Martin Caidin - The God Machine

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The God Machine

by Martin Caidin

Scanned by BW-SciFi

1I didn't move. I waited, listening. I—

There! Again ... the sound muffled, fluttering just beyond the window of a man's senses. I strained

to hear better.

I didn't move a muscle, to prevent even the rustling of the sheets against my skin. In the swallowing

gloom I rested on my elbow, holding my breath, hearing dimly the blood in my ears. Retinal phantoms I

couldn't see swirled in the room. I had to move. I raised my head, staring at a razored sliver of light along

the carpet by the door. It seemed to take me forever to notice that the light was uneven.

Someone was standing out there.

This time I heard it clearly. Sibilant, yet soft. A woman-soft voice—

"Steve?"

I slipped from the bed with the automatic in my right hand. My thumb probed along the cold metal,

slipped the safety off. In the darkness the hammer cocking back sounded like a steel marble cracking

sharply against a metal plate. For just a moment I hesitated. I didn't like guns and I knew that if I stubbed

my toe and twitched my finger I could blow a very big hole in something. Or someone. The thought

washed through me, but I fought it off because I knew a lot worse than a hole in the night . . . Angrily, I

ordered my thoughts back to the present, to now.

"Steve!"

My feet padded softly as I crossed to the door. I wasn't too anxious to look through the peephole.

I held a vision of someone on the other side of that door, waiting patiently, laughing, until I set myself up

neatly, framed behind the tiny hole through which you could peer at visitors. Then, when I was fool

enough to arrange myself precisely as a cooperative target, a gun from the other side would pound lead

through the door. Into me. I was jumpy as hell.

Jumpy? Or is it you're really scared?

The voice sneered at me. I ignored it. I always tried to ignore myself. Of course I was scared.

I stopped just to one side of the door, leaning against the wall, my heart pounding.

"Who is it?"

An old man's voice, croaking. I fought down the impulse to clear my throat. I sounded silly enough

already, and this wasn't the time to worry about my vocal cords.

"Steve? It's me, Barbara."

Barbara? Of course; young, beautiful, amorous. We'd dated; one of those every-now-and-then

things. When I first joined the Project and met her, we'd had wonderful times together. But it had been a

long time ago. Why now? I glanced at my wrist-watch. In the gloom the luminous hands showed a

quarter to four. I thought of the other side of the door, and things became jumbled. I thought of that

beautiful body, but the gun in my hand kept crowding out the view and—

"Steve, please!"

"Are you alone, Babs?"

"Of course I'm alone."

I slipped the steel bolt free to release the door. "Come in." I didn't open the door myself. I stepped

back, to the side and away from the hallway light, the gun in my hand ready.

She slipped through quickly, eased the door closed behind her. I glanced at her; a light coat was

already sliding from her shoulders to reveal a sweater that did nothing to hide the beautiful form beneath.

I stepped behind her, slammed home the steel bolt. My thumb kept dancing on the safety of the

automatic, and I held the thing behind me, from her sight.

In the shadows that swallowed the room, her voice came out husky, the warm and familiar tone I'd

known so well: "You haven't called me for months, Steve."

I felt the anger in me. "This is a hell of a time to compare social notes," I retorted. I wasn't ready or

willing to play games. "What's this all about, Babs?"

She crossed the room, eased herself to the edge of the bed. She sighed. "Do you want me to

beg?" She caught me off balance with that one. It came without preamble. No nonsense.

"What?" I think I stammered out the word.

Her face lifted to me. "Isn't it obvious why I'm here? I—I was on a date with some idiot, and I

wanted to . . ." Her voice faltered.

"Go on," I insisted.

"I wanted to make love," she snapped. The steel in her voice softened as quickly as it appeared.

I swore to myself. She knew I hadn't dated anyone for a long time. Except, that is, for Kim. But I

knew that didn't bother Babs. What went on in someone's bed, she felt, was the business only of those

people who made love; and no one else had anything to do with it.

Yet, with all that had happened . . . Then she stood up and moved close to me, her breath coming

faster and her cheek brushing against mine. In the darkness I grinned. Here this beautiful creature was

about to drag me onto the sheets and I stood like a wooden Indian with the .38 still in my hand and not

knowing what to do with it. A voice spoke clearly to me. My own voice. It told me what to do with the

gun: Just hang on to it, Steve, old boy; just hang on to it and keep that safety off and the hammer

all the way back.

