‘Such as?’
‘It may be that the physical destruction resulting from the humanoids getting together is not the worst thing that can happen to us. What about the moral and intellectual destruction that comes of their being here at all? With all due respect to Agent Breckenridge, what if They intended for us to find out about the humanoids; what if the humanoids are never supposed to get together, but merely to remain separate in order to give us something to worry about.’
‘Why?’
‘Tell me this. What measures have already been taken against the humanoids? I suppose that Security is going through the files of all citizens who have ever been across the border or close enough to it to make kidnaping possible. I know, since Macalaster mentioned it yesterday, that they are following up suspicious psychiatric cases. What else?’
Jeffreys said, ‘Small X-ray devices are being installed in key places in the large cities. In the mass arenas, for instance—’
‘Where ten humanoids might slip in among a hundred thousand spectators of a football game or an air-polo match?’
‘Exactly.’
‘And concert halls and churches?’
‘We must start somewhere. We can’t do it all at once.’
‘Particularly when panic must be avoided,’ said Lynn. ‘Isn’t that so? It wouldn’t do to have the public realize that at any unpredictable moment, some unpredictable city and its human contents would suddenly cease to exist.’
‘I suppose that’s obvious. What are you driving at?’
Lynn said strenuously, ‘That a growing fraction of our national effort will be diverted entirely into the nasty problem of what Amberley called finding a very small needle in a very large haystack. We’ll be c asing our tails madly, while They increase their research lead to the pomt where we find we can no longer catch up; when we must surrender without the chance even of snapping our fingers in retaliation.
‘Consider further that this news will leak out as more and more people become involved in our countermeasures and more and more people begin to guess what we’re doing. Then what? The panic might do us more harm than any one TC bomb.’
The Presidential Assistant said irritably, ‘In Heaven’s name, man, what do you suggest we do, then?’
‘Nothing,’ said Lynn. ‘Call their bluff. Live as we have lived and gamble that They won’t dare break the stalemate for the sake of a one-bomb head start.’
‘Impossible!’ said Jeffreys. ‘Completely impossible. The welfare of all of Us is very largely in my hands, and doing nothing is the one thing I cannot do. I agree with you, perhaps, that X-ray machines at sports arenas are a kind of skin-deep measure that won’t be effective, but it has to be done so that people, in the aftermath, do not come to the bit er conclusion that we tossed our country away for the sake of a subtle lme of reasoning that encouraged donothingism. In fact, our countergambit will be active indeed.’
‘In what way?’
Presidential Assistant Jeffreys looked at Breckenridge. The young Security officer, hitherto calmly silent, said, ‘It’s no use talkin about a possible future break in the stalemate when the stalemate 1s broken now. It doesn’t matter whether these humanoids explode or do not. Maybe they are only a bait to divert us, as you say. But the fact remains that we are a quarter of a century behind in robotics, and that may be fatal. What other advances in robotics will there be to surprise us if war does start? The only answer is to divert our entire force immediately, now, into a crash program of robotics research, and the first problem is to find the humanoids. Call it an exercise in robotics, if you will, or call it the prevention of the death of fifteen million men, women and children.’
Lynn shook his head helplessly. ‘You can’t. You’d be playing into their hands. They want us lured into the one blind alley while they’re free to advance in all other directions.’
Jeffreys said impatiently, ‘That’s your guess. Breckenridge has made his suggestion through channels and the government has approved, and we will begin with an all-Science conference.’
‘All-Science?’
Breckenridge said, ‘We have listed every important scientist of every branch of natural science. They’ll all be at Cheyenne. There will be only one point on the agenda: How to advance robotics. The major specific subheading under that will be: How to develop a receiving device for the electromagnetic fields of the cerebral cortex that will be sufficiently delicate to distinguish between a protoplasmic human brain and a positronic humanoid brain.’
Jeffreys said, ‘We had hoped you would be willing to be in charge of the conference.’
‘I was not consulted in this.’
‘Obviously time was short, sir. Do you agree to be in charge?’
Lynn smiled briefly. It was a matter of responsibility again. The responsibility must be clearly that of Lynn of Robotics. He had the feeling it would be Breckenridge who would really be in charge. But what could he do?
He said, ‘I agree.’
Breckenridge and Lynn returned together to Cheyenne, where that evening Laszlo listened with a sullen mistrust to Lynn’s description of coming events.
Laszlo said, ‘While you were gone, Chief, I’ve started putting five experimental models of humanoid structure through the testing procedures. Our men are on a twelve-hour day, with three shifts overlapping. If we’ve got to arrange a conference, we’re going to be crowded and red-taped out of everything. Work will come to a halt.’
Breckenridge said, ‘That will be only temporary. You will gain more than you lose.’
Laszlo scowled. ‘A bunch of astrophysicists and geochemists around won’t help a damn toward robotics.’
‘Views from specialists of other fields may be helpful.’
‘Are you sure? How do we know that there is any way of detecting brain waves or that, even if we can, there is a way of differentiating human and humanoid by wave pattern? Who set up the project, anyway?’
‘I did,’ said Breckenridge.
‘You did? Are you a robotics man?’
The young Security agent said calmly, ‘I have studied robotics.’
‘That’s not the same thing.’
‘I’ve had access to text material dealing with Russian robotics – in Russian. Top-secret material well in advance of anything you have here.’
Lynn said ruefully, ‘He has us there, Laszlo.’
‘It was on the basis of that material,’ Breckenridge went on, ‘that I suggested this particular line of investigation. It is reasonably certain that in copying off the electromagnetic pattern of a specific human mind into a specific positronic brain, a perfectly exact duplicate cannot be made. For one thing, the most complicated positronic brain small enough to fit into a human-sized skull is hundreds of times less complex than the human brain. It can’t pick up all the overtones, therefore, and there must be some way to take advantage of that fact.’
