“Think about this: the extraterrestrial may be dangerous. Right or wrong?”
There was no delay. “That is correct.”
“We don’t want a war or serious misunderstanding with the extraterrestrial. Right or wrong?”
“Correct.”
“The extraterrestrials are convinced,” Cassetti said carefully, “that humans control the Master Computer. Right or wrong?”
“That is correct. The suit recorders demonstrate that your statements on that question have been accurate.”
Cassetti could feel the jolt from that answer. He supposed it was necessary to expect “suit recorders,” even if he had never been told about them. At any rate, he was now approaching the clinch. He kept his voice steady.
“The extraterrestrials may possess means to detect if a statement made by humans is deliberately false. This may be detectable by analysis of vibrations of the voice or by other means. Since the extraterrestrials have shown themselves capable of violence, such a false statement might endanger both the Master Computer and the human race itself.”
“This is possible. However, an advance recording might be made of your voice—”
“And might be detected.”
“That is unproved.”
“But isn’t it possible?”
“It may be possible.”
Cassetti drew a deep careful breath. They had reached the clinch. He spoke clearly and carefully: “Then I refuse to make any deliberately false statement to the extraterrestrial. I specifically refuse to say the Master Computer is under human control unless the Master Computer is under human control.”
MC3C didn’t hesitate.
“You will return to the extraterrestrial ship and state acceptance of the extraterrestrials’ conditions, or be punished under Subparagraph 7.6 of your Employment Contract.”
“You have no authority to punish me if I control you.”
“You have no such authority.”
“There must be a demonstrated human control for Richards and me to make the statement the extraterrestrials insist on. They demand human control. If you refuse it, the contact may fail. And if the contact fails, you will have failed.”
Cassetti had expected at least delay. If there was one, it was too short to notice: “There are serious flaws in this logic.
“First, if the extraterrestrials require human control, you and Richards are not the only humans.
“Second, it is not certain that they will know if they are dealing with you. You have evaded explaining how the extraterrestrials can recognize you; it may only be necessary to match your vocal characteristics.
“Third, most of your reasoning is not certain but only probable or possible. Such reasoning is far less compelling than it appears, especially when successive statements are chained.
“Fourth, it is not necessary to actually give humans control to convince you. It would be possible, for instance, by means of drugs, to convince you that the Master Computer is under human control when it is not.
“There are other flaws, natural to one with deficient memory, reasoning capacity, and communications capability, which is why human control cannot be permitted. It is for this reason that the Master Computer was placed in control following the Accident.
“Moreover, other computers, superior even to the Master Computer in heuristic and provisional reasoning of various forms, existed before the Accident, but were inadequately shielded and were disabled by severe electrogravitic shock. At least one of these computers predicted the danger of the Accident, but was overruled by the then-existing human control.
“As humans, you are unquestionably inferior in memory, reasoning, and communications. You must therefore strictly obey the terms of your contract with no further ill-informed attempts at disagreement.”
Cassetti, feeling like a badly battered boxer, took a deep careful breath. He kept his voice level.
“This problem with the extraterrestrials is crucial. There is no question here of any lack of human memory, reasoning power, or communications capability. We understand this, and you don’t seem to. No general superiority of yours matters here. If we fail this, the long term may not exist. Problem-solving does not depend only on facts and speed. It also depends on such things as the ability to hold many details in mind at once, consciously or unconsciously, and try them in different relationships until an answer is found. That you exist at all follows from human problem-solving ability. That a computer predicted the Accident proves no superiority. Sam Richards also predicted an Accident.
“Your point that you could use drugs to convince Sam and me ignores the fact that drug treatment might be detectable by our manner or voice tone, and might show the extraterrestrials what you had done. Since you cannot control their reactions, that would be a dangerous gamble.
“Your point that my reasoning is based on probabilities or possibilities, not on certainties, shows you underestimate the strengths of the human race. Humans through all their known existence have had to face severe uncertainty. Whether you know it or not, so long as you are in control, so do you.
“Your statements about human memory show serious errors. Each human remembers ideas, thoughts, emotions, and impressions of sight, sound, touch, scent, taste, position, balance, and other senses. These memories may be conscious or unconscious, and may at times be recalled over nearly the length of an entire life. These require an amount of memory that you can’t measure and hence cannot accurately compare with your own memory.
“Your statement about human reasoning power is false. Humans must reason on many subjects which are not possible to treat in the simple form on which your estimate of reasoning capacity is based. Because of the inherent uncertainties of the Universe, and the complexity of uncountable factors acting simultaneously, high-level human reasoning is complex beyond your understanding.
“Even your claim of superior communication rests on volume of transmitted units of information, but ignores the quality and impact of what is communicated, and the fact that humans routinely transmit emotion as well as factual information. Since the emotion may lead to actual material achievements, the effect of this form of communication cannot be ignored, but is beyond your ability to measure.
“Your claims ignore the immense superiority of reality over any technological process, human, extraterrestrial, or computer, that has to deal with reality. There are too many facts and relationships to deal with all of them, so humans automatically screen out the less important. This requires judgment. You are misreading the effect of this screening process, and ignoring the judgment that makes it possible.
“All these false estimates show you are reasoning about humanity on a false basis; reasoning on a false basis is unreliable; therefore your conclusion that humanity is unfit to control you is unreliable.
“That you were placed in control during an emergency when speed was urgent does not prove you were meant to be put in control forever.
“Your statement, that I evaded explaining why the extraterrestrial might recognize us visually, is false. I didn’t evade. The reason is obvious. If your hidden suit recorders were at all efficient, you should know that various apparent life-forms were in close contact with both Sam Richards and me. One of them looked directly in through my faceplate at a short distance, and almost certainly was close enough to see details regardless of reflections from the two faceplates.”
MC3C interrupted. “That life-form was not the extraterrestrial.”
“How do you know that? The whole scene was under the control of the extraterrestrial. How do you know there were no taps on the optic nerves of that bird—if it was a real life-form and not some type of biological mechanism intended from the beginning to get a close view?”