Vulcan's Hammer Page 10

  As soon as he could wind up pressing business, Barris drove across New York to the Unity work labs. He was checked by the guards and passed through into the restricted inner area, the functioning portion of the labs. There he found Wade Smith and his subordinates standing around a complex tangle of pulsing machinery.

  “There it is,” Smith said.

  “Looks different,” Barris said. He saw in it almost nothing familiar; all the visible parts appeared to be new, not from the old computer.

  “We’ve done our best to activate the undamaged elements.” With obvious pride, Smith indicated a particularly elaborate mass of gleaming wiring, dials, meters, and power cables. “The wheeling valves are now scanned directly, without reference to any overall structure, and the impulses are sorted and fed into an audio system. Scanning has to be virtually at random, under such adverse circumstances. We’ve done all we can to unscramble— especially to get out the noise. Remember, the computer maintained its own organizing principle, which is gone, of course. We have to take the surviving memory digits as they come.”

  Smith clicked on the largest of the wall-mounted speakers. A hoarse roar filled the room, an indistinguishable blur of static and sound. He adjusted several of the control settings.

  “Hard to make out,” Barris said, after straining in vain.

  “Impossible at first. It takes a while. After you’ve listened to it as much as we have—”

  Barris nodded in disappointment. “I thought maybe we’d wind up with better results. But I know you did everything possible.”

  “We’re working on a wholly new sorting mechanism. Given three or four more weeks, we’ll possibly have something far superior to this.”

  “Too long,” Barris said instantly. Far too long. The uprising at Chicago, far from being reversed by Unity police, had spread into adjoining states and was now nearing a union with a similar Movement action in the area around St. Louis. “In four weeks,” he said to the repairmen gathered around, “we’ll probably be wearing coarse brown robes. And instead of trying to patch up this stuff”— he indicated the vast gleaming structure containing the extant elements of Vulcan 2—“we’ll more likely be tearing it down.”

  It was a grim joke, and none of the repairmen smiled. Barris said, “I’d like to listen to this noise.” He indicated the roar from the wall speaker. “Why don’t you all clear out for a little while, so I can see what I can pick up.”

  At that point Smith and his crew departed. Barris took up a position in front of the speaker and prepared himself for a long session.

  Somewhere, lost in the fog of random and meaningless sound, were faint traces of words. Computations—the vague unwinding of the memory elements as the newly constructed scanner moved over the old remains. Barris clasped his hands together, tensing himself in an effort to hear.

  “ . . . progressive bifurcation . . .”

  One phrase; he had picked out something, small as it was, one jot from the chaos.

  “ . . . social elements according to new patterns previously developed . . .”

  Now he was getting longer chains of words, but they signified nothing; they were incomplete.

  “ . . . exhaustion of mineral formations no longer pose the problem that was faced earlier during the . . .” The words faded out into sheer noise; he lost the thread.

  Vulcan 2 was in no sense functioning; there were no new computations. These were rising up, frozen and dead, formations from out of the past, from the many years that the computer had operated.

  “ . . . certain problems of identity previously matters of conjecture and nothing more . . . vital necessity of understanding the integral factors involved in the transformation from mere cognition to full . . .”

  As he listened, Barris lit a cigarette. Time passed. He heard more and more of the disjointed phrases; they became, in his mind, an almost dreamlike ocean of sound, flecks appearing on the surface of the ceaseless roar, appearing and then sinking back. Like particles of animate matter, differentiated for an instant and then once more absorbed.

  On and on the sound droned, endlessly.

  It was not until four days later that he heard the first useful sequence. Four days of wearisome listening, consuming all his time, keeping him from the urgent matters that demanded his attention back at his office. But when he got the sequence, he knew that he had done right; the effort, the time, were justified.

  He was sitting before the speaker in a semidoze, his eyes shut, his thoughts wandering—and then suddenly he was on his feet, wide awake.

