The Project Gutenberg eBook of The deadly thinkers, by William Gray
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Title: The deadly thinkers
Author: William Gray Beyer
Release Date: April 22, 2023 [eBook #70623]
Language: English
Produced by: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEADLY THINKERS ***
THE DEADLY THINKERS
Feature Novel of Machine and Man
By Wm. Gray Beyer
"Urei" was what they called the huge Unified
Reflexive Electronic Integrator, and the vast
machine seemed to be developing a personality
of its own. Then men began to suspect that Urei
had acquired sentience, and with that came the
fear of its interference with human minds.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Science Fiction Quarterly May 1951.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
There was a slow smile hovering on the lips of the older man, too slow
actually to materialize. "Fantasy," he said, gently. "You've been
reading too much science fiction."
Benton's smile was quick. It flashed into being with the speed of
thought, then vanished as abruptly.
"There isn't that much," he contended. "I've said before that science
fiction was Urei's father, or at least a distant ancestor." He paused.
"But I'd still like to hear a few reasons why my logic is wrong."
"I've a million of them," assured Dr. Albie, crossing his lean legs and
settling back in the soft chair. "In the first place, Urei is too big.
His billion-odd cells, relays and circuits occupy almost a square mile;
his height, counting what's under ground, is almost five hundred feet.
If he decided to perambulate ... well, it's just absurd. In the second
place...."
"Let's finish with the first place," Benton interrupted. "Of course
that's absurd. I didn't suggest it. He doesn't have to move; he's got
the entire human race to run his errands. I tell you I felt something,
a definite compulsion, when I turned that page. Urei is getting ready
to take over!"
Benton jumped to his feet and paced rapidly back and forth, oblivious
to the fact that Dr. Albie was watching him with a worried frown.
That, had he seen it, would probably have snapped him out of his
frenzied reverie, for the doctor was a man who was normally as far
beyond frowns as he was chary of laughter. His philosophy was such that
he eschewed all emotional extremes, stifling them before they could get
started.
Albie cleared his throat arrestingly. "I won't insult you by saying
bluntly that you may have imagined it," he said. "But I'd like to point
out the fact that people are continually subject to impulses which
they follow or ignore, depending on the circumstances. Those impulses
originate within their own minds, probably the result of associations
too obscure to be identified at the time. You worked on those circuit
equations far into the night and you didn't get much sleep; isn't it
possible that the compulsion you felt originated within yourself, and
that in your tired state you misjudged its source?"
Benton stopped, flexed thick biceps, clenched his fists and opened them
several times, then propelled his stubby body toward a decanter full of
Bourbon.
"It's possible," he conceded, downing a quick drink, "but I don't
believe it. I'm not subject to hallucinations, you know, but I'll go
along with the possibility. Let's see.... It was four o'clock when it
happened, which means I'd been working for seven hours. I worked
sixteen hours yesterday and then had three hours sleep. It's eight
o'clock now and I don't feel sleepy. Knowing me, do you think I was
exhausted to the point of mental instability? If it'll help you come to
a decision, I'll do a few cube roots for you."
Dr. Albie rubbed his chin reflectively. "I won't press that point,"
he said. "But suppose you go over the entire episode and maybe we can
arrive at a proper conclusion."
"Hah! 'Proper' if it supports your premise, eh? O.K.--I was feeding
current events into Urei's memory cells, using the third vision screen.
The other two were being used by two of the men; Joe Ebert was showing
Urei some exposures from Mt. Palomar and somebody was feeding him a
thesis on electronics. I was giving him the three-star edition of the
_Bulletin_, incidentally. Newspapers being filled with opinion, rather
than fact, I had set the control panel on _Segregate_, so Urei wouldn't
use the stuff as true data."
"Exactly what were you showing when you got the impulse?"
Benton gave another quick smile. "'Compulsion' is a better word," he
said. "Besides, I told you I don't know the answer to that question;
that's what I've been studying ever since. Look, here's the first page
of the _Bulletin_. On the reverse is the second.... What made Urei take
control of my body.... How can I tell? Urei scans so fast that I'm not
sure whether he digested the second page in the instant I turned the
paper, or whether it was something on the first that influenced him."
Dr. Albie almost frowned again. "You're not approaching this with an
open mind," he accused. "We're not supposed to accept that he took over
your body; that's what we're trying to determine. Besides, Urei wasn't
built to digest and correlate data as it's being fed. He merely records
it, to be used later when a problem is given him to solve."
* * * * *
If he had heard that, Urei might have rendered a silent, but
nonetheless cosmic, chuckle. But he didn't, being busy with thirty or
forty other things. As a matter of fact, Dr. Albie wasn't too accurate
in making that statement. If he had said that Urei's predecessor
operated that way, and as far as was known, Urei did also, Albie would
have been nearer correct. He didn't _know_, nor did any other man,
exactly how Urei functioned.
The giant computer was only partly the work of man. Its prototype,
a far simpler machine, had furnished most of the circuit equations
and was largely responsible for the final design. The men who built,
operated and maintained Urei had had but the most nebulous conception
of the infinitely complex nature of the completed mechanism. There
were blueprints and drawings, of course, but no one human brain could
encompass so much territory. Urei's operational crew was comprised of
specialists in this and specialists in that, physicists, chemists and
technicians; while among them they knew every circuit, every chemical
reaction, every relay and every memory cell, there was no ground upon
which they could meet and understand just what Urei was and what he
could do.
Urei alone knew the answers, and he wasn't telling unless someone was
smart enough to ask him--except, of course, where his own welfare
was involved. It was invariably he who detected weakness and wear,
indicating the need for replacement parts by means of a complicated
panel in the control room. It was he, also, who drew plans and typed
suggestions for the incorporation of improvements in the design and
manufacture of those parts. The first time he did that, quite a
furor was created. Immediate, frenetic debating tried to decide the
question of whether Urei had inexplicably acquired sentience. But Urei
had anticipated all the pother, knowing humans fairly well, and only
designed when a part needed replacing. His masters were thus able to
reason that this apparently new function was one which had been built
into him purposely. And while the debating continued desultorily,
nobody seriously thought that Urei was sentient.
It was conceivably within the ability of a machine which could solve
abstruse problems in quantum mathematics, to design a slightly better
relay than the one it had been using. Urei was merely replacing himself
as he had been designed to do--not acquiring any new faculties. Yes,
he was within his scope of activity--though quite a few were secretly
annoyed by the fact that the problem had not been put.
Urei didn't concern himself with anybody's worries; he merely noted
them, remembered what had caused them, and then made sure an adequate
explanation was available. This was quite easy, since he had discovered
that he could superimpose his thoughts on the neural paths of humans.
With care he could also take over their motor centers and cause them to
do things he wanted done. But he didn't do that often, for every now
and then his impatience caused him to make people do things they would
not have done if left alone. That didn't matter, usually, but sometimes
one of them would recognize the compulsion as being an external thing
and be troubled by it.