With her? With Babs? What the hell was I supposed to do with the .38? Shoot her?

Her hands kept moving. They knew how and what to do with me, and I was half frantic trying to

remain sensible, to keep a firm grip on myself. Babs tugged me back to the bed and eased me down. She

raised her body higher, arching. Her breasts came to my face. Christ! Those beautiful breasts, against my

face, pressing against my lips. My head was spinning. I smelled her perfume, just noticeable.

Spinning ... A dun roaring began somewhere within my ears; I could almost feel my blood racing as

her stomach pressed against mine. Her perfume ... my head, spinning . . . spinning . . . My God, spinning

. . . You bloody fool!

Cursing, I tried to shove her away. A sudden weakness stunned me; I seemed to have no more

strength than a child. Barbara's body remained atop mine, writhing, her breasts smothering me. She was

all over me and as I strained to free myself I felt her hands trying clumsily to hold me down. I began a

long slide down a huge well; the temptation to let go, just to fall and fall forever, grew stronger within me.

Fear, adrenalin, the instinct for survival . . . these are marvelous things. I tore myself from her grasp.

Alarm bells clamored wildly in my head. Something terrible was happening. ... I knew I must get up. I

cursed, raving at the weakness that crippled me. Gasping, I threw her to one side, rolling away to the

other and then stumbling to my feet. She came after me like a tigress, her breasts again squeezing against

my face, and Christ, my head, the spinning. . . .

Then I remembered. The .38 ... I still held it in my right hand. I didn't want to hit her with the gun. I

tried it the other way. I balled my left hand into a fist and hit her with everything I had, what I thought was

a ripping blow. It was clumsy, weak. She gasped, then threw herself again at me. I fell back, staggering.

Anger poured through me when finally I realized just how wrong everything had become. For a moment I

was free. I stepped back, thumbing the safety on, and then I brought the barrel of the .38 down in a

vicious arc. I felt the blow of metal smacking into something soft and yielding. I stood there with my chest

heaving, gulping desperately for air, as Barbara collapsed. She didn't moan or cry out; she just crumpled

to the floor.

The .38 slipped from my fingers. I began to feel numb through my arms and legs. Cotton filled my

mouth. My arms were as heavy as lead, and I wanted to sleep. That's all. Forget everything. Sleep. Just

sleep . . .

I reeled away from the window, used the walls for support, and made it to the bathroom. I pawed

at the light switch, jerked open the medicine chest with clumsy, stupid motions. I had it in my fingers but I

dropped it. There was that roaring again in my ears, and everything was blurring before me and I bent

down to pick it up. ... I knew I'd never make it to my feet again, so I just let go and slumped to the

bathroom floor; my head slammed against the sink but I ignored it, on my knees, pawing blindly, and then

I had the ampul in my fingers, and snapped it in two and jammed the smelling salts against my nostrils.

Something exploded in my chest and throat and deep inside my head, and in the sudden harsh light the

bathroom spun wildly, a stomach-wrenching dervish of gleaming tile and toilet bowl and sink and bathtub,

and I twitched my way into a fit of coughing. Long minutes later I lay weakly on the floor, my head a

hornets' nest of pain. But I was through the worst of it. I took a few more stiff pulls of the ampul, and

climbed shakily to my feet.

I walked back to the bedroom. The sight of Barbara still crumpled on the floor brought me up

short. I switched on a lamp, and what I saw made me curse. A nasty gash along her forehead had spilled

a lot of blood that stained her hair and the carpet where she lay. I hurried to the bathroom to get a wet

towel.While I cleaned the blood from her head and face, I thought about what had happened. Now that

it was in the past, it wasn't too difficult to understand. In her hair, sprayed across her breasts . . . there

was enough chemical sprayed on her body to knock out anyone against whom she could press tightly for

a few minutes. The fumes were barely perceptible, and perfume had disguised the odor. Just a little

longer . . . those lovely breasts against my face would have sent me spinning into unconsciousness. I tilted

back her head. Sure enough; there were two small antidote filters within her nostrils.

I was still too weak to lift her onto the bed. I placed a pillow beneath her head and as gently as I

could spread a blanket across her body. For several minutes I stood quietly, watching her, trying to

collect my thoughts. She began to moan; she was starting to come out of it.

