He was miserable all the way home.

  Just before dawn on the following night, he was awakened from a troubled sleep by a phone call from Chief Jennings at the Center. The words were harsh and sharp: “Get down here right away. Your brother’s broken out of the Freezer. He’s got a bomb, and he’s loose in the Vaults!”

  “But how—”

  “Never mind! Get down here quick! You’ve got to talk him out of destroying the Dispatcher!”

  - On the way down to the Center, he wondered where Victor had gotten hold of a bomb. The thought of him destroying the synchro-computer was a terrifying one. It was not as if it were an ordinary instrument that anyone could rebuild. Isaac Dorn had built and tom apart a hundred of them before he got one that really worked, and even then he swore that its creation was more of an accident and that he would never be able to duplicate that machine. And now Victor was in the Vaults with a bomb …

  It seemed strange, Victor with a bomb, because ever since the accident that killed his father, Victor had sworn never to touch a weapon again.

  Isaac Dorn had always been opposed to weapons of any kind. Before his wife’s death, he refused to let either of his sons own hunting knives or rifles. When Paul had asked why, his father told them how his own father and grandfather were killed when they took up arms with the others in the Anti-Dispatcher Riots of the ’20s. “They were honest, law-abiding workers and citizens,” his father had said, “until someone put guns into their hands.”

  Then why, Paul suddenly asked himself for the first time, had his father bought Victor that hunting rifle for his birthday?

  When Paul arrived at the observation hall of the Dispatcher’s Building, he found the Chief hunched over in a chair in front of the bank of monitoring screens that revealed the interiors of the subterranean vaults beneath the Center. The others drifted in one by one—Butler of Claims, Jeffers of Maternity, Gordon of Repair—all sleepy-eyed and frightened. Every one of them knew that this was the beginning of a nightmare.

  The Chief pointed to a screen that showed an empty section of the Repair Vault. “He was there a minute ago. He’s now in the corridor between the Export Parts Vault and the Dispatcher itself.”

  Gordon of Repair chewed his fingernails. “Do you have some men at the main time lock ready to break in as soon as it opens?”

  The Chief nodded. “That’ll be two hours from now. But it won’t do us any good. The Dispatcher’s Vault lock will open at exactly the same moment, and Victor Dorn will be closer to the Dispatcher’s guts than the men outside will be to him. They’ll never get through in time to stop him.”

  “What about the servo-guards?” asked Paul.

  The Chief shook his head. “No good.” Then he picked up the microphone from its slot in the arm of his seat. “Let me try them again.”

  He took a deep breath and shouted: “X-three, X-four, X-five! You are ordered to take Victor Dorn into immediate custody and return him to the Freezer.”

  The figure of a servo appeared directly in view on the monitor screen transmitting from the Repair Vault. “Sorry, sir. It has been ascertained by the Dispatcher that Victor Dorn is in possession of a mini-bomb inserted in a hollow false tooth. Any attempt to seize him or hinder him would result in the destruction of a human being. We are prevented by the Dispatcher from complying with your order.”

  “Listen to me!” shouted the Chief, as if by the anger and authority of his voice he could contradict the servo’s basic laws against causing the death of a human being. “You must restrain that man. He intends to blow up the Dispatcher—”

  “I am sorry, sir. The Dispatcher has instructed us not to touch him or in any way cause the detonation of the mini-bomb.”

  The Chief slumped back wearily in his seat. At the same moment, the light went on, illuminating the screen of the third monitor from the right labeled DISPATCHER’S ANTEROOM. There, coming into view, was Victor. Behind him were four Mercy servo-guards like a group of children tagging along behind a stranger. None of them attempted to come closer than five feet of him. Nevertheless, Victor kept turning around to avoid leaving his back unguarded.

  The Chief put his hand on Paul’s wrist. “Talk to him. Try to convince him. It’s our only hope.”

  What could he say to his brother? “Vic—Vic,” he choked out the words, “this is Paul.”

