Bill 3 - on the Planet of Bottled Brains Read Free Page A

to the recruiting officer when you get back. He'll set everything in motion for you.”
    “That's just great,” Bill said. “The only trouble is, this is a suicide mission and I'm unlikely to come back from it. And if I don't come back, no discharge, right?”
    “You will come back,” Brownnose said. “I guarantee it.”
    “How do you figure?”
    “Because, after I volunteered you, I also volunteered myself. So I could look after you, Bill.”
    “You can't even look after yourself,” Bill pointed out. He sighed. “I guess it was pretty nice of you to want to help me, Brownnose, but I wish you hadn't.”
    “I realize that now, Bill,” Brownnose said, extricating himself from Bill's grasp and slinking away from the boiler, which had been growing uncomfortably torrid. He could see that the moment of immediate danger was over. Bill got hot under the collar sometimes, but if you could just avoid instant mayhem, he soon cooled off again.
    “Anyhow,” Bill said, “how could you volunteer me? Only I can volunteer me.”
    “You've sure got a point there,” Brownnose said. “Maybe you should take it up with the computer.”
    “Hello again,” the military computer said. “You were in here recently, weren't you? Excuse me for asking but the old eyesight's not what it used to be. My image orthicon is wearing out. Not that anyone or anything cares.” It snivelled mechanically, a repellent sound.
    “I came in here about my foot,” Bill said loudly, disgusted at all the electronic self-pity.
    “Your foot? I never forget a foot! Let me see it.”
    Bill displayed his foot to the computer's vision plate.
    “Hooee,” the computer said. “That's a beauty of an alligator's tootsy. But I've never seen that foot before. I told you, I never forget a foot.”
    “Of course you remember it,” Bill whined. “Because you looked at it when I was in here before. What kind of computer could forget that?”
    “I didn't say I forgot, computers can't forget, it's just that I haven't thought about it lately,” the computer said. “Just a minute, let me consult my data banks. I never forget a reference to a foot, either.... Yes, here it is. You're right, you did say something about your foot. And I directed you to the Officer's Ready Room.”
    “That's right. And the officers there said that by coming in I had volunteered for hazardous duty.”
    “Yes, that's all correct,” the computer said. “When they asked me for a volunteer, I sent them the first one who came in.”
    “Me?”
    “You.”
    “But I didn't volunteer.”
    “Tough titty. I mean I am so sorry, but you did. Inferentially.”
    “Beg pardon?”
    “I inferred that you would have volunteered if asked. We have special circuits that allow us to use inferences.”
    “But you could have asked me!” Bill shouted angrily.
    “Then what would be the use of inferential circuitry with which I have been fitted out at great expense? Anyhow, it was clear to me that a fine upstanding military type like you would be happy to volunteer for hazardous duty, despite the minor impairment to your foot.”
    “You were wrong,” Bill said.
    A ripple passed across the computer's vision plate, almost like a shrug. “Well,” it said, “mistakes happen, don't they?”
    “That's not good enough!” Bill shouted, thumping the computer's vision plate with a large fist. “I'll tear out your lying transistors.” He thumped the vision plate again. This time it flashed red.
    “Trooper,” the computer said in a gruff voice. “Stand to attention.”
    “What?” said Bill.
    “You heard me. I am a military computer with the veritable rank of full colonel. You are an enlisted man. You have to address me in a respectful manner or you'll be in a lot worse trouble than you are already.”
    Bill gulped. Officers were all alike, even when they were computers.
    “Yes sir,” he said, and stood to attention.
    “Now, since you don't think the procedure was fair, what do you suggest we