“In what way, my dear madam?”

“You must understand that the economic irregularities of the last few months, which, although small as compared with the great storms of the past, are quite disturbing to our peace-drenched spirits, have caused considerable restiveness in the Spanish province. I understand that Consolidated Cinnabar is selling out to a group of native Spaniards. It is consoling. If we are economic vassals of the North, it is humiliating to have the fact advertised too blatantly. —And our people can be better trusted to follow the Machine.”

“Then you think there will be no more trouble?”

“I am sure there will not be— In Almaden, at least.”

THE NORTHERN REGION

a—Area: 18,000,000 square miles

b—Population: 800,000,000

c—Capital: Ottawa

The Northern Region, in more ways than one, was at the top. This was exemplified quite well by the map in the Ottawa office of Vice-Co-ordinator Hiram Mackenzie, in which the North Pole was centered. Except for the enclave of Europe with its Scandinavian and Icelandic regions, all the Arctic area was within the Northern Region.

Roughly, it could be divided into two major areas. To the left on the map was all of North America above the Rio Grande. To the right was included all of what had once been the Soviet Union. Together these areas represented the centered power of the planet in the first years of the Atomic Age. Between the two was Great Britain, a tongue of the Region licking at Europe. Up at the top of the map, distorted into odd, huge shapes, were Australia and New Zealand, also member provinces of the Region.

Not all the changes of the past decades had yet altered the fact that the North was the economic ruler of the planet.

There was almost an ostentatious symbolism thereof in the fact that of the official Regional maps Byerley had seen, Mackenzie’s alone showed all the Earth, as though the North feared no competition and needed no favoritism to point up its pre-eminence.

“Impossible,” said Mackenzie, dourly, over the whiskey. “Mr. Byerley, you have had no training as a robot technician, I believe.”

“No, I have not.”

“Hmp. Well, it is, in my opinion, a sad thing that Ching, Ngoma and Szegeczowska haven’t either. There is too prevalent an opinion among the peoples of Earth that a Co-ordinator need only be a capable organizer, a broad generalizer, and an amiable person. These days he should know his robotics as well,—no offense intended.”

“None taken. I agree with you.”

“I take it, for instance, from what you have said already, that you worry about the recent trifling dislocation in world economy. I don’t know what you suspect, but it has happened in the past that people—who should have known better—wondered what would happen if false data were fed into the Machine.”

“And what would happen, Mr. Mackenzie?”

“Well,” the Scotsman shifted his weight and sighed, “all collected data goes through a complicated screening system which involves both human and mechanical checking, so that the problem is not likely to arise. —But let us ignore that. Humans are fallible, also corruptible, and ordinary mechanical devices are liable to mechanical failure.