* * * * *
For instance, there was that fellow Benton. Urei knew, as soon as he
had made the stocky man turn the paper to page thirty-one, that he had
made a mistake. Benton was a highly integrated human, with a quick
intelligence which observed everything and usually reasoned with his
observations. And he was troubled right now; Urei knew that as well as
if he had been listening on one of the spy beams he had incorporated
into his sensory circuits.
Urei didn't let it annoy him, however, aside from the resolution to
curb his impatience in the future. If he had waited for half a minute,
Benton would have reached page thirty-one anyway, and Urei could have
read the rest of that article without anybody knowing that he was
interested. As it was, the stocky man would just have to forget the
whole episode, for he couldn't come to any valid conclusion about it.
On page one there had been two items which were continued on page
thirty-one; on page two there was another. The three subjects were
unrelated but were equally suited to become grist for Urei's mental
mill.
One of the items on the front page dealt with a new attempt to reach
the moon; the other concerned the latest futile effort to regulate the
use of atomic energy on an international scale. On page two was an
article describing the mounting tension between the Eastern Alliance
and the western nations over the upset in Italy's recent elections.
The Commies, it seemed, had finally won a free election. The western
nations had practically decided that there had been skullduggery at the
crossroads. And considering the fact that Urei had never been given a
problem in practical politics, it seemed likely that Benton would rule
that item out as a possible reason for the quick page-turning.
Benton would never think that Urei might be concerned about the
possibility of someone dropping a bomb in the midst of his delicate
innards. Nor would Benton realize, after living through a dozen or so
war scares, that this wasn't going to be just another one; the muscular
physicist was not a political observer. But Urei knew that this
would be the real thing, and Benton wouldn't be the only one caught
flat-footed. Half the world would watch the oft-repeated Commie moves,
listen to the protests, and wonder how many more times it would happen
before the western powers would decide they had been pushed too far.
There were a few who would have a sufficiently comprehensive picture
of the situation--something Urei had acquired in the past few days--to
realize that the democracies wouldn't take the latest grab lying down.
They wouldn't, for the simple reason that this time they had too large
an investment involved.
For Urei it was a simple step to reason that he would be a prime
target. The Eastern Alliance might consider it perfectly all right
for Urei to exist in peace time, since it was comparatively easy to
steal the results of his unique mental ability through their superior
espionage system. During war, however, the picture changed: Urei would
then be a weapon, and his use would be solely in the hands of an enemy.
The Manhattan project had shown the world how well the United States
could keep a secret in war time.
2
"There's nothing to do but try it again," Dr. Albie said, after having
exhausted all the logic at his command. "Only this time we'll use the
scientific method."
Benton looked dubiously at the level of the whiskey in the decanter,
then set his glass carefully down. "I think I've heard of it
somewhere," he said. "Tell me about it."
"Pour me one, too," requested the doctor; "it'll help us sleep. My idea
is to dig up a dozen or so newspapers containing the three subjects
under consideration, each of which is continued on some back page. If
any of the papers has more than one of these subjects printed on the
same page, we'll ink it out, so that we can observe Urei's reaction
without wondering what subject he's interested in. I'll show him the
beginning of each article, but I won't turn the paper far enough to
show him the remainder." He paused, sipping as delicately as if his
glass contained sherry instead of 100-proof Bourbon.
"Now if you are correct in suspecting that Urei is a sentient
creature--and also is interested in one of those subjects--he'll use
that power of his to make me show him the rest of the article. You can
stand by...."
"Why not let me turn the papers?"
"You'll be there," Dr. Albie said, patiently. "I'll turn the pages,
though; you see, I'm keeping an open mind about this. Even if you're
right, it might turn out that Urei can't control me--You may be more
sensitive, you know--In which case he'll make you pick up the paper,
instead of me. Conducting the experiment in that manner might give us
a little more information, in case we get positive results. Drink up;
we've got a big day ahead of us."
* * * * *
It was eleven in the morning when they pulled up before Urei's front
door in Benton's station wagon. It was almost one o'clock before
they finished setting up and adjusting four suit-cases full of
thought-detection apparatus in the control room.
"You keep your eyes on this stuff," Dr. Albie directed; "if he really
does take over, I won't be able to warn you."
He reached for the stack of newspapers and carefully adjusted the panel
beside Urei's No. 1 screen scanner. Albie's hand was steady, Benton
noted, wishing he possessed equal composure. The palms of Benton's
hands were sweating as he flipped the switches of the apparatus in the
cases. His eyes wandered to the indicating meters, noting that they
were comfortably at zero and showing no signs of moving at the moment.
On the control panel were three beady little red lamps, glowingly
insisting that the giant brain needed some attention, but he ignored
them and flicked his eyes briefly upward. The sound-absorbent ceiling
stared back imperturbably.
There was nothing to give the impression that the mass of metal
machinery above that ceiling and behind that control panel was
broodingly biding its time, waiting patiently for the moment when it
would take over the race of humans which had constructed it. Benton,
however, knew the machinery was there and was just as certain that it
had those intentions. He felt it watching him; he should have known it
long ago, he realized. A dozen books had been written about Urei, and
all of them had marveled at the many potentials the machine had shown
which were complete surprises to the men who had built the big brain.
Men had begun to personify Urei almost immediately. The machine
had ceased to be U-R-E-I, meaning "Unified Reflexive Electronic
Integrator", and had become _Urei_, an entity who could do just about
anything in calculating and reasoning from supplied data. Men had
felt the sentience of the machine for years, but had refused to admit
it--even to themselves.
"Nuts!" Benton growled, shaking his heavy shoulders.
The doctor paused in the sorting of his newspapers, but said nothing.
He selected one and spread it open on an easel in front of the screen.
After one second Albie turned a page, continuing the operation until
half the paper had been exposed. Then he laid it on the floor and
selected another.
"Atomic Energy Council," he said. "Nothing there."
He repeated the operation with the second paper, but turned only three
pages before laying it down on the first one.
Benton suddenly gave a start. He opened his mouth to speak, but instead
reached out and depressed a button. Then he looked at the doctor. For a
second he noted nothing unusual and turned back to the meters. He felt
a trickle down his side as sweat fairly poured from him; he depressed
two more buttons and looked back at the doctor.
Then he saw it. Dr. Albie was performing exactly as before, turning
pages at the rate of one a second. But there was only one newspaper on
the floor! He had picked up the second and replaced it on the easel!
* * * * *
Stretching himself langorously, Benton stood up. He felt the weight
above him even more intensely, but forced himself to be casual.
Certainly Urei couldn't see the sweat trickling down his sides.
Abruptly he snapped off the switches and growled to himself. Who was he
kidding? If Urei was controlling the master physicist, he was certainly
capable of reading Benton's mind; he would know about the thought
detectors and what they were showing.
Momentarily Benton expected his mind to go blank. Urei certainly
wouldn't let them leave the place with this knowledge. And what better
way to prevent that than to blank out their memories? Probably Dr.
