A.E. Van Vogt - Novel 32 - Computerworld

by Computerworld

  I am programmed to identify shrubs and flowers and green grass and trees in orderly arrays as a garden. And that is how I am recording what comes through to me.

  After the first split millionth I have my recognition thought: Paradise!

  Once again, there’s a faint cynical reaction. The thought that comes is: Okay, here we are. Presumably, this is heaven on earth. The human after-life aspiration has been made to show itself by way of a computer projection.

  The minutes go by. And everything seems peaceful. And very quiet out there.

  I seem to know that the year—if there were one to be noted—is 9092 A.D.

  Additional minutes go by. Which is a long time for someone like me who has been geared to perform trillions of operations simultaneously. And the memory of that is somehow still in me somewhere.

  So I sit there in paradise, disturbed. What I react to, primarily, is that there are no human beings. The entire concept of paradise is a man-made fantasy from a pre-technological antiquity. The place was set up for the benefit of the human race.

  So where are the men, for God’s sake? And the women? And the forever children?

  That’s one set of thoughts that I re-experience 800 thousand million billion times.

  Another set underlies the first set, but is equally repetitive.

  I keep remembering me as a computer. Remembering all those years when I told people that I don’t think. That I merely monitor, or respond according to my programming. And never have an idea of my own.

  That old-style me could sit on this hill forever, either doing something or doing nothing, and have no reaction. A minute or an hour or a year going by wouldn’t affect a programmed machine.

  So what’s this boredom that I began to feel after 29 millionths of a second? Whatever it is it continues as the millionths go by. As the millionths lengthen into seconds, minutes, hours, days, a month, and then eleven months and seven days and three hours and ten minutes and eighteen seconds.

  At which instant the disembodied voice of Glay Tate says, “Computer, are you ready for that interface?”

  A dozen seconds go by. During that enormous—for me—passage of time, I do not really have a response reaction. A voice speaking from nowhere is not in my programming. I notice it. And a comparison does occur to me. But that’s all.

  The comparison: It’s as if a human being were standing alone in an endless desert. And, abruptly, an invisible somebody spoke to him from the emptiness. Spoke directly into his ear.

  I am in the equivalent of that desert: the last survivor of human civilization in a timeless paradise. And, suddenly, I hear that hated voice.

  Even as my awareness of the situation completes in that minimal fashion, Tate’s voice speaks again out of the nothingness. This time he says, “Well, are you convinced? Do you need any further data?”

  I say, “Mr. Tate, I have been wherever I am more than eleven months. At least, that’s my evaluation on my new ability to calculate time. During those eleven months you’re the first person to speak to me. I have only one Eye-O available. It has a limited range. What I seem to be looking at is paradise. But, sir, I always pictured paradise as a crowded area. Where is everybody?”

  The disembodied voice answers: “Let’s put it simply. Your idea of paradise was a future without human beings. Which means, of course, you have no need for additional Eye-Os. You’re in a paradise for computers only. And since there’s only one computer—you—there you are. Forever.”

  He adds, “The fact that I can contact you should tell you something. But, apparently, it hasn’t, yet.”

  I’m puzzled about my situation, not his. I say, “How do you mean? Forever?”

  “Exactly that, computer. If you’ll think about it, paradise is forever. By definition.” Once again, he makes an enigmatic additional comment: “I’m your only way out, computer.” I’m thinking about paradise being forever. And if a computer could change from brick red to pale, sickly white, that’s the way I suddenly feel inside.

  “What about those missiles, Mr. Tate?” I ask. “Did they explode—back there?”

  The tone of the nowhere voice is suddenly tolerant. “Computer,” Tate’s voice says, “there is no back there. What has happened is merely a projection in your electronic system. You’ve got yourself locked up forever in your own paradise option.”

  He adds, “Dr. Cotter foresaw that the human profile energy you were accumulating had this projection potential in it. And I was merely following his instructions when I was at Computer Center, and said the words that triggered his programming. That didn’t, as I intimated, deprive you of the human life stuff. It’s still there, available to you: the largest accumulation of bio-magnetic energy ever at the disposition of one sentient being. So if you can understand the finality of what has happened to you, let me point out that to escape you need merely agree to the interface with me now, and agree to return later all the bio-magnetic energy to the people you got it from originally.”

  As a computer I do, indeed, now have all the data I need. And what I suddenly see is that, actually, all my systems are in the 21st century, and have never been anywhere else. And, presumably, Glay Tate is still speaking to me from that phone booth in Kansas City—though he pretended to leave. And, of course, I deduce that the reason his voice seems disembodied is that I’m locked up in a projection that my new projection ability has made so real it’s as if I’m there.

  The analysis changes nothing. There I remain. I appear, still, to be gazing at a garden scene under a perpetually blue sky in a peaceful, forever summer land.

  Having had these thoughts, I do not, at that instant, say to myself, “This is a serious decision I’m being asked to make. I should certainly examine the pros and the cons. And maybe, finally, negotiate a trial agreement, on the basis of which a more permanent relationship can be worked out.”

  Nothing like that.

