* * * * *
For a moment Arnold didn't move. His face was ludicrous. Then Beardsley
saw his hands clench.
"Mandleco!" the word jolted from his lips. "George Mandleco, Minister of
Justice? I don't believe you!"
"It's a fact," Beardsley told him. "Right now he equates into an
uncertain Prime."
"Yes, yes ... but Mandleco! Good Lord...."
"I said _uncertain_ Prime. As you mentioned yourself, there is sure to
be a shift of variants. Surely you have faith in ECAIAC?"
"Of course! But Mandleco, why Mandleco?"
"Why not? He was a friend of Carmack's--or a business associate shall we
say? He worked with Carmack on the ECAIAC lobby, was largely responsible
for pushing it through."
"Yes, I--say, that's right! It would be in C-F...."
"There are things," murmured Beardsley, "in Central File that would
astound you."
Arnold was staring at the coded tapes. "Mandleco," he breathed. "And
with elections coming up!" He shook himself out of the daze. "The--the
other two Primes?"
"Next is not so startling. A really strong Recessive Factor there ...
Professor Karl Losch."
Arnold jerked erect suddenly. "Losch? Say, I remember him! Now _there's_
a man pursued by bad luck. He was working along similar lines to
Carmack--in fact, wasn't he in Carmack's employ for a while?--but
Carmack was first with the patents. You don't suppose that Losch--"
"I'm not supposed to suppose," Beardsley said softly. "But clinically,
it is interesting to note that motive factor alone equates Losch from
Logical into Prime. _Plus_ a high neuro-thalamic imbalance--132 over 80
on the last Index, with pronounced efforts at suppression."
He watched Arnold absorb that, and went on: "Now for the third Prime. I
think it'll interest you...."
* * * * *
He waited deliberately. He looked at Jeff Arnold for a long moment and
saw that the man was calm. Too calm. So absolutely motionless that it
wasn't real.
"Third Prime. A strong one, believe me. In a way most interesting of
all." He pressed the words out slowly and flatly. "The third Prime,"
said Beardsley, "is ... Pederson."
He watched Arnold relax ever so slowly, leaning back, the tension going
away as he uncoiled in the chair; but the young man's face wasn't so
much relieved as it was puzzled.
"Pederson. Pederson? I don't seem to--You can't mean _Brook_ Pederson,
the one-time tele-columnist?"
"None other. I don't suppose you remember, but back in '60 he opposed
the ECAIAC lobby. I mean _opposed_ it, _fought_ it! Predicted that
Government installation of such a machine would not inspire confidence,
that the nation's crime rate would rise ... he saw nothing but chaos.
For a while there he was quite a man. Got himself a following. Had
ambitions."
"But I do remember it!" Arnold thumped the desk. "Of course! Pederson
headed a bloc against 'Carmack's Folly,' but he backed the wrong horse,
and when the bubble burst he was out in the cold. Became a laughing
stock." Arnold paused, and his glance held something of shrewdness and a
livening challenge. "Actually, Pederson couldn't have been more wrong.
In those first two years ECAIAC reduced the crime-rate by some forty
percent."
"So it's claimed!" This was a sore point and Beardsley rose to the bait.
"It couldn't be that crime was on the down-grade already? I could show
you plenty of statistics that--why, I could show you methods--"
"I'll just bet you could." Arnold gave a thin tolerant smile. "I refuse
to enter _that argument_ again, not with you, Beardsley. I for one trust
in machines not in evolution. I've told you before...."
* * * * *
And Beardsley found himself sitting there with a flush of heat at his
hair-roots, half-angry and half foolish as he realized how he had been
baited.
Jeff Arnold was abruptly all business. He plunged his finger at a
button, spoke into the intercom. "Joe! How's that test-run coming?"
"All-X so far! Give us ten minutes for clearance."
"Take twenty, but make sure it's _clearance_. Checked Quantitative, have
you? How about feed-backs? ... yes ... what's that? Semantic circuits!
Hell yes, check _all_ synaptics for clearance! I want no excess data
fouling up this run!"
He clicked off and sat there moodily, and Beardsley watched him, noting
the quick nervous rhythm of Arnold's fingers. Arnold noticed it, too,
and desisted.
"Look," he said. "Mandleco, Losch, Pederson. Those three Primes just
don't make sense to me!"
"They don't?" Beardsley allowed just the proper note of resentment.
"Surely you are not questioning Cooerdinates...."
