by Brian Aldiss
‘I’m sure I don’t know.’
‘All right. Let’s find out. Having given Multivac all the information I thought advisable on the general topic of humour, I am now feeding it selected jokes.’
Trask found himself intrigued. ‘Selected how?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ said Meyerhof. ‘They felt like the right ones. I’m Grand Master, you know.’
‘Oh, agreed, agreed.’
‘From those jokes and the general philosophy of humour, my first request will be for Multivac to trace the origin of the jokes, if it can. Since Whistler is in on this and since he has seen fit to report it to you, have him down in Analysis the day after tomorrow. I think he’ll have a bit of work to do.’
‘Certainly. May I attend, too?’
Meyerhof shrugged. Trask’s attendance was obviously a matter of indifference to him.
Meyerhof had selected the last in the series with particular care. What that care consisted of, he could not have said, but he had revolved a dozen possibilities in his mind, and over and over again had tested each for some indefinable quality of meaningfulness.
He said, ‘Ug, the caveman, observed his mate running to him in tears, her leopard-skin skirt in disorder. “Ug,” she cried, distraught, “do something quickly. A sabre-toothed tiger has entered Mother’s cave. Do something!” Ug grunted, picked up his well-gnawed buffalo bone and said, “Why do anything? Who the hell cares what happens to a sabre-toothed tiger?”’
It was then that Meyerhof asked his two questions and leaned back, closing his eyes. He was done.
‘I saw absolutely nothing wrong,’ said Trask to Whistler. ‘He told me what he was doing readily enough and it was odd but legitimate.’
‘What he claimed he was doing,’ said Whistler.
‘Even so, I can’t stop a Grand Master on opinion alone. He seemed queer but, after all, Grand Masters are supposed to seem queer. I didn’t think him insane.’
‘Using Multivac to find the source of jokes?’ muttered the senior analyst. ‘That’s not insane?’
‘How can we tell?’ asked Trask irritably. ‘Science has advanced to the point where the only meaningful questions left are the ridiculous ones. The sensible ones have been thought of, asked, and answered long ago.’
‘It’s no use. I’m bothered.’
‘Maybe, but there’s no choice now, Whistler. We’ll see Meyerhof and you can do the necessary analysis of Multivac’s response, if any. As for me, my only job is to handle the red tape. Good Lord, I don’t even know what a senior analyst such as yourself is supposed to do, except analyse, and that doesn’t help me any.’
Whistler said, ‘It’s simple enough. A Grand Master like Meyerhof asks questions and Multivac automatically formulates it into quantities and operations. The necessary machinery for converting words to symbols is what makes up most of the bulk of Multivac. Multivac then gives the answer in quantities and operations, but it doesn’t translate that back into words except in the most simple and routine cases. If it were designed to solve the general retranslation problem, its bulk would have to be quadrupled at least.’
‘I see. Then it’s your job to translate these symbols into words?’
‘My job and that of other analysts. We use smaller, specially designed computers whenever necessary.’ Whistler smiled grimly. ‘Like the Delphic priestess of ancient Greece, Multivac gives oracular and obscure answers. Only we have translators, you see.’
They had arrived. Meyerhof was waiting.
Whistler said briskly. ‘What circuits did you use, Grand Master?’
Meyerhof told him and Whistler went to work.
Trask tried to follow what was happening, but none of it made sense. The government official watched a spool unreel with a pattern of dots in endless incomprehensibility. Grand Master Meyerhof stood indifferently to one side while Whistler surveyed the pattern as it emerged. The analyst had put on headphones and a mouthpiece, and at intervals murmured a series of instructions which, at some far-off place, guided assistants through electronic contortions in other computers.
Occasionally, Whistler listened, then punched combinations on a complex keyboard marked with symbols that looked vaguely mathematical but weren’t.
A good deal more than an hour’s time elapsed.
The frown on Whistler’s face grew deeper. Once, he looked up at the two others and began, ‘This is unbel –’ and turned back to his work.
Finally, he said hoarsely, ‘I can give you an unofficial answer.’ His eyes were red-rimmed. ‘The official answer awaits complete analysis. Do you want it unofficial?’
