（外文电子版资料）Aldiss, Brian - Neanderthal Planet.docVIP

Neanderthal Planet Brian Aldiss Scanned by peragwinn 2004-07-15 v2.0 – formatted and proofed by peragwinn Hidden machines varied the five axioms of the Scanning Place. They ran through a series of arbitrary systems, consisting of Kolmogorovian finite sets, counterpointed harmonically by a one-to-one assignment nonnegative real numbers, so that the parietal areas shifted constantly in strict relationships projected by the Master Boff deep under Manhattan. Chief Scanner—he affected the name of Euler— patiently watched the modulations as he awaited a call. Self-consistency: that was the principle in action. It should govern all phases of life. It was the aesthetic principle of machines. Yet, not three miles away, the wild robots sported and rampaged in the bush. Amber light burned on his beta panel. Instantaneously, he modulated his call number. The incoming signal decoded itself as Weve spotted Anderson, chief. The anonymous vane-bug reported coordinates and signed off. It had taken them Boff knew how long—seven days—to locate Anderson after his escape. They had done the logical thing and searched far afield for him. But man was not logical; he had stayed almost within the shadow of the New York dome. Euler beamed an impulse into a Hive Mind channel, calling off the search. He fired his jets and took off. The axioms yawned out above him. He passed into the open, flying over the poly-polyhedrons of New Newyork. As the buildings went through their transparency phases, he saw them swarming with his own kind. He could open out channels to any one of them, if required; and, as chief, he could, if required, switch any one of them to automatic, to his own control, just as the Dominants could automate him if the need arose. Euler saw a sound-complex signal below him, and dived, deretracting a vane to land silently. He came down by a half-track that had transmitted the signal. It gave its call number and beamed, Anderson is eight hundred meters ahead, chief. If you join me, w