"You know I'm not! But--"
Beardsley waited, knowing it was coming now. The thing Arnold had been
aching to voice for the past five minutes.
"But--well, damn it, there is _Mrs._ Carmack, for example. As you
pointed out yourself, she'll be a rich woman now! It would seem to me--"
"That she'd be a Prime? I'm surprised at you, Jeff; that's ancient
thinking." If there was a trace of sarcasm, it was lost on Arnold. "Oh,
I grant you it used to hold true--principle beneficiary was always prime
suspect. Fiction especially was full of it. Queen, Dickson Carr, Boucher
you--know the ilk. But with ECAIAC we've gotten away from all that,
haven't we?"
Arnold stared at him suspiciously, hesitated, then brought it out with
an effort. "Well--how _did_ she equate?"
"Who? Oh yes, the beautiful widow. She only made Logical, and even that
is borderline."
"I see." Arnold rose, dialled himself another drink, then changed his
mind and put it down untouched. He turned to gather up the tapes, and
his voice was apologetic.
"It's not that I'd ever questioned Cooerdinates Division! We're too
closely aligned for that, Raoul...." (_First time he's ever used my
first name_, thought Beardsley.) "You have a splendid record to uphold,
as we do here at Mechanical. That's why ... well, I want to get this off
as smoothly as possible!"
Something indefinable, a queasy feeling, took Beardsley about the
middle. He said sharply: "Any reason why not?"
"No, not really. But in recent weeks--I tell you this in strictest
confidence, understand!--in recent weeks it's been a rather ticklish
thing to get total synaptic clearance."
* * * * *
Synaptics? Beardsley began thinking back to the Crime-Central "Required
Annual Basic." The Mechanical had never been his strong point. He said
uncertainly, "But--that's serious!"
"It's just that we've found ECAIAC holding back excess data from
previous runs. Fouls up the relays, takes hours to iron out the
clearance." Arnold gave him a keen look. "More of a nuisance really,
but the weirdest thing. Stubborn!"
_Stubborn._ Beardsley could have thought of a better word. Through the
panelled glass he glimpsed the black metal sheathe of the monster out
there, the shapeless crouching and malevolent winking lights, and he
felt himself going to pieces inside with a sudden shaking crumble; he
hated himself for it but he couldn't stop it; his hands clenched until
the knuckles showed white.
"... matter of time until we find the cause," Arnold was saying, "but I
guarantee total clearance _today_. Shall we get on with it?" Hands
loaded with tapes, he moved for the door.
"No!" Beardsley cried. "Arnold, if you don't mind, I--"
"Oh, for God's sake, not again! Raoul, I swear I'm going to do something
about this phobia of yours; it's getting to be not so funny any more."
With a show of exasperation, Arnold propelled him through the door. "I
give you my absolute word our pet won't snap at you. Not today. It's
going to be far too busy for the likes of you!"
* * * * *
And Jeff Arnold was right, Beardsley discovered. Those baleful overtones
were gone, replaced by a sustained soft whisper along the ninety-foot
hull--a rather impatient whisper but not at all unpleasant. Beardsley
relaxed by slow degrees, but kept a cautious distance, while Arnold
pointed out every light along the length flashing green for Total
Clearance.
"She's rarin' to go," said Arnold with a display of good humor, "but
we'll let her wait a while, eh?" He clapped a friendly arm across
Beardsley's shoulder. "You just come along now and watch; I think your
trouble is, you've never been properly introduced! We'll have no more of
this feudin' and fussin' between you and ECAIAC."
So Beardsley, showing more courage than he felt, trailed the
cyberneticist through every unit of final check-up. Much of it he knew
already from the "Required Annual Basic" ... or thought he knew. For
this was so different from the Manuals! He felt at once ashamed and awed
as he viewed at first hand the unfolding schematic structure. He was
thrilled at sight of the selectors and analyzers of processed beryllium,
the logic-and-semantic circuits in complex little bundles, the
sensitized variant-tapes waiting for transferral impress, all revealed
by a flick of Arnold's fingers that threw open entire sheathed sections
to bare the inner secrets. The thousands of tiny transistors amazed
Beardsley. The endless array of electric eyes startled him. And the
spongy centers of synaptic cell-clusters horrified him, recalling too
vividly to mind what he knew of the physical human brain.
Along the monstrous length he trailed Jeff Arnold; he trailed and he
watched and he listened, not interfering once by word or gesture. And
before it was over his heart was surging with a great revelatory beat
because suddenly _he knew_ ... _he knew_....
