What Thin Partitions

by Mark Clifton

  "You'd have given me your special employees,” he said. “I knew that. So I made a mistake in the way I went about carrying out my orders. The mistake came to light when you sent that wire to Grenoble. So we didn't bring the psi children under government control with all its spying on employees, informing, watching them through little peekholes in false walls the way we watch the scientists. You think psi talented people could stand up under that?"

  "Or,” I said slowly, “having failed in your objective, you've been given a new set of orders to put the best possible interpretation on your mistake."

  He shrugged his shoulders and grinned.

  "Whatever you prefer to think, Kennedy,” he said easily. “The fact remains that Computer Research has the job which, heretofore, has been one of the most carefully guarded secrets under direct government operation."

  "Because,” I said, “George is necessary to it."

  "George is necessary,” he agreed. “Only a George could do it. Ever see the inside of the control cabin in one of the big, modem flying superforts, Kennedy?"

  I nodded.

  "No human mind can see all those instruments simultaneously and take the necessary actions, so we try to divide up the work and responsibility among various members of the flight crew. It works all right as long as everything goes all right, but when it doesn't we read about it in the papers. Almost every day, in fact, we read about it in the papers. And that's just the simple little problem of flying along over the Earth's surface, where all the factors are known and precalculated."

  I waited. I gave him the benefit of my assumption that he didn't mean to make an ordinary flight crew out of George.

  "If the problems of coordination are becoming more and more insurmountable in just flying through the air,” he said, “think what the problems would be in traveling through space to another body."

  "Sure,” he went on, “we've been making progress with guided missiles, putting in servomechanisms to handle specific and known factors, but what about unknown factors? Or even a complexity of known factors would require a huge hall full of servomechanisms. Marvelous though it may be, the guided missile is a one-track mind, equipped to do one thing, equipped to make only one choice when a given condition arises. And even there, the accuracy leaves much to be desired."

  I didn't say anything. I could see what was coming.

  "In approaching the problem of traversing space, we haven't had any choice, ourselves. We've had to attack it from the angle of a guided missile because no ordinary group of human beings could work together with the necessary instantaneous speed and direction to control the ship from the inside, to analyze unknown factors as they arise and take original, creative action among a multiple of choices."

  "But George could,” I said.

  "George would have a chance of doing it,” he qualified. “We've got to make a break-through somewhere. Either we have to take an entirely new approach to cybernetic machines, so we can get them down to payload dimensions, or we have to learn how to synthetically create more Georges. We've always assumed it had to be the former, but George may change our minds. So now,” he said, as he put his hands on his knees and began to stand up, “instead of taking George to the project, we're going to bring the project to George. I haven't talked to the boys about it. I came first to you for your permission."

  "Quite a project,” I said. “There's a long time and a lot of steps between deciding to build an inner-controlled spaceship and taking it up for a test."

  "We'd like George to be in on it from the beginning,” he answered. “It would be essential that he know everything there is to be known about the ship itself. Because, in space, we can't know which bit of knowledge will be vital."

  "Whenever you're ready, I'll talk to the boys,” I agreed.

  "I'm ready now,” he said. “The government has already taken steps to condemn that whole section of area next to your plant. The clearing and new construction will go fast. In the meantime, the design engineering can be picked up from where it has already been carried by the Pentagon staff. The boys are engineering-trained, but they'll have to be checked out on the specifics of this one."

  "I trust you're prepared to listen to their ideas, instead of making them adopt yours,” I said.

  "Of course,” he answered.

  "Where do Jennie and the Swami come into the picture?"

  "We expect to power it with antigrav units,” he said. “We couldn't get unlimited range, otherwise. To say nothing of maneuverability."

  "I'll confirm with Henry,” I said, and stood up also. “I'll talk with the boys. I'll talk with Jennie's mother and her new dad, the Swami. I'll talk with Jennie. It all depends on how willing they are."

  I followed him to the door, and watched him go through Sara's office and on out of the department. I leaned up against the door jamb.

  "I can't figure that fellow,” I said to Sara. “First I thought he was the real McCoy. Then I thought he was a shallow blowhard. Now I don't know."

  "Nice to see that everybody isn't just a pawn on your chessboard,” Sara said with a sigh.

  "It's pretty certain I'm a pawn on his,” I said. “But I don't know what game he's playing."

  "Does he have to be playing any special games” she asked.

  "I don't even know that,” I answered.

  "My,” she said, and her teasing smile broke up the sharpness of her words. “First thing you know, you're going to be down on the level of all the rest of us blind, stoopidx pawns."

  "Maybe I've never been above that level,” I answered seriously.

  "Maybe I'm just a hypnotized victim of a framework, with one of my commands being to think I control my thoughts and actions."

  "You lost me back there somewhere, Boss,” she answered flippantly, and dug into her work box for another sheaf of reports.

  * * * *

  Henry confirmed that we were now in the spaceship business, as a sideline to our regular computer business, a not too improbable side line, since a spaceship without computer servomechanisms would be just a bulky hull. I would have my hands full, he warned me, in rounding up the necessary experts, even with all the help I could get from the government.

