THINKER

They had agreed to converse only out of necessity once they were inside the mountain—and now they moved in silence between pressing walls of deep-winding rock. Downward.

Toward the Thinker.

Built in the 1980s on a massive research grant, and symbolizing one of the high points of human scientific achievement, it had never been designed to rule Earth. Its final installation here, in the Crazy Horse caverns in 1991, opened a whole new research era, promising an end to disease and poverty. The truly immense computer-complex, with its mechanical cells numbering ten raised to the seventeenth power, was a natural extension of the space-probe computers of the 1970s, but with much vaster potential.

Until the Little War.

When the young took charge of world government, they also took over the Thinker—re-programming it to their own ends, setting up the Death-at-21 society with this supreme god-computer as their major arm of enforcement. The cities of Earth lived in its metallic grip, becoming totally dependent upon it.

The Thinker’s multi-million arteries became the world’s prime root system, feeding power and control to each city around the globe.

As knight slays dragon, Ballard had killed the computer. It lay now, acres of blackened, inert metal, an endless cemetery of silent relays and ruptured cables, stretching for becalmed miles beneath the granite bulk of Crazy Horse.

But even in death, the Thinker inspired awe.

“It was alive when I was here with Jess,” said Logan softly, as he and Jonath stood on a wide ledge overlooking the complex. Fissured cracks in the rock walls of the mountain allowed thin spears of light to cut across the vast, dead-metal plain of linked computer banks.

“It goes on forever!” marveled Jonath. He started moving toward the floor of the caverns. Logan caught him just before his foot touched the dust-dulled surface, pulled him back abruptly.

“What’s wrong? Gant isn’t in this section.”

“Not Gant,” said Logan. “The Watchman.”

“Watchman?”

“Another robot kill-device. Programmed to react instantly to the slightest pressure on the floor’s surface.” Logan picked up a small pebble, tossed it onto the flooring.

Silence. No alarms. No movement.

“We’re all right,” sighed Logan. “It’s dead.” He grinned at Jonath. “Believe me, you don’t want that thing coming after you.”

“Which way now?” asked Jonath.

“I’m not sure,” said Logan, looking down a long row of silent computer banks. “Did Evans say why Gant picked Crazy Horse as his headquarters?”

“No. Just that he was here.”

“He’s probably rigged up some kind of auxiliary power—for light and heat. Using parts of the Thinker. Once we locate the power source we’ve found Gant.”

“This thing spreads out for miles.”

“Best chance is to head for the Central Core. Gant could have tapped into it for his power. If so, his headquarters will be close to the Core.”

“But I thought this was dead…all of it.”

“The components still exist,” said Logan. “Gant might have found a way to partially reactivate some of them.” He took out the canister of water, opened it. “Want some?”

“My throat’s been dry ever since we got here,” admitted Jonath, taking several swallows. Logan drank, then stowed the canister back in his tunic. “Let’s go. And walk softly all the way.”

Weapons in hand, they headed for the Core.