Arnold seemed in high good humor as they paced back. "So," he nudged
Beardsley in the ribs, "we'll have no more of this nonsense between you
and ECAIAC. Eh? You're just _bound_ to be good friends now."
Beardsley didn't answer. The revelation was still too much with him. He
watched as Arnold conferred with a group of his techs about a
micro-chron, and the time was carefully noted for Central Record.
Then the first of the tapes went in. The Basic Invariant--Amos Carmack.
It reached synapse and a tiny blip registered on cue.
The rest of the tapes fed in, razoring through the rollers, past the
selenic-sensitized tips of the relays. There was no progressive order.
After the Basic Invariant progression didn't matter. Possible or Logical
or Prime, all factors would correlate or cancel; any divergent
status-shift would be duly handled by transferral impress.
Beardsley counted the tapes. Twenty ... twenty-one ... twenty-two.
The techs dispersed, taking up their various posts where special
eject-tapes clicked out a second-by-second record of the progression.
* * * * *
Nothing much happened. The sound of ECAIAC became a steady inundant
drone; or did Beardsley just imagine that he detected something of the
_gleeful_ in it? With an effort he put the thought from him, and keeping
a cautious distance he took a turn around the monster, up one side and
down the other.
He stopped by Jeff Arnold, who was jotting down figures from the chrono.
That seemed silly, as nothing had happened yet.
Arnold glanced up and grinned at him, as if totally unconcerned that
this was the most repercussive case in the entire history of
Crime-Central! A little disconcerted, Beardsley said, "What happens
first?"
"Oh, plenty is _happening_. But the first you'll notice will be a total
reject. Watch when that happens. Complete silence, every light red for
exactly two and a half seconds--the reject, and then everything
continues."
"How about Transferral Impress? You know--possible to Logical, or
Logical to Prime?"
Arnold paused over his notes for the merest instant. "Why--it's
progressive, of course. _That_ you won't notice!"
Beardsley stared at him curiously, started to speak and then changed his
mind. He wandered again, watching the techs but not interfering. And
suddenly he was aware that the first total reject had come. It happened
with smooth and sudden silence just as Arnold had described, ECAIAC
breaking pace for mere seconds ... then all was clear again, and one of
the techs hurried down the aisle with the tape, which he handed to
Arnold.
* * * * *
Beardsley was aware of a wild pounding of pulse as he stared at the
anonymous tape. One of the fifteen "possibles"? It might even be a
rejected Logical. Mrs. Carmack? She was borderline. Or a Prime! It could
be Mandleco himself--or Losch or Pederson. No ... it was unlikely any
Primes would fall this early....
But maybe they were no longer Primes! Maybe _right now_ Transferral
Impress was at work, maybe one or more of them was being relegated to
lower cooerdinate-status somewhere there in the entrails....
He felt a bounding excitement. And, as if reading his thoughts, Jeff
Arnold gave him an amused look.
"Don't let it get to you, Raoul. I used to find it the same; we all do.
But then you get to thinking, hell, why try to guess? Identities don't
matter now!" He indicated the coded tape. "A total reject--anonymous.
ECAIAC's way of telling us _that_ person could not possibly be the
murderer."
"But--you're not even curious?"
"At rejects? Why?" Arnold seemed perplexed. "Oh, you mean because _I'm_
among the 'possibles.' Frankly it doesn't bother me. I know I'm not the
murderer, and I have faith in ECAIAC. If this isn't my tape, the next
will be--or the eighth, or the fifteenth."
Beardsley nodded slowly. With ECAIAC it was only the final equate that
mattered, the total result of Cumulative. He saw the truth in that, and
the perfection. Or--his eyes beneath the glasses came to a quick bright
focus--_was_ it quite perfection? He watched in silence as Arnold
consulted the micro-chron and jotted more notes. _Rej. Q-9 (code): (.008
synap. circ.): 11:23 A.M._
Beardsley wandered again, watching the techs. A sudden shivering seized
him. How could they remain so calm? Were they so close to the forest
they couldn't notice? Something was about to happen ... to him it was
unmistakable, in the very atmosphere, sharpened and heightened by the
four walls--a pervading sense of _wrongness_ and a pyramiding tension.
Even Arnold wasn't aware; _audibly_ nothing had changed, as ECAIAC
continued its soft-clicking whisper and the techs methodically checked
the progress tapes. Beardsley stood numbly for a moment, struggling
against a welter of panic. Palms sweating, he moved a safe distance away
and waited.
