by Bob Shaw
“Well, supposing Subject A is a young woman already known to the computer, which also has recorded the fact that her mother is five feet tall, weighs a hundred pounds and has a mole on her forehead. If Subject A passes through the checkpoint with un unknown Subject B who matches the recorded data on the mother, would the computer be able to identify Subject B, photograph her for future occasions, and print out the available data?”
“It could. Bigger programming job, that’s all.” Ripley stroked his chin. “I, see why you want to keep this thing secret. People would avoid it like the plague.”
“Precisely.”
Ripley took a deep breath and decided to risk the sale once again. “I don’t even feel happy about it myself.”
“Why? There’s nothing illegal about sociologists studying people’s movements.”
“It’s hard to say. If your checkpoint is centrally located the machine’s going to get to know just about everybody in Red Deer. The example you gave was fine—a girl accompanied by her mother—but supposing the computer starts noting businessmen out late with secretaries, and that kind of thing?”
Parr shrugged. ‘Blackmail? But you should know that data stored in a computer is more secure than in any filing cabinet.”
“I do know.”
“Then you think I might be considering a little blackmail?” Parr did not seem offended.
“No. Any information you got wouldn’t be very hot, certainly not valuable enough to pay your costs.” Ripley lit another cigarette, wondering how Vancouver would react if they heard him hinting that a cash customer was crooked. “It’s just …’
“It’s just the idea of a computerised Big Brother spying on the life of a city, isn’t it, Mr. Ripley? Believe me—my colleagues have studied all the ethical implications, but we’re proposing a new kind of analysis of urban behaviour and the benefits outweigh any theoretical invasion of privacy.” Parr smiled his grey smile. ‘Besides this is only 1982.”
“Hah! Very good, Mr. Parr.” Ripley tried to laugh, but he had just identified the practised resonance in the other man’s voice. Mervyn Parr spoke more like a minister than a lecturer. There was no reason why he could not be a lay preacher as well as an academic, but Ripley’s sense of unease deepened. He dispelled it by reaching for his presentation case, and by considering the wording of his new report. The circumstances of the sale would have to be changed, though. It would read better if he had closed the deal with Parr after a week of dedicated hard-selling.
“For the application you have in mind,” he said in his best computer expert’s voice, “I recommend you consider the Logicon 30. I’ll need to make a full analysis of your proposed system, of course, but I’m positive the 30 Model would offer you the …’
Parr held up a well-manicured hand, with its white ghost of a ring. “How much?”
‘Basic—sixty thousand.” Ripley swallowed noisily. He should have started at the bottom of the range with the Logicon 20 and tried to work upwards.
“Done!” Parr reached for his briefcase, and clicked it open.
Inside were bulky wads of used high-denomination bills. The wads looked thicker than normal, because of the way each bill appeared to have at one time been folded into a tight square and opened out again, but it seemed that the case held enough money to buy more computers than Ripley had sold in his entire career.
On Monday morning Ripley drove to the bank and deposited sixty thousand dollars in the rarely-used company account, then went on to his office. The weather was better than usual for late September and the only hint of approaching Fall was in the ochreous tinge of the grass in the park. He put his car in the busy parking lot at the side of the building, went into the cool brown cave of the entrance hall and reached his third-floor office without seeing another person. He felt as though he lived in a ghost town.
In the cramped stillness of his office he picked up the phone, buttoned Logicon Incorporated’s Vancouver number and got through to Sara Peart, secretary to the Western Region sales manager.
“Hi, Sara,” he said brightly. “This is Hank.”
“Hank who?”
“Hank Ripley. In Lethbridge. Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the name.”
“I wasn’t sure if you still worked for us, that’s all.”
“Sharp as ever, Sara, sharp as ever. Is the old man in?”
“You sure you want to disturb him on a Monday morning?”
“I’m not going to disturb him. I just want to find out if he can let me have a Model 30 off the shelf, in a hurry.”
“You mean you’ve sold one?” Sara sounded more incredulous than was strictly necessary, and Ripley began throttling the cord that carried her voice.
“Of course I’ve sold one.” He kept cool. “Didn’t you read my latest report? I mailed it Friday night.”
“I never was much of a science fiction buff.”
Before Ripley could attempt an answer the phone clicked, and he was through to Boyd Devereaux.
“Nice to hear from you again, Hank—sometimes I think you neglect us a little out here on the coast.”
With a thrill of almost superstitious dread, Ripley recognised that Devereaux was doing his coolly menacing bit. “Good morning, Boyd. I’ve closed a cash deal for a Logicon 30,” he said quickly, wishing he had caught his boss in his jovial tyrant incarnation. “Can you let me have one out of inventory right away?”
“A cash deal?” Devereaux said after a slight pause.
“Yes. The money’s in the company account as of half an hour ago.”
“Well, that’s just great, my boy—I knew I was right in defending you at the last few regional sales conferences.”
“Thanks, Boyd.” Ripley squirmed, marvelling at Devereaux’s skill in making a pat on the back feel like a karate blow.