Then I began to get my brain into gear. Barbara couldn't be in this caper alone—no question that

this had been planned carefully. Someone else was controlling this. Someone else who would move in

swiftly after she had done her work. After I had been wafted unconscious by the chemical sprayed on

her body. Someone else to finish off what she had started. It wasn't a pleasant thought.

But Barbara didn't want to kill me, for Christ's sake! Not the real Barbara. I sagged against the

wall. The real Barbara . . .

Who was real any more? Who wasn't?

If I didn't know better, if I didn't know I was sane and that this nightmare existed not wholly within

my mind, but in real, prosaic, everyday morning-and-night life, I know I would have succumbed to the

pressures tightening all about and against me.

Barbara Johnson had made love with me. We were great friends. She didn't want to kill me.

But she had tried to do exactly that.

Charles Kane was one of my best friends.

Not long ago he tried to murder me with his car. . . .

During the past several weeks there had been eight separate attempts on my life.

People—some of them friends, others only passing acquaintances, still others total strangers—had

tried to do me in with rifle bullets, automobiles, poison, even a knife. Not one of these people had a

damn thing against me.

Except murder.

No. Not really. Not those people . . . Christ, I had to shake the cobwebs from my head!

These people weren't murderers. They were only instruments. Despite that—

On an impulse I snapped off the lights and moved to the far side of the room, to the window facing

the street. In the darkness I eased the drape from the window and studied the street below. All the

parked cars seemed alike: dark and abandoned. I waited, my eyes darting back and forth. Then I saw it.

The telltale glow of a cigarette from one car. I wasn't surprised. Someone was waiting in that car for

Barbara to give the signal that I was dead to the world. He—whoever it was—could come up, quickly,

to finish me off.

The nausea came without warning, disgorging bile into my throat. I barely made it to the bathroom.

The sick-sweet taste drove me to my knees, dry-heaving, helpless to stem the spasms that racked my

body. I half sprawled on the tile, giving in to it all, feeling the headache knotting within me. I tried to fight

the pain trickling through a thousand cracks of my skull, but it didn't help. I lay there weak and sick, and

thought about it. ...

I knew who was trying to kill me.

He used these people as implements with which to carry out his task, coldly and unemotionally, a

task that he considered to be essential—my death.

Oh, I knew him, all right.

God.

No! I cursed at myself. Spell it out. . . .

Not the God that people knew, to whom they prayed.

This one was different.

The God Machine.

A brain. Brilliant beyond comprehension. A dream harshly real. A monstrous intellect the like of

which the world had never before known. The world still knew nothing about it—him—or whatever you

used for a name.

A bio-cybernetics creature. The finest product of the science and the technology and the hopes of

man. A brain—a real brain made up of the same things that make up your brain and mine. A brain that

filled an entire building, that reached out across a nation, a brain that was infinitely faster and more

diversified and more capable than a million human minds.

A brain that . . . well, this one didn't think it was God.

It knew it.

And it was doing its best to destroy me.

I lay there on the cold bathroom floor, my chest heaving for air and my stomach knotting in spasms

and the pain scrabbling through my mind, a beautiful girl unconscious on the floor in the next room, and I

wondered—

How do you fight God?

2my name is Steve Rand.

I'm not an ordinary person.

Ever since high school I knew there was something different about me. It was, I learned, the

manner in which I thought, the way the wheels turned inside my skull. I was a numbers adept. I thought of

math as, well, almost as if it were music. I never worked at math. It flowed; everything always fitted

beautifully. I never experienced difficulty with the same problems that kept my friends up through all

hours of the night. Numbers always marched dutifully in tune, always fell into place for me.

I was still in high school in Madison, Wisconsin, when a government search for students with

unusual skills in the mathematical sciences selected me, and some twenty others, for special tests. Two

government scientists discussed with us physics, algebra, geometry, calculus, differential equations,

cybernetics, probability, the topological sciences and other fields of which I was barely aware. The

scientists told us that if we did well in the tests we could have our choice of almost any college or

university in the country.

I didn't fathom this sudden and, I considered, undue attention. Yet the tests themselves excited the

government scientists. Even when I failed to master some of the really wicked problems they threw at us.

When I ran into the brain twisters that stopped me cold, I knew something was wrong. I didn't know

why; I just knew or sensed it. I explained to them that I simply wasn't ready to go that deep. The fact

that I recognized my own inadequacies seemed to please them.

