"Walter M. Miller - Dumb Waiter" - читать интересную книгу автора (Miller Walter M)

switchboards in telephone exchanges. Small computers measured traffic flow and regulated ligh
and speed limits accordingly. Small computers handled bookkeeping where large amounts
money were exchanged. A computer checked books in and out at the library, also assessing t
fines. Com-puters operated the city buses and eventually drove most of the routine traffic.
That was the way the city's Central Service grew. As more computers were assigned to vario
tasks, engineers were hired to coordinate them, to link them with special circuits and to set u
central "data tanks," so that a traffic regulator in the north end would be aware of traff
conditions in the main thorough-fares to the south. Then, when the micro-learner relay w
invented, the engineers built a central unit to be used in conjunction with the central data tank
With the learning units in operation, Central was able to perform most of the city's routine tas
without attention from human supervisors.
The system had worked well. Apparently it was still working well three years after t
inhabitants had fled before the chatter of the Geiger counters. In one sense Ferris had been righ
A city whose machines carried on as if nothing had happened—that city might be a dangero
place for a lone wanderer.
But dynamite certainly wasn't the answer, Mitch thought. Most of man's machinery was alread
wrecked or lying idle. Humanity had waited a hundred thousand years before deciding to build
technological civilization. If it wrecked this one completely, it might never build another.
Some men thought that a return to the soil was desirable. Some men tried to pin their guilt o
the machines, to lay their own stupidity on the head of a mechanical scapegoat and absol
themselves with dynamite. But Mitch Laskell was a man who liked the feel of a wrench and
soldering iron—liked it better than the feel of even the most well-balanced stone ax or woode
plow. And he liked the purr of a pint-sized nuclear
engine much better than the braying of a harnessed jackass.
He was willing to kill Frank Ferris or any other man who sought to wreck what little remaine
But gloom settled over him as he thought, "If everybody decides to tear it down, what can I do
stop it?" For that matter, would he then be right in trying to stop it?
At sundown he came to the limits of the city, and he stopped just short of the outskirts. Thr
blocks away a robot cop rolled about in the center of the intersection, rolled on tricycle whee
while he directed the thin trickle of traffic with candy-striped arms and with "eyes" that chang
color like a stoplight. His body was like an oil drum, painted fire-engine red. The head, howeve
had been cast in a human mold, with a remarkably Irish face and a perpetual predatory smile.
short radar antenna grew from the center of his head, and the radar was his link with Central.
Mitch sat watching him with a nostalgic smile, even though he knew such cops might give hi
considerable trouble once he entered the city. The "skaters" were incapable of winking at pet
violations of ordinance.
As the daylight faded, photronic cells notified Central, and the streetlights winked on promptl
A moment later, a car without a taillight whisked by the policeman's corner. A siren wailed in t
policeman's belly. He skated away in hot pursuit, charging like a mechanical bull. The c
screeched to a stop. "O'Reilly" wrote out a ticket and offered it to any empty back seat. When n
one took it, the cop fed it into a slot in his belly, memorized the car's license number, and cam
clattering back to his intersection, where the traffic had automatically begun obeying t
ordinances governing nonpoliced intersections.
The cars were empty, computer-piloted. Their destinations were the same as when they h
driven regular daily routes for human passengers: salesmen calling on regular customer
inspectors making their rounds, taxis prowling their assigned service areas.
Mitch Laskell stood shivering. The city sounded sleepy but alive. The city moved an
grumbled. But as far as he could see down the wide boulevard, no human figure was visible. T
city was depopulated: There was a Geiger on a nearby lamppost. It clucked idly through
loudspeaker. But it indicated no danger. The city should be radiologically safe.