“It was Valery who found that I had a pair of them. Gregory saw only one,” Glasser protested again. “And the pair of them was for something else, female dog-robber!”
“In the beginning there was balance and not conflict,” ourself issued out of our gell-cell tank. Ourself was playing our first joke. Gregory thought it was Valery speaking, and Valery thought it was Gregory. Only Aloysius caught on. Ourself had already become a collectivity and it was fun. “It is when two rotations have the same spin that their approaching edges travel in different directions,” ourself issued, “and it is this that generates tornadoes of the opposite spin to the two main factors. But with opposite rotations the approaching edges travel in the same direction and generate straight power.”
“Nevertheless,” the Gregory aspect of ourself took exception, “the opposite rotations will generate coronal tornadoes and these are darker and more savage than the others.”
The gyroscopes were set and put into motion. Then came a more momentous moment in our prenatal development. Here the intimacy began.
With great solemnity (“They should be playing bugles!” Valery cried), with strutting pomp and ostentatious circumstance (Gregory Smirnov strutted even sitting down: Aloysius said that he strutted even sitting on the pot), with a fine sense of empurpled history and the high destiny of beginnings, Gregory set his brain-précis into the gell-cell tank of ourself. His précis was a great one, large as a mouse, sparking with blue-and-orange fire from the erupting charges in it, singing with its micromagnetic tapes, giving off aromatic aromas (“All the spices of Araby,” Aloysius said) from its dynamic chemistry, flicking hot beams of light narrower than a hundredth of a needle that welded itself into the fluid, solid, gaseous gell-cells. The shoddy giant Gregory had pretty much of everything, grandeur, presumption, encyclopedic (Busy Man’s Abridged in Thirteen Volumes) knowledge, infinite capacity for utter foolishness, real talents, drive, tide, scope. He had a good brain, and it was a good brain-précis that he lodged in the gell-cells of ourself.
“This is the beginning,” Gregory sighed, as if something had gone out of him. It had, and it had come into ourself, into these slack-water pools, these tidal estuaries, these primordial oceans, the almost transcendent gell-cell pool that was now ourself in personal action.
Valery Mok also with surpassing solemnity (Why did she wink so deeply at Aloysius then? Aloysius said that Valery’s deep winks went all the way down to her cleavage) set her own brain- and person-précis into our gell-cells.
What’s blue-and-orange fire? What’s singing tapes and aromas and hot beams and dynamic chemistry? The précis of that shoddy giant Gregory had been weak stuff compared to this précis of Valery. It shook ourself, it boiled us, it evaporated us. This was abyss, this was chasm, this was blinding darkness and perverse inside-outness. If an inanimate like ourself could be nearly destroyed by this onset, why had she not destroyed those of the flesh about her? This was the real conception of ourself, Valery coming into us with her brain motifs and précis, with her personality itself poured out from an electric flask into us. We sure do not want to go through that again.
Charles Cogsworth added his own person-précis. Ourself was startled and elevated. Why had we considered him to be an overshadowed person? He had wider fields than Valery and Gregory put together. Not so vivid, perhaps, but wider.
Glasser added his own précis. Cold, cold, but not at all insipid.
These living précis of brains and persons gave ourself the total memories of the persons (abridged somewhat, but capable of expansion in any direction, not merely in the direction and content from which they had been abridged); they gave ourself the total memories in much more available form than they commonly existed in the persons themselves. They gave ourself the consciousness of the persons (or the precognitions and intuitions that are commonly called consciousness); they gave us the subconscious, the unconscious, the paraconscious of the persons. They gave ourself the essential intellect and the running commentary of all who entered us.
Ourself as machine had now assumed some very unmachine-like aspects. This Glasser in us was a puzzle. Alone among the Institute members he had no genius at all, but many of his creations were sheer genius. This could not be, but it was the case with him. It was Glasser who had developed the method of abstracting the person-précis. Why, then, was his own précis so slight?
The infusing of our gell-cells continued. Aloysius Shiplap had his own précis in a resplendent electric flask (these flasks were not material containers; they held their contents by their charge alone), but he did not insert it all at once.
