This entity, in a protective suit roughly like their own, but with a far neater more compact look, lost no time getting down to business. It raised its space-suited hand, and its voice boomed out:
“Approach.”
They walked down the aisle between the rows of aliens.
“Halt.”
They stopped.
“Are you representative of the governing local planetary life-form?”
Richards stayed profoundly quiet.
Cassetti snapped on the suit’s speaker.
“We are.”
“Your calculator is to us unacceptable as a representative.”
Cassetti said cautiously, “We accept the statement.”
“Its reactions are inadequate.”
“We will be happy to let it know.”
“Moreover, it spoke falsehoods at us.”
“What did it say?”
“It stated that it, a computer, is the actual in-fact government of this planet. Nothing of such an inadequate to fail even the first two tests with total failure could dominate a race capable to pass all tests with no flaw. We handclasp before you in recognition of your mastery of the essential points, namely:
“One. Distinction of life from nonlife.
“Two. Correct attitude to life hostile but not dangerous.
“Three. Correct attitude to life hostile and dangerous, but overpowered.
“Four. Correct attitude to life hostile, dangerous, and not overpowered.
“Five. Correct attitude to false and non-standard would-be dominating life-form of your same race.
“Six. Correct attitude to life not hostile, but dangerous, and overpowering in strength.
“To pass six such tests in rapid succession with no flaw is unusual, and mark of correct basic attitudes. Such attitudes suggest character traits good in a trading partner or associate. Information from your calculator conflicts with this possible. Yet it is obvious you must control calculator, and it is so programmed by you. Explain.”
Cassetti shut off the suit’s outside speaker.
“How—?”
“Don’t ask me.”
“If we tell this alien the plain truth, that’s going to involve telling it that its ideal test is a flop.”
“Yes, but if we lie to it and it keeps asking questions, we’re going to run out of answers fast.”
“I know it.”
“Somehow, we’ve got to finesse the question.”
“How?”
“Say... M’m... We had to see how it would react—or—”
The surrounding groups of alien figures watched and waited.
Behind the table, the spacesuited figure moved impatiently.
Cassetti switched on the speaker, and took pains to keep his voice leveclass="underline" “The tested may choose to test the tester.”
There was a brief silence.
Abruptly the hall, birds, octopuses, bamboo creatures, bears, platform, table, and seated figures vanished. Around Cassetti and Richards there was complete darkness, then a vague light.
A booming note burst out suddenly, briefly died away, then came back in a roar that for some reason sounded like laughter.
Cassetti made sure the helmet speaker was off. “Sam?”
Richards’s voice sounded dogged but steady. “Right here. Wherever that may be.”
“Can you see what this place looks like?”
“Like the inside of an oversized dog’s mouth, figuring we’re standing on the tongue facing into the throat.”
“I guess that’s as close as anything. Was that hall an illusion, an image on a screen, or what?”
“My guess is it was an image, but not on a screen.”
“And this?”
“My guesses are only good to explain the past, not the present or future.”
They stood there, groping mentally, and Cassetti’s mind seemed to go down and around and over and back, and over and around and down and back, and down and over and around and back, and finally someone spat out a hideous oath.
Richards murmured, “In spades.”
“We may have passed six different tests, by the extraterrestrial’s estimate, but we haven’t made it yet.”
“Probably this is still another one.”
“If so, it’s the worst yet.”
Time stretched out, and still nothing happened. Cassetti cleared his throat. “Before we go out of our heads in this cell, let’s try to get the jailer’s attention.”
“Good idea. I wonder what kind of memory the thing has?”
“I’d say pretty good. What are you thinking?”
“It seems to have a sense of humor. Why not repeat what we said when we first came in? After all, for all intents and purposes, we’re back where we started.”
“When we first saw the octopus and the bamboo thing, you said—”
“I remember.” There was a click, then Richards’s voice spoke evenly: “How are you?”
There was no reply.
“We greet you.”
That got no response, either.
Cassetti snapped on his speaker.
“Hello.”
At first, nothing happened.
Then there was a faint vibration in the air around them. It sounded first as a whisper, then as a repeated “boom boom Boom Boom BOOM BOOM Boom Boom boom boom... Finally, it died away.
There was a click, and Richards murmured, “Was that a laugh? I wonder if this thing has got a sense of humor?”
“It’s got a sense of something.”
Around them, there was a faint whisper that grew louder and formed into words:
“So. It is truly you?”
Richards clicked on his speaker, and said carefully, “It’s been us all along.”
“I am truly in contact with the dominant race of this planet?”
Richards hesitated, and Cassetti said, “We are two individuals of that race.”
“Two separate individuals which belong to that race?”
“Yes.”
“I am not, in any way, speaking with your computer?”
“No.”
“And the computer does not speak through you?”
“No. And as for you, we are not now speaking to an illusion in some new test?”
“No. And is this a test on your part?”
“No.”
“Good.” The whisper died away, then came back again. “I need your agreement that we recognize each other, and desire to exist in mutual peace, so long as neither threatens the valuable interests of the other. Is it agreed?”
Cassetti hesitated. Then, as Richards kept his mouth shut, Cassetti said, “As far as we personally are concerned, it can be agreed. But we are not ourselves individually superior to the computer. The computer sent us here. I am sure the computer will agree; but the actual treaty will have to wait for the computer’s agreement.”
“The computer is a nothing. An extension only. It has no true and lasting independent reality. It is without a center of consciousness, and can neither be rewarded nor held responsible for its decisions. I deal with the race, not with its temporary artificial calculating tool.”
“Ah—” said Cassetti, thinking that the computer in fact controlled factories, farms, transport, education—and if the extraterrestrial believed humans controlled the computer, then if the computer made some blunder, humanity would get the blame. He was groping for a way around this when the voice spoke again, its tone harsh. “You evade?”
Cassetti said carefully, “Suppose we accept your view, and give our agreement—then what?”
“Then you will be returned to your ship, we ourselves will proceed on our journey, and your agreement will be duly noted. At some future date there will doubtless be further contacts. Real contacts such as we have now made, not empty toyings with a calculating machine or fabricated illusions.”
“And—if we should insist that we aren’t in control, but that the computer is in control, then what?”
“Then you reject contact. You evade. You seek to leave us with the outer garment of contact while the reality is gone. We could not continue on our way then, but must make contact truly. We must have some definite arrangement with a race of your capabilities. No computer can provide this.”