Astounding Science Fiction Stories Vol 1

by Anthology

  No. Beardsley savored the thought tastily, and let it trickle away, and the look of glee on his cherubic face was gone. For too many years his job as serological "coördinator" (Crime-Central) had kept him pinned to the concomitant routine. Pinned or crucified, it was all the same; in crime analysis as in everything these days, personal sense of achievement had been too unsubtly annihilated. Recalling his just completed task--the Citizen Files and persona-tapes and the endless annotating--Beardsley felt himself sinking still further into that mire of futility that encompassed neither excitement nor particular pride.

  He brought himself back with a grimace, aware that he was clutching the briefcase of tapes possessively from long habit. The pilot had touched the news-stat, and abruptly one of the new "commerciappeals" grated on Beardsley's senses:

  "... we repeat, yes, PROT-O-SUDS is now available in flake or cake or the new attachable luxury-spray. Remember, PROT-O-SUDS has never been laboratory-tested, it contains no miracle ingredients, no improved scientific formula, and NO LANOLIN. Then what is the new PROT-O-SUDS? I tell you frankly, friends, it is nothing but a lot of pure soft soap! Remember ... we make no fabulous claims for PROT-O-SUDS ... we assume that you are reasonably clean to start with! And now for your late breakfast news, PROT-O-SUDS takes you direct to the Central News Bureau for a final survey on the Carmack murder case...."

  Beardsley groaned. New voice in the background, while the screen presented a slow montage. Cine-runs of the great Carmack himself, including those at the International Cybernetics Congress a year ago ... survey of the murder scene, the Carmack mansion ... close-up of ECAIAC ... diagrammatic detail of ECAIAC ... then dramatically, the grim and imposing figure of George Mandleco, Minister of Justice.

  And then the news-caster's voice: "... certain that final processing will go forward today. It would be a gross understatement to say that the Carmack Case has captured the attention of the nation, both officialdom and public alike! Never in the history of Crime-Central has there been such an undercurrent of speculation and excitement...."

  "Excitement?" murmured Beardsley.

  "And now it is heightened, by no less an authority than the Minister of Justice himself, who brought both plaudits and censure upon himself today with the outright statement that deep-rooted political issues may well be involved. As you must know by now, it was the murdered man himself--Amos Carmack--who some years ago carried on the incessant lobbying that resulted in ECAIAC being accepted pro bono publico by Crime-Central. What devastating irony! For now it is ECAIAC itself that must weigh each detail, correlate all factors, probe every motive and machination leading to the murder of its creator...."

  "That's not entirely true, you know," muttered Beardsley.

  Quick flicker, again a close-up of ECAIAC, and the drama-laden voice: "ECAIAC! Electronic Analysis Integrator and Computor. And now--an exclusive! From a very reliable source this reporter has learned that three Primes are involved...."

  "Ha!" grated Beardsley.

  "... and they will be broken down in quotient. Two must ultimately be eliminated--barring, of course, the possible emergence of any minor factor to status of Prime, which at this stage seems unlikely. It is estimated that by today or tomorrow at the latest Carmack's murderer will be brought to justice...."

  Beardsley had taken as much as he could of this pseudo-factual mush. He jerked forward violently, rapped the pilot on the shoulder. "DAMN IT! WILL YOU SHUT THE DAMN THING OFF!"

  * * * * *

  He was immediately appalled at his outburst, and by the pilot's startled glance, but the stat went off immediately.

  Beardsley leaned back muttering to himself. Carmack, Carmack! For seven weeks now he had lived with it intricately and intimately, as the case shoved everything else right off the news-stat. People took the latest echoes to bed with them, commuters gobbled it with their breakfast cereal. Thank God today would see the end, and they could once more have the hot South Polar crisis with their cereal.

  * * * * *

  Seven weeks! He clutched the bulging briefcase with a wearisome horror. Twenty-two persona-tapes from Central File, all neatly processed and ready for ECAIAC. End result of the endless chart sifts, emphasis (as always!) on parietosomatic recession, the slow emergence of minor constants, the inexorable trend toward Price Factor and then verification, verification, to each his own, with all the subtle and shaded values of the Augment Index brought finally to focus on the relevance-graph Carmack.