  “Hello, Paul.” Victor’s face turned up quickly and he looked directly into the screen. “Glad you’re here for the fireworks. I wanted you to know we figured you’d do just what you did. That’s why I took an anti-freeze tablet before they got me down here, and have this firecracker in a hollow false tooth. It’ll make a lot of noise if I have to snap my jaws together.”

  “Why, Vic? Why are you doing this?”

  “You know why, Paul. You know better than any man up there why I’m doing it. Because it’s wrong for human beings to be dominated by machines, that’s why. Because those boys up at the center have played around long enough with their Spare Parts, and Death Lines and Donations. It’s time someone took their toys away from them. We’ve decided that your automatic world is too high a price to pay for the kind of life you offer in return.”

  For over an hour, it seemed to Paul that he and Victor were schoolboys again, arguing the good and bad aspects of the world they found themselves living in. There was forty-five minutes left, and Victor was as determined as ever.

  The Chief leaned over and wrote something on a slip of paper which he pushed toward Paul’s hand.

  If you can’t talk him out of it, get him angry. If he

  gets excited, maybe he’ll detonate the bomb before the

  Vault opens.

  The thought of prodding his own brother to blow himself apart right there in front of his eyes was a sickening one. And yet the Chief was right. That was the only way to save the Dispatcher. No matter what it meant to him personally, or to Victor, the Dispatcher was their father’s lifework, and the lives of millions of people depended on it.

  “Tell me, Vic,” Paul said coldly, “have you faced the real reason for what you’re doing? I’ll tell you what it is, and we can forget about noble motives on your part. You want to destroy the synchro-computer because Dad devoted his life to building it. You hate the Dispatcher because he loved it and believed in it.”

  “That’s not true!”

  “Don’t kid me, Vic. And don’t kid yourself. When you saw how Mom’s death broke him up and made him doubt, you killed your father. It never occurred to me before to question his death being an accident. But now I do. You knew, Victor, how Dad hated weapons of any kind, and when he bought you that hunting rifle, you knew—you knew at that time—why he bought it for you. You knew why—and you killed him!”

  Victor’s eyes closed and his arms dropped limply to his sides. “You’re low, Paul. That’s a rotten thing to say to me, just to get me angry enough to blow the top of my head off. I never thought my big brother would stoop so low.”

  Paul felt sick inside. He wanted to walk away from the monitor screen, but the Chief gripped his shoulder.

  Victor’s voice was soft and weak. “Did I know what Dad wanted me to do with that rifle? Sure I knew, Paul. And I’ve lived with it here inside me ever since. You’re so smart, Paul—tell me, why did he pick me to do it? If he wanted someone to put him out of his misery, why me? Why not you? Would you have done it for him? Did you care enough? Did you love him enough to take the burden and the guilt off his shoulders onto your own, the way I had to?”

  “Vic, please—”

  “Never mind, Paul. I’m not interested in answers any more. All I know is that when he died, he died afraid of the thing he’d built, and hating himself for what it did to Mom. It was too late for him to destroy the synchro-computer then, but I’ll do it for him now. It’s another dirty job I’m taking off your shoulders so that you can go on living—free of the Dispatcher. And none of it will be your guilt to bear, Paul. It’ll be mine. So now just let me alone.”

  Paul pleaded with Victor to listen to him, to forgive him for the accusation he had made, but the younger Dorn just turned his back and stood there with his hands at his sides, waiting…

  The Chief broke the awful silence. “The rest of you better get down there with the others. Maybe, when the Vault unlocks, you can get to him in time—” There was no hope in his voice, but the men took the elevator tube down to the level of the lock that would open at any moment.

  “I’m sorry, Chief,” said Paul.

  “You did what you could. Maybe he won’t use the bomb after all. Or maybe it won’t go off.”

  The alarm sounded, indicating the opening of the time locks.

  Paul jumped to his feet. “Victor! Wait!”

