Stand on Zanzibar (48 page)

“They couldn’t,” Dr. Corning said with authority.

There was a pause. At length GT said, looking down at her hands to avoid meeting Norman’s eyes, “I owe you an apology, Norman. I immediately jumped to the conclusion that we’d hit a case of conventional industrial espionage. It’s a strange thing for me to admit, but—well, I guess I just am not used to handling projects of this colossal size. At least I can offer by way of excuse the fact that Raphael didn’t correct me on behalf of State, which
is
used to such mammoth undertakings.”

“State,” Corning said with grim humour, “is also used to highly effective and systematic spying.”

Hamilcar Waterford had been brooding to himself in silence. He said now, “If what Norman says is correct—and especially as regards the ability of big European corporations to penetrate the security of information processed at Fontainebleau, I’m inclined to think he’s on to something—then what can we do to minimise the impact of it? My impression is there’s nothing we can do except accelerate the project to the greatest possible degree.”

Corning nodded. “While Common Europe, Russia and Australia can probably be discounted, the Chinese might just consider it worthwhile to starve their people for another generation in order to buy the Beninian bridgehead. They’ve had notoriously poor luck on the continent lately, but they’re indefatigable in trying.”

“I’d suggest,” Norman said, savouring his ascendancy, “we ask Shalmaneser for the optimum plan out of those so far examined, and take that to Port Mey at once. Meantime, while negotiations are continuing, we can ask him to assess the likelihood of the competition getting to know the details. The Fontainebleau set-up is pretty good, but Shalmaneser is still ahead of any other computer in the world, which is a further ace we have in the hole.”

“That sounds sensible,” GT approved. “Will you find out from Elihu whether he can make the trip on short notice, Norman?”

“He can, I can say that straight off,” Norman declared. “Ever since President Obomi made that public announcement about his failing health, Elihu has been on emergency standby.”

GT slapped the desk. “Settled, then. Thank you, gentlemen, and once again my apologies for blasting off into an unjustified orbit.”

In the elevator car which they shared going down, Corning said to Norman, “GT’s not the only one who owes you an apology, by the way. When Elihu said you were the right man to hold the reins on the Beninia project, we checked what we had on you and our computers said he was probably wrong. I was in two minds about you for that reason. But today you’ve demonstrated you have a sense of proper proportion, and that’s a rare talent nowadays. Just goes to show, doesn’t it? There’s no substitute for real-life experience even in the age of Shalmaneser.”

“Of course not,” Foster-Stern muttered grumpily from the other side of the car. “Computers like Shalmaneser don’t deal in realities. Something like ninety-five per cent of what goes through that frozen brain of his is hypothetical.”

The car stopped and the doors opened for Norman’s floor. Corning reached past him and held them to prevent the automatic controls cycling. He said, “You play chess, either of you?”

“No, go is my game,” Norman said, and thought of the infinite pains he had taken to master it as the pastime to match his abandoned executive image.

“I like the L game myself,” Corning said, in a standard one-up ploy. “But the same applies in all of them. I mention chess simply because I ran across the phrase in a chess handbook. The author said that some of the finest melodies of chess are those which never actually get played, because the opponent sees them coming, of course. And he called one entire chapter ‘Unheard Melodies’, showing combinations that would have been masterly had the other player done what was expected of him.”

He gave a faint smile. “I suspect that GT is frustrated at the non-co-operation of our opponents.”

“Or else maybe lives ninety-five per cent of her life in imagination, like Shalmaneser,” Norman said lightly. “It sounds to me like an easy recipe for bumbling through life. One can hardly accuse GT of that, though—
si monumentum requiris
, and all that dreck.” He gestured at the magnificence of the GT tower surrounding them. The Latin tag, of course, also belonged to the period when he had been erecting his carefully designed image.

Somewhat to his surprise, he discovered that Foster-Stern was gazing at him in open-mouthed wonder.

“Is something wrong?” he demanded.

“What? Oh—no!” Foster-Stern recovered and gave a dazed headshake. “No, you’ve just given me an idea. And what’s more, one that none of our psychologists has ever brought to my notice, which is saying something. The stacks of half-baked theory they keep routing to my office—!”

Puzzled, Norman waited. Foster-Stern was hardly an expert in computer theory, or he would have been too busy in his own speciality to accept the appointment he held on the GT board, but since Projects and Planning Dept relied entirely on computers he could scarcely be ignorant about the subject, either.

“Look!” Foster-Stern continued. “You know we’ve been trying to get Shal to live up to what theory promises for a computer of his complexity and behave like a conscious entity?”

“Of course.”

“And—well, he hasn’t. Detecting whether he had would be a subtle problem but the psychologists say they could spot a personal preference, for instance, a bias not warranted by facts programmed in but by a sort of prejudice.”

“If that happened, wouldn’t Shalmaneser become useless?” Corning objected.

“Oh, not at all—the element of self-interest is absent from most of the problems he’s given. It would have to appear in some programme which directly affected his own future, putting it very roughly. He’d have to say something like, ‘I don’t want you to do that because it would make me uncomfortable’—that kind of thing, catch? And I’m beginning to wonder whether the reason he hasn’t behaved the way we expected is because of what you just instanced, Norman.”

Norman shook his head.

“What intelligent
living
creature could live ninety-five per cent of his existence on the hypothetical level? Shalmaneser is all awareness, without a subconscious except in the sense that memory banks don’t preoccupy him before they’re cued to help solve a problem to which they apply. What we shall have to do is try running him for an extended period on
nothing
but real-time and real-life programmes. Maybe then we’ll get what we’re after.”

Foster-Stern sounded really excited by now. Carried away by his enthusiasm, the others had failed to notice that two more GT staffers were patiently waiting for the brass to finish with the elevator and let them take a turn.

Suddenly perceiving them, Norman said, “Well, it’s a fascinating possibility, but way off my orbit, I’m afraid. Ah—you wouldn’t think of trying it out before we’ve set up the big one, would you?”

“Oh, of course not. We might have to clear down hypothetical stuff for a month or more, and that would take about a year to arrange, what with the schedules we already have contracted. Nonetheless … The hole, we’re blocking people, aren’t we? See you later, Norman, and congratulations on what you did upstairs just now.”

Norman stepped out into the corridor, feeling a little adrift. Something had happened to him that felt as though it repaid the hard work, the loss of sleep and even the indigestion he had suffered in the past few days. But the aftermath of outfacing GT had left him no energy to work out what that something might be.

The one thing which was clear undermined the sense of elation: he was now, very definitely, going to be pitchforked into the middle of Beninia while he still regarded himself as inadequately prepared.

context (18)

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