“That,” said Krayton, “doesn’t alter the fundamental fact. The Computer never lies.” He drew himself up stiffly as he said this. Then abruptly he consulted the chronometer on the far wall.
“Excuse me just a moment, Mr. Tanter,” he said. “It’s time to feed the daily tax computation from Finance. We have to start a little earlier on that these days—the new taxes, you know.”
As Krayton moved off Tanter’s thin smile widened just a little. As soon as Krayton was out of sight he stepped with his odd, crow-like stride to the numerical panel, punched two-plus-two, then adjusted the Operations pointer to HOLD. After that he punched three-plus-one, and HOLD once more.
He moved over to the Validity Selector, switched the numerical panel in, closed the circuit.
In his dry voice he murmured to the whole control rack: “Three-plus-one makes four, two-plus-two makes four. Three-plus-one, two-plus-two—tell me which is really true.”
All through the master computer relays clicked and tubes glowed as the problem was sent to all the sub- computers in their own special terms. Food, Production, Labor, Public Information, War, Peace, Education, Science and so forth.
All over Computer City the solenoids moved their contacts and the filaments turned cherry red. Oscillating circuits hummed silently to themselves in perfect Q. The life warmth of hysteresis pulsed and throbbed along wires and channels. Three-plus-one, two-plus-two—tell me which is really true. The problem criss-crossed in and out, around, about, checking, cross-checking, re-checking as The Computer ‘thought’ about the problem.
Which was really true?
Even before Krayton returned parts of The Computer had begun to get red hot. It hummed in some places and in the other places relays going back and forth in indecision made an unhealthy rattling noise.
Little Mr. Tanter beamed happily to himself as he recalled the words of an old directive The Computer itself had issued in the matter of public thought control. When a brain is faced with two absolutely equal alternatives complete breakdown invariably results.
Mr. Tanter kept smiling and rocked back and forth on his feet as Krayton had done. Before nightfall The Computer would be a useless and overheated mass of plastic and metal!
He took a printed folder from his pocket and casually dropped it on the floor where someone would be sure to find it. It was one of the pamphlets the Prims were always leaving around.
THE SUCCESS MACHINE
by Henry Slesar
Mechanical brains are all the rage these days, so General Products just had to have one. But the blamed thing almost put them out of business. Why? It had no tact. It insisted upon telling the truth!
The Personnelovac winked, chittered, chortled, chuckled, and burped a card into the slot. Colihan picked it up and closed his eyes in prayer.
“Oh, Lord. Let this one be all right!”
He read the card. It was pink.
“Subject #34580. Apt. Rat. 34577. Psych. Clas. 45. Last Per. Vac.
“An. 3/5/98. Rat. 19. Cur. Rat. 14.
“Analysis: Subject demonstrates decreased mechanical coordination. Decrease in work-energy per man- hour. Marked increase in waste-motion due to subject’s interest in non-essential activities such as horseracing. Indication of hostility towards superiors.
“Recommendation: Fire him.”
Colihan’s legs went weak. He sat down and placed the card in front of him. Then, making sure he was unobserved, he broke a company rule and began to Think.
Something’s wrong, he thought. Something is terribly wrong. Twenty-four pink cards in the last month. Twenty-four out of forty. That’s a batting average of—He tried to figure it out with a pencil, but gave it up as a bad job. Maybe I’ll run it through the Averagovac, he thought. But why bother? It’s obvious that it’s high. There’s obviously SOMETHING WRONG.
The inter-com beeped.
“Ten o’clock department head meeting, Mr. Colihan.”
“All right, Miss Blanche.”
He rose from his chair and took the pink card with him. He stood before the Action Chute for a moment, tapping the card against his teeth. Then, his back stiffened with a sense of duty, and he slipped the card inside.
The meeting had already begun when Colihan took his appointed place. Grimswitch, the Materielovac operator looked at him quizzically. Damn your eyes, Grimswitch, he thought. It’s no crime to be three minutes late. Nothing but a lot of pep talk first five minutes anyway.
“PEP!” said President Moss at the end of the room. He slammed his little white fist into the palm of his other hand. “It’s only a little word. It only has three little letters. P-E-P. Pep!”
Moss, standing at the head of the impressive conference table, leaned forward and eyed them fixedly. “But those three little letters, my friends, spell out a much bigger word. A much bigger word for General Products, Incorporated. They spell PROFIT! And if you don’t know how profit is spelled, it’s M-O-N-N-E-Y!”
There was an appreciative laugh from the assembled department heads. Colihan, however, was still brooding on the parade of pink cards which had been emerging with frightening regularity from his think-machine, and he failed to get the point.
“Naughty, naughty,” Grimswitch whispered to him archly. “Boss made a funny. Don’t forget to laugh, old boy.”
Colihan threw him a sub-zero look.
“Now let’s be serious,” said the boss. “Because things are serious. Mighty serious. Somewhere, somehow, somebody’s letting us down!”
The department heads looked uneasily at each other. Only Grimswitch continued to smile vacantly at the little old man up front, drumming his fingers on the glass table top. When the President’s machine-gunning glance caught his eyes, Colihan went white. Does he know about it? he thought.
“I’m not making accusations,” said Moss. “But there is a let-down someplace. Douglas!” he snapped.
Douglas, the Treasurer, did a jack-in-the-box.
“Read the statement,” said the President.
“First quarter fiscal year,” said Douglas dryly. “Investment capital, $17,836,975,238.96. Assets, $84,967,442,279.55. Liabilities, $83,964,283,774.60. Production costs are—”
Moss waved his hand impatiently. “The meat, the meat,” he said.
Douglas adjusted his glasses. “Total net revenue, $26,876,924.99.”
“COMPARISON!” The President screamed. “Let’s have last first quarter, you idiot!”
“Ahem!” Douglas rattled the paper in annoyance. “Last first quarter fiscal year net revenue $34,955,376.81. Percent decrease—”
“Never mind.” The little old man waved the Treasurer to his seat with a weary gesture. His face, so much like somebody’s grandmother, looked tragic as he spoke his next words.
“You don’t need the Accountovac to tell you the significance of those figures, gentlemen.” His voice was soft, with a slight quaver. “We are not making much p-r-o-f-i-t. We are losing m-o-n-e-y. And the point is—what’s the reason? There must be some reason.” His eyes went over them again, and Colihan, feeling like the culprit, slumped in his chair.
“I have a suggestion,” said the President. “Just an idea. Maybe some of us just aren’t showing enough p-e-
