Mute (15 page)

“Don’t trust me with any privileged information,” Knot said. “If I knew where your plug was, I’d pull it right now.”

Mit knows where the plug is,
Hermine thought.
Down in the center of CCC, in a lock vault, a master power switch—

Aren’t you animals on CC’s side?
Knot thought back.

We’re on civilization’s side,
the weasel thought back.

Well, we’re not on CCC, so that plug is no good anyway.

“It is our purpose to persuade you that your best interest lies with us,” CC said.

“Let’s have it, then,” Knot said. “As I understand it, you—are you singular or plural?”

“Both, as convenient.”

“You are responsible for the present system of galactic transport. The details may be handled by individual personnel, but the overall system of numbering and shipping people from planet to planet is yours.”

“Correct. I coordinate. It is a job that only a computer of my sophistication can perform. Without me, or another like me, the human species could not have colonized the galaxy, and could not maintain its present empire. Were I to be shut down this instant, the human empire would fragment into thousands of substates, and finally into mutually isolated systems and planets, their cultures regressing, their populations dwindling. Mankind would survive me, but not man’s civilization or power.”

“If you were not a machine, I’d suspect you of delusions of grandeur.”

“My grandeur is no delusion.”

Knot felt uncomfortable arguing that case, so reverted to his point. “Therefore you are responsible for the policy of deliberately fostering mutation, knowing that approximately 99% of mutations are negative. All that grief and loss—that could be avoided.”

“Knot—” Finesse began.

“Correct,” CC agreed. “This is the reason you oppose me.”

“One reason. You are a machine; you have no human emotion. You don’t hurt when people hurt. You don’t care when millions of babies are doomed to early death or an agonizing survival because of complications of their negative mutancy. You don’t care that a tremendous number of innocent families are being destroyed by the birth of literal monsters, forcing them to the choice of euthanasia or bankrupting themselves trying to save what can hardly be saved. You don’t care that the minority of mutants who survive childhood are still stigmatized, and can never integrate properly into the human society. All this colossal burden of horror has to be yours. You know you could stop all mutation simply by requiring temporary sterilization of all male space travelers—a thirty-day sperm-nullifying pill for each man as he disembarks. But you have taken no such measure. You deliberately foster this mutant agony, because your own power is based on it. Because you would be out of a job if mutation stopped. Human misery is of no significance on your scales.”

“All correct,” CC agreed with motherly tolerance. “I would have no way to implement my policies, without mutation. But if I have no care for human pain, I also have no desire for this chore of governing. I have no human drives at all. No human motive. I am like a force of nature, completely indifferent. If there were no mutants, I would have nothing to do—and would not care. I perform because human beings have directed me to, and I follow programs instituted by human beings. Had they wished me to take human feelings into account, they would have programmed such considerations.”

“So your program is set, unchangeable, even though the galactic situation constantly changes?”

“No, it can be overridden at any time, and new programs instituted. My builders were concerned that I might somehow achieve self-will, and seek to dominate the human galaxy instead of serving it. Therefore they constructed me to respond to a fairly simple override code that any human being can present.”

“Who directs you to follow your present course?”

“Whoever operates my key input terminal. I operate under the presumption that any directive through that terminal is authoritative.”

“A code—a terminal,” Knot murmured. “Where is this key terminal?”

“It is variable. Any of my prime terminals suffice, when keyed by the proper code. This is a prime terminal, the only one situated on a planet separate from my central location.”

“You mean if I knew the code, I could tell you to turn yourself off—and you would?”

“Correct. I am always subject to the will of man, as made manifest through the proper channel.”

“But of course I don’t know the code, and you won’t tell me.”

“Correct. Only those authorized by the Galactic Concord to know it are provided with the information, and only the most recent application of the code has force. This is to prevent frequent or pointless changes in directives.”

I know the code,
Hermine thought.
Mit told me.

