The Transvection Machine

by Edward D. Hoch

  “Anything my bureau can do to help,” Crader assured him.

  Their meeting was taking place in the presidential lounge, a sort of sitting room off the main executive office. Only Maarten Tromp was with the president, and he seemed more than usually nervous. Crader had never particularly liked the man, but in the messy world of Washington politics, one never let his true feelings surface. Tromp was the president’s special assistant, a man with great power in his own right, and he had to be respected for that if for nothing else. Crader had to admit that he was a good politician—shrewd, intelligent, calculating. And he never forgot anybody’s name.

  “Is it possible Vander was murdered?” the president asked, leaning back in his leather armchair. “Is such a thing possible?”

  “There have been a few cases of computerized murder in the past,” Crader admitted, “but none like this. A man in Denver was crushed to death by a construction robot a few years ago, and the technician who programmed the robot was convicted of the murder.”

  Earl Jazine, who’d been silent till now, interrupted at this point. “I agree that the surgical computer is probably responsible. But there was a human in the operating room with Defoe when it happened, wasn’t there?”

  Maarten Tromp nodded, licking his dry lips. “Nurse Simmons, a trained medical technician. The machines are never allowed to operate without a human’s presence.”

  “And yet Nurse Simmons could do nothing to save Secretary Defoe?”

  “Her story is that the computerized operation went wrong, that it somehow caused massive hemorrhaging which could not be controlled.” Tromp looked away, showing some emotion for the first time. “Defoe was dead within sixty seconds.”

  “Can anyone bleed to death that quickly?” Jazine wondered.

  “Gentlemen,” the president interrupted, “I know you’re anxious to get on with the investigation, but I must ask to be excused from any discussion of the more technical details. There are other matters commanding my attention this morning, and I have a luncheon meeting with the governor of New Brunswick.” Though he spoke pleasantly enough, Crader knew his remarks were something of a rebuke to Jazine and Tromp. Presidents only concerned themselves with the main issue.

  “Any hint of a foreign plot, sir?” Crader asked. “Something tied in with the Venus situation?”

  “That’s always a possibility, considering Vander Defoe’s position. He was about to begin experiments with the transvection machine on Venus, and it’s possible the Russo-Chinese wanted that to fail. If the transvection machine could be made to work across outer space, the USAC could quite possibly colonize the remainder of the planet before the Russo-Chinese expanded their own holdings.”

  “There is one thing,” Tromp suggested. “When I spoke to Vander yesterday morning, before his seizure, I told him of a man named Euler Frost who had escaped from the maximum security prison on Venus. There was some fear he might have used the transvection machine to reach Earth, but Vander assured me the machine was not that far along in development.”

  The president turned to his special assistant with an inquiring look, waiting for more. McCurdy did not like to be interrupted without good cause. “What about it?” he asked finally, a trace of annoyance creeping into his voice. “This man, this Frost, could hardly have reached Earth already. He couldn’t be linked with Defoe’s death in any way, could he?”

  “That’s just the point, sir—he could! An investigation of the escape now indicates it took place sometime over a week ago. The shuttle rocket from Venus takes only eight days at this time of year, so Frost could be here on Earth right now!”

  The president turned once more to Crader. “I’ll expect your bureau to follow this up, Carl. If Defoe was killed, for a personal or political reason, I want his killer brought to justice. I’ve already ordered the Federal Medical Center to suspend all use of computerized operations pending the outcome of your investigation. I want results—and I want them fast!”

  He smiled as he shook hands with Crader and Jazine and left the room. Already his mind seemed far away, perhaps checking the background for his next meeting. “He’s a busy man,” Jazine remarked.

  Maarten Tromp nodded. “Too busy for one man. I often wish the dual presidency amendment had been approved.”

  “Let’s get down to cases,” Crader said. “What do you two really think killed Vander Defoe? What and who? Earl, back in New York you were convincing me it was murder by computer. Down here you seem to hint that the nurse could be involved.”

