‘They’ve been in the U.S. at least a month already. So Security says.’
Lynn turned automatically to look at Breckenridge, and Secretary of Security Macalaster intercepted the glance. Macalaster said, ‘The information is reliable. Don’t let Breckenridge’s apparent youth fool you, Dr Lynn. That’s part of his value to us. Actually, he’s thirty-four and has been with the department for ten years. He has been in Moscow for nearly a year and without him, none of this terrible danger would be known to us. As it is, we have most of the details.’
‘Not the crucial ones,’ said Lynn.
Macalaster of Security smiled frostily. His heavy chin and close-set eyes were well-known to the public but almost nothing else about him was. He said, ‘We are all finitely human, Dr Lynn. Agent Breckenridge has done a great deal.’
Presidential Assistant Jeffreys cut in. ‘Let us say we have a certain amount of time. If action at the instant were necessary, it would have happened before this. It seems likely that they are waiting for a specific time. If we knew the place, perhaps the time would become self-evident.
‘If they are going to TC a target, they will want to cripple us as much as possible, so it would seem that a major city would have to be it. In any case, a major metropolis is the only target worth a TC bomb. I think there are four possibilities: Washington, as the administrative center; New York, as the financial center; and Detroit and Pittsburgh as the two chief industrial centers.’
Macalaster of Security said, ‘I vote for New York. Administration and industry have both been decentralized to the point where the destruction of any one particular city won’t prevent instant retaliation.’
‘Then why New York?’ asked Amberly of Science, perhaps more sharply than he intended. ‘Finance has been decentralized as well.’
‘A question of morale. It may be they intend to destroy our will to resist, to induce surrender by the sheer horror of the first blow. The greatest destruction of human life would be in the New York Metropolitan area—’
‘Pretty cold-blooded,’ muttered Lynn.
‘I know,’ said Macalaster of Security, ‘but they’re capable of it, if they thought it would mean final victory at a stroke. Wouldn’t we—’
Presidential Assistant Jeffreys brushed back his white hair. ‘Let’s assume the worst. Let’s assume that New York will be destroyed some time during the winter, preferably immediately after a serious blizzard when communications are at their worst and the disruption of utilities and food supplies in fringe areas will be most serious in their effect. Now, how do we stop them?’
Amberley of Science could only say, ‘Finding ten men in two hundred and twenty million is an awfully small needle in an awfully large hay-stack.’
Jeffreys shook his head. ‘You have it wrong. Ten humanoids among two hundred twenty milliog humans.’
‘No difference,’ said Amberley of Science. ‘We don’t know that a humanoid can be differentiated from a human at sight. Probably not.’ He looked at Lynn. They all did.
Lynn said heavily, ‘We in Cheyenne couldn’t make one that would pass as human in the daylight.’
‘But They can,’ said Macalaster of Security, ‘and not only physically. We’re sure of that. They’ve advanced mentalic procedures to the point where They can reel off the micro-electronic pattern of the brain and focus it on the positronic pathways of the robot.’
Lynn stared. ‘Are you implying that They can create the replica of a human being complete with personality and memory?’
‘I am.’
‘Of specific human beings?’
‘That’s right.’
‘Is this also based on Agent Breckenridge’s findings?’
‘Yes. The evidence can’t be disputed.’
Lynn bent his head in thought for a moment. Then he said, ‘Then ten men in the United States are not men but humanoids. But the originals would have had to be available to them. They couldn’t be Orientals, who would be too easy to spot, so they would have to be East Europeans. How would they be introduced into this country, then? With the radar network over the entire world border as tight as a drum, how could They introduce any individual, human or humanoid, without our knowing it?’
Macalaster of Security said, ‘It can be done. There are certain legitimate seepages across the border. Businessmen, pilots, even tourists. They’re watched, of course, on both sides. Still ten of them might have been kidnaped and used as models for humanoids. The humanoids would then be sent back in their place. Since we wouldn’t expect such a substitution, it would pass us by. If they were Americans to begin with, there would be no difficulty in their getting into this country. It’s as simple as that.’
‘And even their friends and family could not tell the difference?’
‘We must assume so. Believe me, we’ve been waiting for any report that might imply sudden attacks of amnesia or troublesome changes in personality. We’ve checked on thousands.’
Amberley of Science stared at his finger tips. ‘I think ordinary measures won’t work. The attack must come from the Bureau of Robotics and I depend on the chief of that bureau.’
Again eyes turned sharply, expectantly, on Lynn.
Lynn felt bitterness rise. It seemed to him that this was what the conference came to and was intended for. Nothing that had been said had not been said before. He was sure of that. There was no solution to the problem, no pregnant suggestion. It was a device for the record, a device on the part of men who gravely feared defeat and who wished the responsibility for it placed clearly and unequivocally on someone else.
And yet there was justice in it. It was in robotics that We had fallen short. And Lynn was not Lynn merely. He was Lynn of Robotics and the responsibility had to be his.
He said, ‘I will do what I can.’
He spent a wakeful night and there was a haggardness about both body and soul when he sought and attained another interview with Presidential Assistant Jeffreys the next morning. Breckenridge was there, and though Lynn would have preferred a private conference, he could see the justice in the situation. It was obvious that Breckenridge had attained enormous influence with the government as a result of his successful Intelligence work. Well, why not?
Lynn said, ‘Sir, I am considering the possibility that we are hopping uselessly to enemy piping.’
‘In what way?’
‘I’m sure that however impatient the public may grow at times, and however legislators sometimes find it expedient to talk, the government at least recognizes the world stalemate to be beneficial. They must recognize it also. Ten humanoids with one TC bomb is a trivial way of breaking the stalemate.’
‘The destruction of fifteen million human beings is scarcely trivial.’
‘It is from the world power standpoint. It would not so demoralize us as to make us surrender or so cripple us as to convince us we could not win. There would just be the same old planetary death war that both sides have avoided so long and so successfully. And all They would have accomplished is to force us to fight minus one city. It’s not enough.’
‘What do you suggest?’ said Jeffreys coldly. ‘That They do not have ten humanoids in our country? That there is not a TC bomb waiting to get together?’
‘I’ll agree that those things are here, but perhaps for some reason greater than just midwinter bomb madness.’
