The reception suddenly failed again. Rajcik cursed frustratedly as he worked over the radio. Watkins gnawed at his mustache. Somers glanced out a porthole and looked hurriedly away, for the stars, their destination, were impossibly distant. They heard static again, faintly now. "I can't get much more," Rajcik said. "This damned reception.... What could they have been suggesting?" "Whatever it was," said Watkins, "they didn't think it would work." "What the hell does that matter?" Rajcik asked, annoyed. "It'd give us something to do." They heard the official's voice, a whisper across space. "Can you hear ... Suggest ..." At full amplification, the voice faded, then returned. "Can only suggest ... most unlikely ... but try ... calculator ... try ..." [Illustration] The voice was gone. And then even the static was gone. "That does it," Rajcik said. "The calculator? Did he mean the Fahrensen Computer in our hold?" "I see what he meant," said Captain Somers. "The Fahrensen is a very advanced job. No one knows the limits of its potential. He suggests we present our problem to it." "That's ridiculous," Watkins snorted. "This problem has no solution." "It doesn't seem to," Somers agreed. "But the big computers have solved other apparently impossible problems. We can't lose anything by trying." "No," said Rajcik, "as long as we don't pin any hopes on it." "That's right. We don't dare hope. Mr. Watkins, I believe this is your department." "Oh, what's the use?" Watkins asked. "You say don't hope--but both of you are hoping anyhow! You think the big electronic god is going to save your lives. Well, it's not!" "We have to try," Somers told him. "We don't! I wouldn't give it the satisfaction of turning us down!" * * * * * They stared at him in vacant astonishment. "Now you're implying that machines think," said Rajcik. "Of course I am," Watkins said. "Because they do! No, I'm not out of my head. Any engineer will tell you that a complex machine has a personality all its own. Do you know what that personality is like? Cold, withdrawn, uncaring, unfeeling. A machine's only purpose is to frustrate desire and produce two problems for every one it solves. And do you know why a machine feels this way?" "You're hysterical," Somers told him. "I am not. A machine feels this way because it _knows_ it is an unnatural creation in nature's domain. Therefore it wishes to reach entropy and cease--a mechanical death wish." "I've never heard such gibberish in my life," Somers said. "Are you going to hook up that computer?" "Of course. I'm a human. I keep trying. I just wanted you to understand _fully_ that there is no hope." He went to the cargo hold. After he had gone, Rajcik grinned and shook his head. "We'd better watch him." "He'll be all right," Somers said.