Computer War

by Mack Reynolds

  Computer War

  by Mack Reynolds

  PART ONE

  Chapter I

  Number One said, “Coaids, we are in session.”

  The murmuring dropped away to be replaced by respectful silence.

  With the others, Ross Westley gave full attention to his ultimate leader. He had read somewhere that eventually a person’s character was reflected in his face. Were it true, then Number One was overly fond of the sensual pleasures as well as power. As a young man, he must have been exceptionally handsome; now, at approximately seventy, his face had gone gross, his smile, when it did appear, humorless. His voice, even when addressing these, his closest associates, was empty of inflection save that of command.

  It was said, Ross knew, that since the cruelly suppressed revolt of Maximilian Barker, for years Number Two in the Alphaland hierarchy, the Presidor had only one intimate. His vices, did they exist, and his face proclaimed they existed, were enjoyed in solitude. It was said he was a connoisseur of vintages, in spite of the United Temple’s ban on alcoholic beverages, and a gourmet with a staff of half the best chefs on the planet. It was even said he took tobacco, in some form or other.

  Number One said now, “Coaid Graves.”

  Graves was not a member of the Central Comita and nervously shuffled his papers in this august gathering.

  He said, “The computers reveal that Betastan could be reduced with a short, sharp conflict lasting 2.35 months, plus or minus 3.8 days. The cost in casualties would be 17,900 killed and 310,000 wounded, plus or minus 293 killed and 7,021 wounded. The cost would be 127,895,367,400 gold Alphas, plus or minus 6,730,412.”

  Number One looked at his Deputy of Finance, who indicated unhappiness.

  “Coaid Matheison?”

  Deputy Matheison jiggled a stylo. He was obviously in awe of his leader and his voice came in apology. “It seems fantastically expensive for a war lasting two months. Your Leadership is familiar with the state of the treasury.”

  Marshal of the Armies Rupert Croft-Gordon, without being called upon, said heavily, “The more mechanized modern warfare becomes, the more expensive. Firepower increases geometrically every decade, but so does the cost of keeping a man in the field.”

  Number One looked at him. He said, “We shall hear from you shortly, Marshal Croft-Gordon.”

  The Marshal flushed.

  Number One said, “Coaid Wilkonson, what does our geopolitician think of the project?”

  The nattily goateed Wilkonson was at home in any gathering, from undergraduate students to the highest echelons of the government of his land.

  “The Presidor is already cognizant of the situation. Our planet is divided into two major land areas and two major powers, Alphaland and Betastan, and twenty-three minor powers. Geographically, we almost duplicate each other, and, as all know, down through history this has led to neither one being able to dominate the smaller nations. There has been too delicate a balance. If Alphaland were able to bring its rival to its knees, then the world government which Your Leadership foresees would become an immediate reality. It is doubtful that even a confederation of the minor powers could stand before our glorious march.”

  Temple Bishop Stockwater murmured unctuously, “Amen.”

  Ross Westley, conscious of his comparative youth, seldom spoke at these gatherings. Now he shifted in his chair.

  Number One looked at him. “And our Deputy of Propaganda?”

  Ross said unhappily, looking at the last speaker, and then over at the computer expert, “The figures deal with a quick war between Alphaland and Betastan. What would happen if some of the neutrals, seeing the handwriting on the wall, entered on the side of the enemy?”

  “Well, Coaid?” Number One said to Graves.

  Graves shuffled his papers again. “Of the twenty-three, the computers reveal that only twelve could mobilize in time to affect the conflict. Of these twelve, the computers report that four would favor our cause, four favor that of Betastan, and four remain neutral. None of these twelve are strong neutral powers. If the Presidor would like more details…”

  “Not now.”

  Number One sat and thought. It was a long-time habit of his. Not a sound came from his associates. The story was that almost twenty years ago a deputy had gone into a coughing spasm during one of the Presidor’s retreats into contemplation and had never again attended a command session, losing his office within a matter of weeks.

