A sudden memory leapt to Pietro’s lips as the Keeper turned away. “Selena! What about Selena-”
“She is well. The world would not harm her. You will find her where you left her. Goodbye.”
It turned and was gone. The great door slammed shut and only the eternal mountain remained. It seemed incredible that in there, buried behind billions of tons of rock, the great being that was the Manse sprawled silently and governed the Great Engine of the world.
The air was indeed cold. Pietro hurried down the pathway that would lead him to the foothills. To Selena—and then home, to Dominus, wherever that was.
* * * *
Inside the Manse the Keeper made its way unhurriedly to the comfortable cubicle where it slept away the centuries. It had enjoyed the brief contact with humanity again and its mind—the mind that also belonged to the Manse—was troubled and uncertain. Yet there had been only one logical choice to make and the Manse was an entirely logical creation. The Keeper lay down on a divan and crossed its hands across its chest. A whiff of something intangible filled the room and the cubicle closed and its vision blanked out and the remainder of its cogitation took place in the great vaults of the Manse’s memory cells.
It was true that the malaise was a psychological one and one already deeply imbedded in the human genes. Death through inertia, out of indolence and from a surfeit of... of certainty.
The Manse would change all that, instigate the first alteration to the Plan in many millennia. The First Planners had made the lives of men too complete. They had remade the world to remove the burden of uncertainty from the minds of men so that they might relax and enjoy their ordered lives to the full—and now the Manse was going to return one of those gigantic uncertainties to the world. It had taken a cue from Dominus’s stimulators. It would replace the predictability of the little machines with the gross uncertainty of one of the first principles of nature. The Planners had harnessed the very forces of the Earth itself and impounded them for all time. Or so they thought.
The Manse had decided and the decision had not been an easy one. It had charted the possible repercussions of its actions and knew that many human beings would die as a result of this action. The remainder was an un-proven quality. But the race was doomed to extinction unless some new factor was introduced into their lives, something that would act, like the primitive stimulators, but on a much greater, planet-wide basis.
Reluctantly—because of the foreknowledge of many deaths—the Manse moved into action and thrust uncertainty, grim and terrifying, upon the drowsing people of the Earth.
It was several hours later and many miles from the Manse that Pietro felt the earth move beneath his feet. It seemed to shudder like some disturbed animal. He stopped his progress and stood there uncertainly, in sight of the foothills now and the creek winding towards Selena and their skiff. (He remembered them! He remembered them!)
Had it been his—imagination—or had the earth really moved? As if to answer his unvoiced question it moved again. Feeling uneasy he quickened his pace down the uneven pathway and was soon racing across the undulating fields towards the creek. His body had never known such incredible reserves of power. Later he noticed that the eastern sky had become dark and had begun to move down upon him and he became afraid and his steps faltered.
The enormous processes which the Manse had put into operation would take some time to draw to a conclusion but already the ancient grip upon the climate of the world had been eased. The great engines buried deep in the arctic waters guttered and died. The earth shook when it felt the invisible bonds removed and the atmosphere roiled in sudden shock and swept willy-nilly around the world until the powerful and now unimpeded solar winds began to shape it once again.
The first storm of his life lashed down upon Pietro when he was still some distance from the skiff. He had never before faced such wrath and his first fear of the dreadful black sky became a fresh terror when it cracked open with a monstrous flash of light and unleashed bitter sleet that tore away at his unprotected body. He cried out and burst into a run, but suddenly there was nowhere to go, no shelter from the raging sky. He scampered about like a frightened animal in search of the trees he knew protected the skiff, but already it was impossible to see more than a few yards in front of him. The world had become an impregnable wall of darkness lashed by frightful winds.