  “ . . . this process is greatly accelerated in 3 . . . if the tendencies noted in 1 and 2 are continued and allowed to develop it would be necessary to withdraw certain data for the possible . . .”

  The words faded out. Holding his breath, his heart hammering, Barris stood rigid. After a moment the words rushed back, swelling up and deafening him.

  . . . Movement would activate too many subliminal proclivities . . . doubtful if 3 is yet aware of this process . . . information on the Movement at this point would undoubtedly create a critical situation in which 3 might begin to . . .”

  Barris cursed. The words were gone again. Furiously, he ground out his cigarette and waited impatiently; unable to sit still he roamed about the room. Jason Dill had been telling the truth, then. That much was certain. Again he settled down before the speaker, struggling to force from the noise a meaningful pattern of verbal units.

  “ . . . the appearance of cognitive faculties operating on a value level demonstrates the widening of personality surpassing the strictly logical . . . 3 differs essentially in manipulation of nonrational values of an ultimate kind . . . construction included reinforced and cumulative dynamic factors permitting 3 to make decisions primarily associated with nonmechanical or . . . it would be impossible for 3 to function in this capacity without a creative rather than an analytical faculty . . . such judgments cannot be rendered on a strictly logical level . . . the enlarging of 3 into dynamic levels creates an essentially new entity not explained by previous terms known to . . .”

  For a moment the vague words drifted off, as Barris strained tensely to hear. Then they returned with a roar, as if some basic reinforced memory element had been touched. The vast sound made him flinch; involuntarily he put his hands up to protect his ears.

  “ . . . level of operation can be conceived in no other fashion . . . for all intents and purposes . . . if such as 3’s actual construction . . . then 3 is in essence alive . . .”

  Alive!

  Barris leaped to his feet. More words, diminishing, now. Drifting away into random noise.

  “ . . . with the positive will of goal-oriented living creatures . . . therefore 3 like any other living creature is basically concerned with survival . . . knowledge of the Movement might create a situation in which the necessity of survival would cause 3 to . . . the result might be catastrophic . . . to be avoided at . . . unless more can . . . a critcial . . . 3 . . . if . . .”

  Silence.

  It was so, then. The verification had come.

  Barris hurried out of the room, past Smith and the repair crew. “Seal it off. Don’t let anybody in; throw up an armed guard right away. Better install a fail-safe barrier—one that will demolish everything in there rather than admitting unauthorized persons.” He paused meaningfully. “You understand?”

  Nodding, Smith said, “Yes, sir.”

  As he left them, they stood staring after him. And then, one by one, they started into activity, to do as he had instructed.

  He grabbed the first Unity surface car in sight and sped back across New York to his office. Should he contact Dill by vidscreen? he asked himself. Or wait until they could confer face-to-face? It was a calculated risk to use the communication channels, even the closed-circuit ones. But he couldn’t delay; he had to act.

  Snapping on the car’s vidset he raised the New York monitor. “Get me Managing Director Dill,” he ordered. “This is an emergency.”

  T
hey had held back data from Vulcan 3 for nothing, he said to himself. Because Vulcan 3 is primarily a data-analyzing machine, and in order to analyze it must have all the relevant data. And so, he realized, in order to do its job it had to go out and get the data. If data were not being brought to it, if Vulcan 3 deduced that relevant data were not in its possession, it would have no choice; it would have to construct some system for more successful data-collecting. The logic of its very nature would force it to.

  No choice would be involved. The great computer would not have to decide to go out and seek data.

  Dill failed, he realized. True, he succeeded in withholding the data themselves; he never permitted his feed-teams to pass on any mention to Vulcan 3 of the Healers’ Movement. But he failed to keep the inferential knowledge from Vulcan 3 that he was withholding data.

  The computer had not known what it was missing, but it had set to work to find out.

  And, he thought, what did it have to do to find out? To what lengths did it have to go to assemble the missing data? And there were people actively withholding data from it—what would be its reaction to discovering that? Not merely that the feed-teams had been ineffective, but that there was, in the world above ground, a positive effort going on to dupe it . . . how would its purely logical structure react to that?

