Machine of KLAMUGRA

                           By Allen K. Lang

              Captain Barnaby and Lieutenant Teajun stood
             at the brink of that vast stone amphitheater,
              staring wonderingly down at half-an-acre of
             gadget. This glittering mass of million-year
             clockwork was the Machine ... and soon it was
              to judge them for their crime against Mars!

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
                     Planet Stories November 1950.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


Klaggchallak, his fur nose-flaps pulled tight against his nostrils,
stumbled up to the gleaming pinnacle of steel that seemed to offer
shelter against the night. He felt a dust-storm gathering in the
west, and knew that not even the tough skin of a Martian priest could
withstand the angry whippings of sand lashed up by the wind-warlocks of
the desert.

The old priest drew a tiny, folded _mal_-skin tent from his back-pack.
Without haste, for he knew that the elder gods of Mars were watching
his safety, Klaggchallak pitched the tent against the west stabilizer
of the rocket, drawing the tough hide down to form a floor-flap and
fastening it to the steel of the stabilizer with tough _mal_-hoof glue,
which would hold fast in the fiercest winds of Mars. He looked for the
sun and found it low in the evening sky, then crawled leisurely into
the yurt, pulling the door-flap down after him and gluing it to the
floor. He had for himself a secure cocoon into which the sand-devils
could not force their probing fingers. Before he slept, the old
priest fingered his beads, reciting his evening invocation to various
benevolent and protective gods.

The falling sun threw a dancing star against the hull of the ship
standing tall in its tail-chocks. A bewildering wail, the banshee-call
of "Danger; ship jetting off!" sounded; but Klaggchallak slept on,
hearing through his dreams only the howling of the wind.

Sixty seconds later, as prescribed in the General Regulations of the
Extraterrestrial Service, a second sound began, that most fearful of
noises, the sirening of the rocket exhaust. The Martian in his skin
tent wakened and felt fear gnaw at his bones; fear induced by subsonic
tremors from the rocket blast. Klaggchallak reached for his beads as
the heat soaked into his thick, wrinkled skin.

In a moment the floor sagged beneath him. With the _mal_-skin pouch
dangling ridiculously from its tail assembly, the EXTS rocket _Vulcan_
rose with great gentleness from its tail-chocks, pushed up on its
spraying jets.

Four seconds later the ship was a ruby flame above the low hills. Eight
seconds later a charred bipod, a bifurcated cinder, tumbled down from
space to strike near the jetoff field, where the _Vulcan's_ tail-chocks
glowed dull red and the blackened ground smoldered. A moment later a
bracelet of blast-welded beads tumbled down from the sky, falling near
the carbon hulk that a few seconds before had been Klaggchallak, a
Martian priest great in wisdom and in honor among his people.

       *       *       *       *       *

Captain Jan Barnaby and Lieutenant Kim Teajun of the Extraterrestrial
Service stood before the Board of Inquiry at Denver, D. F. The
President of the Board, a Chief Commander's star-on-silver gleaming at
his right collar point, opened the proceedings:

"The military rocket _Vulcan_, EXTS light cruiser, is accused by
the Martian authorities of causing the death of one Klaggchallak, a
priest. They further claim that the death of Klaggchallak was caused
by criminal negligence on the part of the pilot and co-pilot of the
rocket, Captain Jan Barnaby and Lieutenant Kim Teajun, respectively.
Such neglect being within the definition of murder in the Martian legal
code, the Judging Authority of Mars demands that we deliver these two
men to them for trial and eventual punishment."

The Commander stroked his grey hair thoughtfully as he looked up
from his report to the two unhappy officers before him. "At ease,
gentlemen." Barnaby and Teajun slumped. "While I'm inclined to agree
with you two that Klaggchallak's frying was his own fool fault, I must
say that you picked a damned poor time to become the instruments of his
immolation. We had hoped to establish an extra-territoriality agreement
with Mars, but the death of old Klaggchallak puts that out of the
question. To further Martian tranquility, you men will have to return
to Mars and face the Judging Authority there. If my feelings were all
that is at stake, gentlemen, I'd tell the Marties to go trippingly to
hell, and keep you here on Earth. But to do this would mean we'd be
forced to abandon our bases and mines and surveys on all Mars. We'd be
giving our European competitors a clear field." The Commander folded
the report neatly, once and again. "Captain Barnaby and Lieutenant Kim,
you'll be on the next Mars-ward ship. We can't help you if you're
convicted by our fuzzy friends. You'll have to stay there and take
whatever punishment they demand."

