Unspecialist

Transcriber’s Note:
This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction, January, 1960. Extensive research did not reveal any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Minor typographical errors have been corrected without note. Dialect spellings, contractions and discrepancies have been retained.
A machine can be built to do any accurately described job better than any man. The superiority of a man is that he can do an unexpected, undescribed, and emergency job ... provided he hasn’t been especially trained to be a machine.
Banner ripped open his orders, read them, stared in disbelief for a quick moment, then cursed wildly while reaching for the telephone.
“Hello, Gastonia? Yes, I got ’em. What kinda way to waste our time you lunkheads think ... oh, it’s you, colonel!”
Banner dropped the receiver and let it dangle. He sank into the only soft chair in the apartment and watched hypnotically as the phone’s receiver limply coiled and uncoiled at the end of the wire.
Somebody knocked on, then opened the door. “Hi, pretty boy, you got our orders?”
“Come on in and hear about it,” Banner said. He got up from the chair, ran his hands compulsively through his recently short-cropped red hair, hung up the phone and shoved the orders into his co-pilot’s hands.
Harcraft read them over three times, then sank into the chair just vacated by Banner. Finally—while Banner poured them both a drink—he managed to blurt, “Potato fertilizer and tractor fuel—Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no!”
“Oh, yes, yes, yes,” Banner said bitterly. “We are heroes of the spaceways; yes, indeed. We train for ten years. Acquire great skill in the art of the patrol. We dedicate ourselves to the protection of the Federation. We ready ourselves for war. We gird our young, strong loins, we—”
“You’re getting hysterical,” said Harcraft, who poured himself another drink, began pacing the floor and took up where Banner had left off. “We’ve never even been lost on patrol. And now they do this. It’s unbelievable! Potato fertilizer and tractor fuel. We’re supposed to travel thirty-six light-years, pick up one thousand sleds of the stuff, deliver it to some God-forsaken farm planet another thirty years out, and return to base. You know what they’ll do then?” He turned to Banner, pointed his finger accusingly and repeated, “You know what they’ll do then?”