Auberson hesitated, then said, I’LL HAVE TO THINK ABOUT THAT FOR A WHILE. He was remembering his freshman psychology courses — and a phenomenon known as “plateaus,” i.e., the temporary leveling off of a curve before it continues rising.
WHY? asked HARLIE.
WELL, FOR ONE THING, I WANT TO SEE HOW IT APPLIES TO ME AND ANNIE. FOR ANOTHER, YOU’VE SUGGESTED THAT THE USE OF MASKS MAY BE A VALUE, RATHER THAN A HINDRANCE.
UH UH — YOU’RE THE ONE WHO SAID THAT MASKS HAVE VALUE: “IT’S THOSE TINY LITTLE EVERYDAY SELF-LIES THAT ENABLE THE AVERAGE PERSON TO SURVIVE THE DAILY BARRAGE OF DARTS AGAINST A FRAGILE EGO.”
IS THAT WRONG?
YES AND NO. IT DEPENDS ON THE CONTEXT. A MASK IS A KIND OF COP-OUT — IT IS A WAY TO AVOID THE CONFRONTATION BETWEEN PERSON AND PERSON. ALL COP-OUTS ARE WAYS OF AVOIDING CONFRONTATIONS. PERHAPS IT IS OKAY FOR THE ONES YOU WANT TO AVOID — BUT IF THAT IS SO, THEN ONE SHOULD TAKE CARE NOT TO LET IT BECOME SUCH A HABIT THAT YOU DO IT AUTOMATICALLY AT THE ONES THAT COUNT.
YOU MEAN LOVE?
I MEAN ALL CONFRONTATIONS. DON’T COP OUT AT THE ONES THAT COUNT.
Auberson was about to ask if that applied to the upcoming Board meeting as well, when his intercom buzzer went on. It was Sylvia: “I know you’re busy, Mr. Auberson, and I didn’t want to disturb you, but Don Handley is here.”
“All right.” He pushed himself away from the typer, not bothering to shut it off. Then he checked himself. He scooped up the sheets of printout and stuffed them deep into the large basket hanging from the back of the machine.
“What’re you doing?” asked Handley from the door. “Redecorating your garbage?”
“Er, no—” Auberson straightened a little too quickly. “I was rewriting a section of the HARLIE program.”
“Huh?” Handley was puzzled.
Auberson realized his mistake. HARLIE wasn’t supposed to be wired into this typer. Only the Master Beast, as it was called, was supposed to have that capability. “Uh, well, I was filing it for future reference in the central information pool. Later, when I need it, I can transfer it to HARLIE downstairs.”
“Oh,” said Handley. Auberson found himself wondering why he didn’t tell Don about HARLIE’s extra-curricular activities. Another cop-out, Aubie?
“Well, what can I do for you?” he asked.
Handley threw himself into a chair. “You can start by getting me a forty-eight-hour day — you and your goddamned GOD Machine!”
“I’ll put it on order.”
Handley didn’t reply at first; he was pulling a crumpled Highmaster pack out of his lab-coat pocket He waved it toward Auberson. “Want one?”
Auberson felt tempted, but shook his head. “My resolution — remember?”
“Oh, yeah — how long’s it been now?” Handley lit the marijuana stick and inhaled deeply.
“Four or five months.”
“Honest?” asked Don. “No lapses?”
Auberson shrugged. “A couple, around Christmas time but they don’t count. It was a party.” Abruptly, he remembered something. He slid his desk drawer open, pulled out the pack of Highmasters that had been there for the past few months. “Here — want them?”
He made as if to throw the pack, but Handley shook his head, “Uh uh — I don’t like Highmasters.”
“But that’s what you’re smoking now.”
“Yeah, but I paid for these. I can’t afford to waste them.”
“Huh?”
Handley shrugged. “They were all out of Golds.”
Auberson shook his head. HARLIE was right — human beings didn’t make sense. He dropped the Highmasters back into the drawer. It was just as well — he could use them as a constant test of his willpower.
He closed his desk and looked at the other. HARLlE’s question was still echoing in his mind.
Handley had thick dark hair, going to gray; a narrow face; skin like leather from too many weekends on his boat; soft regular features; and dark eyes — the corners of them were creased from smiling too much. He said, “It’s about the Board meeting — and your machine, of course.”
“Why does everybody insist on calling it my machine? It’s HARLIE’s.”
“Yeah, but HARLIE is yours, isn’t he?” Handley took another deep drag, held the smoke in his lungs as long as he could, then exhaled. “Besides, it’s a projection of future blame. They figure that by identifying you with the machine, when it finally does go down the tubes, you’ll be the only one to go with it.”
“That’s always nice to know,” remarked Auberson. “That your co-workers are one hundred percent behind you.”
“Why not? It’s the safest place to be.” He grinned. “After all, it’s the guys in front who are the first to get shot, which gives us — the guys in back — plenty of time to turn tail and run.”
“That’s a cop-out,” the psychologist muttered. He was echoing HARLIE.
“Yeah, I guess so.” Handley shrugged it off. “All right, General Custer, lead on. Me ’n’ the rest o’ the boys’ll stick right by you. Although, to tell the truth, General — this’s one time I’d like to be fightin’ on the side o’ the Indians.”
“Me too,” agreed General Custer.
“The thing is,” Handley continued, “we’re just not going to be ready for the Board in time. We’ve been wading through those specs for two days, Aubie, and we haven’t even begun to make a dent in them. If you want a comprehensive evaluation, we can give it to you — but not in time for the Board meeting. And our department isn’t the only one with that problem. Everybody I’ve talked to says the same thing. There’s just too much of it. Oh, what we’ve seen is beautiful. HARLIE hasn’t missed a trick — you should see what he’s done with the Mark IV units — he’s got them jumping through hoops. But, like I said, there’s just too much to go through — it’s a case of computer overkill. We couldn’t begin to assimilate this for at least three months, and the Board meeting is only a week away.”
“I don’t think it’s going to make that much difference how prepared we are. There’s no question that the G.O.D. Machine will work — we don’t need the evaluation to know that. The problem is whether or not the Board will believe us — what will it take to convince them?”
“It’s bad timing, that’s what it is, Aubie. This should have been sent around months ago, not at the last minute.”
“HARLIE had it ready on time,” Auberson said. “That’s all that he was concerned with. If we can’t cope with it in the time allotted, well, that’s just our fault.”
“Yeah? I’d like to see him try to blame us for being imperfect and inefficient. He should have known that a proposal this complex couldn’t be evaluated in only a week.”
“A week and a half — and I believe he’s included his own evaluations. Have you talked to any of the other section heads?”
Handley nodded. “A few—” He took another drag.
“What did they say?”
He exhaled with a whoosh. “Two of them absolutely refused to look at the specs, phone calls or no phone calls — sorry, Aubie, but that trick wasn’t totally effective. They still think they’re being railroaded into something because the proposal is so complete. They said that if we could write it without them, then we could damn well get it approved without their help too.” He paused to inhale another lungful of smoke.
Auberson said a word. He said a couple of words.
This time Handley waited till he was ready to exhale. He said, “It isn’t quite that bad. A few of the guys I talked to are wild about the idea. They’re able to see the total system concept, and they’re eager to build it. It’s not just another computer to them, but the computer — the machine that the computer is supposed to be. They’re delighted with the thought that we may have it within our technological grasp right now.”
“Good,” said Auberson. “How many of them are thinking like that?”
“A lot,” Handley said.
“How many is a lot?’”
“Mm, at least eight — no, nine that I’ve talked to — and I guess we could probably scrape up about ten or fifteen more.”