“Who’s the customer? I don’t remember seeing anything …’
“Mervyn Parr—I mentioned him in my last report. As a matter of fact, Boyd, I’ve been working on this man for quite a few weeks now, but it was such an off-beat way-out hunch that I didn’t like to list him as a genuine prospect till I was sure.” Sweating freely under the strain of creative labour. Ripley went on to sketch in a picture of an idiosyncratic oil baron whose hobby was higher mathematics, and who had been interested in buying his own computer through meeting Ripley at an exclusive cocktail party. When he had finished there was a ruminative silence on the line and he wondered if he had overdone it with the invention of the party.
“Hank, my boy, this is great,” Devereaux said at last. “Do you know what I’m going to do?”
“Uh—no, Boyd. I don’t.”
“I’m going to see that you get a bit of recognition. Young Julian Roxby, our PR chief, tells me he is on the look-out for a good feature on the prairie provinces for the Logicon Review. I’m going to get him to send a reporter and a cameraman across to Lethbridge and give this sale of yours a real splash. We’ll get you and this man Parr together; a shot of the Model 30 in his ranch-style living room …’
“We can’t do that,” Ripley neighed frantically. “Sorry, Boyd. Strictly no publicity—Mr. Parr insists.”
“That’s not so good, Hank.”
“It can’t be helped. Mr. Parr is very publicity-shy. Almost a recluse, you might say. Why, he even wants to take delivery of the unit himself, from my office here, so that nobody’ll see our truck going to his place.”
“Are you sure his hobby is mathematics?” Devereaux demanded suspiciously.
“Well, I can’t imagine him doing anything very immoral with a Model 30. Hah! Unless he gets up to some trick with the high-speed print-out.” Ripley laughed dustily then remembered, too late, that Devereaux was running for office in the Social Credit government and had a strong Puritanical streak.
“I find myself wondering just how effective our product orientation course was in your case, Hank,” Devereaux said coldly. “Now I want you to speak to your friend Mr. Parr, and get his agreement for full internal and external publ
icity. Have you got that?”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
When Ripley finally got off the phone he felt as though he had completed a full day’s work—and the morning had only just begun.
The computer was delivered to the office early on Wednesday, and Parr rang to enquire about it an hour later. He sounded agreeably surprised at the promptness of the delivery, but hung up before he could be tackled about publicity for the sale. Ripley walked round and round the slick grey-and-white plastic cube of the crate in an agony of decision. Devereaux had sounded determined; Parr had sounded even more determined—and Hank Ripley was caught squarely between them. He began to feel it-would have been better had he never spoiled his record of failure.
It was almost lunchtime when the office door opened and Parr came in wearing a different but equally expensive dark suit. He showed his grey teeth in satisfaction when he saw the crate.
“Good morning, Mr. Parr,” Ripley said heartily. “Well, there she is—the most compact middle-range computer in the world.”
“Don’t start selling it to me now.” Parr spoke tersely, with none of the rueful friendliness he had shown on their first meeting. “You’ve provided a full set of operating instructions?”
“Of course. There shouldn’t be any difficulty in …’
“Help me get it down to the van.”
“Sure—but there’s just one thing …’
“Well?” Parr’s cholesterol-rimmed eyes were distinctly impatient.
“It’s about publicity for the deal. Logicon has a firm policy about these things.”
Parr sighed. “Refund my money in cash, please. My department doesn’t want any traceable credit transactions.”
“I … It isn’t really a firm policy. I just thought I should mention it.” Ripley began to perspire.
“Help me get this crate down to the van.” Parr made the request in exactly the same tone of voice as before, signifying his contempt.
“Glad to.” Ripley decided he had done all that Logicon could expect of him. He began pushing the plastic cube, which moved fairly easily on its runners, and Parr hovered around guiding it through doorways to the elevator. The ring finger of his right hand was still banded with white. At street level they slid the crate out to a blue Dodge van which had the words “Rockalta Transport Hire’ on the sides, and stowed it in the back. When the doors were closed on the computer, Parr signed the delivery receipts without speaking and turned away.
“It’s been a pleasure to do business with you, Mr. Parr.” Ripley’s sarcasm seemed to go unnoticed, and he went back into the foyer swallowing his resentment. He paused at the inner door and looked back. Parr had just got into the driving seat and was doing something with his hands, one of them performing a screwing movement over the other. The van had moved off into the traffic stream before Ripley realised Parr had been putting on a ring. He went back up to his office, thinking hard about Mr. Mervyn Parr. The business with the ring had aroused his curiosity. What reason could Parr have for not wanting Ripley to see it? And, while questions were being asked, why did an academic dress like a highly successful businessman and speak like a preacher? On impulse, Ripley looked up the number of the New University of Western Canada and rang its Department of Sociology. Ten minutes later he had talked to almost as many people and had established that the department had nobody called Parr on either its administrative or lecturing staff.
After a moment’s thought, he rang the Rockalta Transport Hire Company and was answered by a bored female voice. “Lethbridge Police Department,” he said brusquely. “Lieutenant Beasley Osgood of the traffic branch speaking.”