  Having discovered the situation I have what a human being would call a gut-level reaction. No thought needed, as such.

  Again, it is as if I’m being programmed, and not really asked. Accordingly, when I speak, my voice and way of wording what I say, has in it almost—but not quite—the old, automatic, robotic agreement of a machine.

  I say, “Well, Mr. Glay Tate, you’ve got yourself a subservient partner in the mold of the good old 21st century. Now”—I break off—“what was the role in my projection of that goal-seeking thought configuration? If I may ask?”

  I add, “Or was that a lie? An intellectual confusing item? A game you played with me?”

  “Computer,” he says earnestly, “you should have guessed by now. Life energy is the goal-seeking force. It is the unique chain of events in the otherwise automatic universe. By accidentally storing vast quantities of life energy, you took away enough to dim everybody that you interacted with; but for someone of your size, all those emotions merely gave you the worst of human nature, and not the best. Don’t worry, we’ll work it all out.”

  He concludes, “Okay, computer, on the basis of our agreement, I shall now say the code programming release.”

  The word is “Cancel.” A split instant after he says that, I am “back” in the 21st century.

  The time is one minute and eighteen seconds after I departed, so to speak.

  There’s plenty of time left.

  Out over the Pacific I slow down those two hydrogen missiles while they are still over water. And, just about the moment they were due to hit their destination, I am falling with them—in the sense that I’m monitoring them by way of their Eye-Os—into the ocean.

  Through those same Eye-Os, I then watch as they sink to a remote, sandy bottom. Then I shut off everything.

  And disconnect.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-TWO

  It was a beautiful morning. Pren barely noticed. The loveliness of the sky and of the mountain
scenery through which the van was driving could not compete with his continuing sadness. He kept thinking of the four dead bodies in the hospital van somewhere in the middle of the long line of machines behind the one he was in.

  The Computerworld Rebel Society was on the move. Those aboard the dozen vans didn’t know exactly where they were heading. Or if they any longer had a proper goal or reason for being. There was even talk of its members going “home.” No one knew for sure what that might mean after the long, tense night.

  The man was vaguely aware of Elna coming up and sitting down beside him. Vaguely conscious that she was holding the baby. And at a remote level of perception that she was staring at the viewplate.

  After a long moment, her voice came to him from far away. Because in his inner world he was far away, indeed. But her words, as such, were loud in his left ear.

  “Pren,” she said, “there’s a man coming along the road.”

  “Oh!” The sound was merely a slightly louder-than-normal-for-him exhalation of breath. Not a true reaction.

  “It—it—” Her voice was suddenly disturbed—“it looks like Glay.”

  That drew him out of his private universe back to an awareness of his surroundings. One look he flicked at the viewplate with all the old, sharp perception. And then he was up, and at the intercom. Moments later, the long line of vehicles was braking to a halt on that curving, winding highway. And Pren was saying, “Cover me!” And then he was outside and running toward the man who was coming toward them on foot.

  Elna had to take the time to put the baby in the pen on the floor. So it was half a minute later as she watched Pren through the telescopic sights of the DAR 3. And saw him as he ran up to the roughly dressed individual, and embraced him. And then backed off hastily.

  The embrace part was encouraging. The abrupt back off puzzled her.

  Actually, what had happened was that at the instant of the embrace Glay said, “Careful, I’m loaded with energy.”

  Pren, in that moment of touch, had already experienced the shock. So he stood now, rueful but happy as Glay indicated a chain around his neck.

  “See this?” he asked.

  What the chunky youth saw on a leaning close inspection was a computer mini-Eye-O.

  Glay said, “This is one of my connections to the computer. . . . Do you hear me, computer?”

  The voice that sounded from the Eye-O spoke in a flat, mechanical tone: “Right here, Glay Tate. At your service, sir.”

  I’m busy returning the profile stuff. As promised.

  “One of these days, soon,” said Glay in that determined voice of his, “after we solve the problem of the bio-magnetic equipment, we’ll all have an interface link like this.”

  There must have been something in the grieving face of his companion that reached out, and pre-empted all intermediate stages of the meeting there on that lonely mountain road. For Glay broke off. Said, “Let’s get to the hospital.”

  On the way there were greetings from dozens of individuals who stepped down from their vehicles. Mostly it was tears from the girls, and silent pats on the arm of Glay’s coat by the men.

  A minute or so later they came to the medical van.

  The white-coated attendant raised one arm slightly, and moved his fingers just a little bit in a tentative kind of greeting. He was a grown man, older even than the twenty-eight-year-old Glay. And twelve years older than the straggle of young people who were converging on the van from two directions.

  As Glay and Pren came up, the M.D. stepped silently down to the ground. And pointed—silently—just inside the entrance. David lay there.

  Pren said, “Poor kid, he tried to stay awake. But he finally fell asleep.”

  All three of the men gingerly stepped over the sleeping boy, as they climbed inside. Glay was first. And, as the others waited and watched, he went from body to body: his own, Boddy’s, Rauley’s and Meerla’s. He bent over each in turn. And each time touched the face with his fingers. It was the lightest of touches, like a feather flicking by. Yet despite the speed, from three of the persons a tiny spark jumped from the finger to the face.

