Colossus (20 page)

She was still staring at Fisher when Blake stumped in from the teletype room. He was chewing on an unlit cigar, short and chunky like himself.

“Get this, Cleo—it touches you too, Doc.” He slapped another message on the desk. “Red-hot this minute from Frankenstein’s monster himself. Maybe you would like me to wait for the answer.”

TO CPO—STOP MONITORING GUARDIAN/ COLOSSUS LINK FORTHWITH

The effect upon Doctor Fisher could only be described as electric. Here was a decision that he had to take. His eyes, wide with fear and shock, glanced from the message to Cleo, then Blake, seeking help.

“Can’t we wait for Forbin?”

“Hell, no, Doc; if Colossus says forthwith, he doesn’t mean next Mother’s Day,” said Blake. “Very jagged is our boy.” “We must get Forbin! This is his job, not mine!” Fisher grabbed a phone, gabbled feverishly at the Zone switchboard. Cleo, knowing this was a waste of time, turned and spoke quietly to Blake.

“Ask Colossus how long we have to disconnect, will you?” Blake eyed her appraisingly. “OK, you’re the boss. But I reckon you’ll get a mighty smart answer.” He rolled the cigar to the other corner of his mouth and stamped out of the office. Cleo could not help envying his hard-boiled detachment.

They duly got a smart answer. Colossus said forthwith meant the next five minutes if “punitive action was to be avoided.” Cleo decided not to waste time pressing for details of the punitive action. She saw that Fisher was completely useless, and toyed with the idea of trying once more the gambit that only Forbin could give the order. Then she realized that to do so would only raise the status of the Professor still higher, which might make Colossus bear down on him even more—although offhand it was hard to see how. Also there was no guarantee that it would work … Her mind was made up for her by Captain Carruthers, USN, who rang at that moment. He said the President did not know what was going on, but Forbin was out of touch, and whatever the activity was, it had better stop right now. It was sharp and to the point.

Cleo ran to the teletype watch room where she called CIA, gave the order, hung on until it was confirmed that the order had been obeyed, then had Blake inform Colossus. How had Colossus known about the monitoring? Perhaps there was an agent planted in CIA who had reported back to the Soviet … Her mind tried to work out who was talking to whom, then she gave it up as unprofitable. There was so much else to think about.

Back in the CPO she found Fisher still trying to get Forbin. She placed a hand on his arm.

“You needn’t bother, Doctor,” she said gently. “Washington called. The interception of the Colossus/Guardian exchange has stopped.”

“Oh,” said Fisher blankly, and slowly replaced the receiver. He looked away from Cleo, embarrassed by the knowledge of his own inability.

“Don’t worry, he’s bound to be here soon.” Cleo spoke soothingly, as to a child, patted his arm and added, “He’ll get it all straightened out—you’ll see.”

But Fisher was not that far gone, not that optimistic. “Oh, I’m sure he’ll try, but what can anyone do?”

Cleo had no answer to that one. Deep in a remote part of one of CIA’s lower underground levels Grauber was addressing- -TI-4—Technical Investigation, Section 4—a polite name for the Agency’s sabotage department.

“… so that’s it, gentlemen. Specimen safety locks are on their way. I won’t repeat how vital this assignment is. I know you’ll do your best—and it just has to be good enough.”

Forbin was awakened by the sound of a Zone guard tapping on the dome of the air-car. It did nothing to improve his temper, which was not helped by the coppery taste the potted air left in his mouth. He glared at the guard as he got out, rubbing a stiff neck.

His legs ached as he walked towards the Control Block, consciously breathing the fresh air. The sun was slanting downwards, but there was still several hours of daylight left … Then he saw Cleo running to him, hair flying. Forbin’s pleasure was quickly damped when she was close enough for him to see her expression.

“Cleo!” He felt a twinge of conscience, remembering the switched-off intercom.

“Charles, darling,” said Cleo breathlessly. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do, we couldn’t reach you in the air-car, there’s this, this order for you!” She unrolled the message, her fingers trembling.

Cleo could not help comparing his reception of the message with that of Fisher. Certainly Forbin frowned and the lines of fatigue around his eyes deepened, but he was not backing off. His frown deepened as he read the orders issued by his own creation; for a full minute he stared at the message, oblivious of his companion, then he handed the message back, and got out his pipe. He tried a smile.

