Today, he felt like a wagon train struggling against a circle of Indian warriors. He had assembled a fine flock of generals, colonels, and majors for the FIREFORS projects, not to mention the gaggles of civil servants and defense contractors. But they had left a few stray turkeys beyond the fence. Strays did not present an abnormality, but when they started acting like an Indian war party, he had to do something about it. Billions of dollars in FIREFORS projects could be canceled if people started concluding that the Sling Project, with a few paltry millions of dollars, could provide more capabilities at ludicrously less cost. Rumors had started already; an intense new school of treaty-loving budget-butchers waited for an opening to storm the FIREFORS train. It was exhausting to think about.
His glasses had slid down his nose during the morning’s toil. He pushed them back into place with a sigh.
Charles and his projects had met threats like the Sling before. For over two decades, he had maintained a string of perfect scores in political combat. No one had ever canceled one of his projects. Why not? his opponents often asked. For one thing, the projects were too important, he explained. For another, the Defense Department already had too much money invested in them to just throw them away. This case was no different: hundreds of important people had staked their reputations on FIREFORS by putting money into it; no one wanted a handful of Zetetic fanatics, funded with peanuts, to beat them.
Fortunately, enemies like the Sling Project had many vulnerabilities. Charles had merely to pick one and apply the right formula. The Slings dependence on commerical hardware and software was such a vulnerability. Commercial stuff might be cheaper, but it did not match the military requirement. It could not be rugged enough, for example. It could not survive an EMP blast, or a salt fog. And cheaply built hodgepodges of commercial stuff were not systems : they did not consider the logistics, the training, or the maintenance that a full-scale development project had to consider.
All these other considerations made military equipment cost tens and hundreds of times as much as commercial equipment. Ruggedization, logistics, training—these problems were responsible for the one little mar in the FIREFORS record: in two decades of effort, not one FIREFORS project had been completed. And of course none had been canceled. So all continued on course to their ever-more-distant deliveries, a fleet of juggernauts on an endless but important voyage.
His desk remained neat throughout the voyage. A single folder of papers to one side suggested to visitors that Charles had concentrated all his efforts on a single important task, excommunicating all else to his filing cabinets, and to his conference table.
Charles did not keep the conference table nearly so clean. Too often, unfriendly visitors came with the intention of spreading their accusatory documents across its surface. So Charles kept a carefully disarrayed assortment of materials there, organized to seem important, slightly skewed to suggest that a disturbance would damage the arrangement. Charles had plenty of space on his desk for displays, if the displays showed favorable results.
A single sheet of paper now rested on the single folder on his desk. It was the draft of a backchannel message from General Curtis to General Hicks, explaining why the Sling Project represented a dangerous duplication of effort. It suggested that control of the Sling Project should move to the FIREFORS program office, where FIREFORS could manage it more effectively.
The backchannel suggested funneling the Sling Project money into the common pool of FIREFORS funds. Then FIREFORS could build a system that included all the good features of both the Sling and the FIREFORS systems—though frankly, General Curtis felt confident that FIREFORS projects already incorporated all the key features of the Sling system. After all, FIREFORS had been working on these problems for twenty years; they had experience. General Curtis recommended to General Hicks that he look at the latest revision of the requirements document describing the FIREFORS products—Version 14.7. Thus General Hicks could see for himself that FIREFORS had indeed covered all critical Sling elements.
Charles smiled, reading about Version 14.7. It had just come off the presses that morning, thicker than Version 14.6 because of a new chapter describing additional variants of FIREFORS systems. The variants looked astonishingly like the Sling Hunters. The only parts of the Sling specifications omitted from the FIREFORS plan were the parts on low cost and quick delivery.
Though the backchannel was from General Curtis, Curtis had not written it; indeed, he had not yet seen it. But Charles had spent the whole week warming him up to the idea of such a message. The general would sign with only a glance at the wording.