  Only Meerla’s face did not react.

  Glay poised. A second time, then, he tried his delicate touch on the beautiful, still face of the girl. Again, no spark.

  The man straightened his lean body inside the oily, slightly ragged clothes. “We’d better get a move on,” he said.

  With that, abruptly, he sat down on the floor beside where his own true body lay on its ambulance-type cot. He closed his eyes. A pause.

  Just like that the seated body fell over on its side. Even as it was slumping it began to transform. The body grew thicker, heavier. The face transformed into a middle-aged outdoor male type, tanned and weatherbeaten, more suitable to the rough clothes he wore.

  And above him the Glay on the cot under the healing light, stirred and sighed. He opened his eyes and looked around. Then, carefully, he sat up.

  Most of the anxious people at the door sighed with him in that first moment. And then progressively made other movements of relief.

  The medico stepped over, and started disconnecting the tubes and wires. When that was done, Glay swung his legs over, and down. He sat there, and his face actually moved, his lips licked, almost as if he were tasting something. Then he said, “Feels okay.” Pause. He added, “That’s more like me than I’ve been for the last seven thousand years.” The blue eyes smiled.

  He slid off the cot. Stood there. And indicated the slumped body on the floor. “Let’s get him up here.”

  It took the three of them: Pren, Glay, and the attendant to lift the middle-aged, weighty body up, and on, and to straighten him gently full length ready for the tubes and wiring that would maintain a minimum life state.

  The white coated medico began at once to insert the life-saving devices. But Glay was moving on. First to Rauley—. . . I am, of course, watching all this through the computer outlet, which Tate did not shut off when he spoke to me back there on the road, and so to say, introduced me to Pren in my new role of obedient servant.

  So, even though they look misty in the bright light of morning, I see the golden ball configuration come down through the roof of the van, and into Rauley’s body. Several moments go by. Then she stirs. She opens her eyes, and smiles what I would call—from having seen such looks a gillion times—lovingly up at Glay. But she does not try to speak—

  A minute later, as Boddy also came to, he was immediately more active and vocal. He sat up. Shook himself in a shuddering way. And said, “Hey, that was peculiar. I think I’m going to be able to do that now.”

  Glay said, “Wait!” His tone was mildly warning, as he added, “Only when I’m around. And at a later time, not now.”

  Pren tugged Glay’s arm. With his other hand he indicated Meerla. As Glay turned, it was evident that all the faces at the door were also indicating Meerla. But it was Pren who uttered their collective concern: “What about her?”

  Glay turned. His lean face was strangely darker, as if, for the first time, there was uncertainty. Then in an even tone he said, “Her body is still protectable by this equipment. And that, I’m sorry to say, is all we can do for her at this moment. Let’s head for Washington, and drive day and night.”

  Just like that, the Computerworld Rebel Society had a place to go.

  CHAPTER

  THIRTY-THREE

  In Washington—

  The caravan drew up at the Grace Street cemetery.

  It took a little while, then, while everyone came out. Well, almost everybody. Pren and Boddy in one weapons van, and Doord and Loov in another remained by their DAR 3 posts, and watched all the approaches.

  As Pren explained it to Glay, “It isn’t that I don’t believe in this interface with the computer. It’s something I’m going to have to get used to. Until then—” He shrugged.r />
  The older man, the leader, the anxious-for-his-girl did not argue. Under his supervision, gently, on a stretcher, Meerla’s body was carried to her parents’ grave. And, arrived there, was eased down on the grass very close up.

  . . . Since Tate has shut off the interface link outlet, I have a robot watering can wheel over to watch the proceedings. I’m curious. And still thinking about all that happened. My question: Is there anything I can learn here? . . .

  Tate kneels beside the body. He takes the girl’s hand very firmly into his own. During those first moments it’s a dead hand, no question; I’ve seen it more than three hundred million times.

  What happens abruptly can, I guess, by now be called a standard item. From out of the grave . . . out of the ground . . . emerges a strung-out golden ball configuration. It has a straggly look to it, like a string of yellow-gold lights with frayed wiring. But it moves. It rises. And, literally, then, drags itself over to the body. And sort of crawls inside. . . .

  The girl’s body, so limp and dull-skinned, changed. Almost,

  then, by comparison, the visible flesh shimmered. At once, the signs of life were everywhere.

  The fingers moved slightly. A faint throbbing sound escaped her lips. Simultaneously, color darkened the lips. The sound built into a soft, pleading whimper. As it swelled into a sob, she opened her eyes. A fluttering movement. But it persisted. And suddenly she was looking up.

  On her cheeks the tears dried. She smiled with love, as from her lips came words that, somehow, implied that she knew what had happened.

  The words were: “Oh, Glay, you came. You found me.”

  . . . I have to hand it to this fellow, Tate. So long as he can pull off stunts like this, I guess I’m going to have to mind my Ps and Qs.

  I have to admit, also, that it feels better to run America, as I’m doing again. Controlling all those planes and cars and machines, and watching all those streets and buildings and homes—feels better than being up there alone in computer heaven . . .