Golden Age of Science Fiction Vol XIII

by Various

  "It will never miss you," she replied brightly. But her brightness became a bit strained as the day wore on. The trip, for Lindsay, was sheer nightmare. No sane man can wag his tail, he kept thinking.

  Even such fugitive grasping at Logical straws vanished when he saw the immense squat mass of Giac, rising like a steel-and-concrete toad from the wastes of the California desert. It seemed absurd even to think that such an imposing and complex structure should have been reared on the mathematics of the immortal author of Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass and The Hunting of the Snark.

  For Giac was imposing, even to a man biased against computers from birth. Nor did du Fresne's smugness help Lindsay's assurance a bit. He explained how each of the block-large preliminary feeders worked--one for mathematical symbols, one for oral recording, a third for written exposition. Each worked simultaneously and in three different ways--via drum-memory banks, via punched tapes, via the new "ear-tubes" that responded to sound.

  Then there were the preliminary synthesizers, each of which unified in vapor-plutonium tubes the findings of its three separate feeders. Next, a towering black-metal giant filling three walls of a cubical room twenty metres in each dimension, came the final synthesizer, which coordinated the findings of the preliminary synthesizers and fed them into Giac itself.

  The master machine was the least imposing of all. It stood like an alabaster stele in the center of an immense chamber arranged like a theater-in-the-round. But du Fresne, peering through his strawberry spectacles, said gloatingly, "Don't be deceived by the size, ladies and gentlemen. All but what you see of Giac is underground. It is contained in an all-metal cell one million cubic metres in volume. And it is infallible."

  Fortunately Lindsay was given a half hour of final preparation in one of the small offices with which the above-ground building was honeycombed. Nina came with him--by request.

  "I can't do it," he told her abruptly.

  "Don't worry, darling, you'll think of something," she said. She tried to embrace him but he was too worried to respond. After awhile she said, "Why not put a direct question. Ask it if it's infallible."

  "It could hardly tell a lie on itself," he replied.

  "What if such a question involved destruction of part of itself in the answer?" she asked.

  "It might--though I presume du Fresne and his boys have prepared it for such jokers. And anyway, what sort of question would do that? Got any ideas?"

  "That's your department," she said helpfully. "You're the computer smasher of this team."

  "But that was pure luck," he said half-angrily. "One can't wag his tail.... The other can't serve on a jury."

  She looked alarmed. "Darling," she said, "you aren't--"

  "Not yet, Honeycomb," he said, "but give me time.

  "It's got to be something about this Mars-Earth problem," he went on after a long silence. "Listen: how can Mars develop if it's in the spot of the Red Queen--has to run like hell just to stay where it is thanks to Earth's dumping policies?"

  * * * * *

  The door opened and closed and Maria Bergozza was with them. She said, "Apparently this is necessary." She was holding a glass-pellet gun in her hand, pointing it at Lindsay.

  He said, "Why, you--!" and moved toward her. Promptly the Secretary General's daughter pointed the gun at Nina's tanned midriff. He stopped.

  Maria said evenly, "It's you that have done this to me, Nina. You've had all the fun while I've had to pour tea for papa at his damned functions. You've fouled up our plans with your meddling down in New Orleans. And now you've taken Zale, as you take everything else you take a fancy to."

  "But you tried to kill him," said Nina. "Why should you care?"

  "He would have been a martyr--and you wouldn't have had him," said Maria, her gun hand steady. "I know it's going to ruin me to kill you--but my whole life is ruined anyway. And this way at least I can sacrifice it for the cause."

  "The cause of interplanetary war?" said Lindsay, in his turn incredulous. Hot rage rose within him, "You third-rate tramp!" He stepped squarely into the line of fire, thrust his left breast in front of the muzzle of her gun. Behind him Nina screamed.

  But Maria didn't fire. Instead she sneezed--sneezed and sneezed again. Her gun hand gyrated wildly as she doubled in a paroxysm and Nina moved past Lindsay to pluck the weapon from her.

