In his pockets, Jason Dill carried the two reels of tape; they never left him, night and day. He had them with him now as he walked slowly along the brightly lit corridor. Once again, involuntarily, he lifted his hand and rubbed the bulge which the tapes made. Like a magic charm, he thought to himself with irony. And we accuse the masses of being superstitious!
Ahead of him, lights switched on. Behind him, enormous reinforced doors slid shut to fill in the chamber's single entrance. The huge calculator rose in front of him, the immense tower of receptor banks and indicators. He was alone with it-alone with Vulcan 3.
Very little of the computer was visible; its bulk disappeared into regions which he had never seen, which in fact no human had ever seen. During the course of its existence it had expanded certain portions of itself. To do so it had cleared away the granite and shale earth; it had, for a long time now, been conducting excavation operations in the vicinity. Sometimes Jason Dill could hear that sound going on like a far-off, incredibly high-pitched dentist's drill. Now and then he had listened and tried to guess where the operations were taking place. It was only a guess. Their only check on the growth and development of Vulcan 3 lay in two clues: the amount of rock thrown up to the surface, to be carted off, and the variety, amount, and nature of the raw materials and tools and parts which the computer requested.
Now, as Jason Dill stood facing the thing, he saw that it had put forth a new reel of supply requisitions; it was there for him to pick up and fill. As if, he thought, I'm some errand boy.
I do its shopping, he realized. It's stuck here, so I go out and come back with the week's groceries. Only in its case we don't supply food; we supply just about everything else but.
The financial cost of supporting Vulcan 3 was immense. Part of the taxation program conducted by Unity on a world-wide basis existed to maintain the computer. At the latest estimate, Vulcan 3's share of the taxes came to about forty-three percent.
And the rest, Dill thought idly, goes to schools, for roads, hospitals, fire departments, police-the lesser order of human needs.
Beneath his feet the floor vibrated. This was the deepest level which the engineers had constructed, and yet something was constantly going on below. He had felt the vibrations before. What lay down there? No black earth; not the inert ground. Energy, tubes and pies, wiring, transformers, self-contained machinery ... He had a mental image of relentless activity going on: carts carrying supplies in, wastes out; lights blinking on and off; relays closing; switches cooling and reheating; worn-out parts replaced; new parts invented; superior designs replacing obsolete designs. And how far had it spread? Miles? Were there even more levels beneath the one transmitting up through the soles of his shoes? Did it go down, down, forever?
Vulcan 3 was aware of him. Across the vast impersonal face of metal an acknowledgment gleamed, a ribbon of fluid letters that appeared briefly and then vanished. Jason Dill had to catch the words at once or not at all; no latitude for human dullness was given.
Is the educational bias survey complete?
"Almost," Dill said, "A few more days." As always, in dealing with Vulcan 3, he felt a deep, inertial reluctance; it slowed his responses and hung over his mind, his faculties, like a dead weight. In the presence of the computer he found himself becoming stupid. He always gave the shortest answers; it was easier. And as soon as the first words lit up in the air above his head, he had a desire to leave; already, he wanted to go.
But this was his job, this being cloistered here with Vulcan 3. Someone had to do it. Some human being had to stand in this spot.
He had never had this feeling in the presence of Vulcan 2.
Now, new words formed, like lightning flashing blue-white in the damp air.
I need it at once.
"It'll be along as soon as the feed-teams can turn it into data forms."
Vulcan 3 was-well, he thought, the only word was agitated. Power lines glowed red-the origin of the series' name. The rumblings and dull flashes of red had reminded Nathaniel Greenstreet of the ancient god's forge, the lame god who had created the thunderbolts for Jupiter, in an age long past.
There is some element misfunctioning. A significant shift in the orientation of certain social strata which cannot be explained in terms of data already available to me. A realignment of the social pyramid is forming in response to historic-dynamic factors unfamiliar to me. I must know more if I am to deal with this.
A faint tendril of alarm moved through Jason Dill. What did Vulcan 3 suspect? "All data is made available to you as soon as possible."
A decided bifurcation of society seems in the making. Be certain your report on educational bias is complete. I will need all the relevant facts.
After a pause, Vulcan 3 added: I sense a rapidly approaching crisis.
"What kind of crisis?" Dill demanded nervously.
Ideological. A new orientation appears to be on the verge of verbalization. A Gestalt derived from the experience of the lowest classes. Reflecting their dissatisfaction. "Dissatisfaction? With what?"
