We're Friends, Now Page 9

staggered, and seemed about to cry orgo hysterical or both.

  Mandleco gave a snort as he pounced, recovered the tape and with bluntassurance read the words aloud:

  "SOLUTION : UNTENABLE : SOLUTION : UNTENABLE : SUB-CIRCUIT REFERRAL :ELLERY SHERLOCK : SUB-CIRCUIT REFERRAL: ELLERY SHERLOCK--"

  He sounded like a well-grooved parrot. Mandleco turned east, then south,then south-by-east, like a compass on a binge; he looked as if he wantedto roar, but his voice came out as a frantic bleat: "Why, this is crazy!Goddam it, it's crazy! Do you realize what this will--" He confrontedArnold wildly. "What the hell does it MEAN, I say! Untenable? And whothe hell is _Ellery Sherlock...!_"

  He got no response; Jeff Arnold was oblivious to the moment, a manutterly defeated, beyond solace or action or answer ... but already afew of his techs were huddled about the panel, consulting, viewing theEquate Constant and frantically taking notes. Mandleco shoved his waythrough them. "I demand to know the meaning of this!" he yelped.

  * * * * *

  It was Sheila Carmack who answered, her voice on the high edge ofhysteria. "_Meaning?_ I think it might mean," she said, "that ECAIAC hasalso had a recent indulgence for the _whodunits_. But with a smatteringof confusion, wouldn't you say? Or would you say a distortion of thedetectival? Perhaps a disenchantment," she murmured ... this was tooabsurd, too delicious. "Ellery Sherlock!" she choked, and the thought ofit seemed to break her up.

  In the general hysteria they paid no heed to Raoul Beardsley. He hadregained his composure, and far down in his eyes something leaped intorapt expression; he adjusted his glasses and peered around cautiously,beaming. He beamed at them all, and had to suppress an inane glee....

  Not glee as he observed Pederson, who stood there scowling into spaceas though at some incredible absurdity. Suddenly Pederson straightened,and there was something strangely different ... his gaze as it metBeardsley's was neither shocked nor accusing but held an expression ofboundless sadness.

  _So Pederson knew. At last the poor fellow had found that otheranswer...._ Beardsley had been expecting it. He could almost sense theman's thoughts going to and fro, like a shuttle, weaving all the factsinto fabric....

  And Pederson's voice, ineffably sad now, regretful now: "So I was rightthe first time. The tapes. It _was_ the tapes. But even without that Iought to have known! The answer was there, you handed it to us, but itwas like looking straight into the sun--"

  He paused. Did he expect Beardsley to say something? Beardsley looked upat him and blinked.

  * * * * *

  "_Motives_," Pederson said accusingly. "There was your theme from thefirst! You were relentless, you pursued it to perfection, you laid ourmotives bare and you beat them raw, each and every one. Oh, I grant youit was masterful! It was the Beardsley of old! You managed to keep usoff balance every moment--" He wet his lips. "What was it, Beardsley? Acompulsion, some grotesque need to squeeze us all down to microscopicsize first? Oh, you enjoyed doing that! I watched you. You enjoyed it ina way that--" He shook his head, glanced sorrowfully at theequate-panel. "And this ... was it all for this? An achievement--anabsurdity. Ellery Sherlock!" he said with a shudder. "In Heaven's name,WHY? You didn't really expect to carry it off? No, don't answer! It'snot important now--"

  Beardsley shrugged in remote annoyance. Must the man use such puerilemethods?

  "Not important," Pederson repeated, and stood caught in a startledwonderment. "Because you see, Beardsley, I just happen to remembersomething from the _whodunits_! That surprises you? So long ago, I can'tquite recall who said it; but it was a rather good exposition of logic,something to the effect that when you've exhausted the possible, all thepossible--that which remains--_no matter how impossible it mayseem_--must be the truth!"

  His head lifted; his gaze bored into Beardsley's and his voice wastight with meaning. "And I'd say we have come full circle, wouldn't you?You will have to admit, you did a _real good job of eliminating_!"

  Beardsley managed to smile, even as his mind jarred a little. Even as hemet Pederson's gaze and saw the compassion there, the acceptance there,the understanding and boundless regret. For a split second somethingleaped unspoken between them, as if doors in both their minds had openedand closed again.

  He turned away wordlessly. Close as Pederson had come, even he was anirrelevance now. _But ECAIAC didn't_ know. Poor Ekky! Her first realfailure, a fiasco--she really deserved a better fate. Beardsley's heartwent out to her, as he observed Arnold in his defeat and Mandleco in hisfrustration and the huddle of techs in their futile efforts.

