Colossus (2 page)

He finished his drink. “I haven’t said my piece the way I meant to, but I hope you get the idea.”

The President pushed his glass to one side. His smile lacked conviction.

“You had me worried. I thought maybe there was a hole in Colossus’ head. Believe me, I’ve given them some thought—the side effects—not as much as they probably deserve, but enough to satisfy me for now. The main object is of overriding importance, and if that’s OK, we can tackle lesser problems as they crop up.” He banged his desk with sudden vehemence. “You’ve no idea what it’s like behind this desk. When you were in diapers, there was a President- -Truman—who had a sign on his desk that said, `The buck stops here.’ He was dead right.”

The President collected his glass from the deep field of his desk and drank, looking hard at Forbin over the rim. “Colossus will take that buck, the big buck of a mega-million lives that all Presidents have had to carry since Roosevelt. Don’t you worry, Forbin, I can ride out any bad breaks the new setup may bring.”

He hasn’t got the message, thought Forbin. But he could see the President’s viewpoint— the intense desire for relief from the staggering weight of responsibility, a desire that blinded him to any objections. Maybe he’ll make out. Forbin stood up, placed his glass on the desk.

“I guess you’re right. I just get the feeling sometimes that this thing is one hell of a lot bigger than we know. Still, that’s one buck that I have now passed to you.” His tone was calm, bordering on the formal once more. “What are your orders for activation?”

The President, swinging gently in his chair, looked curiously at Forbin.

“You’re an odd one, Forbin. You spend your life working like a beaver leading the biggest brain-bank in the world. You spend so much money you damn near bust the U.S. Treasury, and now you’ve done what you set out to do, you sit back and gripe. Hell—aren’t you even excited?”

“Yes,” Forbin said thoughtfully, “I suppose I am, in a way. But I read about the synthesis of the first broad-band insecticides before they got to the field trial stage, and it struck me then that the idea was potentially dangerous. And we finished up with the biggest plague since ancient Egypt.”

“Sure, but we licked it.”

“Yes, we did—and the bug-killer was withdrawn,” Forbin replied. “But this time there is no way of walking back. The whole point is the Project’s unstoppability.”

The President had enough of Forbin’s alarm and did not bother to conceal it.

“OK, Forbin. I appreciate your warning, but as you say, the buck is mine. So you don’t know what’ll happen from here on—who does? I’m happy, so let’s get down to cases.” He had wanted to know Forbin’s mind, had been told, briefly considered—and rejected it. Soon Forbin himself would be rejected, his usefulness over. Make him president of some university and fix him a medal, that should be enough.

“Well, Mr. President, have you fixed an activation date?” The President visibly grew in stature at the prospect of action. The dynamo within him, which had made him what he was, began to radiate energy.

“Yes. It has got to be handled right. Played properly, it’ll fix the cold war as well as any variety of hot. The security of Colossus has fouled up any detailed discussion, but I’ve chewed it over, in general terms, with the head of psychological warfare, and we’ve come up with the ideal treatment—simple and direct!” He beamed excitedly at Forbin. “As soon as you give the OK on the technical side, that all systems are green-go, we downgrade the biggest top-secret in our history to plain unclassified. We just hit ‘em—wham!” He banged his desk once more to illustrate his point.

“Then we give them everything—how it’s done, diagrams, photographs, tell the wide world the whole works by international TV—a press conference. But we’re going to keep it simple, just three or four topflight reporters from all over—we’ll have to select them carefully. Mind you, I don’t want stooges!” He raised an admonishing finger. “They can be as rough as they like. I figure on one of our boys, two guys, English and French, from USE, and that bullet-headed bum from the Russki agency—and a guy from the PanAfric bunch, too. I’ll make a short statement, then answer questions—follow up with handouts, the usual routine stuff. Good?”

There was something about the Presidential approach to the Project that made Forbin’s flesh creep, but it would have been pointless to say so.

“I wouldn’t know, Mr. President. I’m just a scientist …” “Just a scientist! Exactly! That’s an angle I thought we could use. I can make the general statement, but you should answer the questions. I’d never sound convincing with the technical dope.”

