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  10

  Kussman and the Computer

  Kussman called a general cafeteria conference of all technical personnel to discuss computer systems. A terminal console sat on a table at the front of the big room.

  (There was some initial adjustment of the loudspeaker apparatus. Kussman spoke a few test words into the mike while Oldham worked with the controls. Gradually the shrill querulousness seemed to leave Kussman’s voice. “He’s using a voice overlay,” Serane whispered to Paul. “Probably rented from Drock O’Hara, the holo-actor.”)

  And now all was ready.

  “I want you to know that I am working with you,” Kussman announced to the assembly in a resonant baritone. “You have only to ask. I’ll give you the best answers money can provide.”

  Paul whispered to Serane from the side of his mouth. “What does he mean by that?”

  “I fear it means the final, paternalistic flowering of the computer.”

  “And what does that mean?”

  “Listen … it’s coming!”

  Kussman called out: “Is there a question from the floor?”

  Tom Oldham rose from his chair in the front row.

  “Mr. Oldham?”

  “What is the lowest member of the series of saturated cyclic ethers?”

  “You heard the question, ladies and gentlemen,” said Kussman. “And the computer heard the question. I think all of you know the answer. However, let’s verify it with the computer.” He sat down on the other side of the table and picked up the handset. “Computer, may we have the answer, please?”

  A tall holographic figure—at least six feet three— seemed to leap from the screen. It was a man dressed in a lab coat. He faced the audience and smiled. “Ethylene oxide,” he said in a deep genial voice.

  “My God!” whispered Paul. “It’s a holo of Kussman himself!”

  Serane chuckled. “And blown up even more.”

  The two Kussmans bowed to each other as though in congratulation. Then Kussman II faded and disappeared, and Kussman I came around to the front of the table and spoke over the hum. “Well, there you have it. Visible, audible evidence that I am at your deskside every minute of the day, ready to help you with all your problems. You have only to ask. But that isn’t all. There are a couple of other matters that I’d like to discuss with you. Some involve the computer, and some don’t.

  “For example, there’s a very useful function of the computer that we tend to ignore. And that’s its negative side. Just as it can encourage along certain positive lines, so can it discourage certain approaches. Accordingly, unproductive associations are best stricken from the computer routines. They can only encumber our truly creative efforts. For this reason I have made certain permanent modifications in the company’s computer loops. For example, trialine cannot be made from urea in useful amounts at atmospheric pressure. That is a fact, and I have punched that into our loop as a fact. So don’t ask the computer to help you develop an atmospheric process. As soon as the computer understands you are talking atmospheric trialine it will erase your entire presentation.”

  Paul stole a look at Serane. The Nitrogen group leader just sat there, impassive, his arms folded over his chest. His face, thought Paul, had grown a shade paler.

  “Now then,” continued Kussman, “I am going to ask that all you technical men report your bench work direct to the computer. You can do this orally, day by day. The computer will make a permanent record, which I understand is admissible as evidence in litigation. As for our input into the computer, this will be kept confidential and will not be available to the other Lindstrom subscribers. It will, however, be integrated into the general feedback to us.

  “In closing, take note that there is a stack of decals here on the table, supplied by the Lindstrom Division of International Computers. As you leave I would like for each of you to pass by the table and pick up a decal. Put it in a prominent place where it can be a constant reminder to you.”

  A few days later, when Paul was occupying a cubicle in the washroom near the Patent Section, he was startled to hear a voice from behind his head. He turned and saw the little wall speaker. The voice (it was Kussman’s) said: “You have now been in here for five minutes. We know you do not want to waste valuable time. Mrs. Pinkster will now read to you selected items from the current Chemical Abstracts …”

  He chose this moment to think of the decal he had picked up from the table and stuffed in his jacket pocket. He had barely glanced at it then. He fished it out of his pocket, studied it thoughtfully, then peeled off the backing and slapped the decal on the side panel over the roll of tissue.

  It read: Problems? Don’t strain! The computer can do it better and faster.

  11

  Uriah Hight

  Mary Derringer called Paul on the desk visi. Sheila Ward had just called her. Uriah had been found dead in a cheap hotel in Brooklyn.

  Uriah … ? Sheila’s shadowy consort, whom he had never met? He had never bothered to work out his relationship with Uriah. It had been irrelevant. But now he would have to think about him. For example, what were the legal consequences of the death of a registered cohabitant? They had registered so that their incomes were not combinable for income tax purposes; yet any children would be legitimate. Was Sheila now some sort of widow? Did she have dower in Uriah’s estate? It was very confusing.

  “They said it was suicide,” said Mary.

  Paul did not know what to say. He was thinking, but about the wrong things. “Maybe it isn’t Uriah. How do they know for sure?”

  “As soon as they got him out, they got his name and address from his wallet and called Sheila over to identify him.”

  “Maybe you should go over there and stay with Sheila.”

  “I already asked her. She says she doesn’t want anyone. She claims she will be all right.”

  “You don’t think she will do anything …”

  “No.”

  “How about the funeral … the legal arrangements … ?”

