by Isaac Asimov
Lynn rose to his feet heavily, the dark pouches under his eyes, which ordinarily lent his ugly face a look of savage foreboding, more prominent than ever. 'It's going to be up to us to figure out ways and means of telling a humanoid from a human and then finding the humanoids.'
'How quickly?' muttered Laszlo.
'Not later than five minutes before they get together,' barked Lynn, 'and I don't know when that will be.'
Breckenridge nodded. 'I'm glad you're with us now, sir. I'm to bring you back to Washington for conference, you know.'
Lynn raised his eyebrows. 'All right.'
He wondered if, had he delayed longer in being convinced, he might not have been replaced forthwith—if some other Chief of the Bureau of Robotics might not be conferring in Washington. He suddenly wished earnestly that exactly that had come to pass.
The First Presidential Assistant was there, the Secretary of Science, the Secretary of Security, Lynn himself, and Breckenridge. Five of them sitting about a table in the dungeons of an underground fortress near Washington.
Presidential Assistant Jeffreys was an impressive man, handsome in a white-haired and just-a-trifle-jowly fashion, solid, thoughtful and as unobtrusive, politically, as a Presidential Assistant ought to be.
He spoke incisively. 'There are three questions that face us as I see it. First, when are the humanoids going to get together? Second, where are they going to get together? Third, how do we stop them before they get together?'
Secretary of Science Amberley nodded convulsively at that. He had been Dean of Northwestern Engineering before his appointment. He was thin, sharp-featured and noticeably edgy. His forefinger traced slow circles on the table.
'As far as when they'll get together,' he said. 'I suppose it's definite that it won't be for some time.'
'Why do you say that?' asked Lynn sharply.
'They've been in the U.S. at least a month already. So Security says.'
Lynn turned automatically to look at Breckenridge, and Secretary of Security Macalaster intercepted the glance. Macalaster said, 'The information is reliable. Don't let Breckenridge's apparent youth fool you, Dr. Lynn. That's part of his value to us. Actually, he's thirty-four and has been with the department for ten years. He has been in Moscow for nearly a year and without him, none of this terrible danger would be known to us. As it is, we have most of the details.'
'Not the crucial ones,' said Lynn.
Macalaster of Security smiled frostily. His heavy chin and close-set eyes were well-known to the public but almost nothing else about him was. He said, 'We are all finitely human, Dr. Lynn. Agent Breckenridge has done a great deal.'
Presidential Assistant Jeffreys cut in. 'Let us say we have a certain amount of time. If action at the instant were necessary, it would have happened before this. It seems likely that they are waiting for a specific time. If we knew the place, perhaps the time would become self-evident.
'If they are going to TC a target, they will want to cripple us as much as possible, so it would seem that a major city would have to be it. In any case, a major metropolis is the only target worth a TC bomb. I think there are four possibilities: Washington, as the administrative center; New York, as the financial center; and Detroit and Pittsburgh as the two chief industrial centers.'
Macalaster of Security said, 'I vote for New York. Administration and industry have both been decentralized to the point where the destruction of any one particular city won't prevent instant retaliation.'
'Then why New York?' asked Amberley of Science, perhaps more sharply than he intended. 'Finance has been decentralized as well.'
'A question of morale. It may be they intend to destroy our will to resist, to induce surrender by the sheer horror of the first blow. The greatest destruction of human life would be in the New York Metropolitan area———'
'Pretty cold-blooded,' muttered Lynn.
'I know,' said Macalaster of Security, 'but they're capable of it, if they thought it would mean final victory at a stroke. Wouldn't we———'
Presidential Assistant Jeffreys brushed back his white hair. 'Let's assume the worst. Let's assume that New York will be destroyed some time during the winter, preferably immediately after a serious blizzard when communications are at their worst and the disruption of utilities and food supplies in fringe areas will be most serious in their effect. Now, how do we stop them?'
Amberley of Science could only say, 'Finding ten men in two hundred and twenty million is an awfully small needle in an awfully large haystack.'
Jeffreys shook his head. 'You have it wrong. Ten humanoids among two hundred and twenty million humans.'
'No difference,' said Amberley of Science. 'We don't know that a humanoid can be differentiated from a human at sight. Probably not.' He looked at Lynn. They all did.
Lynn said heavily, 'We in Cheyenne couldn't make one that would pass as human in the daylight.'
'But They can,' said Macalaster of Security, 'and not only physically. We're sure of that. They've advanced mentalic procedures to the point where They can reel off the micro-electronic pattern of the brain and focus it on the positronic pathways of the robot.'
Lynn stared. 'Are you implying that They can create the replica of a human being complete with personality and memory?'
'I am.'
'Of specific human beings?'
'That's right.'
'Is this also based on Agent Breckenridge's findings?'
'Yes. The evidence can't be disputed.'
Lynn bent his head in thought for a moment. Then he said, 'Then ten men in the United States are not men but humanoids. But the originals would have had to be available to them. They couldn't be Orientals, who would be too easy to spot, so they would have to be East Europeans. How would they be introduced into this country, then? With the radar network over the entire world border as tight as a drum, how could They introduce any individual, human, or humanoid, without our knowing it?'