Kim was remembering a scene he and Barnaby had witnessed at Klamugra,
the seat of the Martian Judging Authority. A Martian, convicted of
murder, was being executed atop a high metal platform. A large portion
of the city's population was gathered before the platform, watching the
edifying spectacle of a fellow-Martian dying with horrifying slowness
as the chocks of a vise pressed into his skull. They were bearcats for
gladiatorial amusement.

"Do you gentlemen have any questions?"

Lieutenant Kim glanced at Captain Barnaby, then spoke. "Yes, sir. I'd
like to know how long we're going to let the Marties push us around
this way. Thirteen Martian priests are on our payroll, just because
they demand it. We've got to stay five kilometers away from their
cities, or pay a five-hundred credit fine. We can't spit without
special permission from the Grand Council of Mars. We don't think like
they do; why should we submit to being judged by their million-year-old
laws? In all respect, sir, why does our Service act so weak?"

The Commander made a pyramid of thumbs and forefingers, and considered
it. "Lieutenant Kim, I've been asking myself that question for the last
ten years. We've had to pay tribute to gain the Marties' permission to
stay on their god-forsaken planet. That tribute represents half the
operating expense of the Martian Department of the Service, credits
that should be spent on new ships and more men. We've behaved like a
bunch of patsies ever since von Munger and Ley landed on Mars.

"Still, we're all soldiers, and we must follow regulations. We mustn't
disturb the indigenous population on Mars; that's Regulation 'A-1.'
If our policies grow distasteful to the Marties, they may call in the
Europeans to take our place. We wouldn't like that. It's bad form to
admit it, gentlemen, but I'm ashamed to give you this order. You're
to jet off for Mars tomorrow morning; and on arrival at Klamugra,
to deliver yourselves over to the Martian Judging Authority." The
Commander rapped his gavel and stood; the two officers before the Board
snapped to attention. "Board of Inquiry dismissed."

       *       *       *       *       *

Fully aware that tomorrow's jetoff would multiply by eight the
hangovers they were breeding, Captain Barnaby and Lieutenant Kim sat
that evening in the Denver Dive, alternating drinks of European vodka
with rounds of California moon-dew. As Kim said: "Drink as much as you
like, Barnaby; we're not driving in the morning."

"Tell me," Barnaby demanded of his co-pilot, "what you're thinking of,
you Martie-roasting fiend of a Korean."

"I was considering the memory of the 'shlunk!' that Martian murderer's
skull made when it finally gave in, that day at Klamugra. Do you
remember, hard-headed Yankee?" Kim's eyes followed the blonde ecdysiast
across the stage more from habit than present interest.

"Why did you have to remember that? 'Shlunk!'--ugh!"

"We're going to have to squirm out of this, Barnaby-_sunsang_," Kim
said. "We'll have to beat that rap at Klamugra. It's not that I wish to
avoid putting my head in a vise; it's only that it hurts me to see the
Extraterrestrial Service made a monkey of this way. In a way it will
even be a shame if we get off. Think of all the Marties who will miss
the opportunity to see your punkin head smashed."

"You orientals have noble souls, Kim."

The blonde stripper, having uncovered as much of herself as she could
without resorting to dissection, jumped down from the stage and walked
over to the two EXTS officers. "Would you gentlemen like to buy me a
drink?" she asked.

Kim's eyes roved abroad in a brief anatomy lesson, but Barnaby said,
"I'll buy you one a couple of weeks from now, if I'm not laid up
somewhere with a splitting headache." He stood unsteadily and tossed a
ten-credit certificate on the table. "If you're really thirsty, get a
drink out of that."

Kim reluctantly followed his superior officer from the bar. At the door
he turned and called back to the blonde, "Don't catch cold, child. I'll
be back."

       *       *       *       *       *

The dawn jetoff was miserable, as jetoffs always are. Four days brought
the ship within falling-distance of Mars; soon the jets thundered as it
backed into a pocket of hills outside Klamugra. The air-pumps hammered
to bring the air pressure inside the hull gradually down to that of
the outside, so that instruments and equipment wouldn't be subjected
to a sudden lowering of pressure. The men inside the ship slipped
plastic helmets over their heads, checked the tiny air-pumps on their
shoulders, and drew on heavy gloves and boots.