  Jazine grinned. “Maybe I just want a chance to question her.”

  Crader had trouble knowing when Jazine was kidding him, and just then he wasn’t sure. “What about you, Maarten? Do you really think this man Frost is a suspect?”

  “Of course, or I wouldn’t have brought him up.” He drew himself up to his full height, a habit he had when his opinions were questioned.

  “And that’s the only suspect you have?”

  The presidential assistant shrugged. “There’s always his wife, I suppose. Isn’t there always a wife in murder cases?”

  “What about his wife?”

  “They’re separated. She has a lover.”

  “Who?”

  Tromp looked pained. “I’d rather not say. I’ve just heard rumors.”

  Crader knew he only needed a bit of urging, so he urged. “Come on, now. In an investigation of this sort, rumors are often the most important things we have to go on.”

  “Well, I’ve heard it was Hubert Ganger, Defoe’s former partner and codeveloper of the transvection machine.”

  Crader nodded. “We’ll check it out. Now what about this man Frost? Can you give us a hologram and a description?”

  Tromp nodded. “I have the file back in my office, if you’ll just follow me.”

  Crader and Jazine went along, out of the relative plushness of the presidential lounge and into the sterile steel corridors of the New White House. Everything was bombproof here, stark and metallic and very functional. Crader admitted the necessity of it, after the White House bombing of 2018, yet he still remembered the old place with a certain national pride. He’d gone there as a child once, on his mother’s arm, and stood in awe of the East Room and the Rose Room and the rest as symbols of a way of life that had made the country great. Sometimes he still thought the true greatness of the nation rested in its past, rather than in the machine-oriented present.

  Maarten Tromp’s office was wood-paneled, with a wall video screen and smaller units capable of monitoring all six networks at once. There was a teleprinter unit, and next to it Crader observed stapled copies of the three video newsmagazines. While Tromp went to get his files, Crader let his eyes wander over the extensive library of video cassette titles. The Venus Colony, The Selected Speeches of Winston Churchill, The Computerized Macbeth, Stage Illusions of Twentieth-Century Magicians, The Inauguration of Andrew Jackson McCurdy, Sea-Rail Vacations, Containerization and the Metric System.

  “You have quite a variety of titles,” Crader remarked as Tromp came back to join them.

  “I watch them sometimes on my lunch hour. Great diversion, really. Much better than the films the networks provide, though of course no one can beat the networks at news coverage.” He pressed a button on his desk and the wall screen flickered into life. “Just in time for the noon English-language report on the Russo-Chinese network. It’s usually quite interesting.”

  The face on the screen was that of a familiar Oriental announcer, just beginning his newscast. After a few Moscow items, he reported, “From abroad comes word that the death of Vander Defoe, secretary of extra-terrestrial defense for the USAC, may not have been the tragic accident it first appeared. Rumors sweeping world capitals hint that Defoe might have been the victim of a purge by the New White House, brought about by his reluctance to pursue a hard line against the Russo-Chinese Venus Colony. …”

  “Rumors sweeping world capitals!” Tromp snorted. “Rumors dreamed up in Moscow is more like it! They�
�d love to make something out of this!” He snapped off the wall screen in disgust.

  Carl Crader frowned and said nothing. Instead he bent over the file Tromp had produced, glancing at the hologram that showed a clean-shaven young man with a handsome face and deep-set eyes. “This is Frost?”

  Maarten Tromp nodded. “Euler Frost, age twenty-nine, citizen of Venus.”

  Crader raised his eyebrows. “Isn’t that a bit unusual? I didn’t know citizenship was granted to Americans.”

  “Frost was involved with a revolutionary group here on Earth. He was exiled to Venus ten years ago, and took out citizenship there, since he was not welcome back here. But he proved to be just as much of a troublemaker on Venus as on Earth. He was discovered living with a Russo-Chinese girl in the forbidden Free Zone between the two colonies. He killed a soldier who tried to arrest them, and caused quite a battle. The girl was killed by our people, and Frost was overpowered. He’s been in a maximum security prison there ever since—at least until his recent escape.”

