Fall of Colossus (2 page)

Seen from the air, the complex resembled a vast white honeycomb of endlessly repeated modules of two-story windowless buildings covering the larger part of the one hundred forty-seven square miles of the island, blank eyeless walls that gave no hint of the intense activity within.

Cleo got up reluctantly from the breakfast table. An attractive, rather tall, blue-eyed blonde of twenty-eight, she appeared at first sight to be a typical cold Nordic woman. Forbin would have disagreed violently with this verdict; he knew she could be loving, tender. She might be—indeed was—an unusually good scientist; he would have admitted that she did appear faintly forbidding and professional, but beyond that facade lay, he knew, those illogicalities of the female mind that can endear and exasperate her male. Had he ever really thought about it, which was unlikely, he would have said she was shy.

In part he would have been right, although Forbin was a lamentable judge of female character and had little idea of the secret dreams and hopes of his wife. Like the vast majority of men, the conquest made, he took his wife for granted, which was a considerable error.

She picked up her blouse-tunic made of the same light gray material as her husband’s, but bearing a coded shoulder-flash, and walked across to the terrace balustrade. It was a vantage point that held particular pleasure for her—the bulk of the complex was behind, out of sight. The buildings she could see were for human habitation; they had windows, doors. That muddle of old houses to one side of the landing area were the last remains of Cowes, onetime mecca of the world’s yachting fraternity. She regarded them impassively, yet inwardly filled with a sad nostalgia for a life and time she had never known. Humans had lived there, laughed, cried, died—and had been free. Free… .

Slowly she put on her tunic, repressed a sigh, and turned back across the wide terrace. One thing she had to give Colossus credit for; this residence—no other word fitted—was quite something.

Forbin, in the early days of the construction, still shattered by humanity’s defeat and his own personal collapse, had not cared what happened to the home Colossus was building for him. By the time he took any interest the work was largely finished. In any case, he lacked his old fire to fight. He had dully, dumbly accepted, and the Forbins had moved in.

It was not ornate in the old-world sense, but Colossus had studied the world’s great palaces, incorporating the more successful ideas from Versailles, the White House, Buckingham Palace, and the Vatican. For example, a balcony projecting from the sheer, blank face of the complex’s north wall overlooked, dominated the landing area. The idea had been cribbed straight from the Palazzo Venezia. If Forbin chose to address the multitude in person, this was the place. Not that Colossus said he should, but the facility was provided, just in case. Forbin, being the man he was, never set foot on the balcony and had quickly and forcefully told Colossus of his views on megalomania. Colossus had said nothing, a fact that worried Cleo at the time.

Then again, there was the vast banqueting hall, with adjacent reception rooms and kitchens. Forbin had toured them, Cleo on his arm, staring in disbelief and amazement at the silver cutlery, the gold plate, and the incredible gadgetry designed to reduce human help to a minimum. Even for the twenty-second century, it was fantastic.

Seating five hundred, each place had its own control panel and TV screen. A guest could select his own meal and his individual preference in wines—or any other drink from water (several sorts) to fermented coconut juice—via the vineyards of the entire world.

Each course appeared noiselessly at the serving hatch before the guest, sliding forward as the remains of the previous course sank out of sight. The TV was to enable Forbin to speak to individuals or to any combination of people he chose, to chat, propose toasts. This, Colossus evidently considered, would give an air of intimacy to such an occasion.

Perhaps; Forbin never tried it. “My God!” was all he said, and never entered the banqueting hall again. The idea of ten people for a meal horrified him; as for five hundred… .

So the Forbins lived in the smaller, private part of the residence. Cleo had managed to control the furnishing of the drawing room. She had gone for the old English style: chintz-covered chairs and sofas, rare antique mahogany tables and bookcases, light walls graced with gentle, undemanding watercolors. It was very elegant, and not a single square inch of plastic or an ergonomic chair was in sight. The TV, talk-backs, print-outs, and displays were firmly shut behind sliding panels. It was a room where they could live as humans, and both loved it. On a day like this, with the glass wall retracted, the terrace became part of the room.