  Suddenly then--"Code!" he heard one of them say, gesturing excitedly."Post-subjective synapse!" another tech yelled, and there was a suddenscurry of activity about the screen. Without warning or appreciablereason those symbols had begun to shift ... wild and elusive, ghostpatterns without semblance or sense, but so unmistakable that even JeffArnold was jarred alert; Arnold stared, then suddenly was white as chalkas he ploughed into the midst of his techs.

  Beardsley stood frozen, a fatuous smile about his lips; there was onlysilence now, a silence that had a pulse in it--the beating of his heart.Seconds only ... suddenly there was another pulse, from another heart.ECAIAC wasn't quite finished! Unerring and resolute the sound came up,slowly at first and then faster, gathering strength into a steady droneas if every synapse were dredging, dredging deep into the sensitizedstructure ... and even before the panel attained flux again, a tech waswaving his notes and yelling, "It's true! Post-subjective synapse!Unbelievable ... Jeff, we now have a Constant!"

  But ECAIAC was telling them that. The sound went on, and on, wild andlone and constant, ascending to the confines of the room, transcendingthe confines of reason. It was crescendo incarnate; it was purpose gonerife; it was human and more than human, with all the fears and hopes andhates, as it attained a high-pitched scream with wailing overtones suchas even Arnold had never heard. There was sentience in it, there wasawareness in it, there was fury in it and who could say if there wasgrief...? There might have been.

  Only Beardsley knew. He felt suddenly packed in ice, from his lips tothe pit of his belly; he revolved slowly away, took a few steps andcaught the edge of the panel. His whole body began to shakeuncontrollably and his lips moved in a soundless whisper that seemed tosay, "No, no ... don't you understand? ... we're friends now!"

  But no one heard; no one would have understood. Arnold handled the tapeas it came looping out. The words fell slowly at first, then faster andfaster in constant repeat: CANCEL LAST EQUATE--SOLUTION TENABLE--CANCELLAST EQUATE--SOLUTION TENABLE--

  Another word came, a single word. Arnold stiffened. One of the techs wasso indiscreet as to exclaim: "_Murderer?_ Where did it pick up thatword! 'Final Equate' is proper...."

  A space, a whirr, and the rest of it came in a clicking rush against thehigh-pitched scream: MURDERER--RAOUL BEARDSLEY--MURDERER--RAOULBEARDSLEY--MURDERER--RAOUL--MURDERER--MURDERER--incessant, untiring.

  * * * * *

  There was no trial. Trial presupposes a modicum of doubt, and Beardsleydispelled that readily enough. Once more the pathetic figure, it was asif he were impelled by a dull and pitiless logic; he waived all defense;his confession to the murder of Amos Carmack was straightforward andfactual, unvarying to the point of boredom, insistent withrepetition--and in the socio-legal aspect there was the rub! Whether itwas true psychic shock or mere cunning, there seemed to be a blind spotin Beardsley's responses, a stumbling reticence to elaborative detailthat left the Citizen's Disposition Council with a problem on its handsbaffling as it was unprecedented. Judicially they were safe. There wouldnot even be need of null-censor. But actually, the problem here was offar more vital consequence than murder and indeed more frightening; ithad to do with Beardsley _vs._ ECAIAC, the encompassing _modus operendi_and all the implications of that grotesque denouement.

  At whatever cost, _these things had to be answered_.

  Oh, there was amusement, too. The
fact that Minister-of-JusticeMandleco had begged off, far from gracefully, and retired to theisolation of his ten-thousand-acre Alaskan ranch (for an unspecifiedtime) had brought snickers from those in the know.

  The Chief-Counselor of Disposition looked as if he'd like to retire,too. For the third time in as many days he took his place in the PrivateSessions chamber, glanced at Beardsley with shuddering disbelief andthen bent his head in pontifical guise as he leafed through his notes;it wasn't as if he were unversed in the matter by now, but who was thereto question if his lips moved fretfully across the words "EllerySherlock?" He was thinking: _yesterday wasted--covert regression, myselfincluded--no more of that_! And with that bolstering thought he broughthis head up sharply.

  COUNSELOR: Our task for today--(_voice quavering, he saved it from theupper registers_). Our task for today is to get at the aggregatepattern. And I assure you, gentlemen, we are going to do that! Now. Mr.Pederson, if you please....

  PEDERSON: Yes, sir?