My parents were somewhat overwhelmed by it all. Not until several days after I'd completed the

tests did my father even discuss it with me. I discovered only then that he had been visited by the two

government scientists. He told me—this is what he had been told—that my grasp of the problems I faced

took place with extraordinary speed. Several tests with which I'd wrestled were dead end. They were

deliberate blocks that didn't have any one answer to them. I seemed to recognize these almost at once

and, ignoring them, went on eagerly to the remainder.

That's all there was to it, really, for some time.

Then, three months before my graduation, we had another visitor from the government, a man who

was to become closer to me than any other human being. His name was Thomas A. Smythe, and years

would pass before I was to learn that Tom Smythe had actually been assigned to me. He was—well,

Tom could be described accurately as an unusual, perhaps even an odd sort of person. Physically he was

big: nearly six feet four inches. But he walked with a catlike grace and a physical ease that belied his bulk.

And he had a mind that was positively uncanny—a mind by which, on many occasions, I would find

myself frustrated and caught by surprise. That easygoing, huge fellow with his pipe and his deep throaty

voice was a master psychologist. I would come to learn that rarely did he think in terms of the present.

His everyday world always stretched years into the future.

Tom Smythe was waiting for me one day when I arrived home from school. I mentioned I had only

another three months before graduation. Tom Smythe said he had come to discuss with me and my

parents, on what he called a hard basis, my career beyond high school. My scholastic record of straight

A's should have guaranteed little difficulty in gaining just about any college or university. But I was also

aware that not even a superb scholastic performance assured a really free choice; there were schools

where the almost arbitrary decisions of admissions officials, and the waiting lists, would block admittance.

Tom Smythe explained with unabashed candor, "If you would like to continue your career,

specializing, as it were, in the mathematical sciences"—he paused for a gesture with his pipe as if to

demean his ability to open any university door in the land—"we can place you wherever you wish to go.

Of course," he added, "we have some ideas about that ourselves. . . ."

My father was an old horsetrader from way back when. He also had the habit of driving right to

the point of a matter. He stirred his drink idly, studying the swirl of Scotch around the ice cubes in his

glass. Without preamble he lifted his eyes and stared directly at our visitor. "Tell me, Mr. Smythe," he

said abruptly, "why the government is going to so much trouble."

Tom Smythe knew when to cut the mustard; of a sudden he tossed aside the amenities of social

conversation. "Your son is what we consider an adept in the higher mathematics," he said. "The tests

Steve took some months back told us a great deal about him. Oh, not so much what he can do now," he

emphasized with another gesture of his pipe. "That's only of passing importance. The tests indicated a

potential, a great potential, that as yet remains untapped. It must be nurtured, guided, developed."

Smythe leaned back in his chair and permitted the trace of a smile to appear. "If this potential

realizes fruition, Mr. Rand, there is every possibility that Steve may be rated as a mathematical genius."

My mother sighed and mumbled about a genius who never knew what time he was supposed to be

home at night. I laughed with Tom at being brought so abruptly back to earth.

Our government visitor paused to relight his pipe; I waited impatiently to hear what else Smythe

had come to tell us. I knew that while Smythe addressed himself directly to my father, hewing to the

respect due the parent, his words were selected carefully for their effect upon me. "Steve's natural talent

is different, even unusual, Mr. Rand," he went on, "yet it is not so rare as to be exclusive. Experience has

taught me—we have, as you may have suspected by now, gone into this with the greatest of care—well,

experience has taught us that a natural talent by itself isn't enough. I said that it needs guidance, that it

must be developed. I can't emphasize that too much," he said, nodding his leonine head as if to lend

added emphasis to his own words.

"We learned this the hard way, to put it bluntly," he went on. "We have been brought by, ah, by

events stirring within the Soviet Union, to reexamine the methods with which we, as a nation, have

utilized—or ignored—our single most valuable resource. I mean, of course, the young men and women

just striking out in the world."

He paused, and again that trace of a smile appeared, an unspoken admission that Tom Smythe,

and many others like him, were engaged in a monumental effort to realize as a future promise what had in

the past suffered neglect. But what I understood immediately eluded the satisfaction of my father.

"That sounds almost like a speech you have said many times, before, Mr. Smythe." Immediately

my father held up his hand to blunt the expected reaction. "No offense, no offense, Mr. Smythe," he said

quickly. "I can understand your problem. I imagine you have said many times before what you're telling

us now?"

The smile broadened into a wide grin of admission. "Touché," he said with a gesture of his pipe.