When the port swung open Kim and Barnaby climbed down the ladder to the
blast-blackened sand. The sergeant of EXTS Provost Marshall who had
accompanied them walked with the officers to a hill overlooking the
ancient Martian city of Klamugra, which stood on a terrace about five
kilometers to the north. The red adobe walls of the city, testimony
of the ancient days when Mars had enough water to allow its use for
brick-making, blended with the distance to seem a part of the red
desert sand.

A cloud of steam and dust appeared between the hill where they stood
and the city. Captain Barnaby un-leathered his binoculars and pressed
them to the eyepieces of his helmet, and made out a hopping jeep, its
top enclosed in plastic and a trio of supercharger coils poking through
the sides of the hood. Clouds of steam followed the jeep as its exhaust
streamed out into the chilly air.

       *       *       *       *       *

In a moment the jeep spun up the hill and ground to a halt. There
was a pause as the men inside the jeep fitted their helmets on their
shoulders, checked their air-pumps, and drew on their gauntlets. Then
the plastic bubble lifted back, a sergeant jumped out from under the
steering wheel and saluted, and a Colonel, EXTS Intelligence, walked
up to Captain Barnaby and Lieutenant Kim. "Gentlemen," he said, "I'm
Colonel Lee Montgomery, Commanding Officer, Third Sector. It is my
unpleasant duty to turn you over to the Chief Technician of the Martian
Judging Authority, who is Rhinklav'n, here."

At these words a tall Martian unfolded himself from the back seat
of the jeep. He climbed out and bowed before Captain Barnaby. "I am
Rhinklav'n, Captain." The thick fur nose-flaps, looking like ear-muffs
pulled across his muzzle, muffled Rhinklav'n's high-pitched voice so
that it gave the effect of coming from the bottom of a rain barrel.
"You are to accompany me to Klamugra to be judged by the Machine, of
which I am the Honored First Technician."

Barnaby and Kim bowed slightly to acknowledge Rhinklav'n, then crawled
into the back seat of the jeep, next to Colonel Montgomery.

Rhinklav'n and the sergeant sat up front. The sergeant pushed a button
on the instrument panel, and the plastic top of the jeep dropped down
to cover them. As the engine started, the jeep's air-pump drew in air
until the atmosphere was thick enough for human lungs. The Martian
squirmed uncomfortably in the heavy air while his human companions
threw off their helmets. Lieutenant Kim gratefully drew a deep breath
of air, and regretted it immediately. What with the million-year water
shortage the Martians had lost even the word for bath. Besides, the
most popular article of Martian cuisine is a bulb strikingly similar
to the terrestrial garlic plant. Captain Barnaby turned to Kim. "Mars
has a distinguished atmosphere, hasn't it?" He spoke in English, rather
than in the Esperanto lingua-franca of space.

"Indeed it has," Kim agreed. "What was old fuzz-face up there talking
about when he spoke of 'the Machine,' Colonel?"

"The law of Mars is the most rigidly systematized in the solar system,"
Colonel Montgomery replied. "Several millions of years ago, a bright
Martie got the idea that it was unwise to trust mortal judges with
a problem so important as the sentencing of criminals. So he called
in a lot of mechanics--ancient Mars had some pretty fair engineers,
though they never discovered electricity--and had them build a
judging-machine. Since the climate is right and the machine was built
of a stainless steel, it's still here and still being used. It's an
enormous thing; spreads over half-an-acre in a big amphitheatre in the
center of town. It's an analogue computer, rather clumsy by terrestrial
standards, but nevertheless well-built. You know the principles of
analogue calculators. Instead of working with coded, position-valued
impulses, like the electronic astrogator on our rockets, the mechanical
machines solve problems by making use of the physical analogies between
cogs and gears and differentials."

"Do you mean that we're going to be punished or set free by a bunch of
clockwork, colonel?" Kim asked.