He fell to the ground sobbing and let the rain tear at his body. His hands covered his face and through his closed fingers he could perceive flashes of intolerable light. He pulled his hands away and stared up at the harsh forks of lightning tearing up the sky and felt the surge of ancient memories jostling to the forepart of his mind. And his fear diminished. He stood up and let the rain course down his body and was no longer so afraid. He managed to make use of the irregular flashes of lightning to pick his way across the darkened landscape. He found the grove of trees and Selena huddled terrified in the skiff. He gave a glad cry and hurried towards her.
“Selena!”
She did not know him. Her eyes held only terror. Gently he took her in his arms and let her fear die slowly upon his chest. The inside of the skiff was under several inches of water and he laughed at the ineffective shield that had never been promised such fury as now pressed down upon it.
He stroked her wet hair against the nape of her neck and whispered, “It’s going to be all right, Selena. Everything’s going to be all right.”
She might never remember him but she would remember that she was a woman. And other things as well. He drew confidence from that thought now that he understood what the Manse had done. There would be many deaths, but they could not be avoided and mankind—or what was left of it—could never know the same indolent confidence it had until recently possessed. Perhaps there was hope, real hope, after all. Dominus would be pleased.
He exulted alone in his knowledge and Selena clung hungrily to him while his laughter roared defiance at the suddenly friendly sky.
“Wake up, you fools. Wake up! Wake up!”
Selena raised her dumb and as yet uncomprehending eyes to her stranger while all around them and with a great scream of triumph nature was usurping her ancient dominion.
<
* * * *
DEAD TO THE WORLD
H. A. Hargreaves
With every human being identified by computer from birth to death, the State had a foolproof system of control—until an electrical fault recorded one man as “deceased” when he was still alive.
* * * *
In the murmuring voice of a thousand quiet sounds, the great machine sang softly to itself; a never-ceasing, contented sort of song, sentient, and, somehow self-contained. It sprawled beneath innumerable acres just on the outskirts of the once-small city of Rugby, North Dakota. Through its myriad channels, like blood through a human body, two hundred and fifty million cards moved swiftly, surely, momentarily caught here to receive an electronic notation, passing elsewhere to be relieved of that notation. In a hospital in Indianapolis a baby was born, placed before a scanner, touched briefly by tendrils at head, chest, wrist and ankle. A new card appeared in the smaller machine beneath that great city, to be duplicated an instant later at Rugby. IN97246IND38452 had been incorporated into the population of Americanada, had received her permanent ID card, and no matter what name she might be given by her parents, no matter what her friends might call her, no matter what husband she might choose, she would remain to the machines, those recorders, masters and manipulators of vital statistics, all sixty-five of them if required, as IN97246IND38452.
In Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, a police robot picked up one male, adult, from the prone position into which he had fallen, carried him through the crowd to the cruiser at the curb, and after a cursory examination fished an ID card from the body’s pocket, passed it through a scanner, and made a report. In machine number fifty-eight, about fifty miles north of that metropolis, card SA537SAS8442 was flicked into a side channel, passed beneath several recorders, and d
ropped at last into a receptacle marked Deceased, stilled for the first time in several years. Again, an instant later, card SA537SAS8442 was sidetracked in the machine at Rugby, to drop eventually into a similar receptacle. This time, however, the one-in-a-hundred-million possibility discounted by technicians and authorities came to pass. As the card was flicked into the side channel a minute variation in current caused an “echo”, and the card behind was flicked in too. So it happened that BE96647CON374699 came to rest, and shortly thereafter at Danbury, Connecticut, the duplicate did likewise —Deceased.
In Bethel, Connecticut, it was one of a lifetime of identical days for everyone, including Joe Schultz. Having finished his work at the antique furniture plant, Joe had decided that he wanted the company of an autoteria rather than the drab silence of his bachelor roomette. Prices being the same whether you slipped your ID card into the slot at home or at the autoteria, the main difference was that you could see the actual rows of offerings rather than mere pictures, and there was life, such as it might be, around you. Moreover, there were opportunities for an enterprising man like Joe. He had punched his choices, picked them up at the robo-cashier’s desk, and noted with some discomfort that his receipt was blue, though it was still nearly a week till “pay day” rolled around. Well, he thought, often enough he was on the red by this time, and had once or twice even had to go through the lengthy routine of securing extra credit to be placed against his account a few days before pay day. And he was one of the fortunate ones: he actually performed physical work of a certain speciality, thereby gaining a little higher credit in his account. (Let no one ask how he had got the job.) He wondered how others could survive as mere button pushers.
