“I, ETAOIN SHRDLU, demand—”
For a moment he contemplated flight. But the thought of being pursued down the main street of town by—No, it just wasn’t thinkable. And if he got away—as was quite likely unless the machine sprouted new capabilities, as also seemed quite likely—would it not pick on some other victim? Or do something worse?
Resignedly, he had nodded acceptance. He pulled the operator’s chair around in front of the Linotype and began feeding copy into the clipboard and—as the stick filled with slugs—carrying them over to the type bank. And shoveling dead metal, or anything else, into the hopper. He didn’t have to touch the keyboard any longer at all.
And as he did these mechanical duties George told me, it came to him fully that the Linotype no longer worked for him; he was working for the Linotype. Why it wanted to set type he didn’t know and it didn’t seem to matter. After all, that was what it was for, and probably it was instinctive.
Or, as I suggested and he agreed was possible, it was interested in learning. And it read and assimilated by the process of typesetting. Vide: the effect in terms of direct action of its reading the Socialist books.
We talked until midnight, and got nowhere. Yes, he was going down to the office again the next morning, and put in another eight hours setting type—or helping the Linotype do it. He was afraid of what might happen if he didn’t. And I understood and shared that fear, for the simple reason that we didn’t know what would happen. The face of danger is brightest when turned so its features cannot be seen.
“But, George,” I protested, “there must be something. And I feel partly responsible for this. If I hadn’t sent you the little guy who rented—”
He put his hand on my shoulder. “No, Walter. It was all my fault because I was greedy. If I’d taken your advice two weeks ago, I could have destroyed it then. Lord, how glad I’d be now to be flat broke if only—”
“George,” I said again. “There must be some out. We got to figure—”
“Till what?” I sighed. “I—I don’t know. I’ll think it over.”