Five seconds later the message faded from her screen and she was preparing to code the next when the borders of the screen flashed red.
1311670234 Z UCR Q: VERIFY DESCOD LASCOM SYDNEY.
The red flicker meant top priority, and the UCR prefix meant the question was a direct readout from the Ultimate Computer itself, which rarely responded to routine messages with more than a curt acknowledgment. She searched for the tape of Silverthorne's last conversation, checked his description, re-coded it, and verified it. The red flicker cut off and the terse request was replaced by a line of neat block letters: THANK YOU.
She'd probably never know what was special about Dodgson; she didn't care. She touched the Clear button and punched in the next report.
In Freetown, Sierra Leone, a pretty colored girl in a neat gray uniform answered a flashing red light and saw a line of green type march across her viewscreen.
1311670235 Z UCR WAVERLY UNCLE 1/1 LOCATED PROBAB 74%. INFORM COUREP. Q: ACTION ADVISORY.
The operator was there for one reason: to introduce a flexible human element into what might otherwise become a mindless juggernaut of relentlessly irrational logic, basing everything on some piece of false or inaccurate data such as would inevitably pass into the vast memory banks. Her job was to fill gaps purposefully left in the chain of communication; in the present instance the Ultimate Computer had no way of knowing if the Council Representative was asleep, in conference, or didn't care, and her job was to decide whether he should be awakened at half past one in the morning.
She was aware of the Waverly situation; she tightened her lips and reached for a red telephone handset.
1311670241 Z UCR WAVERLY UNCLE 1/1 AT UTOPIA SOUTH AUSTRALIA NAME OF LEON DODGSON PROBAB 78%. Q: ASSASSINATION.
A short elderly man in flowered pajamas sat at a desk in a bare office. The walls were stained concrete, and looked as if they sweated. Acoustical panels stood on painted lines here and there about the room, cables snaked through covered troughs in the concrete floor, and the wide steel desk bore no telephone, no pen and pencil set, no blotter. A screen rose up from its center, a typewriter keyboard extended to the old man's elbow, and a single fat loose-leaf notebook, heavily tabbed, lay open just to his right. To his left stood a beaker of coffee and a half-filled cup.
The message stood on his screen in block letters, awaiting an answer with the patience of the machine. He studied it for several seconds, then turned to the typewriter keyboard. The screen faded as he touched a switch, and as he typed other letters appeared.
DE: COUREP LIST METHODS AND PROBAB SUCCESS.
1311670243 Z UCR Q: DATA UTOPIA. SCANNING FILES.
He had hardly time to read the answer before it vanished and was replaced by five lines.
LOW-YIELD THERMONUCLEAR WEAPON: 97%
HIGH-SPEED SATURATION SHELLING: 91%
INFECTION OF AREA: 42% - 90%
POISON WATER SUPPLY: 82% - 89%
ATTACK DEPARTING AIRPLANE: 62%
The Council Representative stared at the screen and shook his head. Sometimes the Ultimate Computer seemed frighteningly ignorant of the real world. That was his job. He rejected the list and tapped at his key board for a second.
COUREP PROBAB SUCCESS COVERT METH ODS.
1311670245 Z UCR COVERT METHODS PROBAB
SUCCESS 28% - 51%. SAKUDA MATSUJIRO AND
KIAZIM REFET AVAILABLE THRUSH EASTERN.
Q: PULL FILES.
Their files were projected on command from micro film chips, complete with photographs of the gentlemen concerned. The Japanese was just past fifty years old, and the Turk was scarcely five years younger, but the two of them had a record for dealing silent death unmatched and unapproached within Thrush. Refet was better than expert with every weapon known to man; he could hurl a bola, shoot pips out of playing cards, trim moustaches with a bullwhip, juggle a broad axe, spin a quarterstaff and throw tomahawks. His favorite personal weapon was a perfect reconstruction of the original Bowie knife, designed by Rezin and made famous by Jim. He had been seen to nail a flying beetle to a ceiling with it. He was second in rating to his partner.
Matsujiro had been with Thrush only three years. He had brought with him twenty years of training in the secret practices of Shin-Jitsu, and was the only Ninja ever to have deserted the Emperor's bodyguard and sold his traditions for gain. It was said that he could hide from an army in an acre of woods without even climbing a tree; he could kill a man with a blow from a single finger, and could so gauge the blow that his victim would remain unaware of serious injury for several days before the weakened wall of the heart gave way. There was no question in anyone's mind which of the team was the deadlier.
It would be almost noon in Japan. The Council Representative flipped through the tabbed notebook and punched up the satellite code for the Thrush Eastern office in Kiru.
1311670400 Z DE: CENTRAL TO: THRUSH EASTERN PRIORITY WHITE SAKUDA MATSUJIRO AND KIAZIM REFET ASSIGNED UTOPIA SOUTH AUS TRALIA. WAVERLY UNCLE 1/1 UNDER NAME OF LEON DODGSON PROBAB 81%. VERIFY IDENT AND KILL. MAINTAIN COMPLETE SECURITY. EASTERN ARRANGE COVERS ETC. DATA UTOPIA FOLLOWS ON TELEPRINTER. END.
Saturday, five days later, two new gardeners arrived at Utopia. They had been cleared through Park Security rapidly because of a sudden growth of ragweed and a need for moderately skilled help in the wilder sections of the Park. They rushed through Personnel the same afternoon, sat through Orientation Sunday, and were at work in the woods Monday morning.
The fact that they were there and unchallenged was a tribute to their own abilities and the efficiency of their organization. The Ultimate Computer was not quite literally able to move heaven and earth, but it could influence a goodly portion of the latter and occasionally did. Aware of the scheduled Sunday briefing and not wanting the available time before Waverly's departure reduced by a third, it had utilized deep-trance hypnosis to brief the two assassins, staggering numbers of bribes to establish their work record and qualifications, and a high-flying jet with its own legitimate job to drop specific growth-stimulating hormone concentrates over the Park's woodland. Sakuda and Kiazim had arrived in Sydney just as the call went out for experienced and certified help, and went on to answer it almost without stopping for lunch.
They were aware of Silverthorne's presence as a guest at the Park, and they had been told that the Total Security ordered by the Ultimate Computer specifically included him. At the moment, their work kept them away from areas he was likely to frequent, but eventually he might spot them and ask what they were doing here. It would not be unlike Thrush to send an important executive marked for execution to a plush resort for his last few weeks of life, and Silverthorne might understandably be uneasy.
For the moment they studied the situation and waited for a chance to check Mr. Dodgson's exact description against Waverly's. They also studied methods whereby a man might be killed neatly and safely, for they were not men to put such things off until the last moment. They had seen the UCR printout which estimated their maximum probability of success, once inside the Park, at 59%, and they had a personal interest in raising that figure to 100%.
Silverthorne was deeply involved in his War. Dodgson had initially played a cautious, defensive game, sending scouts into enemy territory while guarding his own. Silverthorne had made several successful thrusts already and was picking up a fair amount of strategic territory. One of Dodgson's better tricks had been removing forces from non-strategic areas as an invitation to attack; it hadn't worked.