No, the legal department need not worry about the consequences of promising Bossy to each faction who demanded her. Each would receive her.
The one problem remaining, engineeringwise, was that there would be a great many Bossies indeed, and as fast as it could be managed they would be scattered over all the world. Bossy did not know all the facts of the universe. Bossy knew only what the science of today knows.
Man has not even scratched the surface of the facts surrounding his own fingernail, as yet. He has not yet even made a dent in the facts about the universe which remain to be discovered. Some of the Bossies would be receiving this new knowledge, others would not. And the total picture of the universe, as it unfolded, as the pieces were put together, must be made available to every man. Otherwise, Bossy would be self-defeating.
There must be intercommunication between all the Bossies.
It was not difficult to found the principles on which this would operate. Bossy functioned already by a harmonic vibration which activated her selectors. This vibration needed to be broadcast on the same principle as the radio wave. No new principle was needed. Any cookbook engineer could do it-even those who believe what they read in the textbooks and consider pure assumption to be proved fact.
It was not difficult to design the sending and receiving apparatus, nor was extra time consumed since this small alteration was being made contiguous with the production set up time of the rest.
The production of countless copies of the brain floss itself was likewise no real problem, no more difficult than using a keypunched master card to duplicate others by the thousands or millions on the old-fashioned hole punch computer system.
There was no hitch anywhere along the line. Government interference had ceased, the raw stocks suppliers were long practiced in giving Kennedy Enterprises preferential treatment on any sudden orders, Kennedy's own organization was long skilled in making quick changes and adaptations in his various functions.
Complete Bossies began to roll off the production line. They were crated and made ready for shipment long before the promised date. The contingency time for unexpected delays, based upon sound industrial engineering standards, had not been used.
And every retail outlet of Kennedy's entire chain began to receive crates of a new piece of household equipment which would go on sale within a short time.
* * * *
Steve Flynn received his orders to set up another world-wide television coverage with a shrug of his shoulders. This was old stuff now. He merely had to breathe the word that a new announcement was to be made concerning Bossy and he got instant cooperation.
But when he was told that after the announcement of Bossy's availability to everyone had been made, Joe would step in front of the cameras and give an explanation of what Bossy meant, he shook his head, blew a long breath through his lips.
"Oh, brother!” he muttered. Then to Kennedy, “Look, Mr. Kennedy, will you tell Joe, please, that these aren't Brains he's talking to-that these are just people who don't know nothing from nothing, and don't particularly want to! Will you tell him he can't talk about evergreen trees or jigsaw puzzles or anything like that and expect to get across?"
"I understand he's going to talk about water,” Kennedy answered with a chuckle.
"Oh, brother,” Steve groaned. “And half the people will wind up thinking that Bossy is just a hot-water heater or a new kind of bathtub! Well, at least, will you please ask him not to mention ... what was it he and Hoskins were talking about the other day ... multi-valued physics?"
He looked as if he were going to break down and weep.
He was apprehensive all the way through the preliminaries of the broadcast. A production was made of it, for the world had come to a stop and was listening. The world sat stunned at the announcement that everyone would have Bossy.
No one had ever believed that any except a special privileged few would benefit from her. They did not grasp it all at once. They sat in the stunned immobility of a poverty-stricken man who has been told, without warning, that he is a millionaire. Their minds, like his, could conceive of only the simplest poor uses for it, or wild extravagancies.
They saw Kennedy's face on the screen as he was introduced. They saw Billings again, who told them he intended to make another try at renewing his youth, that he had learned a great deal since his failure. They met Hoskins who confined his short talk to cybernetic principles understood only by a few like minds. They met Carney and Mabel again. Even Steve Flynn, usually confining himself to background operation, consented to say a few words about Bossy. He tried to keep his voice and talk out of the pitchman framework of pushing a new kitchen can opener which would also peel potatoes. He almost succeeded.
He did succeed in restoring a sense of the familiar to his listening and watching audience. They began to breathe again. There was enough of the commercial about his appearance and manner, enough of that frantic urgency-as if a sponsor were standing just out of sight with a long black whip-to make them realize, as had nothing else about the program, that Bossy was available to them at the nearest Kennedy Enterprise store, and at a price which they could probably afford.
Some of the jaws returned to a rhythmic chewing of gum, some realized their beer glasses needed refilling, the odor of burning food on the stove penetrated some nostrils. Enough normalcy was restored that they were able to perceive Joe as he stepped before the cameras, and their minds picked up at least some of the things he said.
"There have been many misconceptions about Bossy,” Joe began his talk. He hoped, contrary to Steve's predictions, that he would get across, for the things he had to say were a summation of what Bossy meant to the world, and to each man.
"One of the most prevalent misconceptions has been that since Bossy can think faster and more accurately than a man, Man will cease to think, become an indolent slave of the machine and thus fail to reach his destiny.
"The adding machine can think faster than a clerk with a pencil and paper, but it has not destroyed business. The automobile can go places faster and easier than a man can walk there, but it has not stopped man from wanting to go. These things are simply tools which man uses.