  "The less help I get from the government, the better,” I said drily. “Their ideas of merit are more concerned with a man's sex life, and what idle remark he may have made in an off moment twenty years ago, or whether he was ever arrested by some moronic cop. The more we get to be like Russia the less I like it. Have you ever noticed, Henry, that when a man takes on an enemy, he also takes on the characteristics of the enemy? Seems to work with nations, too."

  "Very interesting,” he commented impassively. “I thought we were talking about building a spaceship."

  "There's a connection somewhere,” I said. “Maybe it has to do with the fact that when you take on a framework you take on all the problems and defects inherent in it. Passing laws against those defects is like making it a criminal offense for blue-eyed parents to have a blue-eyed child: if they're going to have children at all they'll be blue-eyed, criminal offense or none. So I don't want to get involved with the government's having anything at all to say about the kind of men we hire. Only thing I'll care about is have they got brains and are they still able to use them in spite of everything we've done to prevent it."

  "Just so you get them,” he said. “Logart is going to head up the project."

  "Here we go again,” I groaned. “They'll have to satisfy him."

  "He's no longer a Colonel,” Henry said. “Starting tomorrow he's just plain Mister Logart, private citizen."

  "Shedding the uniform and the badges doesn't make him shed the frame of thinking,” I argued. “That's how we became a militarist nation: we got saturated."

  "You're not in a very constructive mood today, Ralph,” he complained with enough irritation to show me I'd griped my limit. “You work with him the way you do with the rest of the supervisors. All he's got to say is whether the man is technically capable. S
ame as any other project head."

  "I don't know what's the matter with me, Henry,” I said slowly. “I don't trust Logart, I guess. There's something I can't put my finger on."

  "He knows his business,” Henry said. “Maybe better than any man in the country. I checked into that carefully. Everybody says he's the man for the job. If you're gonna build a spaceship, you got to put a man in charge that knows at least what one ought to look like. I don't. Do you?"

  "It surprises me that he's such an expert. Maybe that's the trouble. He's always surprising me. He doesn't seem to fit-anywhere."

  "Why should he fit something?"

  "You walk out into the factory stores, Henry. We have thousands of parts, but they all fit somewhere in the machines we make. By knowing the machines and looking at the parts, you can tell just about what every part is for and where it fits. Now suppose you ran across a part that didn't belong. Wouldn't it bother you?"

  "You keep telling me people aren't machines, Ralph."

  "But they fit,” I said. “They fit into a recognizable framework, all except a George, or a Jennie, and sometimes a Swa-"

  My voice trailed off and I stared at Henry.

  "You think he might be another one of those?” Old Stone Face asked.

  "If he is,” I said slowly, “he's concealed it. Or has he? Not belittling your negotiating ability any, Henry, but hasn't it seemed to you that we got into the spaceship business mighty quick and easy?"

  Old Stone Face didn't answer for a minute. Then he heaved a big sigh, as if he'd been holding his breath all along.

  "We're in it now,” he said at last. “The way they fell over themselves around the Pentagon, giving me everything I wanted, made me think I was getting real good at my trade. Better keep an eye on Logart, Ralph. No telling what he might be up to."

  "What could I do about it?” I asked.

  * * * *

  My talk with the five boys was a little like the time when I interviewed them for jobs. I knew their names well by now, and of course I'd spoken to each of them a few times on the job. In their several departments I never seemed to have any trouble keeping the names straight, but as the five of them filed through my office door and took chairs, I couldn't sort out which name belonged to which face. It didn't matter.

  Very briefly I told them about the project, and the part we hoped George could play.

  "We knew-"

  "-you could think of something-"

  "-sir."

  It was Numbers One, Two, Three and Four who had answered. Number Five nodded in agreement.

  "Now I don't want to underestimate this,” I warned. “It's new. You'll be the first to leave Earth in any kind of a ship. There'll be bugs, bound to be. A challenge to everything George has got."

  "Yeah!” they breathed in ecstasy, their eyes shining.

  "Physical danger,” I said as impressively as I could. “All we've got is what we've surmised from the information that came back from the satellites. It seems like a lot. But on the other hand it isn't much, maybe not enough. Maybe we only think we can build the necessary mechanisms the first time. And, of course, we can only build to handle the known or suspected factors. There could be others."

  Apparently they were communing with one another up on Cloud Nine, lost in such a roseate dream that, before I thought, I sniffed the air to see if there was any hint of a reefer's odor clinging to their clothes. Every now and then a young fellow came in who was really flying. But apparently they didn't need any help.

  "You'll have a hand in designing the ship,” I said, not sure whether I was talking to anybody or not. “You'll answer only to Mr. Logart, the head of the project. Naturally, your salaries will be raised commensurate with your new jobs."

  Either that got through to them, or their silent conference was over.

  "We've got some news for you, sir,” Numbers Three and Five said simultaneously. “We're all going to be married."

