The God Machine Page 4

  Both the United States and the USSR had embraced a future inevitably of a cybernetics society, and yet the two nations held a striking dissimilarity of viewpoint in developing that electronics-based culture. The Russians had the greatest number of pure mathematicians anywhere in the world. In cybernetics theory they took a back seat to no one. But in the day-to-day use of computing systems a vastly advanced American technology had left the Soviets far behind. Americans never seem to realize the spectacular system of power distribution that characterizes our country. Nothing like it exists anywhere in the world. The nationwide conformity of power and technological application forms the heartbeat of our national being. We're capable of assimilating within our technological society almost any new development of the physical sciences.

  "The Soviets at this time," Smythe explained, "are still too unwieldy to match what we perform as a matter of course. They're desperate to alleviate their shortcomings. They're hurling themselves, literally, into a new era of utilizing to the maximum their new computers. This is what is so important to understand—their potential is frightening. They're coming up from behind, and their speed of development is defying all our predictions. They are absolutely determined to create the first cybernetics society in history."

  The hard-core theme of Soviet cybernetics is best summed up by Lev Gatovsky, who explains the new Russian society as "moving ahead on a wide front, from single enterprises to the national economy as a whole, mechanizing and automating existing facilities, and at the same time preparing for a gradual changeover to a new, automated system of information. It means partial application of 'machine mathematics' in an enterprise while the future automated system of management on the basis of cybernetics is being devised. . . . Ever more efficient mathematical models of the national economy can and must be created."

  Hardly a stirring call to arms. But I could recognize Gatovsky's words for what they were. A blueprint for tomorrow's sociological-technological society. The electronic Big Brother. Gatovsky knows where his country is headed on its plunge into tomorrow. He knows that machines aren't enough, that the motivation and control of human beings is everything. And the Soviets aren't ignoring that. They are aware, again in the words of Gatovsky, that "mathematics and cybernetics will heighten the significance of creative economic work both centrally and locally. No centralized system of optimal planning can dispense with material incentives. The application of mathematics is one of the means through which people can be motivated to exert their best efforts."

  Neat. All human beings can be reduced to ciphers. . . .

  And they begin with children. When the new breed of Russian scientists created the great "Science City" at Novosibirsk they were aware that a supply of embryonic genius couldn't be sustained on a happenstance basis. Uncommon mathematical potential was the new Holy Grail, and the Soviet search for this commodity is carried out with systematic tenacity. It's in the form of what might best be described as a Mathematical Olympics—an annual competition of talented Russian youngsters brought to Moscow and other examination sites. Nothing is spared in the effort to recognize budding genius. The incentives are real; special schooling, privileged status for living and recreational quarters and, the greatest of all rewards—a career in cybernetics and a position of the exalted in the forthcoming society.

  The girl with whom I made love, with whom, I admitted to myself, I had thought seriously of marriage, was one of these brilliant youngsters. Tamara Severny was to become a high priestess of the new religion of cybernetics in the near-future Soviet.

  I held the slim document with the single red star printed on its surface. And the one line that read Bio-Cybernetics—USSR

  It was all there. A blueprint of the future stripped to its cold and analytical essentials. When I read through those pages, the first thing that came to mind was a quote repeated often among cyberneticists:

  "If the social sciences had been developed with the same energy and support that established the nuclear sciences, we would have the most devastating weapon the world has ever known."

  In the bio-cybernetics program of the Soviet Union lay the budding seeds of that weapon.

  The true value of the advanced digital computer, especially where the intention is to establish freedom of logical pursuit, is one of seizing upon the most priceless of all commodities known to man.

  Time.

  The advanced cybernetics system is a time machine. It permits more than the solution of mathematical problems. What it really does is to reduce a hundred years of intensive work by thousands of mathematicians to a period of hours or days. It not only speeds up the rate of computation; it also eliminates dangerous blind alleys. The blind alleys are still there but you're no longer required to spend lifetimes running along those fruitless corridors.

  Cybernetics is an extension of man's own intellectual capacity and capability in the time sense.

  Despite the dazzling promise of the future, there remain severe obstacles and pitfalls. Ever since the first days of their new science, cyberneticists have been aware that communications between man and machine have crippled cybernetics progress.

  My thesis at MIT dwelt heavily on this problem—communications directly between the brain of a man and the intellectual-electronic stew that makes up the thinking mass of the computer.

  Scientists at the Cambridge Research Laboratories had worked for years in brainwave communications experiments. Dr. Edmond M. Dewan trained skilled volunteers to alter the pattern of the alpha-wave rhythm of the brain, the low-frequency wave related to visual perception. Being able to turn on or off, at will, the alpha rhythm meant an interruption of an electrical source from the brain. By amplifying brainwave signals it was possible for these "alpha adepts" to conduct a crude binary digit system of communications.

  Other efforts were directed toward breaking down the electrical pattern of thought processes so that a computer might recognize familiar patterns of mental activity as related to their electrical signatures.

  Such programs constituted an intricate blending of life sciences and bio-cybernetics. Optimists insisted we were on the edge of a breakthrough.

