* * * * *
The Soviet diplomat entered the bathroom. He was a languid mincing
creature whose decadence glowed around him like phosphorescence around a
piece of rotted swampwood. He said, "I hope I am not intruding."
"That depends," Nina told him. "_I'd_ like to know how you traced us
here so quickly."
"My sweet," said the Russian in intensely Oxford Esperanto, "you and
your friend's"--with another bow toward Lindsay--"little affair at the
Pelican was witnessed this evening. When the two of you departed
together, heading eastward, and Ambassador Lindsay could not be reached
in his apartment...." He paused delicately.
So this, thought Lindsay, was a descendant of one of the Red Commissars
whose fanatic and chill austerity had terrorized the free world of a
century ago. Lindsay knew something of modern Soviet history, of course.
There had been no real counter-revolution. Instead the gradual emergence
of the scientists over their Marxist political rulers had been a slow
process of erosion.
Once computer rule was inaugurated in the North American Republic and
swept the Western World, the scientists had simply taken over real
power. The once-powerful Politburo and its sub-committees became
obsolete.
Alenkov was stressing this very point. He said, "So you see, we, the
best blood of Russia, are forced by these machines to live the lives of
outcast children. Naturally we resent it. And when, after so many long
years of waiting, we learn that one man has succeeded in foiling the
computers where no man has succeeded before, we want to know his secret.
We must have it."
Nina spoke first. She said, "Dmitri, the secret, as you call it, has
been right there all along for any of us to see. It just happens that
Ambassador Lindsay fell into it head first."
"Thanks for the 'Ambassador' anyway," Lindsay said drily.
Nina quelled him with a frown. "The computer weakness," she said, "lies
in the human element. Now figure that out for yourself."
Alenkov's brows all but met in the middle of his forehead and his mouth
became a little round O under the twin commas of his mustache. He said,
"I see."
He left shortly afterward on a note of sadness, rousing himself only to
say to Lindsay, "Ambassador, you are a very lucky man." His eyes
caressed Nina's near-nude figure.
"That," Lindsay told him, "is what you think."
When he had departed Lindsay suddenly realized he was exhausted. He sank
back in a contour chair and let fatigue sweep over him. But Nina paced
the bathroom floor like a caged cat. Finally she went to the
wall-talkie, gave a number in a low voice.
She pushed some sort of signal button several times, then swore and
said, "Better not sleep now, boss. We're cut off."
It brought him to with a start. "What do you mean?" he asked.
"Somebody or something is jamming our communicator."
She opened a concealed cabinet, apparently part of the bathroom wall,
drew from it a couple of light but deadly looking blasters, and tossed
one onto the contour chair in front of him. "You know how to work one of
these things?" she asked.
"Better drop the weapons," a quiet voice said from the doorway behind
them. "You haven't got a chance."
The speaker wore the light blue tunicall that was the summer uniform of
the Army of the Republic of North America. His cap and shoulder-boards
were bright with silver lace and he held a singularly ugly little
automatic weapon cradled across one forearm.
Nina and Lindsay dropped their weapons. But the girl's back was up. Her
slanting eyes crackled green fire as she said, "What right have you
bastards got to come busting in here without a warrant?"
"Sorry," said the officer with chilling courtesy. "As it happens we do
have a warrant. Remember, Miss Beckwith, this cottage is not United
World's soil." He tossed an official looking document which Nina caught,
motioned a couple of his men to pick up her weapons.
"All right," she said after scanning the warrant. "What do you want?"
"Ambassador Lindsay," was the reply. "We have been ordered to ensure
that no harm comes to him while he is on American soil."
"I can read!" snapped the girl. "There's going to be hell to pay over
this." Then, to Lindsay, "We can't stop them now but they can't hold
you. _I_ can see to that. Just try to keep your big dumb blundering self
out of any extra trouble till we can take steps--will you promise me
that, boss?"
"I'll try," said Lindsay.
* * * * *
They took him to Washington--or rather to Sherwood Forest, in Annapolis,
where the summer White House sprawled over and beneath its landscaped
acres. To a man from Mars it was very green, very lush, very beautiful.
Lindsay's first impression of famed President Giovannini was that the
famous elected leader of the North American Republic was composed mostly
of secretaries. But at last one of them--the seventh or eighth--said
gravely, "If you'll just step this way, please," to Lindsay and motioned
for the Army officer to remain where he was. He was admitted to the
bathroom of the man who had sent for him so summarily.
The president proved to be unexpectedly like some of the governors of
Lindsay's home planet--incisive, unaffected, easily articulate.
Physically he was stocky, of middle height, with a round, firmly fleshed
sensitive face. He wore huaraches and bright blue shorts, no glasses or
distortion harness.
He waved Lindsay to a contour chair beside his own, said, "Sorry I had
to have you hauled here this way. I was afraid you'd get killed if I
didn't. Do you have any idea of the uproar you've caused in the past two
days, young man?"
Lindsay, somewhat taken aback by the president's abruptness, said,
"Well, I knew some small groups were upset but...."
"Take a look," the president told him, waving toward a quartet of vidar
screens on the wall. Over one of them was the legend, New Orleans, over
another, New York, over a third, Los Angeles, over the fourth, Chicago.
"Those are live shots," Giovannini added.