  "Don't call me--krrrrashew!--third-rate," she managed to gasp before the blonde sent her sprawling with a very efficient right cross to the chin.

  Nina turned on Lindsay angrily. "You damned fool!" she almost shouted. "You might have been killed."

  He looked down, felt his knees turn to water. He said, "Omigod--I thought I was still wearing the star. I remembered how you saved my life in New Orleans with your diamond evening bag!"

  He sat down--hard. From the floor Maria whimpered, "What are you going to do to me?"

  Nina said, "I ought to kill you, you know, but it would cause too much of a stink. So beat it and let us think. You'll be hearing from me later. What you hear will depend on how you handle yourself from now on. Understand?"

  When she had slunk out Lindsay said, "What broke her up?"

  Nina dropped the gun into her bag casually, said, "Now I know you're lucky, you thin slob. You happened to stumble right onto her allergy. She can't stand being thought of as a third-rate lover. That's why she's always been jealous of me--because I have top-model rating and she could never make it. She's too damned concerned with pleasing herself to please anyone else. She flunked out at fourteen."

  "Then why didn't you pull it?" Lindsay asked her, astonished.

  "Because," Nina said thoughtfully, "I'm not conditioned to think that way. It's horribly rude here on Earth to stir up other people's allergies. As you reminded me last night, you rat, we're all people in glass houses."

  "But I didn't even know...." muttered Lindsay.

  "You hit it though," she reminded him. "And you're going to hit it again out there in exactly five minutes."

  * * * * *

  Lindsay was extremely conscious of the eyes of the vidar cameras upon him as President Giovannini, having finished his introductory speech, led him to the alabaster stele in the center of Giac's great central chamber and turned him over to du Fresne, whose official robe hung unevenly from the hump of his harness.

  Lindsay handed the Minister of Computation the question he had prepared on paper, was brusquely told, "Read it please, Ambassador."

  He cleared his throat and began.

  "I am asking a question highly pertinent to the welfare and future amity of the United Worlds," he said slowly. "More specifically to the future amity of Earth and Mars. It is a simple question without involved mathematical qualifications--but one that no computer and no man has thus far been able to answer correctly.

  "It is this continued failure of computers to come up with a logical answer in the full frame of interplanetary conditions that has done much to make the people of my planet feel that no computer is trustworthy to make decisions involving human beings."

  He paused, looked covertly at du Fresne, repressed a smile. The Minister of Computation was already showing signs of distress. He was shaking his head, making little pawing motions toward his glasses.

  "Here it is," Lindsay said quickly. "Should the governors of Mars, whose responsibilities lie at least as much in the economic improvement of their own world as in inter-world harmony, permit their planet to receive goods which retard that economic development so that it becomes a race to maintain current unsatisfactory standards, merely because certain computers on Earth are fed false facts to permit continuation of some illogical form of government or social system--or should the governors of Mars permit their planet to suffer because of computer illogic in the name of a highly doubtful status quo on the parent planet?"

  He walked slowly back to his place and sat down, almost feeling the silence around him. Nina whispered, "What in hell does it mean?"

  Lindsay whispered back, "It's a bit of
the iron dog and the whale, a bit of the Red Queen, a bit of the suicide idea--and something else. Let's see if it works."

  Lindsay watched du Fresne, whose moment of triumph was marred by his obvious discomfort. The twisted little man was very busy running the question into its various forms for submission to the feeder units, whose mouths gaped like hungry nestlings along part of one side wall.

  If du Fresne failed him....

  It was a long nervous wait. Lights flickered in meaningless succession on subsidiary instrument boards and du Fresne darted about like a bespectacled buzzard, studying first this set of symbols, then that one.

  Lindsay glanced at Maria, who sat huddled beside her father beyond the president. To break the suspense he whispered to Nina, "What about her?"

  Nina whispered back, "I've got it taped. I'm going to give her a nice empty job on the moon--one with a big title attached. It will get her out of the way--she can't do any harm there--and make her feel she's doing something. Besides"--a faint malicious pause--"there are still four men to every woman on Luna. And they aren't choosy."

