“No, I don’t,” he said. “Poverty is a virtue, so we make a point of being diligent about it in the police department. Look, this was all my fault. Maybe it’s in the stars for us to spend the evening with each other since we started it by having dinner together. It’s supper time, why don’t we have something to eat?”
“Maybe in a cafeteria, considering the poverty,” Sciss mumbled. He looked up and down the street as if searching for someone.
“I’m not that poor. How about a moonlight drive to the Savoy? What do you say? They have a few quiet tables up on the balcony, and the wine there is very good.”
“No, thank you. I don’t drink. I can’t. I don’t know.” Sciss got back in the Chrysler and said quite calmly, “It’s all the same to me.”
“So you’ll come. Wonderful. You go first, I’ll follow, all right?” Gregory spoke quickly, pretending to think the scientist had accepted his invitation. Sciss scrutinized him carefully, leaned out of the car as if to get a better look at his face, then slammed the door without warning and pushed the starter. Sitting behind the wheel of his own car, Gregory had no idea whether Sciss was going to head for the Savoy and, pulling out after the Chrysler, he began to hope that he wouldn’t. But at the first intersection he realized that Sciss was indeed going to have supper with him.
The drive to the Savoy took less than ten minutes. They left both cars in the parking lot and went inside; it was about nine-thirty. An orchestra was playing on the mezzanine; the dance floor, on a rotating platform in the center of the room, was illuminated from underneath by colored lights. Passing through a row of columns, the two men made their way upstairs. The balcony afforded an excellent view of the whole nightclub, except where the line of sight was impeded by chandeliers hanging from the ceiling. Gregory ignored the waiter, who was trying to lead them to a back table already occupied by a group of noisy people, and, with Sciss behind him, headed for the far end of the balcony, where he found a small table standing by itself between two columns. Two waiters in full dress immediately stepped over to them, one holding the menu, the other the wine list; the list was very thick.
“Do you know wines?” Sciss asked, closing the leather-bound menu. Gregory smiled.
“A little. How about some Vermouth for a start? Do you take it with lemon?”
“Vermouth? Vermouth is too bitter. Oh, never mind. I’ll try the lemon.”
Gregory nodded to the waiter — it wasn’t necessary to say a word. The second waiter stood patiently a short distance away. Gregory deliberated carefully before ordering, making sure to ask Sciss if he liked salads and if fried foods agreed with him.
Leaning toward the railing, Sciss stared without much interest at the whirling heads below. The orchestra was playing a slow fox-trot.
Gregory watched the dancing for a while, then held his glass of Vermouth up to the light.
“There’s something I have to tell you,” he said, speaking with difficulty. “I… owe you an apology.”
“What?” Sciss looked up with a distracted expression. “Oh,” he said, thinking he understood what Gregory meant. “No, no. Don’t mention it. It’s not worth making a fuss.”
“I know now why you left your post with the General Staff.”
“So you know,” Sciss said indifferently. He downed his Vermouth in three gulps as if it was tea. The piece of lemon ended up in his mouth; he removed it, held it in his fingers for a moment, then put it back into the empty glass.
“Yes.”
“It’s no secret. I’m surprised you didn’t know all along since you did everything but put me under a microscope…”
“The stories that circulate about someone like you are always contradictory,” Gregory continued, as if he hadn’t heard Sciss’s last remark. “And it’s all either hot or cold, there’s no in-between. Everything depends on the informant. Maybe you’d like to tell me. Why did they take the Operations command away from you?”
“And label me red,” Sciss added. Despite Gregory’s eager interest, he didn’t seem any more lively. Hunched over in his chair, he leaned an arm on the railing. “Why do you want to know?” he asked at last. “It doesn’t make any sense to dig all this up.”
“Did you really predict some kind of holocaust?” Gregory asked in a lowered voice. “Please, this is very important to me. You know how people distort and twist everything. Tell me what really happened.”