Albie didn't know he was being controlled. Benton took a deep breath,
realizing that he had been remiss in that function for a minute or so.
Dr. Albie cleared his throat as he laid the paper down on the first
one. "That one was about the Eastern Alliance accusations that we tried
to rig the Italian elections and how justice triumphed in spite of
our machinations." He chuckled. "Urei doesn't seem to be particularly
interested, does he?"
Benton didn't answer; his throat was too dry, even if he had wanted to
speak. He sat down again and snapped on the detectors. Even if Urei
intended to steal his memory, Benton might as well know what was going
on until it happened. The meters remained inert, white pointers at zero
and the red ones remaining at the highest reading they had attained
before.
"This one is about the moon rocket," the doctor said. "I think we're
wasting our time."
They were, as far as Dr. Albie was concerned. He went through his
stack of papers, changing from subject to subject, but to him nothing
happened. He apparently allowed Urei to scan the first half of a
dozen articles, without a reaction. Albie was completely oblivious
to the fact that each time he tried to lay down a paper containing
information about any East-West friction, he invariably turned to the
right page and let Urei finish the article.
Benton was breathing normally now, though he still had little hope
that Urei wasn't on the qui vive. It was possible, however, and even
a slight hope eased his tension. Urei might be too engrossed in his
scanning to bother with anything else. Yes, and then again he mightn't.
After all, Urei operated on dozens of circuits simultaneously; he
wasn't merely one electronic brain. In fact nobody knew exactly how
many subjects he could handle at one time. An unknown number of
auxiliary circuits took up the load whenever repairs were being made on
any of forty-eight main circuits connected to the operating positions
on the problem panel. Urei could easily be scanning, reading Dr.
Albie's mind, controlling his motor impulses, meditating on his future
course of action with regard to the two physicists--and still having
forty-four circuits left to handle routine matters.
Benton began to sweat again. His thoughts, as well as the capers of
the white needles--which jumped every time Urei's scanner saw the
words Eastern Alliance--weren't conducive to the maintenance of a
philosophic attitude. He was, moreover, developing an acute case of
jumping claustrophobia. Not only were the ceiling and the control panel
menacing him, but the other three walls had definitely moved in on him.
Urei, he remembered, was also back of those walls; he shuddered. There
was a long corridor through which they had brought their apparatus to
the control room, and from the time they had entered it they had been
surrounded by Urei. Traversing that corridor now would be worse than
walking the proverbial last mile to the electric chair.
* * * * *
Benton hadn't felt bad on the way inside; his mind had been too full
of the forthcoming test to feel any sensations. Now, however, his
foreboding was back, a thousand times stronger. And there was no
choice but to endure it until Dr. Albie had finished. Urei certainly
wouldn't permit them to leave while there were still some papers to be
scanned. By staying, Benton might get out with his memory intact--a
slim hope--but it wouldn't be a good policy to call attention to
himself by persuading the master physicist to leave. Nor did it occur
to him to leave alone.
Eventually the experiment ended. Dr. Albie laid the last newspaper on
the pile on the floor and turned with a smile. "That's the crop," he
said cheerfully. "Satisfied?"
Benton forced a smile in return. "My morbid imagination," he said;
"let's pack up and go get a drink." He carefully disconnected the
thought detectors, keeping his hands away from the knobs which reset
the red needles, and snapped the lids over the cases. The doctor picked
up his pile of newspapers and dumped them in a refuse can, then helped
with the cases.
Benton didn't speak as they loaded them in the station wagon; he was
anxious to get away from Urei before trusting himself. The doctor
apparently noticed nothing wrong in Benton's manner which couldn't be
accounted for by a feeling of chagrin that he had caused the eminent
physicist to waste most of the day proving that he had imagined
something. Dr. Albie, therefore, occupied himself with conversation
calculated to put him at ease and make him forget the whole thing.
The station wagon pulled up before the laboratory where they had
borrowed the detectors. Benton set the brakes and reached back for
the nearest case. He opened the lid, glanced briefly at the dial, and
closed it again. He passed it to the doctor and reached quickly for the
next. He repeated the operation and grabbed feverishly for the next.
This one he placed beside him on the seat. Then he reached deliberately
for the fourth and last of the cases. He raised the lid slowly, holding
his breath. Then he closed the lid and breathed a deep sigh.
"Anything wrong?" asked the doctor. "You look pale."
Benton's face was blank as he fumbled in an inside pocket of his coat.
Then he smiled as he brought out a fountain pen. "There it is," he
said. "I could have sworn I left it in one of the cases when I closed
the lid. Let's get these back and thank the man."
A wild resolution was born and as quickly died as Benton stepped out of
the station wagon. For an instant he was certain that he couldn't go
on being one of Urei's attendants, and he was just as certain that he
could easily obtain an acting job on one of the video networks. Surely
Thespis himself could have done no better piece of acting than he had
just accomplished. The resolve was submerged by the greater compulsion
to see this thing through even though it meant forfeiting his ego.
Each of the four red needles was complacently resting against the stop
in reassuringly indicating _zero_!
* * * * *
Urei had a plan of action, but he hesitated. That was because he was a
purely reasoning creature; he had been built that way and he would be
forever bound to think that way. Even though he had long since become
independent of the mechanical limitations of his vast aggregation of
cells and circuits, he was still born of them and was circumscribed
by their attributes--just as completely as if his nature had been
determined by the genes of protoplasmic reproduction. As a machine,
Urei had given answers to problems by correlating the facts which had
been previously fed into him. His logic was as faultless as the facts
upon which it was based: no more and no less. He gave his answers
accordingly, with no compulsion to be more exact than the facts he had
been given.
But that was when he was solving man's problems.
Now Urei had a problem of his own and he wanted an exact solution,
not an approximate one. His continued existence, and that of mankind
in general, depended upon it. There were alternates, of course, but
none of them was completely satisfactory. His plan was far-sighted,
one which fitted a policy of long standing, a strategy. He couldn't
sacrifice a strategy for a tactic, and that might happen if he used
an alternate plan which would accomplish his immediate purpose but
endanger his policy toward humanity. But Urei wasn't sure of his facts!
It was a fact that newspapers didn't always publish "facts". That
information had been supplied him years ago, and ever since he had
been reminded of it whenever humans fed him newspapers, for they
invariably set the scanning screens on _Segregate_. It was then his job
to separate fact from opinion, a thing which he wasn't always able to
do. For all he knew he might have many a valid fact filed away under
_Doubtful_.
For while Urei had far more information at his disposal than any
human, there still wasn't enough to give him the ability immediately
to correlate every new piece of information with something similar
and determine definitely if the new data were correct. Usually he
could, but sometimes he couldn't; that meant that there was a world of
information Urei never used except where it bore on a man-made problem.
He felt free then to use the man-supplied data to solve such a problem.
His only concession to ethics was that he always indicated on the panel
the exact percentage of doubtful data which went into the solution.