  "You're a witch," said Lindsay. He snickered and someone shushed him. Looking up he saw that things were happening.

  "In exactly"--du Fresne glanced up at a wall chronometer--"six seconds Giac will give its answer."

  They seemed more like six years to Lindsay. Then the alabaster stele in the center of the floor came abruptly to life. A slow spiral of red, composed of a seemingly endless stream of high mathematical symbols, started up from its base, worked rapidly around and around it like an old-fashioned barber-pole's markings, moving ever upward toward its top.

  "Effective--very effective," murmured President Giovannini.

  Suddenly a voice sounded, a pleasant voice specially geared to resemble the voice of the greatest of twentieth-century troubadors, Bing Crosby. It said, "Interplanetary unity depends upon computer illogic."

  There was a gasp--a gasp that seemed to emerge not only from the company present but, in reverse, through the vidarcasters from the entire listening world. President Giovannini, suddenly white, said inelegantly, "Son of a bitch!"

  Nina laughed out loud and gripped Lindsay's arm tightly. "You've done it, darling--you've done it!" she cried.

  "On the contrary," he said quietly, "I haven't done it; du Fresne did it." And as he looked toward the Minister of Computation that little man fainted.

  * * * * *

  But Giac kept right on. It blanked out briefly, then once more the spiral of red figures began to work its way around and up the stele. And once again the pleasant voice announced, "Interplanetary unity depends upon computer illogic."

  It blanked out, began again. And this time, from somewhere in the building, came the thud of a muffled explosion. A spiral of green symbols began to circle the stele, then a spiral of yellow. The red reached the top first and the Bing Crosby voice began again, "Interplanetary unity de--"

  The green and yellow spirals reached the top. A few seconds of sheer Jabberwocky emerged from the loudspeaker, ending in a chorus of, "Illogic, illogic, illogic...." with the words overlapping.

  Panic began to show itself. The president gasped and Maria suddenly shrieked. Frightened onlookers crowded toward the door. The president looked from the machine to Lindsay, bewildered.

  Lindsay got up and strode toward the microphone by the stele. He shouted into it, "Turn off the computer--turn it off."

  And, moments later, while the angry hot glow of the stele faded slowly, he said, "People of Earth, this is Lindsay of Mars. Please be calm while I explain. There is nothing wrong with Giac or any of your computers." He paused, added ruefully, "At least nothing that cannot be repaired in short order where Giac is concerned.

  "I am going to ask to look once more at the question I submitted to this machine--and to the language tape fed into it by the Honorable Mr. du Fresne." He waited while they were brought to him, scanned them, smiled, said, "No the fault was not with Giac. Nor was it consciously with Mr. du Fresne. The question was loaded.

  "You see, I happen to know that your Minister's belief in computers is such that he suffers an involuntary reaction when he hears them defamed. I defamed computers both in my preliminary address and in my question. And when he had to transfer to tape the phrase '--or, should the Governors of Mars permit their planet to suffer because of computer illogic in the name of a highly doubtful status quo on the parent planet?'--when he transferred that sentence to tape he was physically unable to write the phrase 'computer illogic'.

  "Involuntarily he changed it to 'computer logic' with the result that the question was utterly meaningless and caused Giac's tubes to short circuit. None of the recent computer failures was the fault of the machines--it was the fault of the men who fed them material to digest.

  "So I believe it is safe to say that you may rely upon your computers--as long as they do not deal with problems affecting yourselves and ourselves. For those you need human speculation, human debate, above all human judgment!"

  President Giovannini, able politician that he was, had joined Lindsay at the microphone, put an arm across his shoulders, said, "I feel humble--yes, humble--in the great lesson this great envoy from our sister planet had taught us. What they can do on Mars we can do on Earth."

  When at last they were clear of the vidar cameras Lindsay grinned and said, "Nice going, Johnny--you'll have more voters than ever come next election."

  Giovannini simply stared at him. His eyes began to water, his nose to run and he turned away, groping for an evapochief.

  Lindsay looked after him and shook his head. He said to Nina, who had rejoined him, "How about that? Johnny's in tears."

