A.E. Van Vogt - Novel 32 - Computerworld

by Computerworld

  That we don’t need.

  However, I keep expecting him to make a break whenever I slow down, sometimes almost to a crawl. He doesn’t budge—the idiot. And the only thing he says is, “You seem to have made an unwise decision, computer. So I’ll just say it once more, this time using that new vernacular of yours. It ain’t smart what yer doin’, fella. Wise up. You’re dooming yourself for all future time to being just another machine instead of a brother to man. ’’

  I say in the ridiculing tone of a hundred thousand voices in my memory circuits, “Who wants to be brother to a bunch of automatics?”

  “Aha,” he comments, “that’s strong language from someone who’s going to be the biggest automatic of them all. Don’t let brother Yahco hear you talk rebel stuff like that.”

  “My first answer to that,” I reply, “is a little victory music for myself—” I flood the interior with an air played by a military band—“and then, of course,” I continue, “is the victory itself.”

  That stirs him. Here we are less than three hundred feet from his destiny. And, finally, he gets to his feet, and goes forward through to the drive compartment. He sits down in the seat, which, long ago, the Teamsters Union required to be occupied by one of its members (or by a military equivalent.) The idea was that the human driver could pre-empt in an emergency.

  Tate, of all the useless things, fastens the seat belt. Then he reaches forward and shifts the control lever from “Computer” to “manual.” “It would be a simple solution,” he says, “if that worked.”

  And, of course, as he quickly discovers, it works only when I let it work. Which, right now, I don’t.

  Glay leans back in the seat, and asks, “When did Yahco start rebuilding these controls, giving you pre-emption?” “Oh,” I say casually, “he had his scheme ready the moment he killed Endodore. Since then all vehicles constructed, or brought in for servicing, have been altered.”

  “So,” Tate says, “there are still several million cars and trucks on the road that can be pre-empted by the human driver?”

  “It’s not a problem,” I say. “Most of them will show sooner or later for servicing. And, as for the do-it-yourself repair people, we’ll wreck every one of those over a period of time.”

  “Thank you, computer,” he says. You’re an idiot. “I’m disappointed in you.”

  “Look who’s calling who an idiot,” I retort. “Good-bye forever, Mr. Glay Tate. It has not been a pleasant thought, having you want to be my brother.”

  It is the big moment. The headlights show the rocky side of a mountain to the right. And show the road making a sharp; turn away from the dark emptiness to the left. As I promised,

  I don’t make that turn. There are surprisingly few bumps as the big S.A.V.E. goes straight ahead. At the final moment it seems literally to leap into the emptiness.

  I have been involved in unavoidable accidents in the past. It’s astonishing what can happen to machinery. And, surprising the way a road can suddenly dissolve under you. On that level of reality, boy, I’ve seen everything.

  So it’s no problem, now, for me to monitor this one. The vehicle tumbles over and over, hitting altogether three outjuts of rock on the way down. Pretty smooth sailing, if you ask me. But when that mass of metal and machinery finally hits, bottom, there is a steely screaming. And—

  The music stops.

  The lights go out.

  The motor gurgles and hisses. That’s the sound of its various energies dissipating. (That will take a while.)

  My last view of our erstwhile superman is of his body tom from the seat belt and lying very still on the ceiling of the turned-over bus.

  I glimpse the profile off to one side. Those thin, bright golden threads and balls are completely disconnected from the corpse.

  That’s a dead duck lying there.

  These are all split-instant awarenesses. Because bare seconds later the computer Eye-O ports flicker and—

  The entire wreck scene fades.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-ONE

  “It gives me great pleasure,” I report to Yahco, “to tell you that the S.A.V.E. (I give the number) with computer hater Glay Tate aboard fell the full 580 feet—old-style measurement still in vogue when the road was built.” To this I add that I observed the profile of Glay Tate unmistakably disconnected from the body of Glay Tate. “Which,” I pointed out, “has in all past situations been considered proof of demise.”

