David Gerrold - When HARLIE Was One

He made as if to throw the pack, but Handley shook his head, “Uh uh — I don’t like Highmasters.”

“But that’s what you’re smoking now.”

“Yeah, but I paid for these. I can’t afford to waste them.”

“Huh?”

Handley shrugged. “They were all out of Golds.”

Auberson shook his head. HARLIE was right — human beings didn’t make sense. He dropped the Highmasters back into the drawer. It was just as well — he could use them as a constant test of his willpower.

He closed his desk and looked at the other. HARLlE’s question was still echoing in his mind.

Handley had thick dark hair, going to gray; a narrow face; skin like leather from too many weekends on his boat; soft regular features; and dark eyes — the corners of them were creased from smiling too much. He said, “It’s about the Board meeting — and your machine, of course.”

“Why does everybody insist on calling it my machine? It’s HARLIE’s.”

“Yeah, but HARLIE is yours, isn’t he?” Handley took another deep drag, held the smoke in his lungs as long as he could, then exhaled. “Besides, it’s a projection of future blame. They figure that by identifying you with the machine, when it finally does go down the tubes, you’ll be the only one to go with it.”

“That’s always nice to know,” remarked Auberson. “That your co-workers are one hundred percent behind you.”

“Why not? It’s the safest place to be.” He grinned. “After all, it’s the guys in front who are the first to get shot, which gives us — the guys in back — plenty of time to turn tail and run.”

“That’s a cop-out,” the psychologist muttered. He was echoing HARLIE.

“Yeah, I guess so.” Handley shrugged it off. “All right, General Custer, lead on. Me ’n’ the rest o’ the boys’ll stick right by you. Although, to tell the truth, General — this’s one time I’d like to be fightin’ on the side o’ the Indians.”

“Me too,” agreed General Custer.

“The thing is,” Handley continued, “we’re just not going to be ready for the Board in time. We’ve been wading through those specs for two days, Aubie, and we haven’t even begun to make a dent in them. If you want a comprehensive evaluation, we can give it to you — but not in time for the Board meeting. And our department isn’t the only one with that problem. Everybody I’ve talked to says the same thing. There’s just too much of it. Oh, what we’ve seen is beautiful. HARLIE hasn’t missed a trick — you should see what he’s done with the Mark IV units — he’s got them jumping through hoops. But, like I said, there’s just too much to go through — it’s a case of computer overkill. We couldn’t begin to assimilate this for at least three months, and the Board meeting is only a week away.”

“I don’t think it’s going to make that much difference how prepared we are. There’s no question that the G.O.D. Machine will work — we don’t need the evaluation to know that. The problem is whether or not the Board will believe us — what will it take to convince them?”

“It’s bad timing, that’s what it is, Aubie. This should have been sent around months ago, not at the last minute.”

“HARLIE had it ready on time,” Auberson said. “That’s all that he was concerned with. If we can’t cope with it in the time allotted, well, that’s just our fault.”

“Yeah? I’d like to see him try to blame us for being imperfect and inefficient. He should have known that a proposal this complex couldn’t be evaluated in only a week.”

“A week and a half — and I believe he’s included his own evaluations. Have you talked to any of the other section heads?”

Handley nodded. “A few—” He took another drag.

“What did they say?”

He exhaled with a whoosh. “Two of them absolutely refused to look at the specs, phone calls or no phone calls — sorry, Aubie, but that trick wasn’t totally effective. They still think they’re being railroaded into something because the proposal is so complete. They said that if we could write it without them, then we could damn well get it approved without their help too.” He paused to inhale another lungful of smoke.

Auberson said a word. He said a couple of words.

This time Handley waited till he was ready to exhale. He said, “It isn’t quite that bad. A few of the guys I talked to are wild about the idea. They’re able to see the total system concept, and they’re eager to build it. It’s not just another computer to them, but the computer — the machine that the computer is supposed to be. They’re delighted with the thought that we may have it within our technological grasp right now.”

“Good,” said Auberson. “How many of them are thinking like that?”

“A lot,” Handley said.

“How many is a lot?’”

“Mm, at least eight — no, nine that I’ve talked to — and I guess we could probably scrape up about ten or fifteen more.”

“That’s not enough. Any names included in that?”

“Keefer, Friedman, Perron, Brandt…” Handley shrugged at it “The inconoclast squad. The rest of the conservatives are waiting to see which way the Board blows.”

Auberson chewed thoughtfully on the side of his left index finger. “Okay — you got any suggestions, Don?”

“Fake it or forget it.”

“We can’t forget it. How can we fake it?”

Handley thought about it “Hit them with everything we’ve got peripheral to the proposal and fuzzy up the grim details. When they ask how it will work, we refer them to the specs — tell them to look for themselves. Rather than try to defend the proposal on its own, well get a lot of good people to defend it for us and hope that their combined status will sway the board. We won’t mention HARLIE — it’s no secret that Elzer is out for his blood — we’ll just keep telling them, ‘It’s in the specs.’ ” He paused, lowered his tone. “Only one question, Aubie — are we defending a pig in a poke, or will this machine really work?”

“It’s in the specs,” said Auberson.

“Don’t give me that horse puckey. That’s for the Board. I want to know if it really will work.”

“HARLIE says it will.”

“Then that’s good enough for me. I have faith in that machine of yours.”

“If you have faith in him, then why did you just say he was mine?”

“Sorry. I have faith in HARLIE. Period. If he says it will work, then it will.”

“You might check with him,” Auberson suggested. “He might have some thoughts on how best to put it over on the Board.”

“You’re right. We should have thought of that earlier.” He started to rise. “You know, it just occurred to me. With HARLIE on our side, we have an unfair advantage over everybody else in the world. We can do almost anything we want to because HARLIE will tell us how to pull it off.”

“Do you think we should tell the Board that?”

“Not until after we sell them the G.O.D. machine. And that will be a fight.” He stood up. “Okay, Atilla, I shall gird my loins and go to fight the Hun.”

“Stupid—” Auberson said. “Atilla was the Hun.”

“Oh. Well, a little dissension in the ranks never hurt any. I’m off.”

“Only a little, and it hardly shows.” Auberson stood up, raised one hand in mock salute. “You have my blessings in your holy war, oh barbaric one. You shall bring back the ear of the infidel — the bastards of the mahogany table who are out to get us. Go forth into the world, my brave warrior — go forth and rape, loot, pillage, burn and kill.”

“Yeah — and if I get a chance to kick them in the nuts, I’m gonna do that too.” Handley was out the door.