The deadly thinkers

Feature Novel of Machine and Man
By Wm. Gray Beyer
Urei was what they called the huge Unified Reflexive Electronic Integrator, and the vast machine seemed to be developing a personality of its own. Then men began to suspect that Urei had acquired sentience, and with that came the fear of its interference with human minds.
There was a slow smile hovering on the lips of the older man, too slow actually to materialize. Fantasy, he said, gently. You've been reading too much science fiction.
Benton's smile was quick. It flashed into being with the speed of thought, then vanished as abruptly.
There isn't that much, he contended. I've said before that science fiction was Urei's father, or at least a distant ancestor. He paused. But I'd still like to hear a few reasons why my logic is wrong.
I've a million of them, assured Dr. Albie, crossing his lean legs and settling back in the soft chair. In the first place, Urei is too big. His billion-odd cells, relays and circuits occupy almost a square mile; his height, counting what's under ground, is almost five hundred feet. If he decided to perambulate ... well, it's just absurd. In the second place....
Let's finish with the first place, Benton interrupted. Of course that's absurd. I didn't suggest it. He doesn't have to move; he's got the entire human race to run his errands. I tell you I felt something, a definite compulsion, when I turned that page. Urei is getting ready to take over!
Benton jumped to his feet and paced rapidly back and forth, oblivious to the fact that Dr. Albie was watching him with a worried frown. That, had he seen it, would probably have snapped him out of his frenzied reverie, for the doctor was a man who was normally as far beyond frowns as he was chary of laughter. His philosophy was such that he eschewed all emotional extremes, stifling them before they could get started.
Albie cleared his throat arrestingly. I won't insult you by saying bluntly that you may have imagined it, he said. But I'd like to point out the fact that people are continually subject to impulses which they follow or ignore, depending on the circumstances. Those impulses originate within their own minds, probably the result of associations too obscure to be identified at the time. You worked on those circuit equations far into the night and you didn't get much sleep; isn't it possible that the compulsion you felt originated within yourself, and that in your tired state you misjudged its source?