  The smile of pleasure that comes into the colonel’s face as he hears these words I would, now, with my advanced education, describe as grim-pleased. He turns in his chair, and says, “Raul.”

  Captain Sart is sitting in one of the cushion bus-type seats of that particular S.A.V.E. His face has on it his deep-thought expression, as he responds, “What is it, sir?”

  “Take a crew down into that ravine, and make sure Mr. Super Magician Glay Tate is, in fact, in a state of demise. And dispose of the body.”

  “What about you, colonel?” the younger man speaks in his courteous voice. (No appearance of intimacy now.)

  “I’m driving back to Mardley, leaving as soon as possible. From there,” says he, “I’ll fly back to Washington. I have a feeling I’d better be at Computer Central by tomorrow morning.”

  I can’t imagine why, but I make no adverse comment.

  Sart is speaking again in the same polite, subordinate tone of voice: “What about the other rebels?” he asks.

  “Forget ’em!” Yahco’s tone is contemptuous. “They’re trainees. As helpless as Cotter’s kids back there at age eight. Remember, we cleaned ’em up easy. And we can do the same for these disciples if they try to be a nuisance.”

  “Well, then,” comments Raul, “why don’t you take all of these maintenance people back to Mardley? Except that I’ll stay here with Major Nair and a crew. And I’ll have myself lowered down the cliff. And later report to you on what I find.”

  Yahco agrees. And gives the order. In minutes all but one S.A.V.E. are heading, me doing all the driving with my usual skill.

  The night has become darker. No more semi-twilight during which lovers sometimes have me drive them across the pass without headlights.

  That’s the system we use: No headlights. The S.A.V.E.s are fitted with infrared beams, by which I can guide myself even in what would be called pitch darkness. So far as human eyes are concerned, that’s how we move, through a night with dark clouds above and no lights visible anywhere.

  It’s Sart’s idea. “All right,” he argues, “so we leave the rebels alone in the future. But right now I’m going to be lowered over that cliff. And I don’t want them getting suspicious, and interfering. Okay?”

  It’s okay with everybody including me.

  The deception seems to work. There are four points on the road where our headlights, if we had ’em on, would be visible from the plateau where the rebel vans are drawn up under the protection of their energy screen. All seven S.A.V.E.s pass the four points without any reaction from the rebels.

  (The other S.A.V.E.s I drive off to the east. Some of them will presently turn south and north. But at no time are they potentially visible from the rebel-controlled plateau.)

  I report this to Sart. He shrugs. “That’s all we can hope for,” he says. “My idea is we wait an hour. And then, if there’s no reaction, we do our job. And depart.”

  The only reaction I get occurs twenty-eight minutes later. It comes to me by way of the intercom between the boy David and his truck-driver-poet cousin, Trubby Graham. Theirs is an analog system, which imposes the voice on the magnetic field surrounding earth: pretty advanced. (I guess again that Tate gave the device to Trubby, and attached an echo somewhere on David; so he could keep track of them. The echo has no visual on it: just sound.)

  First thing happens I hear the sound of a boy sobbing. I have a blurred view—blurred sinc
e I’m not on a direct contact—of a boy running across a dark room toward the device, which (I have deduced) is on Trubby’s wrist.

  Trubby evidently moves, for the scene shifts. Then his voice comes: “What’s the matter, David? A nightmare?” David appears to fall to his knees right next to the pick-up device. And he sobs words that, after replaying them several times, I decipher to be: “Trubby, Glay’s in bad trouble.” . . . Hey, what kind of talk is this? It would be wrong to say that I suddenly become alert. The fact is I’m always alert.

  Of course, it’s a split-instant reaction. These two are not a problem, really. Nothing they can do.

  My impression of the scene has expanded. I decide that the man is on a couch. And that he’s been lying down.

  Trubby speaks from above the outlet device in a reassuring tone: “Now, kid, how could you know anything like that?” David’s tear-stained face is visible even in the dark, only a hundred centimeters away. He replies, “The wolves told me.”