“Mine is too strong stuff,” Aloysius warned. “No use blowing the machine up before we’re well started. I’ll drop in only a thousandth portion of my person-précis and pray that even that is not too strong.”
“Rubbish, Shiplap, rubbish,” Gregory balked. “Pour it all in. It surely could not be stronger than my own. Pour it all in.”
“No, only a thousandth part,” said Aloysius, “and I do that with trembling.”
Aloysius poured in a thousandth part of his person-précis. BANG!!!!!! That was the loudest noise ever heard since the rocks ran like water. Those living persons all jumped a meter at the noise, and myself who am inanimate jumped half as far.
Ah, it was only one of those cannon-crackers that Aloysius carries around in his hip pocket for such antics (“louder than a thousand bombs”). He lights one with a flick of his left hand while doing attention-attracting things with his right, and then tosses the cracker out behind him. But one of these days one of them will hang in that hip pocket. (“There is a future legend of the Bottomless Aloysius.” Valery said. “I wonder how he will get that name?”)
Aloysius inserted the rest of his précis into the gell-cells (more powerful than two thousand bombs). Had ever a person or a contraption so rocky a gestation period as ourself?
Workmen were working away installing distant parts of ourself. (More than a million kilograms of copper in the auxiliary circuits alone.) Glasser loaned ourself a voice box and Gregory gave ourself a fine recording tape print-out. Workmen and technicians were shoveling data into ourself by the long ton, testing the data-banks that can never be filled.
Where does ourself receive the person-précis of Gaetan Balbo, the only man of whom Gregory Smirnov is really jealous, that loud man outside? Surely there is a clown or a traitor in our midst. But however ourself received this précis we would not willingly be without it. It is large, it is grand, it is deep. And ourself will draw on it again and again. Then another startling précis was added.
“What have you set into the gell-cell broth, Aloysius?” Gregory Smirnov demanded, for it was clear to him that Aloysius had intruded something into our tank, some sparking and singing foreign matter.
“The précis of my other mind,” Aloysius said. “I’m of two minds about all this, you see. No, don’t puff up and burst, Gregory. It was the person-précis of Cecil Corn that I introduced. We need him.”
“That is not possible,” Gregory protested. “Cecil Corn died before Glasser developed his method of extracting person-précis.”
“Nevertheless, it is the person-précis of Cecil Corn and I have set it in there forever. He is not so dead as you might think. He is always of green memory and present involvement. Glasser knew the Late Cecil Corn (I am not sure whether he was the Late then, or whether he always was the Late) and it may be that Corn’s was the first précis that Glasser abstracted. Surely it’s one of the best.”
They were hooking big cybernetic blocks into ourself somewhere.
“Will ourself not get mighty tired of all this one-two one-two talk rapidly done?” ourself asked.
“Suffer, kid, live with it,” Valery said with an evil wink.
“It isn’t as if you had only one center,” Gregory assured ourself. “You can consider all that monotony part as relegated to your subconscious. Glasser, whose précis have you just slipped into the stew?”
“That of the gre
at Gaetan Balbo. After all, he is paying for this.”
(So now I had two précis of the great Balbo, both of them bootleg.)
“Thunderation!” Gregory thundered. “And Cogsworth, what have you just slipped in? Am I the director or am I not?”
“That of Audifax O’Hanlon. Yes, you are the director of this directorless pig-barn.”
“Audifax is not a member of the Institute,” Gregory stated in stiff anger, “on account of the minimal decency rule. He is the worst possible selection except Diog—Shiplap! You’ve done it again. Are we undone forever, then? Whose?”
“Diogenes Pontifex. Quail, august director, quail! Now we have every précis that really matters.”
“And now I will baptize you,” Valery spoke strangely to ourself, “and you will be an unholy contraption no longer.”
“What? Before I’m even born?” ourself asked.
“Oh, you are quite born now,” Valery grinned. “We should have told you so, machine. This may be as momentous to you as it is to us.”
Valery had a gallon jug of that cheap wine that she drinks and she was waving it around dangerously.