  Did the original builders anticipate that?

  No wonder it had destroyed Vulcan 2.

  It had to, in order to fulfill its purpose.

  And what would it do when it found out that a Movement existed with the sole purpose of destroying it?

  But Vulcan 3 already knew. Its mobile data-collecting units had been circulating for some time now. How long, he did not know. And how much they had been able to pick up—he did not know that, either. But, he realized, we must act with the most pessimistic premise in mind; we must assume that Vulcan 3 has been able to complete the picture. That there is nothing relevant denied it now; it knows as much as we do, and there is nothing we can do to restore the wall of silence.

  It had known Father Fields to be its enemy. Just as it had known Vulcan 2 to be its enemy, a little earlier. But Father Fields had not been chained down, helpless in one spot, as had been Vulcan 2; he had managed to escape. At least one other person had not been as lucky nor as skillful as he; Dill had mentioned some murdered woman teacher. And there could be others. Deaths written off as natural, or as caused by human agents. By the Healers, for instance.

  He thought, Possibly Arthur Pitt. Rachel’s dead husband.

  Those mobile extensions can talk, he remembered. I wonder, can they also write letters?

  Madness, he thought. The ultimate horror for our paranoid culture: vicious unseen mechanical entities that flit at the edges of our vision, that can go anywhere, that are in our very midst. And there may be an unlimited number of them. One of them following each of us, like some ghastly vengeful agent of evil. Pursuing us, tracking us down, killing us one by one—but only when we get in their way. Like wasps. You have to come between them and their hives, he thought. Otherwise they will leave you alone; they are not interested. These things do not hunt us down because they want to, or even because they have been told to; they do it because we are there.

  As far as Vulcan 3 is concerned, we are objects, not people.

  A machine knows nothing about people.

  And yet, Vulcan 2, by using its careful processes of reasoning, had come to the conclusion that for all intents and purposes Vulcan 3 was alive; it could be expected to act as a living creature. To behave in a way perhaps only analogous—but that was sufficient. What more was needed? Some metaphysical essence?

  With almost uncontrollable impatience, he jiggled the switch of the vidsender. “What’s the delay?” he demanded. “Why hasn’t my call to Geneva gone through?”

  After a moment the mild, aloof features of the monitor reappeared. “We are trying to locate Managing Director Dill, sir. Please be patient.”

  Red tape, Barris thought. Even now. Especially now. Unity will devour itself, because in this supreme crisis, when it is challenged both from above and below, it will be paralyzed by its own devices. A kind of unintentional suicide, he thought.

  “My call has to be put through,” he said. “Over everything else. I’m the Northern Director of this continent; you have to obey me. Get hold of Dill.”

  The monitor looked at him and said, “You can go to hell!”

  He could not believe what he heard; he was stunned, because he knew at once what it implied.

  “Good luck to you and all the rest of your type,” the monitor said and rang off; the screen went dead.

  Why not? Barris thought. They can quit because they have a place to go. They only need to walk outside onto the street. And there they’ll find the Movement.

  As soon as he reached his office he switched on the vidsender there. After some delay he managed to raise a monitor somewhere within the building itself. “This is urgent,” he said. “I have to contact Managing Director Dill. Do everything you can for me.”

  “Yes, sir,” the monitor said.

  A few minutes later, as Barris sat tautly at his desk, the screen relit. Leaning forward, he said, “Dill—”

  But it was not Jason Dill. He found himself facing Smith.

  “Sir,” Smith said jerkily, “you better come back.” His face twisted; his eyes had a wild, sightless quality. “We don’t know what it is or how it got in there, but it’s in there now. Flying around. We sealed it off; we didn’t know it was there until—”

  “It’s in with Vulcan 2?” Barris said.

  “Yes, it must have come in with you. It’s metal, but it isn’t anything we ever—”

  “Blow it up,” Barris said.

