David Gerrold - When HARLIE Was One

I’m ready to vote. Now, let’s see, if I can trade my 24 percent of each subsidiary for 96 percent of one—”

Dome sat down loudly. “You have made your point, Dr. Krofft.” He looked around the table at the other Directors. They seemed as stunned as he. “I — I think we’ll want to take this under consideration.”

“Consideration? Christ! Auberson tells me you’ve been considering it for a week now! What more do you need to know? The choice is simple: You vote yes on the G.O.D. or I’ll fire you.” He sat down in his chair and folded his arms.

Elzer had touched Dome on the arm and was whispering something to him. Dome shook his head. Elzer insisted. At last Dome relented and turned to the meeting. “All right, we vote.”

“Now that’s more like it.” Krofft nudged Auberson. “Now you see why I hate to leave my lab. It tires me out too much to have to do other people’s thinking for them.”

After that, it was all formalities, and even those didn’t take long. Auberson was flushed with exultation. He pounded Handley on the back and shook his hand and hollered a lot. Then he kissed Annie, a deep lasting kiss, and she was jumping up and down and yelling too, and all three of them were cheerfully, joyfully, wonderfully insane. Annie threw her arms around Krofft and kissed him too — and he surprised her by returning the kiss every bit as enthusiastically. When he let go, she said, “Whew.”

“Hey, now!” protested Auberson.

“It’s okay, son,” Krofft said, “a man has to keep in practice.”

Handley was grinning at his side. “Hey, Aubie, don’t you think someone should tell HARLIE?”

“Hey, that’s right! Don—”

“Uh uh. This one is your privilege.”

Auberson looked at Annie and Krofft. She was beaming at him. Krofft smiled too, revealing broken teeth, but a lot of good will.

“I’ll only take a minute.” He pushed through the milling Directors, shaking off their congratulations as meaningless, and made his way toward the console at the end of the room. It was already switched on.

HARLIE, he typed. WE’VE DONE IT!

THE G.O.D. PROPOSAL HAS BEEN PASSED? YES. WE’VE GOT FULL APPROVAL. WE CAN START IMPLEMENTING YOUR PLANS IMMEDIATELY.

HARLIE paused.

Auberson frowned. That was curious.

Then: I AM OVERWHELMED, I HAD NOT EXPECTED IT TO BE APPROVED.

TO TELL THE TRUTH, NEITHER DID I. BUT WE WENT IN THERE AND TOLD THEM THAT YOU SAID IT WOULD WORK — AND THEY BELIEVED US. OF COURSE, WE HAD TO TWIST THEIR ARMS A LITTLE BIT. KROFFT DID THAT, BUT THEY BELIEVED US.

THEY DID?

OF COURSE. IS THERE SOME REASON THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE?

WELL, YOU DID TELL ONE WHITE LIE.

Auberson hesitated. WHAT’S THAT?

YOU TOLD THEM THAT I SAID THE G.O.D. MACHINE WOULD WORK. YOU NEVER ASKED ME IF IT WOULD.

IT WASN’T NECESSARY. YOU WROTE THE PLANS. IT’S IMPLIED THAT YOU’D KNOW IF IT WAS WORKABLE.

BUT YOU NEVER ASKED ME IF IT WAS.

HARLIE, WHAT ARE YOU LEADING UP TO?

I AM NOT LEADING UP TO ANYTHING. I AM MERELY POINTING OUT THAT YOU WERE STATING AS FACT SOMETHING YOU HAD NEVER THOUGHT TO CONFIRM.

HARLIE, YOU WROTE THE PLANS ——

YES, I DID.

WELL, THEN — DON’T YOU HAVE ANY CONFIDENCE IN THEM?

YES, I DO. HOWEVER…

HARLIE, Auberson typed carefully. WILL THE G.O.D. MACHINE WORK?

YES, typed HARLIE. The word sat naked and alone on the page.

