Steel Beach

"Okay, I see what you mean. But it's the same principle, right? These little robots, smaller than red blood cells…"

"Some are much smaller than that. They are drawn to specific sites within an organism and then they go to work. Some carry raw materials, some carry blueprints, some are the actual construction workers. Working at molecular speeds, they build various larger machines-and by larger, you understand, I still mean microscopic, in most cases-in the interstices between the body cells, or within the cell walls themselves."

"Which are used for…"

"I think I see where you're going with this. They perform many functions. Some are housekeeping chores that your own body is either not good at, or has lost the capacity to do. Others are monitoring devices that alert a larger, outside system that something is going wrong. In Callie's herd, that is a Mark III Husbander, a fairly basic computer, not significantly altered in design for well over a century."

"Which is a part of you, naturally."

"All computers in Luna except abaci and your fingers are a part of me. And in a pinch, I could use your fingers."

"As you've just shown me."

"Yes. The machine… or I, if you prefer, listens constantly through a network of receivers placed around the ranch, just as I listen constantly for your calls to me, no matter where you are in Luna. This is all on what you might think of as my subconscious level. I'm never aware of the functioning of your body unless I'm alerted by an alarm, or if you call me on-line."

"So the network of machines that's in my body, there's one like it in each of Callie's brontosaurs."

"Related to it, yes. The neural structures are orders of magnitude less evolved than the ones in your brain, just as your organic brain is superior in operation to that of the dinosaur. I don't run any parasitic programs in the dinosaur brain, if that's what you mean."

I didn't think it was what I meant, but I wasn't completely sure, since I wasn't completely sure why I'd asked about this in the first place. But I didn't tell the CC that. He went on.

"It is as close to mental telepathy as we're likely to get. The union representatives are tuned into me, and I'm tuned into the dinosaurs. The negotiator poses a question: 'How do you fellows feel about 120 of your number being harvested/murdered this year?' I put the question in terms of predators. A picture of an approaching tyra

"Sounds totally useless to me," I said, with only half my mind on what the CC had been saying. I was seeing a vision of myself living within the planet-girdling machine that the CC had become, and of him living within my body as well. The fu

"I don't see why you should say that. Except that I know your moral stand on the whole issue of animal husbandry, and you have a right to that."

"No, that whole issue aside, I could have told you how this all would come out, given only the opening bid. David proposed sixty, right?"

"After the opening statement about murdering any of these creatures at all, and his formal demand that all-"

"'-creatures should live a life free from the predation of man, the most voracious and merciless predator of all,' yeah, I've heard the speech, and David and Callie both know it's just a formality, like singing the planetary anthem. When they got down to cases, he said sixty. Man, he must really be angry about something, sixty is ridiculous. Anyway, when she heard sixty, Callie bid 120 because she knew she had to slaughter ninety this year to make a reasonable profit, and when David heard that he knew they'd eventually settle on ninety. So tell me this: why bother to consult the dinosaurs? Who cares what they think?"

The CC was silent, and I laughed.

"Tell the truth. You make up the images of meat-eaters and the feelings of starvation. I presume that when the fear of one balances out the fear of the other, when these poor dumb beasts are equally frightened by lousy alternatives-in your judgement, let's remember… well, then we have a contract, right? So where would you conjecture that point will be found?"

"Ninety carcasses," the CC said.

"I rest my case."

"You have a point. But I actually do transmit the feelings of the animals to the human representatives. They do feel the fear, and can judge as well as I when a balance is reached."

"Say what you will. Me, I'm convinced the jerk with the horns could have as easily stayed in bed, signed a contract for ninety kills, and saved a lot of effort. Then prong-head could look for useful work. Maybe as a gardener in David's hair-do."

There was a long silence from the CC. When he spoke again it was in a different tone of voice from his usual lecturing mode.

"The man with the horns," he said, quietly, "is actually mentally defective in a way I've been powerless to treat. He ca

That shut me up for a while. I knew only too well how pointless life could seem.

"And he really does love animals," the CC added. "He hurts when he thinks of one dying. I shouldn't be telling you any of this, as I'm prohibited from commenting on the qualities, good or bad, of human citizens. But in view of our recent relationship, I thought…" He let it trail off, unfinished.

Enough of that.

"What about death?" I asked him. "You mentioned hunger and the image of a predator. I'd think you'd get a stronger reaction if you planted the idea of their actual deaths in their minds."

"Much more of a reaction than you'd want. Predators and hunger imply death, but inspire less fear than the actual event. These negotiations are quite touchy; I've tried many times to talk Callie into holding them indoors. But she says that if 'salad-head' isn't afraid to pow-wow in the middle of the herd, she isn't either. No, the death-image is the nuclear weapon of predator/prey relations. It's usually a prelude to either an attempt at union-busting, or a boycott."

"Or something even more serious."

"So I infer. Of course, I have no proof."

I wondered about that. Maybe the CC was leveling with me when he said he only spied into private spaces in circumstances as unusual as my own. Or into minds, for that matter. I certainly no longer doubted that he could easily become aware of illegal activities such as sabotage or head-busting by hired goon squads-the time-honored last resorts of labor and management, and even more in vogue these days among radical groups like the Earthists who, after all, couldn't call on their "membership" to go on strike. What would a brontosaur do? Stop eating? The CC could certainly look into the places where the bombs were assembled, or could become aware, if he chose to do so, of the intent of the bomb-thrower through readings from his ubiquitous intercellular machines. Every year there were calls to permit him precisely those powers, by the law-and-order types. After all, the CC is a benevolent watchdog, isn't he? Who has he ever hurt, except those who deserved it? We could reduce crime to zero overnight if we'd only take the chains off the CC.