Barrington Bayley SF Gateway Omnibus: The Soul of the Robot, The Knights of the Limits, The Fall of Chronopolis

Less deftly than the Fly I climbed to within a few feet of it. Its hearing did not seem particularly acute: it took no notice of my less than silent approach. But before I launched an onslaught I noticed something purposeful about the movement of its foreleg and stayed my hand.

The Fly was playing with the Demonstrator, displaying computations on it exactly as I had intended.

On each occasion it moved the first pointer twice and the second pointer once.

Five and eight equals Thirteen. Addition.

Four and Six equals Twenty-Four. Multiplication.

The fourth or fifth manipulation I observed made me think at first that these results were coincidental. Two and Three equals Eight. Incorrect.

Then it struck me. Two to the power Three equals Eight!

My amazement, not to say bewilderment, was so great that the spear dropped from my hand. I could not doubt but that the Fly, too, possessed intellectual power.

Here was my introduction to the Bees!

But why was the Fly, if it belonged to an intelligent species living the life of a scavenger? Was it perhaps trapped in the hive, as I was? Or was every insect species on Handrea intelligent, as a matter of course?

I slithered to the ground and stood near the Fly, forcing myself to disregard its powerful stench. It moved back but a few feet when I reached out my hand to pick up the demonstration board and regarded me intently as I spelled out the initial steps of our dialogue.

So began an incredible period of learning and interchange between my friend the Fly and myself. To be honest, the learning was mostly on his part, for I could never have absorbed information as he did.

The Fly’s memory was as rapid and unfaltering as a computer’s. Everything I showed him he knew instantly. First I introduced him to the Arabic decimal notation and then, though he seemed content to rush into an orgy of abstruse calculations I induced him to learn alphabetical writing. He mastered words and concepts with machine-like ease, and in the space of a few weeks we were able to converse on almost any subject, using an alphabetical version I made of the demonstration board.

My new friend’s curiosity was prodigious. He asked me where I came from, and what was the size and distance of my home planet. He then asked how the spaceship that had brought me here had been propelled, and I explained it to him as best as I was able. I also managed to elicit from him one or two scraps of information about Handrea, though his answers were vague.

The Fly’s chief obsession, however, lay in the mathematics of numbers. In this he was a wizard, possessing the type of brain that the human race produces perhaps once in a couple of centuries. I was never able to understand a fraction of what the Fly knew about numbers. It would have taken a Fermat or a Poincaré to keep up with him.

There was much wonderment in the thought of what strange vessels God chooses to imbue with his divine spark. I had little enthusiasm, however, for exploring the more recondite properties of Fibonacci numbers, prime numbers and the like, and as soon as was practicable I broached the subject that was the aim of the entire operation as far as I was concerned: would the Fly help me to establish relations with the Bees, so that I might persuade them to construct a rescue beacon for me?

While I posed this question on the alphabet board the Fly was hunched over the much improved number-board. Although I was sure he read my request as I presented it to him he gave no sign of understanding it and continued playing with his own board.

Annoyed, I snatched the number-board away from him and repeated my demand. The Fly squatted there, unmoving. As I was coming near the end of my letter-pointing he casually shuffled to the number-board again and continued his rapid calculations, which I believed concerned number curios of a high order but which I was in no position to follow without textual explanations.

I asked:

‘Why will you not answer me?’

And was ignored.

I made increasingly desperate attempts at a closer accord and similarly was rebuffed, while the Fly continued his mathematical orgy in what looked increasingly like a frantic ecstasy. It suddenly occurred to me that up until my request for help none of our exchanges had been in the nature of true conversation but had consisted purely of an exchange of dry knowledge. Otherwise the Fly was behaving like someone who had not quite realised I existed – indeed, except for his obvious intelligence, he behaved like an idiot. Or a witless animal.

My failure to create a true relationship with the Fly was extremely disappointing. It taught me yet again how different was the intelligence of the Handreatic insects from my own. I concluded, after taking to the board for further attempts at a more personal contact, that I had been mistaken in thinking that the Fly was speaking to me when using the boards. Except for his initial enquiries into my origins he had been talking to himself, using the boards as a new toy or tool of thought.