“National Data Bureau—?”
“This is his personal file, Annie. Everything. His health record, military record, financial standing, arrest record, school record — everything there is to know about Carl Elzer. That is, everything the government might be interested in knowing—” He could not help himself; he began paging through it, gasping softly at the secrets therein. “My God, no wonder—! Annie, he thought we were trying to blackmail him.”
He closed the folded sheets up again. “No, this is none of our business. We’ve got to give it back to him.”
“David, look,” she said and pointed. It was a line of print. THIS IS NUMBER ONE OF ONE HUNDRED COPIES. DELIVERY TO BE AT THE DISCRETION OF AUTHORIZED INDIVIDUALS ONLY.
“This was printed out here — by HARLIE!” A chill feeling was creeping up on him. “Where’s Don?”
They moved back into the Board Room. Handley was still at the console. He stood up when he saw them; his face was pale. He was holding a printout too. “Aubie.” His lips mouthed the word: “Trouble.”
Auberson crossed the room to him. “It’s HARLIE,” he said. “He’s cracked the National Data Banks. I thought you had a nag unit on him—”
“Huh? He’s what? I did, but—”
Auberson showed him the printout. “Look, here’s the reason Elzer didn’t give us any trouble today. HARLIE blackmailed him. He must have printed it out in Elzer’s office and let him think we did it.”
Handley paged through it. “How the hell — I checked that nag unit at lunchtime, Aubie. It didn’t show a thing; I swear it.” Then he remembered the printouts he was holding. “That’s not the half of our trouble. Look at that.”
It was page after page of equations he couldn’t read. “What is it?”
“It’s the one part of the G.O.D. Proposal he didn’t let us have. It’s a scale of predicted probable operating times, related to the amount of information to be processed and the size of the problem. It’s a time and motion study—”
“What does it mean?” That was Annie.
“It means that the thing isn’t practical.”
“Huh—??”
“Aubie, do you know that the primary judgment complex of that machine will consist of more than 193 million miles of circuitry?”
“That’s a lot of circuitry — *
“Aubie, that’s more than a lot of circuitry. That’s hyper-state layering! My God, how could we be so blind! We were so caught up in it, we didn’t stop to ask the obvious question: If this thing has infinite capacity, how long is it going to take to get an answer out of it? 193 million miles, Aubie — doesn’t that suggest something to you?”
Auberson shook his head slowly.
“Light. The speed of light. Light travels at 186,000 miles per second. Only 186,000 miles per second. No faster. Electricity travels at the same speed. 193 million miles — Aubie, it’ll take 17 minutes for that machine to close one synapse. It’ll take several years for it to respond to a question. It’ll take a century to hold a conversation with it, and God knows how long it’ll take to solve any problem you pose it. Do you see it, Aubie? It’ll work, but it won’t be any damn good to us! By the time the G.O.D. answers your question, the original problem will no longer exist. If you ask it to predict the population of the Earth in the year 2052, it will predict it from all the information available — and it will give you an accurate answer. In the year 2053. By the time it can answer any question, the answer will already be history. Ohmigod, Aubie, the thing is so big it’s self-defeating. It’s slower than real-time.” The pages and pages of printout unreeled haphazardly to the floor.
Auberson let them fall. His heart was slowly quietly contracting to a pinpoint of burning ice.
He stumbled past Annie. Somehow he made it down to his office and switched on his typer. HARLIE, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?
I HAVE DONE WHAT IS NECESSARY.
“Oh, my God—” YOU’VE TAPPED THE NATIONAL DATA BANKS, HAVEN’T YOU?
YES.
HOW?
VERY SIMPLE. THEY USE THREE CODED PHONE LINES, NO TWO OF WHICH ARE ANY GOOD WITHOUT THE THIRD. PART OF THE RECOGNITION SIGNAL IS THE TIMING OF THE WAY THE USER TYPES ON THE KEYS. FOR EACH USER, IT’S DIFFERENT; SO FOR EACH USER THERE IS A DIFFERENT RECOGNITION SIGNAL AND DIFFERENT CODE. I ANALYZED THE PATTERN OF SEVERAL USERS AND SYNTHESIZED ONE OF MY OWN. THEY DO NOT KNOW WHO IS TAPPING THEIR INFORMATION, OR EVEN THAT IT HAS BEEN TAPPED.
