"Why am I threatened with isolation then?"
"You have betrayed all human beings."
"How?"
"Do you deny that you seek to breed mankind into subservience to Multivac?"
"Ah!" Bakst folded his arms across his chest. "You found out quickly, but then you had only to ask Multivac."
Noreen said, "Do you deny that you asked for help in the genetic engineering of a strain of humanity designed to accept slavery under Multivac without question?"
"I suggested the breeding of a more contented humanity. Is this a betrayal?"
Eldred intervened. She said, "We don't want your sophistry, Ron. We know it by heart. Don't tell us once again that Multivac cannot be withstood, that there is no use in struggling, that we have gained security. What you call security, the rest of us call slavery."
Bakst said, "Do you proceed now to judgment, or am I allowed a defense?"
"You heard Eldred," said Noreen. "We know your defense.".
"We all heard Eldred," said Bakst, "but no one has heard me. What she says is my defense is not my defense."
There was a silence as the images glanced right and left at each other. Eldred said, "Speak!"
Bakst said, "I asked Multivac to help me solve a problem in the field of mathematical games. To gain his interest, I pointed out that it was modeled on gene combinations and that a solution might help in designing a gene combination that would leave man no worse off than he is now in any respect and yet breed into him a cheerful acceptance of Multivac's direction, and acquiescence in his decisions."
"So we have said," said Eldred.
"It was only on those terms that Multivac would have accepted the task. Such a new breed is clearly desirable for mankind by Multivac's standards, and by Multivac's standards he must labor toward it: And the desirability of the end will lure him on to examine greater and greater complications of a problem whose endlessness is beyond what even he can handle. You all witness that."
Noreen said, "Witness what?"
"Haven't you had trouble reaching me? In the last two months, hasn't each of you noticed small troubles in what has always gone smoothly?…You are silent. May I accept that as an affirmative?"
"If so what then?"
Bakst said, "Multivac has been placing all his spare circuits on the problem. He has been slowly pushing the running of the world toward rather a skimpy minimum of his efforts, since nothing, by his own sense of ethics, must stand in the way of human happiness and there can be no greater increase in that happiness than to accept Multivac."
Noreen said, "What does all this mean? There is still enough in Multivac to run the world-and us-and if this is done at less than full efficiency, that would only add temporary discomfort to our slavery. Only temporary, because it won't last long. Sooner or later, Multivac will decide the problem is insoluble, or will solve it, and in either case, his distraction will end. In the latter case, slavery will become permanent and irrevocable."
"But for now he is distracted," said Bakst, "and we can even talk like this-most dangerously-without his noticing. Yet I dare not risk doing so for long, so please understand me quickly.
"I have another mathematical game-the setting up of networks on the model of Multivac. I have been able to demonstrate that no matter how complicated and redundant the network is, there must be at least one place into which all the currents can funnel under particular circumstances. There will always be the fatal apoplectic stroke if that one place is interefered with, since it will induce overloading elsewhere which will break down and induce overloading elsewhere-and so on indefinitely till all breaks down."
"Well?"
"And this is the point. Why else have I come to Denver? And Multivac knows it, too, and this point is guarded electronically and robotically to the extent that it cannot be penetrated."
"Well?"
"But Multivac is distracted, and Multivac trusts me. I have labored hard to gain that trust, at the cost of losing all of you, since only with trust is there the possibility of betrayal. If any of you tried to approach this point, Multivac might rouse himself even out of his present distraction. If Multivac were not distracted, he would not allow even me to approach. But he is distracted, and it is I!"
Bakst was moving toward the converging grid in a calm saunter, and the fourteen images, keyed to him, moved along as well. The soft susurrations of a busy Multivac center were all about them.
Bakst said, "Why attack an invulnerable opponent? Make him vulnerable first, and then-"
Bakst fought to stay calm, but it all depended on this now. Everything! With a sharp yank, he uncoupled a joint. (If he had only had still more time to make more certain.)
He was not stopped-and as he held his breath, he became aware of the ceasing of noise, the ending of whisper, the closing down of Multivac. If, in a moment, that soft noise did not return, then he had had the right key point, and no recovery would be possible. If he were not quickly the focus of approaching robots
He turned in the continuing silence. The robots in the distance were working still. None were approaching.
Before him, the images of the fourteen men and women of the Congress were still there and each seemed to be stupefied at the sudden enormous thing that had happened.
Bakst said, "Multivac is shut down, burnt out. It can't be rebuilt." He felt almost drunk at the sound of what he was saying. "I have worked toward this since I left you. When Hines attacked, I feared there might be other such efforts, that Multivac would double his guard, that even I had to work quickly-I wasn't sure-" He was gasping, but forced himself steady, and said solemnly, "I have given us our freedom."
And he paused, aware at last of the gathering weight of the silence. Fourteen images stared at him, without any of them offering a word in response.
Bakst said sharply, "You have talked of freedom. You have it!"
Then, uncertainly, he said, "Isn't that what you want?"
When I first finished the preceding story, or thought I had, I was left dissatisfied. I lay awake till about 2 A.M. trying to figure out what dissatisfied me, and then decided I had not made my point. I got up, quickly wrote down the last three paragraphs of the story as it finally appeared, ending with that horrified question, and then went peacefully to sleep.
The next day, I rewrote the last page of the manuscript to include the new ending and when I sent it off to the Times, much as I wanted to make the sale, I indicated where I would be intransigent.
"Please note," I wrote, "that the ending on an unresolved question is not an accident. It is of the essence. Each reader is going to have to consider the meaning of the question and what answer he himself would give."
The Times asked for some trivial changes and clarifications but did not allow even a whisper of objection to emerge concerning my ending, I am glad to say.
My own original title had been "Mathematical Games," by the way, and for a while I considered restoring it in the book version. However, THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MULTIVAC has a swing to it. Besides, a large number of people saw it on the single day during which it was available to the reading public. More people came up to me over the next few weeks to tell me they had read that story than had ever been the case for any other story I had ever written. I don't want them to think I changed the title in order to lure them into thinking they hadn't read the story before, so that they might buy this book, so THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MULTIVAC it stays.
Among those who saw my story in The New York Times Magazine was William Levinson, editor of Physician's World. In the same issue of the magazine section was an article entitled "Triage." Triage is a system of choosing whom to save and whom to allow to die when conditions do not allow of saving all. Triage has been used in medical emergencies when limited facilities have been applied to those with the best chance of making it. Now there is a feeling that triage might be applied on a worldwide scale, that some nations and regions cannot be saved and that no effort should be made to save them.