But damn-the-dander-headed-two-and-four-legged devils, there were the kids and the dogs in the street again, yipping and hooting and chanting:
“Tony the tin man, Tony the tin man.”
He longed for the day when he would see them fall like leaves out of his mind, and death take them.
“Tony the tin man, Tony the tin man.”
How had they known that his father was a used metal dealer?
Colonel Peter Cooper was waiting for him.
“You surely took your time, Anthony. Tell me at once what it is and where. The reaction was registered, but it would take us hours to pinpoint its source without your help. Now then, explain as calmly as you can what you felt or experienced. Or, more to the point, where are they?”
“No. You will have to answer certain questions first.”
“I haven’t the time to waste, Anthony. Tell me at once what it is and where.”
“No. There is no other way. You have to bargain with me.”
“One does not bargain with restricted persons.”
“Well, I will bargain till I find out just what it means that I am a restricted person.”
“You really don’t know? Well, we haven’t time to fix that stubborn streak in you now. Quickly, just what is that you have to know?”
“I have to know what a restricted person is. I have to now why the children hoot ‘Tony the tin man’ at me. How can they know that my father was a junk dealer?”
“You had no father. We give to each of you a basic collection of concepts and the vocabulary to handle them, a sufficient store of memories, and a background of a distant town. That happened to be yours, but there is no connection here. The children call you Tony the Tin Man because, like all really cruel creatures, they have an instinct for the truth that can hurt; and they will never forget it.”
“Then I am a tin man?”
“Well, no. Actually only seventeen percent metal. And less than a third of one percent tin. You are compounded of animal, vegetable, and mineral fiber, and there was much effort given to your manufacture and programming. Yet the taunt of the children is essentially true.”
“Then, if I am Tony the Tin Man, how can I know all the people of the world in my mind?”
“You have no mind.”
“In my brain then. How can all that be in one small brain?”
“Because your brain is not in your head, and it is not small. The longest way around may take the shortest time here. Come, I may as well show it to you. I’ve told you enough that it won’t matter if you know a little more. There are few who are taken on personally conducted sightseeing tours of their own brains. You should be grateful.”
“Gratitude seems a little tardy.”
They went into the barred area, down into the bowels of the main building of the center. And they looked at the brain of Anthony Trotz, a restricted person in its special meaning.
“It is the largest in the world,” said Colonel Cooper.
“How large?”
“A little over twelve hundred cubic meters.”
“What a brain! And it is mine?”
“You share it with others. But, yes, it is yours. You have access to its data. You are an adjunct to it, a runner for it, an appendage, inasmuch as you are anything at all.”
“Colonel Cooper, how long have I been alive?”
“You are not.”
“How long have I been as I am now?”
“It is three days since you were last reassigned, since you were assigned to this. At that time your nervousness and apprehensions were introduced. An apprehensive unit will be more inclined to notice details just a little out of the ordinary.”
“And what is my purpose?”
They were now walking back to the office work area, and Anthony had a sad feeling at leaving his brain behind him.
“This is a filter center,” said Colonel Cooper, “and your purpose is to serve as a filter, of a sort. Every person has a slight aura about him. It is a characteristic of his, and is part of his personality and purpose. And it can be detected, electrically, magnetically, even visually under special conditions. The accumulator at which we were looking (your brain) is designed to maintain contact with all the auras in the world, and to keep running and complete data on them all. It contains a multiplicity of circuits for each of its three billion and some subjects. However, as aid to its operation, it was necessary to assign several artificial consciousnesses to it. You are one of these.”
Anthony looked out the window as the Colonel continued his explanation.
The dogs and the children had found a new victim in the streets below, and Anthony’s heart went out to him.
“The purpose,” said Colonel Cooper, “was to notice anything just a little peculiar in the auras and the persons they represent, anything at all odd in their comings and goings. Anything like what you have come here to report to me.”
“Like the seven persons who recently arrived in the world, and not by way of birth?”
“Yes. We have been expecting the first of the aliens for months. We must know their area, and at once. Now tell me.”
“What if they are not aliens at all? What if they are restricted persons like myself?”
“Restricted persons have no aura, are not persons, are not alive. And you would not receive knowledge of them.”
“Then how do I know the other restricted persons here, Adrian and Wellington, and such?”
“You know them at first hand. You do not know them through the machine. Now tell me the area quickly. The center may be a primary target. It will take the machine hours to ravel it out. Your only purpose is to serve as an intuitive shortcut.”
But Tin Man Tony did not speak. He only thought in his mind—more accurately, in his brain a hundred yards away. He thought in his fabricated consciousness:
*
The area is quite near. If the Colonel were not burdened with a mind, he would be able to think more clearly. He would know that cruel children and dogs love to worry what is not human, and that all the restricted persons for this area are accounted for. He would know that they are worrying one of the aliens in the street below, and that is the area that is right for my consciousness.
I wonder if they will be better masters? He is an imposing figure, and he would be able to pass for a man. And the Colonel is right: the center is a primary target.
Why! I never knew you could kill a child just by pointing