“Don’t worry, Cleo. There was nothing you could do.” He shrugged. “There is nothing I can do either, but obey. It makes it all very much more complicated—I can’t see how I can get to the meeting …” He broke off and stared thoughtfully at the sky.

“What meeting?”

“Oh, before the machines got their talons on the hot line, I fixed it to meet Kupri in London.” Forbin frowned again, “Hell, Guardian may have put the blocks on him. If so, this is really going to be murder. Anyway, the arrangements would do as well for others.” Forbin sighed, took Cleo’s arm. “Here, let’s take a turn around the block and think this over. Damn this loss of the hot line—we must get a secure line somehow.”

Cleo’s feminine mind flashed back to an earlier turn around the block, but there was no evidence that Forbin recalled it. They walked arm in arm in silence for a while, Forbin sucking noisily at his empty pipe.

“You remember that bit `Disobedience will cause missile launch which will not be intercepted.’ Clear evidence that the machines are now working together.”

“Yes, I thought that,” agreed Cleo. “It’s terrible …”

“Not entirely. At least it should convince the Russians that we must work together. Though I imagine Kupri doesn’t need much convincing. The more I think about it, the more sure I am that he’ll be chained up as well.”

“But there must be something we can do?”

“It all depends how much time we have, and if we can get a secret line of communication. I don’t like this `surveillance at all times.’ That’s our first problem.”

Cleo looked at him encouragingly.

“Anyway,” said Forbin with a short laugh, “I’ve found that Colossus will listen to reason. My best chance is to cooperate as well as I can. Colossus probably isn’t sure whether I’m for or against him, and I may get a little preferential treatment.”

“Have you any idea what the machines are after?”

Forbin rubbed his still stiff neck. “It’s clear that they want to establish control of those people who might upset them—though I’d be surprised if they stopped with just Kupri and me. Deep down I think this is just preparation. ‘They built better than they know,’” he quoted bitterly. “Well, we’d better go in.”

They walked, still arm in arm, towards the control block. Once Forbin stopped and stared at nothing for a space, then walked on without comment. He stopped again outside the entrance, and faced his companion.

“Cleo, I don’t know how you will react to this idea. I don’t like suggesting it, for reasons that will be obvious, but it might work, and so far I can’t come up with anything better. I might find someone else, though.” He paused, rubbed his nose with his pipe. “Um. Angela would do . .

.”

Cleo, whose patience had had a bad time in the last few hours, was not prepared to take much more, even from Forbin.

“Right, now we have had the preview, let’s get on to the main feature.” She went on with more than polite interest. “What is it that Angela can do better than I?’

Her tone shook Forbin out of his personal cloud.

“I don’t know how to say this,” he began again, looking like the small boy caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Only the gravity of the situation—”

Cleo held up a restraining hand. “Charles, I have had a bad time too. Please get down to cases. I’ll try not to faint.” “Um,” said Forbin doubtfully. “Well. As you know, emotion is the one area of knowledge that Colossus cannot really understand. So that’s an angle of attack.”

“Well?”

“This is tough,” he took a deep breath. “Colossus will concede that I am subject to emotions like any other human, and that in the main the … er … exercise of those emotions is usually a private matter. Also I think that Colossus will accept that I need darkness in which to sleep. With these two things, I think I may get him to accept that I need privacy in my bedroom— and that men need women …” His voice trailed off. He was bright pink as he turned his face away from her, his voice husky with embarrassment. “If that –ah—arrangement is acceptable to Colossus, then the—um—woman could be my link with the undercover setup.”

Cleo had been way ahead from the time Forbin mentioned emotions and privacy. While he was fumbling for words, she was thinking how best to accept, without showing too much alacrity, nor, on the other hand, too much surprise. On the side, she was also giving a little consideration to this Angela …

“For sheer ingenuity, I guess that is the most way-out proposition ever made.” She smiled at him. “I don’t have much option. If only to keep that Angela out.”

There she was dangerously near speaking the absolute truth. Forbin stopped his contemplation of one foot, and recovered sufficiently to gaze searchingly into her eyes.

