A.E. Van Vogt - Novel 32 - Computerworld

by Computerworld

  Captain Sart has not moved. If he is bracing himself it still does not show, because he is not smiling. He replies, however, in a tone of voice that I would normally consider as showing stress. “That was Lot’s wife, sir,” he says, “and I always thought God did that to her, for reasons which have never been clear to me.”

  As these words are spoken, I glance at the memory circuit which contains the story of Lot’s wife, along with the rest of the bible. (I have the entire bible available; it’s not a summarized memory.) So, because this seems to be a threat situation against maintenance personnel, I scan the reference and scan the material that precedes and follows it. However, there is no clue to what may happen in the present situation.

  The Aldo duplicate is definitely continuing with his comparison, for he says next, “From what we now know of the power of the profile over the body, we may deduce that Lot’s wife dismissed the warning by hardening herself against it by utilizing some kind of cynical consideration which, of course, at this late date we can only speculate about. But in your situation we can similarly deduce that you have made 8 number of hard decisions in order, for example, to ignore the jealousies of your four mistresses. And I observe what I consider to be an equally hard decision to be the colonel’s chief assistant, and that on the basis of a modem-style cynical thought you are aiding him to achieve his personal ambition. Do you have any comment?”

  “Mr. Tate—” Captain Sart’s tone has become sarcastic—“I am an authorized military agent of the Computer Engineering Corps. It may not always be easy but I do my duty. My private life is my own affair.”

  The Aldo duplicate says, “This is an amazing universe, Captain. It turns out that all those early types who inveighed against any kind of impure thought were right. At this instant your profile is automatically responding to those hard decisions because the presence of a configuration of golden balls that have a golden sheen of 3 on a scale where one is perfect—meaning my presence—stimulates a response. However, I should tell you that what happened to Lot’s wife was probably not fatal. Nor will be what is happening to you.”

  Sart wears a gray suit. He suddenly seems to be standing straighter in it. In fact, his height increases by one and one-eighth inches. His eyes look directly ahead. Swiftly, they develop a staring quality that—I get feedback from my hospital circuits—resembles what happens to people who are in pain and must hold themselves very still to avoid any movement that will cause pain.

  As Sart reaches this stage, the Aldo duplicate turns to Colonel Smith, and says, “Help me carry him over to the couch.”

  Yahco has ceased his smile. But he comes forward rapidly. His body seems to be not quite normal, as if he also is somehow straighter. However, he takes hold of Captain Sart’s right arm and right leg. Aldo’s duplicate has Sart’s left arm and leg in his grip. They both lift; at which the rigidity of Sart’s body becomes truly apparent. The legs do not bend. The arms remain fixed at his side. The mid-body does not sag in any way.

  The two men—the colonel and Major Nair’s duplicate—carry this stiff body over to the couch which projects from the north wall. They lay it down, let go, straighten.

  The Aldo duplicate says, “He’ll relax in a few minutes.”

  Yahco makes a gesture with his right hand. It is an arm motion that, on the basis of his past behavior, I evaluate as having the meaning of “dismissal.”

  He is, in effect, registering unconcern over what has happened so far. Almost at once he speaks in his curt voice: “All right, Mr. Tate, what do you want?”

  “Colonel—” the Aldo voice is firm—“order the computer to release the prisoners, Elna, Rauley, Oneena, and Fen, and their babies.”

  The smile is suddenly back on Yahco’s face. I recognize it by instant comparison as the bracing smile. Without turning to face the computer Eye-O, he says, “Computer, get ready for a 31-C.”

  “Careful,” warns the person, who is repeatedly being addressed as Glay Tate but who has the physical appearances of Major Aldo Nair.

  The smile on Yahco’s face becomes grimmer. “Do you know what a 31-C is?” he asks.

  “It’s evidently a code word for an electronic development that came after my time,” is the reply. “I could read your mind on it by imitating you, but, as Sart pointed out, I might not be able to defend myself during the moments of change. So I’ll just have to point out that you’re not heeding what I told Sart.”