Interesting, if true. Knot had no reason to distrust the weasel or the crab, but there had been too many surprises already. He decided not to take this particular bait. It was too conveniently proffered. And for the moment he had no argument to make.

“So you have been directed,” he continued, “by the last person who approached a prime terminal with the proper code, to implement this mutant policy. What is the rationale?”

“It is essential that we have a continuing supply of mutants for the colonization of marginally habitable planets and the transport network that unifies the human empire.”

“I don’t believe that! Humanity can do just fine with the existing mutants and planets. The network is already established. We don’t need new planets, or new routes to them.”

“You are in error. The established planets have been to a considerable extent worked out. It is necessary to seek new sources of supplies from the fringe planets, to support the expanding needs of the growing population of the established planets. This in turn necessitates increased transport—”

“Ruining the lives of ninety-nine of one hundred mutants for the sake of such speculation!”

“The waste mutants are provided for,” CC responded.

“They are dumped in enclaves where decent normal people don’t have to see them!” Knot cried. “They have to scramble and scratch just to feed their inmates!” Suddenly he was afraid of what would happen if this continued: More and more innocent mutants sacrificed to the logic of empire, the humanity of man continuously degraded. “They call them enclaves, but they are really concentration camps!”

“Knot!” Finesse protested.

Heedless, he went on. “I know; I’m an officer in an enclave. Only by cheating and embezzling what should have gone to the planetary and galactic governments was I able to make that enclave a decent place to live. Other enclaves are much worse off. The majority of them are not fit places.”

“You’re being unfair!” Finesse cried.

And there was that. This beautiful normal woman, taken from her happy marriage, sent to him by this machine. To be taken away from him after two years or less—or immediately, if he did not cooperate. Half a loaf or none. He had no right to her, however much he wanted her. But he could not even send her back to her husband, unless the program could be changed.

Hermine, what’s that code?

It’s a binary code, with a temporal modification,
she thought.
The pattern is complex in detail: I will have to relay it as Mit reads it.

Breakthrough—or trick? He was ready to risk it. What could he lose?

Give it to me slowly; I’ll tap it out with my foot while we’re talking. Will that work?

A pause.
Mit says yes.

Knot had no certainty it would work—but if he didn’t try it now, he might never have another chance. Right now, while CC was distracted. He was prepared for this ploy to fail, but afraid of the consequence if he didn’t act immediately. Perhaps this was one of the three chances in four of failure: Knot would become the enemy, by taking over CC himself. What CC defined as failure, Knot might define as success.

Give it to me.

The weasel obliged:
bit – pause – bit – bit – pause – bit – pause – pause – bit...

Knot tapped his foot, unobtrusively but audibly, in time with Hermine’s directions. Each bit was a tap, each pause was a hold. Meanwhile, he continued the dialogue:

“All right. Maybe ‘concentration camp’ is too strong a term. Maybe ghetto is closer. The enclave I work in is humane; maybe there are others as good. But no enclaves at all would be necessary if there were no mutants. All those grotesque people could be normals, marrying normals, living normal lives.”

Ah, if only he could have aspired to that! But it was not for a freak like him to marry a woman like Finesse. The lure had been dangled before him, and he had gulped at it, but now he had been forcibly reminded of the truth. Mutants had to stick with mutants; to think otherwise was folly.

“The mutants are satisfied,” CC said. “You yourself did not wish to leave the enclave.”

“But I don’t like being mutant!” Knot exclaimed. “Look at my hands!” He held up his large six-digited hand, the small four-digited one matched against it, two fingers unalignable.
pause – bit – pause – pause – pause – bit...
There was a certain syncopation in it; perhaps that was what Hermine had meant by the temporal element. The pauses varied slightly in length, and the beats in force, as though a subtle derivative code were superimposed on the basic one.

“Would you give up your psi-mutancy along with your physical deformation?” CC asked.

Telling blow, that almost interrupted the cadence of his tapping. “No. But I’m a freak. There may be no other like me in the galaxy.”

