“Certainly, I’m looking. I see it. By God, sir, it’s still moving—faster, in fact! Charging the enemy line like the Light Brigade! And all for nothing, it appears. Your machine, General, appears less competent than you expected.”

37

Poor old Denny. Made his play and played out, I reckon. Readings on the board over there don’t look good; durn near every overload in him blowed wide open. Not much there to salvage. Emergency Survival Center’s hot. Never expected to see that. Means all kinds of breakdowns inside. But it figures, after what he just went through. Look at that slag pit he drove up out of. They wanted a field test. Reckon they got it. And he flunked it.

38

“Violating orders and winning is one thing, George. Committing mutiny and losing is quite another. Your damned machine made a fool of me. After I stepped in and backed you to the hilt and stood there like a jackass and assured Councillor Grace that the thing knew what it was doing—it blows the whole show. Instead of pulling back to save itself it charged to destruction. I want an explanation of this fiasco at once.”

39

“Look! No, by God, over there! On the left of the entrance. They’re breaking formation—they’re running for it! Watch this! The whole spearhead is crumbling, they’re taking to the badlands, they’re—”

40

“Why, dammit? It’s outside all rationality. As far as the enemy’s concerned, fine. They broke and ran. They couldn’t stand up to the sight of the Mark XX not only taking everything they had, but advancing on them out of that inferno, all guns blazing. Another hundred yards and—but they don’t know that. It buffaloed them, so score a battle won for our side. But why? I’d stack my circuits up against any fixed installation in existence, including the big Tacomp the Army’s so proud of. That machine was as aware as anybody that the only smart thing to do was run. So now I’ve got a junk pile on my hands. Some test! A clear flunk. Destroyed in action. Not recommended for Federal procurement. Nothing left but a few hot transistors in the Survival Center. It’s a disaster, Fred. All my work, all your work, the whole program wrecked. Fred, you talk to General Bates. As soon as he’s done inspecting the hulk he’ll want somebody human to chew out.”

41