; to our friend and neighbor. Welcome home, Conn!"
"Well, it's wonderful to be back, Mr. Fawzi," he began.
"Here, none of this mister foolishness; you're one of us, now, Conn. And drink up, everybody. We have plenty of brandy, if we don't have anything else."
"You can say that again, Kurt." That was one of the distillery people; he'd remember the name in a moment. "When this new crop gets pressed and fermented6...."
"Or why," another planter added. "Lorenzo, what are you going to be paying for wine?"
Lorenzo Menardes; that was the name. The distiller said he was worrying about what he'd be able to get for brandy.
"Oh, please," Fawzi interrupted. "Not today; not when our boy's home and is going to tell us how we can solve all our problems."
"Yes, Conn." That was Morgan Gatworth, the lawyer. "You did find out where Merlin is, didn't you?"
That set them all off. He was still holding his drink; he downed it in one gulp8, barely tasting it, and handed the glass to Tom Brangwyn for a refill, and caught a frown on his father's face. One did not gulp drinks in Kurt Fawzi's office.
Well, neither did one blast everybody's hopes with half a dozen words, and that was what he was trying to force himself to do. He wanted to blurt9 out the one quick sentence[Pg 15] and get it over with, but the words wouldn't come out of his throat. He lowered the second drink by half; the brandy was beginning to warm him and dissolve the cold lump in his stomach. Have to go easy, though. He wasn't used to this kind of drinking, and he wanted to stay sober enough to talk sense until he'd told them what he had to.
"I hope," he said, "that you don't expect me to show you the cross on the map, where the computer is buried."
All the eyes around him began to look troubled. Most of them had been expecting precisely10 that. His father was watching him anxiously.
"But it's still here on Poictesme, isn't it?" one of the melon planters asked. "They didn't take it away with them?"
"Most of you gentlemen," he said, "contributed to sending me to school on Terra, to study cybernetics and computer theory. It wouldn't do us any good to find Merlin if none of us could operate it. Well, I've done that. I can use any known type of computer, and train assistants. After I graduated, I was offered a junior instructorship11 to computer physics at the University."
"You didn't mention that, son," his father said.
"The letter would have come on the same ship I did. Besides, I didn't think it was very important."
"I think it is." There was a catch in old Dolf Kellton's voice. "One of my boys from the Academy offered a place on the faculty12 of the University of Montevideo, on Terra!" He finished his drink and held out his glass for more, something he almost never did.
"Conn means," Kurt Fawzi explained, "that it had nothing to do with Merlin."
All right; now tell them the truth.
"I was also to find out anything I could about a secret giant computer used during the War by the Third Fleet-Army Force, code-named Merlin. I went over all the records available to the public; I used your letter, Professor, and the head of our Modern History department secured me access to non-public material, some of it still classified. For one thing, I have locations and maps and plans of every Federation13 installation built here between 842 and 854, the whole period[Pg 16] of the War." He turned to his father. "There are incredible things still undiscovered; most of the important installations were built in duplicate, sometimes triplicate, as a precaution against space attack. I know where all of them are."
"Space attack!" Klem Zareff was indignant. "There never was a time we could have attacked Poictesme. Even if we'd had the ships, we were fighting a purely15 defensive16 war. Aggression17 was no part of our policy—"
He interrupted: "Excuse me, Colonel. The point I was trying to make is that, with all I was able to learn, I could find nothing, not one single word, about any giant strategic planning computer called Merlin, or any Merlin Project."
There! He'd gotten that out. Now go on and tell them about the old man in the dome-house on Luna. The room was silent, except for the small insectile hum of the electric clock. Then somebody set a glass on the table, and it sounded like a hammer blow.
"Nothing, Conn?"
Kurt Fawzi was incredulous. Judge Ledue's hand shook as though palsied as he tried to relight his cigar. Dolf Kellton was looking at the drink in his hand as though he had no idea what it was. The others found their voices, one by one.
"Of course, it was the most closely guarded secret ..."
"But after forty years ..."
"Hah, don't tell me about security!" Colonel Zareff barked. "You should have seen the lengths our staff went to. I remember, once, on Mephistopheles ..."
"But there was a computer code-named Merlin," Judge Ledue was insisting, to convince himself more than anybody else. "Its memory-bank contained all human knowledge. It was capable of scanning all its data instantaneously, and combining, and forming associations, and reasoning with absolute accuracy, and extrapolating to produce new facts, and predicting future events, and ..."
And if you'd asked such a computer, "Is there a God?" it would have simply answered, "Present."
"We'd have won the War, except for Merlin," Zareff was declaring.
"Conn, from what you've learned of computers generally,[Pg 17] how big would Merlin have to be?" old Professor Kellton asked.
"Well, the astrophysics computer at the University occupied a volume of a hundred thousand cubic feet. For all Merlin was supposed to do, I'd say something of the order of three million to five million.