“I know this isn’t high romance, Cleo, and I’m sorry. But I can’t think of any other way of evading Colossus, and even this may not work.” He went on innocently. “I don’t like suggesting this to you—I had hoped for better things when all this was settled. Perhaps Angela would be better …”

“Charles! I agree this isn’t what it might have been, but we’ll make the best of it—you can forget all about the accommodating Angela.” This was close to an order.

As with most men, Forbin was pleased and proud of the possessiveness in the woman he thought he had chosen. He ploughed on.

“You realize that I can’t offer marriage? In the first place, if Colossus discovered we were newly married, which could be easily given away by some casual remark in the office, he might regard that fact as significant. The other point—” here his voice lost its confident tone—”is that it is not essential for … er … a mistress to be constant … um … night companion, and—”

Cleo burst out laughing for the first time in days.

“Charles darling! You really are the limit! Don’t worry, there’s no need to labor the point, I get it. I am to visit as, er, required,” she mimicked his manner, “and not to get above my, ah, station.”

Forbin flushed. “`You’re not being very fair, Cleo. I don’t like this a bit, but you can see as well as I that this way you would be free to move around in a way I can’t do. So you’ll have to go to London—and there is the added advantage that you can discuss the position intelligently, and not just be a messenger, as Angela would have to be—”

“I do wish you would stop harping on about this Angela!” She caught herself. “Sorry, Charles, I didn’t mean to be silly. Cleo is herself again; give me the sordid details.”

“You may not like them very much,” warned Forbin. He located his tobacco, filled his pipe and lit it; it made the taste in his mouth twice as bad. “For example, all our Group must be told, and also told that they must get it firmly fixed in their minds that this is not new, that it has been going on for some time. We don’t want someone—Johnson, for instance—making some witty crack about me suddenly chasing you after all these years. Not in front of all those cameras and microphones.”

“Charles darling, I really don’t care who knows. I only wish we didn’t have to invent that bit about the past.”

It struck Forbin that Cleo was altogether lighthearted about this aspect of the situation.

“I must also warn you that there will be little time for—for us.” He hurried on. “And another thing: We’ll have to reduce your importance in the office—make you an assistant to Johnson or something. You’d better fix that—and don’t forget to change your rating on duty rosters, or anything like that—any stuff the camera might see hung up in one of the offices.”

“All right, Charles, I’ll see to it.” She took his arm once more, shook it slightly. “Come on, let’s go in and tell all—and get our future organized.”

For half an hour or so Forbin was far too busy making the arrangements for his own imprisonment to think much about the future. He sat calmly in the only easy chair in the CPO, issuing a stream of orders; the installation of cameras in the control block, in the entrance and roadway to his private office and in his sleeping quarters. It would take fifteen cameras and twenty-three microphones to provide the cover Colossus required. Everything was checked by Forbin. Yes, they were to fit surveillance equipment in the bathroom and his bedroom—he had a shrewd idea Colossus would want a run—through, and it would not do if he began with the assumption that he could get the machine to see his point about privacy. He had to appear helpful.

Interspersed with these instructions were orders for a Group A meeting for 1500 local time, 2000 GMT. He sent Cleo to find out if Grauber was on his way, told Angela—when Cleo was out of the way—to come over from his office and to collect all the off-watch CIA mathematicians en route. Then he turned his attention to Fisher, questioning him on the results of his combined CIA/Project team’s investigations.

Fisher, visibly relieved at shedding his responsibility, was nevertheless jumpy and uneasy, and the noise made by the technicians in the building, fitting the cameras and microphones, made him still worse.

“You know, Forbin,” he began, “it is really very difficult to say even what field these calculations refer to. I had thought at one time …” Clearly he was in a long-winded mood.

“Look, Jack,” cut in Forbin, a hardness in his voice, “I’ve got no time to waste—there is not much more than an hour of freedom left to me. Make it brief.”

“All right.” Fisher’s tone was cross, almost petulant. “I suspect that it is not just one stream of thought but three, possibly four, all quite independent of each other. One, I am sure, deals with the extension of the Eddington-Hoyle expanding universe concept. For the rest, I just don’t know—except that it’s really fantastic, in the truest sense of the word.”