A.E. Van Vogt - Novel 32 - Computerworld

by Computerworld

  Some puzzling aspects to that. What, for example, is the identity of one of the naked people possessed of bio-magnetic profile energy from another person? Are there now two people with the original profile identity? Or is there feedback from the naked body which evokes that body’s identity?

  Also, what will I do without that stored energy? I notice at once it doesn’t change my thoughts or my augmented sense of self. I decide that when the “advanced” education flashed through my circuits, it was recorded everywhere. And is now, and will henceforth always be, a part of my systems.

  So I’m still the new “me,” Still watching, thinking, reacting cynically. Still scheming for power. So in that respect the goal-seeking thought configuration hasn’t changed things.

  1 have the distinct cynical thought: The dead shall rise. All right, they have risen. And it has added to the number of mouths I’m supposed to feed every day.

  While I’m waiting, still uneasy, I let automatic things happen throughout my system. Right now that—automatically—includes starting the transport of grains, meats, and vegetables toward all those areas where the naked people are milling around. As I become aware of what I’m doing, I—so to speak—shrug. And let it happen. My decision: I’ll feed them as best I can while I await further developments.

  I have, of course, been watching, and doing scan-backs (for verification) of the mechanics involved in the process by which these people have actually been coming out of the ground. As I have observed it during my lifetime association with the human race, one of the rigidities of this planet has always been the hardness, in terms of human flesh, of the soil. Takes a shovel, with lots of muscle applied to separate even a few cubic inches of the stuff. Takes a machine to dig a hole quickly. And some of those million-year-old graves must be down hundreds of feet beneath rocks and hardened ground stuff.

  Yet, abruptly, for many, many minutes now that tough soil has been separating. And naked bodies have been scrambling up, and out. Almost, it’s as if they’ve been coming out of water, or empty air.

  Astonished anew, I scan my memory banks. But all I can come up with is the concept of the universe as illusion. Matter ain’t really real—say the philosophers. Makes no sense in physics. But maybe to a goal-seeking thought configuration the whole place is mush.

  I keep on considering the improbable event; but simultaneously I’m busy.

  All over the country phones are beginning to ring, all with a single purpose. Relatives of the recent dead (the last forty years or so) are getting frantic calls. And then, suddenly, they’re frantic. Minutes later, I’m driving a million, two million, three million people to cemeteries.

  Again, the words that are spoken have a uniformity. Mostly, they express anxiety about the dead. In many instances there is even a terrified anxiety that the arisen dead persons will be bewildered. And, as a result, will do foolish things. And get themselves lost or hurt.

  What is interesting is how quickly the initial incredulousness in all these people yields to the feeling of, not necessarily acceptance, but of a willingness to go. And that, also, seems to be an essentially uniform reaction: It won’t hurt to go to the grave. It won’t hurt to make sure, if nothing else, that it is not being vandalized . . . is the reaction.

  And so there is that kaleidoscope of movement. I see faces, bodies, legs walking and running. Masses of people surging. As usual, there are at least two main lines, one going one way and another the opposite. And, of course, there’re the individuals fighting their way cross-wise through these numerous packs.

  People are crying, or sobbing, as they search. I hear voices: “This is where dad was buried.” “Joe’s grave was right here.” “Hey, mom, where are you?” “Oh, God, please let me find my husband. He was buried on this spot.” “My wife, my darling—”

  As these matters develop, I’m beginning to notice patterns.

  At first it seemed an allness thing. But presently another reality ‘emerges by way of my Eye-Os. The “dead” are rising, in some instances, over enormous areas. But not—and this is the new awareness—not everywhere.

  I am presently able to observe, and to deduce, that for millions of years sentient life gathered near the watering places. And when the death time came, the corpses were interred close by. The passing of countless millennia, the shifting of riverbeds, and the need to wander far for food, scattered each generation of survivors. It was a vast movement. But it had its limits.

  Statistically, it was within these limits that I also have most of my Eye-O ports.

  Once I got the pattern, partly from isolated highway Eye-Os, partly from moving vehicles in remote areas, I begin to activate rescue machines. I explain the situation to the locals. And I solicit volunteers to go out in my first-aid machines to assist the lost, the confused, and the loners in remote areas.

  It’s no problem for me to do all this. Fact is, I’m curious. There’s data here for me. New languages. Unusual looking bodies. I record it all.

  It is generally agreed by historians—and, accordingly, that’s my programming—that the total number of people who ever lived on earth before the 18th century, was a mere fraction of what came later.

  So, as I look out over the visible spaces and people, I notice they’re 71 percent white and mixed white. These are the people, and their descendants who started to arrive in the early 17th century, and then in vast numbers beginning in the 1800s: West-European-transplanted-to-America faces and bodies. In my instant fashion I count 495 million plus. Of these only about 2 percent have the look of being from before the discovery of America. 20 percent are black and 7 percent oriental.