"Well, it's a cinch they didn't haul that away with them," Lester Dawes, the banker, said.
"Oh, lots of places on Poictesme where they could have hid a thing like that," Tom Brangwyn said. "You know, a planet's a mighty18 big place."
"It doesn't have to be on Poictesme, even," Morgan Gatworth pointed19 out. "It could be anywhere in the Trisystem."
"You know where I'd have put it?" Lorenzo Menardes asked. "On one of the moons of Pantagruel."
"But that's in the Gamma System, three light years away," Kurt Fawzi objected. "There isn't a hypership on this planet, and it would take half a lifetime to get there on normal-space drive."
Conn was lifting his glass to his lips. He set it down again and rose to his feet.
"Then," he said, "we will build a hypership. On Koshchei there are shipyards and hyperdrive engines and everything we will need. We only need one normal-space interplanetary ship to get out there, and we're in business."
"Well, I don't know we need one," Judge Ledue said. "That was only an idea of Lorenzo's. I think Merlin's right here on Poictesme."
"We don't know it is," Conn replied. "And we don't know we won't need a ship. Merlin may be on Koshchei; that's where the components20 would be fabricated, and the Armed Forces weren't hauling anything any farther than they had to. Koshchei's only two and a half minutes away by radio; that's practically in the next room. Look; here's how they could have done it."
He went on talking, about remote controls and radio transmission and positronic brains and neutrino-circuits. They believed it all, even the little they understood. They would[Pg 18] believe anything he told them about Merlin—except the truth.
"But this will take money," Lester Dawes said. "And after that infernal deluge21 of unsecured paper currency thirty years ago ..."
"I have no doubt," Judge Ledue began, "that the Planetary Government at Storisende would give assistance. I have some slight influence with President Vyckhoven ..."
"Huh-uh!" That was one of Klem Zareff's fellow planters. "We don't want Jake Vyckhoven or any of this First-Families-of-Storisende oligarchy22 in this at all. That's the gang that bankrupted the Government with doles23 and work relief, and everybody else with worthless printing-press money after the War, and they've been squatting24 in a circle deploring25 things ever since. Some of these days Blackie Perales and his pirates'll sack Storisende, for all they'd be able to do to stop him."
"We get a ship out to Koshchei, and the next thing you know we'll be the Planetary Government," Tom Brangwyn said.
Rodney Maxwell finished the brandy in his glass and set it on the table, then went to the pile of belts and holsters and began rummaging26 for his own. Kurt Fawzi looked up in surprise.
"Rod, you're not leaving are you?" he asked.
"Yes. It's only half an hour till time for dinner, and I think Conn and I ought to have a little fresh air. Besides, you know, we haven't seen each other for six years." He buckled3 on the heavy automatic and settled the belt over his hips14. "You didn't have a gun, did you, Conn?" he asked. "Well, let's go."
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1
conviviality
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| n.欢宴，高兴，欢乐 | |
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rambling
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| adj.[建]凌乱的，杂乱的 | |
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buckled
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| a. 有带扣的 | |
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cane
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| n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的 | |
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pitcher
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| n.(有嘴和柄的)大水罐；(棒球)投手 | |
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6
fermented
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| v.（使）发酵( ferment的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）激动；骚动；骚扰 | |
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vat
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| n.(=value added tax)增值税，大桶 | |
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gulp
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| vt.吞咽，大口地吸（气）；vi.哽住；n.吞咽 | |
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blurt
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| vt.突然说出，脱口说出 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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instructorship
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| （大学）讲师职位（或职务） | |
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faculty
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| n.才能；学院，系；(学院或系的)全体教学人员 | |
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13
federation
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| n.同盟，联邦，联合，联盟，联合会 | |
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14
hips
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| abbr.high impact polystyrene 高冲击强度聚苯乙烯，耐冲性聚苯乙烯n.臀部( hip的名词复数 )；[建筑学]屋脊；臀围（尺寸）；臀部…的 | |
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purely
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| adv.纯粹地，完全地 | |
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defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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aggression
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| n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害 | |
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mighty
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| adj.强有力的；巨大的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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components
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| （机器、设备等的）构成要素，零件，成分； 成分( component的名词复数 )； [物理化学]组分； [数学]分量； （混合物的）组成部分 | |
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deluge
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| n./vt.洪水，暴雨，使泛滥 | |
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oligarchy
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| n.寡头政治 | |
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doles
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| 救济物( dole的名词复数 )； 失业救济金 | |
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squatting
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| v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的现在分词 )；非法擅自占用（土地或房屋）；为获得其所有权；而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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deploring
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| v.悲叹，痛惜，强烈反对( deplore的现在分词 ) | |
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rummaging
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| 翻找，搜寻( rummage的现在分词 )； 海关检查 | |
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