  Sure, thought Beardsley. A thing of augment-indexing and psych-tapes, quite without possibility of error. Now in the old days of crime detection--it might have taken them seven months instead of weeks, not to mention frustration and leg-work and false-leads and sweat, but--

  His mouth pulled down bitterly. Serological Coördinator. Glorified file-clerk is more like it. High-salaried errand-boy.

  "Here we are, sir!" The pilot's voice jarred him to reality as the copter berthed.

  Beardsley hurried toward the roof entrance. His faded blue suit, a size too large, flapped about him, and the outmoded felt hat seemed to sink to the level of his thick-lensed glasses. The guard greeted him, but suppressed a smile as the cherubic little man flashed his official pass.

  For there was something about Raoul Beardsley that eternally evoked amusement--an air of vacuous innocence and a remote forlornness. He gave the appearance of a person who sold shoes during the day, washed his wife's dishes at night and then solved two or three galacti-gram puzzles before turning off the light precisely at ten. Few, if any, remembered that this nervous little man had once been top Inspector of New York City's Homicide Bureau ... but that was a dozen long years ago. Since then he had seen the antiquated detective methods of 1960 disappear, and he had died a little, too, seeing his Homicide Bureau relegated to a mere subsidiary with the growth of the Coördinate and Mechanical Divisions. His appointment to Chief of Co-ördinants, Federal, was automatic and unquestioned; and Beardsley would have been the last to know, or to care, that he had correlated some eight million miles of serological data for the entrains of ECAIAC, a perfect record of not a single unsolved case.

  And the penalty was in his eyes, if one cared to look beyond the thick-lensed glasses. No one ever did. They were remote eyes, a little bewildered, a little hurt ... a mirror gone dull from times remembered but irretrievably lost.

  * * * * *

  Beardsley stepped onto the corridor slidewalk, coasted to the escalator and rode it down. Still immersed in his thoughts, he pushed into ECAIAC's room ... and again it happened.

  So shockingly sudden, there was not even time for remonstrance at himself. The feeling hit him as always before, straight and unerring, a surging impact that smashed forward and stopped him in his tracks, literally paralyzed.

  He caught his breath convulsively. How often had he come here? And how often had this happened, even when he'd sworn he wouldn't let it? There was something about the sight and sound and feel of ECAIAC that got to him, that seeped beneath flesh and bone and into his brain and sent his senses singing. Beardsley managed to gulp, as he observed the shiny black colossus that filled the entire length of the ninety-foot room; a dozen techs scurried around it, taking notes, attentive to the flashing lights in red-and-green and the faint clicking of thousands of relays that rose in susurration.

  But more than that arose. It was something that pervaded the room, not a pulsing but a presence, a sort of snapping intangible intelligence that reached beyond the audible and sheared at Beardsley's nerve-ends.

  And it hadn't been there a moment before. That was the shocking thing. Beardsley knew that it knew! It was sentient, it was alive and aware and waiting, and it was listening.

  As always, it knew that he had entered.

  Beardsley gulped again, stood frozen for half a minute. None of the techs seemed to notice; they had often chided him about it, but he was used to that now. At last he broke the spell and made his legs move, feeling cold sweat as he hurried along the length of ECAIAC toward Arnold's of
fice.

  There ... just about there ... by the rheostats, where the four red lights and the two green made a baleful pattern against the black metal skin. He felt it stronger than ever this time, something reaching and sinister aimed solely at him. He skirted the place with a quick goosey hop, stumbled a little and felt panic, but made it all right to the office.

  Beardsley hated these moments. He was still trembling as he made a hurried entrance. Sure enough, as if on cue Jeff Arnold glanced up from his charts and grinned.

  "Ah, good morning, Beardsley! Now don't tell me our pet goo--uh--snapped at you again?"

  It was the routine remark, but today Arnold was immediately contrite for a change. "Sorry," he said, and a certain weariness replaced the grin. He gestured to the alco-mech. "Can I dial you a drink? Feel in need of one myself!"

  "Eleven-C," said Beardsley, and slumped into the pneumo-chair. Arnold rose and dialled 11-C, handed him the drink and dialled 9-R for himself. Sipping it, he moved around the desk.

  There was something very strange and preoccupied in his movements, Beardsley thought, more than a mere tiredness. He had never seen Arnold this way.