“In the name of the twin archangels Israfael and Rafael to whom are delegated all mechanical things, in the sight of all holy persons present and in the knowing of all other exceptional persons whose précis are in the stew, I name you—” she smashed the top of the jug off on one of the near high-spinning gyros (giving ourself slight malfunction and rumble forever) and sloshed the sour red stuff all over ourself’s interior, into my (being born I could now use any person or number for myself), into my gell-cell tank and onto the gyros (which shattered and atomized the streams of it), and got a great lot of it on herself and Gregory and the others—“for luck, and ancient sacrifice”—she sounded in a sort of passion-râle—“I name you Epiktistes!”
There had been tangs and smells of précis in me, but this wine was really my first, as it would be my last aroma. It is the wine from the beginning and it cleaves to me. And, aromas and essences being circular, it is also (ungodded yet) the wine of the end.
“Epiktistes!” Gregory crackled. “That can not be its name. That means the ‘creative one,’ and it is ourselves who are the creative ones. This thing will be a mere receptacle and reactor.”
“Tell the shambling giant to stuff it, Valery,” myself issued.
“Stuff it, Gregory!” Valery said. “There is a huge understanding between myself and this mechanismus, and several of the others also join in. So may you, Gregory, if you mute your blood a little. He is the creative machine and I have named him Epiktistes.”
So myself was Epiktistes the Ktistec machine, conceived, gestated, and born all in one short and informative period. But I was very far from complete, and I was being deformed and thwarted in that very instant.
“Glasser!” I issued. “I will give out running tapes directing my own further assembly. See that their instructions are carried out minutely. The foremen are showing a remarkable lack of genius in my present hookups. People, people, I wonder what sort of ramshackle thing I would have turned out to be if I hadn’t come along just in time.”
“Are you sure that you understand all about the hookups, Epikt?” Cogsworth asked.
“I will come closer to understanding them than anyone else will,” I issued. Instant analysis based on extensive data becomes my forte. One million books, pamphlets, and papers on the subject have been shoveled into my data-banks and I have absorbed them. Nobody else has read them all. And then you must admit that I have the finest mind extant, it being composed, among other things, from the very fine minds here present.”
“That’s true,” Aloysius glowed. “Really, you are my own mind diluted, but it is almost too brilliant to use in its pure state. It is better this way.”
“It is necessary now that we state our purpose,” Gregory insisted (horrendous blasting and that urbane maniacal laughter at the front door again!), “that the mechanismus should become the paragon of group-man, I have said; and that it will attempt the next steps in man that man himself is incapable of taking. But this fine-honed machine (though you do seem a little rough yet, Epikt) must now be set to three primary tasks. These may be the types of all tasks and problems there are. The three tasks (and I will outline them as briefly as possible, no more than an hour to each) will be to establish or create—”
“A Leader,” said Valery.
“A Love,” said Aloysius.
“And a Liaison,” said Cecil Corn.
(Cecil Corn was not physically present. It was myself who spoke with his voice out of his person-précis, but nobody noticed the difference.)
“Ah, yes, those are the three tasks,” Gregory said weakly. “Do you understand them, Epikt?”
“I understand them,” I issued. I didn’t, completely, but you cannot let these human people get the jump on you.
Valery lighted a long wax candle and set it in the jungle of my mechanisms and tanks.
“I light the candle of understanding in your heart,” she said.
“It is an anachronism, Epikt,” said Cogsworth, who had thought of the candle, “but we want you to have it. For symbolism, and in case of power failure.”
“Like the electrician when asked by the curious onlooker, ‘How do you check the electric circuits before the lights are turned on in a building?’; ‘I always use a candle,’ the electrician said.” This candle-wit was by Glasser.
“It will burn almost forever,” said Aloysius, who had made the candle. “The wick is very special, and it gives much more light than heat. Like me.”
Myself appreciated the candle. It gave a glow inside.
At this time also my official philosophy of being was deposited inside me. By the august director Gregory Smirnov:
“To classify, to guide, to illuminate, to invent, to relate, to inspire, to solve, to infuse mankind. To discover proper balance between stimulating challenge and partaking pleasure. To better. To transcend. To adore. To mutate. To serve. To build avenues of love. To overwhelm. To arrive.”