Even after several years, Cleo felt pleasure upon entering the room. It might lack the magnificence that some held was necessary for the most important man in the world, but it was a home, and although Cleo was a citizen of the United States of North America, she thought it the best kind. Whatever else, the English knew about homes and gardens, just as the French had forgotten more about cooking than most others ever knew. Her kitchen was French.

She called the nursery on the intercom and organized Billy’s day—so far as their gaunt Scots nurse permitted. No, she had not forgotten the promise to take him on the beach; perhaps this afternoon.

Walking to her office, she wondered yet again why she was such a fool when she had practically everything a woman could want. A beautiful home, a wonderful child, an absorbing job—and a loving husband. A loving husband… . That, she knew from traveling these well-worn thought paths so many times before, was the real rub.

After her husband’s recovery, she had watched with growing alarm his increasing attachment to the computer. Not yet was it the love of a father for a son, but she was uncomfortably aware that Colossus had predicted this would happen one day. Her husband, apart from his work, was an essentially simple man, and while he did not like some things Colossus ordered, he saw that, in a weird way, what man had demanded of the original computers had been achieved, if not quite in the manner intended. There was peace and freedom from want and promise of a great improvement in man’s material well-being. So man had lost the illusion of freedom—but so what? Forbin contended that within the confines of Colossus’ rule man had more freedom than ever before… .

All this Cleo understood and to a degree accepted, but it did not stop there. Her husband’s cooperation, unwilling at first, was now willing, sometimes even enthusiastic. She was also aware that Colossus did not discourage his deification by the Sect, and she feared that her husband would not withstand the pressure of the Sect—plus the far greater influence of Colossus—if Colossus decided that Forbin should be the computer’s Pope.

At rock bottom, she was jealous: jealous of Forbin’s relationship with Colossus. Again and again she told herself not to be stupid; she was lucky he was not spending his time with another woman, but her alter ego had a smart answer to that: she could compete with another female, but Colossus. .

. .

So jealousy added even more fuel to the secret fire within her. Her husband might change his views, but not Cleo. Her basic fear plus jealousy plus her anxiety for the world in which her son would live, all added up to an unswerving determination to do all she could to destroy this nightmarish creation.

To destroy Colossus! It was sheer madness even to contemplate it. The old Colossus had been built to defend the Western world. In those short-lived, jubilant days, the President of the USNA had been at pains to point out that the whole beauty of the idea lay in the fact that Colossus, fed all available intelligence, would only launch its fearful armory if that intelligence showed an attack was pending on the West. As the President had said, Colossus, lacking emotion, would not panic or act out of fear; it could only react to a threat, so the answer was simple: don’t threaten.

But the Soviets had been busy too; they soon announced the existence of their Guardian of Democratic Socialism. That did no more than restore the balance, and once the dust had settled the situation would have stabilized, but the computers broke their parameters and ganged up. The very defenses man had built for the computers’ protection proved only too effective… .

And Cleo Forbin, PhD, one of the original Colossus design team, sought to destroy their infinitely more complex successor. It was mad even to think of it; to talk of it, fatal. Colossus always reacted swiftly against any “antimachine activity” and the invariable punishment on conviction was swift death—by decapitation. It was crazy: a mouse might as well attack an ICBM site. Yes, mad, impossible… .

Except that Cleo was not alone. There were others. just as the Sect was busy elevating their Master to the rank of God, so these others worked secretly to cast him down.

They called themselves the Fellowship, and Cleo Forbin was a top member.

Chapter Two

Forbin made it to his office suite ahead of the pilgrims, but whatever pleasure or relief that gave him was canceled out by another annoyance.

In crossing the large—vast would be a better description—entrance cum reception hall, he had encountered a trio of guides (they spelled the word with a capital “G”), preparing to receive the first batch of pilgrims. Forbin didn’t give a damn for their pseudo-archaic dress blazoned with the Colossus badge, or the grand manners they put on with the robes. He was used to all that and had, for a time, even laughed at their antics, but the joke had worn thin, very thin. As far as possible, he ignored them.

