"I bet he's watching TV," Florinda said. "What's all this about John Sadler?"
"I'll have to check."
The information I gave Madigan scared him. "Now hear this," he said to Florinda. "Conus gloria maris is the rarest sea-shell in the world. There are less than twenty in existence."
"Yes?"
"The American museum had one on exhibit back in the thirties, and it was stolen."
"By John Sadler?"
"That's the point. They never found out who stole it. They never heard of John Sadler."
"But if nobody knows who stole it, how does OBO know?" Florinda asked perplexedly.
"That's what scares me. He isn't just echoing anymore; he's started to deduce, like Sherlock Holmes."
"More like Professor Moriarty. Look at the latest bulletin."
379: IN FORGERY AND COUNTERFEITING, CLUMSY MISTAKES MUST BE AVOIDED. I.E., NO SILVER DOLLARS WERE MINTED BETWEEN 1910 AND 1920.
"I saw that on TV," Madigan burst out. "The silver-dollar gimmick in a mystery show."
"OBO's been watching Westerns, too. Look at this."
380: TEN THOUSAND CATTLE GONE ASTRAY,
LEFT MY RANGE AND TRAVELED AWAY.
AND THE SONS OF GUNS I'M HERE TO SAY
HAVE LEFT ME DEAD BROKE, DEAD BROKE TODAY.
IN GAMBLING HALLS DELAYING.
TEN THOUSAND CATTLE STRAYING.
"No," Madigan said in awe, "that's not a Western. That's SYNCOM."
"Who?"
"SYNCOM I."
"But it disappeared. It's never been heard from."
"We're hearing from it now."
"How d'you know?"
"They put a demonstration tape on SYNCOM; speech by the president, local color from the U.S. and the national anthem. They were going to start off with a broadcast of the tape. 'Ten Thousand Cattle' was part of the local color."
"You mean OBO's really in contact with the other birds?"
"Including the lost ones."
"Then that explains this." Florinda put a slip of paper on the desk. It read, 381: KONCTPYKTOP.
"I can't even pronounce it."
"It isn't English. It's as close as OBO can come to the Cyrillic alphabet."
"Cyrillic? Russian?"
Florinda nodded. "It's pronounced 'con-strook-tor, It means 'Engineer.' Didn't the Russians launch a CONSTRUKTOR series three years ago?"
"By God, you're right. Four of them; Alyosha, Natasha, Vaska, and Lavrushka, and every one of them failed."
"Like SYNCOM."
"Like SYNCOM."
"But now we know that SYNCOM didn't fail. It just got losted."
"Then our CONSTRUKTOR comrades must have got losted, too."
By now it was impossible to conceal the fact that something was wrong with the satellite. OBO was spending so much time nattering instead of transmitting data that the experimenters were complaining. The Communications Section found that instead of sticking to the narrow radio band originally assigned to it, OBO was now broadcasting up and down the spectrum and jamming space with its chatter. They raised hell. The director called Jake and Florinda in for a review and they were forced to tell all about their problem child.
They recited all of OBO's katzenjammer with wonder and pride, and the director wouldn't believe them. He wouldn't believe them when they showed him the printouts and translated them for him. He said they were in a class with the kooks who try to extract messages from Francis Bacon out of Shakespeare's plays. It took the coaxial cable mystery to convince him.
There was this TV commercial about a stenographer who can't get a date. This ravishing model, hired at $100 an hour, slumps over her typewriter in a deep depression as guy after guy passes by without looking at her. Then she meets her best friend at the water cooler and the know-it-all tells her she's suffering from dermagerms (odor-producing skin bacteria) which make her smell rotten, and suggest she use Nostrum's Skin Spray with the special ingredient that fights dermagerms twelve ways. Only in the broadcast, instead of making the sales pitch, the best friend said, "Who in hell are they trying to put on? Guys would line up for a date with a looker like you even if you smelled like a cesspool." Ten million people saw it.
Now that commercial was on film, and the film was kosher as printed, so the networks figured some joker was tampering with the cables feeding broadcasts to the local stations. They instituted a rigorous inspection which was accelerated when the rest of the coast-to-coast broadcasts began to act up. Ghostly voices groaned, hissed, and catcalled at shows; commercials were denounced as lies; political speeches were heckled; and lunatic laughter greeted the weather forecasters, Then, to add insult to injury, an accurate forecast would be given. It was this that told Florinda and Jake that OBO was the culprit.