  He said finally, “And our Academician of Socioeconomics?”

  Academician Philip McGivern was a very old man, his beard almost identical to that of Wilkonson but a dirty gray rather than black.

  He stood to speak, although none of the others had. McGivern was an Old Hand and bore no awe for Number One—they had been through too much together. He looked full into the face of the other and said, “You are acquainted with my opinions, Your Leadership. I assume you merely wish me to fill them in for these, our Coaids. We have reached the crisis that I warned about a full ten years ago. The age of the computer is upon us. Ultimate automation. Our productive capacity alone is sufficient to supply the whole planet with manufactured goods. Our own land is glutted with them and industry is slowing, sometimes shutting down. As our commodities become increasingly cheaper, tariff walls are erected abroad to support the more expensive products of homeland industries. A full sixteen minor countries have all but completely forbidden imports from Alphaland.

  “If the present socioeconomic system of Alphaland is to continue, we must have both foreign markets and sources of raw materials. If this war is successful, and world government achieved, our only policy can be one of reducing the economies of Betastan and all the neutral lands to pastoral societies. In the future, they can supply agricultural and mineral needs; we must supply all industrial production.”

  The old man finished significantly. “Otherwise, we shall have an industrial collapse within three months, plus or minus 3.2 days.” His eyes turned to Graves. “According to my own computers.”

  Ross Westley stirred in his seat again.

  Number One looked at him bleakly. “You seem restive, Coaid.”

  Ross nodded. “Your Leadership, I know my position isn’t usually involved in the preliminary planning stages; however, that is going to have to be sold not only to the rest of the world, except Betastan, but to our own people as well. In spite of the computers predicting an easy victory, those over 300,000 casualties are going to be real people, our citizens. The civil war hasn’t been over so long but that the people are horrified at the idea of more war. And to sell them a war of aggression at this stage—

  Number One interrupted. “My people will go where I lead them.”

  “Yes”—Ross nodded unhappily—“but it will not be a simple task for those of us who have to point out the path.”

  Number One slumped back into thought.

  Afterwards Ross Westley took a pneumatic back to his official quarters. He moved less than briskly through the outer offices, desks and office machines that composed the inner circles of the Commissariat of Information.

  His staff, knowing his mood, didn’t intrude, but near his own office he was brought up, his usual way being barred by a gleaming new computer of exotic design. Ross Westley stopped and glared at it.

  He snapped at one of the senior secretaries, “What in the name of the Holy Ultimate is this?”

  She looked mildly shocked at his language, and inadvertently shot a look over her shoulder but then caught herself in the realization that there would be no Temple Monks in the preserves of the Deputy of Propaganda. However, Jet Pirincin sometimes doubted that her chief was as devout as his high position would call for.

  Jet said, apologetically, “The technicians are still installing it, Coaid Deputy.�
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  “I said, what the hell is it? It’s at the point where I can’t get to my own office through the curd this place is littered with.”

  “Yes, Coaid Deputy Westley,” Jet said. She was mildly surprised. Ross Westley was usually on the easygoing side, as upper echelon coaids went. “As I understand, sir, it is a new development adapted to our commissariat which, by scanning any printed page, can give a plus or minus percentage of two, on the effect of the publication on the public.”

  He looked at her sourly. “What’s new about that, Coaid Pirincin? We’ve got a bank of machines that’ll handle that sort of jetsam.”

  “Yes, Coaid Deputy. I wouldn’t know, Coaid. The technicians know all about it. It’s some new departure.”

  Ross snorted and sidestepped the new equipment to continue to his office. He muttered, “Why not turn the whole nardy government over to these technicians? They’re the only ones who know what’s going on.”