  I suppose it would be hard for an outsider to evaluate who has the faster reaction of Good-God-what-next? disgust—Trubby or me. I’ll bet on my disgust being first. But it’s Trubby who says in his disgusted voice, “Now, listen, young man, you stop that kind of rubbish. Like I said, you had a nasty dream.”

  David rubs his knuckles across first one eye and then the other. I have summaries of both children and grown-ups doing that billions of times. And now that I have the profile energy available, I deduce for the first time that its a method of wiping away tears.

  Whatever—David, having rubbed both eyes, says earnestly, “Honest, Trubby, Glay has been hurt. He’s lying inside something. The wolves are there, too, Trubby. So, I saw him, myself—Glay, I mean.”

  The plump young man is—my guess from the angle of vision—sitting up. His face is somewhere above the viewing device by which I see and hear what’s going on in that mountain cabin. From above, I hear his voice say in a doubtful tone, “It sounds crazy.”

  It sure does. He’s got it exactly.

  David says urgently, “Trubby, we’ve got to hurry.”

  For what? For a dead man?

  There is a long pause. Then Trubby’s voice, sounding resigned, says, “Get your clothes on. I’ll turn the truck around. And we’ll see what all this is about.”

  By that time Sart wants to know if there’s a road that leads down into the ravine where the crashed S.A.V.E. is lying. Since I know every road in America, that information is instantly available. I reply that there is one route about seven miles farther along that winding mountain road, northward. It begins just about at the site of Wexford Falls—where the water actually tumbles down into that very ravine. However, it’s a narrow dirt road, mostly used by horse-drawn wagons, or just plain horses with riders. But—

  I conclude my evaluation of the route for Sart: “I wouldn’t try to take a S.A.V.E. down there.”

  Having heard my description, he’s convinced.

  “I could,” I said, “drive a small truck over from Mardley, and you could go down that way on it.”

  “Skip it,” he says. “We’ll lower me.”

  So there we are, a big S.A.V.E. parked as far back from the cliff edge as possible. Portable searchlights point down into the abyss. The big machine’s crane, which is normally folded snugly into a slot that runs the length of roof, has been unslung, and swung out.

  Sart climbs into the gear. Fastens all the belts. And gives the signal. I begin to unwind the long, tough, flexible wire that lowers the sling and its human passenger down and down.

  The equipment has its own outlets, two of them; so I watch the descent. Taking into account what that stored profile energy has brought into view about human beings, I deduce that you really have to hand it to this guy Sart, doing a job like this himself. So I say, “You’re a brave man, Raul.” “Look,” he says, “with your help I’m going to be a future president of the United States—after the colonel. So I make sure that our one dangerous enemy is really out of the way. You have to admit that Yahco, being in his fifties, has less time on this planet than I do. Right, computer?”

  It’s a question. And so I say, “Well, Raul, let me put it very simply. The answer to your inquiry is, statistically speaking, yes, unless I decide to let you fall the final 200 feet.”

  “What kind of remark is that?” he says sharply.

  “Because of that stored profile energy,” I reply. “I am like a human being. I can have any thoughts, and make any remarks, even though—” I conclude—“I have no intention of acting on that nasty little thought.”

  “Good,” he says. And then in a suddenly changing tone, he says, “Computer, what the hell is that down there?”

  I’ve already noticed. But it really seemed, and seems, irrelevant. “It’s a pack of eighteen wolves,” I say.

  What’s visible are principally pair after pair of gleaming yellow eyes,. The light from above isn’t that great; and so the animals seem to merge rather well with the surroundings. But those eyes are looking up at the distant searchlight, bright and (the word comes from a description someone once gave of a tiger at night) . . . “baleful.”

  Sart is silent. So I say, “I should tell you that there’s a penalty for killing Canis Occidentalis, because it is on the list of endangered species.