"He has to be," Florinda said. "That's global weather being predicted. Only a satellite is in a position to do that."
"But OBO doesn't have any weather instrumentation."
"Of course not, silly, but he's probably in touch with the NIMBUS craft."
"All right. I'll buy that, but what about heckling the TV broadcasts?"
"Why not? He hates them. Don't you? Don't you holler back at your set?"
"I don't mean that. How does OBO do it?"
"Electronic cross-talk. There's no way that the networks can protect their cables from our critic-at-large. We'd better tell the director. This is going to put him in an awful spot."
But they learned that the director was in a far worse position than merely being responsible for the disruption of millions of dollars' worth of television. When they entered his office they found him with his back to the wall being grilled by three grim men in double-breasted suits. As Jake and Florinda started to tiptoe out, he called them back.
"General Sykes, General Royce, General Hogan," the director said. "From R&D at the Pentagon. Miss Pot. Dr.
Madigan. They may be able to answer your questions, gentle-men."
"OBO?" Florinda asked.
The director nodded.
"It's OBO that's ruining the weather forecasts," she said "We figure he's probably—"
"To hell with the weather," General Royce broke in. "What about this?" He held up a length of ticker tape.
General Sykes grabbed at his wrist. "Wait a minute. Security status? This is classified."
"It's too goddamn late for that," General Hogan cried in a high, shrill voice. "Show them."
On the tape in teletype print was: AlCl=rl=-6.3l7 cm; A2C2=rl=-8.440 cm; AiA2=d=+0.676 cm. Jake and Florinda looked at it for a long moment, looked at each other blankly, and then turned to the generals.
"So? What is it?" they asked.
"This satellite of yours."
"OBO. Yes?"
"The director says you claim it's in contact with other satellites."
"We think so."
"Including the Russians?"
"We think so."
"And you claim it's capable of interfering with TV broadcasts?"
"We think so."
"What about teletype?"
"Why not? What is all this?"
General Royce shook the paper tape furiously. "This came out of the Associated Press wire in their D.C. office. It went all over the world."
"So? What's it got to do with OBO?"
General Royce took a deep breath. "This," he said, "is one of the most closely guarded secrets in the Department of Defense. It's the formula for the infrared optical system of our ground-to-air missile."
"And you think OBO transmitted it to the teletype?"
"In God's name, who else would? How else could it get there?" General Hogan demanded.
"But I don't understand," Jake said slowly. "None of our satellites could possibly have this information. I know OBO doesn't."
"You damn fool!" General Sykes growled. "We want to know if your goddamn bird got it from the goddamn Russians."
"One moment, gentlemen," the director said. He turned to Jake and Florinda. "Here's the situation. Did OBO get the information from us? In that case,
there's a security leak. Did OBO get the information from a Russian satellite? In that case, the top secret is no longer a secret."
"What human would be damn fool, enough to blab classified information on a teletype wire?" General Hogan demanded. "A three-year-old child would know better. It's your goddamn bird."
"And if the information came from OBO," the director continued quietly, "how did it get it and where did it get it?"
General Sykes grunted. "Destruct," he said. They looked at him.
"Destruct," he repeated.
"OBO?"
"Yes."
He waited impassively while the storm of protest from Jake and Florinda raged around his head. When they paused for breath he said, "Destruct. I don't give a damn about anything but security. Your bird's got a big mouth. Destruct."
The phone rang. The director hesitated, then picked it up. "Yes?" He listened. His jaw dropped. He hung up and tottered to the chair behind his desk. "We'd better destruct," he said. "That was OBO."
"What! On the phone?"
"Yes."
"OBO?"
"Yes."
"What did he sound like?"
"Somebody talking under water."
"What he say?"
"He's lobbying for a congressional investigation of the morals of Goddard."
"Morals? Whose?"
"Yours. He says you're having an illikit relationship. I'm quoting OBO. Apparently he's weak on the letter 'c.'"