  But nothing we were doing approached the intensity of the Soviet effort. The discovery of Roza Kuleshova, a woman with the extraordinary talent for detecting colors through her fingertips, rattled every scientific window in the USSR. It was a scientific study that unveiled Kuleshova. The body of Russian scientists scorned psychic phenomena, and they hammered out a plausible explanation of the unprecedented talent. Apparently this woman, who worked with and for the blind, had developed light-sensitive receptors— organs of vision— within her fingertips. Probing gently, sliding those supersensitive fingertips along printed paper, she was able to distinguish colors as physical lines of varying thickness, shape, curvature, and other, to her, identifiable characteristics.

  Roza Kuleshova was not, of course, the only exciting news in the cybernetics circles of the Soviet Union. She was but the first of which we in the United States had heard. The papers I read listed, one after the other, extraordinary new research efforts, many of which were already producing sobering results.

  I balked when I came to a section of Russian experiments with the potential of thought transference between human subjects. I went barging into Tom Smythe's office, waving the offending document before me. Smythe raised his brows at my stormy approach, almost as if he were anticipating my reaction.

  "Christ, this is overdoing it, isn't it?" I protested, turning to the report of thought-transference experiments.

  Smythe leaned back in his seat and made a careless gesture. "Why should it be?" he said coolly.

  "We're doing the same thing over here."

  My startled glance spoke more effectively than words. If Tom Smythe were that certain . . .

  ". . . notes of Dr. Eugene Konecci," Tom was saying as I rallied to collect my thoughts. "He was the director of biotechnology and human research for the Space Agency at the time when we—or at least NASA—f
irst began looking into the possibilities of thought transference between a man on the earth's surface and another man orbiting the planet in a spacecraft."

  "You've got to be pulling my leg," I protested.

  "Not at all," Smythe said, unruffled at my protests. "In fact, Konecci lifted the lid on what both we and the Russians were doing in his field—space flight, that is. Back in, umm, yes, 1963, Konecci spoke before the International Astronautical Federation." He turned to a filing cabinet behind his desk, ruffled through a drawer, and extracted a slim binder. Quickly he turned to the page he sought. "Here it is," he mumbled as he searched the page. "His statement. Umm. 'Concerted effort directed toward a highly interesting problem in modern science— nature and essence of certain phenomena of electromagnetic communication between living organisms—is reportedly being pursued with top priority under the Soviet manned space program. Until recently, these phenomena have been generally ignored by Western scientists; however, the many hypotheses involved are now receiving increased attention. . . .' "

  Several minutes later we sat in silence while I tried to digest what I had heard. According to Smythe, even the Department of Defense, since way back in 1948, had been searching for telepathic adepts! The reason? National security. In the search for effective communications at a time when nuclear explosions high above the earth could blanket out electromagnetic propagation and thereby render useless radio and similar communications, the government wasn't leaving any possible source unexamined. Including, I thought wearily, what was supposed to be strictly the domain of psychic phenomena.

  Tom gestured at the bio-cybernetics report I had tossed onto his desk. "It's not yet contained in that report," he began, "but have you ever heard of a Russian with the name of Rudi Schneider?"

  I shook my head.

  "You may accept that whatever I say about this fellow Schneider is true. We've verified the reports we first received."

  I looked with surprise at Smythe. Preambles of this sort just weren't characteristic of him. I held my silence and tried to be patient. Smythe frowned as if he were struggling to believe what he professed to me to be authentic.

  "Rudi Schneider is a telekinetic."

  I was too surprised even to gape. I simply stared at Smythe. And I didn't believe him. He saw that, and smiled.

  "It's true," he said. He paused and took a deep breath. "The Soviets have their hands on a real bona-fide, authenticated adept who can move physical objects without, on his own part, making any physical movement or contact with the object. A tele-kinetic," he repeated for final emphasis.

  "But that's impossible!" I whispered.

  Smythe made a sour face at me. "We are all not insane in this department, Steve," he said dryly.

  "But—"

  "This Schneider apparently isn't the only one," he continued. "They've got more adepts. With differing levels of talent, so to speak. Rudi Schneider, or any of the others, we gather, isn't the brightest boy on the block. We know more about Schneider than the others. He couldn't care less about the whole thing. And it's not something he can turn on and off at will. The Russian scientists are near distraction trying to establish a correlation between Schneider's neural activity and those moments when he can perform in the telekinetic manner. They haven't been too successful," he repeated, as if his last words were a feeble prayer that success would continue to elude them.

  My sleep that night could best be described as troubled. My head swam with the mass of reports I was still struggling to digest. The bio-cybernetics study, an electromagnetically based program of thought transference, this thing with a halfwit who had turned out to be a telekinetic ... It was all too much for me to take in such a single huge dose. One spark of relief rallied to my aid. I found myself, surprisingly, swiftly free of the troubled thoughts with which I had first greeted the news of Tamara leaving within the next few months for Russia. I failed to understand how what should have been an emotional blow to me could slip so easily from my shoulders. To the devil with it. There was enough to keep my head in a spin without lovelorn nonsense. . . .