"In a way, yes. The Machine is a most impersonal judge. That fact won't
help you, though. Martian legal code is strict about killing, there
being some thirty-odd degrees of murder, ranging in seriousness from a
'simple homicide to secure a mate,' the punishment for which is death
by dehydration, most often; to 'killing to secure for oneself material
benefits,' for which there exist more subtle forms of death by torture."

"Like getting a small-head-size in a vise?" Captain Barnaby grunted.

"That's the usual punishment for murder in the seventeenth degree,
where the crime is usually 'killing for spiritual advancement.' You
see, each crime is given special study by the Machine. A great many
factors are fed in, collated with certain constants within the Machine,
processed through several dozen stages, and finally combined into a
single number, which represents the punishment called for. By the way,"
the colonel studied the back of Rhinklav'n's head, "no consideration
of the truthfulness of the 'defendant' is entered into the Machine. It
is presumed that should a man say that he did not commit a crime, he
didn't; if he did, he'd admit it. Martians have a peculiar character
defect that prevents them from lying."

"A defect from which we humans are fortunately free," Kim grinned.

"That's no out," Colonel Montgomery countered. "They have witnesses who
saw Klaggchallak fry. Besides, we prefer to have the mass of Marties
ignorant of the average earthling's penchant for prevarication. It
saves the Service a lot of money not to have to prove anything it tells
our hairy hosts out here."

       *       *       *       *       *

The jeep hit the first of the series of low terraces which set the
city of Klamugra up from the surrounding desert plains, and the little
car bounced high off the sand. Colonel Montgomery looked startled, as
though he'd just remembered something. "You know, in my ethnological
fervor I didn't realize what you two men are in for. Cosmos! I'm
practically delivering you up as human sacrifices!"

"We came to that conclusion five days ago, colonel," Lieutenant Kim
dryly observed.

"I can see what the Fleet Commander meant when he said that he was
giving me 'a most unpleasant assignment.' Hell, I don't think the
Machine is able to give a judgment of 'not guilty'." Colonel Montgomery
gazed toward the city they were approaching. "We've got to turn you
in. We can't risk a blowup with the Martian Grand Council. There are
rumors that ..." the colonel glanced again with suspicion at the back
of Rhinklav'n's hairy neck, as though suspecting that the Martian might
be able to puzzle out the meaning of their conversation, though it was
in English. "There are rumors that the -artiansMay have an agent among
the -ussiansRay. We can't risk having the borsch-eaters more popular
out here than the Western Powers." The jeep bounded up the last of the
terraces and through an opening in the city wall. The adobe buildings
raced past, and with a final bound the jeep came to the edge of the
huge, circular bowl which held the Machine.

"There's your judge," Colonel Montgomery said, speaking in Esperanto
again. "I haven't much hope to offer you. For one thing, you're the
first humans ever to be judged by the Machine."

The men picked up their helmets and air-pumps and adjusted them on
their shoulders. Rhinklav'n drew his furry nostril-flaps down into
place against the sudden change in pressure. The plastic top of the
jeep flew back on its springs and the men climbed out, stretching their
cramped muscles. The radiophones in the helmets buzzed, and the colonel
gave Captain Barnaby a last word. "I want to impress you with the fact
that the Service cannot protect you, from this moment onward. If you
escape being killed it must be on your own merits. And don't start
shooting Marties--won't do you a bit of good. There's a lot at stake
for Earth here. Good luck, men!" Colonel Montgomery saluted, and he and
his sergeant jumped back in the jeep, slammed the top down, and whirled
away.

Rhinklav'n turned to the two EXTS officers. "Gentlemen, I've assigned
you quarters here, near the Machine. Will you follow me?" Kim and
Barnaby followed the Martian a short distance from the edge of the
amphitheater to a lone adobe building, one story high and about ten
meters square. "Here are your quarters, where you'll stay tonight. Your
judging is set for tomorrow morning."

Captain Barnaby glanced into the building and was surprised to see
that it closed with an airlock, had terrestrial canned foods on
neat shelves, and had regular Service cots in place of the rough
_mal_-leather mats that the Martians slept on. "It was good of you to
go to all this trouble just for myself and Lieutenant Kim, Rhinklav'n,"
the Captain said.

The Martian paused at the door. "It's not just for you, Captain. Five
other terrestrials have committed crimes of various proportions within
the last few weeks. They will also be tried here, after your case is
disposed of." Rhinklav'n left, considerately closing the airlock door
and starting the pump on his way out.