With a small hum of pleasure, Charles edited a few fine points in the message. His sharpened pencil stabbed against the paper, slashing streaks of red across the words. It seemed like a modern form of voodoo, wherein the slashes could appear upon the spirits of the men working on the Sling.
Charles hummed more loudly as he considered the devastating potency of this form of black magic.
President Mayfield looked at his watch with eager anticipation. The next step along the path to the next election had been sealed. His heart skipped once in a while, but only when he watched Nell Carson’s puzzled expression for too long.
She strode across the room, from the conference table to the; bookcase. Her eyes wandered aimlessly across the rows of volumes. It seemed as though she believed the answers to all her questions could be found here, but for some reason she could not read.
Disdainful, Mayfield glanced at the books himself. First he saw only a few books. With a mental step back, he saw more: he saw all the shelves filled with books. Then he remembered that this tiny collection represented a window into the main room of the Library of Congress; he saw walls filled with shelves.
In a moment of grander vision, he saw the rooms filled with walls of shelves, beyond the main room in the Library of Congress. Then he saw the buildings filled with rooms of shelves of books, beyond the main building. And he saw how tiny a single human mind seemed, compared to this enormous swirl of knowledge.
He lurched mentally to a horrible realization. In some desperately important sense, both he and Nell were illiterate. The answers to their questions might well lie within the behemoth of human experience. Yet those answers might as well not exist. For though both he and Nell could read, they could not read fast enough.
They couldn’t read fast enough! His heart skipped a beat. He needed to look away and think of something else, but Nell’s expression held him. He felt sure that Nell had seen the rooms of walls of shelves as clearly as he had, yet the vision did not frighten her. Only sorrow, and longing, and puzzlement touched her expression as her reaching fingers touched the books at random. The gesture seemed so hopeless, yet the mind behind the gesture seemed so hopeful.
She paced back to the table, her dress swishing gracefully as she moved. She paused at the table, reluctant to sit. Yet she had no other purpose in this room; she returned to her chair.
Elated, Mayfield saw that Nell Carson, the woman of never-ending surety, was uncertain about their new treaty. Mayfield shifted his gaze to Secretary of State Earl Semmens, seated across the table from Nell. Earl’s posture suggested that he expected Nell to strike him physically; he evidently did not recognize Nell’s uncertainty.
Unable to resist this opportunity to gloat, Mayfield prodded his vice president. “So, Ms. Carson, what do you think of our new agreement?”
Hard nails clicked against smooth table top. She looked up abruptly, straight into Mayfield’s eyes. “I don’t know.” Even now, though she was filled with doubts, she was annoyingly certain of her uncertainty. “Normally, when the Soviets sign a treaty, we already have indications of their next plans. Of course, we always refuse to understand those indications, but they’re there nonetheless.” She paused. “This time, I can’t see any indications.”
“I can see that you can’t see.” Mayfield’s ironic tone showed his enjoyment of this moment. “It couldn’t be that we’ve finally penetrated
that impenetrable Soviet suspicion, could it? It couldn’t be that they’ve learned that treaties are better than wars, could it?”
Nell sat frozen, unable to accept this view, yet unable to refute it. Finally, she confessed, “It’s possible, Jim. I can’t prove you’re wrong, though I can show that it’s highly unlikely. They may have learned that treaties are better than wars, but that is not the lesson we’ve been teaching. We’ve been teaching them that having treaties and having wars, when convenient, is the best of both worlds.” Her head tilted, as if listening for a clue. “My best guess is that they have some ulterior motive for withdrawing troops from Eastern Europe, though I have no idea what it might be.”
Mayfield glanced back at his watch again; it was almost time.
Earl swiveled out of his defensive posture to confront Nell for the first time. “Ulterior motive? I’ll give you an ulterior motive. The Soviet economy is creaking like an old maid’s vertebrae! They desperately need to put those men back to work in the factories an3 the fields. They have to become more productive— that’s their motive! This arms race is hurting them even more than it’s hurting us, and it’s killing us! What more motive do you need?”