  The thought kept pounding through my skull that everything I read or had discussed with Tom Smythe could be linked only to new cybernetics systems.

  I lay there through the night, trying to fit together the many pieces. Certain elements were cut and dried. Even if the pattern didn't make itself immediately obvious.

  If the Russians had this much going for them—and Smythe had made it abundantly clear that this was so—then, inevitably, we must have something of a counterpoint. Perhaps we didn't have adepts who could discern colors through their fingertips or who could push steel balls along a table by thinking about it. ... I didn't know; and I realized quickly that where I was concerned, at least for the moment, it didn't matter.

  During the several days I remained in Washington, Tom took me through Whirlwind—the single greatest cybernetics complex ever produced. Whirlwind was the fiercely guarded possession of the National Security Agency at Fort Meade, Maryland. The computer was so advanced in concept and so huge in size that it required the best talent of both RCA and IBM to make it a reality. Whirlwind was also the first computer that could "search out" solutions demanding more than multiples of two plus two plus two, ad infinitum. If presented with a problem that had several possible solutions, Whirlwind didn't throw an electronic fit and sulk. Faced with an apparent dilemma, it retraced its steps and carried out a process-of-elimination search for the best possible answer. It punched out these answers with varying degrees of possibilities. In a sense, Whirlwind could be left to its own devices to track down elusive answers. The Russians had nothing like it.

  But what had Smythe said about Whirlwind? Despite its demonstrated superiority to every other cybernetics system in existence, it was a dead end.

  Well, you don't quit when you reach a dead end. You build anew and you simply climb right over what you couldn't do before. ...

  That brought my eyes wide open.

  Of course! To the blazes with the scraps and bits and pieces of Soviet cybernetics! What had we been doing all this time?

  I thought about how far—hidden from the public gaze—we might have gone by now.

  Some things don't require visible evidence to become obvious. I wondered about the greatest cybernetics complex ever known that must be, at the time, still in the making. I didn't know, as a matter of actual fact, that this was so. But I would have wagered ten years of my life that I was on the right track.

  And there was one final thought before exhaustion finally dragged me down into a fitful sleep.

  Where did I fit into all this?

  6

  SECRET

  From: Harkness, M. E.; Interoffice Code 2164Q To: Computer Sciences Panel; Presidential Science Advisory Board

  Reference: Special Report 8, Project Pied Piper Response: Pied Piper SP 8; CQ2164Q

  1: Preliminary phasing, Steven Rand, HS-A193, has been completed. Non-knowledgeable covert phasing is considered successful in entirety, with preliminary expectations established at program outset exceeded.

  2: Rand is adjudged prepared for and capable of progression into active participation within Project 79.

  3: The psychological reaction generated by exposure to advanced bio-cybernetics programs of the USSR is precisely that extrapolated for this preparations phase. Rand has been restrained within the intellectual-scholastic-mathematical environment that, essentially, precluded serious consideration of paranormal phenomena. It remains questionable whether Rand has transitioned to a full acceptance of paranormal phenomena with the Soviet test subjects; this is unimportant against the desired objective of Rand now being required at least to consider the validity of paranormal activities. It is considered sufficient that plausibility is implanted as a possible causative factor in future activities.

  4: The necessity for providing a counterbalance to the predominantly mathematical intellectual framework of Rand is considered accomplished. Exposure to the viewpoint of the Soviet with
the conflict of societies, essential to our intentions, has been carried out essentially as planned. The progress of Rand as an emergent individual within the mathematical/cybernetics sciences exceeds all expectations.

  5: To elaborate: Rand is now programmed psychologically into a framework of cybernetics intellectualism. In essence, he sustains an intellectual rapport with the cybernetics system. Psychologically he accepts an intrinsic superiority on his own part toward developing a still undefined cybernetics system that will meet his still idealistic concepts. As a research/programmer of electronic/bionics cybernetics systems, Rand, rather than enduring latent fears of the potentially uncontrolled capabilities of advanced cybernetics, is eager to accentuate such development and to fulfill the goal of Project 79 for the self-motivated, logic-functioning cybernetics complex.

  6: It is considered essential that Rand be brought immediately into active project participation.

  Lessening the requirements sustained by this subject could instigate an effect undesired in terms of project priorities. It is considered essential, as well, that Rand be brought with all possible speed consistent with psychological restraints to the position as Chief Programmer, Project 79.

  7: Because of the limited emotional/sexual experience of Rand, contained largely within his relationship with Tamara Severny (which is to be concluded at the appropriate time), it is recommended that preliminary plans for direction in this area be instituted. Bionics adaptability to Project 79 is now in a Category 3 of implementation, and it would be appropriate that bionics indoctrination be carried out through the Bionics Laboratory, Project 79. To the maximum extent permissible, this should be concluded through the person of FS-C8992, Kim Renee Michelle.

  8: This step in the programming of Rand is recommended to be carried through with minimum delay. It is further recommended that ...