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“Who done this?” demanded the sergeant furiously. “He had Betsy close to fatigue collapse! He’d ought to be court-martialed!”

He was too angry to notice the three civilians in the room with the colonel and the lieutenant who’d summoned him. The young officer looked uncomfortable, but the colonel said authoritatively:

“Never mind that, Sergeant. Your Betsy was receiving something. It wasn’t clear. You had not reported, as ordered, so an attempt was made to clarify the signals.”

“Okay, Colonel!” said Sergeant Bellews bitterly. “You got the right to spoil machines! But if you want them to work right you got to treat ’em right!”

“Just so,” said the colonel. “Meanwhile–this is Doctor Howell, Doctor Graves, and Doctor Lecky. Sergeant Bellews, gentlemen. Sergeant, these are not MDs. They’ve been sent by the Pentagon to work on Betsy.”

* * * * *

“Betsy don’t need workin’ on!” said Sergeant Bellews belligerently. “She’s a good, reliable, experienced machine! If she’s handled right, she’ll do better work than any machine I know!”

“Granted,” said the colonel. “She’s doing work now that no other machine seems able to do–drawing scrambled broadcasts from somewhere that can only be guessed at. They’ve been unscrambled and these gentlemen have come to get the data on Betsy. I’m sure you’ll cooperate.”

“What kinda data do they want?” demanded Bellews. “I can answer most questions about Betsy!”

“Which,” the colonel told him, “is why I sent for you. These gentlemen have the top scientific brains in the country, Sergeant. Answer their questions about Betsy and I think some very high brass will be grateful.

“By the way, it is ordered that from now on no one is to refer to Betsy or any work on these broadcasts, over any type of electronic communication. No telephone, no communicator, no teletype, no radio, no form of communication except viva voce. And that means you talking to somebody else, Sergeant, with no microphone around. Understand? And from now on you will not talk about anything at all except to these gentlemen and to me.”

Sergeant Bellews said incredulously:

“Suppose I got to talk to somebody in the Rehab Shop. Do I signal with my ears and fingers?”

“You don’t talk,” said the colonel flatly. “Not at all.”

Sergeant Bellews shook his head sadly. He regarded the colonel with such reproach that the colonel stiffened. But Sergeant Bellews had a gift for machinery. He had what amounted to genius for handling Mahon-modified devices. So long as no more competent men turned up, he was apt to get away with more than average.

The colonel frowned and went out of the room. The tall young lieutenant followed him faithfully. The sergeant regarded the three scientists with the suspicious air he displayed to everyone not connected with Mahon units in some fashion.

“Well?” he said with marked reserve. “What can I tell you first?”

Lecky was the smallest of the three scientists. He said ingratiatingly, with the faintest possible accent in his speech:

“The nicest thing you could do for us, Sergeant, would be to show us that this–Betsy, is it?–with other machines before her, has developed a contagious machine insanity. It would frighten me to learn that machines can go mad, but I would prefer it to other explanations for the messages she gives.”

“Betsy can’t go crazy,” said Bellews with finality. “She’s Mahon-controlled, but she hasn’t got what it takes to go crazy. A Mahon unit fixes a machine so it can loaf and be a permanent dynamic system that can keep acquired habits of operatin’. It can take trainin’. It can get to be experienced. It can learn the tricks of its trade, so to speak. But it can’t go crazy!”

“Too bad!” said Lecky. He added persuasively: “But a machine can lie, Sergeant? Would that be possible?”

Sergeant Bellews snorted in denial.

* * * * *