50 in 50

Closing the door quietly, Carl leaned against its cool metal and tried to understand what had happened. With the threat of immediate pursuit removed, he had time to think.

Why hadn't he been followed? Why had Central Control acted as if it didn't know his whereabouts? This omnipotent machine had scanning tubes in every square inch of the city, he had found that out. And it was hooked into the machines of the other cities of the world. There was no place it couldn't see. Or rather one place.

The thought hit him so suddenly he gasped. Then he looked around him. A tunnel of relays and controls stretched away from him, dimly lit by glow plates. It could be — yes it could be. It had to be.

There could be only one place in the entire world that Central Control could not look — inside its own central mechanism. Its memory and operating circuits. No machine with independent decision could repair its own thinking circuits. This would allow destructive negative feedback to be built up. An impaired circuit could only impair itself more, it couldn't possibly repair itself.

He was inside the brain circuits of Central Control. So as far as that city-embracing machine knew he had ceased to be. He existed nowhere the machine could see. The machine could see everywhere. Therefore he didn't exist. By this time all memory of him had been probably erased.

Slowly at first, then faster and faster, he walked down the corridor.

"Free!" he shouted. "Really free — for the first time in my life! Free to do as I want, to watch the whole world and laugh at them!" A power and happiness flowed through him. He opened door after door, exulting in his new kingdom.

He was talking aloud, bubbling with happiness. "I can have the repair robots that work on the circuits bring me food. Furniture, clothes — whatever I want. I can live here just as I please — do what I please." The thought was wildly exciting. He threw open another door and stopped rigid.

The room before him was tastefully furnished, just as he would have done it. Books, paintings on the walls soft music coming from a hidden record player. Carl gaped at it. Until the voice spoke behind him.

"Of course it would be wonderful to live here," the voice said. "To be master of the city, have anything you want at your fingertips. But what makes you think, poor little man, that you are the first one to realize that? And to come here? And there is really only room for one you know."

Carl turned slowly, very slowly, measuring the distance between himself and the other man who stood behind him in the doorway, weighing the chances of lashing out with the gavel he still clutched— before the other man could fire the gun he held in his hand.

Laugh — I Thought I Would Cry

The Greening of the Green

"Be careful with that dinghy, you idiots.” the admiral bellowed in a whisper. "It's the last one we have."

He looked on anxiously while the sweating sailors lowered the dinghy from the deck of the submarine into the water. There was no moon, but the crowded stars in the clear Mediterranean sky glowed like tiny light bulbs.

"Is that the shore, Admiral?" the passenger asked. His teeth chattered as he spoke, probably from fear since the night was warm.

"Captain," the admiral said. "Fm captain of this sub so you call me captain. And, no, that is a fog bank. The shore is over there. Are you ready?"

Giulio started to speak, then, sensing the trembling of his jaw, nodded instead. He felt as scruffy as he looked with his ancient beret, decaying corduroy trousers and decayed jacket. Felt even scruffier next to the crisply uniformed figure of the admiral: in the dark the patches and darns of his uniform did not show. Giulio nodded again when he realized the admiral had not seen his nod the first time.

"Good. Then you know your instructions?"

"Of course I don't know my instructions," Giulio said with petulant irritation, trying not to stammer the words. "I only know that there is a piece of paper in my pocket with a word on it and I'm to read that word then eat the paper. At dawn."

"Those are the instructions I'm talking about, you idiot." The admiral grumbled like a volcano, his authority insulted.

"You can't talk to me like that," Giulio squeaked, realized he squeaked and lowered his voice. "Do you know who I am. .?"

He choked himself into silence. No, the admiral did not know who he was, and if he told him then the CIA would kill them both; they had promised him that. No one was to know.

"I know you are a goddamned passenger and a goddamned nuisance and the sooner you are off this vessel the better. I have far more important things to do."

"What?" Giulio tried and succeeded in getting a sneer into his voice. "Sail A.desk? What's an admiral doing in charge of a crummy sub? Too many brass hats, that's what!"