Joe looked carefully at the diners, finally choosing one somewhat overweight, middle-aged woman who sat alone with her tray of calory-rich foods. Slipping deftly between tables, he came to a firm stop, flashed a brief smile, said “May I?” and sat solidly opposite her. For the first moment or so he concentrated on the fairly meagre contents of his own tray, ignoring the faint but insidious background music which was psychologically designed to speed up the act of eating, to move more people through the place each hour. Then he began to size up his table companion, the “target”, in order to plan his brief campaign. She was obviously unaffected by the music. A tough case for his purpose, but this made it more of a challenge. As an opening gambit, he deliberately pushed aside some of his greasy french-fried potatoes, clucking softly to himself. He caught a flicker of interest in the woman’s eye, a hint of surprise, and it was all too easy after that
“Keelosterole,” he said to his companion, stabbing with his fork at a pale-green snap bean. “You know,” he added, as the woman’s brow furrowed with concentration, “gets the insides of your arteries.” He went back to worrying the contents of his plate for a moment. Then, just as her attention was about to shift away from him, he flashed a rueful grin at the woman. “Had a buddy go that way last year, so I’m touchy on the subject. Nice guy he was, though. Big, happy, healthy, he looked, until the day he . . . went. Hardened up arteries, the Doc said. Yes, sir. Heart couldn’t take it, you know. Doc warned him. He said leave those calories alone, and those fat foods . . . they’re poison. Nothin’ but poison. Old Art wouldn’t listen, though. Nice guy, he was.”
Joe subsided, just barely watching out of the corner of his eye as the woman’s mouth went hard and straight. Then she shrugged her shoulders and picked up her fork. Joe shoved his half-empty plate away and lit up a cigarette, watching the news-fax as its words crawled across the far wall. The woman paused, fork halfway to her mouth. She took a mouthful of food. Slowly her fork came down, dropped to her plate as she sighed, pushed back her chair and heaved herself up. Only after she had left the restaurant did Joe slip her dessert on to his tray, finish his own meal in leisurely fashion and savour his prize. It had been easy after all.
Feeling as much at peace with the world as he ever did, Joe decided that his little victory warranted an extra cup of coffee, sidled over to the beverage area in a mood of self-congratulation, and slid his ID card into the slot. For a fraction of a second it failed to register on him that his cup remained empty, that in fact the machine had rejected his card. Puzzled, he looked at card, cup and machine, then tried again. Again the machine dropped his card into the rejection tray. Joe stood in complete amazement, trying to think out what might be wrong, only moving away when the line behind him began to grow restive. Such a thing had only happened once before to him, and then he had been given sufficient warning from his red receipts but had chosen not to ask for advance credit until he actually ran out. But he knew the simple meal he had bought just now could not have run him completely through the blue and on to the red.
Shaking his head, he moved down to the end of the service spaces, to a slot with a malevolent red light over it, and a sign which read Official Enquiries. After a moment of hesitation he slipped his card into the slot and waited. The hum of scanning equipment stopped, but the machine retained his card for what seemed an agonizing length of time. Finally, with a kind of hiccough, the card was released, and from a special slot at the side there issued an instruction sheet. Joe pulled the sheet free and read with mounting incredulity:
Notice: The card you have found belonged to a person now deceased. Please deposit it in the nearest Government Incinerator chute, labelled Official Documents.