  “And you think he’s back on Earth?”

  “He could be, even without the transvection machine.”

  “We’ll check it,” Crader decided. “I’ll check Frost while you get over to the hospital and inspect that machine, Earl.”

  “Right, chief.”

  But something else was nagging at Crader’s mind. “One thing, Maarten—if this Frost did make it back to Earth, do you really think his first act would be to assassinate Vander Defoe?”

  Tromp raised himself up, putting on his act again. “The revolutionary group with which Frost was associated has declared war on computers and machines and data-collection in general. As inventor of the transvection machine, Vander Defoe would have been a prime target.”

  “But you said Frost was an exile for ten years.”

  “There is a transvection machine going through testing on Venus, remember. Defoe’s name would be known there.”

  “All right,” he said, shaking hands with Tromp. “You can assure the president that the entire resources of the Computer Investigation Bureau will be working on the case. If Vander Defoe was murdered, we’ll find the person or group who did it.”

  “That’s what we want,” Tromp said. “Whether it’s Frost or Defoe’s wife or anyone else, we want them brought to justice.”

  Later, on the way back to the rocketcopter, Earl Jazine put their mutual thoughts into words. “Chief?”

  “What is it, Earl!”

  “I don’t like that Tromp. Never did.”

  “Not too many people like him, Earl.”

  “Suppose the Russo-Chinese are right.”

  “What?”

  “Suppose the president had Vander Defoe killed for some reason. Suppose he used Maarten Tromp to do it. Where does that leave us?”

  “Well, Earl,” Crader answered, speaking slowly, “to be honest, it leaves us in a great deal of trouble. But I think you’re jumping to conclusions. There’s not the slightest trace of evidence that President McCurdy wanted Defoe removed. And even if he did, it would be much easier to fire him than to kill him.”

  “I still don’t like it. There’s something funny about it. A man dies on an operating table, and everyone around the world immediately thinks he was murdered.”

  “Even you thought that, Earl,” Crader reminded him.

  “But why?”

  “Because we trust in the machine. The machine is god today, and the machine can do no wrong. If the surgical computer killed Vander Defoe, it was programmed to do so. And that’s murder.”

  “I suppose you’re right.”

  Crader dropped a hand on his shoulder. “Get over to Salk Memorial and see what you can learn. I’m going back to New York and do a bit of checking on Euler Frost.”

  “Where in hell’d he ever get a first name like that?”

  “It’s a crater on the Moon, named after a Swiss mathematician. But that doesn’t exactly answer your question.”

  “Good luck,” Jazine said.

  Crader smiled. “You too.” He climbed into the rocketcopter with a wave of his hand. Twenty-seven minutes later, he was back in New York.

  5 EARL JAZINE

  SOMETIMES IT WAS A hell of a way to earn a living, like the two days he’d spent cramped up inside a computer at Internal Revenue, trying to figure out how it was approving certain fraudulent tax returns without question. Or the time he’d been caught in the middle of a Flippie riot while investigating the SEXCO affair.

  But there were certain compensations, and Nurse Bonnie Simmons was one of them. Her youthful body was clearly outlined by the fabric of her jumpsuit uniform, and her smiling eyes immediately welcomed him into the fold. It was the sort of investigation he knew he was going to enjoy. “I haven’t seen you around before,” she purred. “Are you with the local police?”

  He flipped open his case and showed her the bronzed aluminum Computer Investigation Bureau ID card. “New York, but we’re a government agency. We specialize in computer crimes.”

  She bit at the skin of one finger, staring him down. “The Computer Cops—you’re one of them!”

  “I’m one of them,” he admitted, glad that Crader wasn’t present.

  “They sent you all the way down here because of what happened?”

