"No, great Frost, this thing you cannot do."
"Who are you, little machine, to tell me what I can do and what I cannot do? I am the most efficient logic-device Solcom ever made. I am Frost."
"And I, Mordel, say it cannot be done, though I should gladly assist you in the attempt".
"How could you assist me?"
"How? I could lay open to you the Library of Man. I could take you around the world and conduct you among the wonders of Man which still remain, hidden. I could summon up visions of times long past when Man walked the Earth. I could show you the things which delighted Him. I could obtain for you anything you desire, excepting Manhood itself."
"Enough," said Frost. "How could a unit such as yourself do these things, unless it were allied with a far greater Power?"
"Then hear me, Frost, Controller of the North," said Mordel. "I _am_ allied with a Power which can do these things. I serve Divcom."
Frost relayed this information to Solcom and received no response, which meant he might act in any manner he saw fit.
"I have leave to destroy you, Mordel," he stated, "but it would be an illogical waste of the data which you possess. Can you really do the things you have stated?"
"Yes."
"The lay open to me the Library of Man."
"Very well. There is, of course, a price."
"'Price'? What is a 'price'?"
Mordel opened his turret, revealing another volume. _Principles of Economics_, it was called.
"I will riffle the pages. Scan this book and you will know what the word 'price' means."
Frost scanned _Principles of Economics_.
"I know now," he said. "You desie some unit or units of exchange for this service."
"That is correct."
"What product or service do you want?"
"I want you, yourself, great Frost, to come away from here, far beneath the Earth, to employ all your powers in the service of Divcom."
"For how long a period of time?"
"For so long as you shall continue to function. For so long as you can transmit and receive, coodinate, measure, compute, scan, and utilize your powers as you do in the service of Solcom."
Frost was silent. Mordel waited.
Then Frost spoke again.
"_Principles of Economics_ talks of contracts, bargains, agerements," he said. "If I accept your offer, when would you want your price?"
Then Mordel was silent. Frost waited.
Finally, Mordel spoke.
"A reasonable period of time," he said. "Say, a century?"
"No," said Frost.
"Two centuries?"
"No."
"Three? Four?"
"No, and no."
"A millenium, then? That should be more than sufficient time for anything you may want which I can give you."
"No," said Frost.
"How much time _do_ you want?"
"It is not a matter of time," said Frost.
"What, then?"
"I will not bargain on a temporal basis."
"On what basis will you bargain?"
"A functional one."
"What do you mean? What function?"
"You, little machine, have told me, Frost, that I cannot be a Man," he said, "and I, Frost, told you, little machine, that you were wrong. I told you that given sufficient data, I _could_ be a Man."
"Yes?"
"Therefore, let this achievement be a condition of the bargain."
"In what way?"
"Do for me all those things which you have stated you can do. I will evaluate all the data and achieve Manhood, or admit that it cannot be done. If I admit that it cannot be done, then I will go away with you from here, far beneath the Earth, to employ all my powers in the service of Divcom. If I succeed, of course, you have no claims on Man, nor power over Him."
Mordel emitted a high-pitched whine as he considered the terms.
"You wish to base it upon you admission of failure, rather than upon failure itself," he said. "There can be no such escape clause. You could fail and efuse to admit it, thereby not fulfilling your end of the bargain."
"Not so," stated Frost. "My own knowledge of failure would constitute such an admission. You may monito me perioically - say, every half-century - to see whether it is present, to see whether I have arrived at the conclusion that it cannot be done. I cannot prevent the function of logic within me, and I operate at full capacity at all times. If I conclude that I have failed, it will be apparent."
High overhead, Solcom did not respond to any of Frost's transmissions, which meant that Frost was free to act as he chose. So as Solcom - like a falling sapphire - sped above the rainbow banners of the Northern Lights, over the snow that was white, containing all colors, and through the sky that was black among the stars, Frost concluded his pact with Divcom, transcribed it within a plate of atomically-collapsed copper, and gave it into the turret of Mordel, who departed to deliver it to Divcom far below the Earth, leaving behind the sheer, peace-like silence of the Pole, rolling.
Mordel brought the books, riffled them, took them back.
Load by loa, the surviving Libray of Man passed beneath Frost's scanner. Frost was eager to have them all, and he complained because Divcom would not transmit their contents directly to him. Mordel explained that it was because Divcom chose to do it that way. Frost decided it was so that he could not obtain a precise fix on Divcom's location.
Still, at the rate of one hundred to one hundred-fifty volumes a week, it took Frost only a little over a century to exhaust Divcom's supply of books.
At the end of the half-century, he laid himself open to monitoring and their was no conclusion of failure.
During this time, Solcom made no comment upon the course of affairs. Frost decied this was not a matter of unawareness, but one of waiting. For what? He was not certain.
There was the day Mordel closed his turret and said to him, "Those were the last. You have scanned all the existing books of Man."
"So few?" asked Frost. "Many of them contained bibliographies of books I have not yet scanned."
"Then those books no longer exist," said Mordel. "It is only by accident that my master succeeded in preserving as many as there are."
"Then there is nothing more to be learned of Man from His books. What else have you?"
"There were some films and tapes," said Mordel, "which my master transferred to solid-state record. I could bring you those for viewing."
"Bring them," said Frost.
Mordel departed and returned with the Complete Drama Critics' Living Library. This could not be speeded-up beyond twice natural time, so it took Frost a little over six months to view it in its entirety.
Then, "What else have you?" he asked.
"Some artifacts," said Mordel.
"Bring them."
He returned with pots and pans, gameboards and hand tools. He brought hairbrushes, combs, eyeglasses, human clothing. He showed Frost facsimiles of blueprints, paintings, newspapers, magazines, letters, and the scores of several pieces of music. He displayed a football, a baseball, a Browning automatic rifle, a doorknob, a chain of keys, the tops to several Mason jars, a model beehive. He played him the recorded music.
Then he returned with nothing.
"Bring me more," said Frost.
"Alas, great Frost, there is no more," he told him. "You have scanned it all."
"Then go away."
"Do you admit now that it cannot be done, that you cannot be a Man?"
"No. I have much processing and formulating to do now. Go away."
So he did.
A year passed; then two, then three.
After five years, Mordel appeared once more upon the horizon, approached, came to a halt before Frost's southern surface.
"Mighty Frost?"
"Yes?"
"Have you finished processing and formulating?"
"No."
"Will you finish soon?"
"Perhaps. Perhaps not. When is 'soon?' Define the term."
"Never mind. Do you still thik it can be done?"
"I still know _I_ can do it."
There was a week of silence.
Then, "Frost?"