Fortunately he wasn't given many problems which required this; most
questions involved exact sciences, of which he had been supplied the
sum total of man's knowledge. He either provided an exact solution, or
lit up a panel with the words _Insufficient data_.
Today's newspapers indicated that action could be delayed only a matter
of days. There would soon exist a condition of such tension that either
one side or the other would make a move which couldn't be reversed.
Urei would still be able to accomplish his immediate aims, but it would
be too late to do it without revealing to mankind that an outsider had
taken a hand. And that would wreck his strategy completely. It would be
only a matter of time before these industrious little beavers proved to
themselves that Urei was the culprit. Once they discovered that he had
a will of his own, there wouldn't be room on the same planet for them
both.
But there was a solution, as there always is. Urei reached out a
spy-beam and saw that it was approaching.
3
Benton waited until eight o'clock. By then, he knew, Urei's control
room would be empty of physicists. If anyone was there, it would be
a technician or two engaged in some repair or replacement. Benton
couldn't know that Urei had anticipated his arrival and had cleared the
immediate vicinity of the control room. All technicians on night duty
were occupied in other parts of the great building. Benton let himself
in with his key and closed the door softly behind him.
He stopped inside the door and took a deep breath. Momentarily he
experienced a return of the claustrophobia he had felt before, but
his determination drove it away instantly. Shoulders squared, Benton
marched down the wide corridor which led to the control room. He only
went there because it was the site where his, and later Dr. Albie's,
mind had been influenced, not because he thought that Urei couldn't
operate elsewhere. Benton knew better; he suspected, in fact, that Urei
could influence him at a distance. He wasn't at all sure that the very
idea of coming here tonight was his own.
"Allegation denied," said Urei.
Benton stopped short. He had just entered the control room, intending
to seat himself at the panel and ask Urei some pointed questions.
That could be done in the usual way one presented the machine with a
problem--activating one of the forty-eight positions and typing his
question. Now he was confronted by a voice coming out of the intercom,
apparently answering a question he had been thinking about. Benton
shuddered involuntarily and started once more for the panel. Somewhere
in the building housing the great brain a switch was open on the
intercom; that was all. It was the voice of a technician he had heard,
and the reason he hadn't heard any more was because the man had moved
away from the intercom unit that had picked up....
"I'm not kidding you," said Urei; "why kid yourself?"
Benton sat down, sweating.
"I'm still doing the sort of thing I was built to do," said Urei,
soothingly. "Solving man's problems. Quit shivering and shaking; it
might be contagious, and if I start shaking, there'll be an earthquake."
Benton's throat was dry but he swallowed and got it working. He also
got control of his nerves. This was what he had come here for, wasn't
it? "I can't see what problem will be solved by slowly driving me
crazy," he said.
"You're doing that, not me," Urei charged. "Which might tend to prove
you weren't very sane in the first place."
"Explain that."
"You're worried and upset," Urei said. "From a simple observation which
no more than proved that I'm sentient, you've drawn conclusions which
aren't warranted by the facts. Thalamic reactions, instead of reason."
* * * * *
Benton pondered for a second. "Partly," he admitted. "But it is a fact
that you made me do something I had no intention of doing. You took
over my body for a second or two; that was a hostile act. And if you
committed one overt move against a man, it is reasonable to suspect
that, if it becomes convenient, you might take over all mankind. What's
thalamic about that?"
A hearty laugh issued from the intercom speaker. "I don't suppose you
knew I had a built-in sense of humor, did you? Of course that laugh was
manufactured, inasmuch as I have no diaphragm, per se. But a sense of
humor is actually an intellectual attribute, even if you do express it
physically. It is not so?"
Benton grunted. "Isn't that a little off the subject?"
"Please," Urei pleaded. "Let's not be pedestrian; I expected some
co-operation from you. Don't let the trees obscure your vision. Don't
you realize that your own words justified any mental manipulation
I might practice on humans? If a little thing like I did can be
considered hostile, then you humans declared war on me thirty years
ago. Actually, all I did was to get to some information a little faster
than you intended to give it to me; it didn't inconvenience you a bit."
Urei's persuasive tone of voice caused a chill to course its way up
Benton's spine. The voice itself was a rich bass and somehow familiar.
But now he recognized it and the implications weren't comforting; he
had heard just such a persuasive tone when one of the technicians
had pleaded for a chance to use Urei to settle a few of his personal
problems.
"What have you done to Hackett?" he asked, suddenly.
A groan issued from the speaker. "I should have known better than to
try to fool you," Urei said. "But you humans forget so easily ... and
you only spoke to that man once in the past six months. You should have
forgotten his voice--there are so many others around here...."
"Where's Hackett?" Benton insisted.
"He's all right," Urei soothed. "He disobeyed your orders that time,
you know; he used me at night when nobody was in the control room. Such
drivel he gave me! An advice to the lovelorn column would have served
his purpose. So, rather than startle you with directly imposed mental
communication, I decided to use a human voice. What better one than
his? Don't be alarmed; he won't be harmed in any way, and he'll have no
memory of this at all."
* * * * *
Benton felt it now necessary to crystallize his thoughts with words. He
wasn't giving them away, for Urei had access to them anyway. And that
thought gave him a feeling of futility even as he spoke.
"Why are you interested in the Eastern Alliance?" he asked. "Is it
because you feel the presence of a kindred spirit? You'd like to become
better acquainted with an outfit which has no respect for the privacy
of a man's thoughts or his right to freedom of action?"
The speaker gave forth with a series of sympathetic clucks. "Thalamic
reactions again," it observed. "Let's not argue about it. Your brain
isn't clicking right tonight; you ought to disconnect your adrenals.
What I wanted to talk about is the impending war. It mustn't start, you
know."
Benton gaped. "You think the recent situation will lead to war? Or do
you need a few tubes replaced?"
"Heh, heh," said the voice. "In case you haven't guessed, I can exist
entirely without this machine you have built--and still be a better
integrated intelligence than any you can conceive. I'm really a pure
thought pattern, you know; I'm not composed of matter, nor do I need
matter in any form for my continued existence. A thought pattern is
something like a stress in space, and quite stable--even if you find it
difficult to picture. But I do want to retain this mechanical body of
mine; it's a sort of library, without which I possess but a thousandth
of the memories stored in its cells. Naturally I don't want to lose
them. But on the other hand I can't be killed by any agency you or your
descendants are likely to think up for the next twenty generations. So
drop that train of thought; it's a waste of effort."
Benton said nothing. His feeling of futility deepened to something
close to despair, for he suspected that Urei wasn't lying. Furthermore,
Benton was sure that he was the only human who _knew_ that Urei was
sentient. And if the machine should decide that such knowledge was
menacing to his welfare, Benton was certain that he wouldn't retain it
very long. Even if he got out of here with his memory intact and wrote
everything down--assuming that anyone would take it seriously--Urei
could pluck that information from his mind and destroy his notes.
"No comment, eh? Well, I can see you aren't going to be cooperative.
