The Sack said, “I mean both government squabbles and others. The competition for my services becomes too bitter. I can have but one end.”
“You mean that an attempt will be made to steal you?”
“Yes.”
“There’ll be little chance of that. Your guards are being continually increased.”
“You underestimate the power of greed,” said the Sack.
Siebling was to learn how correct that comment was.
At the end of his fourteenth month on duty, a half year after Senator Horrigan had been defeated for re-election, there appeared a questioner who spoke to the Sack in an exotic language known to few men—the Prdl dialect of Mars. Siebling’s attention had already been drawn to the man because of the fact that he had paid a million credits an entire month in advance for the unprecedented privilege of questioning the Sack for ten consecutive minutes. The conversation was duly recorded, but was naturally meaningless to Siebling and to the other attendants at the station. The questioner drew further attention to himself by leaving at the end of seven minutes, thus failing to utilize three entire minutes, which would have sufficed for learning how to make half a dozen small fortunes. He left the asteroid immediately by private ship.
The three minutes had been reserved, and could not be utilized by any other private questioner. But there was nothing to prevent Siebling, as a government representative, from utilizing them, and he spoke to the Sack at once.
“What did that man want?”
“Advice as to how to steal me.”
Siebling’s lower jaw dropped. “What?”
The Sack always took such exclamations of amazement literally. “Advice as to how to steal me,” it repeated.
“Then—wait a minute—he left three minutes early. That must mean that he’s in a hurry to get started. He’s going to put the plan into execution at once!”
“It is already in execution,” returned the Sack. “The criminal’s organization has excellent, if not quite perfect, information as to the disposition of defense forces. That would indicate that some government official has betrayed his trust. I was asked to indicate which of several plans was best, and to consider them for possible weaknesses. I did so.”
“All right, now what can we do to stop the plans from being carried out?”
“They cannot be stopped.”
“I don’t see why not. Maybe we can’t stop them from getting here, but we can stop them from escaping with you.”
“There is but one way. You must destroy me.”
“I can’t do that! I haven’t the authority, and even if I had, I wouldn’t do it.”
“My destruction would benefit your race.”
“I still can’t do it,” said Siebling unhappily.
“Then if that is excluded, there is no way. The criminals are shrewd and daring. They asked me to check about probable steps that would be taken in pursuit, but they asked for no advice as to how to get away, because that would have been a waste of time. They will ask that once I am in their possession.”
“Then,” said Siebling heavily, “there’s nothing I can do to keep you. How about saving the men who work under me?”
“You can save both them and yourself by boarding the emergency ship and leaving immediately by the sunward route. In that way you will escape contact with the criminals. But you cannot take me with you, or they will pursue.”
The shouts of a guard drew Siebling’s attention. “Radio report of a criminal attack, Mr. Siebling! All the alarms are out!”
“Yes, I know. Prepare to depart.” He turned back to the Sack again. “We may escape for the moment, but they’ll have you. And through you they will control the entire system.”
“That is not a question,” said the Sack.
“They’ll have you. Isn’t there something we can do?”
“Destroy me.”
“I can’t,” said Siebling, almost in agony. His men were running toward him impatiently, and he knew that there was no more time. He uttered the simple and absurd phrase, “Good-by,” as if the Sack were human and could experience human emotions. Then he raced for the ship, and they blasted off.
They were just in time. Half a dozen ships were racing in from other directions, and Siebling’s vessel escaped just before they dispersed to spread a protective network about the asteroid that held the Sack.
Siebling’s ship continued to speed toward safety, and the matter should now have been one solely for the Armed Forces to handle. But Siebling imagined them pitted against the Sack’s perfectly calculating brain, and his heart sank. Then something happened that he had never expected. And for the first time he realized fully that if the Sack had let itself be used merely as a machine, a slave to answer questions, it was not because its powers were limited to that single ability. The visor screen in his ship lit up.
The communications operator came running to him, and said, “Something’s wrong, Mr. Siebling! The screen isn’t even turned on!”
It wasn’t. Nevertheless, they could see on it the chamber in which the Sack had rested for what must have been a brief moment of its existence. Two men had entered the chamber, one of them the unknown who had asked his questions in Prdl, the other Senator Horrigan.
To the apparent amazement of the two men, it was the Sack which spoke first. It said, ” `Good-by’ is neither a question nor the answer to one. It is relatively uninformative.”
Senator Horrigan was obviously in awe of the Sack, but he was never a man to be stopped by something he did not understand. He orated respectfully. “No, sir, it is not. The word is nothing but an expression—”
The other man said, in perfectly comprehensible Earth English, “Shut up, you fool, we have no time to waste. Let’s get it to our ship and head for safety. We’ll talk to it there.”
Siebling had time to think a few bitter thoughts about Senator Horrigan and the people the politician had punished by betrayal for their crime in not electing him. Then the scene on the visor shifted to the interior of the spaceship making its getaway. There was no indication of pursuit. Evidently, the plans of the human beings, plus the Sack’s last-minute advice, had been an effective combination.
The only human beings with the Sack at first were Senator Horrigan and the speaker of Prdl, but this situation was soon changed. Half a dozen other men came rushing up, their faces grim with suspicion. One of them announced, “You don’t talk to that thing unless we’re all of us around. We’re in this together.”
“Don’t get nervous, Merrill. What do you think I’m going to do, double-cross you?”
Merrill said, “Yes, I do. What do you say, Sack? Do I have reason to distrust him?”
The Sack replied simply, “Yes.”
The speaker of Prdl turned white. Merrill laughed coldly. “You’d better be careful what questions you ask around this thing.”
Senator Horrigan cleared his throat. “I have no intentions of, as you put it, double-crossing anyone. It is not in my nature to do so. Therefore, I shall address it.” He faced the Sack. “Sir, are we in danger?”
“Yes.”
“From which direction?”
“From no direction. From within the ship.”
“Is the danger immediate?” asked a voice.