  Jet Pirincin stared after him, more than mildly surprised now. Suppose there had been a Surety Coaid about. Admittedly, Deputy Westley was a member of the Central Comita, though a junior one, but you simply didn’t say such things. It amounted to criticism of the workings of the government. She shook her head. It was her opinion that Ross Westley was a pleasant enough boss to have, and even almost handsome in a craggy sort of way, but she decided it was just as well that his early training to be a teacher of history was thwarted. What might he have taught his students?

  Ross growled at the door which opened automatically before him. It had been a long-time irritation. The damned mechanism didn’t read his mind, it read his physical presence. Suppose his desire was to approach the door but not go through it. Suppose his desire was to come up to the door and press his ear against it, so as to eavesdrop on someone within. The damned door wouldn’t let him! It opened, willy-nilly, upon his coming in proximity.

  He grunted sourly. At least it was an improvement over the doors of his youth. They couldn’t read individuals and opened on the approach of anyone at all!

  He realized he was in a miserable mood. He didn’t like the developments of the Central Comita session this afternoon. He didn’t like them at all. To the extent possible, he had been fighting the trend, but the Deputy of Propaganda was a low man on the totem pole and often not even called on to attend inmost staff sessions.

  He sat and stared moodily and unseeingly at his orderbox. Finally he flicked a finger to activate it and said; “Is there anything on my desk?”

  A voice answered him in detail and he said, “Switch it to Assistant Deputy Bauserman and cut all calls to me for the next two hours.”

  “Yes, Coaid.”

  He sat for a moment, then surreptitiously flicked a small stud on the ring on his right little finger, with the thumbnail of his left hand. From the side of his eyes, he observed what would seem to be a star sapphire set in the ring. It gleamed no more than ordinarily.

  Evidently, he decided, his complaint of a month or so ago had brought results. If the highly developed little mop he had in the ring was effective, his quarters were no longer bugged. Rank had its privileges, even in the Free Democratic Commonwealth of Alphaland.

  He got to his feet, went over to what would appear to be a closet door and opened it. The personal pneumatic car inside was strictly a one-man affair. He wedged into it, closed the door behind him, threw the vacuum control, and began dialing his destination. He was too orientated to the transportation method to be distressed by the sudden drop-away and then the surge of acceleration.

  The car came to a halt and flicked the green light for him. He threw off the vacuum control, opened the door and stepped out. He was at the entry port of one of Alphacity’s more popular parks. He considered momentarily, but then threw the control which would send his car to a nearby parking area. His station would have allowed him to monopolize the place indefinitely but of recent months Ross Westley was, possibly unbeknownst to himself, becoming unhappy about many of his prerogatives.

  He walked toward the park center, as though heading for the famed Interplanetary Zoo, but managed to check, two or three times over, whether or not he was being tailed. As far as he could see, he wasn’t.

  He started for his true destination.

  Tilly Trice looked up at his entrance into her shop. She winked perkily and blew him a kiss, but didn’t get up from her work.

  She was, he told himself all over again, the most unlikely young woman a powerful and wealthy governmental head could ever expect to make himself a fool over. She was tiny. Her figure could hardly have been less, being that of a teenage boy, rather than one of the current TriDi sex symbols. Her face was pert rather than pretty, not to speak of beautiful. Admittedly, her features were clean, her carriage soldier-straight, her voice a dream of gentility.

  But by no stretch of the imagination would any historic period of man’s evolution, whether on Mother Earth or out here in the stars, have pinned the label of glamour girl on Tilly Trice.

  At best, she would have made the grade as the famed girl next door, a boy’s best pal.

  She was fiddling with some red leather and a pot of glue. And it came to him that it was probably real leather. He wondered where she’d imported it from. Holy Ultimate, from Earth? The space freight alone! But then, of course, Tilly Trice’s customers were the most ultra-wealthy the planet provided and were not of Alphaland alone. In fact, she boasted clients in every nation of this world.

  She said, that faint mockery in her voice, “Hi, Coaid.”

  “Don’t call me that,” he growled.