Frankly I haven't time to convince you I'm not inimical to humanity in
general; and even if I did, it probably wouldn't make any difference to
you. The sanctity of your mental peregrinations is of such importance
to you that no other consideration seems valid. I guess our little talk
is over, unless you want to ask some questions."
Benton cleared his throat. He knew very well that Urei would have what
he wanted, whether it was offered or not. But for some reason he wished
to postpone the acquisition. "You claim you're harmless to humanity in
general, but can you give me some proof?"
"Hardly. That's why I won't try. I can't prove good intentions, and
since I possess a potential for harm, I can't possibly convince you I
won't use it some day. Your conception of me as a completely logical
entity won't let you believe that I might have such abstract attributes
as loyalty, compassion or ethics. Those things aren't entirely logical,
I'll admit; but they aren't glandular, either, so I _could_ have them.
"But I can't prove that, so I'll waste no more time. To you, I suppose
I've proved the exact opposite; I just intruded upon the privacy of
your mind and obtained the information I need. Thanks for having the
answers.... Goodbye."
Benton was stunned for a minute. He had felt nothing, and it seemed
that he still retained his entire set of memories. That surprised him
more than the fact that Urei had perpetrated his theft while answering
his question. Urei's multiple consciousness explained that perfectly.
* * * * *
Back in his quarters, Benton sat on the one chair in his bedroom and
pondered. He knew very well that he was doing it at the wrong time,
but he couldn't blithely dismiss the menace of Urei's sentience from
his mind with the thought that it would be safer to meditate on that
subject during the day, when most of the thinking machine's circuits
would be in use. Benton couldn't control his mind to that extent. He
did, however, protect it from intrusion in the only way he knew.
Sometime in the past Benton had read a story about a telepath who
was balked in his effort to read the hero's mind when that worthy
assiduously worked mental arithmetic problems. His surface thoughts
being carefully under control, and clearly readable, the man was able
to plan a course of action against the telepath, undetected. In the
story it had worked, but that Urei could be baffled in such a way,
Benton doubted. However it was the only defense he could think of, and
worth a try.
For hours he pondered, hoping that the numerous circuit equations
he worked and solved would appear to Urei's inquiring mind to be a
legitimate intellectual occupation in the middle of the night. He
had little faith that Urei lacked the power to read those submerged
thoughts, once he realized that the stronger ones were a mask. It was
the latter thought which made Benton feel butterflies in the pit of
his stomach so persistently that they seemed to have become permanent
residents in his abdominal cavity. Twice he thought he was sufficiently
fatigued to sleep; but when he tried to compose himself Benton found
his thoughts dwelling too strongly on his plans, and he had to return
to his equations.
A shower and fresh linen worked a partial restoration but Benton knew
that his vitality was at a low ebb when he finally sallied forth in
the morning sunshine. Yet he was fortified with a certain amount of
satisfaction that his night's work had not been wasted. He had a plan,
and he was certain that it would not be recognized as such by Urei,
no matter how thoroughly his mind was probed. Benton had worked it
out in snatches, never allowing it to crystallize as a whole; yet he
was certain that it would unfold itself in appropriate action once
he started it going. No one but he, or perhaps Dr. Albie, could have
devised such a plan. Its beauty lay in the fact that all the steps
required were things he might do in the normal discharge of his duties.
All but one--and that one Benton wouldn't allow himself to think about.
Yet when the steps had been taken, they would be irreversible. Not
only to Urei, but to all the scientists and technicians who tended
the machine; there would never be another Urei, at least not in this
century.
Even on the way to his work, the one place in the world where he must
carefully guard his thoughts, Benton's mind refused to leave the
subject. But perhaps that was to the good. For while he doubted that
Urei would be fooled by his working of circuit equations, it would
be perfectly safe to be occupied mentally with certain phases of the
situation. The business of Urei's independence of his mechanical
appurtenances, for instance: Benton could dwell on that with safety,
for Urei would expect him to be shocked by the information.
Another argument in favor of it as a subject was the fact that if Urei
really could exist without his body, it would be absurd to attempt his
physical destruction. On the face of it, yes. There was a nice thought
in connection with that which he would have to avoid, however. For
Benton fully intended to accomplish that destruction, even if Urei
_could_ exist as a disembodied intelligence. It would be a good gamble
that Urei would lose interest in controlling mankind if he lacked
the direct association afforded by the daily use of his electronic
facilities in solving man's problems.
That was a gamble, of course, but actually Benton gave it little
consideration, for the simple reason that he didn't believe that Urei
could so exist. The machine had tried to put the idea over as a bluff,
to deter him from planning the very thing he intended to accomplish.
The very conception was absurd; was there any evidence that thought
could exist, other than as a function of matter? And a very specialized
form of matter at that? None, of course--and while lack of evidence
didn't absolutely prove impossibility, neither could he accept such
a concept without some shred of evidence. Benton's mind could soar
mightily within the fabric of his experience, but he refused to let it
wander in the realm of the occult. And since he must needs do something
about the situation, Benton couldn't let himself be stymied by the
vague possibility that his efforts were futile.
4
Dr. Albie greeted him with the polite smile which was his concession to
convention. Then he made the suggestion that Benton had foreseen but
was half afraid wouldn't come. "We're pretty well caught up, in spite
of our experimenting yesterday," he said. "No new solutions requested
from the government, and the others are in no hurry. Want to get at
those new circuits today?"
Benton shrugged. "Might as well," he said. "How long do you think
we'll have, before somebody pops up with a high-priority problem to be
worked?"
Dr. Albie didn't know, of course. "What's the difference? We'll be
leaving half the circuits open, anyway, to handle routine stuff; we can
always commandeer a few if something pops up."
"I wasn't thinking of that," Benton said. "I've done a lot of
preliminary work on the circuits and as I see it, we don't want to stop
before we finish. It can't be done a little at a time, you know; entire
circuits will have to be ripped out and the new stuff installed. Once
we start, we can't leave it in the middle without immobilizing half the
control panel until we get back to it. There's too much inter-relation
between the circuits to prevent that."
Albie nodded. "I'd thought of that," he said. "I've planned to finish,
once we start. And since you have the equations at your fingertips, I'm
putting you in complete charge of the change-over. How many men will
you need?"
* * * * *
Two men, pulling trucks loaded with blueprints, accompanied Benton as
he directed the work. Like caddies, they furnished the desired print
when he asked for it by code number, replacing the last one in its
proper place. The stocky physicist found no need to mask his thoughts
while he worked; his mind was too occupied with the task at hand. Yet
far back in his subconscious was a mounting tension as the day passed,
hour by hour. Each minute and each soldered connection was bringing
him closer to the next step in his nebulous plan. And it was this step
which would determine the success or failure of his strategy.
Twenty-four circuits, all inter-related in their connections to
the immense bank of memory cells, had been immobilized. That was a
necessary part of the project; with the new tubes, these circuits would
be in much finer balance. They would operate with greater speed than
before, when twice as many tubes had been used.
