Part 31 (1/2)
”Why didn't you people blow Merlin up?” Conn asked
”We'd built it; orked with it It was part of us, and ere part of it We couldn't Besides, there was a chance that it ht survive the Federation; when a new civilization arose, it would be useful We just sealed it There were fewer than a hundred of us who knew about it We all took an oath of secrecy We spent the rest of our lives trying to suppress any mention of Merlin or the Merlin Project You have no idea how shocked both General Travis and I hen you told us that the story was still current here on Poictes into the records of the Third Force, I took the next shi+p I could, a hter, and when I landed and found out as happening, I contacted Murchison and scared the life out of hieddonist, Hu on was started by Murchison And he succeeded in scaring Vyckhoven with the Cybernarchists, too”
”This computation on the future of the Federation is still in the back-work file?” Conn asked
Shanlee nodded ”We were criain, that you destroy the whole thing”
”We'll have to talk it over ae Ledue said ”The five of us, here, cannot presume to speak for everybody We will, of course, have to keep you confined; I hope you will understand that we cannot accept your parole”
”Is there anything you want in theto smoke, and some clothes,” General Shanlee said ”And a shave and a haircut”
XXI
All through the night, a shi+fting blaze of ht rose and di at the energy that was pouring out of the converters into a tiny spot that inched its way around the collapsiu It must have been visible for hundreds ofin Storisende and repeated and denied by the newscasts, now running continuously Merlin had been found Merlin had been blown up by Govern transported to Storisende to be installed as arbiter of the Govern the planet Merlin the Devil was unchained
Conn and Kurt Fawzi and Dolf Kellton and Judge Ledue and To in whispers They had told nobody, yet, of the intervieith Shanlee
”You think it wouldthat the others would convince him that it wouldn't
”Maybe we had better destroy it,” Judge Ledue faltered ”You see what it's done already; the whole planet's in anarchy If we let this go on”
”We can't decide anything like that, just the five of us,” Brangas insisting ”We'll have to get the others together and see what they think We have no right to make any decision like this for them”
”They're no more able to ot to; they have a right to know”
”If you decide to destroy Merlin, you'll have to decide to kill me, first,” Kurt Fawzi said, his voice deadly calm ”You won't do it while I'm alive”
”But, Kurt,” Ledue expostulated ”You knohy these people here at Storisende are rioting? It's because they've lost hope, because they're afraid and desperate The Terran Federation is so everybody feels they have to have, for peace and order and welfare If people thought it was breaking up, they'd be desperate, too They'd do the sa
General Shanlee was right Don't destroy the hope that keeps theued ”We can use Merlin to solve our own proble to happen in two hundred years”
”It would get out; it couldn't help getting out,” Ledue said
”Let's not try to decide it ourselves,” Conn said ”Let's get Merlin into operation, and run a computation on it”
”You ht to be destroyed or not?” Ledue asked incredulously ”Let Merlin put itself on trial, and sentence itself to destruction?”
”Merlin is a computer; computers deal only in facts Computers are machines; they have no sense of self-preservation If Merlin ought to be destroyed, Merlin will tell us so”
”You willing to leave it up to Merlin, Kurt?” Toulped ”Yes If Merlin says we ought to, we'll have to do it”