  "Yes sir, this is the day!" A muscle twitched in his corded neck; Arnold eased his long frame into a chair, rubbed thumb and forefinger at his eyes. "Been up half the night running off clearance tests. Can't afford to foul up on this one!"

  Beardsley tossed off his drink and blinked at the fiery strength of it. Now why should Arnold say that? When had ECAIAC ever fouled up? He watched the man across the desk. Jeff Arnold was a vigorous, striking specimen, handsome in an athletic way, with long stubborn jaw and unhappy gray eyes beneath his unruly hair; the sort of face that intrigues women, Beardsley catalogued from past experience. And, he added, altogether too young a man to be operating a monster like ECAIAC.

  * * * * *

  Arnold indicated the empty glass. "Another?"

  "No, I think not," Beardsley replied carefully.

  Arnold hesitated, eyeing the briefcase in Beardsley's clutch. "It's been rough on you, too, I imagine. Hope there aren't more than thirty variants! We're set up for more, of course, but it'll necessitate--"

  "Twenty-two," Beardsley assured him. Carefully, he spread the coded and sealed persona-tapes across the desk. "Fresh from Citizen-File Augment, everything annotated and cross-checked. Blood-count, emotional stasis, plethora, psycho-geneological index, neuro-thalamic imbalance--every type factor is here. We really went to the Files on this case."

  "Looks as if you did! How does it narrow down?"

  "Fifteen possibles, four Logicals and three Primes--" Beardsley stopped abruptly. (That news-caster: how had he known there were three Primes? This stuff was not supposed to leak!) "Twenty-two who knew Carmack," he went on. "That includes associational as well as motive-opportunity factors, with a probability sphere of .004...."

  Arnold nodded thoughtfully; his fingers moved unconscious and caressing across the edge of the desk. "Yes, I see. That's close! Good job," he said uncertainly.

  "Should be! Seven weeks for annotation and code." Beardsley was watching Arnold's fingers; there was something aimless and fretful as they pushed among the code-sealed tapes. Beardsley made his voice casual. "If it interests you," he said, "yes--you are there."

  * * * * *

  He wanted a reaction and he got it.

  "Me!" Arnold stiffened, pulled his fingers away hastily.

  "That surprises you? Don't worry, you're not one of the Primes; probably be rejected on the first run. It's just that you once knew Carmack rather well. Cal Tech, wasn't it, when Carmack was doing his special work on magnetronics? Naturally you've had contact since, due to the nature of your job."

  Arnold nodded, frowning. "That's right. It just hadn't occurred to me that--"

  Beardsley realized that he wasn't lying. It was not the thought of his own tape that bothered Arnold.

  "Oh, we're thorough over at 'Coördinates Division!'" Beardsley laughed, making a minor joke of it. "Now here," he touched a spool labelled in red, "is your Basic Invariant. Carmack--Amos T. Murdered man. Found bludgeoned in library of his home, night of April 4. Age 56, held all outstanding patents on ECAIAC, worth millions, and"--he looked up, beaming--"leaves beautiful wife."

  He paused for the merest moment. Save for a soft drumming of fingers on the desk, Arnold was silent.

  "And here's a sub-Basic: Mrs. Carmack will be a rich woman now. She was considerably younger than Carmack--and she's been having an affair with another man." Beardsley smiled at Jeff Arnold. "That's a sociological note beyond our sphere, but we managed to get the data. I'll bet the department was appalled that such a gorgeous woman could be resolved into neo-Euclidian equations!"

  "Why?" Arnold was suddenly irritable. "It's been done a thousand times before!"

  "Of course," shrugged Beardsley. "And it's really up to ECAIAC, isn't it? A Prime can be negated, while on the other hand a variant can shift from possible to Logical to Prime. Or am I wrong? I've never been up on the mechanics."

  Arnold grunted. "There's bound to be some correlatory shift! The Primes--how many did you say?"

  "Three as of now."

  Arnold rose abruptly, then strode to the alco-mech and dialled himself another drink. He took an uncommonly long time about it. "Look," he said, "we both know about these things! In a case like this there are bound to be political repercussions--" He hit Beardsley with a gauging glance. "Well," he blurted, "I have to admit I'm damn curious! Mind telling me who are the three Primes? Ah--strictly off the record, you understand."

