Elzer had surprised him. He hadn’t expected the man to suddenly be so — amenable, was that the word? Well, the tactic had worked. He had been caught completely by surprise.
And his question, his question: “How do you know that HARLIE is sane?”
And the answer that Auberson didn’t want to admit: “We don’t know.”
Handley hadn’t known either. Auberson had talked to him twice. The engineer was spending his weekend at the plant, working on something. He’d called twice, but neither time had he anything to report. Auberson hadn’t anything new either. They’d exchanged a few comments about Monday and left it at that.
Auberson wished he knew what to do.
Of course, he would go in there and defend the G.O.D. Proposal; he still believed in it. More than ever now. But then, why was he still having doubts?
Elzer’s question? Probably. It troubled him, it nagged at him, it gnawed at his mind — it troubled him because he couldn’t answer it. He just couldn’t answer it.
I trust HARLIE. I have faith in him. But is he sane?
I can’t tell you that. I don’t know. Not with any degree of certainty, I don’t.
I just don’t know the truth.
The truth.
There was that word again. Truth.
It echoed and re-echoed through his mind. He wished the G.O.D. Machine was already in existence. It would know. G.O.D. would know.
It would be able to build an exact model of the situation, an atom for atom representation of everything. Within its banks it would chart the existence and course of every speck of matter that made up every element of the problem. It would recreate for its own perusal the patterns that were the thought processes of HARLIE, and it would weigh these against other patterns which would represent HARLIE’s environment, and it would measure these one against the other, and it would see how HARLIE related to his environment, how it acted on him and how he acted on it. Auberson would be a part of that environment; there would be a pattern in the G.O.D. to represent Auberson, even down to the accurate representation of the atoms and molecules that made up the dirt under his toe-nails. Elzer would be part of that environment. Annie too. Handley. The lint in the corridor outside his secretary’s office. Everything. And these would be weighed, one against another. And the machine would say, “HARLIE is sane,” or it would say, “HARLIE is insane,” and there would be no question about it. The G.O.D. would know because it would know everything there is to know. If it said, “HARLIE is sane,” it would be saying that HARLIE is acting in a rational manner in the context of his environment; and if it said, “HARLIE is insane,” it would be saying that HARLIE is not rational in that context. And it would know because it would know both HARLIE and that context. It would know. It would know.
It would know everything. Everything. It would know everything there is to know. That’s how big it would be, that’s how complex.
The realization kept hitting him again and again. HARLIE had wanted to find God, and by G.O.D. he had found it. The G.O.D. — it could recreate within itself everything about a man, about a situation, about a world, everything that was important and necessary to its consideration of a problem. It would know how any single atom would react to any other atom of matter — and knowing that, it could extrapolate every other reaction in the known physical universe. Chemistry is just the moving around of large numbers of atoms and noting their reactions. Knowing the way atoms worked, the machine would know chemistry. Biology is simply complex masses of substances and solutions. Knowing the reactions that were chemistry, the machine would also know biology. Psychology stems from a biological system that is aware of itself. Knowing biology, the machine would know psychology as well. Sociology is the study of masses of psychological units working with or against each other. Knowing psychology, the machine would know sociology. Knowing the interrelationships of all of them, the machine would know ecology — the effect of any event on any other. Simple equations becoming complex equations becoming multiplex equations becoming ultraplex equations — the G.O.D. would extrapolate every pattern, every structure, every system, every organ, every nerve-cell discharge. It would be able to trace the process of every single thought in a man’s brain, whether it was conscious or unconscious. It would know a man’s deepermost meanings, his fears and his drives. It would know with the certainty of fact just what was going on in any man’s head. Whether that man was sane or insane, whether his actions and reactions were rational or not, the G.O.D. would be able to extrapolate that information about any man — and know.
The size of it—
—was staggering.
