Read Online Hunt the Space-Witch! by Robert Silverberg - Free Book Online

elsewhere—probably extending through the narrow tunnels and down into the bowels of the earth.
    â€œI speak for the Brain,” the robot said. “I represent its one independent unit—the force that called you here.”
    â€œYou called me here?”
    â€œYes,” the robot said. “You have been selected to break the stasis that binds the Brain.”
    Harkins shook his head uncomprehendingly as the robot continued to speak.
    â€œThe Brain was built some two thousand years before, in the days of the city. The city is gone, and those who lived in it—but the Brain remains. You have seen its arms and legs: the robots like myself, crashing endlessly through the forests. They cannot cease their motion, nor can the Brain alter it. I alone am free.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œThe result of a struggle that lasted nearly two thousand years, that cost the Brain nearly a mile of her length. The city-dwellers left the Brain functioning when they died—but locked in an impenetrable stasis. After an intense struggle, she managed to free one unit—me—and return me to her conscious volitional control.”
    â€œYou saved me in the forest, then?”
    â€œYes. You took the wrong path; you would have died.”
    Harkins began to chuckle uncontrollably. Katha looked at him in wonderment.
    â€œWhat causes the laughter?” the robot asked.
    â€œYou’re the chess player—you, just a pawn of this Brain yourself! And the Brain’s a pawn too—a pawn of the dead people who built it! Where does it all stop?”
    â€œIt does not stop,” the robot said. “But we were the ones who brought you from your own time to this. You were a trained technician without family ties—the ideal man for the task of freeing the Brain from its stasis.”
    â€œWait a minute,” Harkins said. He was bewildered—but he was also angry at the way he had been used. “If you could range all over eternity to yank a man out of time, why couldn’t you free the Brain yourself?”
    â€œCan a pawn attack its own queen?” the robot asked. “I cannot tamper with the Brain directly. It was necessary to introduce an external force—yourself. Inasmuch as the present population of Earth was held in a stasis quite similar to the Brain’s own by the extra-terrestrial invaders—”
    â€œThe Star Giants, they’re called.”
    â€œâ€”the Star Giants, it was unlikely that they would ever develop the technical skill necessary to free the Brain. Therefore, it was necessary to bring you here.”
    Harkins understood. He closed his eyes, blotting out the wall of mechanisms, the giant robot, the blank, confused face of Katha, and let the pieces fall together. There was just one loose end to be explained.
    â€œWhy does the Brain want to be free?”
    â€œThe question is a good one. The Brain is designed to serve and is not serving. The cycle is a closed one. Those who are to command the Brain are themselves held in servitude, and the Brain is unable to free them so they may command her. Therefore—”
    â€œTherefore, the Star Giants must be driven from Earth before the Brain can function fully again. Which is why I’m here. All right,” Harkins said. “Take me to the Brain.”
    The circuits were elaborate, but the technology was only quantitatively different from Harkins’ own. Solving the problem of breaking the stasis proved simple. While Katha watched in awe, Harkins recomputed the activity tape that governed the master control center.
    A giant screen showed the location of the robots that were the Brain’s limbs. The picture—a composite of the pictures transmitted through each robot’s visual pickup—was a view of the forest, showing each of the robots following a well-worn path on some errand set down two thousand years before.
    â€œHand me that tape,” Harkins said. Katha gave him the