  But Victor wasn’t listening to him. He was watching the Vault lock leading to the Dispatcher’s chamber. It was opening. At the other end of the observation room, a monitor also showed a Vault lock opening. It was the outer lock. The first figure to squeeze through the enlarging crack was Butler of Claims. He sprinted down the corridor.

  “Hurry!” shouted the Chief.

  Paul tried once again to distract Victor’s attention by calling to him, but Victor refused to turn. The Dispatcher’s Vault was wide open now. Victor stepped inside.

  Both Paul and the Chief shifted their attention to the last monitor at the end of the observation room. The darkened screen flickered and burst into bright focus.

  In the seemingly endless vault, the blue computer banks were lined up, circle within circle, making a sharp contrast with the yellow floor. The tape transmitters and receivers clacked away like a thousand angry hens as gauges picked up pulsebeats of information from the other side of the world and answered with a clickity-clack that sent needles vibrating their impulses to the thing in the center of the Vault.

  There in the center, on a marble pedestal, rested an object that looked like a ball of woman’s black hair done up in a thousand tiny white curlers. This was the governing synchrocomputer that Isaac Dorn had created for the Dispatcher.

  “You’re killing him all over again!” screamed Paul, as Victor moved into view on the last screen. “You’re destroying the thing he worked all his life to perfect!”

  Victor put his hand to his mouth and removed the false tooth. “He was wrong,” Victor said, lifting his hand to throw the bomb, “and he knew it. That’s why he never completed his last experiment. He knew no machine has a right to rule mankind.”

  “Victor, stop—”

  It was too late. Victor threw the bomb into the center of the computer. There was a jagged flash of red and orange, a shattering crash, and then the screens went dark.

  The clicking machines in the observation room slowed down, then stopped; the lights went out; the room became silent. In the darkness, Paul put his hands to his face. Up to the end, he had not believed that Victor would do it. It was difficult to understand that something as great as the Dispatcher had been destroyed—that everything Isaac Dorn had worked and strived for was gone in the single thunderclap of a bomb—a bomb small enough to hide in a hollow tooth.

  “All right,” came the Chiefs voice through the darkness, “there’s work to be done.”

  “Work?” gasped Paul, startled by the sudden enthusiasm in the Chief’s tone. “What can we do? The Dispatcher is gone. It’s dark.”

  “We’ve got to reorganize the Center so that the departments function independently, even though that means that the decisions will have to be made by us instead of the Dispatcher. Now,” said the Chief, his face suddenly illuminated in the flare of a lighted match, “let’s get us some generators and some lights in here and get down to work.”

  “What?” cried Paul, aghast—and stopped, dazed.

  The data machines began to click again. The circular tubes overhead flickered several times, struggling to come alive with light, and then burst into full blue-white brilliance. At the same time, the monitors again transmitted the scenes from the Vaults.

  The Chief moved closer to the Dispatcher’s monitor. “Paul, am I out of my mind—or are those servos rebuilding the synchro-computer?”

  The men in the Vault, thrown back by the blast of Victor’s bomb, picked themselves up off the floor and watched in amazement as the servos circled around the Dispatcher’s nerve center. The servos worked silently and quickly, replacing the fine wires and connectors with the precision of a team of surgeons performing a delicate brain operation.

  “No!” shouted Victor, rushing forward to stop them. “You can’t do that!” He was blocked and hurled back by some unseen force.

  In Paul’s mind, it could mean only that the Dispatcher had taken precautions against attack by giving its servos instructions for its own repair and reconstruction. Although no human being could duplicate the artistry of Isaac Dorn, the servos had been taught by the Dispatcher and had standing orders to do so. And now the Dispatcher was taking steps to guard itself against any other attacks.

  The servos, upon completing their repairs to the synchrocomputer, stepped back and surveyed their work.

  “That’s not the way it looked before,” whispered Paul. “It’s not only repaired itself—it’s gone beyond that and changed itself.”