My father scratched the side of his nose in the move my mother and I knew so well. A clear sign

that he hadn't yet been sold a bill of goods—no matter how slick the salesman. Again he sought, and

found, the direct gaze of our visitor.

"Well, then, Mr. Smythe," my father said, "there is, I'm sure, much in what you say. But there is

also something frightening in your words."

Smythe waited, silent. I had the feeling that many times before he had encountered this same

situation.

"Urn, all this has a ring of, well"—my father shifted in his seat, placing his drink on the table

alongside him—"as if these youngsters were being branded as commodities. I buy and sell, Mr. Smythe,"

he emphasized, "and I would hate to think of Steve and others like him as—as, well, as commodities to

be traded across a bargaining counter." He shook his head unhappily. "I get the feeling—and mind you, I

hope that I'm wrong —that these kids really don't have that much say about what happens to them." He

sat back, waiting. He had given Smythe his chance to complete what he had come here to accomplish.

I held my breath. Again that trace of a smile flickered across Smythe's face.

"Nothing could be further from the truth, Mr. Rand," he said after a long pause. "It is not true

because that sort of thing doesn't pay off."

My father arched his eyebrows and pursed his lips. With an effort he kept his silence, waiting.

"We learned, Mr. Rand—and we learned this a long time ago, I should add—that it is impossible

to regiment the creative mind. We are aware, acutely aware, that this mind in which we are so interested,

the creative mind, will not function at its best when confined within a mental or intellectual straitjacket."

Again the slow shaking of that leonine head; again the feeling that Smythe was not so much talking to us

as if he were reaffirming, aloud, what he believed absolutely within himself.

"One of the problems of our society," he continued, "is that there's too much regimentation. That's

the curse"—he smiled fleetingly—"of what we would call the technocratic society. It can be stifling. In

any intellectual endeavor there must, there absolutely must, be the spark from within young and inquiring

minds. It's not only dangerous but, on the national level, it may even prove fatal to extinguish that spark."

He leaned back in his seat, again searching his pockets for matches. I had the strangest feeling that this

poking about was more deliberate than necessary, as if Smythe were providing his audience with a recess

in which to digest his message.

"I have a fair amount of experience at this sort of thing, Mr. Rand," he said suddenly. Then, almost

as if with an air of resignation: "More than once I have been described as a pied piper. But I do not lead,

Mr. Rand. I point the way."

My father smiled; Smythe had gotten through. Our visitor didn't miss the breach in the parental

wall. "The youngsters with whom we work," he added swiftly, "are free, intellectually and emotionally,

not to pursue our advice, if that becomes their decision. To repeat, we point the way—but we do not

sing any siren song. We advise, we assist, we counsel as much as it is possible to do so. We do all this

because we know truly how critical all this really is. But we can't push." A slow grin appeared. "Any

parent knows that," he said softly.

My father nodded. "Let's get down to cases, Mr. Smythe," he said. "What about our son?"

This time Smythe directed his smile to me, and I grinned back. I couldn't help it. He was something

like a pied piper, and I knew I was ready to follow wherever he might lead. Smythe had that aura about

him; it was an invisible, yet almost tangible force.

"Steve's promise, to repeat," Smythe said, "lies in the mathematical sciences. But full and early

development on a haphazard basis no longer is possible in a world of technological complexity and an

accelerated pace of events." Again Smythe had made that imperceptible shift to assume complete

command of the situation. "Development must take place at the earliest age possible, but that age must

also be consistent with the capabilities of the youth himself. That's why we prefer not to interfere, except

in rare cases, with a youngster's home life during high school. Emotional development constitutes one of

the ingredients critical to the fabric that makes up each one of us. Steve's moral and emotional

background in this household is all we could ask—"

"You mean you've checked us out, too?" The words sliced into Smythe's explanation.

"Of course, Mr. Rand. Wouldn't you have done the same thing?"

My father nodded slowly, begrudging the point.

"But now Steve is ready to be committed to his future," Smythe went on. "At the moment he is

enjoying all this attention. Later"—Smythe's eyes locked with mine—"despite the brilliance of which he is

already aware, when he stumbles against some truly staggering problems, he may wish he had never

heard of me. . . ."

He was right.