Of course, Auberson realized, the G.O.D. would never be a menace to personal privacy — simply because it would need extensive preliminary data from which to start its extrapolations, and as far as Auberson knew, there was just no way to trace the thought processes of a living man. Of course, if there were a way, and if everything else about that man’s life and body and environment were known, then perhaps the machine could extrapolate his thoughts—
That was still far in the future though. Or was it?—
He realized with a start that if there were a way, if anything were possible, the machine would know. And it would tell men the way to do it. Yes, of course. Knowing everything, the machine would be the greatest tool for scientific advance ever built. The Wright brothers would have only needed to ask it, “Is heavier-than-air flight possible?” and it not only would have told them, “Yes, it is,” but it would have also given them plans for an airplane or a rocket ship. It would have told them how to build the tools to build the tools to build that airplane, and told them how to finance the operation to support it. It would have told them about safety devices and ground crews and maintenance and flight controllers. It would have told them what training and testing programs they would have to undertake. It would have told them how to fly the machine and what it would handle like. It would have told them the side effects of their new industry — worldwide time disorientation, the noise over the airports, the luggage tangles in the terminals, and the necessity for air-sickness bags in the back of the seats. It would have warned them about financing and insurance and the high cost of laying down a new runway, and even the best way to set up a travel agency, or project a movie while in flight. It would have told them exactly what they were starting.
And the machine would be able to do this for industries that hadn’t even been dreamed of yet — new transportation modes, new manufacturing processes, new products and techniques. If a thing were possible, the G.O.D. would know it. And tell.
The scope of the thing was limitless.
But, of course. It was G.O.D.
Graphic Omniscient Device.
He wished it were already in existence. Just so he could use it to analyze HARLIE and find out if he was sane or not.
But, of course, before they could build the G.O.D., they needed that answer first.
It was an interesting paradox — if you weren’t personally involved in it.
If only he knew the truth. The truth. The machine would know it. It would know everything. Why does that keep repeating itself in my head? Knowing everything, it would be able to predict the consequences of anything. It would know the truth. A one-for-one representation of reality. The truth.
The truth, the truth.
Over and over, the truth, the truth, the truth—
—but it was only the truth if HARLIE was sane; only if HARLIE was sane. Only if HARLIE was-sane.
And there was no way to know.
If HARLIE was sane.
If HARLIE—
—was sane.
Sunday afternoon. The radio was droning quietly to itself — mostly music, but occasionally news. Neither David nor Annie was listening to it.
“—747 jumbo jetliner lost a wheel on its approach to Kennedy Airport tonight. Fortunately, no one was hurt. Spokesmen for Pan Am Airlines said—”
He stirred at his soup lackadaisically. He looked over at Annie and smiled, as if to say, “It’s not you, love; it’s me.”
“—in Hollywood, convicted cult leader, Chandra Mission, issued another of his quasi-religious statements from his jail cell. Like all the others, it ended with the words, ‘Trust me, believe in me, have faith in me, I am the truth. Love me, for I am the truth.’ Mission was convicted of—”
I am the truth, he thought. I wish I were. I wish I knew. I wish there were someone I could trust—
“—new papal encyclical is expected to be issued before the end of the week—”
He smiled at that. Papal encyclical. Another form of ‘truth,’ this one direct from God’s special emissary. How does one tell the difference, he wondered. Perhaps the only difference is that the Pope has more followers than Chandra Mission.
“—reaction to Friday’s announcement by Dr. Stanley Krofft of a major breakthrough—”
“Huh?” He looked at the radio. Something—
“—at M.I.T., Dr. Calvin W. Yang, commenting on the breakthrough, said, ‘We have our computers double-checking Dr. Krofft’s equations now, and that’s going to take some time, but if it checks out as well as Dr. Krofft says it does — and I have every reason to believe that it, will — then this could be the greatest scientific advance since Einstein’s theory of relativity. Dr. Krofft’s theory of gravitic stress suggests whole new areas of exploration for the physicist. No, I can’t even begin to predict what form any advances may take. Anti-gravity devices, maybe. Who knows? Maybe whole new sources of power or communications, maybe not — we simply don’t know what this means yet, except that it is a major scientific breakthrough. It may be the decisive step leading to a unified field theory; I certainly hope so. I know Dr. Krofft’s reputation for accuracy, and I’m very excited about this.’ Dr. Krofft himself could not be reached for comment.
“Elsewhere in the news, a gasoline tanker jackknifed on the Hollywood Freeway, spilling hundreds of gallons of—”
Auberson spun the dial of the radio, frantically searching for another news broadcast. He found only blaring rock music and raucous disc jockeys. “The paper,” he cried. “The Sunday paper.”
“David, what’s going on? What is this?”