Nell looked ready to respond, but Mayfield interrupted hurriedly. “Let’s see what the rest of the country has to say about my—our—new treaty.” His finger stabbed the squishy plastic button on his remote. The dull glow of a television lit up amidst the bookshelves.
For a moment Mayfield thought he had turned on an old movie—one about the gods of ancient Greece. The man who smiled out at them from the TV screen could easily pass as Apollo.
Nell whistled. “Whew! Who is that guy?”
Mayfield shrugged. “He’s a new reporter for ABN. Some of my constituents tell me he’ll be the newscasting star of the decade. They asked me to watch his spots. They say he knows the nation’s pulse better than anybody.” Actually, Mayfield himself knew the nation’s pulse best. That had been proven repeatedly. Jim had an uncanny knack for positioning himself within the public spotlight.
Nell asked, “What’s this guy’s name?”
“Uh, Bill Hardin, or something like that. He looks like Apollo, doesn’t he?”
“I’ve never seen a more perfect Neanderthal animal in my life.”
ZOOM. The Neanderthal Apollo wears a suit and tie and speaks with the bland accent of the Midwest. “Tonight’s top story, of course, is President Mayfield’s latest treaty with the Soviet Union. The new treaty, a remarkable American coup at the negotiation table, is known as the Mutual Force Reduction Agreement. It leads immediately to the withdrawal of several divisions of troops, both American and Soviet, from the European theater. This will mean an immediate relaxation of tensions, and may lead to even more impressive long-term troop withdrawals “
Nell commented drily, “At least no one can accuse him of pessimism.”
“Shush,” Mayfield chided.
FOCUS. “America may be witnessing the most significant transition in world history: the transition from a world of tense, sometimes violent conflict, to a world of peace. President Mayfield has single-handedly propelled this transition with his clockwork-like invention of new ways to lower tensions, while maintaining the security of both the United States and the Soviet Union. Indeed, rumors have started circulating that President Mayfield could become the next Nobel Peace Prize winner.”
What an incredible idea! The Nobel Peace Prize! Again he looked over at Nell, who stared fixedly at the screen. He felt a certain compassion for her, thinking how difficult it must be for her to acknowledge the Tightness of his long, determined drive to peace. He felt flush with warm belief in himself.
CUT. The scene shifts to a picture of angry civilians and equally angry police, facing each other on a wide swath of concrete. “What incredible methods of persuasion did the president use to make the Soviets agree to the Mutual Force Reduction Agreement? He was able to arrange this withdrawal of troops despite the ongoing unrest in East Germany.” Huddled groups of East Germans suddenly break into motion. A few bricks fly, then the sound of machine guns fills the air. The viewer can almost smell the gunpowder. “The only place in the world today where the Soviets face worse trouble than here in East Germany is in the city of Ashkhabad, near the Iranian border. Here militant Muslim extremists press for religious and other freedoms. The violence grows as Iranian smugglers continue supplying guns and training to militant protesters.”
CUT. A diplomatic delegation comes into view. “Even this conflict seems on the verge of resolution, however. After years of reticence, the Iranian government has agreed to work out a plan with the Soviet Union for controlling these smugglers. We have reason to believe this negotiation may have been arranged by President Mayfield as well. We believe he used his influence with Saudi Arabia, which persuaded the King of Jordan to press the Ayatollah of Iran for resolution of the issue .”
Mayfield started to shake his head in denial of this last twist in Hardies analysis, then stopped. The rumor wasn’t true, of course; he had had no involvement with the Soviet-Iran talks whatsoever. And thougli he would never suggest that he had had something to do with it, such rumors could thrust him even closer to the Peace Prize. For now, it seemed silly to deny them.