Macalaster of Security said, 'It can be done. There are certain legitimate seepages across the border. Businessmen, pilots, even tourists. They're watched, of course, on both sides. Still ten of them might have been kidnaped and used as models for humanoids. The humanoids would then be sent back in their place. Since we wouldn't expect such a substitution, it would pass us by. If they were Americans to begin with, there would be no difficulty in their getting into this country. It's as simple as that.'
'And even their friends and family could not tell the difference?'
'We must assume so. Believe me, we've been waiting for any report that might imply sudden attacks of amnesia or troublesome changes in personality. We've checked on thousands.'
Amberley of Science stared at his finger tips. 'I think ordinary measures won't work. The attack must come from the Bureau of Robotics and I depend on the chief of that bureau.'
Again eyes turned sharply, expectantly, on Lynn.
Lynn felt bitterness rise. It seemed to him that this was what the conference came to and was intended for. Nothing that had been said had not been said before. He was sure of that. There was no solution to the problem, no pregnant suggestion. It was a device for the record, a device on the part of men who gravely feared defeat and who wished the responsibility for it placed clearly and unequivocally on someone else.
And yet there was justice in it. It was in robotics that We had fallen short: And Lynn was not Lynn merely. He was Lynn of Robotics and the responsibility had to be his.
He said, 'I will do what I can.'
He spent a wakeful night and there was a haggardness about both body and soul when he sought and attained another interview with Presidential Assistant Jeffreys the next morning. Breckenridge was there, and though Lynn would have preferred a private conference, he could see the justice in the situation. It was obvious that Breckenridge had attained enormous influence with the government as a result of his successful Intelligence work. Well, why not?
Lynn said, 'Sir, I am considering the possibilit
y that we are hopping uselessly to enemy piping.'
'In what way?'
'I'm sure that however impatient the public may grow at times, and however legislators sometimes find it expedient to talk, the government at least recognizes the world stalemate to be beneficial. They must recognize it also. Ten humanoids with one TC bomb is a trivial way of breaking the stalemate.'
"The destruction of fifteen million human beings is scarcely trivial.'
'It is from the world power standpoint. It would not so demoralize us as to make us surrender or so cripple us as to convince us we could not win. There would just be the same old planetary death war that both sides have avoided so long and so successfully. And all They would have accom-plished is to force us to fight minus one city. It's not enough.'
'What do you suggest?' said Jeffreys coldly. 'That They do not have ten humanoids in our country? That there is not a TC bomb waiting to get together?'
'I'll agree that those things are here, but perhaps for some reason greater than just midwinter bomb madness.'
'Such as?'
'It may be that the physical destruction resulting from the humanoids getting together is not the worst thing that can happen to us. What about the moral and intellectual destruction that comes of their being here at all? With all due respect to Agent Breckenridge, what if They intended for us to find out about the humanoids; what if the humanoids are never supposed to get together, but merely to remain separate in order to give us something to worry about?'
'Why?'
'Tell me this. What measures have already been taken against the humanoids? I suppose that Security is going through the files of all citizens who have ever been across the border or close enough to it to make kidnaping possible. I know, since Macalaster mentioned it yesterday, that they are following up suspicious psychiatric cases. What else?'
Jeffreys said, 'Small X-ray devices are being installed in key places in the large cities. In the mass arenas, for instance———'
'Where ten humanoids might slip in among a hundred thousand spectators of a football game or an air-polo match?'
'Exactly.'
'And concert halls and churches?'
'We must start somewhere. We can't do it all at once.'
'Particularly when panic must be avoided,' said Lynn. 'Isn't that so? It wouldn't do to have the public realize that at any unpredictable moment, some unpredictable city and its human contents would suddenly cease to exist.'
'I suppose that's obvious. What are you driving at?'
Lynn said strenuously, 'That a growing fraction of our national effort will be diverted entirely into the nasty problem of what Amberley called finding a very small needle in a very large haystack. We'll be chasing our tails madly, while They increase their research lead to the point where we find we can no longer catch up; when we must surrender without the chance even of snapping our fingers in retaliation.
'Consider further that this news will leak out as more and more people become involved in our countermeasures and more and more people begin to guess what we're doing. Then what? The panic might do us more harm than any one TC bomb.'
The Presidential Assistant said irritably, 'In Heaven's name, man, what do you suggest we do, then?'
'Nothing,' said Lynn. 'Call their bluff. Live as we have lived and gamble that They won't dare break the stalemate for the sake of a one-bomb head start.'
'Impossible!' said Jeffreys. 'Completely impossible. The welfare of all of Us is very largely in my hands, and doing nothing is the one thing I cannot do. I agree with you, perhaps, that X-ray machines at sports arenas are a kind of skin-deep measure that won't be effective, but it has to be done so that people, in the aftermath, do not come to the bitter conclusion that we tossed our country away for the sake of a subtle line of reasoning that encouraged do-nothingism. In fact, our countergambit will be active indeed.'
'In what way?'