"Bossy is just a tool. Bossy can answer your questions, but only if you ask them.
"There is another even wilder misconception. It has been said that Bossy is a soulless machine, and man, being guided by her, will become likewise no more than a soulless monster, losing his sense of faith, yearning, reaching.
"Bossy is a product of science. There is not now, there never has been any real issue between science and faith. Both strive for the same identical goal; both seek comprehension; both wish to benefit man that he live happier, healthier, more harmoniously with himself and with his neighbors. Man seeks to comprehend, to understand the forces which govern his life. The sometimes apparently different paths taken by science and faith are of no consequence in comparison with man's yearning to know.
"Truth frightens man. He plants illusion in the debris of his mind to hide him from the clean white light she brings. His arguments defeat her wisdom. In his preconceptions and prejudices he dictates, in advance, what form she must take, what garments she must wear; and because of this he often does not recognize her when they meet. His illusion drives her from him.
"And yet he still yearns and seeks for truth.
"That is the inherent nature of man. That is the inherent nature of intellect, itself. It seeks to know. Bossy will not replace this drive of mankind. Rather, she will supplement it, and in its furtherance, Bossy is man's tool. Like all the other tools, Bossy is for man's use.
"Yes, she will give you immortality. And therein lies another misconception. If you are sitting on a hillside above a lake of water, and you point your finger at the lake and command it, ‘Come and bathe me,’ it will be unmoved. It will ripple and sparkle in the sunlight, and not heed you.
"Water obeys certain laws of the universe. To get bathed, you must use at least some of those laws. As yet m
an has no mastery of forces which will make that water leap out of its bed and come up the hillside to bathe him.
"But wait a minute. Yes, he does have at least some of the laws governing water under his command. He has pumps and pipes. He can and does command the water to come up the hillside to bathe him, and it obeys him when, and only when, he makes use of the laws which have been determined through the applications of science.
"Bossy is a product of science. Bossy will obey you when you command her to renew your youth only when you make use of the laws of life which must be applied to the cells of your body to restore your vigorous youth. Bossy is no thing of magic, no super being. Bossy is only a tool. And tools are used successfully only when they conform to the laws which operate in the universe.
"Bossy is only a tool. She will not plead with you to leam and use the laws of life and matter. She will not threaten you, cajole you, bribe you, promise you either the fires of hell or the delights of heaven. If you are seeking a parent substitute, a return to mother's arms, Bossy will give you cold comfort. Bossy does not care.
"Water does not care whether you bathe in it or drown in it. The mountains do not care whether you climb them or go around them. The stars do not care whether man reaches them or not. The universe does not care whether man masters all the relationships of its forces and processes, or dies because he refuses to master them. Life continues as it uses those relationships to further its growth. It ceases when it becomes overcome by still other forces which it cannot master.
"This is cold comfort for those who would pay any price for security, lethargy, the return to the mothering womb, no, even farther back than that for even the womb is a struggle, to nothingness.
"But it is bright hope indeed for those who see something more in store for man than indolence and endless repetitions of purposelessness of generation after generation. For it means that there is still a challenge facing man.
"That challenge is Bossy. She will not command you, or cajole you. She does not care whether you are made immortal or whether you would prefer clinging to your thin and single-valued ideas and prejudices-and die. But there she sits. She is a tool who will heat your homes, or bring you entertainment, or cook your food, or bathe the baby, or walk the dog, or figure your income tax. She will do these things as she is commanded, and not care whether they are big or small. Because Bossy is only a tool.
"She can also give you a tremendous comprehension in time, the nature of which we do not yet even dream. She can give you immortality. But you must rise to her requirements. You cannot make use of the tool unless you comprehend something of the laws of the universe governing life.
"There she sits. She is yours. She is not a threat. But she is a challenge. She is perhaps the greatest challenge which mankind has ever been called upon to meet. She is a challenge to your willingness to admit that you might not already have all the answers. She is a challenge to your willingness to learn rather than to argue.
"Ladies and gentlemen of the world. There she sits. Bossy is yours."
THE END
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Copyright © 1956, 1981, by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley based upon material copyright © 1954 by Street and Smith Inc.
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ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Mark Clifton (1906-1960) was the author of a number of highly regarded science fiction stories and novels including Eight Keys to Eden and When They Come From Space. His career was tragically cut off in mid-flight by his unexpected death in the mid-1960s. He is perhaps best known for his series of stories in Astounding Science Fiction about Ralph Kennedy, government psychologist, and his humorous encounters with people possessing psychic abilities, which are available from PageTurnerEditions.com as What Thin Partitions: The Hilarious Misadventures of Ralph Kennedy Psi-cologist.
Frank Riley (1915-1996) was a syndicated travel columnist and editor for the Los Angeles Times, and editor of Los Angeles magazine and the host of his own local radio program. He was also the author of the highly acclaimed “Father Anton Dymek” mysteries. They'd Rather Be Right is his only work of book-length science fiction.
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They'd Rather Be Right, or The Forever Machine Page 19
