Feeling of Power

by Isaac Asimov

  is only a Technician. A man like yourself, a trained and tal-

  ented mathematician, ought to have no difficulty."

  "Square roots," muttered Loesser, attracted.

  "Cube roots, too. Are you with us?"

  Loesser's hand thrust out suddenly. "Count me in."

  General Weider stumped his way back and forth at the

  head of the room and addressed his listeners after the fashion

  of a savage teacher facing a group of recalcitrant students. It

  made no difference to the general that they were the civilian

  scientists heading Project Number. The general was the over-

  all head, and he so considered himself at every waking mo-

  ment.

  He said, "Now square roots are all fine. I can't do them

  myself and I don't understand the methods, but they're fine.

  Still, the Project will not be sidetracked into what some

  of you call the fundamentals. You can play with graphitics

  any way you want to after the war is over, but right now we

  have specific and very practical problems to solve."

  In a far corner. Technician Aub listened with painful at-

  tention. He was no longer a Technician, of course, having

  been relieved of his duties and assigned to the project, with

  a fine-sounding title and good pay. But, of course, the social

  distinction remained and the highly placed scientific leaders

  could never bring themselves to admit him to their ranks

  on a footing of equality. Nor, to do Aub justice, did he,

  himself, wish it. He was as uncomfortable with them as they

  with him.

  The general was saying, "Our goal is a simple one, gentle-

  men: the replacement of the computer. A ship that can

  navigate space without a computer on board can be con-

  structed in one fifth the time and at one tenth the expense

  of a computer-laden ship. We could build fleets five times,

  ten times, as great as Deneb could if we could but eliminate

  the computer.

  "And I see something even beyond this. It may be fantastic

  now, a mere dream; but in the future I see the manned

  missile!"

  There was an instant murmur from the audience.

  The general drove on. "At the present time, our chief bot-

  tleneck is the fact that missiles are limited in intelligence.

  The computer controlling them can only be so large, and for

  that reason they can meet the changing nature of anti-

  missile defences in an unsatisfactory way. Few missiles, if

  any, accomplish their goal and missle warfare is coming to

  a dead end; for the enemy, fortunately, as well as for

  ourselves.

  "On the other hand, a missile with a man or two within,

  controlling flight by graphitics, would be lighter, more mo-

  bile, more intelligent. It would give us a lead that might

  well mean the margin of victory. Besides which, gentlemen,

  the exigencies of war compel us to remember one thing. A

  man is much more dispensable than a computer. Manned

  missiles could be launched in numbers and under circum-

  stances that no good general would care to undertake as far

  as computer-directed missiles are concerned"

  He said much more but Technician Aub did not wait.

  Technician Aub, in the privacy of his quarters, laboured

  long over the note he was leaving behind. It read finally

  as follows:

  "When I began the study of what is now called graphitics,

  it was no more than a hobby. I saw no more in it than an

  interesting amusement, an exercise of mind.

  "When Project Number began, I thought that others were

  wiser than 1; that graphitics might be put to practical use

  as a benefit to mankind, to aid in the production of really

  practical mass-transference devices perhaps. But now I see

  it to be used only for death and destruction.

  "I cannot face the responsibility involved in having invent-

  ed graphitics."

  He then deliberately turned the focus of a prot,ein-depolar-

  izer on himself and fell instantly and painlessly dead.

  They stood over the grave of the little Technician while

  tribute was paid to the greatness of his discovery.

  Programmer Shuman bowed his head along with the rest

  of them, but remained unmoved. The Technician had done

  his share and was no longer needed, after all. He might

  have started graphitics, but now that it had started, it would

  carry on by itself overwhelmingly, triumphantly, until manned

  missiles were possible, with who knew what else.

  Nine times seven, thought Shuman with deep satisfaction,

  is sixty-three, and I don't need a computer to tell me so.

  The computer is in my own head.

  And it was amazing the feeling of power that gave him.