Lindsay was appalled. Each of them showed rioting crowds and defensive
police action; the commentaries cried their confusion. However, the
Martian got the drift quickly enough. Apparently his recent activities
had driven the neurotic Earthlings to violence.
There appeared to be two chief factions. One of them, smashing and
swarming and screaming its outrage, was demanding the abolishment of
computer government. The other, equally violent and even more numerous,
was after a villain named Zalen Lindsay.
Seeing that Lindsay was beginning to understand what was happening, the
president pressed a button that turned off all the vidar screens and
voices. He said, "I could switch to any of our other cities--to cities
in South America, India, Western Europe, England. They're especially
bitter toward you in England."
"I'm beginning to accept the fact--if not to understand," said Lindsay.
The president said, "Lindsay, from the point of view of your planet you
have done nothing improper. But from the point of view of this
planet...." He let silence and a shrug of thick shoulders finish the
sentence.
"I had no idea," Lindsay began, "that conditions on Earth...." He let
his own voice trail off.
Giovannini finished it for him. "You had no idea people on Earth were so
damned neurotic," he said, and sighed. Then, "Lindsay--call me Johnny,
will you? All my friends do--Lindsay, for generations now people by and
large have been forfeiting confidence in themselves to confidence in
computers.
"They have had good reason. Computer judgment has been responsible for
the first true age of world peace in history. It may not be healthy but
it's a damn sight healthier than war. And it has transformed this
republic from an unwieldy group of states into a controlled anarchy that
can be run by pushbuttons under ordinary conditions."
He paused while the Martian lit a cigarette, then went on with, "Thanks
first to Sylac, then to Elsac, we learned that Vermont was happiest
under its Town Meeting method, North Carolina needed its oligarchy,
while my native state, California, is much better off divided in two.
Texas became happy with its triple legislature--they never are happy
unless they have a little more of everything down there. It was the same
in other countries--Canada, South America, Spain...."
"And England?" Lindsay said softly.
The president sighed again. "England," he admitted, "is a bit of a
problem--out of all proportion to its size and current importance. But
the British are stubborn about their institutions. They've hung onto a
Royal Family a hundred years longer than anyone else. We can hardly
expect them to give up their beloved socialism so soon."
"Just as long as Mars is not expected to pay for this indulgence, it's
quite all right with my people," Lindsay told him.
"What's _your_ first name--Zalen?" the president asked. "Well, Zalen, I
know it's a problem but we all have to give a little or crowd somebody
out. Zalen, people are getting killed on account of you right now."
"I've nearly been killed a couple of times myself."
"I know. Regrettable," said Giovannini. "The UW crowd never has
understood security. That's why I had to kidnap you, Zalen. Couldn't
have you killed, you know. Not now anyway."
"Glad you feel that way, Johnny." Lindsay told him drily. "But hasn't it
occurred to you that if people here are so easily set off it might be a
good idea to knock out this computer business once and for all?"
The president puffed on his cigarette. Then he said, "Zale, twenty years
ago, maybe even ten, it could have been done. Now it's too late. Which
is why the ninety-billion-dollar investment in Giac. We've got to give
them an absolute computer, one that will remove forever the basic
distrust of computer judgment that underlies the neuroses you just
mentioned."
"Quite possibly," said Lindsay. "But I haven't actually done a damned
thing myself to undermine computer judgment. The mistakes have been made
by the so-called experts who have fed their machines inadequate
information. Those mistakes were infantile. They suggest some sort of
neurosis on the part of the feeders. They could be mistake-prone, you
know."
President Giovannini chuckled again. "Of course they're mistake-prone,
Zalen," he said. "Some of them, anyway. And it's getting worse. That's
the real reason for Giac. Wait'll you see it!"
"You think I'm going to be around that long, Johnny?" Lindsay asked. "I
understand I'm to be sent back to Mars--if I live that long."
"No, Lindsay, we need you--I'll explain in a moment. And we aren't going
to let you die and become a martyr for generations of anti-computerites.
We can't have that now, can we?"
"I'll go along with you on it," said Lindsay, wondering what the
president was leading up to.
"Good!" The president beamed at him. "Zalen--I want _you_ to be the
first person to put Giac through a public test. That's how much I trust
that machine. I want you, the man who has fouled up two computers,
including Elsac, to try her out."
* * * * *
And Lindsay could only nod. The governors of Mars might not approve but
after the uproar he had caused on this mission they could hardly object.
President Giovannini's scheme was fully up to that renowned statesman's
reputation for political astuteness. The more Lindsay thought it over
the more beautiful was its simplicity.
Mere word that he was to conduct the first public test would quell the
rioting. And unless Lindsay could show this mightiest of all symbolic
logic computers to be fallible, computer rule would be entrenched on
Earth as never before.
But what if, in some way, he succeeded in confounding the computer?
Lindsay shuddered as he thought of the rioting he had so recently
witnessed on the vidar-screens.
His face must have revealed his distress for the president said, "You're
worn out, Zalen. Can't have that, you know. Not with the big test coming
tomorrow."
Lindsay barely remembered leaving the president and being led to a
sleeping chamber somewhere in the vast mansion. When he woke up it was
dark and Nina was perched on the edge of his contour couch, looking
unexpectedly demure in a grey bolo with white collar and cuffs.