  COUNSELOR: I see that Mr. Beardsley made certain statements to you, andto you alone, immediately after the--uh--ECAIAC incident--

  PEDERSON: You saw that three days ago! Must we go through it again?

  COUNSELOR: We must and we shall! Due to the unnatural tenor of the case,it is the opinion of the Council that these things must be fixed andadjudged if we are to make a correct Disposition.

  PEDERSON: (_wearily_): Yes, sir. Well, the fact is he seemed to want toconfide in me. Nothing strange in that! He realized he had lost, poorguy, and he--

  COUNSELOR: Mr. Pederson! No diversions, please. We'd simply like to hearfrom your own lips what Beardsley told you. (Glances at his notes.) Isit true that he said--his sole motive in this affair was to prove hecould conduct an investigation as efficiently as ECAIAC--_or any damnedmachine_?

  PEDERSON: (_hesitant, with a glance at Beardsley who sat remote andvacuous_): Yes. He told me that.

  COUNSELOR: Even to the point of committing a murder to prove it? And hisentire subsequent action was predicated upon that? We have extensivereports here--from Mrs. Carmack, from Mandleco, from Jeff Arnold andyourself. It is difficult to see how such a basically integrated andwell-functioning personality as Raoul Beardsley--

  PEDERSON: (_angrily_): No. What you fail to see is the facade! What manhas stronger reason than the man who has lost his reason? It is the onlyoutlet for aggression, a devious fulfillment, it brings psychologicalsatisfactions which cannot be obtained in any other way--call it theself-destructive impulse if you will. I doubt if Beardsley rationalizedthis--but he had come to his moment, his time of assertion, his way ofmaking fools of us all ... and my complete opinion, sir, is that hisactions from beginning to end were both a triumph and an inspiration!

  COUNSELOR: (_smugly_): Thank you, Mr. Pederson. These are the insightsyou had not revealed before. (_Turns to member at far end of table._)Dr. Deobler. As psychologist assigned to Disposition Council, may I askif there is an area of concurrence?

  DEOBLER (_bored, but deigns to lift a hand_): Save for the rhetorics atthe very end, you have my official concurrence; it is obvious in everyaspect; this was a devious fulfillment of the self-destructive impulse.

  COUNSELOR: Thank you, sir! It will be so noted. And now--(_Makes apretense of scanning his brief._) Now we come to an area of vitalinterest--an area demanding our most urgent attention, inasmuch as itgives indication of threatening our basic fundamental of cyberneticdetection; believe me, I cannot place enough emphasis here; I refer, ofcourse, to Mr. Beardsley's process of manipulation of ECAIAC, and thisstrange business of "Ellery Sherlock." (_Pause._) Mr. Jeff Arnold, ifyou please. I believe you were to be ready with some observations today?

  ARNOLD: Yes, sir. But more than observation, I am glad to report. Wehave _solved_ the "Ellery Sherlock" equate.

  COUNSELOR: This is wonderful! Will you proceed, sir?

  ARNOLD: A strange thing ... and yet so simple! We began by resurrectinga huge number of "Summaries"; we dredged into Dead File for at leastthree years back, re-ran them under a synapse intensifier. It's allthere, you know, every minute particle of every case that has gonethrough ECAIAC; almost subliminal, some of it, but--

  COUNSELOR: One moment, sir. This reference to "synapse." Couldyou--ah--clarify?

  ARNOLD: Why, a synapse is the primary adjunct to memory! The human brainhas billions of them, neuronically linked--sort of pathways that getgrooved deeper and deeper with constant repetition of thought, untilafter a while they become completely permanent, retentive andself-functioning. ECAIAC is similarly equipped--not to the degree of thehuman brain, as yet, but amazingly.

  COUNSELOR (_dazed_): Ah--yes. Please continue, sir.

  ARNOLD: As I said, we revived a number of the old cases. And what wediscovered, was that Beardsley--for years past, mind you--had beenutilizing his capacity as Chief of Cooerdinates to introduce extraneousmaterial to ECAIAC _via_ the tapes! In each and every case that camebefore him! Oh, you can believe me, he was clever, he went about it byslow and subtle degrees! And the substance of this material,sir--(_Pauses, gulps and shakes his head, unable to go on._)

  COUNSELOR: Please control yourself, sir! The substance of thisextraneous material?

  ARNOLD (_again gulps_): De-detective fiction!

  COUNSELOR (_leans forward sharply_): Do I understand you correctly, Mr.Arnold? You did say _detective fiction_?

