Kayden suddenly saw how shaken Zander was. He came around the desk and took the older man’s arm, said gently: “Sit down, Artur. Let me get you a drink.”
Zander drained the glass in three quick gulps, set it on the corner of the desk and grinned up at Kayden. All of the man’s pretense was gone. He was humble. “You did it,” he said simply.
It brought back the sense of loss. “I didn’t do it,” Joseph said bitterly, “my wife did it. My wife that isn’t considered acceptable to come into this place.”
“You miss her, don’t you?” Zander said, his voice soft.
Kayden jumped up. “Now we’ve got to demonstrate this thing. I’ll get hold of our bevy of angels and we’ll give it a coming-out party. Make it for tomorrow afternoon, or the day after. You fix up a list of questions, Dr. Zander, and I’ll have Roger fix up the surroundings. Can we move the mike and the amplifier around? Good! We’ll wire it for the main assembly hall. Building K. And by the way, get the voice of the monster as deep as you can and slow it down a little. I want it to sound like one of the major prophets.”
At five o’clock the assembly hall was filled. The President of the United States of North America was present, as were two score of congressmen, a hundred scientists, dozens of minor officials. After Security had cleared the questions to be asked, the President was given permission to invite Ming, Dictator of the Federated States of Asia, as well as Follette, Ruler of Europe, and Captain Anderson, King of the States of Africa. South America was not represented.
Kayden sat with Roger Wald in the front row. At the appointed time, Dr. Zander walked out from the wings, turned and faced the men who sat in the audience — the men who ruled the world. A switch was turned on and a very faint hum permeated the air. All eyes were turned toward the immense amplifier that filled half the stage.
Zander faced the amplifier and said, into a small microphone: “What hath God wrought?”
In a slow voice of thunder the amplifier gave the answer that Kayden had heard in his office. He turned in his seat and looked at the faces of the men, saw there both fear and uncertainty — and a strange pride, as though each of them had had a hand in the making of the voice that spoke slowly to them.
“When will Man reach the stars?” Zander asked.
After a short silence, the Voice said: “It is possible now. All the necessary problems have been or can be solved with present methods. When sufficient money is given to research and development, space travel will become immediately possible.”
The next few questions concerned problems that the physicists had not yet solved. The machine answered two clearly and, on the third, said: “The synthesis of all available data does not provide sufficient basis for an answer as yet. But there is validity in the assumption that the solution will be found by experimentation with the fluorine atom.”
Kayden glanced at the list in his hand and saw that Zander had asked the last question. To his surprise he heard Zander say, “The development of the Thinking Machine has been a process surrounded with secrecy because of its possible use in warfare. Will the machine help in the event of a war between nations?”
During the long pause before the question was answered, a man jumped up and yelled, “Turn it off!” He was ignored. The representatives of the nations sat, tense and expectant.
The deep voice said: “The Thinking Machine will help in warfare only in so far as it is possible to utilize some of the scientific advances made possible by the Thinking Machine. However, this is not a valid assumption. Warfare should now become avoidable. All of the factors in any dispute can be given to the Machine and an unemotional fair answer can be rendered. The Machine should not be a secret. It should be duplicated a score of times and made available to all nations. Thus can disputes be avoided. The effort to enforce secrecy is barren effort. Secrecy in the case of the Machine accomplishes nothing.”
Zander turned and walked from the stage. The humming stopped suddenly. The assembly hall was silent. The rulers of nations looked at each other and in their eyes was a new promise of trust, of acceptance.
Roger Wald was whistling as he came into Kayden’s office. “The bans are lifted today,” he said happily. “Come and go as you please. O fine and happy day! When does Jane arrive?”
“At four.”
“Good. You’ll get cocktails at your place at four-thirty. I’ll have them sent over.”
Wald turned to go. “Wait a minute, Roger,” Kayden said. “I know I owe Zander for the fact that the security measures are done with, but what on earth ever got into him to ask that question?”
“Didn’t he ever tell you? He must be shy. He and I were working late on the setup, and just for the hell of it, he asked that question. You see, he and I had been talking about you and your busted home life. We liked the answer so well that he decided to use the question in front of all the folks.”
Wald left the office. Joseph Kayden glanced at his watch. Two-fifteen. Just one hundred and five more minutes. He walked into the silent, empty assembly hall and turned on the amplifier. He grinned and said into the mike: “Does she still love me?”
There were a few seconds of silence. Then the Machine boomed, with what was almost irritability: “Does who still love whom? The question must be specific.”
Dance of a New World
Originally published in Astounding Science Fiction, September 1948.
If you can’t find the man who can do the job that has to be done — there’s always one answer!
Shane Brent sat in the air-conditioned personnel office of the Solaray Plantations near Allada, Venus, and stared sleepily at the brown, powerful man across the table from him. Shane was an angular blond man, dressed in the pale-gray uniform of Space Control. On his left lapel was the interlocked C.A. of Central Assignment and on the right lapel was the small gold question mark of Investigation Section. Shane Brent had the faculty of complete relaxation, almost an animal stillness.
His hair was a cropped golden cap and his eyes a quiet gray. Below the edge of the gray shorts the hair, tight curled on his brown legs, had been burned white by the sun.
The man on the other side of the table was stocky, sullen and powerful. His face was livid with the seamed burns of space radiation before the days of adequate pilot protection. His name was Hiram Lee.
The conversation had lasted more than an hour and as yet Shane Brent was no closer to a solution. He had been carefully trained in all the arts of persuasion, of mental and emotional appeals. Hiram Lee had resisted them all.
Shane Brent said: “Lee, the whole thing is ridiculous. You’re thirty-eight now. At least seven years of piloting ahead of you.”
Lee snorted. “Piloting! Tell your boss that I’m unadjusted or something.”
“Let’s review the case again. You, at the age of eighteen, were the first third-generation space pilot in history. Your grandfather was John Lee who was an army pilot and who ran out of soup on the second swing around the Moon. As a memorial they left the little silver ship in orbit.”
Lee’s expression softened for the first time. “That’s the way he would have wanted it.”
“And your father, David Lee, was kicked off the spaceways for getting tight and balancing the old Los Angeles of the Donnovan Lines on its tail fifty feet in the air for ten minutes.”