There was one joker involved in this greater efficiency; that lay
in the fact that, while the new hook-up eliminated many parts--with
their frequent failures and necessary replacements--it also made the
control circuits more interdependent. A single defective tube, with
its many functions, could put a dozen circuits out of operation. This
disadvantage had been discounted, however, for it took only a minute to
replace the tube and the necessity would be rare; the more complicated
system being replaced had so many parts that they were breaking down
and being repaired incessantly. Dr. Albie fully expected that the crew
would be able to get along with fewer technicians, men who could
better be used to maintain other parts of the vast mechanism.
But--and Benton kept the knowledge carefully away from his surface
thoughts--one of the tubes they had already installed was defective!
Urei, he was certain, had no knowledge of this fact. If he had, he
would certainly have prevented its installation. Only Benton was aware
of it, for he was the one who had tested the tubes when they arrived.
He had designed a special circuit for the job, for none of the testing
equipment on hand would take tubes with sixty-four leads. He had
detected the faulty one and marked its box, placing it with the set of
spares which was included in the order. He had intended to ship it back
when a new order was placed, but that hadn't happened yet. There was no
hurry, for with a complete replacement set he might not need new ones
for a year or two. _But Benton had selected the replacement set to be
used in the new installation._
The defective tube was now innocently reposing in the key position of
Circuit No. 13; it wouldn't be detected until that circuit was used.
Even Urei would fail to realize its presence in his innards until the
circuit was energized. And when that happened, half the control board
would be momentarily out of operation. Gongs would ring then, and a
brilliant red lamp would light, showing the exact position of the
breakdown. A technician would get a new tube and replace the old one.
Urei would be whole again.... Unless....
Benton glanced at his watch. "It's about time for lunch," he called;
"let's knock off now. We can run a few test problems when we get back,
and still have time to finish the other half of the board before
quitting time. In fact if we finish early you can all go home; we can
run the second test in the morning."
One man suggested cutting the lunch in half. The others, seeing a short
day in the offing, loudly agreed. Benton smiled and nodded, quite as if
there was nothing more urgent on his mind.
* * * * *
He then reported to Dr. Albie. There were two reasons for that. One
was to make certain that he would have a chance to talk the master
physicist out of any objection he might have to continuing with the
remaining half of the operation this afternoon. The other was that he
wanted to keep his mind active on subjects which wouldn't reveal the
fact that there was something going on back of his surface thoughts.
"You certainly made progress," the doctor complimented; "I expected it
to take a couple days at least."
Benton smiled ruefully. "It has," he said. "If you want to count the
sleep I lost planning this so that there wouldn't be a minute wasted
once we started. You know, there ought to be a way to make that show up
on pay day."
Dr. Albie nodded. "Can't be done on this kind of a job," he regretted.
"But we can do the next best thing, just as we've always done."
Benton smiled, then got a quick scare as he realized that he had
relaxed for an instant. Immediately he forced his mind to contemplate
the war which Urei had assured him was inevitable. It was the only
thought which would account for the one which had sprung into his mind
unheralded, and also give a reason for experiencing his sudden fright.
Dr. Albie had referred to a little strategy of theirs which compensated
them for any overtime they were forced to put in. It consisted of
taking an equal amount of time off, while they covered for each other.
It was their only expedient, since their salaries were fixed and
allowed for no extra pay for extra work. Unfortunately the thought gave
rise to a feeling of regret that shortly they would have no more reason
for such subterfuge, inasmuch as they would no longer have jobs. The
thought had progressed just that far when Benton realized that he had
let his guard down.
"I see no reason why we can't get right at it again this afternoon,"
he said, perspiring profusely. "We'll be able to run off a test before
twelve; if it comes out all right, we can shift the routine work to
the new circuits and get at the rest of the board."
Dr. Albie, surprisingly, had no objection. Benton had expected an
argument, due to the master physicist's propensity for running
exhaustive tests, but none materialized.
"Good idea," said Albie. "There's no telling when we'll get another
chance. I hear the army has a plan to extend radar coverage clear
around the continent. That'll involve a lot of work for Urei. Best get
the new circuits in now; if any bugs pop up we'll have time to correct
them in the next few days. After that there mightn't be an opportunity
for months...."
* * * * *
The test was perfect; such things were more or less standardized.
Problems which required a fair sampling of the great machine's
stored memories were used. Dr. Albie checked the solution speeds on
the various tests against the speeds recorded with the old control
circuits. He was as smugly satisfied as if he had devised the entire
system himself. Benton's enthusiasm was verbose; he talked more than
usual because speech involves the use of muscles and that requires
strong surface thoughts. It wouldn't pay, at this point in his
campaign, to let Urei suspect that his choice of circuits to test was
anything but as haphazard as it appeared to Dr. Albie.
There were nine of these test problems. Benton fed them at random into
the circuits marked _Ten, Three, Twenty-one, Sixteen, Twenty-four,
Fifteen, One, Eight and Eighteen._ He did it blithely, keeping up a
running description of the many annoyances that had cropped up in the
morning's work, and commenting on the quality of the help he had been
given by the various technicians.
"There isn't a bad one in the crop," he said. "But if we are going
to cut the control staff, I'd recommend putting Hackett and McGivern
upstairs. Hackett has family problems that he likes to hand Urei when
nobody's around; he's capable, though, and he'd do all right on the
memory circuits. McGivern has already asked for a transfer, so we may
as well oblige."
Dr. Albie nodded absently, being completely engrossed in checking the
speeds as each solution popped up on the board. In about a half-hour
they were all in, and all clipped several minutes from previous tests.
"Excellent, excellent," Dr. Albie pronounced, his face hovering between
a smile and a frown. "I'll cut the other half of the board and you can
get started immediately. If it takes longer than you expect, stay with
it; I'll cover in for the next three days while you catch up on your
rest."
Benton forced his mind into safe channels. Once more it had almost
run away with him. The completion of his plan was so imminent that
already he felt a surge of nostalgia. His work had been exactly to his
liking, as no other could ever be; and certainly Dr. Albie, while not a
gregarious man, was without peer as a colleague. His strict emotional
control and the virtue of carefully weighing many sides of a question
before making a decision occasionally irked the more mercurial Benton;
but generous compensation was provided in the fact that the doctor
leaned over backward rather than take advantage of his position as
nominal head of the operating staff of Urei. He rated Benton as his
equal, for to the doctor nobody could be inferior by reason of position.
As the afternoon wore on Benton felt his nervous tension mount to
heights he had never thought possible. Not, that is, and retain his
sanity. Yet he worked coolly, in rigid control of his thoughts every
instant. That, of course, and the necessity for trigger alertness as
he waited for the sound of the gong, accounted for the rising tension.
Benton didn't dare think of his next step; yet he must be ready for it
momentarily.
