'The Secretary-General?'Gulliman said in an appalled whisper. ! 'More than that, even. Much more. We deal with a plan to assassinate Multivac!' 'WHAT!'
'For the first time in the history of Multivac, the computer came up with the report that it itself was in danger.'
'Why was I not at once informed?'
Othman half-truthed out of it. 'The matter was so unprecedented, sir, that we explored the situation first before daring to put it on official record.'
'But Multivac has been saved, of course? It's been saved?'
'The probabilities of harm have declined to under 4 per cent. I am waiting for the report now.'
'Message for Dr. Trumbull,' said Ben Manners to the man on the high stool, working carefully on what looked like the controls of a stratojet cruiser, enormously magnified.
'Sure, Jim,' said the man. 'Go ahead.'
Ben looked at his instructions and hurried on. Eventually, he would find a tiny control lever which he was to shift to a DOWN position at a moment when a certain indicator spot would light up red.
He heard an agitated voice behind him, then another, and suddenly, two men had him by his elbows. His feet were lifted off the floor.
One man said, 'Come with us, boy.'
Ali Othman's face did not noticeably lighten at the news, even though Gulliman said with great relief, 'If we have the boy, then Multivac is safe.'
'For the moment.'
Gulliman put a trembling hand to his forehead. 'What a half hour I've had. Can you imagine what the destruction of Multivac for even a short time would mean. The government would have collapsed; the economy broken down. It would have meant devastation worse-' His head snapped up, 'What do you mean for the moment?'
'The boy, this Ben Manners, had no intention of doing harm. He and his family must be released and compensation for false imprisonment given them. He was only following Multivac's instructions in order to help his father and it's done that. His father is free now.'
'Do you mean Multivac ordered the boy to pull a lever under circumstances that would burn out enough circuits to require a month's repair work? You mean Multivac would suggest its own destruction for the comfort of one man?'
'It's worse than that, sir. Multivac not only gave those instructions but selected the Manners family in the first place because Ben Manners looked exactly like one of Dr. Trumbull's pages so that he could get into Multivac without being stopped.'
'What do you mean the family was selected?'
'Well, the boy would have never gone to ask the question if his father had not been arrested. His father would never have been arrested if Multivac had not blamed him for planning the destruction of Multivac. Multivac's
own action started the chain of events that almost led to Multivac's destruction.'
'But there's no sense to that,' Gulliman said in a pleading voice. He felt small and helpless and he was virtually on his knees, begging this Othman, this man who had spent nearly a lifetime with Multivac, to reassure him.
Othman did not do so. He said, 'This is Multivac's first attempt along this line as far as I know. In some ways, it planned well, it chose the right family. It carefully did not distinguish between father and son to send us off the track. It was still an amateur at the game, though. It could not overcome its own instructions that led it to report the probability of its own destruction as increasing with every step we took down the wrong road. It could not avoid recording the answer it gave the youngster. With further practice, it will probably learn deceit. It will learn to hide certain facts, fail to record certain others. From now on, every instruction it gives may have the seeds in it of its own destruction. We will never know. And however careful we are, eventually Multivac will succeed. I think, Mr. Gulliman, you will be the last Chairman of this organization.'
Gulliman pounded his desk in fury. 'But why, why, why? Damn you, why? What is wrong with it? Can't it be fixed?'
'I don't think so,' said Othman, in soft despair. 'I've never thought about this before. I've never had the occasion to until this happened, but now that I think of it, it seems to me we have reached the end of the road because Multivac is too good. Multivac has grown so complicated, its reactions are no longer those of a machine, but those of a living thing.'
'You're mad, but even so?'
'For fifty years and more we have been loading humanity's troubles on Multivac, on this living thing. We've asked it to care for us, all together and each individually. We've asked it to take all our secrets into itself; we've asked it to absorb our evil and guard us against it. Each of us brings his troubles to it, adding his bit to the burden. Now we are planning to load the burden of human disease on Multivac, too.'
Othman paused a moment, then burst out, 'Mr. Gulliman, Multivac bears all the troubles of the world on its shoulders and it is tired.'
'Madness. Midsummer madness,' muttered Gulliman.
