“The company doesn’t work that way.”
“The company won’t know anything about that side of things. I’m going to use a fictitious address right here in Lethbridge.”
“I see,” Ripley said glumly.
Parr laughed aloud, showing strong greyish teeth. “I’m sorry, Mr. Ripley. I’ve been a little wicked—playing cat-and-mouse with you. The fact is that I’m on the staff of the New University of Western Canada. My department needs a computer for use in a new kind of sociological survey centred on Red Deer.”
“I still don’t see why you’ve come to me.”
“It’s quite simple. You run a one-man outfit here in the south. My survey has to be conducted in absolute secrecy otherwise the results would be invalidated—trying to observe particles, you know, uncertainty principle—and if I were to deal with a big live-wire office the word would be bound to get out sooner or later. Now do you see why I’ve … we’ve chosen to deal with you?”
“But how about after-sales service?”
“Well, Mr. Ripley, I presumed you would be willing to undertake that for me if it becomes necessary. I understand you’re a qualified maintenance man, and a private arrangement could be beneficial to both of us.” Parr glanced significantly at the shabby furniture.
“There’s the question of payment. Our accounts people …”
“Cash,” Parr said tersely.
Ripley lifted his glass and took a long drink. “Well, I don’t know …”
“Mr. Ripley!” Parr shook his head in amazement. “Do you know you must be the worst salesman in the world? If I’d approached any other Logicon representative with this proposition I’d be signing contracts by this time.”
“I’m sorry.” Ripley gave himself a mental shake—there was such a thing as being too ethical, even when a deal looked as queer as a fifty-cent watch. “It was the mention of cash.” He laughed uncertainly. “Nobody has ever mentioned paying for a computer before. It’s going to cause a flutter at head office.”
“That doesn’t matter—as long as you sit tight. Now may we discuss business?”
“You bet, Mr. Parr.” Ripley pulled his chair closer to the other man’s knees, noticing as he did so that one of Parr’s fingers was banded with white skin which suggested he usually wore a ring. “Would you like to tell me something about the amount of data to be handled, the retrieval performance expected, and so on?”
“Fine. The population of Red Deer has grown to close on 200,000, and we’ve selected it for our study because it’s a good example of what sociologists call a Second Magnitude Area in the Willis Classification System. Does that mean anything to you?”
“No. I’m afraid not.”
“Never mind—it’s an abstruse technicality. The point is that the university is going to analyse social volition and interaction in the area more thoroughly than has ever been attempted anywhere else. To do this we are going to record data on every man, woman and child in the designated region.”
“What kind of data?”
“Straightforward. Age, place of birth, height, weight, colouring, profession …’
“Height and weight?” Ripley was startled.
“Important sociological and physiological criteria, my friend. Essential too for computer recognition of individuals whose pictures may not be stored, or whose appearance may have changed.” The resonance had crept back into Parr’s voice, stirring Ripley’s subconscious.
“Just a minute,” he said. “How is this survey going to be carried out?”
Parr examined him soberly. “If the information I’m about to give you goes any further, we have no deal. Is that understood?”
“Perfectly.”
“There will be a limited number of checkpoints—probably only one at first—with facilities for automatically photographing, weighing and measuring people who pass through. The computer must recognise subjects, and on command print out all available data.”
Ripley took another swallow of Four Roses. “That’s easy enough—the tricky part is getting your 200,000 photographs.”
“We won’t have 200,000. There will be only a few thousand in the beginning. We’ll use every source to expand the store, but in the interim would it be possible—through cross-references, deduction, what-have-you—for the computer to identify people first time without a photograph?”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, supposing Subject A is a young woman already known to the computer, which also has recorded the fact that her mother is five feet tall, weighs a hundred pounds and has a mole on her forehead. If Subject A passes through the checkpoint with un unknown Subject B who matches the recorded data on the mother, would the computer be able to identify Subject B, photograph her for future occasions, and print out the available data?”
“It could. Bigger programming job, that’s all.” Ripley stroked his chin. “I, see why you want to keep this thing secret. People would avoid it like the plague.”
“Precisely.”
Ripley took a deep breath and decided to risk the sale once again. “I don’t even feel happy about it myself.”
“Why? There’s nothing illegal about sociologists studying people’s movements.”
“It’s hard to say. If your checkpoint is centrally located the machine’s going to get to know just about everybody in Red Deer. The example you gave was fine—a girl accompanied by her mother—but supposing the computer starts noting businessmen out late with secretaries, and that kind of thing?”
Parr shrugged. ‘Blackmail? But you should know that data stored in a computer is more secure than in any filing cabinet.”
“I do know.”
“Then you think I might be considering a little blackmail?” Parr did not seem offended.
“No. Any information you got wouldn’t be very hot, certainly not valuable enough to pay your costs.” Ripley lit another cigarette, wondering how Vancouver would react if they heard him hinting that a cash customer was crooked. “It’s just …”
“It’s just the idea of a computerised Big Brother spying on the life of a city, isn’t it, Mr. Ripley? Believe me—my colleagues have studied all the ethical implications, but we’re proposing a new kind of analysis of urban behaviour and the benefits outweigh any theoretical invasion of privacy.” Parr smiled his grey smile. ‘Besides this is only 1982.”
“Hah! Very good, Mr. Parr.” Ripley tried to laugh, but he had just identified the practised resonance in the other man’s voice. Mervyn Parr spoke more like a minister than a lecturer. There was no reason why he could not be a lay preacher as well as an academic, but Ripley’s sense of unease deepened. He dispelled it by reaching for his presentation case, and by considering the wording of his new report. The circumstances of the sale would have to be changed, though. It would read better if he had closed the deal with Parr after a week of dedicated hard-selling.
“For the application you have in mind,” he said in his best computer expert’s voice, “I recommend you consider the Logicon 30. I’ll need to make a full analysis of your proposed system, of course, but I’m positive the 30 Model would offer you the …”
Parr held up a well-manicured hand, with its white ghost of a ring. “How much?”
“Basic—sixty thousand.” Ripley swallowed noisily. He should have started at the bottom of the range with the Logicon 20 and tried to work upwards.
“Done!” Parr reached for his briefcase, and clicked it open.
Inside were bulky wads of used high-denomination bills. The wads looked thicker than normal, because of the way each bill appeared to have at one time been folded into a tight square and opened out again, but it seemed that the case held enough money to buy more computers than Ripley had sold in his entire career.