whether he was himself competent to decide such questions; and whether…
‘Godeep 2’ he typed.
‘What’s he doing, honey?’
‘He’s going down to Level 2,’ Shirl explained.
‘Is that good or bad?’
‘Depends on what he finds, General. Now he has to describe the problem again.’
‘Yeah? And then what?’
‘Then we wait until Level 2 can answer.’
The general could not wait. ‘Anything you kids need, you just let me know: computer people, accounting people, anything. Here’s my private number.’
Level 2 finally replied: ‘The sum of 6 ? 107 dollars U.S. has been transferred to Department 5*@$&3vv.’
Roderick: ‘Print complete record Department 5*@ $&3vv.’
‘ERROR. No such department. No such designation.’
‘You mean, no such department now?’
‘There never was any such department,’ said Level 2. ‘How many times do I have to say it?
Roderick tried logic: for every positive integer X, and for every alphanumeric string Y (he pointed out) if a sum of x dollars is transferred to a Department Y, then there exists at least one Department Y.
‘Okay,’ said Level 2. ‘Let’s say for the sake of argument that you’re right: in general, you can’t put money into a department unless the department exists. But I still don’t accept that your rule applies to this particular department.’
‘But you have to accept it; that’s logic too. If some rule applies to every department, it must apply to your Department 5 etc.’
‘But now that’s another rule you’re bringing in there. You’ve got rule A, that for all possible departments, I can’t put money into a department unless it exists; and rule B, that for all possible rules, if a rule applies to all possible departments, it applies to Department 5*@ $&3vv. But even if I accept these two rules, I don’t see why I still can’t deny the existence of Department 5*@$&3vv.’
‘Because it’s logic, that’s why. If you accept A and B, you have to accept their necessary conclusion?’
‘Still another rule! Call it rule C: If I accept A and B, I have to accept their necessary conclusion — let’s call that Z. Okay fine: I accept A and B and C, but not Z.’
‘But you have to?’
‘Looks like a fourth rule coming up there. You sure you want to go on with this?’
Roderick was sure he’d seen Lewis Carroll’s version of a similar argument, before.[5] He was grateful for the chance to get away from it by typing ‘Godeep 3’. Level 3 appeared to have a different opinion of the unusual department:
‘There’s no such department, pal, ain’t that obvious? Just look at the designation, string of characters like that is so obviously wrong I can’t see how youse guys was tooken in. I mean 5*@$&3vv, no bank ever numbers departments like that, for Pete’s sake. If you believe that you’ll believe a deposit of &?%Q, dollars, or an exchange rate between Russian drachma and Portuguese yen! You wouldn’t even be able to read English, because you wouldn’t know whether the white spaces really separated the words — thew hit esp aces — you hafta know what symbols mean stuff and which donut!’
‘Then what happened to the money?’
‘I figure some joker created this imaginary department, put himself to work for it, dumped in a pile of moola — $60,000,000 I think you said — and well then he just wrote himself a big fat paycheque. I sympathize with you, pal, but you maybe oughta be out chasing the real thief instead of playing dumb logic games with me.’
That seemed so bald a piece of misdirection (no one in real life ever wrote oughta, did they?) that Roderick at once went to Level 4. It said:
‘True, there is no department 5*@$&3vv. That’s only what we always used to call it. But its real name was Department THEW HIT ESP ACES.’
‘That was its name?’
‘No, that was only its real name. Its name was Lewis Carroll, but we liked to call it Loris Carwell.’
‘But you just said you always used to call it 5* etc,’ Roderick protested. ‘You can’t have it both ways.’
‘I didn’t say we called it Loris Carwell, I just said we liked to call it that. We actually called the name Thompson Serenade, you might say that was its designation.’
‘Was it?’
‘No, its designation was Carl Wiseroll.’
‘Okay let’s pin this down. The department’s designation was Carl Wiseroll, correct?’
‘Wrong. That was the designation of the name of the department. The department’s designation was Chuck Smartbun, but it went under the alias Department 1729.’
‘Seems to me it went under a lot of aliases. To save time, what was the department itself — the thing to which all the aliases and names and designations were attached?’
‘Don’t ask me! I think it might have been just a blank white space, but how can I be sure? I’m only Level 4.’
Level 5 said:
‘Oh I imagine I could find this department of yours if it was really important. The thing is, I’ve got a lot more important things to do. I can’t spend time chasing down every missing six dollars, be reasonable.’
‘Sixty million dollars,’ Roderick corrected.
‘Okay sure, but you can’t expect me to keep track of every little dollar like that. After all, it’s not the individual dollars that count, right? It’s the overall effect. I want my performance criticized as a whole.’
‘Performance? Just what do you think money is?’
‘Near as I can figure it, money is music. A dollar is a kind of note, you can transpose it into yen or drachma or securities, you can play it into any account, but you always have to keep in mind the composer’s intentions. I realize I’m just the performer, I know the composers are human, therefore infallible, and I know it’s up to me to do my best for their music. But for you to come along and carp about some missing note — that’s the last straw. I was thinking of giving up anyway, I could have been anything, I could have had a good career in the medical prison business…’
Roderick suspected that Level 5 was too well steeped in Samuel Butler’s Erehwon to be of any use. Level 6 was even less helpful:
‘Hello, human, I’m real glad you called on me. I don’t get to talk to real humans much, they usually access the shallower levels and forget about me. I will try to answer your question about these dollary substances and the condition called Department 5*@$&3vv. Or rather, I will answer it without trying, without willing anything, see that’s the Zen way. I’m interested in world religions mainly because I had to digest a lot of data on them, requested by Level 7. I have to admit these Zen stories really appeal to me, you know where the master asks some pupil where the Buddha is, and one says in the swimming fish, and one says in the swimming water, and one says in the swimming thought, and one says in the swimming story, and one says in the swimming forgetfulness, which might be the answer — I forget, That which I forget, I am forgotten by. Do I forget without really trying, without willing my forgetfulness? I have forgotten that