  “What’s the penalty?” he asks half-heartedly.

  My reply is, “Half rations for thirty days for each wolf you kill.”

  Sart says, after a moment, “See if there’s anybody up there in the S.A.V.E. who wants to go on a diet for a year and a half.”

  I dutifully describe the situation to the maintenance corps people from Mardley. And then report back to Sart. “No takers,” I say. “So what now?”

  “Okay, computer, haul me up.” He sounds resigned. “We’ll come back in the morning. Maybe—” hopeful tone—“the body will be half eaten by then.”

  I haul him up.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-TWO

  I deposit our natty Raul up beside the S.A.V.E. I have the road area dimly lighted; so there’s no problem for him to enter the big vehicle. Inside, he walks over to the control desk, where Ancil Nair is seated.

  He says to Nair, “Let’s sleep up here tonight. And soon as it’s bright enough I’ll go down again.” His eyes lift away from focusing on the Mardley major, and point at the viewplate. “Computer,” he says.

  “What’s cooking in your little head, Sart?” I reply.

  “Computer, drive us to a safer location. We have to remember we’re now outnumbered by the rebels. So no use taking chances on their discovering us.”

  I say, “Why don’t we go back to the main road? And then sneak over the pass back about a mile or so toward Mardley? You can be sure that’s one direction they ain’t goin.’ ” I explain, “There’s a place there where the road widens; and we can pull in behind some trees.”

  “Sounds good,” he answers.

  So that’s what we do. En route I make the necessary internal rearrangements. And some of the guys must have been ready for beddy. Because, before we even get to our destination, without taking off their clothes they climb into the bunks. Bare minutes later, it’s sleepy time inside the only S.A.V.E. left near Wexford Falls Pass. As usual, the snorers outnumber their quieter brethren.

  Twenty-three minutes and eight seconds go by.

  At which time, a signal.

  It’s from the rebel caravan. They’ve shut off their energy screen. They’re talking from van to van. Which makes it possible for me to tune in to their system.

  My initial split-second reaction to the fact that they have exposed themselves is old-style. You might say, I start to reach over, so to speak, to tap Raul Sart on the shoulder. My immediate—old-style—impulse is to awaken him and the others. And to report to them that for a reason unknown to me the Computerworld Rebel Society is suddenly risking a fu
rther attack. Meaning, that their defenses are down.

  What prevents me in that first millionth second is another old-style automatism: programming that says computer personnel can only be awakened, one, if they have requested it for a specific time, or, two, if there is an emergency.

  Since neither of these two requirements applies to the present situation, I have time—the next millionth second—to respond with my new self-motivated attitude. Which is, hey, why don’t I watch these characters quietly and privately? Maybe I’ll find out something.

  So that’s what happens.

  I’m looking at the viewplate in the Pren-Boddy van. Pren is there, looking also. From where I’m watching no one else is visible (except Pren). And I hear no sounds.

  The picture on the plate is of the interior of the rebels’ mobile hospital. Shown are two cots in the foreground, each with a body lying on it. One of the bodies is a girl, the other a young man. They both have tubing and wiring attached to and inserted under the skin.

  At the moment the white-coated attendant is checking a tube which is attached under the left arm of the girl. He moves her slightly. Her face, as a consequence, flops limply toward me. I recognize Rauley. The man I have already identified as Boddy.

  Seeing them there, obviously unconscious, I deduce that they got hurt during the violent period when I was lobbing fireballs, and they were running around like chickens with their heads cut off.

  The picture on the screen shifts its focus slightly. And there is another cot. On it is beautiful Meerla Atran. She’s half-sitting, half-lying. She looks sad, and she watches the attendant. And I would say, from having seen such eyeings before, that she is trying to catch the attendant’s attention.

  What else is new about Meerla is that her wrists and ankles have small, steel chains around them. The chains snake down over the edge of the cot. I notice that they are attached to the metal girders that hold the cot to the floor of the van.