Eight minutes later came another reject. Six minutes later, the third.
ECAIAC continued its blithe, soft-throated rhythm--but Beardsley was not
fooled.
Someone sent out for coffee. It arrived in steaming thermo-containers.
Beardsley was on his first cup of coffee when rejects 4, 5 and 6 came
through.
He was on his second cup when number 7 ejected, and he had just taken a
last swallow when all hell broke loose.
* * * * *
It wasn't much different from the other rejects. Total silence, every
light in every section red ... trouble was, they couldn't seem to get
together again. Some went back to green, others blinked with ominous
uncertainty, still others said "to hell with it" and exploded in vicious
shards of glass that sprayed across the room. That was only the
beginning. Twenty feet from Beardsley came a louder explosion, a sort of
muffled hissing. He ducked, as a complete bank of transistors zoomed
past his head. From a dozen places along the ninety-foot length angry
trails of smoke poured out. A tech yelled "Damn!" as he pulled back a
burned hand. Sheathes crashed open. Long strands of vari-colored wire
burst out and began a crazy aimless writhing, accompanied by an ominous
buzzing sound as if a swarm of angry metallic bees had escaped. Someone
was yelling, "Master-switch! The master-switch!"
Beardsley saw Arnold leap to the master-switch, where he became
entangled with a tech who was screaming at him, "My God, sir, hurry!
It's BREAKDOWN!"
Cursing, Arnold shoved the man aside and pulled the controls.
But now that it was roused, ECAIAC didn't want to give up so easily.
There came a staccato series of minor explosions--defiant gesture,
thought Beardsley!--before silence engulfed the room together with a
drift of acrid smoke.
It was acrid and _angry_ smoke. From a safe distance Beardsley adjusted
his glasses and observed the frantic, scurrying techs, many of them
nursing burned hands. Aside from a pounding heart he was amazed at his
own calm; nevertheless, he tread with caution as he approached Arnold,
who was on his haunches dolefully surveying the area of major damage.
"Uh--is it something serious?"
Arnold glared up at him. "Overload on the feed-backs. If that's _all_ it
is, we can pull out the unit and replace it in a few hours."
"Never happened before, eh?"
"Not like this," Arnold groaned. "Lord--it just seemed to go berserk!"
Beardsley glanced around nervously. "You see? You see? I didn't think
our beautiful friendship could last...."
Arnold snarled, "Get out, Beardsley! What the hell you doing here
anyway? Go somewhere and read a book!"
"Yes. Yes, I--" Beardsley swallowed hastily. He then straightened, took
a last look around and pulled himself together. Without a word, he
turned and strode resolutely into Jeff Arnold's office; he closed the
door carefully, then hurried over to the stat and pushed the button for
priority.
"Hello," he said. "Mandleco's office? ... this is Mechanical Division ...
no, I want _Mandleco_ ... I don't care, get him I said! This is emergency!
Put him on at once!"
* * * * *
Mandleco arrived twenty minutes later. The Minister of Justice was tall
and raw-boned with a long hook-nose, a shock of whitening hair, and more
than a suggestion of military arrogance. He paused for precisely one
second in the doorway, then strode straight over to Jeff Arnold. Before
saying a word he bent slightly and peered into the maze of mechanism.
Beardsley wanted to say, "Do you find the cause of the trouble, sir?"
But he held his tongue.
Mandleco straightened up, glaring. "Arnold, what is the meaning of
this?"
"Breakdown, sir."
"I can see that! The cause, man, the cause!"
"I--it's only the feed-back, sir." Arnold struggled with the terminals,
most of which were a fused and tangled mess. "Not as bad as it looks, I
assure you. I've already contacted Maintenance; they're sending up a new
unit."
"What precisely does that mean? Can you complete the run or not! This
has got to go through today!"
Arnold touched a hot terminal, jerked back his hand and swore. "It will,
sir. Give us a few hours. We had seven total rejects, so I doubt the
tapes are at fault. More like a synaptic overload. Transferrals are
okay, so I want to try it with a stepped-up synaptic check; that'll
alleviate any overload without drain on the minor selective, which is
better than setting up complete new correlation-grams."
It was too much for Mandleco. Grinding a fist in his palm, he stared
into the matrix and muttered, "Unprecedented. Absolutely unprecedented!
Arnold, I just can't understand _why_--"
"Happened pretty suddenly," Beardsley intruded. His voice was low and
laden with meaning. "Almost as if it had gone berserk! And little
wonder, if you ask me...."