Arthur C. Clarke, 1953
“This is a slightly unusual request,” said Dr. Wagner, with what
he hoped was commendable restraint. “As far as I know, it’s the first time
anyone’s been asked to supply a Tibetan monastery with an Automatic Sequence
Computer. I don’t wish to be inquisitive, but I should hardly have thought that
your — ah — establishment had much use for such a machine. Could you explain
just what you intend to do with it?”
“Gladly,” replied the lama, readjusting his silk robes and
carefully putting away the slide rule he had been using for currency
conversions. “Your Mark V Computer can carry out any routine mathematical
operation involving up to ten digits. However, for our work we are interested
in letters, not numbers. As we wish you to modify the output circuits, the
machine will be printing words, not columns of figures.”
“I don’t quite understand....”
“This is a project on which we have been working for the last
three centuries — since the lamasery was founded, in fact. It is somewhat alien
to your way of thought, so I hope you will listen with an open mind while I
explain it.”
“Naturally.”
“It is really quite simple. We have been compiling a list which
shall contain all the possible names of God.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“We have reason to believe,” continued the lama imperturbably,
“that all such names can be written with not more than nine letters in an
alphabet we have devised.”
“And you have been doing this for three centuries?”
“Yes: we expected it would take us about fifteen thousand years to
complete the task.”
“Oh,” Dr. Wagner looked a little dazed. “Now I see why you wanted
to hire one of our machines. But exactly what is the purpose of this project?”
The lama hesitated for a fraction of a second, and Wagner wondered
if he had offended him. If so, there was no trace of annoyance in the reply.
“Call it ritual, if you like, but it’s a fundamental part of our
belief. All the many names of the Supreme Being — God, Jehovah, Allah, and so
on — they are only man-made labels. There is a philosophical problem of some
difficulty here, which I do not propose to discuss, but somewhere among all the
possible combinations of letters that can occur are what one may call the real
names of God. By systematic permutation of letters, we have been trying to list
them all.”
“I see. You’ve been starting at AAAAAAA... and working up to
ZZZZZZZZ....”
“Exactly — though we use a special alphabet of our own. Modifying
the electromatic typewriters to deal with this is, of course, trivial. A rather
more interesting problem is that of devising suitable circuits to eliminate
ridiculous combinations. For example, no letter must occur more than three
times in succession.”
“Three? Surely you mean two.”
“Three is correct: I am afraid it would take too long to explain
why, even if you understood our language.”
“I’m sure it would,” said Wagner hastily. “Go on.”
“Luckily, it will be a simple matter to adapt your Automatic
Sequence Computer for this work, since once it has been programmed properly it will
permute each letter in turn and print the result. What would have taken us
fifteen thousand years it will be able to do in a hundred days.”
Dr. Wagner was scarcely conscious of the faint sounds from the
Manhattan streets far below. He was in a different world, a world of natural,
not man-made, mountains. High up in their remote aeries these monks had been
patiently at work, generation after generation, compiling their lists of
meaningless words. Was there any limit to the follies of mankind? Still, he must
give no hint of his inner thoughts. The customer was always right....
“There’s no doubt,” replied the doctor, “that we can modify the
Mark V to print lists of this nature. I’m much more worried about the problem
of installation and maintenance. Getting out to Tibet, in these days, is not
going to be easy.”
“We can arrange that. The components are small enough to travel by
air — that is one reason why we chose your machine. If you can get them to
India, we will provide transport from there.”
“And you want to hire two of our engineers?”
“Yes, for the three months that the project should occupy.”
“I’ve no doubt that Personnel can manage that.” Dr. Wagner
scribbled a note on his desk pad. “There are just two other points —”
Before he could finish the sentence the lama had produced a small
slip of paper.
“This is my certified credit balance at the Asiatic Bank.”
“Thank you. It appears to be — ah — adequate. The second matter is
so trivial that I hesitate to mention it — but it’s surprising how often the
obvious gets overlooked. What source of electrical energy have you?”