  "Not all to the same gi—” I said impulsively. “Of course not,” I corrected myself hurriedly.

  "Of course not,” they agreed in chorus.

  I wanted to ask them something, maybe to warn them, but in this area one man will rarely meddle with another man's intentions. I was alarmed about George. George's existence depended upon the five of them remaining in closest communion, but a young wife's first big project is to cut her new husband off from his past life and alienate all his old buddies. It's instinctive, and takes place even when neither the wife nor the husband wants it to happen. What would happen to George? Apparently they had thought of it, too.

  "A year ago,” they said, “when George was confined to just the five of us, it might have destroyed him. But not now. Anyhow, it's a pair of twins and a set of triplets, all sisters, so they know at least a little of what a George is like. It'll be all right, sir. You needn't worry. And ... we do need wives, just like anybody else."

  "Of course,” I answered.

  "They're very wonderful girls,” Five said shyly.

  "Of course,” I said.

  They looked at each other and their eyes sparkled with mischief.

  "It's possible,” Two said, “that in time there could be a Mrs. George."

  I didn't say anything. They were in a framework I couldn't share.

  "It must be spring,” I finally gasped. “A regular epidemic."

  "Yeah,” they breathed', their eyes shining.

  * * * *

  I went out into the factory and got a forelady's permission to talk to Annie Malasek on the job.

  "Bother you, Annie, if I talk while you work?” I asked, when I came to a stop beside her workbench.

  "Oh, no, sir,” she said. “I can do this in my sleep."

  Her fingers flying, pausing briefly, flying, pausing over a module, one of the more intricate parts of a computer, reminded me of butterflies hovering over a bed of flowers, darting in and out, pausing and tasting briefly. I caught the flush of pleasure on her face, and the sidelong look in her eyes when she checked to make sure it was duly noted in the department that I had come to see her instead of sending for her. Apparently that meant something.

  "It's about Jennie,” I said in a low voice just loud enough for her to hear me over the constant department hum. “Logart wants your permission to talk with her, and see if we can bring back any of her old-ah-abilities. It's very important now that we should try. If you're willing, and if she's willing."

  Her eyes flashed to my face quickly, and clung there questioning, anxious. But her fingers didn't falter.

  "I don't want her throwing things without touching them,” she said with a trace of that old stubbornness which was a major characteristic of hers before she and I had got to know one another, trust one another. “I don't want her setting fires without no matches. Them were old country ways, Slavonic mountain ways. We're Americans now, citizens. Jennie was lonesome and unhappy then. Now she's one of the most popular girls in her class and makes the best grades, even if I am her mother."

  "She's older now,” I said gently. “It's barely possible she would be able to move from one framework to the other at will."

  Her eyes left my face and she looked down at the completed assembly. Expertly she whirled it beneath her hands, her sharp eyes inspecting every part. Satisfied, she lifted it from her stationary bench and put it on the moving belt line which ran beside the benches. She picked up the shell of another from the parts bin, and her fingers began darting in and out of smaller bins to pick up screws, bolts, wires. As if of their own volition, her fingers started putting the things into place. Her eyes came back to me.

  "I don't understand about frameworks,” she said.

  "It's just a technical name for different conditions,” I said. I very nearly used Einstein's phrase “coordinate system” and decided it would merely confuse things further. “For instance, when you were a girl in the Slav mountains where you came from, things were different from here. Things were true there that aren't true here."

  "You can say
that again,” she agreed heartily.

  "But you could go back there on a visit,” I said. “Without losing your American citizenship. You could understand the old country ways because you grew up among them. At the same time, you would remember American ways, and when you came back you could pick up American ways again, without any trouble. Because you understand those, too. It's what we mean by different frameworks."

  "You think Jennie lived in a different—” She hesitated over the new word, tasting it for meaning, “-framework?"

  "I'm pretty sure of it,” I said.

  "And she could travel back and forth without hurting herself?"

  "Possibly. We don't know for sure."

  "My,” she said. “Think of that. That's some daughter I've got, eh, Mr. Kennedy?"

  "You can say that again,” I agreed.

  "That Logart fellow,” she said. “He seems like a nice enough man. Awful young to be a full colonel. I guess it wouldn't do any harm for him to talk to Jennie-if you was there. You think it would do her any harm?"

  "She wouldn't have to agree unless she wanted to,” I said. “I'm not going to put any pressure on her. I made up my mind to that two, three years ago when I first got to know her."

  "Then I'll tell her to come see you tomorrow when she gets out of school in the afternoon."

  I started to leave, then turned back.

  "How's Swami?” I asked.

  Her face began to glow.

  "He's the most wonderf—” She paused and then smiled teasingly. “But you wouldn't know anything about him in that framework."

  I tried to picture Swami in the role of ardent lover. It wasn't too difficult. He probably would have made an art of it, a supplement to his art of fakery in reading palms, telling fortunes, gazing into the crystal ball. Perhaps it would be better if I didn't acknowledge that to Annie.

  "No,” I laughed. “I guess you're right. I wouldn't know anything about his abilities in that framework."