  The two men are standing across the cot from each other,! paying no attention to Captain Sart, despite that his name has just been mentioned twice.

  Yahco says, “The concept of what is an impure thought is probably worth a footnote in history, but scarcely concerns two persons who are both fighting for some kind of ascendancy.” He breaks off: “Computer, are you ready with 31-C?”

  “Ready, sir,” I reply. As I do so, I have the unexpected happen again: that faint echo of cynicism from the re-education circuits: . . . Who does the colonel think I am? Am I ready? Of course I’m ready. When I’m asked properly, a 31-C requires three-millionths of a second to set up. Ready! For God’s sake what’s the matter with these stupid human beings? This is a computer they’re dealing with. A computer with access to nine sesquidillions of information bits or summarizations.

  The echo swells and fades. And Aldo’s voice—the earnest tone—says, “Colonel, I don’t know what you’re planning with that instruction. Evidently, Major Nair doesn’t know. I get no clue feedback from him. It must be something new and top level. But rather than have a confrontation, I offer y°“ human evolutionary training, and the senator also, if you will both give up the ambition to use the computer to make first him and then you President of the U.S.”

  Yahco’s smile has changed. It is now his sarcastic smile. But it is a smile, so he’s still bracing himself, as he says, “Could you be trying to stall because you-know that I’ve got enough army units heading this way to wipe out your little group of religious maniacs, and who will do exactly that before this afternoon and night are over.’’

  “Colonel—” still the earnest voice—“what the computer stimulated in my brain during that experiment eighteen years ago is a potential in every human being, including you. It could be the way to immortality.”

  Yahco has his recognizable-to-me cold rejection tone, as he says, “Now that the twelfth boy of Cotter’s experiment has surfaced, and is causing problems, we are obviously dealing with the final stage of that illegal action.” Pause. He seems to do a mental calculation, for when he speaks again the words are, “You’re twenty-eight years old now. At that age you ought to be ashamed of yourself being involved in old-fashioned, medieval concepts like God and the soul.”

  He laughs grimly, and continues, “The late Dr. Pierce said it all, and said it many times: If God were to show himself to human beings, he would promptly be put on trial for creating a universe where the life-death cycle of the intelligent species is about seventy years. I’m afraid, Tate, we can never forgive Him for death.”

  Glay Tate is silent. His face is expressionless. But his body seems to be bracing slightly.

  Yahco goes on, “You may ask, what about the mental phenomena that Glay Tate can perform? Surely, they prove something. What they prove is that, with the help of the computer, we may discover hitherto unsuspected extra-sensory potentialities of the human mind. And so one of these days We’ll conduct Cotter’s experiment again. But knowing what happened the first time we’ll be more careful.”

  As he completes that final thought, abruptly he shows his teeth. “Got it?” he says savagely.

  The Aldo duplicate has been backing away from his side of the cot as those words are spoken. As he retreats he says in a disappointed tone: “Then it’s war between us?”

  As he says that, he takes three rapid steps forward, leaps the cot, and grabs Yahco in a flying tackle—as such maneuvers are called.

  Colonel Smith stagge
rs back, and yells, “Computer—31-C!”

  In my ninety-four years of full-scale operation, I have watched, and have summarizations of 114,973,869,218 struggles, or “fights,” as they are called, between two human beings, mostly between males under age eighteen years of age. This one belongs to a small classification of fight types as being between a member of the maintenance corps, and an assailant who is not a member.

  In such struggles, I am under a continuing instruction to protect all maintenance corpsmen. In this instance, the classification actually narrows even further. I have just been commanded by the top authority of that corps to do something which, for two reasons, I am not able to do. That combination has only happened once before in my entire history.

  Naturally, since no one has asked me, I do nothing. Say nothing.