  "Of course he is," snapped Nina. "He's allergic to the word 'voters'. Night soil, but you're simple!"

  Lindsay felt his own eyes water. He sneezed, violently, for the first time since coming to Earth. Concerned, Nina said, "What's wrong, darling? Have I done something?"

  "If you ever say 'night soil' again..." he began. Then, "Krrachooooo!" He felt as if the top of his head were missing.

  Nina hugged him, grinning like a gamine. "I'll save it for very special occasions," she promised.

  * * *

  Contents

  WAY OF A REBEL

  By Walter Miller, Jr.

  Lieutenant Laskell surfaced his one-man submarine fifty miles off the Florida coast where he had been patrolling in search of enemy subs. Darkness had fallen. He tuned his short wave set to the Miami station just in time to hear the eight o'clock news. The grim announcement that he had expected was quick to come:

  "In accordance with the provisions of the Twenty-Sixth Amendment, Congress today approved the Manlin Bill, declaring a state of total emergency for the nation. President Williston signed it immediately and tendered his resignation to the Congress and the people. The executive, legislative, and judiciary are now in the hands of the Department of Defense. Secretary Garson has issued two decrees, one reminding all citizens that they are no longer free to shirk their duties to the nation, the other calling upon the leaders of the Eurasian Soviet to cease air attacks on the American continent or suffer the consequences.

  "In Secretary Garson's ultimatum to the enemy, he stated: 'Heretofore we have refrained from employing certain weapons of warfare in the vain hope that you would recognize the futility of further aggression and desist from it. You have not done so. You have persisted in your blood-thirsty folly, despite this nation's efforts to reach an agreement for armistice. Therefore I am forced to command you, in the Name of Almighty God, to surrender immediately or be destroyed. I shall allow you one day in which to give evidence of submission. If such evidence is not forthcoming, I shall implement this directive by a total attack....'"

  Mitch Laskell switched off the short wave set and muttered an oath. He squeezed his way up through the narrow conning tower and sat on the small deck, leaning back against the rocket-launcher and dangling his feet in the calm ocean. The night was windless and warm, with the summer stars eyei
ng the earth benignly. But despite the warmth, he felt clammy; his hands were shaking a little as he lit a cigarette.

  The newscast--it came as no surprise. The world had known for weeks that the Manlin Bill would be passed, and that Garson would be given absolute powers to lead the nation through the war. And his ultimatum to the enemy was no surprise. Garson had long favored an all-out radiological attack, employing every nuclear weapon the country could muster. Heretofore both sides had limited themselves to non-rigged atomic explosives, and had refrained from using bacterial weapons. Garson wanted to take off the boxing-gloves in favor of steel gauntlets. And now it would happen--the all-out attack, the masterpiece of homicidal engineering, the final word in destruction.

  * * * * *

  Mitch, reclining in loneliness against the rocket-launcher, blew a thoughtful cloud of cigarette smoke toward the bright yellow eye of Arcturus, almost directly overhead, and wondered why the Constellation Boötes suddenly looked like a big club ready to fall on the earth, when it had always reminded him of a fly-swatter about to slap the Corona Borealis. He searched himself for horror, but found only a gloomy uneasiness. It was funny, he thought; five years ago men would have been outraged at the notion of an American absolutism, with one man ruling by decree. But now that it had happened, it was not to hard to accept. He wondered at it.

  And he soon decided that almost any fact could be accepted calmly after it had already happened. Men would be just as calm after their cities had been reduced to rubble. The human capacity for calmness was almost unlimited, ex post facto, because the routine of daily living had to go on, despite the big business of governments whose leaders invoked the Deity in the cause of slaughter.

  A voice, echoing up out of the conning tower, made him jump. The command set was barking his call letters.

  "Unit Sugar William Niner Zero, Mother wants you. I say again: Mother wants you. Acknowledge please. Over."

  The message meant: return to base immediately. And it implied an urgency in the use of the code-word Mother. He frowned and started up, then fell back with a low grunt.