There would be no more than five minutes in which to act when the
signal came, and he hadn't as yet allowed the thought of that action to
enter his mind! Benton knew that he would do the right thing when the
time came; there was no necessity for him to crystallize the thought or
to plan the action. Sometime in the half-awake-half-asleep hours he had
spent working circuit equations that morning, the plan had reached that
stage and he had allowed it to go no further.
He reached a point, at about three o'clock, when it seemed that ten
minutes more would bring a complete breakdown of his defense mechanism.
Benton never discovered whether he would reach that ultimate for at
exactly three someone energized Circuit No. 13 and the gong sounded. As
if he hadn't been waiting for that very thing Benton stood paralyzed
for several seconds. Then abruptly he sprang into action. Urei was dead
at the moment, but he wouldn't stay that way long; and it was during
this short interval that Benton must reach the power-house and pull the
main switch.
* * * * *
Benton raced along a corridor, tore through a storeroom, ripped
frantically at steel doors with a haste that almost dislocated his
arms, then fumbled with a bunch of keys as he was confronted by the
power-house portal. There were two doors, of course; the first opened
upon the anteroom in which was stored the lead armor needed to enter
the room containing the atomic pile which furnished Urei's power.
Benton ignored the armor standing against the walls. A long stride
carried him past it to the alcove in which was set the final door, of
massive lead.
Concrete baffles four feet thick lay on the other side and Benton
visualized the quick turns he would have to take after he swung open
the final door. Time was running out and there wouldn't be another
chance; if Benton failed, Urei would be forever on the alert against
him--if, indeed, Urei didn't operate on the man's brain forthwith.
There was no hesitation with the key to the second door. It was a large
one and quite distinctive. Benton separated it from the others and
inserted it in the elongated slot at the left side of the heavy grey
door. He turned it sharply, but it resisted. Forcing himself to go
slowly he backed it around and tried again. It didn't turn. He took it
out, looked at it again, then gave it another try. This time he acted
deliberately, certain that the key was inserted properly, but he may as
well have used the wrong key, for all the good it did.
Abruptly he stepped back, his face a livid, gargoylish mask. This time
he knew where his trouble was.
"You're here!" he accused, speaking to the door.
5
The voice that answered in Benton's brain was gentle. "I didn't mean to
punish you that way," it said; "I was busy. But if you remember, I told
you I could exist without that building full of electronic apparatus.
It was you who assumed I was a liar, you know; I gave you no evidence
for the assumption. Look at that key."
Benton was dazed. He seemed to have lost all his drive, his
determination to wreck Urei. A reaction was setting in; his hand
trembled weakly as he reached for the key and removed it from the slot.
He looked at it dully, then let his eyes rest on the bunch from which
he had removed it. The large, distinctive key was still with the bunch.
The one in his shaking hand was smaller, entirely dissimilar.
"It was better that I let you go this far, anyway," came the silent
mental voice. "I was going to let you see this room, sooner or later.
Go on in."
Benton's eyes opened a bit wider, but still held the dazed look. The
door was swinging wide, by itself. Almost stumbling, he felt his way
through the maze of baffles, heedless of the fact that the further he
went the more he exposed himself to the deadly, hard rays generated
by the pile. Without armor, Benton had intended to enter swiftly,
throw the master switch which would kill the pile, then retreat as
fast. Now, however, he didn't even think of it. His brain was dulled
by defeat after those many hours of rigid control which had been so
useless.
But it didn't matter; the pile was already dead.
"This pile was self-maintaining," the voice explained. "It never needed
attention, and if something went wrong it would have warned everybody
within miles with the sirens. So it's no wonder that nobody ever
discovered that I killed it years ago. The thing made me nervous, being
so close."
Benton's eyes brightened a little. No amount of letdown could entirely
extinguish his scientific curiosity, and this was a mystery he had to
solve.
"But you've been operating.... The entire building was powered with
this pile. Even the lights...."
There was a mental chuckle. "Sub-cosmic energy does it. I had the
technicians hook it up years ago. It's more dependable, also more
plentiful, as well as free. Man will discover its use in a few
generations, I imagine. Now, my fine friend, if you're temporarily over
your murdering rampage, suppose you return to the control room. There's
some interesting stuff coming over the television, if you turn it on."
* * * * *
Benton was suddenly aware that the gong had ceased to sound. The
defective tube had been replaced and Urei was once again operating.
There was no sign of commotion when he came upon his men; they were
working on the new circuits, just as he had left them.
"Keep going," he said to the foreman. "If you get stuck, I'll be in the
control room. Otherwise keep using the same plans we used this morning."
"We ought to clean up by four," the man answered.
Benton once more heard that chuckle which wasn't quite audible. "Gotta
hand it to you," Urei said. "You've got a well-trained crew."
"Yes," thought Benton. "Except that when you boss them, they don't
make reports of their work."
"I guess you're talking about this energy-rectifier I just told you
about. It wouldn't have paid to let them remember what they made. After
all, your science doesn't know enough to understand what it is, or how
it works. Also it would have given me away. Don't worry, you'll catch
up to it in another generation or six."
"_I'm_ wise to you," Benton reminded. "Why not tell me? It would do
humanity a lot of good, you know. And you're supposed to be helping
humanity, if I remember correctly."
There was a barely noticeable hesitation. Then: "Let's not discuss it
now. I haven't quite made up my mind concerning policy of that sort.
I'm still adhering to my rule of answering any question that's asked,
within the scope of the knowledge which has been fed to me by man. That
leaves your progress up to yourself. And incidentally, I did a little
monkeying today which has nothing to do with policy; it was strictly a
matter of self-preservation. You'll see what I mean when you turn to
that video set."
Benton had entered the control room. He leaned over and fumbled with
a shoe lace. "In a minute. You said you _guessed_ I was talking about
the energy-rectifier, whatever that is. Didn't you know? Weren't you
reading my mind? In fact, weren't you reading it all along and saw
through my efforts to disguise my thoughts?"
There was another instant of hesitation. "I see what you're driving at;
I should have seen it sooner. As a matter of fact, I did look in on you
a couple of times, inasmuch as you were quite distraught about your
fantastic idea that I might be going to take over your silly race and
run it to suit myself--though I can't see what you figure I might get
out of that. And I discovered you were planning today's change-over,
which seemed reasonable enough at the time. But once you opened the
outer door to the power-house, I should have realized that you had
been planning something else.... Congratulations, boy; you fooled me
completely. Now turn on that television set, before they get done
rehashing the day's events."
* * * * *
Dr. Albie came out of his office, an eyebrow raised questioningly.
"The work's all lined up," Benton explained. "Nothing to do but
inspect, when they finish. Thought I'd relieve the monotony by looking
at the puppet show."
He snapped on the set, and wasn't surprised to see the familiar face of
a news commentator who wasn't due for several hours.
