Chapter I: Front Matter

The Thinking Machine

by Raymond F. Jones

_Like Robert Heinlein and Harry Bates, Raymond F. Jones can point
with pride to a major Hollywood production based upon one of his
stories, and more science fantasy anthology inclusions over the past
seven or eight years than there are blackbirds in an electronic
wizard’s pie. And now he takes a look at the future as excitingly
prophetic as the chill alien face which stared remorselessly out
at us from the silver screen in_ THIS ISLAND EARTH _and left us
wondering far into the night how long the human race would survive._

=“Leave everything to me!” the Machine seemed to whisper. “Love and
marriage, your daily bread.” But there will always be rebels.=

They gave Rick Theron a party before he left.

It wasn’t a rational thing to do, or even completely legal. But they were Agros, Sixth Rating, and it was the kind of thing to be expected among their class. The Watch Police knew it was going on, and didn’t even bother to validate the report to the regional observatory.

So they darkened the windows in Sol Hanara’s house and invited all the people from the neighboring farms--the friends that Rick Theron had known since he was a child--and gave a farewell party. It was a special doings to show the special kind of feeling they had for Rick.

Not that they wouldn’t have liked to do the same thing for everyone who went. They would. But it was for Rick that all those accumulated and repressed desires were unloosed.

Rick’s father, Sard Theron, drove one of the farm’s big cargo planes down from Rillo to RiGrand. He got clearance for the flight as a cargo of livestock, but even the traffic officials knew that he was picking up a dozen other families from farms along the way. It didn’t really matter. The Lonestar Region was among the top producing areas in the country. No one could expect its Agros to be civilized as well.

The big plane rolled to a stop, the last of three bringing guests to the party, and the farm families climbed down to the solid surface of the RiGrand field. They could smell the night-borne scent of the Gulf waters and see the distant shimmering of moonlight on its surface.

Rick had always loved it down here. He’d wished ever since he was a boy that his family could have transferred assignments to a farm nearer the water, but his father preferred the big, open country of Rillo for cattle and roughage crops and the gathering in of a plentiful harvest.

Now Rick was through with both kinds of country. He stood a moment at the foot of the plane stairs sucking the moist Gulf air into his lungs. This was probably the last night he’d ever see this wonderful RiGrand Agro area.

“There he is!”

He heard the sounds of voices and running feet, and saw the shapes of moving figures in the half light. They came up and swarmed over him, slapping him on the back.

“How’s it feel to have your farming days over?”

“Hear you’re picked to pair with a Mech!”

“You’ll get fed and brushed like a prize sire--what a life!”

“They say those Mech women are charged like a parogun. You have to say ‘yes’m’ and ‘no’m’ or you’re likely to get your head smoked off.”

“Lay off it!” Rick roared, half annoyed by the banter that was supposed to be friendly enough but which had the effect of small, hot needles in his skin.

A vacuum of sound swelled outward in the wake of his voice. “Sorry, guys,” he said. “I didn’t mean it to come out that way. I just don’t like it being the last night of my life at RiGrand.”

“Sure, we don’t like it, either. Guess there’s better ways of showing it than being damned fools. Let’s go in and have a tall drink.”

They crowded around, taking his arms, urging him on. These were the fellows he’d grown up with on the vast farms and ranches of the Lonestar Agro Region. They knew how he felt. Or at least they were trying. Most of them couldn’t really know. They’d never leave. They’d spend the rest of their lives here.

For some inconceivable reason the Machine had picked _him_ to leave. To pair with a Mech. What kind of breed was that supposed to produce? A Rillo range sire and a salt grass heifer!

He went along into the enormous guest hall of the RiGrand ranch. The families left the drinking table and surged about him, shaking his hand and offering congratulations as if something wonderful had happened to him. It was enough to make a man think they _wanted_ him to leave.

But he knew how they felt. It was just a part of growing up, to them. Maybe the trouble with him was that he didn’t want to grow up.

Mendon Carter, RiGrand’s Chief Agro, stood up on the drinking table to propose a toast. His mane of white hair was entangled with points of quivering, silver light. “To Rick Theron!” he cried. “May a thousand Agro sons call him father!”

It wasn’t a good toast. Not for a man who was going to pair with a Mech. But Mendon Carter was trying, in the best way he knew how, to supply an expression of their love which Rick would have to remember and sustain him in the years ahead. Until the time, at least, when he would finally all but forget that he had ever been an Agro.

“To Rick!” the others shouted, even more loudly than they intended, in order to cover their embarrassment at Mendon’s inept toast.

But Rick pretended there was no cause for discomfort. He leaped to the table beside Mendon and held his glass high. “To my sons!” he cried. “I’ll send every one of them back to Lonestar!”

That eased their tension, and gave them license to be as gay as they liked. They answered back with shouts of laughter and good wishes as Rick jumped down from the table, his eyes intent upon the figure he had been searching for ever since he came in.

She was standing against the far wall, her face bright with laughter that pained him. He forced his way through the crowd to Barie’s side.

“For a little while I thought you weren’t here,” he said.

“You knew better than that,” Barie answered. “Come on.” She took his arm. “The orchestra’s going to play. You aren’t going to dance with anyone but me tonight. And after tonight you’ll never dance with me as long as you live.”

She stepped closer and he took her in his arms as the squeaky, tootling orchestra assembled by Mendon Carter at one end of the room took up its beat.