“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 T.C. bomb waiting to get together?”
“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 countermeasures and more and more people begin to guess what we’re doing. Then what? The panic might do us more harm than any one T.C. bomb.”
The Presidential Assistant said, irritably, “In Heaven’s name, man, what do you suggest we do, then?”
“Nothing,” said Lynn. “Call their bluff. Live as we have lived and gamble that They won’t dare break the stalemate for the sake of a one-bomb headstart.”
“Impossible!” said Jeffreys. “Completely impossible. The welfare of all of Us is very largely in my hands, and doing nothing is the one thing I cannot do. I agree with you, perhaps, that X-ray machines at sports arenas are a kind of skin-deep measure that won’t be effective, but it has to be done so that people, in the aftermath, do not come to the bitter conclusion that we tossed our country away for the sake of a subtle line of reasoning that encouraged do-nothingism. In fact, our counter-gambit will be active indeed.”
“In what way?”
Presidential Assistant Jeffreys looked at Breckenridge. The young Security officer, hitherto calmly silent, said, “It’s no use talking about a possible future break in the stalemate when the stalemate is broken now. It doesn’t matter whether these humanoids explode or do not. Maybe they are only a bait to divert us, as you say. But the fact remains that we are a quarter of a century behind in robotics, and that may be fatal. What other advances in robotics will there be to surprise us if war does start? The only answer is to divert our entire force immediately, now, into a crash program of robotics research, and the first problem is to find the humanoids. Call it an exercise in robotics, if you will, or call it the prevention of the death of fifteen million men, women and children.”
Lynn shook his head, helplessly, “You can’t. You’d be playing into their hands. They want us lured into the one blind alley while they’re free to advance in all other directions.”
Jeffreys said, impatiently, “That’s your guess. Breckenridge has made his suggestion through channels and the government has approved, and we will begin with an all-Science conference.”
“All-Science?”
Breckenridge said, “We have listed every important scientist of every branch of natural science. They’ll all be at Cheyenne. There will be only one point on the agenda: How to advance robotics. The major specific subheading under that will be: How to develop a receiving device for the electromagnetic fields of the cerebral cortex that will be sufficiently delicate to distinguish between a protoplasmic human brain and a positronic humanoid brain.”
Jeffreys said, “We had hoped you would be willing to be in charge of the conference.”
“I was not consulted in this.”
“Obviously time was short, sir. Do you agree to be in charge?”
Lynn smiled briefly. It was a matter of responsibility again. The responsibility must be clearly that of Lynn of Robotics. He had the feeling it would be Breckenridge who would really be in charge. But what could he do?
He said, “I agree.”
Breckenridge and Lynn returned together to Cheyenne, where that evening Laszlo listened with a sullen mistrust to Lynn’s description of coming events.
Laszlo said, “While you were gone, Chief, I’ve started putting five experimental models of humanoid structure through the testing procedures. Our men