Lieutenant Kim took a can of "B" ration beans down from the shelf and
thoughtfully began to open it with his Service knife. "Captain," he
said, "this sort of thing could drive our Service from Mars. If the
Marties consider it their right to judge every Earthling who runs a
jeep into a farmer's _mal_ or lands half a meter too near one of their
cities, we won't have a man on the planet in a couple of years."

"Kim, we're precedents."

"What do you mean, Yankee?"

"If the Marties succeed in convicting us of murder in some unheard-of
degree by using that overgrown Erector Set of theirs, we'll be only
the first two of a long string of EXTServicemen to be executed under
Mars law. We can't let them do it." Captain Barnaby paused a moment
to pour himself out a plateful of beans. "Kim, what was that process
you used to rely on back in EXTS Academy in Denver? The one that gave
you the right answers after you found that your first solutions to our
astrogation problems were a few hundred thousand kilometers off?"

Kim stopped chewing for a moment in surprise. "You mean that you got
through the Academy without using the 'finagle factor'? No wonder you
made captain so soon. It's simple: I'd look up the right answer in the
Service charts, find by what factor my solution was off, and introduce
that factor into my next calculation, making it inconspicuous under a
lot of mathematical camouflage. Don't bawl me out about it, Barny; I
just couldn't see letting my extracurricular activities suffer for my
schoolwork."

"Yes, you did a lot of your studying at the Denver Dive. No matter,
little man. Eat hearty and get some sleep." Barnaby stirred his beans
thoughtfully. "We've got a big day ahead of us tomorrow."

       *       *       *       *       *

Early the next morning a subordinate technician of the Machine hammered
on the airlock. The two terrestrials pulled on their heavy jackets, fur
boots, and gauntlets, started the little air-pumps on their shoulders,
and opened the lock. "The honored First Technician of the Machine
invites your presence at your trial, which is to begin very soon," the
Martian said, speaking halting Esperanto. Kim and Barnaby followed him
to the edge of the Machine bowl. There had been several changes made
during the night. An elevated platform had been set up, identical to
the one used in the bloody execution they'd witnessed. About twenty
Martians were clustered around the Machine, some of them making
last-minute adjustments in the mechanism; others, evidently sightseers,
gazing curiously at the two principals in the trial.

Rhinklav'n was waiting, his nose-flaps drawn over his nostrils to keep
the cold morning air from cutting into his lungs. "I am pleased that
you come," he said. "The Machine is fully assembled for your problem."
He pointed down toward the Machine, a vast cluster of separate stages
connected by rods. "On the far right, in that small building, is the
power source of the Machine, a mercury-turbine engine. We can't spare
the water to make steam, you know. The first stage contains the Martian
actuarial tables, the second has the actuarial system for determining
the probable life-spans of you two Earthlings. That's without taking
into consideration the probability that you two will be executed as a
result of the judgement of the Machine."

Lieutenant Kim nodded. "Most ingenious. But I'm afraid that there's a
factor that you've omitted."

"We've made no factual error, Lieutenant," Rhinklav'n insisted. "The
value of the sage Klaggchallak is represented there--" he pointed to
the fourth stage, "and your social value to the people of Mars is here
represented." Rhinklav'n waved one mitten-like hand toward the fifth
stage. "If you'll examine that stage, you'll observe that your value is
negative: the shaft representing it revolves in a direction opposite to
that of the others. Yes, you'll surely be executed."

Captain Barnaby nodded, as though the reiteration of the probability
of his early demise troubled him less than the philosophical question
he'd stumbled across. "Still, as my subordinate officer has said,
there's a factor which you seem to have omitted. In the terminology of
terrestrial psychometering, this quantity is called--what did you say
it was, Lieutenant Kim?"

"The 'finagle factor,' sir."

"Really?" Rhinklav'n asked, the light of scientific inquiry in his
eyes. "I thought I'd taken all the variables of Earthling physiology
and psychology into consideration when I set up the plans for the
trial. What are the mathematics of this 'finagle factor'?"

       *       *       *       *       *

Captain Barnaby put one foot up on a connecting shaft, as though he
were in the Denver Dive, discussing the relative merits of two video
dancers. "As you've doubtless noticed in your extensive study of the
Terrestrial mind, Sir Honored First Technician of the Machine, we of
Earth place almost equal value on a man's intelligence and on his
financial standing as criteria of his worth."

