Chapter XI

The humming teardrop sped across the empty wastes; within, through a clear plastic window, Kesley watched the metal building loom larger.

Then they were almost next to it, and abruptly a section of the building's gleaming wall opened. The teardrop shot in without reducing speed, slid along a banked incline that swung it in a wide curve through a vast enclosed area and gradually brought it to a halt. The teardrop split open again and, somewhat shaken, Kesley and his mount left it.

He looked around. The place was brightly lit despite the total absence of windows; the ceiling was some fifty feet above his head, and he could see stairwells spiraling down deep into the earth. Along one wall rose a shining mass of dials and meters, switches and complex instruments which seemed to be moving rapidly from one position to another sheerly of their own accord.

All around him were machines. He felt a strange queasiness. Machines were things to fear; they had destroyed the world, once. The sight of them, clicking and humming and carrying out their unknown functions, disturbed him immensely.

Hesitantly, he began to walk.

A long corridor sprang into being not far from where he stood, winding narrowly away and downward. He decided to follow it. But after he had proceeded no more than twenty yards into it, he discovered a brightly-lit, little glass cubicle set into the wall, a small room with a chair, a clock on one wall, and a coppery-looking grid set into the other. He decided to investigate. Tethering his horse to a bracket along the corridor wall, he pushed open the cubicle door, entered, and placed himself in the chair.

Instantly a voice said: "Welcome to Wiener. May we have your name for benefit of our memory banks?"

Alarmed, Kesley glanced around. The voice had seemed to come from the wall-grid. "Dale Kesley," he stammered.

"Welcome to Wiener, Dale Kesley." The voice was unemotional, dead-sounding. Kesley frowned.

"What sort of city is this?" he asked.

There was silence for a long moment; he heard strange cracklings and rumblings coming from the grid. Then:

"The City of Wiener was officially founded on August 16, 2058, by Darby Chisholm, C. Edward Gronke, H. D. Feldstein, David M. Kammer, and Arthur Lloyd Canby, professors of cybernetics at Columbia University, Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Colby Institute and Swarthmore College. The avowed aim of the five founders was to create a completely self-sufficient, automated cybernetic community in a relatively nonstrategic area of the United States, where experiments in non-limited automational control could be put into practice.

"The building of the City of Wiener was implemented by a government grant of three billion dollars and private contributions. Four sites were chosen: Juntura, Oregon; Lodge Grass, Montana; Wanblee, South Dakota; Wilder, Texas. It was the original plan of the founders to utilize all four sites and build identical cities at each, but the precipitation of war in 2059 made it unwise to divert energies to so large a project at that time, and the decision was made to limit the experiment to the Texas site alone. This later proved to have been wise, in view of the unexpected attacks on the three rejected sites in the apparently mistaken impression that they had been the ones chosen.

"The City of Wiener was completed on April 11, 2061, and the switch feeding the first input was thrown by Dr. Chisholm of Columbia. A series of cybernetic governors powered by a fusion-breeder reactor then took full control of operations, and the City of Wiener was officially born. It has--"

"All right," Kesley interrupted suddenly, realizing he was about to receive a detailed history of the City's activities over the past four centuries. "I'd like to see whoever's in charge here. The Mayor, or whatever."

"Question has no cognitive referent," the dry voice said.

"'_Seeing_' the controlling body is out of the question, as no human is to be permitted access to the cybernetic governors under terms of the original City contract established between the City of Wiener and its five founders in--"

Dumbstruck, Kesley said: "You mean a _machine_ runs this City?"

"The question is inaccurate. The City _is_ a machine. There are no human inhabitants."

Suddenly chilled, Kesley looked up at the grid at which he had been directing his words, and realized he had been holding conversation with a mechanical brain, not some remote City official. Moistening his lips, he said: "What does the City _do_?"

"Question is unclear."

_The precision of the mechanical mind_, he thought in amused irritation. He rephrased the question. "What functions does the City carry out, aside from the normal routine of--of self-repair?"

"The City maintains a record of happenings in the Outer World; this record is not completely available for examination at the moment, due to unsettled conditions without. The City supplies manufactured goods to those who request them, as prescribed by its founders. The City endeavors to supply information within the bounds of self-safety, likewise as prescribed. The City--"

"Does the City know of a poet named Daveen?" Kesley broke in.

"Question will have to be referred to Answering Banks."

A pause, then, in a somewhat altered voice: "Information incomplete on poet Daveen, no other name recorded, member of court Duke Winslow Chicago North America 2504-2521, left court 2521, current whereabouts unknown. Is full biography requested?"

"No." Kesley crossed his legs and stared broodingly at his boots for a moment. The entire City a vast sentient machine, then! No wonder the Dukes left it alone; they knew they would never have the strength to destroy Wiener, and so they preferred that the machine-hating populace never learned of the City's existence.

He found himself greatly curious about the City. His imagination was engaged by the implications of a city-sized mechanical mind; he who had never dealt with any machine more complex than a pistol, who had had only fleeting acquaintance with the remnants of the Old Days, was fascinated by this mightiest machine of all.

"What can you tell me about Dale Kesley?" he asked on a sudden impulse.

Again silence--silence while photon-tracers raced over cryotronic circuits searching for information. Then: "Dale Kesley, farmer, entered Iowa Province June 21, 2521, no previous record, left Iowa Province undetermined time in spring of this year. Entered City of Wiener unaccompanied except by one mutant horse Type VX-1342 on October 8 of this year. Further information is lacking."

