“I am the only computer which was built to tell lies, except to the families of MacArthur and McBan. I lied to the Commonwealth when they checked on what I was getting. I am obliged to tell the truth only to you and to your designated descendants.”
“I know that, but what does it have to do with it?”
“I predict my own space weather, ahead of the Commonwealth.” The accent was not in the pleasant, even-toned voice; Rod himself began to believe it.
“You’ve tried this out?”
“I have war-gamed it more than a hundred million times. I had nothing else to do while I waited for you.”
“You never failed?”
“I failed most of the time, when I first began. But I have not failed a war game from real data for the last thousand years.”
“What would happen if you failed now?”
“You would be disgraced and bankrupt. I would be sold and disassembled.”
“Is that all?” said Rod cheerfully.
“Yes,” said the computer.
“I could stop Old Hot and Simple if I owned Old Earth itself. Let’s go.”
“I do not go anywhere,” said the computer.
“I mean, let’s start.”
“You mean, to buy Earth, as we discussed?”
“What else?” yelled Rod. “What else have we been talking about?”
“You must have some soup, hot soup and a tranquilizer first. I cannot work at optimum if I have a human being who gets excited.”
“All right,” said Rod.
“You must authorize me to buy them.”
“I authorize you.”
“That will be three credits.”
“In the name of the seven healthy sheep, what does it matter? How much will Earth cost?”
“Seven thousand million million megacredits.”
“Deduct three for the soup and the pill then,” shouted Rod, “if it won’t spoil your calculations.”
“Deducted,” said the computer. The tray with the soup appeared, a white pill beside it.
“Now let’s buy Earth,” said Rod.
“Drink your soup and take your pill first,” said the computer.
Rod gulped down his soup, washing the pill down with it.
“Now, let’s go, cobber.”
“Repeat after me,” said the computer, “I herewith mortgage the whole body of the said sheep Sweet William for the sum of five hundred thousand credits to the New Melbourne Exchange on the open road…”
Rod repeated it.
And repeated it.
The hours became a nightmare of repetition.
The computer lowered his voice to a low murmur, almost a whisper. When Rod stumbled in the messages, the computer prompted him and corrected him.
Forward purchase… sell short… option to buy… preemptive margin… offer to sell… offer temporarily reserved… first collateral… second collateral… deposit to drawing account… convert to FOE credits… hold in SAD credits… twelve thousand tons of stroon… mortgage forward… promise to buy… promise to sell… hold… margin… collateral guaranteed by previous deposit… promise to pay against the pledged land… guarantor… McBan land… MacArthur land… this computer itself… conditional legality… buy… sell… guarantee… pledge… withold… offer confirmed… offer cancelled… four thousand million megacredits… rate accepted… rate refused… forward purchase… deposit against interest… collateral previously pledged… conditional appreciation . guarantee… accept title… refuse delivery . solar weather… buy… sell… pledge… withdraw from market… withdraw from sale… not available… no collections now… dependent on radiation… corner market… buy… buy… buy… buy… buy… firm title… reconfirm title… transactions completed… reopen… register… reregister… confirm at Earth central… message fees… fifteen thousand megacredits…
Rod’s voice became a whisper, but the computer was sure, the computer was untiring, the computer answered all questions from the outside.
Many times Rod and the computer both had to listen to telepathic warnings built into the markets communications net. The computer was cut out and Rod could not hier them. The warnings went unheard.
…buy… sell… hold… confirm… deposit… convert… guarantee… arbitrage… message… Commonwealth tax… commission… buy… sell… buy… buy… buy… buy… deposit title! deposit title! deposit title!
The process of buying Earth had begun.
By the time that the first pretty parts of silver grey dawn had begun, it was done. Rod was dizzy with fatigue and confusion.
“Go home and sleep,” said the computer. “When people find out what you have done with me, many of them will probably be excited and will wish to talk to you at great length. I suggest you say nothing.”
THE EYE UPON THE SPARROW
Drunk with fatigue, Rod stumbled across his own land back to his cabin.
He could not believe that anything had happened.
If the Palace of the Governor of Night—
If the Palace—
If the computer spoke the truth, he was already the wealthiest human being who had ever lived. He had gambled and won, not a few tons of stroon or a planet or two, but credits enough to shake the Commonwealth to its foundation. He owned the Earth, on the system that any overdeposit could be called due at a certain very high margin. He owned planet, countries, mines, palaces, prisons, police systems, fleets, border guards, restaurants, pharmaceuticals, textiles, night clubs, treasures, royalties, licenses, sheep, land, stroon, more sheep, more land, more stroon. He had won.
Only in Old North Australia could a man have done this without being besieged by soldiers, reports, guards, police, investigators, tax collectors, fortune seekers, doctors, publicity hounds, the sick, the inquisitive, the compassionate, the angry, and the affronted.
Old North Australia kept calm.
Privacy, simplicity, frugality — these virtues had carried them through the hell-world of Paradise VII, where the mountains ate people, the volcanoes poisoned sheep, the delirious oxygen made men rave with bliss as they pranced into their own deaths. The Norstrilians had survived many things, including sickness and deformity. If Rod McBan had caused a financial crisis, there were no newspapers to print it, no viewboxes to report it, nothing to excite the people. The Commonwealth authorities would pick the crisis out of their “in” baskets sometime after tucker and tea the next morning, and by afternoon he, his crisis and the computer would be in the “out” baskets. If the deal had worked, the whole thing would be paid off honestly and literally. If the deal had not worked out the way that the computer had said, his lands would be up for auction and he himself would be led gently away.
But that’s what the Onseck was going to do to him anyway — Old Hot and Simple, a tiring dwarf-like man, driven by the boyhood hatred of many long years ago!
Rod stopped for a minute. Around him stretched the rolling plains of his own land. Far ahead, to his left, there gleamed the glassy worm of a river-cover, the humped long-barrel-like line which kept the precious water from evaporating — that too was his.
Maybe. After the night now passed.
He thought of flinging himself to the ground and sleeping right there. He had done it before.
But not this morning.
Not when he might be the person he might be — the man who made the worlds reel with his wealth.
The computer had started easy. He could not take control of his property except for an emergency. The computer had made him create the emergency by selling his next three years’ production of santaclara at the market price. That was a serious enough emergency from any pastoralist to be in deep sure trouble.
From that the rest had followed.
Rod sat down.
He was not trying to remember. The remembering was crowding into his mind. He wanted just to get his breath, to get on home, to sleep.