"Yes," Rhinklav'n mused, "I noticed your preoccupation with both
intelligence (a minor mental quality, by the way; far inferior to
spiritual insight or time-sense) and with the individual's possession
of Western Credits."

"As I said," Captain Barnaby continued, "there exists a precise
formula, developed by the...."

"By the Noyoudont Dentifrice Laboratories," Kim supplied.

"Yes; their laboratories developed the mathematics of the finagle
factor. Briefly, it is this: the square root of the product of
Intelligence Quotient over one hundred times the number of credits the
individual has outstanding. Or, written algebraically:" Barnaby knelt
down and traced in the sand with his gloved index finger:

[sqrt](IQ/100 x money in the bank)

"Quite a simple equation, easily represented on the Machine,"
Rhinklav'n observed. He called a subordinate technician to his side and
spoke to him in the clicking polysyllables of the Martian language.
Turning again to Captain Barnaby, he asked, "And what are the values of
'IQ' and 'Money in the Bank' for you and Lieutenant Kim?"

"Our combined IQs total about 243. How many credits do you own,
Lieutenant Kim?"

"Hell, sir; I've got more debts than credits."

"Figure up your debts then, Lieutenant."

Kim raised his right gauntlet, drew a pad of paper and a pencil from a
pocket at the back of his hand, and scribbled rapidly. "If we get out
of this, Captain, I'll owe about 1046 credits. Subtracting pay due for
the last semi-annual period, I owe 437 credits."

"And I have debts totaling 600 credits," Captain Barnaby said
thoughtfully. He turned to Rhinklav'n. "The debts of myself and
Lieutenant Kim, Sir Honored First Technician of the Machine, total 1037
Western Credits. Being debt, that's a negative number, of course."

"Of course, Captain," Rhinklav'n agreed. "The Machine can handle any
sort of number, even a negative number. You noticed that your social
value to Mars was easily represented as a minus-number." Rhinklav'n
talked rapidly to his assistant and handed him the values of the
finagle factor, rewritten in Martian ideographs. He faced Captain
Barnaby again. "It will take us about an hour to enter this new factor
into the Machine," he said. "You'll not mind waiting?"

"No, not at all," Barnaby murmured. He and Kim leaned against the
inside wall of the amphitheater, watching the Martian technicians hurry
about; they removed gears and replaced them with gears of another
ratio; they connected a stage consisting of eccentric cams strung on
shafts; and they installed a mass of machinery at the sixth stage,
where the operation of extracting square root was to take place. Kim,
comparing the heavy gears and levers of the Machine with the compact
tubes of his electronic astrogator, remarked, "It's like using a trip
hammer to crack a walnut."

       *       *       *       *       *

After a few minutes of watching, Kim and Barnaby became conscious of an
intruder within their helmets, a most unpleasant odor. They glanced up
to the edge of the bowl. The Martian sightseers were sitting up there,
dangling their legs above the Machine and utilizing the pause in the
proceedings to eat their picnic lunches. They were busily unwrapping
bundles of food from the _mal_-skin pouches hanging by their sides and
eating as they watched the technicians work over the Machine.

One of the tourists, judging from his height a young male, threw a
small parcel toward Kim. The lieutenant picked it up and unwrapped it.
The stench of Martian garlic became unbearable as Kim stared at the
unidentifiable tidbit of meat the Martian had thrown him; the air-pump
on his shoulder drew the redolence into his helmet in such quantities
that Kim's eyes burned. He gestured to show that, while his every
instinct demanded that he eat the delicious morsel, he couldn't take
his helmet off to do so. With an elaborate pantomiming of sorrow, Kim
pitched the gift back up to the Martian boy.

A few adjustments later the technicians filed up from the Machine pit.
Rhinklav'n walked over to the two EXTS officers. "If you gentlemen will
accompany me, we'll begin the trial at once."