Presidential Assistant Jeffreys looked at Breckenridge. The young Security officer, hitherto calmly silent, said, 'It's no use talking about a possible future break in the stalemate when the stalemate is broken now. It doesn't matter whether these humanoids explode or do not. Maybe they are only a bait to divert us, as you say. But the fact remains that we are a quarter of a century behind in robotics, and that may be fatal. What other advances in robotics will there be to surprise us if war does start? The only answer is to divert our entire force immediately, now, into a crash program of robotics research, and the first problem is to find the humanoids. Call it an exercise in robotics, if you will, or call it the prevention of the death of fifteen million men, women, and children.'
Lynn shook his head helplessly. 'You can't. You'd be playing into their hands. They want us lured into the one blind alley while they're free to advance in all other directions.'
Jeffreys said impatiently, 'That's your guess. Breckenridge has made his suggestion through channels and the government has approved, and we will begin with an all-Science conference.'
'All-Science?'
Breckenridge said, 'We have listed every important scientist of every branch of natural science. They'll all be at Cheyenne. There will be only one point on the agenda: How to advance robotics. The major specific subheading under that will be: How to develop a receiving device for the electromagnetic fields of the cerebral cortex that will be sufficiently delicate to distinguish between a protoplasmic human brain and a positronic humanoid brain.'
Jeffreys said, 'We had hoped you would be willing to be in charge of the conference.'
'I was not consulted in this.'
'Obviously time was short, sir. Do you agree to be in charge?'
Lynn smiled briefly. It was a matter of responsibility again. The responsibility must be clearly that of Lynn of Robotics. He had the feeling it would be Breckenridge who would really be in charge. But what could he do?
He said, 'I agree.'
Breckenridge and Lynn returned together to Cheyenne, where that evening Laszlo listened with a sullen mistrust to Lynn's description of coming events.
Laszlo said, 'While you were gone, Chief, I've started putting five experimental models of humanoid structure through the testing procedures. Our men are on a twelve-hour day, with three shifts overlapping. If we've got to arrange a conference, we're going to be crowded and red-taped out of everything. Work will come to a halt.'
Breckenridge said, 'That will be only temporary. You will gain more than you lose.'
Laszlo scowled. 'A bunch of astrophysicists and geo-chemists around won't help a damn toward robotics.'
'Views from specialists of other fields may be helpful.'
'Are you sure? How do we know that there is any way of detecting brain waves or that, even if we can, there is a way of differentiating human and humanoid by wave pattern? Who set up the project, anyway?'
'I did,' said Breckenridge.
'You did? Are you a robotics man?'
The young Security agent said calmly, 'I have studied robotics.'
'That's not the same thing.'
'I've had access to text material dealing with Russian robotics—in Russian. Top-secret material well in advance of anything you have here.'
Lynn said ruefully, 'He has us there, Laszlo.'
'It was on the basis of that material,' Breckenridge went on, 'that I suggested this particular line of investigation. It is reasonably certain that in copying off the electromagnetic pattern of a specific human mind into a specific positronic brain, a perfectly exact duplicate cannot be made. For one thing, the most complicated positronic brain small enough to fit into a human-sized skull is hundreds of times less complex than the human brain. It can't pick up all the overtones, therefore, and there must be some way to take advantage of that fact.'
Laszlo looked impressed despite himself and Lynn smiled grimly. It was easy to resent Breckenridge and the coming intrusion of several hundred scientists of non-robotics specialties, but the problem if self was an intriguing one. There was that consolation, at leas
t.
It came to him quietly.
Lynn found he had nothing to do but sit in his office alone, with an executive position that had grown merely titular. Perhaps that helped. It gave him time to think, to picture the creative scientists of half the world converging on Cheyenne.
It was Breckenridge who, with cool efficiency, was handling the details of preparation. There had been a kind of confidence in the way he said, 'Let's get together and we'll lick Them.'
Let's get together.
It came to Lynn so quietly that anyone watching Lynn at that moment might have seen his eyes blink slowly twice— but surely nothing more.
He did what he had to do with a whirling detachment that kept him calm when he felt that, by all rights, he ought to be going mad.
He sought out Breckenridge in the other's improvised quarters. Breckenridge was alone and frowning. 'Is anything wrong, sir?'
Lynn said wearily, 'Everything's right, I think. I've invoked martial law.'
'What!'
'As chief of a division I can do so if I am of the opinion the situation warrants it. Over my division I can then be dictator. Chalk up one for the beauties of decentralization.'
'You will rescind that order immediately.' Breckenridge took a step forward. 'When Washington hears this, you will be ruined.'
'I'm ruined anyway. Do you think I don't realize that I've been set up for the role of the greatest villain in American history: the man who let Them break the stalemate? I have nothing to lose—and perhaps a great deal to gain.'
He laughed a little wildly. 'What a target the Division of Robotics will be, eh, Breckenridge? Only a few thousand men to be killed by a TC bomb capable of wiping out three hundred square miles in one micro-second. But five hundred of those men would be our greatest scientists. We would be in the peculiar position of having to fight a war with our brains shot out, or surrendering. I think we'd surrender.'
'But this is impossible. Lynn, do you hear me? Do you understand? How could the humanoids pass our security provisions? How could they get together?'