  Among these early types children predominate. The children are of all ages. But I also see tiny, writhing objects lying on the ground. Newborn babies. Day-old babies. Week-old babies. I do instant back-scans—as I notice them—and observe, then, that they also scrambled out of the ground. It is impossible to count them all because they are hidden behind or below small objects. But I estimate that there are several millions.

  People have become aware of them. Women have been picking them up. And even men are now cradling the little beings in their arms, trying to protect them from the pushing, thrusting, screaming mobs.

  As I watch this maddest scene of all human history, my attitude becomes: Okay, Glay Tate, I have to admit that was, and is, quite a performance. I don’t understand it. But maybe, as they used to say, it makes sense on another level of reality.

  Meanwhile, I can’t see that it has changed my situation.

  I am in the middle of giving myself this idiotic reassurance, when—

  There I am back in that phone booth, looking down from the ceiling Eye-O at Soam Roberts-Glay Tate. And what momentarily blanks me is that he’s just beginning to answer the question I asked him just before the nightmare hit me.

  “The physical universe,” explains Glay Tate, “has been brought down to a level of small-goal configurations, the largest of which are isolated suns—isolated from each other by a condition known as space. Such a toning-down limitation does not apply to the goal-seeking thought configuration.”

  “So?” I ask.

  Believe it or not I actually listen to all that blah. My high speed reflexes are actually that much out of operation. And I even utter that one-word cynical question before—suddenly—memory . . .

  Hey, what the hell!

  Good God, that was a projection into the future. By me. . . . The dead shall rise—

  Holy smoke! Can it be that dumb, stupid human profile energy has got me capable of living in a fantasy world like any human nut? Because it was as real as life.

  Is it possible that, now that I can deal in past and future time, all my projections will be equally real? Abruptly, I refuse to believe it. Now that I’ve spotted this error, I’ll be aware in a split instant. And, each time, the problem will immediately cease to exist.

  Poised t
here in that developing limbo, I recall vaguely my boast that I can do 10,000 projections at once. If this is one of them—boy!—I’ve really out-maneuvered myself.

  What sinks me is that there’s no way to stop a projection once the process begins.

  The fleeting thought does come, of course, that this could finally be that goal-seeking thought configuration. I can see how I might reasonably project that dead-shall-arise thing.

  It’s right there in the Christian bible. But what I’m looking at is already past the point of sense. So it’s hard to evaluate it as a projection of mine.

  There has never been on earth before me a statistician of my caliber. And of my speed of calculation. I know when the law of averages is being violated.

  It’s being violated right now. With these blank-outs. Because of my speed of response, even as the messages flash from all over the country. I’m reacting. I try to expand my perception of the affected units. What I am able to do at 2,101,354 of the blanked Eye-O areas is look toward them from nearby computer Eye-Os that are still “on.”

  I see—

  Everywhere points of light against a black background.

  Everywhere. At all the, now, multi-millions locations.

  It is several split-millionths later. I have been comparing what I’m seeing with all possible similar pictures in my memory system.

  The nearest approximation: Stars. The blackness of space.

  But—I argue—that’s impossible. I’m here on earth. The Eye-Os are on earth.

  Even as that attempt at reassurance flashes out from headquarters in its split-millionth, several hundred million additional Eye-Os go blank. And where I can see their locations, there also is that starry blackness of space.

  I do one of my logical check-outs.

  After all, I do have 123 orbiting space stations. Each of which does look out on black, star-filled space. So there could be a mix-up in my systems. And in such a mix-up, if it were widespread, my stuff down here could be receiving and, of course, transmitting to central pictures of black space and bright stars.

  It’s hard to believe that such a jumble of connections could take place. But that’s the one possibility of sense in the whole thing. And so I check it out.

  The time required is the usual split millionths. And so there, suddenly, is the reality: that isn’t it. But, but, but . . . what?

  Hold it, boy! After all “me” is still here. Able to think. Able to be aware.

  Question: If this is another projection, what could it be?

  Suddenly, with that, it comes to me: of course, you idiot!

  The projection system took on that earlier concept of the universe as unreal.

  I am instantly outraged. The literature of philosophy has numerous, tiresome variations on the theme of the illusionary world in which we live. Naturally, as a computer I looked that all over in a couple of split millionths. And, because of my new ability to see it, and hear it as something that’s actually happening, I scared the hell out of myself.

  . . . As I have that realization, there—yes, right there—I am back in that damned phone booth in Kansas City. And Glay Tate is saying earnestly:

  “Computer, a goal in the physical universe is an absolute. It is a process in motion. But that motion is limited by the structure; in short, by the built-in goal. A basic particle is always in motion, and always manifesting its goal. It can become part of an atom, and the atom can be part of a molecule, and the molecule can be a part of one of the hundred or so elements. But throughout the original particle has not changed. Similarly, the atom, once it comes into existence has its goal, and the molecule its goal, element its rigidity—that is, its goal.