Forbin frowned, but the President went on.

“Sure, it’s tough, and you’d rather not, but that’s too bad—you’re in. Now—how soon can we start?”

“Well, there are one or two safety checks I want to repeat, but that won’t take more than a day—two at the most.” Forbin walked over to a window and looked out. He spoke without turning.

“I’m sorry to repeat myself, Mr. President, but are you really sure, quite sure—” He turned. “You realize that once we start we can’t go back? The world changed drastically with the first A-bomb, and this …”

“Look, Forbin, we’ve covered this. “I’m satisfied—why are you dragging your feet?” He glanced at his watch, a fairly direct hint, but Forbin was not to be put off.

“I’ve lived with this thing for years—worked day and night in the Secure Zone, watching, checking, steering. It’s been everything to me, I’ve been cut off from everything. I haven’t been to my apartment for a year—just slept on the job—and I’ve been happy, certain of what I was doing. Now it’s all over, and in the last few weeks, I’ve begun to realize what it is we’ve done. As a project it’s practically finished, we can’t find any more wrinkles to iron out; we’ve checked and checked again. Then someone suggested that a final checkout, a really foolproof one, could be made by Colossus himself—itself. A week’s research by the Yale Group, checked by Boston, showed this was so—that Colossus could do a better job than we could. We set up, and for three days and nights, working at the speed of light, Colossus looked into his own guts. Just over an hour ago he was satisfied. It almost scares me. I know he—it—knows better than the best brains in the USNA! It’s quite a thought!”

“It’s one hellava thought! The trouble with you, Forbin, is that you’ve lived too close to the Project. So Colossus has a better brain—fine! Just the very thing we’ve been working for all these years. No, Professor, we go ahead now, repeat now!” The President lightly stroked a button on his desk. “I’ll give you a written order.”

Prytzkammer, the aide, came in and stood silent before the President.

“P, take this down. Type it yourself—I’ll sign as soon as it’s ready—such as in two minutes’ time.” He gave Forbin a humorless grin. “To Professor Forbin, Chief Director, Project Colossus. In my capacity, no, my dual capacity of President and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces of the United States of North America, I order you to activate Colossus—” he swung his chair to face Forbin—”how about 0800 on the 5th? That’ll give you just over forty-eight hours.”

“That will be enough.”

“Right, P, go on—activate Colossus at 0800 5th. That’s all, except I want it graded Top Secret until 1000 5th, then downgraded to Unclassified. All times Eastern Standard.”

“Unclassified, sir?” The aide had every right to look startled.

“That’s what I said.”

“Yes, Mr. President.” The aide retreated to the door.

“And tell the Secretary of State I’m calling a Cabinet meeting in an hour’s time—see the office informs the rest. Anyone out of town to report on Secure TV—and get moving with that typing.” The President swiveled to face Forbin and smiled his wolfish grin. “That’s got things moving.”

Forbin nodded slowly. “Yes, Mr. President, it has.”

Chapter 2

An hour after leaving the President, Forbin was walking along the gravel path leading to his own office in the Secure Zone, 250 miles from Washington. Throughout the quiet air-car run- -quiet largely because he had, against all standing orders, disconnected the car’s telephone—he had wrestled with his thoughts and forebodings on Colossus. The interview with the President had not gone the way he planned or hoped. He hadn’t got his feelings across, although he knew this was a hard job for anyone with the President. Forbin was aware that he was trusted, and to some extent even respected, but once he moved out of his own immediate field, stopped dealing in provable facts, the President had no time for him. To the President, a man was like a cigar lighter. Flick, there was the flame, use it, then put it out. Sure, you look after it, see it is fed gas and polished, even as you praise and reward humans, not so much for what they have done, but for what they could do in the future. While this attitude clearly gave great strength, Forbin felt there were situations when it could become appallingly weak. You can hold a pile of coins between thumb and forefinger, and turn the pile on its side until parallel with the floor, and if you exert enough pressure they stay that way, but a slight weakening or fault in the alignment of the coins, and the lot go showering in all directions. There is no cement—only power.