“A diesel generator providing fifty kilowatts at a hundred and ten
volts. It was installed about five years ago and is quite reliable. It’s made
life at the lamasery much more comfortable, but of course it was really
installed to provide power for the motors driving the prayer wheels.”
“Of course,” echoed Dr. Wagner. “I should have thought of that.”
The view from the parapet was vertiginous, but in time one gets used to anything. After three months, George Hanley was not impressed by the two-thousand-foot swoop into the abyss or the remote checkerboard of fields in the valley below. He was leaning against the wind-smoothed stones and staring morosely at the distant mountains whose names he had never bothered to discover.
This, thought George, was the craziest thing that had ever
happened to him. “Project Shangri-La,” some wit back at the labs had christened
it. For weeks now the Mark V had been churning out acres of sheets covered with
gibberish. Patiently, inexorably, the computer had been rearranging letters in
all their possible combinations, exhausting each class before going on to the
next. As the sheets had emerged from the electromatic typewriters, the monks
had carefully cut them up and pasted them into enormous books.
In another week, heaven be praised, they would have finished. Just
what obscure calculations had convinced the monks that they needn’t bother to
go on to words of ten, twenty, or a hundred letters, George didn’t know. One of
his recurring nightmares was that there would be some change of plan, and that
the high lama (whom they’d naturally called Sam Jaffe, though he didn’t look a
bit like him) would suddenly announce that the project would be extended to
approximately A.D. 2060. They were quite capable of it.
George heard the heavy wooden door slam in the wind as Chuck came
out onto the parapet beside him. As usual, Chuck was smoking one of the cigars
that made him so popular with the monks — who, it seemed, were quite willing to
embrace all the minor and most of the major pleasures of life. That was one
thing in their favor: they might be crazy, but they weren’t bluenoses. Those
frequent trips they took down to the village, for instance...
“Listen, George,” said Chuck urgently. “I’ve learned something
that means trouble.”
“What’s wrong? Isn’t the machine behaving?” That was the worst
contingency George could imagine. It might delay his return, and nothing could
be more horrible. The way he felt now, even the sight of a TV commercial would
seem like manna from heaven. At least it would be some link with home.
“No — it’s nothing like that.” Chuck settled himself on the
parapet, which was unusual because normally he was scared of the drop. “I’ve
just found what all this is about.”
What d’ya mean? I thought we knew.”
“Sure — we know what the monks are trying to do. But we didn’t
know why. It’s the craziest thing—”
“Tell me something new,” growled George.
“— but old Sam’s just come clean with me. You know the way he
drops in every afternoon to watch the sheets roll out. Well, this time he
seemed rather excited, or at least as near as he’ll ever get to it. When I told
him that we were on the last cycle he asked me, in that cute English accent of
his, if I’d ever wondered what they were trying to do. I said, ‘Sure’ — and he
told me.”
“Go on: I’ll buy it.”
“Well, they believe that when they have listed all His names — and
they reckon that there are about nine billion of them — God’s purpose will be
achieved. The human race will have finished what it was created to do, and
there won’t be any point in carrying on. Indeed, the very idea is something
like blasphemy.”
“Then what do they expect us to do? Commit suicide?”
“There’s no need for that. When the list’s completed, God steps in
and simply winds things up... bingo!”
“Oh, I get it. When we finish our job, it will be the end of the
world.”
Chuck gave a nervous little laugh.
“That’s just what I said to Sam. And do you know what happened? He
looked at me in a very queer way, like I’d been stupid in class, and said,
’It’s nothing as trivial as that.’ ”
George thought this over a moment.
“That’s what I call taking the Wide View,” he said presently. “But
what d’you suppose we should do about it? I don’t see that it makes the
slightest difference to us. After all, we already knew that they were crazy.”
“Yes — but don’t you see what may happen? When the list’s complete
and the Last Trump doesn’t blow — or whatever it is they expect — we may get
the blame. It’s our machine they’ve been using. I don’t like the situation one
little bit.”