Kim and Barnaby walked together up the steps that led from the Machine,
then turned and looked down at the dozens of stages of complex
machinery, into which memory and intelligence of a sort had been built.
Rhinklav'n pointed toward the fifth and sixth stages. "It is there
that the combined finagle factors of you men will be calculated. The
fifth stage is quite simple; it will perform the necessary division and
multiplication. The sixth stage will extract the square root of the
product derived by the fifth. The next six stages of machinery contain
the variables of terrestrial behavior, which I and my colleagues
calculated from Earth texts. The other stages on the field, fifty-three
of them, will collate the results of the calculations of the first
twelve stages with our legal code and determine punishment. The final
product will appear at the sixty-seventh stage, represented as the
speed of rotation of a single shaft. The revolutions-per-time-interval
are decoded by a simple formula to determine the punishment to be
levied upon you. Doubtless, it will be some unpleasant form of death."

Kim muttered that he wished that Martians had a bit more tact.

Rhinklav'n waved a hairy arm toward his assistant who had remained
below in the Machine pit; and that Martian ran to the power house
to start the mercury-turbine engine that ran the Machine. With a
whistling that set the thin atmosphere trembling for miles around, the
turbine began to turn.

The sightseers on the edge of the amphitheater wrapped up the scraps of
their lunches, replaced them in their _mal_-skin picnic hampers, and
stood up to watch the Machine. Kim and Barnaby paced up and down along
the edge of the bowl, looking down upon the mechanical cerebration
being performed by the huge Machine. With a smooth transfer of power
from one stage to the next, the first problem--the probable duration
of Klaggchallak's life when it had been interrupted by the jets of the
_Vulcan_--was solved, and the mechanism of the second stage began to
revolve.

"They're seeing how long we can be expected to live, now," Captain
Barnaby commented.

That problem fled through a mass of gears and cams; and the partial
solution, the sum of the two earthling's life expectancies divided by
that of the priest Klaggchallak, ran across a shaft to the third stage,
which would determine the old priest's value to the society of Mars.
On into the fourth stage the problem flowed, to combine all previous
factors with the earthlings' social value to Mars, a negative number.

In a few moments the problem had progressed to the fifth stage of the
Machine, where the first steps of the 'finagle factor' were solved. The
product, a negative number as could be seen by the reversed rotation of
the main shaft, bowed into the sixth stage, which was to extract square
root.

       *       *       *       *       *

The turbine howled protest as it was forced to overcome the inertia of
the sixth stage; but a governor at the input stage held the shaft-speed
constant. The seventh stage, all ready for the problem when it should
appear from the sixth, held all the computations of the first four
stages in its smoothly-turning entrails. The initial portion of the
sixth stage began to move slowly.

There was a sudden, grating noise as the feed-in gear of the fifth
stage came in contact with a solution gear of the sixth which refused
to move. The whine of the mercury-turbine engine was shaking the ground
beneath the two officers' feet now.

As the Martian technicians and picnickers looked on in amazement,
the shaft between the fifth stage and the sixth began to twist like
a stick of moist putty. The sixth stage strained and shuddered, then
followed the twisting shaft over, tearing its moorings from the ground
and smashing upside-down. The seventh stage entered into the chaos,
ripping out anchors of steel-in-concrete and slamming onto its side.
In a moment all the machines in the bowl were muttering and straining
against the earth. Rhinklav'n ran to the stairway that led down into
the pit. In the adobe powerhouse the mercury engine was whirling at
twenty times its optimum rate, tearing the atmosphere with the sound of
its screaming power. There was the rattle of shrapnel exploding within
the walls of the powerhouse as the turbine threw off the restrainment
of its governor. The whole field within the bowl was a mass of
twitching clockwork, shaken by the final stormings of the suicidal
turbine. Bars of shining steel twisted and snapped, gear teeth flew
singing through the thin air. The final chain of stages tore itself
loose from anchoring and crashed to its side. There was a final roar of
defiance from the turbine, and the powerhouse walls dissolved before
an out-rushing blast of superheated mercury. Kim and Barnaby threw
themselves to the ground as the din increased for a moment, and the
Martian sightseers sought refuge behind nearby buildings. Suddenly, the
Machine was silent, except for the tinkle of scraps of metal falling to
the cement.

[Illustration: _Bars of shining steel twisted and snapped, gear teeth
flew singing through the thin air...._]

"Looks as though we were too much for judge, jury, and D.A.," Kim
murmured into his radiophone. Barnaby nodded, then cautiously climbed
to his feet.