Without some warmth or personal interest there was little understanding, and in this situation it could be more than a little dangerous…

Walking into his outer office, Forbin was irritated to find one of his assistants kissing his secretary, with a hand deep in the girl’s blouse. Seeking a little warmth and understanding, no doubt, Forbin thought. Johnson, the assistant, tried to remove his hand, but some hidden hitch delayed him, giving Forbin time to think up a crack that restored his good humor. “Have you lost something, Johnson?”

“Sorry, Professor,” mumbled Johnson, now disentangled and on his way to the door. The secretary tried to rezip her blouse. As might be expected, the zipper jammed.

Forbin smiled slightly and turned to his assistant.

“Johnson, let me give you two pieces of advice. Try to contain yourself until the lunch break—or, better still, until you are off duty. If you really can’t wait—please satisfy your biological urges in the rest room—it can’t be locked all the time.” He switched to his secretary, leaving Johnson in the doorway, poised on one foot, uncertain. “Angela, one piece of advice, one suggestion. I advise you to revert to old fashioned buttons and suggest you use my office to fix that brassiere. It must be mighty uncomfortable the way it is now.”

“Thanks, Chief.” Angela acted on his suggestion, in no way embarrassed.

“Johnson, please fix a meeting of Group A for 1530, here—OK?”

“OK, Professor, 1530. Thanks.”

Forbin smiled again as Johnson escaped. In some places it might be taken seriously as a breach of group discipline, but not in the Secure Zone. Hedged in on every side, living under constant surveillance, human nature had been forced to adapt itself. Getting into Project Colossus had always been tough, but once you were in it was a great deal tougher to get out. The Secure Zone contained all that a person might be expected to need, except freedom. Contacts outside the Zone were officially discouraged; the authorities made no bones about that. And, with the changing pattern of society, there were relatively few married couples. With women’s full emancipation a generation before, the last vestige of their dependence upon men disappeared. At the same time the training of high-grade scientists and technicians—still mostly male—took longer and longer. Most of these men were not earning their keep until late in their thirties, but were biologically mature at sixteen or seventeen. It was difficult for them not only to keep a family but to spare time for family life. So sex life in the Zone and its associate vacation centers got to be interesting.

Forbin’s crack about the rest room had only stated truth. Each office block had a rest room, and it was tacitly accepted that if the door was locked you did not make a song and dance about it. A time traveler from even fifty years back would have been astonished—and very likely scandalized—by the lack of friction and disharmony in what he would have regarded as a sexually degenerate society.

Forbin’s secretary returned, smart and businesslike, with a degree of uplift that had been lacking before and with her make-up on straight.

“Angela, I’ve called a Group A meeting for 1530—Johnson is fixing it. Try to keep callers out of my hair, will you? But that doesn’t include the President; if he wants me, he had better get me.”

“Sure, Chief.”

Angela was a big, midwestern girl, a good and devoted worker, but Forbin had never been able to break her of the habit of calling him “Chief”—and secretly he had grown to like it. He had never made the round trip to the rest room with her—or anyone else—for the Project had taken all his energy. But now, his work almost done, it might be an idea, he thought, if he got around to marriage and a family. Forty was a good age to get fixed, but fifty was by no means unusual; most men of that age were in good physical shape, and in that way he was as most men .

. .

Forbin broke off his blank stare at Angela’s breasts, slightly amazed at his own thoughts, then walked into his own office, women forgotten. That compartment was shut; his mind was rehearsing the details of the Group meeting and its main subject—the activation of Colossus.

Chapter 3

“THAT’S about everything then, Forbin,” said the President. “Answer any questions thrown, except if they get around to the parameter angle. That must remain secret—no point in telling them exactly how rough they have to get to make Colossus itchy.”

It was just over forty-eight hours since their last meeting. The worldwide TV hook-up was minutes away and both were ready, wearing semiceremonial dress, old-style lounge suits with washable shirts. They were alone in the sanctum, but the subdued murmur of voices indicated there was quite a crowd in the PPA’s office.

The President was in his element, his face a shade redder, his eyes bright with excitement. Forbin thought sourly that his coloring against the white shirt and dark blue suit would look very patriotic on TV …