“I see,” said George slowly. “You’ve got a point there. But this
sort of thing’s happened before, you know. When I was a kid down in Louisiana
we had a crackpot preacher who once said the world was going to end next
Sunday. Hundreds of people believed him — even sold their homes. Yet when
nothing happened, they didn’t turn nasty, as you’d expect. They just decided
that he’d made a mistake in his calculations and went right on believing. I
guess some of them still do.”
“Well, this isn’t Louisiana, in case you hadn’t noticed. There are
just two of us and hundreds of these monks. I like them, and I’ll be sorry for
old Sam when his lifework backfires on him. But all the same, I wish I was
somewhere else.”
“I’ve been wishing that for weeks. But there’s nothing we can do
until the contract’s finished and the transport arrives to fly us out.
“Of course,” said Chuck thoughtfully, “we could always try a bit
of sabotage.”
“Like hell we could! That would make things worse.”
“Not the way I meant. Look at it like this. The machine will
finish its run four days from now, on the present twenty-hours-a-day basis. The
transport calls in a week. O.K. — then all we need to do is to find something
that needs replacing during one of the overhaul periods — something that will
hold up the works for a couple of days. We’ll fix it, of course, but not too
quickly. If we time matters properly, we can be down at the airfield when the
last name pops out of the register. They won’t be able to catch us then.”
“I don’t like it,” said George. “It will be the first time I ever
walked out on a job. Besides, it ’would make them suspicious. No, I’ll sit
tight and take what comes.”
"I still don’t like it,” he said, seven days later, as the tough little mountain ponies carried them down the winding road. “And don’t you think I’m running away because I’m afraid. I’m just sorry for those poor old guys up there, and I don’t want to be around when they find what suckers they’ve been. Wonder how Sam will take it?” “It’s funny,” replied Chuck, “but when I said good-by I got the idea he knew we were walking out on him — and that he didn’t care because he knew the machine was running smoothly and that the job would soon be finished. After that — well, of course, for him there just isn’t any After That....”
George turned in his saddle and stared back up the mountain road.
This was the last place from which one could get a clear view of the lamasery.
The squat, angular buildings were silhouetted against the afterglow of the
sunset: here and there, lights gleamed like portholes in the side of an ocean
liner. Electric lights, of course, sharing the same circuit as the Mark V. How
much longer would they share it? wondered George. Would the monks smash up the
computer in their rage and disappointment? Or would they just sit down quietly
and begin their calculations all over again?”
He knew exactly what was happening up on the mountain at this very
moment. The high lama and his assistants would be sitting in their silk robes,
inspecting the sheets as the junior monks carried them away from the
typewriters and pasted them into the great volumes. No one would be saying
anything. The only sound would be the incessant patter, the never-ending
rainstorm of the keys hitting the paper, for the Mark V itself was utterly
silent as it flashed through its thousands of calculations a second. Three
months of this, thought George, was enough to start anyone climbing up the
wall.
“There she is!” called Chuck, pointing down into the valley. “Ain’t
she beautiful!”
She certainly was, thought George. The battered old DC3 lay at the
end of the runway like a tiny silver cross. In two hours she would be bearing
them away to freedom and sanity. It was a thought worth savoring like a fine
liqueur. George let it roll round his mind as the pony trudged patiently down
the slope.
The swift night of the high Himalayas was now almost upon them.
Fortunately, the road was very good, as roads went in that region, and they
were both carrying torches. There was not the slightest danger, only a certain
discomfort from the bitter cold. The sky overhead was perfectly clear, and
ablaze with the familiar, friendly stars. At least there would be no risk,
thought George, of the pilot being unable to take off because of weather
conditions. That had been his only remaining worry.
He began to sing, but gave it up after a while. This vast arena of
mountains, gleaming like whitely hooded ghosts on every side, did not encourage
such ebullience. Presently George glanced at his watch.
“Should be there in an hour,” he called back over his shoulder to
Chuck. Then he added, in an afterthought: “Wonder if the computer’s finished
its run. It was due about now.”
