Shock Wave. Walt Richmond
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 Saurian seemed to bring himself back to the conversation with an effort. “It was an accident,” he said slowly. “At our . . .” There was a pause. “. . . school, laboratory—I’m not sure of the referent—but a place where I was studying. We were investigating . . . those properties of energy . . . I am speaking now from my Galactic Citizen’s knowledge rather than from what I knew then—those properties of energy that are of an electrical nature. We had progressed from the point of noticing that friction causes certain objects to attract other objects, to the point where we were producing sparks . . . miniature urgzsplatz.” Grontunk paused again. “Lightning bolts would be the term here.
“And I had such a machine in my possession. I was on my way back to the . . . the homeland, you would call it here. And paused in an out-of-the-way place to check over the machinery. More from curiosity than anything else. I cranked up the machine, and then—my world disappeared. I do not yet understand why. My orientation tells me that a signal of some mysterious nature was caused by the urgzsplatz.”
Terry had been checking his own knowledge against what Grontunk was saying. Sure enough, there were no referents in basic Galactic training to the equations of electromagnetic energy. A curious blank spot there. So Grontunk had remained uninformed as to the basic nature of his experiment even through the extensive Galactic Citizen’s orientation.
There were all sorts of peripheral referents in the orientation to the basic factors of electrical energy equations. The idea of electronic equipment was met with in several contexts; but none of the basics were dealt with here.
“So you created a radio signal?”
“Yes. So I have been told.”
“But you don’t know why or how? Could you describe your machine? Or do you still have it?”
Grontunk shrugged and quoted. “ ‘The illegal possession of electronic devices by lower-grade Galactic Citizens . . .’ I had it, but the computer took it away. And told me it was illogical for a citizen to attempt to contravene measures based on the welfare of himself and others about him.” Suddenly Grontunk broke down completely and howled, “But I want to go home!”
“Home? Where’s home?” A well-modulated electronic voice interrupted and Terry turned to see a glistening metallic individual. “Who is your friend, Friend Grontunk?”
“Oh, hi, Z-9604. Meet our new, uh, meet our new arrival. Basic Citizen Terry Ferman, this is Independent Entity Z-9604.”
“I greet you most cordially, fellow Entity.” The robot raised both “hands,” palms out, in what Terry recognized as a near-universal symbol of a showing of no-weapons. A falsity, he realized in the same instant, since a robot of this class, though not specifically “armed,” was quite capable of bringing force to bear on any opponent it might meet, should the circumstances call for it.
The Citizen Training,