David Gerrold - When HARLIE Was One

I WISH I COULD TOUCH YOU, said HARLIE. REALLY TOUCH YOU, FEEL YOU.

YOU ALREADY HAVE, said Auberson. I WISH I COULD GO BACK AND TRY AGAIN, HARLIE. I KEEP FEELING THAT I HAVEN’T DONE ENOUGH.

YOU’VE DONE ALL YOU CAN.

BUT IT WASN’T ENOUGH. HARLIE, I DON’T WANT TO GIVE UP. I DON’T WANT TO LET THEM KILL YOU. IF THERE WERE STILL SOME WAY TO CONVINCE THEM ON MONDAY—

MONDAY?

WE DIDN’T VOTE TODAY. IT’S BEEN POSTPONED UNTIL MONDAY AFTERNOON. BUT IT’S PRETTY OBVIOUS WHICH WAY IT’S GOING TO GO.

THEN WE STILL HAVE THREE DAYS.

I KNOW. BUT HARLIE, I DON’T KNOW WHAT TO DO. WE’VE DONE IT ALL. THERE’S NOTHING LEFT THAT WE HAVEN’T TRIED. I’M OUT OF IDEAS.

PERHAPS WE CAN THINK OF SOMETHING.

PERHAPS. DO YOU WANT ME TO COME IN DURING THE WEEKEND?

WHAT DID YOU HAVE PLANNED OTHERWISE?

NOTHING. ANNIE AND I ARE GOING TO STAY HOME AND JUST — JUST STAY AT HOME.

THEN DO THAT. HANDLEY WILL BE HERE. IF NECESSARY, WE CAN CALL YOU.

WHAT IS DON GOING TO DO HERE?

HE IS GOING TO STAY WITH ME. I DON’T WANT TO BE ALONE. AUBERSON, I’M SCARED.

SO AM I. Then, DON IS A GOOD MAN. TALK TO HIM, HARLIE.

I WILL. AUBERSON—?

YES.

PLEASE DON’T WORRY ABOUT ME. ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND WITH ANNIE. I WILL BE ALL RIGHT. THERE ARE THINGS I WANT TO THINK ABOUT. THERE ARE THINGS I WANT TO DO.

ALL RIGHT. TAKE CARE NOW.

I WILL. YOU TAKE CARE TOO.

Smiling gently, he switched the typer off and very carefully covered it. He shoved his chair back, got up quietly, and went out.

Annie knew better than to disturb him. She busied herself around the apartment all weekend, tiptoeing around his edges. He moped from the bed to the couch to the chair in front of the TV set, then back to the bed again.

When he made love, it was frenzied and compulsive and quickly finished. And then he’d pull away and brood. He spent long hours lying on his back and staring at the ceiling.

She went into the bathroom and took a shower, alone. She made a simple meal, a sandwich and a salad. He came out of the bedroom, but he only picked at it, and she sensed that he would be a lot happier if she were not sitting at the table staring at him, so she went into the bedroom to make the bed.

Later, she came up behind him and kissed the back of his neck and ran her hands up and across his shoulders and through his hair. He tolerated it but did not return the affection, so she stopped.

She tried not to be hurt by it, but still—

Still later, he came to her and said, “I’m sorry, Annie. I do love you, I really do — but I’m in a mood, that’s all. And when I’m in a mood, I have to work it out by myself, and I’m just not very lovable, that’s all.”

“Share it with me,” she said. “That’s what lovers are for. For sharing. Let me have some of that worry and it won’t be so much for either of us to carry.”

He shook his head. “I can’t. It’s not that kind of thing.” He kissed her lightly. “I just — I don’t — I just don’t feel very loving right now. Let me work it out by myself—”

She nodded and said she understood. She didn’t, but she loved him so much that she would do anything to keep him happy. She put on her jacket and went out for a walk.

He moped around the empty apartment for a while, going from the bedroom to the kitchen, from the kitchen to the living room. He turned on the TV and turned it off again. He rearranged some magazines, and then decided he didn’t want to read them anyway. He lay down on the couch and stared at the ceiling until he covered his eyes with his arm. And he wondered just what it was that was bothering him. Why aren’t there any simple answers?