‘Go ahead,’ said Meyerhof.
Trask nodded.
Whistler darted a hang-dog glance at the Grand Master. ‘Ask a foolish question –’ he said. Then, gruffly, ‘Multivac says, extraterrestrial origin.’
‘What are you saying?’ demanded Trask.
‘Don’t you hear me? The jokes we laugh at were not made up by any man. Multivac has analysed all data given it and the one answer that best fits that data is that some extraterrestrial intelligence has composed the jokes, all of them, and placed them in selected human minds at selected times and places in such a way that no man is conscious of having made one up. All subsequent jokes are minor variations and adaptations of these grand originals.’
Meyerhof broke in, face flushed with the kind of triumph only a Grand Master can know who once again has asked the right question. ‘All comedy writers,’ he said, ‘work by twisting old jokes to new purposes. That’s well known. The answer fits.’
‘But why?’ asked Trask. ‘Why make up the jokes?’
‘Multivac says,’ said Whistler, ‘that the only purpose that fits all the data is that the jokes are intended to study human psychology. We study rat psychology by making the rats solve mazes. The rats don’t know why and wouldn’t even if they were aware of what was going on, which they’re not. These outer intelligences study man’s psychology by noting individual reactions to carefully selected anecdotes. Each man reacts differently… Presumably, these outer intelligences are to us as we are to rats.’ He shuddered.
Trask, eyes staring, said, ‘The Grand Master said man is the only animal with a sense of humour. It would seem then that the sense of humour is foisted upon us from without.’
Meyerhof added excitedly, ‘And for possible humour created within, we have no laughter. Puns, I mean.’
Whistler said, ‘Presumably, the extraterrestrials cancel out reactions to spontaneous jokes to avoid confusion.’
Trask said in sudden agony of spirit, ‘Come on, now. Good Lord, do either of you believe this?’
The senior analyst looked at him coldly. ‘Multivac says so. It’s all that can be said so far. It has pointed out the real jokesters of the universe, and if we want to know more, the matter will have to be followed up.’ He added in a whisper, ‘If anyone dares follow it up.’
Grand Master Meyerhof said suddenly, ‘I asked two questions, you know. So far only the first has been answered. I think Multivac has enough data to answer the second.’
Whistler shrugged. He seemed a half-broken man. ‘When a Grand Master thinks there is enough data,’ he said, ‘I’ll make a book on it. What is your second question?’
‘I asked this: What will be the effect on the human race of discovering the answer to my first question?’
‘Why did you ask that?’ demanded Trask.
‘Just a feeling that it had to be asked,’ said Meyerhof.
Trask said, ‘Insane. It’s all insane,’ and turned away. Even he himself felt how strangely he and Whistler had changed sides. Now it was Trask crying insanity.
Trask closed his eyes. He might cry insanity all he wished, but no man in fifty years had doubted the combination of a Grand Master and Multivac and found his doubts verified.
Whistler worked silently, teeth clenched. He put Multivac and its subsidiary machines through their paces again. Another hour passed and he laughed harshly. ‘A raving nightm
are!’
‘What’s the answer?’ asked Meyerhof. ‘I want Multivac’s remarks, not yours.’
‘All right. Take it. Multivac states that, once even a single human discovers the truth of this method of psychological analysis of the human mind, it will become useless as an objective technique to those extra-terrestrial powers now using it.’
‘You mean there won’t be any more jokes handed out to humanity?’ asked Trask faintly. ‘Or what do you mean?’
‘No more jokes,’ said Whistler. ‘Now! Multivac says now! The experiment is ended now! A new technique will have to be introduced.’
They stared at each other. The minutes passed.
Meyerhof said slowly, ‘Multivac is right.’
Whistler said haggardly, ‘I know.’
Even Trask said in a whisper, ‘Yes. It must be.’
It was Meyerhof who put his finger on the proof of it, Meyerhof the accomplished jokester. He said, ‘It’s over, you know, all over. I’ve been trying for five minutes now and I can’t think of one single joke, not one! And if I read one in a book, I wouldn’t laugh. I know.’
‘The gift of humour is gone,’ said Trask drearily. ‘No man will ever laugh again.’