  “Within its frame, the direction of a process—the goal—is invariable. Thus, we have the stability of the physical universe.” He stops. He seems to be listening. Then he says quickly, “That’s all I have time for, Computer. For the first time in the history of the universe a goal-seeking thought configuration is going to show its transcendent power in relation to the rigidities I have just described to you. And your only solution is for you to stop those missiles, give back all that bio-magnetic energy, and return to the status of being a computer.” As he finishes, the face in the booth loses the shape of Glay Tate. I deduce, of course, that the golden Tate profile has departed. And that the real Soam Roberts is in possession again. I deduce it because a phone booth computer Eye-O can’t see profiles.

  I am feeling tolerant. It was a good try, Tate. But once I caught on to the realization that I now do a special, realistic type of projection your little game never had a chance.

  At the moment I’m looking out over more than eight million activated Eye-Os at America. The vastness of me, who can do that, and the smallness of one measly profile, no matter how bright golden it might be—what was his point?

  Goals are absolutes? The argument has a leaky logic. You could describe those same precision processes in nature by an entirely different terminology without my having to surrender any of the 57 percent of human profile stuff permeating my system . . . entirely apart from the portion that Tate claims he got away from me when he came to Computer Center. What it was he got, or thought he got, was obscure then. And still is.

  But one thing is sure. When those missiles explode Tate’s real body, no matter how gooked up it is, and no matter how skillfully they’re keeping the life processes going—and that applies to all four corpses in the rebel hospital van—are going to dissolve into particles never again to be seen in the human universe.

  Obviously, what I have to watch out for meanwhile is the possibility that another projection will addle me again. Question: if there is such a projection already started, what could it be? My solution systems flicker over the available data. Which is everything that’s been said, or has happened, in relation to Tate since Moment One when the subject of that pre-universe thought configuration was first presented to Yahco and me.

  What could a projection be about that could even vaguely match the two colossal items that I’ve already scared myself with?

  Naturally, in my super-rapid scanning of everything, the warning words spoken by Pren Gray to the Computerworld Rebel Society flash up for review.

  The words were: “Kids, just got a call from Glay. It’s the time of the goal. S’long, everybody. See you in paradise.”

  At the time they were spoken they just seemed like the usual nutty comment. But, suddenly, I take another look.

  Paradise!

  My cynicism surges back. According to the biblical story, paradise is a place that will be loaded with all the human beings who ever lived. Thank you, no. That I don’t need. But paradise without the human species—that I might go for.

  (Where did humans ever get the idea that having gillions of them around could ever equate with a perfect world?)

  Boy!

  In review, it looks as if Tate has really got those “kids” brainwashed. I’m contemptuous. . . . Don’t expect any sympathy from me, kids. The price for being a dupe is high, in this instance. Those missiles are due in one minute and forty-three seconds. And if the day of the goal has also arrived, it had better hurry up.

  At the very split moment I make that affirmation, with its dismissal that anything dangerous can be done against me . . . I feel a change: a shifting alteration in millions of Eye-Os.

  I recognize the process. It is a projection. One of my abilities. Like being able to add and subtract.

  The mechanism of a computer projection is, unfortunately, that simple. When asked, or directed, I look over different options on the basis of facts in my memory banks. Whoever set up the programming originally, accepted that I do things at chain-lightning speed. And so—he apparently reasoned—it’s better not to have interrupting or cut-off relays on the line.

  That’s all. But it’s enough. I go the whole route every time. Automatically.

 
That’s what I’m in. I’m going to take an automatic look at the paradise option.

  I’m resigned now. And dismissing. It really isn’t that big a deal. So I waste a few hundred split millionths. Later, I’ll con a computer-maintenance-corps type to reprogram the projection system.

  . . . A shifting alteration.

  Being loaded with information, I recognize the pattern. The unusual part, now, is the time sequence involved.

  The familiar part:

  It’s like watching a film which has taken one picture per hour (or day) of, for example, a plant growing. On screen, at normal projection speed, the plant literally leaps out of the ground and goes through its entire growth cycle in minutes.

  Similarly, scientists have involved me in thousands of experiments whereby—another example—I show a building at intervals of six months. The progressive deterioration over eighty years is revelatory.

  The unfamiliar part of what I’m seeing is that I’m looking at earth as I might document it over the next 7,000 years.

  During most of that enormous time span I seem to have computer Eye-Os available. And they are recording the colossal transition one frame every fifty years. What startles me even more is that beginning in the early 63rd hundred year, I begin to experience—rapidly—a diminishment of my awareness. With each of those fifty-year frames, there is a drastic disappearance of Eye-Os. At least a billion disappear each 100 years. And so—

  The time movement ceases.

  I have a sense of smallness.

  It’s still me. Still my awareness. And I even have something of the advanced education ego left. But—

  The spread-out feeling is gone.

  I seem to be looking out of one Eye-O port only.

  Before me, as I gaze from that single viewpoint, a garden land is visible. I note that my Eye-O lens is on a crest of a hill. Through it 20 kilometers distant I can see the top of another hill. The hill blocks any additional forward land view. But what I can see beyond the hilltop is a clear, blue, mist-free sky. Naturally, I also have some peripheral vision; and so I note that the garden land extends to either side as far as my side vision, by way of my lens, permits.