3SECRET

From: Harkness, M. E.; Interoffice Code 2123Q To: Computer Sciences Panel; Presidential

Science Advisory Board

Reference: Special Report 4, Project Pied Piper Response: Pied Piper SP 4; C2123Q

To review:

The digital computer epitomizes the new information technology in the range and diversity of

information processing it makes possible. Its impact upon the diverse sciences with which we are

occupied occurs in many guises; as traditional data analysis; as data processing of huge volumes of

records; as networks for gathering primary data; as techniques for building responsive experimental

arrangements; and as a basic theoretical tool in the simulation of complex systems.

Despite significant gains within the last decade, much of the impact is still only potential. Sufficient

evidence is at hand to support the judgment that this new information technology will exert an "impact

effect" on many new developing sciences as significant as did the technologies derived from

thermodynamics in an earlier period.

Project Pied Piper is planning for its impact to be exerted, not at the present, but in the predictable

near future when computer technology will have attained that level where the exploitation of this new

technology will bring its greatest return. The growth of information-technology systems and the paced

progress of Pied Piper have been intended from their outset to coincide at this planned future date.

An understanding of the role of information technology requires some description of the digital

computer, which is, in essence, a machine for following instructions. In the past, a machine merely

responded to the setting of a switch or the position of a lever, but a computer responds to a language.

This is the revolutionary development.

In principle, an astonishingly small set of primitive instructions suffices for information processing,

but a typical computer can have scores of different instructions. Only a machine for processing

information can obey a language, and, conversely, only such a machine can form new instructions for

itself and thus change its mode of operation in intricate ways.

The capability of a computer is measured by the amount of information it can store, the number of

basic operations it can perform per second, and the reliability with which it operates. The first large

commercial computer, which appeared in 1951, did about 4,000 additions per second and had 1,000

10-digit numbers stored and accessible at high speed. Today's biggest machine performs well over

1,000,000 additions per second and has considerably more than 100,000 10-digit numbers accessible at

high speed. From 1951 to the present, speed has been increased by a factor already close to 300, and

memory by a factor well in excess of 100. Reliability has increased correspondingly, so that today's

machines run with many billions of operations between errors. Even without the further advances that

already are predictable in their embryonic stages, machines are currently powerful enough to bring about

several revolutions in the application of information technology to many old and new sciences.

Now we come more specifically to the urgency of Project Pied Piper. For a computer to do

sophisticated things it must have a sophisticated instructor. Fortunately, there has been a growth of

know-how in instructing the machine, or, programming. In areas of significance to new sciences—an

excellent example is the spectacular range of the life sciences—an extraordinary range of numerical

computations can be made with great facility: standard statistical analyses, matrix inversions, spectra and

cross-spectra, auto- and cross-correlation of time series, the numerical solution of ordinary and

differential equations, and so on. Other operations have been carried out in a few experimental programs,

and will soon become routine: the recognition of fixed type fonts for direct input of printed material, the

simulation of neural networks, and the extraction of meaningful data from background "noise." Speech

recognition, inductive inference, and language translation are in exploratory stages.

How does this affect Project Pied Piper? The answer lies in the stumbling block of computer

programming-control and the solution that appears to hold such great promise in Pied Piper.

Essentially, the hidden price for the general-purpose computer is the headache of writing

sequences of tens of thousands of elementary instructions. The tedium involved in instructing computers

has prompted the development of automatic programming procedures and languages whereby the

machine assumes some of the burden of instructing itself.

The pressure to develop new instructions must come from potential users who have a clearly

expressed need. Once again the life sciences provide a compelling example: Almost certainly, the most

convenient programming for the life sciences must reflect some of the individualities of the language of

biology—individualities can be unearthed only by the life scientist in the course of actual programming

and experimenting.

The basic problem, of course, is much wider than this restriction to one branch of science.

The need for effective and fairly rapid two-way communications with the machine is the major

stumbling block to which this Report has made reference. In all but a few instances today, twenty-four

hours or more intervene between the gathering of experimental data and the retrieval of the results of their

analysis. Such delays make impossible the adequate incorporation of the computer into experimentation.

Either we must learn how to let many users have almost immediate access to a single large computer or

we must supply each experimenter with a device of his own.