And they remained there, staring, feeling the world shrink down to the dimensions of an experimental rat cage – with the maze removed and something, something about to be put in its place.
The Short-Short Story of Mankind
JOHN STEINBECK
It was pretty draughty in the cave in the middle of the afternoon. There wasn’t any fire – the last spark had gone out six months ago and the family wouldn’t have any more fire until lightning struck another tree.
Joe came into the cave all scratched up and some hunks of hair torn out and he flopped down on the wet ground and bled – Old William was arguing away with Old Bert who was his brother and also his son, if you look at it one way. They were quarrelling mildly over a spoiled chunk of mammoth meat.
Old William said, ‘Why don’t you give some to your mother?’
‘Why?’ asked Old Bert. ‘She’s my wife, isn’t she?’
And that finished that, so they both took after Joe.
‘Where’s Al?’ one of them asked and the other said, ‘You forgot to roll the rock in front of the door.’
Joe didn’t even look up and the two old men agreed that kids were going to the devil. ‘I tell you it was different in my day,’ Old William said. ‘They had some respect for their elders or they got what for.’
After a while Joe stopped bleeding and he caked some mud on his cuts. ‘Al’s gone,’ he said.
Old Bert asked brightly, ‘Sabre tooth?’
‘No, it’s that new bunch that moved into the copse down the gully. They ate Al.’
‘Savages,’ said Old William. ‘Still live in trees. They aren’t civilized. We don’t hardly ever eat people.’
Joe said, ‘We hardly got anybody to eat except relatives and we’re getting low on relatives.’
‘Those foreigners!’ said Old Bert.
‘Al and I dug a pit,’ said Joe. ‘We caught a horse and those tree people came along and ate our horse. When we complained, they ate Al.’
‘Well, you go right out and get us one of them and we’ll eat him,’ Old William said.
‘Me and who else?’ said Joe. ‘Last time it was warm there was twelve of us here. Now there’s only four. Why, I saw my own sister Sally sitting up in a tree with a savage. Had my heart set on Sally, too, Pa,’ Joe went on uncertainly, because Old William was not only his father, but his uncle and his first and third cousin, and his brother-in-law. ‘Pa, why don’t we join up with those tree people? They’ve got a net kind of thing – catch all sorts of animals. They eat better than we do.’
‘Son,’ said Old William, ‘they’re foreigners, that’s why. They live in trees. We can’t associate with savages. How’d you like your sister to marry a savage?’
‘She did!’ said Joe. ‘We could have them come and live in our cave. Maybe they’d show us how to use that net thing.’
‘Never,’ said Old Bert. ‘We couldn’t trust ’em. They might eat us in our sleep.’
‘If we didn’t eat them first,’ said Joe. ‘I sure would like to have me a nice juicy piece of savage right now. I’m hungry.’
‘Next thing you know, you’ll be saying those tree people are as good as us,’ Old William said. ‘I never saw such a boy. Why, where’d authority be? Those foreigners would take over. We’d have to look up to ’em. They’d outnumber us.’
‘I hate to tell you this, Pa,’ said Joe. ‘I’ve got a busted arm. I can’t dig pits any more – neither can you. You’re too old. Bert can’t either. We’ve got to merge up with those tree people or we aren’t gonna eat anything or anybody.’
‘Over my dead body,’ said Old William, and then he saw Joe’s eyes on his skinny flank and he said, ‘Now, Joe, don’t you go getting ideas about your Pa.’
Well, a long time ago before the tribe first moved out of the drippy cave, there was a man named Elmer. He piled up some rocks in a circle and laid brush on top and took to living there. The elders killed Elmer right off. If anybody could go off and live by himself, why, where would authority be? But pretty soon those elders moved into Elmer’s house and then the other families made houses just like it. It was pretty nice with no water dripping in your face.
So, they made Elmer a god – used to swear by him. Said he was the moon.
Everything was going along fine when another tribe moved into the valley. They didn’t have Elmer houses, though. They shacked up in skin tents. But you know, they had a funny kind of a gadget that shot little sticks… shot them a long way. They could just stand still and pick off a pig, oh… fifty yards away – wouldn’t have to run it down and maybe get a tusk in the groin.