  In his initial attack, the Aldo duplicate knocked the DAR out of Yahco’s hand. The two men thereupon do what is called “wrestling.” Yahco tries to force the smaller Aldo body to the floor. The Aldo body pushes back. They seesaw back and forth across the room twice. On the second passage, the Aldo right foot kicks Yahco’s DAR under one of the desks. For the most part, the Aldo body, in its struggling keeps Yahco between itself and the computer outlet. Thus I am prevented from using my DAR weapon (which I am required to do as a defense of corps personnel). What prevents is that, even at my speed of reaction, two writhing bodies offer no definite target. I could not be certain of monitoring the energy charges with sufficient accuracy.

  My “fight” memory circuits contain summaries, including, those of a taller, heavier man trying to overcome a smaller, quicker one. Here, this afternoon, the second stage of the struggle ends with the Aldo duplicate managing to grab Yahco’s DAR. With it in one hand he ducks behind a desk.

  As it turns out, this maneuver serves two purposes. By hiding, he protects himself from the DAR controlled by the computer Eye-O. Thus—simultaneously—there is a pause, during which further conversation becomes possible.

  Yahco gasps, “Computer, what happened to 31-C?”

  “It’s all set up, colonel.”

  “Then why didn’t you activate it at my command?” His voice is still breathless sounding.

  “Against whom, sir?” I ask.

  Rage is suddenly in the voice: “Against the S.O.B. who pretending to be Aldo Nair.”

  “Who is that, sir?”

  “Glay Tate.”

  “I,” I said, “keep hearing this name, and it is now quite familiar to me. But there is an automatic barrier of some kind in connection with whoever this is.”

  “Oh, my God,” says the colonel, “that again.” There is a pause. Then, in a subdued tone, he says, “Computer.”

  “Yes, sir?” I reply.

  “Unlock the door or doors of the cells containing the four rebel girls and their babies.”

  I have been aware throughout of the Eye-O in the occupied cell. So the act of unlocking is immediately possible. It makes a click. At once, two of the women get up from cots, go over, and try the door. When it opens, all four at once, separately, pick up their babies, go through the open cell door, and walk along the deserted corridor.

  Meanwhile, still crouching, the Aldo duplicate has been removing the Aldo suit coat. “Here,” he says, straightening up. With that, he tosses the coat to Yahco.

  The Aldo duplicate seems to understand that, since there is no longer a threat against Yahco, I am not compelled to fire the Eye-O DAR at him. In fact, as he stands there after tossing the coat—which Yahco catches and holds—he transforms into a physical shape of which I have many recordings, but which is subject to a hidden restriction.

  He is totally this other person shape, as the four women enter the office by way of the second door, which has been closed until now. As they crowd through it, the woman Elna calls out, “Thank you, Glay.”

  Aldo-Glay speaks. He says, “Pren and Boddy are outside in the rescue van. Tell them to wait for me.”

  No other words are spoken. The women with their babies go silently past him and through the outside door.

  Yahco is no longer bracing himself. Unsmiling, and carrying Aldo’s coat, he backs over to a chair, and sits down in it. He says, “Well, Mr. Tate, due to a slight confusion, you’re going to get away for the moment. But I can’t see you or your group escaping for long.”

  Aldo-Glay has backed over to the door. He pauses there, says, “Speaking of confusion, colonel, there was a lot around that girl, Meerla. Is she actually your niece?”

  The colonel shakes his head. He says in his sly tone, “No. She thinks you people killed her parents.”

  “You . . . bastard!” says Aldo-Glay.

  With that, he turns. And quickly exits through the door.

  I observe Aldo-Glay from the outside Eye-O emerge from the outer door, and run across the parking lot to where the rebel van is parked. The door is open, and he runs right inside. At once, the vehicle starts forward.

  Inside the engineering headquarters main office, there has been a brief silence. Then: “Computer,” says Colonel Smith.

  It is his controlled-calm voice. He is not smiling. He is not bracing himself. He is, according to early explanations I have, holding in intense emotion, and—as the condition has been described to me—pretending there is no emotion.

  (Emotion: a chemical-neural-glandular state involving the viscera and both nervous systems, to which animals and humans are subject.)