  ARNOLD: Of two types. Ellery Queen and Sherlock Holmes--I presume it wasBeardsley's random choice. But there was nothing random about hispurpose! Don't you see, don't you see, it all fits! It explains thetrouble we were having in recent months in getting total synapticclearance! (_His voice borders on the frantic._) I remember, now, I evenmentioned this to Beardsley--and oh, the smug way he took it. He knew,damn him, he knew! He was getting there, he was reaching the synaptic, abit of fiction here and a bit there, ECAIAC was being conditioned,unable to distinguish the real from the unreal--

  COUNSELOR: Mr. Arnold! If you please, sir! (_Waits for Arnold tosubside._) I can appreciate how this discovery distresses you,both--ah--personally and in your official capacity, but be assured thatyour findings will be of inestimable value to future security. In fact(_smiles slightly_) Council has not been idle in its own pursuit of Mr.Beardsley's vagaries! (_Rises, removes a small screen to reveal atowering pile of tomes._) And now, Mr. Beardsley. I must really ask youto cooperate; I believe you fully capable. Are these your books?

  BEARDSLEY (_adjusts his glasses, smiles at his books_): Yes.

  COUNSELOR: And these charts, these graphs that we found plastered toevery wall of your home. Obviously they are also yours.

  BEARDSLEY (_adjusts his glasses, smiles at his graphs_): Yes.

  COUNSELOR: Thank you, Mr. Beardsley. That's fine. And, Mr. Beardsley,what did you use them for? These books, these graphs?

  BEARDSLEY (_groping, bewildered_): I--I--

  COUNSELOR (_sees the futility of it_): Gentlemen, I believe we canproceed on the grounds of self-evidence. Let me read you a few titlesfrom these books. "The Cybernetic Principle: Advanced Theory" ... "TheSynapse in Function" ... and here we have "Synaptics: Pattern and Flux."There are more, many more in similar vein. (_Turns abruptly._) Mr.Arnold. I'm sure you are familiar with most of these volumes. On thebasis of the content, would you say that you could duplicate Beardsley'sfeat?

  ARNOLD (_aghast_): No! I would not presume to say that, sir.

  COUNSELOR (_frowns; it was not the answer he wanted_): Very well, then.Dr. Trstensky ... would you come forward, please? Dr. Trstensky ... youare head of the Department of Advanced Cybernetics at Cal Tech. You havehad opportunity to study these graphs and charts in minutest detail--

  TRSTENSKY: Oh, yes-s. Fascinating!

  COUNSELOR: I put the question: would it be possible for you to duplicatethe grotesque feat that Beardsley performed on ECAIAC?

  TRSTENSKY: Yes-s, possibly. No, I will say definitely. You mean, ofcourse, cold, from the beginning? Yes-s ... but it would take meapproximately three-to-four years.


  COUNSELOR: Yes, Mr. Beardsley? What is it? You would like to make apertinent statement?

  BEARDSLEY (_abashed_): Oh. It--I only wanted to say it took me longer.Four-to-five years.

  COUNSELOR (_wearily--just waits for laughter to subside_): Gentlemen, Ithink we may safely wrap it up now. Our function here is Disposition.Our choice is two-fold. One: the subject is sane, in which case he willpay the supreme penalty for murder which he has freely admitted. Or two:he is obviously insane, in which case he will be subjected to PsychicProbe as provided by law, thus restoring a measure of normalcysufficient to place him again in society--restricted, of course--

  DR. DOEBLER: Sir, one moment, if you please! I simply do not understandyour language, and even less can I condone your haste! _Safely_ wrap itup, you said. What do you mean by that? Safe for whom? And "obviously"insane--was that a slip of the tongue, sir, or are you trying to forcean issue here?

  COUNSELOR (_coldly_): I must remind you that we already have competentreports on subject's status. Add to that the facts presented here; theyare overwhelming; the man's own admission and attitude aresubstantiation. It is my considered opinion, and I'm sure the opinion ofCouncil, that the man is insane. Subjection to Psychic Probe willrestore him to--

  DOEBLER: Oh, yes, the Psychic Probe. I have no quarrel there. _Butsuppose you were wrong?_ Have you ever considered the effects of Probeon the _sane_ mind? Have you ever seen it? Once I saw it, only once. Itis worse than disaster--it is horrible--it results in a sort of psychictearing that heals and then tears and then heals in continuousperpetuation. It--is indescribable. It is sub-human. Compared to that,death or even insanity is a blessed relief. Now, gentlemen, listen! Iimplore you not to be in error!