They walked all day--to the outskirts of the city and back. They stood silently at the edge of the great mass, where the towers dwindled to a thin layer of individual homes. Beyond these stretched the river and the highways leading north and south. Their eyes scanned the distances in silence, each sensing the thoughts of the other, and each saying nothing. They went more deeply into the heart of the city on the following days. Deva showed Rick the factories and plants that worked in total silence and without attendants, each throwing up a mountain of goods that were automatically inspected, packed and shipped to locations within the city itself or across the continent without a single human voice to guide them. On the last day she took him to the headquarters of the Machine. These were many tiers of banked memory circuits and blinking lights below the surface of the city itself, in the depths of the solid rock where nothing short of a convulsion of the Earth could disturb the intricate mechanism. But there wasn’t a great deal to see. And the Machine’s more intangible aspects were totally foreign to Rick’s mind. They stood in the visitors’ gallery, behind the impregnable plastic sheets which afforded them a clear view of the mechanisms and the attendants on the other side. “There is really no such thing as _the_ Machine,” Deva said. “In reality there are many hundreds of machines. Every city has one. Its storage vaults contain data on each and every resident. It computes upon that data, and its judgment circuits render decisions based upon its final computations. “Each machine is interconnected with all others in the nation by tremendous microwave cables. A main clearing panel located somewhere in Kansas links the function of all local machines to a central, coordinating unit. “In addition, there is a worldwide network of interconnections between New York, London, Paris, Rome, and Moscow. It even extends to Africa and the cities of Central Asia. Actually, for instance, a Mech, First Rating, could be checked out for pairing against a South African native if the Machine so decided. It’s never happened as far as I know. But it could happen.” “It’s _the_ Machine, all right,” said Rick bitterly. “I never quite realized before how viciously it has succeeded in wrapping itself around the whole world. You can almost feel it strangling, crushing--” “Hush!” Deva warned, her fingers tightening in his clasp. They stood apart from the other visitors to the gallery. But Rick could almost feel invisible eyes and ears ominously recording their every change of expression. He understood Deva’s caution. “There must be some kind of human administration involved in the operation of the Machine,” he said more quietly.