  “Sheila has already called a New York law firm. They are handling everything. She’s having the body shipped back to Ohio. They will have the funeral there. Uriah will be buried at Evergreen, in Akron.”

  “Yes. I see. I have to take the tube to Washington tonight. I’ll stop by and see if there’s anything I can do.”

  “That’s fine.” Mary sounded relieved, as though everything was taken care of. “I’ll tell Dr. Serane.”

  He had not seen Sheila in over a month. He looked her over briefly as she let him into the apartment. She wore a black dress, trimmed in dark gray. Her matching wig was a soft black with a modest, almost spinsterly bun in the back. Her nails were colored black. She wore no other makeup. She looked beautiful. As always. (He wondered if her nipples were tinted a funeral shade.)

  “Come in.” She smiled and ushered him through the little vestibule and into the parlor, where she took his hat and topcoat and put them on a big leather chair facing the TV. He had never been here before, but he knew it had to be Uriah’s chair. He wished she had put his things in the closet.

  “I was just making a little pot of coffee,” said Sheila. “Please, let’s go into the kitchen and talk.”

  “All right.” He followed her through a dining alcove into the kitchen. They sat down at the table, and she poured the coffee. He helped himself to cream and sugar from a silver service.

  “Why, Sheila? Why did he do it?”

  “Because he wanted to,” she said simply. “He was through. With me, with everything. It was best.”

  He stared at her.

  She smiled crookedly. “Let me show you a couple of things.” She got up and pointed. On the sewing machine stood a wheel-like device, some two feet in diameter. It looked like a miniature Ferris wheel at a county fair. Except that, instead of seats, its periphery consisted of a series of illuminated minature computer readout panels.

  “What in the world?!”

  “Watch,” said Sheila. “Bastard!” she shouted.

  Paul jumped, then looked at her in alarm.

  Sheila pointed at the wheel. It was turning, and the panels were flashing. Each illuminated sign was the same: “Uriah is a stupid bastard” She smiled grimly. “It works with just about any name you can imagine. Of course, you have to yell. It has a certain decibel threshold.” Paul’s mystification amused her. “He was well read. He read about the prayer wheels stationed along the mountain trails of Tibet. They were big stone wheels, turning on their wooden axles, suspended waist-high. The periphery was carved with prayers. The illiterate but pious traveler gives the wheel a turn or two, and all the proper incantations are deemed said. Uriah made the observation that my complaints about him were fit subject matter for a prayer wheel: just senseless repetition. He made the wheel to prove his point.” She pulled the wall plug. The wheel turned slowly to a halt. “This is the first time I have touched the damn thing. It’s been here for months. I couldn’t even get into the sewing machine. It was hate; it was despair. He was crazy, of course.” She paused.

  She’s leading up to this final thing, thought Paul. “Go on,” he said.

  “Well, one night last week, I asked him, are we to continue this way forever, because if we are, I am going to leave him. So he comes right out, in plain English, and says he will let me know in a couple of days. Here’s hope, I think. At least he is talking to me, face to face, again. But he did not mean it that way at all. He took this little trip to Washington, except he didn’t go to Washington. He went to that sleazy hotel in Brooklyn. That’s where he used … those.” She pointed to two canisters on the

  hall table. “The cops returned them to me yesterday.”

  Paul studied the two metal cylinders. He thought at first that they might be fire extinguishers. But then he read the labels: STRIPPAIR. Distributed exclusively by Euthanasia, Inc.

  And now he began to understand how Uriah had died. “You mean—?”

  Sheila nodded grimly. “The very ones. ’They’re loaded with molecular sieve adsorbent, specially chosen with an average pore size just right to adsorb oxygen molecules, and too big to hold nitrogen.”

  There seemed to be some sort of servo circuitry attached to the canister valves. Paul decided not to ask. If Sheila wanted to explain, well, fine, he’d listen.

  She continued. “He went to bed. Perhaps he fell asleep. We don’t know, and it’s not important. About midnight, both canisters opened on signal. Within three minutes they adsorbed all the oxygen in the room. That left the room under a slight vacuum. He had stuffed a towel under the door, but air leaked in from various cracks to balance the vacuum. And of course the oxygen in the new air was quickly adsorbed. Death was quick and peaceful.”

  “You said the canisters opened on signal?” asked Paul.

  “Did I say that? Yes, I guess I did. The electronics people on the bomb squad helped me trace the circuit. The signal starts here, in the apartment… well, actually, I guess you could say it starts in the bedroom.”

  Paul stared at her. He did not understand.

  “Don’t you see?” she said. “A friend and I were in the bedroom. We were, well, you know … At climax, I called out—this friend’s name. My voice—and that name—went through a voice decoder, which Uriah had secretly set up in his closet here. That exact particular name activated a special electronic circuit in his ham broadcast radio. The radio then broadcast a signal, which bounced off an orbiting communications satellite, was then duly amplified, and finally picked up by his receiver in that room in Brooklyn. That signal opened the valves on the servomotors. A real Rube Goldberg, don’t you think? And just like Uriah. Well, you still don’t believe me …” She turned toward the two canisters and called out in a loud voice: •‘Fred! Now … Now … /”

  Paul listened in horror to the faint clicks, then the whirring of the little motors, and then his bugging eyes saw the canister valves turning.