He saw Nell contemplating him with her too-wide, solemn blue eyes. Something about her demanded a reaction. He thrust his chin forward, proud of the events he had initiated. He wondered why she made him feel so uncomfortable, why she made his heart speed up like a rabbit’s.
Nell rose to leave, having heard as much president-worship as she could stand. “Congratulations,” she offered with apparent sincerity. She nodded at the news reporter on the screen, then at Mayfield. “I hope you’re both right. I hope we don’t regret this a month from now.”
“Don’t worry,” Mayfield said as she left the White House library room. “Next month we’ll do something even better.”
July 29
Filter first for substance. Filter second for
significance. These filters protect against advertising.
—Zetetic Commentaries
A long corridor connected the receptionist hub of the Institute’s main building to Leslie Evans’s office. Nathan walked that corridor often, but he never walked it without a moment’s pause near the beginning of the hall. Nathan paused there now. He stood in the heart of the Sling Project.
A tapestry of colorful lines and boxes filled the walls of the corridor. For a child’s eye the pattern would hold little beauty, and less meaning. But to an engineer, this corridor-filling PERT chart held as much truth as a man could bear in a single encounter. And for an engineer, truth always appeared intricately meshed with beauty. In some engineering sense, the chart was beautiful.
Every task in the Sling Project had a box on the wall. Lines of interdependency jagged across the spaces between the boxes—from boxes that could be completed early, to boxes that could not be started until those early boxes yielded completed products. For example, they had to design the prototype SkyHunter before they could build it. They had to build it before they could test it.
No single human mind could understand all the complexities of all the components of the Sling Project. But in this hall a person could at least grasp the outline of the system as he walked from the accomplished past into the dreamed-of future. The colors of the chart which described the relation between accomplishment and dream, rippled in an elastic dance with the passage of time.
Green-marked tasks were already completed. Nathan had entered the hall from the past, from the beginning of the project. He walked through a forest of greens for a long time, and his confidence grew. The Sling team had already accomplished so much. He reached out and touched a green box at random: SELECT BASE VEHICLE FOR THE HOPPERHUNTER. There had been three alternatives for the hopper—a commercial hovercraft and two experimental walking platforms. The hovercraft had won out in the selection because of its speed, despite its inferior stability.
Pink marked the tasks
now falling behind schedule. A pink box was not necessarily a catastrophe. Pink tasks still had slack time before they were needed for the next step in the dance of interdependencies, but they were warnings of potential trouble.
Nathan proceeded down the hall. Soon a light scattering of pink mingled with the green. As Nathan walked closer to the present, the pinks clustered more thickly, but they did not yet dominate any part of the wall.
Simple black marked the tasks not yet started, not yet needed. These tasks were the future—challenging, but nevertheless achievable. Nathan stopped where the black boxes collided with the pinks and greens. He stood in the present. Reaching forward, he touched a tiny part of the near future, when they would complete the design for the Crowbar control surfaces. The Crowbar was the projectile dispensed from the HighHunter, a deceptively simple metal bar that would simply fall to Earth from orbit and hit the ground—or an enemy tank—with all the speed and energy it gained in its meteoric flight. Black boxes such as this one covered the rest of the corridor.
Red marked the results of a pink box that had festered too long. Red marked disaster: a task that should already have been completed—one that had to be completed tm- mediately. Every day the red box remained red, every day its schedule slipped, the schedule for the whole wall of tasks slipped. A single red box would ultimately distort the whole wall—all the way out to the box for the completion date, itself so far down the hall it disappeared from Nathan’s sight. Red boxes represented the blood and sweat of engineers who would work 24 hours a day to repair the damage. Red boxes marked open wounds on the body of the project.
A single red box glared under Nathan’s appraising gaze. This box had triggered his meeting today with Leslie. He touched it. The words inside described his own personal failure. COMPLETE STAFFING OF THE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT TEAM, the box reminded him. With an abrupt turn, he hurried through the black future of the Sling to Leslie’s office.
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