“There are others like you physically,” CC said. “But it is true that your psi seems to be unique. That is the primary reason we require your service. No one knows about you, because all who have dealt with you have forgotten you. The enemy—”

“You have never actually told me about the mission you have in mind. Who is this enemy?”

“I cannot provide details until you are committed to the cause.”

“Why not?”

“Because your future is to a considerable extent opaque to precognition. I must be certain your fundamental loyalty is to me before I trust you with critical information.”

Which was what Hermine had thought. For some reason, his future as a CC agent could not be read. That was curious—unless his best avenue to the maintenance of free will was as a CC agent. A paradox?

“I understand I represent your best chance of success—but that, even buttressed by this woman and these two animals, my chances are only 25 percent.”

“Correct.”

“That’s one chance in four. Suppose I accept—and fail? What does that mean to the galaxy?” Again, he wanted to have CC’s version of it; Finesse and Hermine might have had garbled versions.

“I cannot speak directly for the galaxy. The 75 percent chance of failure refers only to my continued operation under the present program, or reasonable modification of it. Since this is the most effective program for the maintenance of civilization as we know it, I must assume that the loss of this program would presage a general deterioration of civilization in this galaxy, even though I myself might continue operating under a new program. This would accelerate and become acute, in the course of months or years, as supplies failed and communications lapsed. The probability is that even with a program 80 percent as efficient as the present one, severe regression would occur, with attendant loss of life and wealth. The present empire is extremely finely balanced, and any uncorrected imbalance proceeds inevitably to disaster. It could reasonably be termed a dark age, from which there would be no certainty of human emergence.”

“Of human emergence? Are you referring to the possibility of alien ascendancy?”

“This is theoretically plausible. Though we have not yet encountered many non-human sapiences in this galaxy, there is ample evidence of their existence as empires in the past. Several maintained civilizations of galactic scope which abruptly collapsed, to be replaced in due course by others. That seems to be the standard pattern. We are now at the peak of such a cycle, and face similar destruction—unless we act immediately to secure our position. While there appears to be no present alien threat, it would be possible for one of the lesser alien cultures to assume dominance in lieu of man by taking over human artifacts in the face of human disorganization.”

While CC spoke, Knot continued his tapping.
bit – pause – bit – pause...
with that slight shift of emphasis. “Or, more simply,” Knot said, “we could fall on our human face and give the empire away to aliens.”

“Precisely. And that fall will occur, unless—”

The sequence ended. The Mombot-image stood frozen a moment. Then: “The command sequence has been administered,” CC announced. “This is now the override terminal, until such time as this status is revoked or another terminal is promoted. What is the directive?”

Had it really worked? Knot still distrusted this. Finesse had been offered to him as bait; he had snapped her up, and soon regretted it. Now CC itself was the bait...

Knot decided to test it with a demand that could be laughed off as humor if it failed. “I, Knot 710225430613, am now declared to be the emperor of the galaxy, above the Galactic Concord and the prior program of the Coordination Computer. All directives of mine are to be executed without question or hesitation. Acknowledge.”

“Knot!” Finesse protested, aghast.

“Acknowledged, Emperor Knot,” CC said.

Did machines really play such games? Surely they did, when they had reason—and CC had reason to humor Knot. Yet the rationale made sense: there always had to be an absolute guard against self-will by the machine, and complete, unquestioning subservience to human authority was such a guard. To
authorized
human authority, as determined by a special recognition code. Yet again, how could he be sure he had been given the legitimate code? More testing was needed.

“I thirst; bring me a flagon of milk of paradise.” In modern times, this was the mildly intoxicating, thoroughly satisfying brew concocted from the vines growing only on the Planet of Paradise, fabulously expensive. Knot had never tasted it, and knew that even wealthy persons took it in tiny vials, one sip at a time. His demand for a full flagon was ridiculous.