  She went, “Tu, tu, tu. Nardy temper today.”

  “Don’t swear,” he growled. “It doesn’t become a half-pint. It sounds incongruous, a four letter word coming out of your mouth.”

  “Nardy,” she said righteously, “is a five letter word. I know some four letter ones. You want to hear them?”

  “No. Number One held another session today. Graves had the final computer returns.”

  She dropped her light air. “Oh,” she said,

  “They were as bad as I told you they would be. Graves gives Betastan a little better than two months.”

  “Oh, he does!” she said tartly, her attitude suddenly that of a defiant child.

  He eyed her unhappily. “Listen, Till, what do your own computers carry on this? You’ve had enough material turned over to you to program…”

  She was shaking her head to silence him. She got up and approached one of the dusty bookshelves that lined the shop’s walls. She stared unseeingly at a short row of German language first editions.

  Tilly shook her head again. “I won’t give you any jetsam, Rossie. We have a few computers in Betastan, but nothing like the number you have here. None of them have been directed toward the military. Even after my warnings came through.”

  “But why not!”

  She looked at him. “I think it’s a bit difficult to explain our way of thinking to someone with your background, Rossie. But let me use an example. Back in the very old days on Earth, when the nations were perpetually arming—do you remember their terminology? They were all expending the gigantic sums involved in defense. It was a gobbledygook term. Nobody ever spent money on offense, it was always defense. By the oldest traditions of our race, the oldest teachings, he who lives by the sword, dies by it. And over and over again it was seen that those nations which built large military machines sooner or later found occasion to use them. Sometimes because they were attacked, more often they found occasion to attack—by flimsy excuse, or otherwise.”

  “What are you driving at?”

  She sighed. “We’re trying a new theory in Betastan.”

  “It’s doomed to failure, you cloddies! Why do you think I’ve been acting the traitor for these past months? It’s not just Betastan. Don’t you realize that if this war is lost, the whole planet eventually comes under the domination of Number One?”

  She raised her eyebrows at him. “The war isn’t lost.”

 
; He gave up.

  He looked about the small store in despair. Finally he said, “You know, Till, I’ve sometimes wondered how you manage to transmit the information I’ve been giving you. I’ve known you for five years. For two of these I’ve known you to be connected with Betastan espionage. For the past eight months I’ve been feeding you the innermost secrets of Number One’s private sessions with his deputies and closest coaids.”

  She tinkled laughter, but he went on, his forehead wrinkled. “I’ve gone to the trouble of checking out some of the methods our Commissariat of Surety uses to intercept espionage messages, and they’re elaborate far beyond my first conception. Why, Deputy Mark Fielder has more computers devoted to that problem alone than I have in my whole commissariat.”

  Tilly Trice wickedly said, “I shouldn’t trust you with this, Rossie, since you’re not very good at keeping secrets. However”—she reached down and picked up a card from her desk—“I just mail a postcard through your post office.”

  Chapter II

  The Presidor of the Free Democratic Commonwealth of Alphaland—known as Number One throughout the hierarchy—relaxed once he had passed through the doors of his private chambers. Perhaps slumped would have been the better term.

  He headed for the moderately large living room which was his true home, and for the bar which sat in the corner there.

  “This early in the day?” a voice said gently.

  Pater Riggin sat in a leather armchair near the fireplace. He had evidently turned the thermostat down to the point where a fire was desirable. It was, Number One thought wryly, perhaps his lifelong friend’s sole indulgence, sitting before the embers of a primitive blaze.

  He spoke from the bar, even as he poured a double shotglass of Metaxa, imported from far Earth. “I sometimes wonder at the advisability of my having given you a key to my rooms. Sooner or later, in one of your typically absentminded moments, you’ll either lose it, or, in one of your more idealistic spells, you’ll decide that the Presidor of Alphaland has at long last become redundant and hand the key over to one of my none too few political opponents.”