Philip Dick - The Complete Stories of Philip K. Dick Vol. 5 - The Eye of the Sibyl and Other Classic Stories

Stafford thought bitterly, How many times we were warned about this! They would have to wipe out our Genux-B prior to its successful deploying of the SAC retaliatory satellites and bombers. And this was that event; these men, undercover extensions in North America of S.A.T.A., had rousted him to complete their job of making the computer inoperable.

But – data might already have been received, might already have been transferred to the receptor circuits for processing and analysis. They had started to work too late; possibly by one day, possibly only by a few seconds. At least some of the meaningful data had gotten onto the tapes, and so he had to be called in. They couldn't finish their job alone.

The United States, then, would presently undergo a series of terror-weapon satellites bursting above it – as meantime the network of defensive machinery waited for a command from the cardinal computer. Waited in vain, since Genux-B knew of no trace harbingers of military assault – would still not ever really know until a direct hit on the national capital put an end to it and its emasculated faculties.

No wonder they had jammed the take-up reel.

"The war's begun," he said quietly to the four men with flashlights.

Now that he had turned on the bedroom lamps, he could make them out. Ordinary men with an assigned task; these were not fanatics but functionaries. They could have worked equally well for any government, perhaps even the near-psychotic Chinese People's. "The war has already broken out," he guessed aloud, "and it's essential that Genux-B not know – so it can neither defend us nor strike back. You want to see it get only data which indicate we're at peace." He – and no doubt they – recalled how swiftly in the two previous Interventions of Honor, one against Israel, one against France, Genux-B had reacted. Not one trained professional observer had seen the signs – or had seen to what the signs led, anyhow. As with Josef Stalin in 1941. The old tyrant had been shown evidence that the Third Reich intended to attack the U.S.S.R., but he simply would not or could not believe. Any more than the Reich had believed that France and Britain, in 1939, would honor their pact with Poland.

In a compact group, the men with flashlights led him from the bedroom of his conapt, into the outer hall and to the escy which led to the roof field. As they emerged, the air smelled of mud and dampness. He inhaled, shivered, and involuntarily gazed up at the sky. One star moved: landing light on a flapple, which now set down a few feet from the five of them.

As they sat within the flapple – rising swiftly from the roof and heading toward Utah to the west – one of the gray functionaries with Sneek gun, flashlight, and briefcase said to Stafford, "Your theory is good, especially considering that we woke you out of a sound sleep."

"But," a companion put in, "it's wrong. Show him the punched tape we hauled out."

Opening his briefcase, the man nearest Stafford brought out a wad of plastic tape, handed it mutely to Stafford.

Holding it up against the dome light of the flapple, Stafford made out the punches. Binary system, evidently programming material for the Strategic Acquired-Space Command units which the computer directly controlled.

"It was about to push the panic button and give them an order," the man at the console of the flapple said, over his shoulder. "To all our military units linked to it. Can you read the command?"

Stafford nodded, and returned the tape. He could read it, yes. The computer had formally notified SAC of a Red Alert. It had gone so far as to move H-bomb-carrying squadrons into scramble, and also was requesting that all ICBM missiles on their assorted pads be made ready for launch.

"And also," the man at the controls added, "it was sending out a command to defensive satellites and missile complexes to deploy themselves in response to an imminent H-bomb attack. We blocked all this, however, as you now are able to see. None of this tape got onto the co-ax lines."

After a pause, Stafford said huskily, "Then what data don't you want Genux-B to receive?" He did not understand.

"Feedback," said the man at the controls. Obviously he was the leader of this unit of commandos. "Without feedback the computer does not possess any method of determining that there has been no counterattack by its military arm. In the abeyance it will have to assume that the counterattack has taken place, but that the enemy strike was at least partially successful."

Stafford said, "But there is no enemy. Who's attacking us?"

Silence.

Sweat made Stafford's forehead slick with moisture. "Do you know what would cause a Genux-B to conclude that we're under attack? A million separate factors, all possible known data weighed, compared, analyzed – and then the absolute gestalt. In this case, the gestalt of an imminent attacking enemy. No one thing would have raised the threshold; it was quantitative. A shelter-building program in Asiatic Russia, unusual movements of cargo ships around Cuba, concentrations of rocket freight unloadings in Red Canada…"

"No one," the man at the controls of the flapple said placidly, "no nation or group of persons either on Terra or Luna or Domed Mars is attacking anybody. You can see why we've got to get you over there fast. You have to make it absolutely certain that no orders emanate from Genux-B to SAC. We want Genux-B sealed off so it can't talk to anybody in a position of authority and it can't hear anybody besides us. What we do after that we'll worry about then. 'But the evil of the day -' "

"You assert that in spite of everything available to it, Genux-B can't distinguish an attack on us?" Stafford demanded. "With its manifold data-collecting sweepers?" He thought of something then, that terrified him in a kind of hopeless, retrospective way. "What about our attack on France in '82 and then on little Israel in '89?"

"No one was attacking us then either," the man nearest Stafford said, as he retrieved the tape and again placed it within his briefcase. His voice, somber and morose, was the only sound; no one else stirred or spoke. "Same then as now. Only this time a group of us stopped Genux-B before it could commit us. We pray we've aborted a pointless, needless war."

"Who are you?" Stafford asked. "What's your status in the federal government? And what's your connection with Genux-B?" Agents, he thought, of the Blunk-rattling South African True Association. That still struck him as most likely. Or even zealots from Israel, looking for vengeance – or merely acting out the desire to stop a war: the most humanitarian motivation conceivable.

But, nevertheless, he himself, like Genux-B, was under a loyalty oath to no larger political entity than the North American Prosperity Alliance. He still had the problem of getting away from these men and to his chain-of-command superiors so that he could file a report.

The man at the controls of the flapple said, "Three of us are FBI." He displayed credentials. "And that man there is an eleccom engineer, who, as a matter of fact, helped in the original design of this particular Genux-B."

"That's right," the engineer said. "I personally made it possible for them to jam both the outgoing programming and the incoming data feed. But that's not enough." He turned toward Stafford, his face serene, his eyes large and inviting. He was half-begging, half-ordering, using whatever tone would bring results. "But let's be realistic. Every Genux-B has backup monitoring circuitry that'll begin to inform it any time now that its programming to SAC isn't being acted on, and in addition it's not getting the data it ought to get. As with everything else it sinks its electronic circuits into, it'll begin to introspect. And by that time we have to be doing something better than jamming a take-up reel with a Phillips screwdriver." He paused. "So," he finished more slowly, "that's why we came to you."