Chuck didn’t reply, so George swung round in his saddle. He could
just see Chuck’s face, a white oval turned toward the sky.
“Look,” whispered Chuck, and George lifted his eyes to heaven.
(There is always a last time for everything.)
Overhead, without any fuss, the stars were going out.
Vocabulary: To help learners fully understand the audio
and transcript, most vocabulary that might be unknown for this lesson’s level
is provided. Vocab in bold
is more useful for learners at the lesson’s target level. Try to choose 8
to 10 new words to learn from the story (in general, it’s best to try to learn
no more than 8-10 new words a day).
Definitions
are written with the help of various sources including Merriam-Webster’s Learner’s
Dictionary
Restraint: a way
of limiting, controlling, or stopping something — usually plural — often + on.
Inquisitive: tending
to ask questions : having a desire to know or learn more.
Establishment: a place
or organization where people live or do business.
Lama: a Buddhist priest of Tibet or Mongolia.
Compile: to
create (a CD, book, list, etc.) by gathering things (such as songs or pieces of
writing or information).
Devise: to
invent or plan (something that is difficult or complicated).
Label: a word
or phrase that describes or identifies something or someone.
Permutation: one of
the many different ways or forms in which something exists or can be arranged —
usually plural.
Eliminate: to
remove (something that is not wanted or needed) : to get rid of (something).
Ridiculous: extremely
silly or unreasonable.
Folly: the
lack of good sense or judgment : foolishness.
Parapet: a low wall at the edge of a platform, roof, or bridge.
Abyss: a hole
so deep or a space so great that it cannot be measured.
Remote: far away
: distant.
Checkerboard: a board that
is marked with squares of two different colors (such as white and black) and
that is used in various games (such as checkers); something that has this
pattern.
Morose: of a person : very serious, unhappy, and quiet.
Gibberish: foolish,
confused, or meaningless words.
Bluenose: a person who is easily shocked or offended by things
that do not shock or offend other people; prude.
Contingency: something
(such as an emergency) that might happen.
Manna from heaven: something needed that is received unexpectedly.
To come clean: to tell the truth about what happened : to stop
hiding the truth.
To drop in: to make a
brief social visit.
To reckon: informal:
to think or suppose (something) : to believe that (something) is true or
possible.
Blasphemy: great
disrespect shown to God or to something holy.
Queer: strange
or unusual.
Louisiana: A state in the southern USA.
Crackpot a person who is crazy or very strange.
Preacher: a person who speaks publicly about religious
subjects in a Christian church or other public place.
Backfire: to have
the opposite result of what was desired or expected.
Sabotage: the act
of destroying or damaging something deliberately so that it does not work
correctly.
Overhaul: to look
at every part of (something) and repair or replace the parts that do not work.
Pop out: to come
from, into, or out of a place suddenly or briefly.
Pony: a small
horse.
Walk out
on:
to leave (someone) suddenly and unexpectedly : to abandon or desert (someone).
Silhouette: a dark
shape in front of a light background.
Smash up: to break
and destroy (something) in a deliberate way.
Runway: a long strip of ground where airplanes take
off and land.
To bear
away: to carry away.
Slope: ground
that slants downward or upward : ground that slopes.
Torch: a long
stick with material at one end that burns brightly.
To be due: not used
before a noun : required or expected to happen : expected to be in a particular
place at a particular time.
Swung
around: (past of swing) to turn or move quickly in a particular
direction.
Saddle: a
leather-covered seat that is put on the back of a horse.
Oval: having
the shape of an egg : shaped like a circle that is longer than it is wide.
Fuss: activity
or excitement that is unusual and that often is not wanted or necessary.
To go out: to stop
working; especially to stop shinning or burning.
Discussion questions:
1. What happens at the end of the story?
2. Do you think that artificial intelligence could help us to
understand the universe?
3. Does the universe have a purpose?
4. What’s the purpose of life?
5. What does this story say about religion and science?
5. What does this story say about religion and science?
