Macalaster of Security said, "I vote for New York. Administration and industry have both been decentralized to the point where the destruction of any one particular city won't prevent instant retaliation.”
"Then why New York?” asked Amberly of Science, perhaps more sharply than he intended. "Finance has been decentralized as well.”
"A question of morale. It may be they intend to destroy our will to resist, to induce surrender by the sheer horror of the first blow. The greatest destruction of human life would be in the New York Metropolitan area—”
"Pretty cold-blooded,” muttered Lynn.
"I know,” said Macalaster of Security, "but they’re capable of it, if they thought it would mean final victory at a stroke. Wouldn't we—”
Presidential Assistant Jeffreys brushed back his white hair. "Let’s assume the worst. Let’s assume that New York will be destroyed some time during the winter, preferably immediately after a serious blizzard when communications are at their worst and the disruption of utilities and food supplies in fringe areas will be most serious in their effect. Now, how do we stop them?”
Amberley of Science could only say, "Finding ten men in two hundred and twenty million is an awfully small needle in an awfully large haystack.”
Jeffreys shook his head. "You have it wrong. Ten humanoids among two hundred twenty million humans.”
"No difference,” said Amberley of Science. "We don’t know that a humanoid can be differentiated from a human at sight. Probably not.” He looked at Lynn. They all did.
Lynn said heavily, "We in Cheyenne couldn't make one that would pass as human in the daylight.”
"But They can,” said Macalaster of Security, "and not only physically. We’re sure of that. They’ve advanced mentalic procedures to the point where they can reel off the micro-electronic pattern of the brain and focus it on the positronic pathways of the robot.”
Lynn stared. "Are you implying that they can create the replica of a human being complete with personality and memory?”
"I do.”
"Of specific human beings?” "That’s right.”
"Is this also based on Agent Breckenridge’s findings?”
"Yes. The evidence can’t be disputed.”
Lynn bent his head in thought for a moment. Then he said, "Then ten men in the United States are not men but humanoids. But the originals would have had to be available to them. They couldn’t be Orientals, who would be too easy to spot, so they would have to be East Europeans. How would they be introduced into this country, then? With the radar network over the entire world border as tight as a drum, how could They introduce any individual, human or humanoid, without our knowing it?”
Macalaster of Security said, "It can be done. There are certain legitimate seepages across the border. Businessmen, pilots, even tourists. They’re watched, of course, on both sides. Still ten of them might have been kidnapped and used as models for humanoids. The humanoids would then be sent back in their place. Since we wouldn't expect such a substitution, it would pass us by. If they were Americans to begin with, there w'ould be no difficulty in their getting into this country. It’s as simple as that.”
"And even their friends and family could not tell the difference?”
"We must assume so. Believe me, we’ve been waiting for any report that might imply sudden attacks of amnesia or troublesome changes in personality. We’ve checked on thousands.”
Amberley of Science stared at his finger-tips. "I think ordinary measures won’t work. The attack must come from the Bureau of Robotics and I depend on the chief of that bureau.”
Again eyes turned sharply, expectantly, on Lynn.
Lynn felt bitterness rise. It seemed to him that this was what the conference came to and was intended for. Nothing that had been said had not been said before. He was sure of that. There was no solution to the problem, no pregnant suggestion. It was a device for the record, a device on the part of men who gravely feared defeat and who wished the responsibility for it placed clearly and unequivocally on someone else.
And yet there was justice in it. It was in robotics that We had fallen short. And Lynn was not Lynn merely. He was Lynn of Robotics and the responsibility had to be his.
He said, "I will do what I can.”
He spent a wakeful night and there was a haggardness about both body and soul when he sought and attained another interview with Presidential Assistant Jeffreys the next morning. Breckenridge was there, and though Lynn would have preferred a private conference, he could see the justice in the situation. It was obvious that Breckenridge had attained enormous influence with the government as a result of his successful Intelligence work. Well, why not?
Lynn said, "Sir, I am considering the possibility that we are hopping uselessly to enemy piping.”
"In what way?”
"I’m sure that however impatient the public may grow at times, and however legislators sometimes find it expedient to talk, the government at least recognizes the world stalemate to be beneficial. They must recognize it also. Ten humanoids with one TC bomb is a trivial way of breaking the stalemate.”
"The destruction of fifteen million human beings is scarcely trivial.”
"It is from the world power standpoint. It would not so demoralize us as to make us surrender or so cripple us as to convince us we could not win. There would just be the same old planetary death-war that both sides have avoided so long and so successfully. And all They would have accomplished is to force us to fight minus one city. It’s not enough.”
"What do you suggest?” said Jeffreys, coldly. "That They do not have ten humanoids in our country? That there is not a TC bomb waiting to get toegther?” "I’ll agree that those things are here, but perhaps for some reason greater than just midwinter bomb-madness.”
"Such as?”
"It may be that the physical destruction resulting from the humanoids getting together is not the worst thing that can happen to us. What about the moral and intellectual destruction that comes of their being here at all? With all due respect to Agent Breckenridge, what if They intended for us to find out about the humanoids; what if the humanoids are never supposed to get together, but merely to remain separate in order to give us something to worry about.” "Why?”
"Tell me this. What measures have already been taken against the humanoids? I suppose that Security is going through the files of all citizens who have ever been across the border or close enough to it to make kidnapping possible. I know, since Macalaster mentioned it yesterday, that they are following up suspicious psychiatric cases. What else?” Jeffreys said, "Small X-ray devices are being installed in key places in the large cities. In the mass arenas, for instance—” "Where ten humanoids might slip in among a hundred thousand spectators of a football game or an air-polo match?” "Exactly.”
"And concert halls and churches?”
"We must start somewhere. We can’t do it all at once.” "Particularly when panic must be avoided?” said Lynn. "Isn’t that so? It wouldn’t do to have the public realize that at any unpredictable moment, some unpredictable city and its human contents would suddenly cease to exist.”
"I suppose that’s obvious. What are you driving at?”
Lynn said strenuously, "That a growing fraction of our national effort will be diverted entirely into the nasty problem of what Amberley called finding a very small needle in a very large haystack. We’ll be chasing our tails madly, while They increase their research lead to the point where we find we can no longer catch up; when we must surrender without the chance even of snapping our fingers in retaliation.
"Consider further that this news will leak out as more and more people become involved in our counter-measures and more and more people begin to guess what we’re doing. Then what? The panic might do us more harm than any one TC bomb.”