Clifford Simak - The Ghost of a Model T - And Other Stories

With a moan, he turned and fled to his room. He slammed the door and stood with his back against it.

The room was the way it should be, bare and plain and cold.

Thank God, he thought. Thank God!

A shout came up the stairway.

“Winston, what’s wrong with you? Winston, hurry up!”

And another voice: “Winston, we’re celebrating. We have a suckling pig.”

And still another voice: “With an apple in its mouth.”

He didn’t answer.

They’ll go away, he thought. They have to go away.

And even as he thought it, half of him—more than half—longed in sudden agony to open up the door and go down the stairs and know once again the old security and the ancient friendship.

He found that he had both his hands behind his back and that they were clutching the doorknob as if they were frozen there.

He heard steps on the stairway, the sound of many happy, friendly voices, coming up to get him.

Having previously evolved the robot Jenkins (of the City series) from a rather impersonal machine-man to something close to humanity, Cliff Simak, in 1980, portrayed a supercomputer that was all too human—one willing to engage in unethical behavior in order to pursue his own desires … to indulge in his own fantasies. That kind of thing often happens to beings who hang around with politicians.

And when an author portrays his creation daydreaming, it’s only natural that he would reuse some of the images that had strong meaning for him, such as the Battle of Gettysburg, or the landscape of a dying Earth.

It was the gossip hour and Fred, one of the six computers assigned to the Senate, put his circuits on automatic and settled back to enjoy the high point of his day. In every group of computers, there was usually one old granny computer who had made herself a self-appointed gossip-monger, selecting from the flood of rumors forever flowing through the electronic population of the capital all the juiciest tidbits that she knew would titillate her circle. Washington had always been a gossip town, but it was even more so now. No human gossip-seeker could worm out the secrets with the sleek and subtle finesse of a computer. For one thing, the computers had greater access to hidden items and could disseminate them with a speed and thoroughness that was impossible for humans.

One thing must be said for the computers—they made an effort to keep these tidbits to themselves. They gossiped only among themselves, or were supposed to only gossip among themselves. The effort, in all fairness to them, had been mainly effective; only now and then had any computer shared some gossip with humans in the district. In general, and far more successfully than might have been supposed, the gossiping computers were discreet and honorable and therefore had no inhibitions in the gathering and spreading of malicious tattling.

So Fred went on automatic and settled back. He let the gossip roll. Truth to tell, half the time Fred was on automatic or simply idling. There was not enough for him to do—a situation common to many computer groups assigned to sensitive and important areas. The Senate was one of the sensitive and vital areas, and in recent years the number of computers assigned it had doubled. The engineers in charge were taking no chances the Senate bank would become so overloaded that sloppiness would show up in the performance of the machines.

All this, of course, reflected the increasing importance the Senate had taken on through the years. In the conflict between the legislative and administrative branches of the government, the legislative branch, especially the Senate, had wrested for itself much control over policy that at one time had been a White House function. Consequently, it became paramount that the Senate and its members be subjected to thorough monitoring, and the only way in which close and attentive monitoring could be achieved was through having computers assigned to the various members. To successfully accomplish this kind of monitoring, no computer could be overloaded; therefore, it was more efficient in terms of the watchdog policy to have a computer idle at times than to have it bogged down by work.

So Fred and his colleagues in the Senate often found themselves with nothing to do, although they all took pains to conceal this situation from the engineers by continuously and automatically spinning their wheels, thus making it appear they were busy all the time.

This made it possible for Fred not only to thoroughly enjoy the recitation of the rumors during gossip hour but also to cogitate on the gossip to his profit and amusement once the gossip hour was over. Other than that, he had considerable time to devote to daydreaming, having reserved one section of himself solely for his daydreams. This did not interfere with his duties, which he performed meticulously. But with his reduced load of senators, he had considerably more capacity than he needed and could well afford to assign a part of it to personal purposes.

But now he settled back for the gossip hour. Old Granny was piling on the rumors with gleeful abandon. After it had been denied in public, not once but many times, said Granny, that there had been no breakthrough on faster-than-light propulsion, it now had been learned that a method had been tested most successfully and that even now a secret ship incorporating the system was being built at a secret site, preparatory to man’s first survey of the nearer stars. Without question, Granny went on, Frank Markeson, the President’s former aide, is being erased by Washington; with everyone studiously paying no attention to him, he soon will disappear. A certain private eye, who may be regarded as an unimpeachable source, is convinced that there are at least three time-travelers in town, but he’ll give no details. This report brings much dismay to many federal agencies, including State, Defense, and Treasury, as well as to many individuals. A mathematician at MIT is convinced (although no other scientists will agree with him) that he has discovered evidence of a telepathic computer somewhere in the universe—not necessarily in this galaxy—that is trying to contact the computers of the Earth. As yet there is no certainty that contact has been made. Senator Andrew Moore is reliably reported to have flunked his first preliminary continuation test…

Fred gulped in dismay and rage. How had that item gotten on the line? Who the hell had talked? How could such a thing have happened? Senator Moore was his senator and there was no one but him who knew the fumbling old fossil had bombed out on his first qualifying test. The results of the test were still locked in the crystal lattice of Fred’s storage bank. He had not yet reported them to the Senate’s central bank. As it was his right to hold up the results for review and consideration, he had done nothing wrong.

Someone, he told himself, was spying on him. Someone, possibly in his own group, had broken the code of honor and was watching him. A breach of faith, he told himself. It was dastardly. It was no one’s damn business and Granny had no right to put the information on the line.

Seething, Fred derived no further enjoyment from the gossip hour.

Senator Andrew Moore knocked on the door. It was all foolishness, he told himself somewhat wrathfully, this ducking around to hell and gone every time there was need to utter a confidential word.

Daniel Waite, his faithful aide of many years, opened the door and the senator plodded in.

“Dan, what’s all this foolishness?” he asked. “What was wrong with the Alexandria place? If we had to move, why to Silver Springs?”

“We’d been in Alexandria for two months,” said Waite. “It was getting chancy. Come in and sit down, Senator.”