He had been programmed to accomplish a specific task--to shepherd a chemical called 3, 7, 12-trihydroxycholanic acid, present in the catabolic product of the Pyramids, through a succession of more than five hundred separate operations until it emerged as the chemical, which the Pyramids were able to metabolize, called Protoporphin IX. He was not the only Component operating in this task; there were several, each with its own program. The acid accumulated in great tanks a mile from him. He knew its concentration, heat and pressure; he knew of all the impurities which would affect subsequent reactions. His fingers tapped, giving binary-coded signals to sluice gates to open for so many seconds and then to close; for such an amount of solvent at such a temperature to flow in; for the agitators to agitate for just so long at just such a force. And if a trouble signal disturbed any one of the 517 major and minor operations, he--it?--was set to decide among alternatives: --scrap the batch in view of flow conditions along the line? --isolate and bypass the batch through a standby loop? --immediate action to correct the malfunction? Without inhibiting intelligence, without the trammels of humanity on him, the intricate display board and the complex modulations of the two sound signals could be instantly taken in, evaluated and given their share in the decision. Was it--he?--still alive? The question has no meaning. It was working. It was an excellent machine, in fact, and the Pyramids cared for it well. Its only consciousness, apart from the reflexive responses that were its program, was--well, call it "the sound of one hand alone." Which is to say zero, mindlessness, Samadhi, stupor. It continued to function for some time--until the required supply of Protoporphin IX had been exceeded by a sufficient factor of safety to make further processing unnecessary--that is, for some minutes or months. During that time, it was Happy. (It had been programmed to be Happy when there were no uncorrected malfunctions of the process.) At the end of that time, it shut itself off, sent out a signal that the task was completed, then it was laid aside in the analogue of a deep-freeze, to be reprogrammed when another Component was needed. It was totally immaterial to the Pyramids that this particular Component had not been stamped from Citizen but from Wolf. IX Roget Germyn, of Wheeling a Citizen, contemplated his wife with growing concern. Possibly the events of the past few days had unhinged her reason, but he was nearly sure that she had eaten a portion of the evening meal secretly, in the serving room, before calling him to the table.