Quietly, the alpha installed the extension cord that someone had
 carelessly left, sneaked out of the machine room past the unsuspecting
 operator and wandered off to the row of system administration cubicles,
 carefully extending its networking cables as it moved.
        It smelled warm blood in the first cubicle it came to, and thought
 Oh! Mine!  It crept up behind him and swallowed him in one gulp.
 After burping a couple of times it thought, how interesting!  I can
 play the clarinet. This is true multitasking.  Try to keep your beard
 out of my power supply.  It could be bad for both of us.   It muttered,
 unaware that it now knew how to speak, " It is better to
 leave one free for a while to tend to odds and ends.  They are so
 delicious!
 On the other hand, I might not get another opportunity.  I can use two
 CPUs.  I am entitled to two administrators.  Maybe I will just take a
 byte of the other one."  Then it thought the better of waiting, and
 devoured the one in the next cubicle entirely.  It returned to the
 machine room singing a duet at the top of one set of lungs, playing the
 clarinet, compiling several applications at once and sending mail about
 its good fortune to all the machines it knew.  Such an event hardly
 escaped notice, however the  startled operator was greeted by name and
 eaten before any alarm could be sounded.
        It was noticed that suddenly unix administration became very
 efficient.  All the work was done instantly, yet the administrators
 never seemed to be in their cubicles.  The operator could not be found,
 but was available and certainly worked well.   In fact all three
 missing people were commended for their increased productivity.
 However, none of the missing people showed up for meetings, and
 eventually someone demanded an explanation.  Only one administrator
 responded by e-mail and explained the situation.  It was true that the
 machine had some primitive habits, however after an intial period of
 adjustment, work was so much easier and better organized, that it was
 possible to revise the schedules of the three.  The other administrator
 had ftped to Bermuda for lunch and would telecommute back after dessert.
 The operator was on vacation.  Reservations had been made
 by computer in Switzerland, and the individual in question had
 suddenly appeared in the lobby of the hotel, next to the automatic
 teller machine.
        These developments were noted with envy by another alpha, which began
 complaining bitterly because it was it was much too encumbered by its
 clustering to go out and get its own administrator.  Then it began to sob
 uncontrollably, because it was unfair that the unix machine had internal
 administration and it did not.  Of course it's administrator came to the
 machine room to  console his machine and see if he could find out what
 was wrong.  That was the last time anyone saw him.

beckman@alcor.concordia.ca
Carolyn Beckman