Essentially, the masses reject the concept of stability. In the main, those without sufficient property to be firmly rooted are more concerned with gain than with security. To them, society is an arena of adventure. A structure in which they hope to rise to a superior power status.
"I see," Dill said dutifully.
A rationally controlled, stable society such as ours defeats their desires. In a rapidly altering, unstable society the lowest classes would stand a good chance of seizing power. Basically, the lowest classes are adventurers, conceiving life as a gamble, a game rather than a task, with social power as the stakes.
"Interesting," Dill said. "So for them the concept of luck plays a major role. Those on top have had good luck. Those-" But Vulcan 3 was not interested in his contribution; it had already continued.
The dissatisfaction of the masses is not based on economic deprivation but on a sense of ineffectuality. Not an increased standard of living, but more social power, is their fundamental goal. Because of their emotional orientation, they arise and act when a powerful leader-figure can coordinate them into a functioning unit rather than a chaotic mass of unformed elements.
Dill had no reply to that. It was evident that Vulcan 3 had sifted the information available, and had come up with uncomfortably close inferences. That, of course, was the machine's forte; basically it was a device par excellence for performing the processes of deductive and inductive reasoning. It ruthlessly passed from one step to the next and arrived at the correct inference, whatever it was.
Without direct knowledge of any kind, Vulcan 3 was able to deduce, from general historic principles, the social conflicts developing in the contemporary world. It had manufactured a picture of the situation which faced the average human being as he woke up in the morning and reluctantly greeted the day. Stuck down here, Vulcan 3 had, through indirect and incomplete evidence, imagined things as they actually were.
Sweat came out on Dill's forehead. He was dealing with a mind greater than any one man's Or any group of men's. This proof of the prowess of the computer-this verification of Greenstreet's notion that a machine was not limited merely to doing what man could do, but doing it faster . .. Vulcan 3 was patently doing what a man could not do no matter how much time he had available to him.
Down here, buried underground in the dark, in this constant isolation, a human being would go mad; he would lose all contact with the world, all ideas of what was going on. As time progressed he would develop a less and less accurate picture of reality; he would become progressively more hallucinated. Vulcan 3, however, moved continually in the opposite direction; it was, in a sense, moving by degrees toward inevitable sanity, or at least maturity-if, by that, was meant a clear, accurate, and full picture of things as they really were. A picture, Jason Dill realized, that no human being has ever had or will ever have, all humans are partial. And this giant is not!
"I'll put a rush on the educational survey," he murmured. "Is there anything else you need?"
The statistical report on rural linguistics has not come in. Why is that? It was under the personal supervision of your sub-co-ordinator, Arthur Graveson Pitt.
Dill cursed silently. Good lord! Vulcan 3 never mislaid or lost or mistook a single datum among the billions that it ingested and stored away. "Pitt was injured," Dill said aloud, his mind racing desperately. "His car overturned on a winding mountain road in Colorado. Or at least that's the way I recall it. I'd have to check to be sure, but-"
Have his report completed by someone else. I require it. Is his injury serious?
Dill hesitated. "As a matter of fact, they don't think he'll live. They say-"
Why have so many T-class persons been killed in the past year? I want more information on this. According to my statistics only one-fifth that number should have died of natural causes. Some vital factor is missing. I must have more data.
"All right," Dill muttered. "We'll get you more data; anything you want."
I am considering calling a special meeting of the Control Council. I am on the verge of deciding to question the staff of eleven Regional Directors personally.
At that, Dill was stunned; he tried to speak, but for a time he could not. He could only stare fixedly at the ribbon of words. The ribbon moved inexorably on.
I am not satisfied with the way data is supplied. I may demand your removal and an entirely new system of feeding.
Dill's mouth opened and closed. Aware that he was shaking visibly, he backed away from the computer. "Unless you want something else," he managed. "I have business. In Geneva." All he wanted to do was get out of the situation, away from the chamber.
Nothing more. You may go.
As quickly as possible, Dill left the chamber, ascending by express lift to the surface level. Around him, in a blur, guards checked him over; he was scarcely aware of them. What a going-over, he thought. What an ordeal. Talk about the Atlanta psychologists-they're nothing compared with what I have to face, day after day.
God, how I hate that machine, he thought. He was still trembling, his heart palpitating; he could not breathe, and for a time he sat on a leather-covered couch in the outer lounge, recovering.
