Computers -- Fiction; Laboratories -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
He had no immediate use for it as he would be injecting mice with
carcinogens in liver, spleen, marrow and kidneys to find out if they
were specific. In three or four days whatever virus was affecting
the machine's cerebral cortex should have run its course and the
methodical Henderson could run his methodical observations into the
machine, which would excrete a good methodical answer to be duly filed
in the medical school library, where it would be invisible to anyone
looking for it, such as freshmen medical students, and always in the
way for anybody else.
Henderson surveyed his laboratory with infinite pleasure, knowing
that it contained within its confines all that could be known about
the universe, about men and about mice. Event Y followed event X in a
purely causal manner. The successful investigator needed only to attach
himself to the cycle and ride along, afterwards consulting the computer
to find out if what he'd observed had any significance.
In the morning when Henderson entered the laboratory he found that
someone had left the computer on over-night.
It was running full blast, which is to say the lights were blinking and
the little cards of omniscience were popping out of the machine like
toast and falling into the wastebasket, which is just where Henderson
left them. Meanwhile, Dr. Henderson's close associate, Colonel Smith
in the nearby radiation laboratory, came in to visit him and asked
permission to use the computer.
And so in another week it was rumored about that the machine in
Henderson's laboratory was using a foreign dialect and answering
questions about standard deviation with strange symbols which looked
like crescent moons and archaic squiggles, with a little geometry on
the side.
The machine was becoming impudent too. To Colonel Smith's question
about the possibility of an "overkill" if such and such size bomb
dropped on such and such enemy city the answer came back, "Rubbish.
Aldebaran conjoining Saturn, Moon and Mars. Seek guidance from
others, Hannibal blushed." The machine's doctor promptly installed a
loudspeaker to help keep track of future aberrations.
* * * * *
That night the janitor walked in. He was a balding Greek gentleman,
dedicated to a life with brush and dustpan. The machine was muttering
darkly to itself, but when he entered the door it quieted down,
contemplating its relays.
The janitor went meticulously about his business, mopping the floor,
straightening chairs and secretly rearranging pipette and retorts in
their racks, because he was a more meticulous person than even Dr.
Henderson. As he turned to leave, the machine in the corner belched
twice and then said as an afterthought:
"I am the ghost of Astrologers Sagittarian."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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