Difficulties in communication and access are by no means incurable and are attracting much

attention; scientists of the USSR are pursuing urgently what could accurately be described as a "crash

effort" to hasten such development within that nation. Academician Sergei Sobolev, director of the

Novosibirsk Institute of Mathematics and a leading cyberneticist, has proclaimed: "The time is not far off

when a network of computing centers will cover our entire country from the Pacific to the Carpathian

foothills." Intelligence analysts attach special significance to such statements as that made at the

twenty-third Congress of the Communist Party (March, 1966) by First Secretary Leonid Brezhnev when

he castigated Soviet cyberneticists for their failure to bridge the gap between theoretical research and

applied technology.

The fundamental point to be made is that the "new information technology" is not merely a

euphemism for the large high-speed digital computer. It implies the ability to construct processing devices

in response to specific demands, and in combination with whatever other techniques are considered

appropriate. . . .

The members of this Panel will find pertinent data of the highest interest concerning development

with the bio-cybernetics concept of computer communications, and especially as it relates to the planned

development/education of the human elements of such bio-cybernetics systems. It is urged that great

consideration be given to the reports of Thomas A. Smythe and to his progress evaluations of the human

subjects involved. As has been discussed previously with Panel members, the need for appropriately

developed and conditioned "biological partners" for the advanced cybernetics systems can be produced

only through a long-range, patient effort such as has been instituted re Pied Piper. The Panel members

will note the cautious optimism in the studies evaluation of Steven Rand, HS-A193. . . .

4mike nagumo leaned closer, whispering from the side of his mouth, "Crusty old bastard, ain't he?"

I hid my grin behind my hand, nodding, watching carefully to see that we weren't receiving any

undue attention from the "crusty old bastard" who was holding forth from his scholastic pulpit. Beyond

multiple rows of student heads, Mathematics Professor Wilhelm von Weisskopf, resplendent in tweed

suit and bristling white beard, and in his customary vile temper, heaped cutting abuse upon those who had

been selected to receive guidance and wisdom from his brilliant mind. "Kaiser Willie," as his students

dubbed him, appeared convinced that those same students required, along with intellectual nourishment,

liberal doses of his famed sarcastic wit. Mathematics he wielded with the certain touch of practiced

genius; personal drubbings he issued with a careless abandon. Never was there the student who received

from Von Weisskopf a solitary word, not so much as a crumb, of praise.

"Mathematics," he would growl from beneath unruly brows, "is a language of the truth. Anything

less than perfection is therefore somewhat less than the truth. I do not compliment those who wallow in

less than the entire truth, for anything less is to embrace ignorance, and this is deserving only of

contempt."

When brought to the tight-lipped anger with which he frequently assailed his class, he was as wont

to castigate a student for a "deficient genetic ancestry" as for a demonstrated ignorance in the classroom.

And—

"Oh, oh," Mike Nagumo muttered, straightening quickly in his seat. "I think I've bought the farm."

I looked to the front of the room. Sure enough. Kaiser Willie's gravelly tones no longer filled the

air. He stood with fists planted solidly on his hips, beard bristling, glaring at Mike. Mike rose slowly to his

feet, with a great effort keeping his face impassive. As only Mike Nagumo could do. There's something

inescapably imposing about a Japanese who stands six feet three inches tall and who weighs 230 pounds.

"Mister Nagumo!"

I thought the room would crack up. His body stiff, Mike bowed formally from the waist, hands

stiffly at his sides. With a single word he acknowledged Kaiser Willie:

"Yessss?"

It sounded like a boa constrictor. The sibilant, deep hiss sliced through the room. The word came

forth in the finest tradition of an old movie with a Japanese villain. And from someone who spoke better

English than myself. I shut my eyes, and groaned; I knew Mike would be off and running.

"Mister Nagumo! Perhaps you would share with the others in this room your private conversation

with Mr. Rand?"

Mike looked blankly at the professor. Slowly his great head shook from side to side. "Cannot do

so," he said with exaggerated politeness. "Matter is crassified."

"Crassified?" I thought Kaiser Willie was going to drop his uppers. I ran desperately into the

breach.

"Sir," I called out, rising to my feet, "he means classified."

The cold blue eyes glared at me. "Your spontaneity is uncalled for, Mr. Rand."

I winced and draped myself back in my chair. Mike Nagumo was strictly on his own.

"Mr. Nagumo, did I hear you say that the matter you felt was so important—sufficiently so as to

interrupt this class—was classified?"

"No, sirr. Is crassified."

We couldn't believe it. A blank look appeared fleetingly across the visage of Kaiser Willie.

"Explain yourself, sir!" The gravelly tones were becoming thunderous.