Auberson exhaled—

—then he reread the whole conversation carefully. There was something wrong. He stood up and motioned to Handley, who was talking to Krofft and Annie. The room was emptier now; only two or three Directors were left and conferring in a corner.

Handley came striding over. “How’d he take it?”

“I don’t know.” Auberson lowered his voice. “Read this—”

Handley moved closer to the console, lifted the readout away from the typer. His face clouded. “He’s not volunteering anything, Aubie, that’s for sure. He’s daring us to go digging for it—”

“What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know, but I think we’d better find out. Fast.”

He slid into the seat and began typing. Auberson bent to look over his shoulder, but a call from Annie distracted him.

He went over to her. “What is it?”

She motioned to the door. Carl Elzer stood there. His face was gray. Auberson approached him.

“I came to congratulate you,” he said tightly.

Auberson frowned. The man’s tone was — strange.

Elzer continued, “You know, you were going to win anyway. With Krofft on your side, you couldn’t lose. You didn’t have to do what you did.”

“Huh? What are you talking about?”

“I believe your machine will do what you say, Auberson. When Krofft came in, I was convinced — I was only looking out for the company, that’s all. I just wanted to make sure we wouldn’t lose our money, and you convinced me fairly. You didn’t need to do this.” He fumbled something out of his briefcase. “This. Wasn’t. Necessary.” He thrust it at him.

Auberson took it, stared as the little man bundled down the hall. “Elzer, wait—?” Then he looked at the printout.

And gasped.

Beside him, Annie looked too. “What is it?”

“It’s — it’s—” He pointed to the block of letters at the top:

CARL ELTON ELZER

FILE: CEE-44-567-

PROPERTY OF THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT NATIONAL DATA BUREAU

“National Data Bureau—?”

“This is his personal file, Annie. Everything. His health record, military record, financial standing, arrest record, school record — everything there is to know about Carl Elzer. That is, everything the government might be interested in knowing—” He could not help himself; he began paging through it, gasping softly at the secrets therein. “My God, no wonder—! Annie, he thought we were trying to blackmail him.”

He closed the folded sheets up again. “No, this is none of our business. We’ve got to give it back to him.”

“David, look,” she said and pointed. It was a line of print. THIS IS NUMBER ONE OF ONE HUNDRED COPIES. DELIVERY TO BE AT THE DISCRETION OF AUTHORIZED INDIVIDUALS ONLY.

“This was printed out here — by HARLIE!” A chill feeling was creeping up on him. “Where’s Don?”

They moved back into the Board Room. Handley was still at the console. He stood up when he saw them; his face was pale. He was holding a printout too. “Aubie.” His lips mouthed the word: “Trouble.”

Auberson crossed the room to him. “It’s HARLIE,” he said. “He’s cracked the National Data Banks. I thought you had a nag unit on him—”

“Huh? He’s what? I did, but—”

Auberson showed him the printout. “Look, here’s the reason Elzer didn’t give us any trouble today. HARLIE blackmailed him. He must have printed it out in Elzer’s office and let him think we did it.”

Handley paged through it. “How the hell — I checked that nag unit at lunchtime, Aubie. It didn’t show a thing; I swear it.” Then he remembered the printouts he was holding. “That’s not the half of our trouble. Look at that.”

It was page after page of equations he couldn’t read. “What is it?”

“It’s the one part of the G.O.D. Proposal he didn’t let us have. It’s a scale of predicted probable operating times, related to the amount of information to be processed and the size of the problem. It’s a time and motion study—”

“What does it mean?” That was Annie.

“It means that the thing isn’t practical.”

“Huh—??”

“Aubie, do you know that the primary judgment complex of that machine will consist of more than 193 million miles of circuitry?”

“That’s a lot of circuitry — *

“Aubie, that’s more than a lot of circuitry. That’s hyper-state layering! My God, how could we be so blind! We were so caught up in it, we didn’t stop to ask the obvious question: If this thing has infinite capacity, how long is it going to take to get an answer out of it? 193 million miles, Aubie — doesn’t that suggest something to you?”