The Knights of Arthur by Frederik Pohl

In a blasted America where the cities are dangerous, improvised, and half-dead, Sam Dunlap arrives in New York with Arthur, a suitcase-sized brain kept alive in a tank and fitted with typewriter keys for a voice. To protect Arthur and his mysterious cargo, Sam bribes his way into a hotel, then heads into a fortified, lawless former Macy's to buy an electric typewriter, a wheelbarrow, a rifle, and other essentials, discovering a city where canned food rots, skeletons sit forgotten in stalled elevators, and survival is ruled by cash, armed guards, and local strongmen. Back at the hotel, Sam finally reconnects Arthur to a typewriter, and their sarcastic, affectionate banter reveals the odd intimacy of their partnership. But danger closes in when Amy, a cool, pragmatic envoy for New York's powerful Major, arrives to buy Arthur as a solution to the city's labor shortage. Sam resists, only to be knocked unconscious and drawn into a larger bargain. When he wakes tied up, Vern Engdahl has already been negotiating, and the Major's strange postwar authority comes fully into view. In the end, Arthur is transferred into government service, Vern secures his own promotion, and Sam is enlisted as a clerk—another survivor trapped in a bleak, darkly comic world where loyalty, compromise, and the need to belong shape every deal. This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design.