Mike Nagumo bowed again, slowly, ponderously. "Today, sirr, is to be seventh of December.

Anniversary, sirr, of honorabre father. Die at Perr Harbor. I remembering occasion with Mr. Rand."

Again the deep, careful bow. "I aporogize, if disturb crass."

I thought my ribs would crack. Professor von Weisskopf's face went blank. Then he rallied. "I

don't recall you ever saying anything about your father being in the Navy at Pearl Harbor, Mr. Nagumo.

Is—" "Oh, no, sirr! Misunderstand. Honorabre father in Nipponese Navy, sirr. Make attack against

American freet at—"

The bell drowned out his next words. Instantly Mike gathered up his books, and we both beat a

hasty retreat through the rear door of the classroom.

"Whew!" Mike laughed, wiping his brow. "Saved by the bell!"

I was still roaring. "Did you see his face? Good God, I thought the old bastard would have a fit

right in front of the room. Jesus, if I were you, Mike, I think I'd take a little vacation for the next couple of

days. Anywhere away from Kaiser Willie."

"Aw, he's not so bad," Mike countered.

I looked at him in surprise. "You're defending Weisskopf?"

"Not really, I suppose," Mike countered with a wave of the hand. "But you can't knock him as a

teacher. He's about the best they got here at MIT."

"Well, maybe," I offered, "but he sure demands his pound of flesh." I looked at Mike, and laughed.

"And sometimes he gets it taken from him."

Mike grinned back at me.

"You know something, Mike? I never knew your old man was killed at Pearl Harbor. I didn't even

know he was in the Japanese Navy. I thought you were Nisei a couple of generations back."

"Oh, that." Mike grinned again. "Course he wasn't in the Japanese Navy. The old man's a tourist

guide in Honolulu. Biggest damn thief in the business; worth a fortune. He's so mad at me for going

straight, as he puts it, that he almost disowned me when I left the islands to come here to MIT."

God bless Mike Nagumo. Shortly after we met, we knew we were on the way to a fast and deep

friendship. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology could be a forbidding place, and Mike and I

naturally gravitated toward each other, sharing an apartment near MIT. The giant Nisei was determined

to pursue a career in nuclear physics. If the promise he showed as a brilliant student was to be sustained,

he faced a dazzling career ahead of him.

There were times when I leaned heavily on the irrepressible humor and friendship of Mike

Nagumo. For if nothing else, MIT proved to be my intellectual comeuppance.

It was one thing to move securely within the sheltered confines of my high-school years and

something entirely different to plunge through the cruelly demanding environment of this new scholastic

world. At the time I never realized just how deliberately demanding my school years were made to be. I

was unaware that on certain MIT files my name carried after it the significant number HS-A193 and that

my instructors (influenced by a lavish federal endowment) always made certain that I should chase my

own shadow—at the speed they set.

Everything I did pointed eventually to a kinship with cybernetics—the digital computer systems

infusing every aspect of modern technology. In principle the advanced digital computer—the cybernetics

system—made it possible to automate any human mental activity if it could be described in the form of a

set of rules that precisely and simply defined the process of performing a given form of mental task.

Let me take that just a bit further. One of the most striking properties of digital computers is their

universality, which is based, first, on the possibility of reducing complex mathematical problems to a set

sequence of very simple arithmetical operations and, second, on the possibility of using mathematical

expressions to describe various processes of the mental activity of man. Therein lay the key to my training

and the path along which I would move in future years—to construct an electronic representation of the

mental activity of man.

My courses were doubled up on me, and while at times the pressure led to fierce headaches,

within two years I had my BA. Another year and my Master's was behind me. I kept at my studies

without letup, working toward my PhD, accepting that somewhere in the background was the watchful

gaze of Tom Smythe and the United States Government.

Somewhere along the way, observed covertly for the signs by my instructors, I began to

metamorphosize from the neophyte into a creature of new instincts in the world of cybernetics. To some

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TheGodMachinebyMartinCaidinScannedbyBW-SciFi1Ididn'tmove.Iwaited,listening.I—There!Again...thesoundmuffled,flutteringjustbeyondthewindowofaman'ssenses.Istrainedtohearbetter.Ididn'tmoveamuscle,topreventeventherustlingofthesheetsagainstmyskin.IntheswallowinggloomIrestedonmyelbow,holdingmybreath,hearin...

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Martin Caidin - The God Machine

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