He thought of the Academy. The cold gray mountains and ranks of uniforms marching mechanically across the frozen parade ground. The starkly functional classrooms, the remorsely efficient architecture devoid of all individual expression.
And then he turned back, looked past the woman across the table from him, and saw the sky once again.
«I can’t go with you,» he said quietly, finally. «Somebody’s got to make sure you don’t get bombed while you’re out there demonstrating for your rights.»
For a moment Diane said nothing. Then, «You’re trying to make a joke out of something that’s deadly serious.»
«I’m being serious,» he said. «You’ll have plenty of demonstrators out there. Somebody’s got to protect and defend you while you’re exercising your freedoms.»
«It’s our own government we need protection from!»
«You’ve got it. You just have to exercise it a little better. I’d rather be flying. There aren’t so many of us up there.»
Diane shook her head. «You’re hopeless.»
He shrugged.
«I was going to offer to let you stay here… if you wanted to quit the Air Force.»
«Resign?»
«If you needed a place to hide… or you just wanted to stay here, with me.»
He started to answer, but his mouth was dry. He swallowed, then in a voice that almost cracked, «I can’t. I… I’m sorry, Diane, but I just can’t.» He pushed his chair back and got to his feet.
At the door, he turned back toward her. She was at the table still. «Sorry I disappointed you. And, well, thanks… for everything.»
She got up, walked swiftly across the tiny room to him, and kissed him lightly on the lips.
«It was my pleasure, General.»
«Lieutenant,» he quickly corrected. «I’ll be a lieutenant when I graduate.»
«You’ll be a general someday.»
«I don’t think so.»
«You could have been a hero today,» she said.
«I’m not very heroic.»
«Yes you are.» She was smiling at him now. «You just don’t know it yet.»
That afternoon, forty thousand feet over the Sacramento Valley, feeling clean and free and swift, Kinsman wondered briefly if he had made the right choice.
«Sir?» he asked into his helmet microphone. «Do you really think astronaut training turns men into robots?»
The man’s chuckle told him the answer. «Son, any kind of training is aimed at turning you into a robot. Just don’t let ’em get away with it. The main thing is to get up and fly. Up here they can’t really touch us. Up here we’re free.»
«They’re pretty strict over at the Academy,» Kinsman said. «They like things done their way.»
«Tell me about it. I’m an Annapolis man, myself. You can still hold onto your own soul, boy. You have to do things their way on the outside, but you be your own man inside. Isn’t easy, but it can be done.»
Nodding to himself, Kinsman looked up and through the plane’s clear plastic canopy. He caught sight of a pale ghost of the Moon, riding high in the afternoon sky.
I can do it, he said to himself. I can do it.
THE NEXT LOGICAL STEP
Since the 1950s computer experts have been producing ever-more sophisticated models of the world’s economic, ecological and geopolitical systems to help Washington’s decision-makers to forecast what the world will be like over the next few decades. Of course, there are many problems with such computer world models. «The Next Logical Step,» which was written more than fifty years ago, examines one such problem—and its solution.
«I don’t really see where this problem has anything to do with me,» the CIA man said. «And, frankly, there are a lot of more important things I could be doing.»
Ford, the physicist, glanced at General LeRoy. The general had that quizzical expression on his face, the look that meant he was about to do something decisive.
«Would you like to see the problem firsthand?» the general asked, innocently.
The CIA man took a quick look at his wrist watch. «Okay, if it doesn’t take too long. It’s late enough already.»
«It won’t take very long, will it, Ford?» the general said, getting out of his chair.
«Not very long,» Ford agreed. «Only a lifetime.»
The CIA man grunted as they went to the doorway and left the general’s office. Going down the dark, deserted hallway, their footsteps echoed hollowly.
«I can’t overemphasize the seriousness of the problem,» General LeRoy said to the CIA man. «Eight ranking members of the General Staff have either resigned their commissions or gone straight to the violent ward after just one session with the computer.»
The CIA man scowled. «Is this area secure?»
General LeRoy’s face turned red. «This entire building is as Secure as any edifice in the Free World, mister. And it’s empty. We’re the only living people inside here at this hour. I’m not taking any chances.»
«Just want to be sure.»
«Perhaps if I explain the computer a little more,» Ford said, changing the subject, «you’ll know what to expect.»
«Good idea,» said the man from CIA.
«We told you that this is the most modern, most complex and delicate computer in the world… nothing like it has ever been attempted before—anywhere.»
«I know that they don’t have anything like it,» the CIA man agreed.
«And you also know, I suppose, that it was built to simulate actual war situations. We fight wars in this computer… wars with missiles and bombs and gas. Real wars, complete down to the tiniest detail. The computer tells us what will actually happen to every missile, every city, every man… who dies, how many planes are lost, how many trucks will fail to start on a cold morning, whether a battle is won or lost—»
General LeRoy interrupted. «The computer runs these analyses for both sides, so we can see what’s happening to them, too.»
The CIA man gestured impatiently. «Wargames simulations aren’t new. You’ve been doing them for years.»
«Yes, but this machine is different,» Ford pointed out. «It not only gives a much more detailed war game. It’s the next logical step in the development of machine-simulated war games.» He hesitated dramatically.
«Well, what is it?»
Ford said, «We’ve added a variation of the electroencephalograph.»
The CIA man stopped walking. «The electro-what?»
«Electroencephalograph. You know, a recording device that reads the electrical patterns of your brain. Like the electrocardiograph.»
«Oh.»
«But you see, we’ve given the EEG a reverse twist. Instead of using a machine that makes a recording of the brain’s electrical wave output, we’ve developed a device that will take the computer’s readout tapes and turn them into electrical patterns that are put into your brain!»
«I don’t get it.»
General LeRoy took over. «You sit at the machine’s control console. A helmet is placed over your head. You set the machine in operation. You see the results.»
«Yes,» Ford went on. «Instead of reading rows of figures from the computer’s printer… you actually see the war being fought. Complete visual and auditory hallucinations. You can watch the progress of the battles, and as you change strategy and tactics you can see the results before your eyes.»
«The idea, originally, was to make it easier for the General Staff to visualize strategic situations,» General LeRoy said.
«But everyone who’s used the machine has either resigned his commission or gone insane,» Ford added.