The Saurian started again down the corridor, Terry beside him. “I’ve been here for nearly five of the local months. Quote awaiting reclassification unquote. Frankly, I thought I was a citizen of the world from which I came, but the computer says I’m a Galactic Citizen so it can’t send me back, and for some reason it can’t send me on in either. In other words, friend, I’m stuck here and I expect you are, too. Your misfortune is, however, a fortune for me.” The growling voice seemed to become gracious. “I was beginning to despair of ever meeting anyone but the computer and Z-9604 for the rest of my natural life.”
“Z-9604?” Terry inquired. “Another Galactic Citizen?”
“Only in the broadest possible sense. He is one of the repair robots—servo-mechs. For the computer. Except he’s suffered an injury and become disoriented. He now considers himself as an independent—uh, entity. Quite as lost as we are. But without any background-place to wish he was. Therefore he’s quite happy. Of course the computer was going to have him repaired, but I pointed out that he could be considered a spare as far as the computer was concerned, and on the basis of Citizen Need I requisitioned him. He makes a better companion than none. But I’m—quite selfishly—glad you’re arrived.”
The problem was beginning to come home to Terry now. They were trapped, he and this cold-blooded Saurian alike; trapped by the inevitable inconsistency of a computer obeying orders literally and blindly. And again it came home to him, the little bit of information that there had been no Galactic Supervisor in this area in nearly four hundred Galactic years.
IV
THE CAFETERIA was a long room with warm light and a cheerful atmosphere that contrasted strongly with the rather cold formality of the computer’s rooms, the stores area, and the corridors he’d traversed so far. Perhaps the cheerfulness stemmed from the small tables of all sizes and the “chairs” of odd and various shapes that were scattered about; or from the bright colors in which they were variously painted or upholstered (plastic?); or perhaps from the warmth of the light or the pale yellow of three of the walls. The fourth wall was devoted to food dispensing slots, much like an automat, Terry thought, as he and his huge companion—heavy-built, rather than tall, Terry reminded himself; and perhaps his feeling of its hugeness stemmed from the connotations associated in his mind with dinosaurs—made their way towards it.
Terry searched among strange food-names for some time before he found a section seemingly devoted to his kind of . . . of being, he told himself. The food for which he punched came out after only a short interval, and he turned to find that the Saurian was waiting at a table with chairs that would accommodate both their figures; large, rather heavy chairs, and quite comfortable he found as he sat down.
“So I gather you’re trapped, too,” Terry began without preliminary. “What have you done about it?”
He was beginning, he noted, to be able to read Grontunk’s expressions, and it seemed to him that there was a certain edge of terror, thinly concealed, in Grontunk’s reply.
“Nothing. What can one do? As a well-oriented Galactic Citizen . . .” The phrase trailed off as Grontunk sat staring, not at Terry but beyond him at an endless future of imprisonment. And Terry’s own orientation was telling him that the computer knew best, that his urge toward solving the problem should wait on more competent outside aid.
Without even noticing that he had done so, Terry edited that concept out of his head.
“But we can’t just sit here! We should at least apply ourselves to the problem of becoming better educated. The concept of better education seems to be tied in with higher Galactic Citizen rating, and would therefore make us more capable of dealing with the problem ourselves.”
Grontunk’s apathy and detachment were not penetrated. “I have tried, my friend. In order to achieve a higher Galactic Citizen rating, one must, as you say, become better educated. But one cannot become educated beyond one’s resources of access to information. And the computer denies access—certain subjects—on the basis of Galactic Citizen rating.”
Terry grinned. “Every piece of circular logic draws a line around a blank spot. And where I come from, such a line is known as a zero. Which always has a hole in the middle of it.”
Grontunk looked startled.
“If the computer is our problem,” Terry continued, “then of course we must reorient the computer.”
Grontunk’s amazement was succeeded by fear.
“No, no. Without the computer we would die. Neither of us could survive on this planet without it.”
“Oh? How’s that?”
“Without the computer, or someone else to run it, there would be no power available, no synthesis of food stuffs, no synthesis of breathable atmosphere, and many other things. This world is a desert, lifeless and devoid of the compatible factors that make life possible. You were comfortable when you arrived on the landing stage?” Grontunk looked up at him. “But the air you were breathing came with you. The landing stage appears open, but it isn’t. Did you notice the green color of the sky beyond? An unusual color for us oxygen-breathers, is it not?”
“Yes. My home world sky is blue.”
“And mine also. But the atmosphere of this planet . . .” Grontunk shuddered. “It is not fit for us.”
“Okay. So we’re dependent on the computer. But I didn’t say that we should destroy it. I said we should reorient it.”
Grontunk sank back into apathy, and did not reply.
But, in his own head, Terry heard the answer. “The orientation of the computer is a technical job accomplished only by a Citizen Class . . .” The numbers were meaningless to Terry. “Access to computer orientation controls,” the voice went on, “is denied common citizens on the basis of their insufficient knowledge of the techniques involved and the consequences of mis-orientation. . . .”
Another zero, Terry decided. But—if there were a sufficiently serious upset in the computer’s operation, it would necessarily call in supervisory help. Now—how serious would that malfunction have to be?
Terry wasn’t sure. Somehow that didn’t seem to be within the realm of a Galactic Citizen’s basic knowledge.
“What would happen if the computer had a malfunction?” Terry inquired.
The instant terror on Grontunk’s face—odd how he was considering it a face now, despite the saurian features—Terry smoothed over by continuing. “Not a basic malfunction that would threaten our survival, but how serious a malfunction would require supervisory attention? Would make the computer call in Galactic help?”
“I wouldn’t know. You must realize, Terry, that we both have approximately the same orientation now. Plus of course whatever our experiences were before we arrived here. My own”—he shrugged in disparagement—“were, to put it mildly, rather limited in Galactic terms. My race, compared to theirs, is not highly advanced.” There was a note of chagrin in his voice. “How the computer mistook me for a Galactic Citizen in the first place, I’ve yet to determine . . . though,” in a softer voice, “it has said that I was such a citizen and had a traumatic experience. And I do seem to have absorbed the training rather readily. Perhaps . . .”
“How did you get here?” Terry asked abruptly.
The