“What can I do for you, Lieutenant?” The voice sounded less bored.
“There’s been a hit-and-run accident at the west end on the McLeod highway. One of the witnesses says a blue Dodge with the name of your outfit was involved.”
“Oh, my! That’s just dreadful.” The voice had become animated.
“Yeah. Well, we’re still checking the story out. Can you let me have the names and addresses of people who rented blue ’81 Dodge vans lately?”
“You bet!” There was a rattling of paper, mingled with excited whispers, and Ripley consoled himself with the thought that he had at least brightened up an otherwise dull day for somebody. “You’re certain it was an ’81 Dodge, Lieutenant?”
“The witness seemed pretty definite about that.”
“We have only one of last year’s models out at the moment—so that’s a help, isn’t it?”
“A great help—can you give me the man’s name and address?”
“Of course. People renting from us for the first time always have to show their licences and insurance. That van was rented this morning to a Mr. Melvyn Parminter of … let me see … 4408 Champlain Avenue, Red Deer, Alberta.”
“I see—and when’s it due back?”
“Oh, it isn’t due back. Not with Mr. Parminter in it, I mean. It’s to be dropped at our Red Deer depot tomorrow.”
“Thanks.” Ripley rang off and sat heaving nervously for a moment at the success of his playacting. When the schoolboy amusement had subsided to occasional flutters in his chest he leaned back and considered what he had gained. He now had what was probably Parr’s real name and address, but very little more. He had no idea, for instance, why Parr/Parminter should secretly buy a computer and turn it into an electronic busybody capable of spying on a whole city.
Saturday morning was sharp and clear, filled with the special aureate radiance which—Ripley had often noticed—the sun could emit only on days when there was no work to do. After breakfast he sat around for almost an hour, pretending he was not going to make the longish drive north to Red Deer, then went down to the parking lot and got into his car. Even when sitting behind the wheel he found it difficult to admit he was going to spend a whole day of his adult life playing detective and was expecting, furthermore, to enjoy it. He smoked a cigarette, waited another few minutes, cleaned his fingernails, and drove off with studied carelessness.
Once on the road, and away from the divining gaze of the neighbours to whom his bacherlorhood seemed to be an affront, he shed his self-consciousness. The route took him west to Fort McLeod and from there he followed the McLeod Trail up through prairies where the cattle shared the ground with patient, unattended oil pumps. He reached Red Deer by noon, ate sparingly at a diner and ascertained that Champlain Avenue was the core of a plush residential development on the north side. Twenty minutes later he was parked close to the tree-screened cube of pastel stucco which was Melvyn Parminter’s home.
Six hours later he was still parked there, had seen no signs of life, and was rapidly losing enthusiasm. He had got out of the car several times but had not dared to slip through the entrance gates of Parminter’s miniature but beautifully tailored estate. Now he was tired, bored, hungry and—to make things worse—had just thought of a perfectly good explanation for Parminter’s behaviour. Supposing he was in some highly competitive business in which a new application for a computer would give him an edge on the opposition? The dictates of commercial security could make a person behave as oddly as a criminal or an enemy agent.
Ripley decided to wait another ten minutes before going home. He was nearing the end of the third ten-minute spell when a Continental saloon, resplendent in polychromatic grey, wafted through the wrought iron gates and dwindled silently into the distance. Parminter was at the wheel. Ripley, taken by surprise, started his engine and drove off in pursuit. The ground-hugging shape of the Continental was deceptively fast, and he had to swoop down the quiet avenue at dangerous speed to catch up with it. He got within two hundred yards and concentrated on following the big vehicle across the city and out to the south side. Finally it swept into a tree-lined street in one of the oldest parts of town, and turned into the driveway of a large frame house situated well back from the street.
Ripley stopped his car and got out. Darkness was coming down rapidly, the air smelled of dusty foliage
and genteel decay, and suddenly he felt a cold disquiet at the thought of meddling in Parminter’s private affairs instead of being back home for the Saturday night poker session. He hesitated for a moment, then his eyes distinguished a sign set just inside the opening where Parminter’s car had vanished. The street was deserted, but he glanced all around before approaching the gently creaking sign. It was fretted out in the shape of an open book and said:
“RED DEER TEMPLE OF THE VITAL SPIRIT’
“Pastor: M. Parmley’
Ripley looked at the gloomy old house—it looked exactly as he had always visualised a crackpot spiritualist temple—and back to the gold Gothic lettering on the varnished board. Was Pastor M. Parmley another manifestation of Mervyn Parr/Melvyn Parminter? And if so why should he want a computer set up to … ? Ripley abruptly remembered the cash with which the computer had been bought—each bill crinkled as if it had been folded into a tiny square. A startling idea flickered across his mind like a will o’ the wisp. It was an unpleasant thought, and if his guess was correct he wanted nothing more to do with Pastor Parmley. Ripley shivered slightly in the near-darkness as he noticed that one of the tall shrubs close to the sign was shaped like a human being. He was turning away when the shrub spoke to him.