  “That’s right.” They were in the administration office on the ground floor of Salk Memorial Hospital. Jazine had already talked to the hospital administrator and the chief surgeon, both of whom assured him that Vander Defoe’s death could not possibly have happened. He was almost ready to give up the whole case and admit that Defoe was still alive. “Do you think it couldn’t have happened too?” he asked Nurse Simmons.

  “I saw it happen,” she replied. “I’m the only one who did.”

  “Good! Then we’ve established that Vander Defoe is really dead, and that’s a starting point.”

  “I hope no one’s trying to blame me for what happened,” she said.

  “Suppose you tell me exactly what did happen.”

  “Well,” she began, settling back in her chair, “it was late yesterday afternoon when they flew him in from the New White House. I’d come on duty at 4:00, and Secretary Defoe was admitted at 4:35. The examining physician in the emergency ward confirmed the diagnosis of the New White House doctor, and ordered an immediate operation to remove the patient’s appendix. He was placed in my care at 4:55 P.M., and I dialed an emergency clearance to the Federal Medical Center across town.”

  Jazine had been making a few notes, and at this point he interrupted. “How many of these computerized operations had you assisted in previously, Bonnie?” The shift to a first-name basis came easily to him, as it had many times in the past.

  She smiled and replied, “Dozens! I couldn’t begin to count them! I received my certificate nearly a year ago, and I’ve had at least one a week since then.”

  “How many appendectomies?”

  “Maybe fifteen or twenty. I could check my records if it’s really important.” She was biting the tip of her finger again, and he couldn’t decide if she was being nervous or sexy. “You see, the purpose of computerized operations is to help relieve the critical shortage of surgeons in this overpopulated world of ours. Naturally the surgeons are used for more serious operations—heart, liver, lungs, brain, stomach. Most surgery on the extremities is done by machine, and simple plastic surgery—rebuilding noses, enlarging breasts, and the like—is also computerized. Being such a common operation, appendectomies are included too.”

  “You sound exactly like a training film, Bonnie. You remembered your lessons well.”

  She blushed nicely and said, “Thank you, sir! We have to learn all this to put the patients at ease. Sometimes they’re almost frantic when they see little old me and that great big machine over them.”

  “Did you ever have trouble with the machine before yesterday?”

  She shook her head. “None at all. It’s a foolproof system, really.”

  “All right,” he said with a
sigh. “Please go on with what happened.”

  “We chatted a bit, mainly to put him at ease. I kidded him about being named Defoe, like the author of Robinson Crusoe, and then I explained about the operation. He was quite interested, really—wanted to know just how the machine worked. I remember he asked me what happened if the telephone hookup to the master computer went dead during the operation.”

  “What does happen?”

  “Nothing. The complete taped program is transmitted before the operation ever begins. I lined up the sighting lamps on his body, adjusting the machine for his own particular measurements, and checked over the data on his health record. Then, as soon as the green light went out, signifying the entire program had been received, I began the operation.”

  “What if the Federal Medical Center had sent the wrong program? Suppose they sent a leg amputation instead of an appendectomy—then what?”

  “Well, first of all, leg amputations would not be performed by machine because of the danger of shock to the patient’s system. But I see your point. And there’s a double-check for that too. Each taped operation has its own serial number, and before I begin surgery I compare the number on the machine’s electronic readout with the number in the book. They have to match, and I have to press a button confirming that they match. Then we start.”

  “I think I should see this marvelous machine,” Jazine told her.

  “You’ve never seen one?”

  “They’ve never needed a Computer Cop for one before.”

  She rose from the chair, unwinding like some sleepy python. “Just follow me.”

  I’d follow you anywhere, Jazine thought, but decided it was a little soon to put that thought into words. Perhaps later, after the business was attended to, he might invite Bonnie Simmons out for a little drink. “Nice hospital you’ve got here,” he said, making conversation.

  “It’s nearly fifty years old now, but it was recently modernized. That’s when we tied in to the computer at the Federal Medical Center—about a year ago. In here is the computerized surgery, where it happened.”