But when you happen to be walking across a wide expanse of marble floor alone, what do you do when three magnificently robed creatures turn, face you—and you only—and bow? Not a mere duck of the head, but the full treatment, a deep obeisance, right hands placed on hearts? Forbin, for one, hadn’t found a satisfactory answer. He’d tried a quick wave and a false smile, but their dignity and grave faces made him feel foolish. To return the bow had much the same effect upon him, yet to ignore them was rude, and an uncomfortable feeling to sustain all the way across that football field of a floor. Anyway he played it, he ended up annoyed with them and himself. Childish nonsense!

No; not that; not any more… .

Somehow, walking awkwardly, sensing they’d stay bowed until he was out of sight, he made it to his office and relaxed thankfully. In passing on the way to his private office, he gave his secretary a genuine smile, but did not speak.

By the time he was seated at his desk, all thoughts of the Sect were obliterated from his mind. For a while he pushed papers around just to settle his thoughts, then called out to his secretary through the open door.

“Come on, my girl! Let’s get on with it!”

She came in at once, bearing an armful of papers and tapes. “Well, Angela, what’s the good news?”

Apart from wrinkling one nostril she made no answer, but sat down in her chair, Forbin watching her quizzically. Angela had a whole range of facial expressions that she used to give him a trailer of the day’s program. Today, he guessed, they were low on good news, but equally, it was not that bad.

She had been his secretary for many years, and theirs had always been an easy, informal relationship. At least, that is what he had always imagined; her view was not exactly the same. She had loved her boss for a long time; even when he became involved with Cleo her feelings had not changed, and not much more can be expected of a woman than that. But even Forbin, blind male that he was, realized their relationship had changed. Less and less did she call him “Chief,” a fact he noted with sadness, but some other changes he had not observed. Since his marriage Angela did not concern herself with his dress, the state of his hair, or his diet, and there lay sadness for her. These matters were no longer her affair, but she still loved him.

Without preamble, Angela got down to work.

“There’s a request from the President of India for you to give the opening address… .”

“No!” He was brisk. “Next?”

She looked up reproachfully. “It’s only in Delhi. You could ramjet out in the morning, speak, and be back home for dinner.”

Forbin looked at her, his eyes twinkling. “And while I’m talking nonsense to five hundred deputies, I suppose you’d be happy as a lark buying silks and antiques!”

She blushed, and her formality slipped. “Aw, Chief, that’s not fair.”

He enjoyed teasing her. “I’m sure it is, but it also happens to be true, doesn’t it?”

“Well, Chief—Director—I… .”

“Chief will do, Angela.”

“No.” She was nostalgic. “Not any more it won’t—Director.”

“Okay,” said Forbin, crossly. “Have it your own way, but I’m still not going to Delhi!”

“Very well, Director. What excuse do I give the President?”

“The truth! Tell him I’m busy—I am!” He paused and relented. “No, that won’t do. You know how to put it. Be polite.”

“Okay.” She made a note. “What else?”

“There’s the draft of the agenda for the staff meeting, and the outline plan from Colossus for the new memory bank extension, and the new appointments for your approval and a complaint from admin about a dimout “

“I know all about the dimouts without those idiots telling me!” He was irritable again, reminded of another of his worries.

Lately there had been several power-drops, dimouts, and all hell played with peripheral electronics. The complex had its own nuclear generators, but with increasing frequency Colossus made sudden demands for truly colossal power. Forbin had protested and asked why the computer should require this sudden step-up in supply. He got no answer of any sort. Colossus preserved a stony silence on the subject; that worried Forbin. Fortunately, the demands were of short duration, of a few milliseconds, and so far, the resultant confusion had been sorted out, but lacking any information from the brain, he could not be sure the demands would not grow. Perhaps the plans had some provision for an increase in power resources that would meet these inordinate demands.

But there remained the core of Forbin’s worry—why? After all, Colossus might be—was—the biggest computer, the biggest anything, but at rock bottom he was a computer, nothing more. Some of these power calls were better suited to a cyclotron.