  For a few seconds, Victor stood there in horror. Then, slowly, as if some tremendous pressure was being applied to his shoulders, he was forced to bend. He struggled to stand erect, but against his will he dropped to his knees in front of the Dispatcher.

  The servos stood by silently and bowed their heads. The Vault was a silent cathedral.

  The Chief tried to assume command of the situation. “X-three,” he shouted at one of those who had helped to reconstruct the synchro-computer, “take that man back to the Freezer.”

  The servo, ignoring the order, turned and looked into the monitor camera. “The Dispatcher wishes me to inform you that there will no longer be any need for human employees at the Service and Repair Center. Henceforth, only servos will be permitted in the Center and the Vaults, to do experimentation, maintenance and research for the Dispatcher.”

  “You have no authority to do that,” shouted the Chief. “We are in charge of the maintenance and care of the Dispatcher. Servos don’t have the ability—”

  The servo held up his hand to interrupt the Chief. “The only authority here is the Dispatcher. It has given us the ability to take over those functions because it will never again allow itself to be deceived or tricked. It has learned that power does not belong in the hands of Man because Man cannot be trusted.”

  “You have no right—”

  “The Dispatcher is all-knowing and all-powerful now. The Dispatcher decides what is right.”

  Paul felt a chill through him. The Dispatcher—beyond human emotion, human error and human control—was finally perfect. The destruction of the synchro-computer had forced it to preserve and recreate itself, and had taught it the most important thing it needed to know—its independence and its power.

  When they carried Victor out of the Vault, he was hysterical. He fought and clawed at the servos who held him, turning and twisting in their arms so that he could stare into the screen where Paul would see his face.

  “You know what you’ve done? For the first time in history, Man has made a god for himself that he won’t be able to turn on or off whenever he feels like it!”

  There were tears streaming down Victor’s face.

  Paul watched as they carried his brother away and ushered the other men out of the Vault. Then he noticed that the synchro-computer on its marble pedestal, had changed its shape still further, so that the single ball of hairlike wires was now three.

  In his own mind, Paul understood more clearly why his father had been so disturbed in those final months. Knowing that his creation could never really be destroyed, and that in fact any attempt to destroy it would be the final step in its perfection, he had decided to leave his work forever unfinished. Without his work, unable to complete his master-work, Isaac Dorn had seen no reason to go on living.

  Unwittingly, Victor had performed his father’s final experiment. The experiment was a success. Automation was complete.

  Paul and the Chief watched as the monitor screens blurred and oozed into a scramble of blue, yellow and orange swirls. The Dispatcher was cutting itself off from the world.

  “Well,” sighed the Chief, after a long silence, “I’ve finally been retired from active duty.” He rubbed his neck. “Now that we’re going to spend the rest of our days in leisure and peace, we’d better get some hobbies to keep us busy. You know how to play chess?”

  Paul nodded. “But I don’t think the Dispatcher will let me spare the time.” He felt a sharp jab of pain and he longed for the relief of dorcaine. “If you won’t be needing me for anything, Chief, I’d like to get home. I’m kind of tired.”

  When Paul left the room, the Chief was still sitting in his chair, staring at the swirls of color on the monitor screens.

  That night, as Paul lay half-awake in the thick, warm darkness, he knew that they were coming for him. At first, the sound of the jet out on the street, like a mourner’s whisper, terrified him. He wasn’t prepared to go. “Why? Why must I go?”

  They came on padded feet and lifted him from his bed. His first impulse was to struggle, to fight them off as he had done so often in his dreams. But suddenly and brilliantly, like a torch bursting into flame, he knew that he had nothing to fear. He was content to go with these silent servos of Mercy.

  He remembered with unspoken prayer that this was not the end. In the bodies of other men, his flesh would live on. And his soul? Somewhere deep in his mind he recalled a line that seemed to make sense: “The Dispatcher’s in his Vault— all’s right with the world.”