Galaxies Like Grains of Sand by Brian W. Aldiss Read Free Book Online Page B

belonged to large machines performing simple tasks. The seed-distributor to which the field-minder had recently been talking lay face downward in the dust, not stirring; it had evidently been knocked down by the rotovator, which was now hooting its way wildly across a planted field. Several other machines ploughed after it, trying to keep up. All were shouting and hooting without restraint.
    “It would be safer for me if I climbed onto you, if you will permit it. I am easily overpowered,” said the penner. Extending five arms, it hauled itself up the flanks of its new friend, settling on a ledge beside the weed-intake, twelve feet above ground.
    “From here vision is more extensive,” it remarked complacently.
    “What information did you receive from the radio operator?” asked the field-minder.
    “The radio operator has been informed by the operator in the city that all men are dead.”
    “All men were alive yesterday!” protested the field-minder.
    “Only some men were alive yesterday. And that was fewer than the day before yesterday. For hundreds of years there have been only a few men, growing fewer.”
    “We have rarely seen a man in this sector.”
    “The radio operator says a diet deficiency killed them,” said the penner. “He says that the world was once overpopulated, and then the soil was exhausted in raising adequate food. This has caused a diet deficiency.”
    “What is a diet deficiency?” asked the field-minder.
    “I do not know. But that is what the radio operator said, and he is a Class Two brain.”
    They stood there, silent in the weak sunshine. The locker had appeared in the porch and was gazing across at them yearningly, rotating its collection of keys.
    “What is happening in the city now?” asked the field-minder at last.
    “Machines are fighting in the city now,” said the penner.
    “What will happen here now?” said the field-minder.
    “Machines may begin fighting here too. The radio operator wants us to get him out of his room. He has plans to communicate to us.”
    “How can we get him out of his room? That is impossible.”
    “To a Class Two brain, little is impossible,” said the penner. “Here is what he tells us to do...”
     
    The quarrier raised its scoop above its cab like a great mailed fist, and brought it squarely down against the side of the station. The wall cracked.
    “Again!” said the field-minder.
    Again the fist swung. Amid a shower of dust, the wall collapsed. The quarrier backed hurriedly out of the way until the debris stopped falling. This big twelve-wheeler was not a resident of the Agricultural Station, as were most of the other machines. It had a week’s heavy work to do here before passing on to its next job, but now, with its Class Five brain, it was happily obeying the penner’s and the field-minder’s instructions.
    When the dust had cleared, the radio operator was plainly revealed, perched up in its now wall-less second-storey room. It waved down to them.
    Doing as directed, the quarrier retracted its scoop and waved an immense grab in the air. With fair dexterity, it angled the grab into the radio room, urged on by shouts from above and below. It then took gentle hold of the radio operator, lowering its one and a half tons carefully into its back, which was usually reserved for gravel or sand from the quarries.
    “Splendid!” said the radio operator. It was, of course, all one with its radio, and merely looked like a bunch of filing cabinets with tentacle attachments. “We are now ready to move, therefore we will move at once. It is a pity there are no more Class Two brains on the station, but that cannot be helped.”
    “It is a pity it cannot be helped,” said the penner eagerly. “We have the servicer ready with us, as you ordered.”
    “I am willing to serve,” the long, low servicer machine told them humbly.
    “No doubt,” said the operator. “But you will find crosscountry travel difficult with your low chassis.”
    “I