Джек Макдевитт - Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt

He signed the contract. Four books in all. In triplicate. I put one copy in a manila envelope and handed it to him. “All yours,” I said.

He was glowing.

“Now let’s go celebrate.”

We went across the street to Marco’s. It’s a quiet Italian restaurant just off the Common. It was still a little early for lunch, so hardly anyone was there. We ordered a decanter of red wine, and I filled both glasses. “To you, Ed,” I said. “And to The Long War .”

He wore a grin a mile wide. “Thanks, Jerry.” He sipped the wine, made a face at it, put it down. “Strong stuff,” he said.

I finished my own and refilled the glass. “I have to tell you, Ed, The Long War is pretty good. How long have you been working on it? Four years? Five?”

“I guess you could say ten or eleven. Somewhere in there.”

“ Ten years? You’ve been writing this since you were, what, fifteen? Do I have that right?”

“Oh, no, Jerry. I didn’t write the novel. Max did.”

“Max? Who’s Max?”

“Ah,” he said. “That’s the real accomplishment. That’s my surprise.”

I finished the second glass in a swallow. “You didn’t tell me there was going to be a surprise.”

The waiter arrived. We ordered. When he was gone we picked up where we’d left off. “What surprise?” I demanded. “Who wrote the book? Are you his agent?”

“Hell, Jerry, anybody can sit down and write a novel. All you have to do is be willing to stay with it for, what, a year or so? Or five, I guess. Sit down and be willing to write every day. That’s all it takes.”

“What are you trying to tell me, Ed? Who’s Max?”

He’d dropped the laptop onto the seat beside him. Now he set it on the table and opened it. Lights blinked on and the screen glowed cobalt blue. “This is Max,” he said.

I stared at the computer, then at Ed. It was an ordinary HP model. Myra had one like it. Black case, the logo printed on the lid. “You said Max wrote the book.”

“He did.”

“Max is a computer.”

“Actually, he’s an artificial intelligence, Jerry.” He leaned forward, breathless. “A real one.”

“The computer wrote the book.”

“He’s an AI .” He looked at me as if waiting for me to cheer. When I didn’t a cloud crossed his face.

“I don’t care what you call him,” I said, “no machine could have written The Long War .”

The big grin came back. “But he did.”

“I don’t believe it.”

“A few years ago they were saying no computer would ever compete with a chess master. You look recently to see who’s world champ?”

We sat staring at each other. The door opened and people came in. A family with a little boy. The boy had a pull toy.

“It took four days,” he said.

“What took four days?”

“To write the novel.”

A chill settled into my bones. I drank down more of the wine. Two plates showed up. Pizza for Patterson. Spaghetti and meatballs for me. But my appetite had gone south. “Four days,” I said.

“Yes. Well, maybe a bit more. But not much.” He took a deep breath and smiled modestly. “It took me almost as long to tell him what kind of book I wanted.”

“It’s just not possible.”

“That doesn’t include printing time, though.”

“You’re signed to do three more novels.”

“Yes.”

“I was expecting world-class stuff.”

“They’ll be good. Max was years in the making and has spent a long time analyzing the great books.”

“How long?” I asked.

“How long what?” He was chewing on the pizza, obviously enjoying himself. But he looked as if he couldn’t understand why I was unhappy.

“How long will it take to deliver the other novels?”

“Probably two weeks. It takes a while to run them off.”

“Two weeks for another novel like The Long War ?”

“Two weeks for all three. But they won’t be like The Long War , although they’ll be of comparable quality.” He pushed his chair back and tried to look upbeat. “We’ve already decided on the next book. It’ll be about the power and the downside of religious belief. Along the order of The Brothers Karamazov . But different, of course. Original.”

I sat frozen. Yep, no problem for Max. You want something to make people forget The Winds of War ? Have it for you Tuesday.

“You all right, Jerry?”

“I need some fresh air.” Or maybe we’d get a new Huck Finn . This time around we’d take a hard look at anti-gay prejudice. I threw money on the table and headed for the door.

“Jerry, wait.” He was right behind me.

Maybe a new Dreiser novel. By Max.

Or something in the mode of Scott Fitzgerald.

Traffic outside was heavy. Buses, delivery trucks, crowded sidewalks. “If Max wrote the book, why’s your name on it?”

“Legal reasons. He’s not a person. Can’t sign checks. Can’t really do anything.”

“Except write great novels.”

“You got it.”

He stood in front of me and flashed an enormous grin. He had no idea what he’d done. This child , who was obviously very good with electronics, had canceled William Faulkner, Melville, Cather: What would their work be worth in the shadow of this thing ? I assumed if he could do Karamazov , he could produce a new symbolic masterpiece in the spirit of James Joyce. Call this one Achilles , in which a man’s life is driven by a search for control. Or maybe something to push Remembrance of Things Past off the charts. In eight volumes, delivered over the course ofa month.

“I couldn’t be sure it had worked,” Patterson said. “I don’t read that much. Not fiction. I didn’t know whether it was any good or not. What Max wrote. You were the test. We’ll put his name on the cover though, if that’s okay.”

“What’s Max’s last name?” I asked.

A bus was coming up behind him. It was a local, headed for Massachusetts Avenue. It had just picked up passengers at the corner, seen an opening, and was accelerating. It had broken loose from the traffic.

“Winterhaven. Max Winterhaven.”

“Sounds pretentious.”

“I thought it sounded literary.”

Max Winterhaven was slung over his shoulder. I looked up at the bus driver, and I swear he knew what I was going to do before I did. I saw it in his face the instant before I gave Patterson his quick shove. His eyes went wide and he toppled backward. People screamed, the brakes screeched, and I either said, or thought, “This one’s for Henry James.”

I got clean away. The descriptions that showed up on CNN a few hours later sounded nothing like me. They also reported that the dead man had been carrying a laptop, but it had been smashed. Police were trying to reconstruct it, but I never heard anything more.

There was no widow, I’m pleased to say. I don’t know who had been with him the night I called. The Long War , as we all know, has become an international best seller. We are sending the checks to the deceased’s mother.

Literary authorities are on the tube almost weekly, decrying the loss of Edward Patterson, a man of incredible talent, who would have become a towering literary figure, had he only been given time.

Thursday, November 24. Shortly before noon.

We buried him on a cold, gray morning, threatening snow. The mourners were few, easily constraining their grief for a man who had traditionally kept his acquaintances at a distance. I watched the preacher, white-haired, feeble, himself near the end, and I wondered what he was thinking as the wind rattled the pages of his prayer book.