  Beardsley had expected something like this, and he was quite ready to answer; but he carefully removed his glasses, massaged the bridge of his nose and frowned. "Well, now...."

  "Come on, give! I know it's against protocol and all that ... but hell! We'll have the answer anyway in a matter of hours."

  Beardsley nodded with a show of thoughtfulness. "Yes, that's true, isn't it? Very well. But strictly off the record! I warn you--not only will the first Prime startle you, but the information could be dangerous!"

  He waited a moment, then he leaned forward and whispered: "Mandleco!"

  * * * * *

  For a moment Arnold didn't move. His face was ludicrous. Then Beardsley saw his hands clench.

  "Mandleco!" the word jolted from his lips. "George Mandleco, Minister of Justice? I don't believe you!"

  "It's a fact," Beardsley told him. "Right now he equates into an uncertain Prime."

  "Yes, yes ... but Mandleco! Good Lord...."

  "I said uncertain Prime. As you mentioned yourself, there is sure to be a shift of variants. Surely you have faith in ECAIAC?"

  "Of course! But Mandleco, why Mandleco?"

  "Why not? He was a friend of Carmack's--or a business associate shall we say? He worked with Carmack on the ECAIAC lobby, was largely responsible for pushing it through."

  "Yes, I--say, that's right! It would be in C-F...."

  "There are things," murmured Beardsley, "in Central File that would astound you."

  Arnold was staring at the coded tapes. "Mandleco," he breathed. "And with elections coming up!" He shook himself out of the daze. "The--the other two Primes?"

  "Next is not so startling. A really strong Recessive Factor there ... Professor Karl Losch."

  Arnold jerked erect suddenly. "Losch? Say, I remember him! Now there's a man pursued by bad luck. He was working along similar lines to Carmack--in fact, wasn't he in Carmack's employ for a while?--but Carmack was first with the patents. You don't suppose that Losch--"

  "I'm not supposed to suppose," Beardsley said softly. "But clinically, it is interesting to note that motive factor alone equates Losch from Logical into Prime. Plus a high neuro-thalamic imbalance--132 over 80 on the last Index, with pronounced efforts at suppression."

  He watched Arnold absorb that, and went on: "Now for the third Prime. I think it'll interest you...."

  * * * * *

  He waited deliberately. He looked at Jeff Arnold for a long
moment and saw that the man was calm. Too calm. So absolutely motionless that it wasn't real.

  "Third Prime. A strong one, believe me. In a way most interesting of all." He pressed the words out slowly and flatly. "The third Prime," said Beardsley, "is ... Pederson."

  He watched Arnold relax ever so slowly, leaning back, the tension going away as he uncoiled in the chair; but the young man's face wasn't so much relieved as it was puzzled.

  "Pederson. Pederson? I don't seem to--You can't mean Brook Pederson, the one-time tele-columnist?"

  "None other. I don't suppose you remember, but back in '60 he opposed the ECAIAC lobby. I mean opposed it, fought it! Predicted that Government installation of such a machine would not inspire confidence, that the nation's crime rate would rise ... he saw nothing but chaos. For a while there he was quite a man. Got himself a following. Had ambitions."

  "But I do remember it!" Arnold thumped the desk. "Of course! Pederson headed a bloc against 'Carmack's Folly,' but he backed the wrong horse, and when the bubble burst he was out in the cold. Became a laughing stock." Arnold paused, and his glance held something of shrewdness and a livening challenge. "Actually, Pederson couldn't have been more wrong. In those first two years ECAIAC reduced the crime-rate by some forty percent."

  "So it's claimed!" This was a sore point and Beardsley rose to the bait. "It couldn't be that crime was on the down-grade already? I could show you plenty of statistics that--why, I could show you methods--"

  "I'll just bet you could." Arnold gave a thin tolerant smile. "I refuse to enter that argument again, not with you, Beardsley. I for one trust in machines not in evolution. I've told you before...."

  * * * * *

  And Beardsley found himself sitting there with a flush of heat at his hair-roots, half-angry and half foolish as he realized how he had been baited.

  Jeff Arnold was abruptly all business. He plunged his finger at a button, spoke into the intercom. "Joe! How's that test-run coming?"