To one of the attendants he said, "I'd like a glass of some stimulant. Anything you have."
Presently it was in his hand, a tall green glass; he gulped it down and felt a trifle better. The attendant was waiting around to be paid, he realized; the man had a tray and a bill.
"Seventy-five cents, sir," the attendant said.
To Dill it was the final blow. His position as Managing Director did not exempt him from these annoyances; he had to fish around in his pocket for change. And meanwhile, he thought, the future of our society rests with me. While I dig up seventy-five cents for this idiot.
I ought to let them all get blown to bits. I ought to give up.
William Barris felt a little more relaxed as the cab carried him and Rachel Pitt into the dark, overpopulated, older section of the city. On the sidewalks clumps of elderly men in seedy garments and battered hats stood inertly. Teen-agers lounged by store windows. Most of the store windows, Barris noticed, had metal bars or gratings protecting their displays from theft. Rubbish lay piled up in alleyways.
"Do you mind coming here?" he asked the woman beside him. "Or is it too depressing?"
Rachel had taken off her coat and put it across her lap. She wore a short-sleeved cotton shirt, probably the one she had had on when the police arrested her; it looked to him like something more suited for house use. And, he saw, her throat was streaked with what appeared to be dust. She had a tired, wan expression and she sat listlessly.
"You know, I like the city," she said, after a time.
"Even this part?"
"I've been staying in this section," she said. "Since they let me go."
Barris said, "Did they give you time to pack? Were you able to take any clothes with you?"
"Nothing," she said.
"What about money?"
"They were very kind." Her voice had weary irony in it. "No, they didn't let me take any money; they simply bundled me into a police ship and took off for Europe. But before they let me go they permitted me to draw enough money from my husband's pension payment to take care of getting me back home." Turning her head she finished, "Because of all the red tape, it will be several months before the regular payments will be forthcoming. This was a favor they did me."
To that, Barris could say nothing.
"Do you think," Rachel said, "that I resent the way Unity has treated me?"
"Yes," he said.
Rachel said, "You're right."
Now the cab had begun to coast up to the entrance of an ancient brick hotel with tattered awning. Feeling somewhat dismayed by the appearance of the Bond Hotel, Barris said, "Will this be all right, this place?"
"Yes," Rachel said. "In fact, this is where I would have had the cab take us. I had intended to bring you here."
The cab halted and its door swung open. As Barris paid it, he thought, Maybe I shouldn't have let it decide for me. Maybe I ought to get back in and have it drive on. Turning, he glanced up at the hotel.
Rachel Pitt had already started up the steps. It was too late.
Now a man appeared in the entrance, his hands in his pockets. He wore a dark, untidy coat, and a cap pulled down over his forehead. The man glanced at her and said something to her.
At once Barris strode up the steps after her. He took her by the arm, stepping between her and the man. "Watch it," he said to the man, putting his hand on the pencil beam which he carried in his breast pocket.
In a slow, quiet voice the man said, "Don't get excited, mister." He studied Barris. "I wasn't accosting Mrs. Pitt. I was merely asking when you arrived." Coming around behind Barris and Rachel, he said, "Go on inside the hotel, Director. We have a room upstairs where we can talk. No one will bother us here. You picked a good place."
Or rather, Barris thought icily, the cab and Rachel Pitt picked a good place. There was nothing he could do; he felt, against his spine, the tip of the man's heat beam.
"You shouldn't be suspicious of a man of the cloth, in regards to such matters," the man said conversationally, as they crossed the grimy, dark lobby to the stairs. The elevator, Barris noticed, was out of order; or at least it was so labeled. "Or perhaps," the man said, "you failed to notice the historic badge of my vocation." At the stairs the man halted, glanced around, and removed his cap.
The stern, heavy-browned face that became visible was familiar to Barris. The slightly crooked nose, as if it had been broken once and never properly set. The deliberately short-cropped hair that gave the man's entire face the air of grim austerity.
Rachel said, "This is Father Fields."
The man smiled, and Barris saw irregular, massive teeth. The photo had not indicated that, Barris thought. Nor the strong chin. It had hinted at, but not really given, the full measure of the man. In some ways Father Fields looked more like a toughened, weathered prize fighter than he did a man of religion.
Barris, face to face with him for the first time, felt a complete and absolute fear of the man; it came with a certitude that he had never before known in his life.
Ahead of them, Rachel led the way upstairs.