'Then let me show you something. Let me put it to the test. May I have permission to use the Multivac circuit line here in your office?'
'Why?'
'To ask it a question no one has ever asked Multivac before?'
'Will you do it harm?' asked Gulliman in quick alarm.
'No. But it will tell us what we want to know.'
The Chairman hesitated a trifle. Then he said, 'Go ahead.'
Othman used the instrument on Gulliman's desk. His fingers punched Out the question with deft strokes: 'Multivac, what do you yourself want more than anything else?'
The moment between question and answer lengthened unbearably, but neither Othman nor Gulliman breathed.
And there was a clicking and a card popped out. It was a small card. On it, in precise letters, was the answer:
'I want to die.'
Spell My Name with an S
Marshall Zebatinsky felt foolish. He felt as though there were eyes staring through the grimy store-front glass and across the scarred wooden partition; eyes watching him. He felt no confidence in the old clothes he had resurrected or the turned-down brim of a hat he never otherwise wore or the glasses he had left in their case.
He felt foolish and it made the lines in his forehead deeper and his young-old face a little paler.
He would never be able to explain to anyone why a nuclear physicist such as himself should visit a numerologist. (Never, he thought. Never.) Hell, he could not explain it to himself except that he had let his wife talk him into it.
The numerologist sat behind an old desk that must have been secondhand when bought. No desk could get that old with only one owner. The same might almost be said of his clothes. He was little and dark and peered at Zebatinsky with little dark eyes that were brightly alive.
He said, 'I have never had a physicist for a client before, Dr. Zebatinsky.'
Zebatinsky flushed at once. 'You understand this is confidential.'
The numerologist smiled so that wrinkles creased about the comers of his mouth and the skin around his chin stretched. 'All my dealings are confidential.' f Zebatinsky said, 'I think I ought to tell you one thing. I don't believe in
Copyright (c) 1958 by Ballantine Magazine, Inc.
numerology and I don't expect to begin believing in it. If that makes a difference, say so now.'
'But why are you here, then?'
'My wife thinks you may have something, whatever it is. I promised her and I am here.' He shrugged and the feeling of folly grew more acute.
'And what is it you are looking for? Money? Security? Long life? What?'
Zebatinsky sat for a long moment while the numerologist watched him quietly and made no move to hurry his client.
Zebatinsky thought: What do I say anyway? That I'm thirty-four and without a future?
He said, 'I want success. I want recognition.'
'A better job?'
'A different job. A different kind of job. Right now, I'm part of a team, working under orders. Teams! That's all government research is. You're a violinist lost in a symphony orchestra.'
'And you want to solo.'
'I want to get out of a team and into-into me.' Zebatinsky felt carried away, almost lightheaded, just putting this into words to someone other than his wife. He said, 'Twenty-five years ago, with my kind of training and my kind of ability, I would have gotten to work on the first nuclear power plants. Today I'd be running one of them or I'd be head of a pure research group at a university. But with my start these days where will I be twenty-five years from now? Nowhere. Still on the team. Still carrying my 2 per cent of the ball. I'm drowning in an anonymous crowd of nuclear physicists, and what I want is room on dry land, if you see what I mean.'
The numerologist nodded slowly. 'You realize, Dr. Zebatinsky, that I don't guarantee success.'
Zebatinsky, for all his lack of faith, felt a sharp bite of disappointment. 'You don't? Then what the devil do you guarantee?'
'An improvement in the probabilities. My work is statistical in nature. Since you deal with atoms, I think you understand the laws of statistics.'
'Do you?' asked the physicist sourly.
'I do, as a matter of fact. I am a mathematician and I work mathematically. I don't tell you this in order to raise my fee. That is standard. Fifty dollars. But since you are a scientist, you can appreciate the nature of my work better than my other clients. It is even a pleasure to be able to explain to you.'
Zebatinsky said, 'I'd rather you wouldn't, if you don't mind. It's no use telling me about the numerical values of letters, their mystic significance and that kind of thing. I don't consider that mathematics. Let's get to the point-'
The numerologist said, 'Then you want me to help you provided I don't embarrass you by telling you the silly nonscientific basis of the way in which I helped you.