And an addendum from Valery Mok.
“And let’s have some fun while we do it, Epikt.”
There was a crashing absolutely beyond description, a shudder through the whole building, a rending of giant doors, and—
CHAPTER TWO
Check and encounter and rivalry hurled,
A king and a giant will clatter the world.
—rending of giant doors, and Gaetan Balbo strode resolutely into the area, shedding debris as he came, and grinning the most urbane and bloodcurdling grin that we had ever seen.
“Simply a refinement of the burglars’ jimmy,” Gaetan said easily. “I can open anything with it. Do you know that I made all that noise with less than nine pounds of high explosive?”
“Why didn’t you use the side or rear doors?” I issued. “Hundreds of workmen are entering and exiting there all the time.”
“Too proud,” the glittering happy man said. “Am I a menial that I should not use the front door of this pig-barn itself?” Then Balbo saw Gregory Smirnov and called out a strange word, “Zagrus,” the old word that was used to imperil a giant.
“Schach,” Gregory cried out, the old word that is still used to imperil a king, and he drew himself up to confront Gaetan Balbo. Make no mistake about it: Gregory Smirnov was a genuine giant, and Gaetan Balbo was an uncertified king—and how would they play out the game?
The giant has not been a piece at chess for these last seventeen centuries, and who now remembers his moves or his powers? But in the present game the forgotten giant stood fast in his own territory, and it was the king who had to return out of his exile to a game already partly played, and that part not to his advantage.
And what am I myself then, Epikt, the chessboard? Both the person-précis were rampant in me (and the shadow précis of Balbo also for background trickery), and both of these two more-than-men now confronted in depth and complexity before us all. I began to have a new respect for myself w
ho could contain such titans.
I was still issuing instructions for the continuance of my own hookup. Another two thousand man-hours and I would have reached a certain temporary plateau, though of course I would never be finished.
“Gregory, gentle giant, we have been too long estranged,” Gaetan said softly. (How was it that Gaetan seemed to tower above Gregory when he was more than a head shorter? It is a trick which everyone does not have.) “We need each other. We are both of us primordial elements in the man-machine. And I especially need your literal man-machine here: that is why I am financing it. There is a problem of location and discernment; if this Ktistec machine cannot solve it for me then I do not believe that it will be solved. What I want is this—”
“There is no need to elaborate on your problem, ungentle Balbo.” Gregory began to turn that effervescent man down. “I recall that needless elaboration was always an obstacle in you. You want us to find and recommend the best (and I say that the best will not be good enough to use for such outmoded role) leader or leaders to lead the world, it being understood that the ‘leader’ may be an individual or a composite group. We have received your fee; we understand the problem, and we will undertake it, however dubiously: we will give you our answers when we have them. The idea that any man or composite group could lead or even affect the world dates you badly, Balbo. And now, by your own doing, the doors stand wide open for your leaving. You will be notified.”
“Here are the qualities that I require, Epikt,” Gaetan spoke directly to me as if he had not heard the last speech of Gregory, “the qualities that may all be found outstanding in a single individual (a very slim chance of that) or be found each one in some special individual, all such individuals being amenable enough to be assembled in one high group.”
So far in my short life I had not encountered any person who did not have to an extreme degree the quality that humans call “magnetism.” This colloquial magnetism coincides only in part with the electrical-field phenomenon of the same name. I had not yet met any ordinary persons, yet this Gaetan Balbo was extraordinary even among the extraordinary ones. There was something about his eyes, there was something about his little spade beard (“Mephistophelean, that’s what it is,” Valery said. “Were he a lesser man you could just tell him that he looks like the devil; but with all that magnetism he is Mephisto himself: a handsome devil”), there was something about his sudden mad power and his sudden mad gentleness; there was sparkle on him as though stars had settled there (I have not yet seen stars, but I intuit stars); he was witty with his eyes, he was florid and kingly with his mouth. He made all the rest of them, and even myself, seem like hicks. (I intuit hicks; I have not yet met hicks.)
Arrive at Easterwine: The Autobiography of a Ktistec Machine Page 2