“What difference does it make to you?”
“Frankly, I want to find out exactly who you are.”
“That’s an old story,” Sciss said despondently, still squinting at the dancers downstairs. The naked shoulders of the women on the dance floor were bathed in red light. “No, it has nothing to do with a holocaust. Do you really want to know?”
“Very much so.”
“You’re that curious? It was sometime around 1946. The nuclear race was just beginning. I knew that sooner or later a saturation point would be reached — I mean the achievement of maximum destructive force. Then a means of delivering the bombs would be developed… that is, missiles. This had to reach the saturation point also… both sides armed with thermonuclear missiles, the control panels on both sides safely hidden, each one with its infamous button ready. Push the button and the missiles move. Twenty minutes later, the end of the world, both sides —
Sciss smiled. The waiter brought a bottle of wine, uncorked it, and poured a few drops into Gregory’s glass. Gregory tasted it, wet his lips, and nodded his head.
The waiter filled both glasses and walked away.
“That was your opinion in ’46?” Gregory asked, toasting Sciss. The latter tasted the ruby liquid with the tip of his tongue, sipped it carefully, then emptied the glass in one gulp, took a deep breath, and, with a look that was either surprise or embarrassment, put his glass back on the table.
“No, those were only premises. Don’t you understand? Once the race begins, it can’t stop. It has to go on. If one side invents a big gun, the other retaliates with a bigger one. The sequence concludes only when there is a confrontation; that is, war. In this situation, however, confrontation would mean the end of the world; therefore, the race must be kept going. Once they begin to escalate their efforts, both sides are trapped in an arms race. There must be more and more improvements in weaponry, but after a certain point weapons reach their limit. What can be improved next? Brains. The brains that issue the commands. It isn’t possible to make the human brain perfect, so the only alternative is a transition to mechanization. The next stage will be a fully automated headquarters equipped with electronic strategy machines. And then a very interesting problem arises, actually two problems. McCatt called this to my attention. First, is there any limit on the development of these brains? Fundamentally they’re similar to computers that can play chess. A computer that anticipates an opponent’s strategy ten moves in advance will always defeat a computer that can think only eight or nine moves in advance. The more far-reaching a brain’s ability to think ahead, the bigger the brain must be. That’s one.”
Sciss spoke faster and faster. Gregory sensed that he had already forgotten everything, including to whom he was speaking. He poured some wine. Sciss played with his glass for a while, moving it back and forth along the tablecloth and tipping it over precariously. Suddenly, he picked it up and drained it in one gulp. Downstairs, the dance floor was immersed in yellow light and mandolins were crooning a Hawaiian melody.
“Strategic considerations dictate the construction of bigger and bigger machines, and, whether we like it or not, this inevitably means an increase in the amount of information stored in the brains. This in turn means that the brain will steadily increase its control over all of society’s collective processes. The brain will decide where to locate the infamous button. Or whether to change the style of infantry uniforms. Or whether to increase production of a certain kind of steel, demanding appropriations to carry out its purposes. Once you create this kind of brain you have to listen to it. If a Parliament wastes time debating whether or not to grant the appropriations it demands, the other side may gain a lead, so after a while the abolition of parliamentary decisions becomes unavoidable. Human control over the brain’s decisions will decrease in proportion to the increase in its accumulated knowledge. Am I making myself clear? There will be two growing brains, one on each side of the ocean. What do you think a brain like this will demand first when it’s ready to take the next step in the perpetual race?”
“An increase in its capability,” Gregory said in a low voice, watching the scientist through half-closed eyelids. An unexpected silence prevailed downstairs for a moment, followed by an outburst of applause. A woman’s voice began singing. A young man in tails set up a small side table on which the waiters placed a tray full of silver serving dishes: carefully heated plates, napkins, and silverware followed.
“No,” Sciss answered. “First it demands its own expansion — that is to say, the brain becomes even bigger!