The skin tribe shot so much game that naturally the Elmer elders said those savages had to be got rid of. They didn’t even know about Elmer – that’s how ignorant they were. The old people sharpened a lot of sticks and fired the points and they said, ‘Now you young fellas go out and drive those skin people away. You can’t fail because you’ve got Elmer on your side.’
Now, it seems that a long time ago there was a skin man named Max. He thought up this stick shooter so they killed him, naturally, but afterwards they said he was the sun. So, it was a war between Elmer, the moon, and Max, the sun, but in the course of it a whole slew of young skin men and a whole slew of young Elmer men got killed. Then a forest fire broke out and drove the game away. Elmer people and skin people had to make for the hills all together. The elders of both tribes never would accept it. They complained until they died.
You can see from this that the world started going to pot right from the beginning. Things would be going along fine – law and order and all that and the elders in charge – and then some smart aleck would invent something and spoil the whole business – like the man Ralph who forgot to kill all the wild chickens he caught and had to build a hen house, or like the real trouble-maker Jojo au front du chien, who patted some seeds into damp ground and invented farming. Of course, they tore Jojo’s arms and legs off and rightly so because when people plant seeds, they can’t go golly-wacking around the country enjoying themselves. When you’ve got a crop in, you stay with it and get the weeds out of it and harvest it. Furthermore, everything and everybody wants to take your crop away from you – weeds – bugs – birds – animals – men – A farmer spends all his time fighting something off. The elders can call on Elmer all they want, but that won’t keep the neighbours from over the hill out of your corn crib.
Well, there was a strong boy named Rudolph, but called Bugsy. Bugsy would break his back wrestling but he wouldn’t bring in an armload of wood. Bugsy just naturally liked to fight and he hated to work, so he said, ‘You men just plant your crops and don’t worry. I’ll take care of you. If anybody bothers you, I’ll clobber ’em. You can give me a few chickens and a couple of handfuls of grits for my trouble.’
Bugsy and his boys would stroll around picking over the crop of wheat and girls and when they’d worked over their own valley, they’d go rollicking over the hill to see what the neighbours had stored up or born. Then the strong boys from over the hill would come rollicking back and what they couldn’t carry off they burned until pretty soon it was more dangerous to be protected than not to be. Bugsy took everything loose up to his fort to protect it and very little ever came back down. He figured his grandfather was Elmer now and that made him different from other people. How many people do you know that have the moon in their family?
By now the elders had confused protection with virtue because Bugsy passed out his surplus to the better people. The elders were pretty hard on anybody who complained. They said it was a sin. Well, the farmers built a wall around the hill to sit in when the going got rough. They hated to see their crops burn up, but they hated worse to see themselves burn up and their wife Agnes and their daughter Clarinda.
About that time the whole system turned over. Instead of Bugsy protecting them, it was their duty to protect him. He said he got the idea from Elmer one full-moon night.
People spent a lot of time sitting behind the wall waiting for the smoke to clear and they began to fool around with willows from the river, making baskets. And it’s natural for people to make more things than they need.
Now, it happens often enough so that you can make a rule about it. There’s always going to be a joker. This one was named Harry and he said, ‘Those ignorant pigs over the hill don’t have any willows so they don’t have any baskets, but you know what they do? – benighted though they are, they take mud and pat it out and put it in the fire and you can boil water in it. I’ll bet if we took them some baskets they’d give us some of those baked mud pots.’ They had to hang Harry head down over a bonfire. Nobody can put a knife in the status quo and get away with it. But it wasn’t long before the basket people got to sneaking over the hill and coming back with pots. Bugsy tried to stop it and the elders were right with him. It took people away from the fields, exposed them to dangerous ideas. Why, pots got to be like money and money is worse than an idea. Bugsy himself said, ‘Makes folks restless – why, it makes a man think he’s as good as the ones that got it a couple of generations earlier’ and how’s that for being un-Elmer? The elders agreed with Bugsy, of course, but they couldn’t stop it, so they all had to join it. Bugsy took half the pots they brought back and pretty soon he took over the willow concession so he got the whole thing.