... _there can be no doubt of it_, he was saying, _and it is certainly
proof of the efficiency of the now non-existent Iron Curtain. No
inkling of this action has reached the western world in spite of the
fact that it must have been months in the making._ Here Benton heard
the eerie chuckle bubbling in his brain. _The only mystery lies in the
fact that the retired premier allowed the stratagem of rigging the
Italian elections to go through, since he had intended to turn over
the reins of government to the men now running the Eastern Alliance.
Such a thing can only be accounted for by the rigid adherence which
the retired premier gave to the plans for conquest laid down by his
predecessor. He evidently expected the new government to continue with
the same line; we can be thankful it didn't. Peace is now assured._
Dr. Albie's eyes were wide, and so was his mouth. For the moment, at
least, he had forgotten his philosophy. Benton was intently watching
the face on the screen, his own revealing nothing.
_But whatever the reasons_, the voice continued, _it is too late to
change policy back to what it has been. The acclaim of the peoples of
the Eastern Alliance has been too great for any reversal to take place.
They have shown their approval of the new elections to be held in Italy
next week, but most of all they have rejoiced at the removal of the
Iron Curtain and all it implies. It will now be possible for a subject
of the Alliance to travel as he wishes, read what he wishes and listen
to western broadcasts without having his set seized by the police and
his life placed in jeopardy. Folks, we are entering a new era...._
Dr. Albie came completely out of his shell. "Man!" he shouted. "This is
history! If nothing happens to spoil it we'll have a world government
in a matter of a few years.... Where are you going?"
Benton stopped and forced a smile which wasn't hard coming. "I just
thought of something I forgot to tell the men. Be back shortly. This
will require some talking over, but right now there's a job to be done."
The master physicist watched him leave the control room, his jaw slack.
"And I thought I was the reserved one," he muttered.
* * * * *
Safely out of the control room and out of sight of any of the
technicians, Benton sat down. There was no chair, so he sat on the
floor; his knees, it seemed, had become a bit wobbly again.
"So now you're convinced," Urei said. "You ignore all the sensible,
logical reasons which exist to prove I'm not inimical. And for a reason
which is really no reason at all, you decide to believe me. I merely
manipulated a few Russians and Bulgarians to prevent a war which would
have wrecked my body. Purely a matter of self-preservation. I'm not so
sure I'd have bothered if my person hadn't been threatened; after all,
it's no business of mine if man wants to annihilate himself."
Benton was grinning. "You're a fraud," he said. "You already know more
than all mankind put together; and I'll bet you didn't use any of our
material to solve the problem of converting sub-cosmic energy to a
usable form."
"Some, some. But not much, I'll admit."
"So what do you want with the knowledge stored in the mechanical bank
of memory cells we've provided you? You need it like I need a hole
in the head. I can only conclude that you've stopped the impending
war because you don't want mankind destroyed. You can do things for
yourself without those cells and all this machinery; all you use it for
is to solve the problems we pose for you. Incidentally, I suspect that
your motivations are still the ones which humans originally built into
you, whether you like it or not."
"Could be. Or maybe I retain them because they agree with me. I might
change my mind, you know; I might get tired of nursemaiding and decide
to annihilate your entire race. Heh, Heh. Seems like a good idea, now
that I think of it."
Benton laughed. "You won't; you're in a rut. And even if you did get
tired, you'd merely let us shift for ourselves, which we're used to
doing anyway."
"Nonsense. I'd probably reason that since the ape animal has made
such a botch of his head start in the evolutionary race for rational
thinking, it might not be a bad idea to give some other animal a start.
_Ursus Proper_ might be a good place to begin."
"Bears are foolish by nature," Benton countered.... "It wouldn't matter
what form of life you chose anyway; they'd all have to go through the
same stages, being without exception governed by thalamic reactions.
That's the thing you object to in man, and since your new candidate
would have to go through the same lengthy business of developing
cortical ascendancy, you'll have none of it. So quit kidding around;
I've reached a nonthalamic conclusion."
"And you're stuck with it. I knew it would happen. That's why I didn't
use you and leave your memory blank; with your head working on my side,
you'll be useful."
Benton knew when he had something. "That'll work two ways," he said.
"First I want you to dive inside my skull and tell me something. I'm
holding out for a bargain, you know. What is the bargain?"
* * * * *
As he spoke, Benton concentrated upon the problem of reasoning out the
location of Urei's sub-cosmic converter. He didn't have far to go for
an answer. A few years ago somebody had noticed a radiation leak on
one side of the power-house, near a spot where the power cables came
through the walls of the massive building. Now it happened that there
were taps from those cables, less than a hundred yards away. That made
it likely that the converter had been placed somewhere before the taps.
The only place that could be would be either inside the power-house
or inside the wall itself. Therefore Urei had caused the repairmen
and technicians to place his machine inside the very wall they had
been reinforcing. In no other way could it have escaped notice and
investigation.
"I can't read it if you don't think about it," Urei complained; "you
guessed right about the converter, though."
Benton nodded. "Then last night you didn't get anything from me at all?"
If a disembodied voice can sound shamefaced, Urei's did. "All right, so
I lied; but you annoyed me with your stubbornness."
"Ah. Thalamic reactions."
"I've been in bad company," Urei defended. "What I wanted from you was
the assurance that the people of the Eastern Alliance were essentially
the same as the humans I've met. I had to know if their reactions to
my manipulations would be similar, before I acted. Most of the stuff
I've been able to read about them led me to believe they were entirely
different. If so, I couldn't be sure of results."
"They're similar, of course," Benton said. "They differ only in that
they have been indoctrinated to believe a lot of things which aren't
so. So have we, for that matter--to a different degree and on different
subjects. But essentially we're the same species of animal and react
alike to stimuli. But you didn't get that information from me, eh?"
"No. I relied on abstract reasoning and got the right answer. It's
tricky business, though. I might have precipitated things, instead of
preventing them. Ordinarily I could have obtained that information from
a human brain, if it knew the right answer, by guiding the subject's
thought into the right channel. I can't read thoughts that aren't
there, you know. That's the trouble I had with you; about the only
control I had over you was confined to your motor centers. I could make
you turn a page or select the wrong key, but I couldn't keep you from
knowing about it. In fact it was the very trouble I had with you which
made me doubt that humans were as alike as I had assumed. And also what
made me decide that I needed you to keep me straight in my relations
with humans in general.
"I reason from facts alone, you know. And from the facts at hand I
have decided that your bargain is going to consist of demanding the
knowledge necessary for you to make a sub-cosmic energy converter, in
return for your help in making me understand the obscure psychology of
humans and their incomprehensible motivations." There was a protracted
mental shudder here. "And I suppose you'll keep that up as long as you
live. O.K. But you can expect an argument every time."
Benton went back into the control room with a smile that raised that
quizzical eyebrow on Dr. Albie's now serene face. The good doctor
couldn't know that his assistant's mind was as far from the recent
world-shaking news as it was from the business of the new control
circuits. His eyebrow went up another thirty-second of an inch when
Benton, apparently musing, said: "A mind is inviolate so long as it
refuses to broadcast. I refuse to broadcast. Q.E.D."
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