The thinking machine

Like Robert Heinlein and Harry Bates, Raymond F. Jones can point with pride to a major Hollywood production based upon one of his stories, and more science fantasy anthology inclusions over the past seven or eight years than there are blackbirds in an electronic wizard’s pie. And now he takes a look at the future as excitingly prophetic as the chill alien face which stared remorselessly out at us from the silver screen in THIS ISLAND EARTH and left us wondering far into the night how long the human race would survive. “Leave everything to me!” the Machine seemed to whisper. “Love and marriage, your daily bread.” But there will always be rebels. They gave Rick Theron a party before he left. It wasn’t a rational thing to do, or even completely legal. But they were Agros, Sixth Rating, and it was the kind of thing to be expected among their class. The Watch Police knew it was going on, and didn’t even bother to validate the report to the regional observatory. So they darkened the windows in Sol Hanara’s house and invited all the people from the neighboring farms—the friends that Rick Theron had known since he was a child—and gave a farewell party. It was a special doings to show the special kind of feeling they had for Rick. Not that they wouldn’t have liked to do the same thing for everyone who went. They would. But it was for Rick that all those accumulated and repressed desires were unloosed. Rick’s father, Sard Theron, drove one of the farm’s big cargo planes down from Rillo to RiGrand. He got clearance for the flight as a cargo of livestock, but even the traffic officials knew that he was picking up a dozen other families from farms along the way. It didn’t really matter. The Lonestar Region was among the top producing areas in the country. No one could expect its Agros to be civilized as well. The big plane rolled to a stop, the last of three bringing guests to the party, and the farm families climbed down to the solid surface of the RiGrand field. They could smell the night-borne scent of the Gulf waters and see the distant shimmering of moonlight on its surface. Rick had always loved it down here. He’d wished ever since he was a boy