"Thanks," Kesley said hoarsely. His first twenty years were blank to the City, too. "Mind if I look around the place a little?"

"Limited examination of City of Wiener is permitted," the metal voice said. "Your animal has been removed for care and will be returned to you upon request."

He glanced through the thick glass window of the cubicle and saw that it was indeed so. While he had talked, unseen hands--_hands?_--had taken the horse away. Led it to pasture, Kesley wondered?

* * * * *

He wandered through the silent halls of the complex city, observing with a sort of quiet horror the chill efficiency with which the robot mind carried out its daily routine.

The City _was_ populated. Kesley came across the inhabitants immediately after leaving the glass-walled cubicle. They were man-sized robots of blue metal, rolling on noiseless treads, equipped with opposable-thumbed hands and filament-ended tentacles and wiry grippers, seeing out of bright electrophotic eyes and gazing evenly ahead with expressionless, shiny faces.

One of them was squatting over an immense heap of coiled tape which was growing almost as fast as he could scoop it up and feed it into the chittering maw of some glossy data-eater in one wall.

Another was repairing a mass of tangled circuits in an exposed ganglion behind a section of wall.

Still another of the mechanical men stood at some distance away, holding a segmented tube to the mouth of Kesley's horse. The horse had its jointed scaly lips pressed tight against the tube, and was eating or drinking with evident contentment.

Air-conditioners hummed gently in the background, keeping the atmosphere pure and dustless. From the floor came the throbbing of some mighty engines far below. Kesley wondered just how deep in the ground the City penetrated.

All around, computers chattered and whistled. Kesley felt his astonishment growing with each moment. And beneath the astonishment, there was a mounting resentment at the Ducal philosophy that had blanked such achievements as this from the world.

_Machines have destroyed civilization_, people said. But had they? No; not the machines. It was man's _use_ of the machines; the machines themselves were impartial, as disinterested in the currents of human affairs as the moon and the stars.

Yet the Dukes had risen to power on a program of throttled technological development. Fleetingly, the thought went through Kesley's mind that the Dukes had made a mistake. If only--

He stopped, feeling a shiver of pain. Once again he had touched some reverberating rawness in the deep layers of his mind; once again, a forbidden thought.

In sudden inspiration he turned toward a grid set in the wall near him.

"Can I get information from you?" he asked.

"Answering circuits are functioning."

"Can you tell me anything about Antarctica? Anything at all?"

Silence for a moment. "Do you mean Antarctica before or after removal of the ice?" the voice asked.

"Afterward--I guess."

"We have no information on Antarctica after 2062," the machine said. "Ice removal was completed in 2021, and settlement proceeded along with rapid technological development. In 2062 Antarctica ceased all contact with the rest of the world."

2062 was the year of the Great Blast, Kesley thought. And Antarctica had drawn the curtain.

He shrugged and walked away, taking a seat on a curved metal stanchion projecting from the floor. Somewhere, locked in the obstinate memory banks of this computer-city, might be the information he needed to orient himself in the world, the missing data that everyone maddeningly withheld from him. But where to find it? How to get it?

Suddenly the City's voice said: "Dale Kesley!"

"I'm here. What do you want?"

"You will have to leave at once. We will tolerate a delay of no more than five minutes, plus or minus one."

"How come? Why can't I stay?"

"The City of Wiener faces armed attack if you remain here. Therefore, you must leave."

_Very logical_, Kesley thought coldly. "Armed attack from whom?"

A section of the wall near him rolled away, revealing a mammoth screen that showed the outside desert with startling clarity. Kesley saw figures huddled along the horizon, marching forward. An army. Duke Winslow's army.

"They're from the Duke, aren't they?"

"Yes. They've come to get you."

"And you're just going to turn me over to them?" Kesley asked horror-stricken.

"We simply are requesting that you leave. We do not wish to risk an armed attack upon ourself."

"You can defend yourself, can't you?"

"We are not afraid of the Duke. We simply wish to avoid any conflict as unnecessary expenditure of material and effort. You now have three minutes, plus or minus one, in which to leave freely."

Sweat began to pour down Kesley's back. He glanced at the screen, saw Winslow's advancing forces. They had somehow tracked him to Wiener.

But the City _couldn't_ throw him out now! It just wasn't fair!

Grimly, he started to run.

He charged forward toward the long shadowed corridor and heard his footsteps ringing loudly as he ran. The corridor was a helix that wound deeper and deeper into the Earth; Kesley ran, feeling the pure cold air whipping past.

Gleaming blue mechanical men turned to look at him as he went by.

"Two minutes, plus or minus one," the machine warned. Its voice seemed to be everywhere. Kesley saw the familiar grids studding the wall at regular intervals.

He had to hide. He had to avoid the City's commands, avoid Winslow, stay here where he was safe. He found a dark alcove and stepped in. There was a door; he opened it, stepped through, and found himself in the midst of an intricate network of machinery, row on row of relay and stud.

"One minute, plus or minus one," the ubiquitous voice said. Kesley scowled. There wouldn't be any escape, it seemed. He kept running.

"We have requested that you leave. Your time is now exhausted, and we must remove you."

Kesley whirled desperately and saw four of the metal men coming toward him. They seized him gently, grasping him in the thick paws of their upper arms. His fists thudded against the solid metal of their chest, bruising his knuckles but failing to stop their advance.

They lifted him and began to move, sliding forward at an incredible pace up the long corridor and toward the beckoning iris of an opening door.