Colossus Read online

  “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—o
r 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. . .

  “Five minutes, Mr. President,” the voice of Prytzkammer hi-fied in.

  The President rubbed his hands together; he could hardly wait.

  “Time for a spoonful of medicine—set 'em up, Forbin.” Forbin duly set them up and passed the President his glass. The President took it, and stood up. Forbin guessed what was coming.

  “A toast, Forbin—to Colossus, and us.” They drank to that one.

  “With your permission, sir, I have one too.”

  “Go right ahead.”

  Forbin raised his glass, looked steadily at the President.

  “To the world!”

  The President stared back, his eyes probing, the smiling bonhomie momentarily gone. Then he relaxed, the jovial grin returned.

  “Sure, why not? That's a good one—to the whole goddam cotton-picking world!”

  Prytzkammer was finding it hard to preserve his usual calm and polished manner; he had caught something of the President's excitement. Now, surrounded by five top reporters, plus two cameramen and a producer, he was thankful that the days of power cables, TV lights and special microphones were dead and gone. The cameramen, with four minutes to go, had at last unslung their portable TV cameras and were making fine adjustments to their antennae with every appearance of boredom. They were the top men in their own line, and had seen everything and been everywhere. An assignment to cover the Last Judgment would not get them worked up.

  The reporters, too, were top men, and a hard-baked lot. The doyen was Kyrovitch of Tass, a big, wide man with a permanent chip on his shoulder. Then there was Plantain, the English representative of the United States of Europe, an urbane little man, adept at smooth and tricky questioning—and the other European, the Frenchman, Dugay. PanAfric's M'taka was a good, solid reporter, but outclassed by the rest. USNA's representative, Mazon, was NorAm's star man; not unnaturally he was assigned the central reporter's role in the conference.

  Unlike the cameramen, the press were anything but bored. All they knew, officially, was that the President was to make a statement of global importance and that they would have a chance to ask questions. There would be no preliminary warm-up. Prytzkammer was primarily concerned that no one man should hog the proceedings.

  “Remember, gentlemen, you are the stand-ins for the people of the world. Set a good example, and let's have a little of the old give and take—”

  “Relax,” said Mazon, “none of us is going to start a fight.” The rest nodded, each making his own mental reservation on how best to get the lion's share.

  “I would be charmed if I—we—had some faint lead on the purpose of this announcement,” Plantain smiled in a tired way at Prytzkammer. There was a general mumble of agreement from his colleagues.

  “I'm sorry, gentlemen, but the President wants it this way, and he's the boss. I couldn't tell you if I wanted to—I don't know.”

  None of the reporters spoke. They didn't have to; their faces showed what they thought of that one.

  The TV producer compared his two chronometers and said, “Two minutes” to no one in particular.

  Four of the reporters all asked questions at once; only Mazon was silent. This might be this Colossus thing he had heard of, but there was no point in shooting off your mouth. You could be wrong, and any spillage might bring out the mean streak in the President.

  Prytzkammer, who had ignored all the questions, picked up his few notes, and raised an eyebrow at the producer, who nodded towards the first cameraman.

  “I make the intro, you hold me until I identify the reporters—pan along the line as I name them, then on me as I lead in to the President. Will Camera Two be solely on the President and Forbin?”

  The producer nodded.

  “Forbin!” Mazon shot out. “So it is—”

  He stopped. The other reporters looked at him, questions forming in four minds. He was saved by the producer.

  “Quiet now; five seconds to the intro, forty-five to Pressie.”

  Prytzkammer's glare at the irreverent producer quickly changed to an ingratiating smile as the warning light on Camera One started to occult, then glowed steadily. The PPA quickly tuned his smile down to mere affability, looked at the camera, and began.

  “This is the White House, Washington. This Presidential conference is being transmitted by all networks in the United States of North America and the United States of South America. By arrangement with International TV Agency it is beamed via Space Stations Two and Five to the Pan-Afric Republic, the United States of Europe, the Middle East and the Japanese Republican Zone, including Australasia. It is also on offer to the Soviet Bloc, but as of now we do not know if they are taking it.”

  The PPA moved round his desk, tracked by Camera Two. “In a few moments I will be taking you in to hear an announcement of worldwide importance by the President of the United States of North America. You, the people of the world, are represented here by these gentlemen.” He introduced them, one by one, and went on, “These are your representatives, and when the President has completed his statement, they may ask any questions that they like.”

  Prytzkammer paused, looked at the reporters, then at the camera.

  “Gentlemen, the free world, here is the President.”

  He walked slowly to the doors to give the camera a chance to keep him in shot, and opened both doors. Camera Two sank down on one knee, getting a desk-level view of the President as the doors opened, slowly straightening up as the reporters filed in on either side of him. The PPA joined Forbin, out of view well to one side of the President's desk.

  The President waited until the reporters were seated, then leaned forward on his elbows, hands clasped in front. It was a small gesture which conveyed the impression on TV that he was talking to you, confidentially, that this was man-to-man stuff.

  “Fellow citizens of the world,” he began in a low, measured, almost stately voice, “I am told that this telecast is being watched by more than half the people of the globe, and that a further ten per cent are listening on the radio. You may well wonder what I can say that is important enough to justify taking up your time like this. In all solemnity, I can assure you I have that justification. For good or evil—and I devoutly believe for good—we have reached one of those vital turning points in the history of man and of this planet. There have been a number of such moments in the past, most of them passing unrecognized. The first was the discovery of the use of fire, the second when the wheel was invented. The construction of the first internal- combustion machine was another. Some of you are old enough to recall the terrible dawn of the atomic age, and the host of technological advances we have made since then. But for the unhappy state of our w
orld's affairs, we could all enjoy life to the full; remove the risk of conflict between the nations, and the Golden Age would be with us—now!” The President did not forget himself and bang the desk, but raised one finger as he spoke the last word, giving the slight visual shock to keep his vast audience's full attention. He went on, wearily.

  “Instead, for years, for generations, we have been delicately poised on the brink of a disaster too complete and horrible to contemplate.” His voice lost its weariness, gathered strength. “We of the free world have upheld the banner of freedom and truth, knowing that this must be preserved, even at the cost of all our lives.”

  Again the President paused, and resumed his confidential approach. “We do not want war—and to be truthful, I do not think anyone else does either. Nevertheless, we have all gone on, with recurrent crises, each carrying with it the risk of a slip or error on one side, or the other, which could result in the final tragedy of global destruction. There is an old saying that 'everyone makes mistakes,' but that is just what neither side can afford. We are all human, taking inhuman risks. One of the great philosophers of this century, Bertrand Russell, said many years ago, 'You may reasonably expect a man to walk a tightrope safely for ten minutes; it would be unreasonable to do so without accident for two hundred years.' This we have known for a long time, and for years, here in the United States, we have been working on this problem. Until this very minute this work has been our most closely guarded secret. It has involved vast effort, vast expenditure, but I have to tell you that our efforts have been crowned with success.”

  The President had the full attention of the reporters. They were still, listening hard. Even Camera One—who had nothing to do—was motionless, listening carefully. The President, holding on to the dramatic pause, sipped a little water. He watched, with approval, as Camera Two—sensing the payoff line to come—inched downwards so as to give the President relative height. The President drew himself up a fraction, lessening the confidential approach. He fixed his gaze on the camera, and spoke with great solemnity.