  “Yes, colonel?” I reply.

  “How many S.A.V.E.s are on the way to Mardley?”

  I give him this information. The total is 38 coming from towns to the east, north, south, and west.

  Yahco says, “From the direction in which those first rebel vans fled, it looks as if they’re heading toward Wexford Falls Pass. How many S.A.V.E.s will be available from that direction?”

  I tell him. Eleven.

  Silence. There he stands, a scowl on his face, a tall (what is known as) gaunt-bodied man. Not in uniform right now. He’s wearing that western gear. For nine years, since the untimely—as it was stated at the time—death of his predecessor, this man, this Colonel Yahco Smith, has been the chief of computer maintenance in Washington, D.C.

  Now, he turns. It is his decisive body movement. He says firmly, “Computer, have the four nearest S.A.V.E.s intercept the rebel vehicle that has just driven away from this building. The murderers of Sergeant Inchey are aboard. Also, advise S.A.V.E. personnel approaching from the other side of mountains that if they reach Wexford Falls Pass before the rebels do they are to take up defensive positions there, and force a confrontation in that remote area. Meanwhile, must locate the real Aldo Nair. Hold back one S.A.V.E. for him and Sart and me. We’ll ride up to the blockade together.”

  Small pause while I deliver these instructions to all “ personnel involved. During that pause, Yahco walks over to the cot, and stares down at Captain Sart.

  A few moments later, Yahco is presumably addressing me—there being no other conscious unit in the room—as he says, “According to Mr. Glay Tate, what happened to Raul would be temporary. Since I am practically as dependent on the loyal captain as the late Colonel Endodore used to be dependent on me, I am hoping that Tate’s reassurance is true. And, of course, at this stage we have no reason to doubt his words. Do we, computer?”

  His voice ceases. Because the inert body is stirring. The eyes open. Sart’s face does what has been called a twisted smile. He sits up. “Sir,” he says, “I’ve been lying here the last minute or so sort of assessing my condition. I seem to be all right.”

  He swings his legs over. Hesitates for a moment. And stands up. “Yep,” he says. He salutes. “Where to, sir?” Yahco says no word. But he reaches over and claps Sart on his shoulder. It has been said to me that such an action is an expression of affection; and I suppose there is a truth to that, since these two men are extremely dependent on each other.


  A moment later the two head for the door side by side. At the final moment, however, the captain steps smartly aside, and stands at attention while his colonel precedes him.

  Naturally, I can have no reaction to the name of Glay Tate. But what does get a response out of me is Yahco’s mention of Endodore. And the unnecessary question. The question triggers a memory scan of the only available similar situation in Yahco’s back history.

  CHAPTER

  TWELVE

  What I recall at my flash speed at the mention of Endodore’s name, is Yahco Smith, when he has attained the rank of major (2097 A.D.) being admitted into the inner sanctum of Senator Blybaker.

  As he entered, he saw the rascally politician sitting behind a large blond desk. The man he saw looked unconscionably young for someone in his early forties. But Yahco, who had sources of information, knew that there had been a face lift at thirty-eight. The lift had failed to purge the darkness that showed through from inside. But it did smooth the skin, and imparted an appearance of late twenties when seen from the right angle. On campaign the senator strove for that angle. And it must have worked. In the last two elections the women had voted madly for him.

  The two villains simply looked at each other until the door closed behind Yahco, testifying to the departure of the woman secretary who had brought and introduced the visitor. And it was Yahco, then, who removed his gaze from the direct path of the other man’s power stare.

  It was an act of sly obeisance. And the obeisance part recognized, and acknowledged, by the big man with the large shock of blond hair.

  In fact, the two-faced creature’s first words were, “I see we’re going to understand each other.”

  The lean, ravaged—by visibly twisted thoughts—the engineering corps officer contorted into a small smirk. “I’m already hopeful,” said Yahco, “that your invitation to come here reflects your continued confidence in me, Senator, as expressed earlier on the phone.”