  “They’re already gorged with oxygen,” said Sheila matter-of-factly. “We’re in no danger.”

  And now he finally got it. He turned to the woman, astounded, white-faced. “Fred …? Kussman?”

  She read him clearly. “Uriah and Fred were good friends.” As if that explained everything.

  Paul removed his jacket, crawled under the bed and ripped out the microphone and its associated circuitry. He took it all to the kitchen, found the garbage sack, and packed it in at the side of the bag. Then he dropped the sack into the waste-annihilator chute.

  When he returned, Sheila was no longer in the bedroom. The shower was running in the bathroom. And the bathroom door was halfway open. He removed his tie, unbuttoned his collar, his cuffs, sat on the bed (whose bed?), and unlaced his shoes.

  The bathroom was now silent. She might use some help with the towels and cologne. He stripped and walked down the hall.

  She had removed her wig. Her body was lovely in the dim light. Her breast buds were crisp, her belly undulant. Her inner thighs yielded under his searching hand. Her eyes were bright and open, watching him watch her.

  Afterward he got up from the bed and began to dress. “What will you do now?” he asked. “Will you stay with the Liebig Club?”

  “I don’t really know. Maybe I’ll move back to Washington. I don’t think I could stay here in New York.” She sat on the edge of the bed and pulled on her stockings.

  “Washington would be a good possibility,” agreed Paul. “The government?”

  “The Patent Office. Patent examiner.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “And you’re a macho pig. Don’t forget, the commissioner of patents is a lady.”

  “Touché Madame Commissioner.”

  “I’m a good chemist. Not to mention, I passed the DC bar the same year you did.”

  “I know.” But—the Patent Office? Would she handle his cases? No, she couldn’t mean the Patent Office.

  They went into the little hallway together. As Paul was putting on his topcoat he noticed a jar of white crystals on the mail table. He picked it up absently and read the label:

  The First Kilo

  Urea Pilot Plant

  Ashkettles Chemical Company

  Easton, November 1,2005

  “He was immensely proud of it,” said Sheila. “His one great personal accomplishment. He worked night and day at that damn pilot plant. And he didn’t want the company to stop with just urea. He wanted them to upgrade it. Especially to trialine.”

  Paul started to put the jar back, then hesitated. “Could I have this?”

  “You could get better stuff at the lab.”

  “I want this … unless you want it.”

  “No. I was going to throw it out. Why do you want it?”

  “I don’t know. Someday I may have a chance to upgrade it for Uriah.”

  “You’re an odd one.”

  He put it in his pocket.

  As she closed the hall door behind him, he knew it was all over between them. Perhaps it was best. He sighed and thought of Mary Derringer.

  A week later Mary called Paul. Sheila was in the midst of packing. She had to be out by the fifteenth. She was moving back to Washington; actually, to Arlington, Virginia. She had a lease at Crystal Plaza Apartments, just across the mall from the patent office complex.

  “The Patent Office?” said Paul.

  “Sure. She has a job as a patent examiner.”

  “For heaven’s sake.” So she had really meant it. “Well, she’s a chemist and a lawyer, isn’t she? The same as you.”

  “Yeah. I know. But a woman patent examiner …” Mary sniffed. “Having babies is not all a woman can do.”

  I know, I know.

  12

  Downfall

  The next morning, Humbert called Mary into his office. Mrs. Pinkster sat at his deskside, and her eyes glittered as Mary entered.

  “Dr. Kussman needs additional clerical assistance,” Humbert said pleasantly, “and we thought of you. We are transferring you as of this afternoon. Can you take your things up to Mrs. Pinkster’s right away?”

  Mary had the sudden sensation that she was swim-ing six feet under water. She looked first at one, then at the other. “Does Dr. Serane know about this?”

  “You are free to tell him.”

  She wanted to gulp in a lot of air, but if she did, she might drown. She could hear her heart beating. It was obvious that Dr. Serane knew nothing of this development. They were really doing this to him. She was just some kind of pawn in the war games going on. She understood this very well.

  It had come. The earth had finally opened. She was lost. She did not belong anymore. The group would be destroyed. One by one they would be annihilated. First herself. Then Dr. Serane. Then poor Bob Moulin. Then poor Drs. Slav and Teidemann (for who would have them?) and all the others.

  She turned and walked out.

  Humbert stood up, truly astonished. “We’re not through. Come back here.”

  Mrs. Pinkster ran after her as far as the office door. “How dare you!” she shrieked. “You … you … clone!”

  This parting shot was heard down the halls for a hundred yards in both directions.

  But she didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore. Mary knew exactly what she had to do. She stopped at the nearest water fountain, unbuttoned her jacket pocket, took out the little package, and tore open the wrapper with a resolute gesture of her teeth. The radiating pill popped into her hand. She threw her head back and opened her mouth.

  An iron fist covered her hand.

  She turned, startled.

  It was Paul.

  “No, Paul!” she entreated. “Let go!”