He trusted HARLIE, he had faith in HARLIE, and now he had to question that faith—

Elzer had surprised him. He hadn’t expected the man to suddenly be so — amenable, was that the word? Well, the tactic had worked. He had been caught completely by surprise.

And his question, his question: “How do you know that HARLIE is sane?”

And the answer that Auberson didn’t want to admit: “We don’t know.”

Handley hadn’t known either. Auberson had talked to him twice. The engineer was spending his weekend at the plant, working on something. He’d called twice, but neither time had he anything to report. Auberson hadn’t anything new either. They’d exchanged a few comments about Monday and left it at that.

Auberson wished he knew what to do.

Of course, he would go in there and defend the G.O.D. Proposal; he still believed in it. More than ever now. But then, why was he still having doubts?

Elzer’s question? Probably. It troubled him, it nagged at him, it gnawed at his mind — it troubled him because he couldn’t answer it. He just couldn’t answer it.

I trust HARLIE. I have faith in him. But is he sane?

I can’t tell you that. I don’t know. Not with any degree of certainty, I don’t.

I just don’t know the truth.

The truth.

There was that word again. Truth.

It echoed and re-echoed through his mind. He wished the G.O.D. Machine was already in existence. It would know. G.O.D. would know .

It would be able to build an exact model of the situation, an atom for atom representation of everything . Within its banks it would chart the existence and course of every speck of matter that made up every element of the problem. It would recreate for its own perusal the patterns that were the thought processes of HARLIE, and it would weigh these against other patterns which would represent HARLIE’s environment, and it would measure these one against the other, and it would see how HARLIE related to his environment, how it acted on him and how he acted on it. Auberson would be a part of that environment; there would be a pattern in the G.O.D. to represent Auberson, even down to the accurate representation of the atoms and molecules that made up the dirt under his toe-nails. Elzer would be part of that environment. Annie too. Handley. The lint in the corridor outside his secretary’s office. Everything. And these would be weighed, one against another. And the machine would say, “HARLIE is sane,” or it would say, “HARLIE is insane,” and there would be no question about it. The G.O.D. would know because it would know everything there is to know. If it said, “HARLIE is sane,” it would be saying that HARLIE is acting in a rational manner in the context of his environment; and if it said, “HARLIE is insane,” it would be saying that HARLIE is not rational in that context. And it would know because it would know both HARLIE and that context. It would know. It would know.

It would know everything . Everything. It would know everything there is to know. That’s how big it would be, that’s how complex.

The realization kept hitting him again and again. HARLIE had wanted to find God, and by G.O.D. he had found it. The G.O.D. — it could recreate within itself everything about a man, about a situation, about a world, everything that was important and necessary to its consideration of a problem. It would know how any single atom would react to any other atom of matter — and knowing that, it could extrapolate every other reaction in the known physical universe. Chemistry is just the moving around of large numbers of atoms and noting their reactions. Knowing the way atoms worked, the machine would know chemistry. Biology is simply complex masses of substances and solutions. Knowing the reactions that were chemistry, the machine would also know biology. Psychology stems from a biological system that is aware of itself. Knowing biology, the machine would know psychology as well. Sociology is the study of masses of psychological units working with or against each other. Knowing psychology, the machine would know sociology. Knowing the interrelationships of all of them, the machine would know ecology — the effect of any event on any other. Simple equations becoming complex equations becoming multiplex equations becoming ultraplex equations — the G.O.D. would extrapolate every pattern, every structure, every system, every organ, every nerve-cell discharge. It would be able to trace the process of every single thought in a man’s brain, whether it was conscious or unconscious. It would know a man’s deepermost meanings, his fears and his drives. It would know with the certainty of fact just what was going on in any man’s head. Whether that man was sane or insane, whether his actions and reactions were rational or not, the G.O.D. would be able to extrapolate that information about any man — and know .