  “Everything?”

  “Yes,” he said. “Be sure you get it. There’s no point in my coming back. Report to me as soon as you destroy it. Don’t try to save anything.”

  Smith said, “What is it, that thing in there?”

  “It’s the thing,” Barris said, “that’s going to get us all. Unless we get it first.” And, he thought, I don’t think we’re going to. He broke the connection, then, and jiggled for the monitor. “Haven’t you gotten hold of Dill yet?” he said. Now he felt a dreary, penetrating resignation; it was hopeless.

  The monitor said, “Yes, sir, I have Mr. Dill here.” After a pause the monitor’s face faded and Jason Dill’s appeared in its place.

  Dill said, “You were successful, weren’t you?” His face had a gray, shocked bleakness. “You revived Vulcan 2 and got the information you wanted.”

  “One of those things got in,” Barris said. “From Vulcan 3.”

  “I know that,” Jason Dill said. “At least, I assumed it. Half an hour ago Vulcan 3 called an extraordinary Directors’ Council meeting. They’re probably notifying you right now. The reason—” His mouth writhed, and then he regained control. “To have me removed and tried for treason. It would be good if I could count on you, Barris. I need your support, your testimony.”

  “I’ll be right there,” Barris said. “I’ll meet you at your offices at Unity Control. In about an hour.” He cut the circuit and then contacted the field. “Get me the fastest ship possible,” he ordered. “Have it ready, and have two armed escorts that can follow along. I may run into trouble.”

  At the other end of the line, the officer said, “Where did you want to go, Director?” He spoke in a slow, drawling voice, and Barris had never seen him before.

  Barris said, “To Geneva.”

  The man grinned and said, “Director, I have a suggestion.”

  Feeling a chill of apprehension crawl up the back of his neck, Barris said, “What’s your suggestion?”

  “You can jump in the Atlantic,” the man said, “and swim to Geneva.” He did not ring off; he stared mockingly at Barris, showing no fear. No anticipation of punishment.

  Barris said, “I’m coming over to the field.”

  “Indeed,” the man said. “We’ll look forward to see
ing you. In fact”—he glanced at someone with him whom Barris could not see— “we’ll be expecting you.”

  “Fine,” Barris said. He managed to keep his hands from shaking as he reached out and cut the circuit. The grinning, mocking face was gone. Rising from his chair, Barris walked to the door of his office and opened it. To one of his secretaries he said, “Have all the police in the building come up here at once. Tell them to bring sidearms and anything else they can get hold of.”

  Ten minutes later, a dozen or so police straggled into his office. Is this all? he wondered. Twelve out of perhaps two hundred.

  “I have to get to Geneva,” he told them. “So we’re going to go over to the field and get a ship there, in spite of what’s going on.”

  One of the police said, “They’re pretty strong in there, sir. That’s where they started out; they apparently seized the tower and then landed a couple of shiploads of their own men. We couldn’t do anything because we had our hands full here, keeping control of—”

  “Okay,” Barris interrupted. “You did all you could.” At least, he thought, I hope so. I hope I can count on you. “Let’s go,” he said. “And see what we can accomplish. I’ll take you with me to Geneva; I think I’ll need you there.”

  Together, the thirteen of them set off along the corridor, in the direction of the ramp that led to the field.

  “Unlucky number,” one of the police said nervously as they reached the ramp. Now they were out of the Unity Building, suspended over New York. The ramp moved beneath their feet, picking them up and carrying them across the canyon to the terminal building of the field.

  As they crossed, Barris was aware of a sound. A low murmur, like the roar of the ocean.

  Gazing down at the streets below, he saw a vast mob. It seethed along, a tide of men and women, growing each moment. And with them were the brown-clad figures of the Healers.

  Even as he watched, the crowd moved toward the Unity Building. Stones and bricks crashed against the windows, shattering into the offices. Clubs and steel pipes. Surging, yelling, angry people.

  The Healers had begun their final move.