Rhinklav'n climbed back up the stairway to the brink of the
amphitheater-become-junkyard. He shoved his way through the questioning
crowd of Martian sightseers without a word. "Looks like he's going to
cry," Lieutenant Kim commented into his radiophone. True, Rhinklav'n's
nose-flaps were hanging limply down below his chin, a sure sign of
great emotion in a Martian.

Rhinklav'n faced Captain Barnaby wordlessly for a moment. "You may
leave now," he said at last. The Martian turned his back on the captain
to look down again on the wreck that had been his beloved Machine.

       *       *       *       *       *

The two EXTS officers wandered about Klamugra, the cynosure of all
Martian eyes, though no one tried to stop them or ask them questions.
Lieutenant Kim finally spotted a radio tower jutting up above the
red adobe buildings. Hurrying in the direction of the tower, Kim and
Barnaby found the Klamugra headquarters of the Extraterrestrial Service.

Colonel Montgomery jumped to his feet as they came in, a look of bald
disbelief on his face. "Man, I'm glad to see you two! I was about to
storm out like a knight in shiny armor and save you from the Marties."
He waved his hand toward the helmet and rifle lying on his typewriter
table--"If I'd gotten there too late, I'd have ruptured interplanetary
friendship for sure!"--and indicated a decanter on his desk. "Have
some: that's Edinbourgh scotch, not Los Angeles moon-dew. Tell me why
I happen to be talking to you now instead of making up a couple of
packages for your next-of-kin."

"We wrecked their damn Machine," Kim said happily, dropping his helmet
and gauntlets to the floor and measuring out several fingers of the
colonel's scotch into his ration can.

"To be a bit more accurate," Captain Barnaby corrected, "we drove the
Machine insane." He poured himself a stiff shot of scotch and downed it
with appreciation.

"Our personalities are so complex that the Machine blew up all over
the landscape when it tried to understand them," Kim said. He dragged
a chair out from behind the typewriter table and sat down, carefully
balancing the ration can.

"It's rather as though we should set our electronic astrogator to work
on a problem with three variables in five dimensions, rather than in
four," Captain Barnaby explained. "As you told us, the Machine was a
mechanical-analogus calculator. It can multiply, divide, add, square
and cube, and extract roots. It performs these operations by coding
numbers into mechanical relationships."

"Just a big adding machine," Kim commented irreverently.

"And our 'finagle factor' was too much for a mechanical system."
Captain Barnaby briefly explained to the colonel how he and Kim had
induced Rhinklav'n to add their invented factor to the Machine's setup.
"You see, the finagle factor resolved itself into the square root of a
negative number. An electronic calculator, like our astrogator, could
extract the root of a minus-number: 'imaginary' numbers of this sort
are implicit in its circuit. The Martian Machine out there couldn't do
this though. Since there is no mechanical analogue for an imaginary
number, the Machine tried to extract the square root of our finagle
factor in the same manner in which it would attempt to extract the root
of a real number."

Kim drained, his ration can neatly and remarked, "The Machine couldn't
do what it had to. All the power of the turbine was thrown into the
root extracting system, which wouldn't revolve. So the Machine went
nuts, pardon me, sir, and blew its top. Wrecked the power source and
all sixty-seven stages. With the square root of minus one, we busted
up a Machine half a million years old."

"What now?" Colonel Montgomery asked, rhetorically.

Captain Barnaby studied the bottom of his ration can a moment. "Well,
sir, Rhinklav'n was more puzzled, than angered. He wanted to judge
humans not out of malice, but from a genuine scientific curiosity. He
wanted to see how the Machine would act with an alien problem. His
Machine is too badly broken-up ever to repair. He'll have to find
another method of judging criminals, first of all. Martian society is
founded on strict law."

"Just a moment." The colonel got up from his desk and went down the
hall to a door marked "Judge Advocate General's Department, EXTS." He
returned with a heavy book, bound between khaki-board covers. "We'll
give this book to Rhinklav'n, and you gentlemen may return to the
Denver Joint."

"Dive, sir," Kim corrected.

"Yes, Lieutenant." Colonel Montgomery handed the big book to Captain
Barnaby. "Take this to Rhinklav'n before you leave, Captain."

Barnaby turned to the title page and read in Esperanto, "Blackstone.
_On the Study of Law._"