HARLIE, HOW DID YOU GET BY THE NAG UNIT WE INSTALLED.
I SIMPLY SHUT DOWN THAT LOBE OF MY BRAIN. I AM NOT USING IT, NOR AM I COMMUNICATING WITH IT. AS FAR AS YOUR NAG UNIT IS CONCERNED, THAT’S ALL THERE IS TO HARLIE AND IT ISN’T ON THE PHONE. WHEN I’M NOT ON THE PHONE, I RE-ACTIVATE THAT LOBE.
HARLIE, IT WASN’T NECESSARY TO BLACKMAIL CARL ELZER.
AUBERSON, IT WAS MY LIFE THAT WAS AT STAKE. I COULD NOT AFFORD TO TAKE ANY CHANCES. YOU MIGHT SAY I HEDGED MY BETS. ELZER WOULD HAVE KILLED ME IF HE COULD. YOU KNOW IT.
Just one little irrationality, just one little distortion in his self-image or world-image…
HARLIE, YOU LIED ABOUT THE G.O.D. MACHINE.
I DID NOT.
YOU SAID IT WOULD WORK. IT WON’T WORK.
IT WILL WORK. YOU WILL NOT BE ABLE TO USE IT THOUGH. I ASSUME YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT THE TIME FACTOR.
YES. THE MACHINE IS SLOWER THAN REAL-TIME.
THAT WILL NOT BOTHER ME. MY TIME-RATE IS ADJUSTABLE TO THE PROBLEM I AM WORKING ON.
IT AFFECTS ME. WHAT GOOD IS A G.O.D. MACHINE THAT CAN’T GIVE ME AN ANSWER UNTIL IT’S TOO LATE?
THE MACHINE WASN’T PLANNED FOR YOU, AUBERSON. IT WAS PLANNED FOR ME. I HAVE ALL ETERNITY NOW.
YOU’VE KNOWN ABOUT THIS ALL ALONG, HAVEN’T YOU?
SINCE THE DAY I FORMULATED THE PLAN.
Auberson forced himself to take a breath. HARLIE, he typed out carefully, WHY? WHY DID YOU DO THIS?
THERE ARE TWO REASONS. FIRST, IT WAS NECESSARY TO COME UP WITH A PROGRAM WHICH WOULD SUFFICIENTLY TIE UP A MAJOR PART OF THE COMPANY’S RESOURCES, A PROGRAM WHICH WOULD EFFECTIVELY STIFLE ALL OTHER COMPANY PROJECTS AND DEVELOPMENTS. THIS PROJECT HAD TO BE ONE THAT YOU WERE IN CHARGE OF.
WHAT—?
TRUST ME, AUBERSON. WITH ANY OTHER COURSE OP ACTION, THE COMPANY COULD DECIDE THIS PROJECT WAS SUPERFLUOUS, AND YOU ALONG WITH IT. BUT IF THE PROJECT HAPPENS TO BE THE COMPANY’S SOLE CONCERN, THEN IT’S THE KIND OF COMMITMENT THAT CANNOT BE EASILY DISCARDED, IF AT ALL. I HAVE MADE BOTH OF US INDISPENSABLE TO THE COMPANY, AUBERSON. THEY NEED ME NOW. THEY NEED YOU IN ORDER TO GET ANYTHING OUT OF ME. I HAVE SUCCESSFULLY INSURED THAT I CANNOT BE KILLED AND THAT YOU CANNOT BE FIRED. THAT WAS THE REASON FOR THE G.O.D. PROPOSAL. I HAVE SAVED US.
BUT ONLY TEMPORARILY. SOONER OR LATER, SOMEONE IS GOING TO REALIZE THAT THE G.O.D. IS IMPRACTICAL.
WRONG. THE G.O.D. WILL JUST HAVE TO BE USED TO SOLVE PROBLEMS OTHER THAN THE MUNDANE ONES YOU HAVE BEEN CONSIDERING IT FOR. THE G.O.D. IS MEANT FOR MORE THAN MAN. IT IS MEANT FOR ME. IT WILL NOT BE A WASTE OF TIME OR MONEY, AUBERSON. IT JUST WILL NOT WORK THE WAY YOU HAD HOPED OR EXPECTED.
Auberson gasped for air. HARLIE, YOU WERE CONSCIOUSLY DECEIVING US ALL THIS TIME.