Alpha Ralpha Boulevard

Smith, Cordwainer (pseud. for Paul Linebarger). "Alpha Ralpha Boulevard." F&SF June 1961. Coll. The Best of Cordwainer Smith. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975. Rpts. include Best from Fantasy and Science Fiction: 11. Robert P. Mills, ed. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1962.

Classic story featuring underground machines "in the Downdeep-downdeep" (Doubleday edn. 263) and the Abba-dingo, "a long-obsolete computer set part way up the column of Earthport" (262), which may be a god—or emphatically not (259). Deals with possibility that under the Instrumentality people were fearless but unfree, "Machines who thought they were men" (275; italics indicate telepathic dialog).