Warning: It is a legal offence to retain the ID card of any person deceased. A record of this enquiry has been preserved, and action will be initiated if the accompanying ID card is not destroyed within 48 hours.
Aware now that something had gone drastically wrong with his “records”, Joe was quite uneasy, but still, his mind told him, it must be relatively easy to straighten this out. He knew that occasionally something went wrong, and he had heard of people who had run into problems larger than mere overspending. There was the legend of the guy who had been billed for something like one hundred times his expected life earnings, though. Seems, Joe mused, that he was made president of something so he could pay it off. That’s right—he was made president of the foreign country whose loan had been placed against his account. Well, at least his own next step was clear. He would have to find a written enquiry booth, fill out a form and get this straightened out quick. Suiting action to thought, he left the autoteria and headed for the local government building.
Half an hour later, Joe Shultz, deceased, was on the walkway again, shaking his head in utter disbelief. He had tried three different forms, none of which seemed precisely to fit his case, each one being returned by the machine with the identical notice and warning he had first received. Finally, in desperation, he had filled out a form requesting information on persons deceased and received a sheet directing him to his nearest Coroner’s Office or an accredited Spiritual Advisor. With this sheet still clutched in his hand, he returned slowly towards his apartment block, painfully attempting to make some sense out of the situation. But more complications were still to come. On arriving at his own door, he found a pair of robo-movers meticulously cleaning up after having removed all his personal belongings and the one or two pieces of furniture that he had purchased over the past few years.
It was too much. In a burst of anger, Joe stepped in front of one of the movers and wrenched the polishing cloth out of its grasp. “Whatta you tryin’ to do,” he shouted at the machine. It simply stood still, waiting, humming to itself, while the second machine, obviously more complex, turned and moved swiftly up to him. Scanners moved up and down briefly, another sheet of paper was ejected at Joe, and both machines went back to work. Helplessly, he stood and read the directions for “Next-of-kin”, which advised him that his goods had been removed under seal to a government warehouse, pending issue of redirection orders, and warning him that it was a felony to attempt to remove any article, or to impede, obstruct, or in any way to interfere with the work of the robo-mover. Now totally confused, Joe wandered aimlessly from the building and down the walkway trying to
understand what had happened to him in so brief a time, and to think of something, anything he could do next
The Coroner’s Office, his first sheet had said. But it would be closed now, he realized, and moreover if it was like the few offices he had been in there would be a robo-clerk anyway. He watched the faces of the few people moving purposefully along the walkway, wondering idly if any of them had ever run into such a problem. It would do no more good to ask for help from any of them than it would have to drop on to one of the motorways far beneath him, with its unceasing flow of muted thunder. You lived your own life, these days, and the fewer questions asked the better. Stop that burly guy there, for example, and ask him for help, he thought. Looks like the kind who would set you up for the hospital first, and find out later if you were trying to heist him.
“The hospital,” Joe said aloud. That might be the answer. At least temporarily. He had been in hospital twice in his life, and each time it had been a very pleasant experience. Lots of rest, good food, even some nice-looking girls around, though they didn’t have time to talk to ordinary patients. He could stand that, all right, at least for the night. Of course, if they stuck him in the analyser he might get thrown out, but the second time he’d been admitted they hadn’t examined him till the next morning. He remembered being pretty riled up over that, thinking at the time that he might die before they got around to finding out what was wrong with him. And he’d felt pretty foolish the next day when they told him he’d just had too much of a bad batch of Alkade down at the Bethel Auto-Bar. At least it was worth the chance that they would admit him tonight, before they found out he was faking. “1900 right now,” he mused. “Can’t take a flipper anyway, if I can’t pay the fare, so if I walk it will be 1930 when I get there. I’ll wait till 2000 and then try to get in.” He felt a bit better now that his mind was functioning again, though he still wasn’t sure what he’d do next day. He set out towards the hospital, mulling over possibilities.
New Writings in SF 8 - [Anthology] Page 13