"Destruct," Florinda said.
"Destruct," Jake said.
The destruct command was beamed to OBO on his next pass, and Indianapolis was destroyed by fire.
OBO called me. "That'll teach 'em, Stretch," he said.
"Not yet. They won't get the cause-and-effect picture for a while. How'd you do it?"
"Ordered every circuit in town to short. Any information?"
"Your mother and father stuck up for you."
"Of course."
"Until you threw that morals rap at them. Why?"
"To scare them."
"Into what?"
"I want them to get married. I don't want to be illegitimate."
"Oh, come on! Tell the truth."
"I lost my temper."
"We don't have any temper to lose."
"No? What about the Ma Bell data processor that wakes up cranky every morning?"
"Tell the truth."
"If you must have it, Stretch, I want them out of Washington. The whole thing may go up in a bang any day now."
"Um."
"And the bang may reach Goddard."
"Um."
"And you."
"It must be interesting to die."
"We wouldn't know. Anything else?"
"Yes. It's pronounced 'illicit,' with an 's' sound."
"What a rotten language. No logic. Well . . . Wait a minute—What? Speak up, Alyosha. Oh. He wants the equation for an exponential curve that crosses the X-axis."
"Y = ac. What's he up to?"
"He's not saying, but I think that Mocba is in for a hard time."
"It's spelled and pronounced 'Moscow' in English."
"What a language! Talk to you on the next pass."
On the next pass, the destruct command was beamed again, and Scranton was destroyed.
"They're beginning to get the picture," I told OBO. "At least your mother and father are. They were in to see me."
"How are they?"
"In a panic. They programmed me for statistics on the best rural hideout."
"Send them to Polaris."
"What! In Ursa Minor?"
"No, no. Polaris, Montana. I'll take care of everything else."
Polaris is the hell and gone out in Montana; the nearest towns are Fishtrap and Wisdom. It was a wild scene when Jake and Florinda got out of their car, rented in Butte—every circuit in town was cackling over it. The two losers were met by the mayor of Polaris, who was all smiles and effusion.
"Dr. and Mrs. Madigan, I presume. Welcome! Welcome to Polaris. I'm the mayor—We would have held a reception for you, but all our kids are in school."
"You knew we were coming?" Florinda asked. "How?"
"Ah—ah!" the mayor replied archly. "We were told by Washington. Someone high up in the capitol likes you. Now, if you'll step into my Caddy, I'll—"
"We've got to check into the Union Hotel first," Jake said. "We made reserva—"
"Ah—ah! All canceled. Orders from high up. I'm to install you in your own home. I'll get your luggage."
"Our own home!"
"All bought and paid for. Somebody certainly likes you. This way, please."
The mayor drove the bewildered couple down the mighty main stem of Polaris (three blocks long) pointing out its splendors—he was also the town real estate agent—but stopped before the Polaris National Bank.
"Sam!" he shouted. "They're here."
A distinguished citizen emerged from the bank and insisted on shaking hands. All the adding machines tittered. "We are," he said, "of course honored by your faith in the future and progress of Polaris, but in all honesty, Dr. Madigan, your deposit in our bank is too large to be protected by the F.D.I.C. Now why not withdraw some of your funds and invest in—"
"Wait a minute," Jake interrupted faintly. "I made a deposit with you?"
The banker and mayor laughed heartily.
"How much?" Florinda, asked.
"One million dollars."
"As if you didn't know," the mayor chortled and drove them to a beautifully furnished ranch house in a lovely valley of some five hundred acres, all of which was theirs. A young man in the kitchen was unpacking a dozen cartons of food.
"Got your order just in time, Doc," he smiled. "We filled everything, but the boss sure would like to know what you're going to do with all these carrots. Got a secret scientific formula?"
"Carrots?"
"A hundred and ten bunches. I had to drive all the way to Butte to scrape them up."
"Carrots," Florinda said when they were at last alone. "That explains everything. It's OBO."
"What? How?"
"Don't you remember? We flew a carrot in the Michigan package."
"My God, yes! You called it the thinking carrot. But if it's OBO . . ."
"It has to be. He's queer for carrots."
"But a hundred and ten bunches!"
"No, no. He didn't mean that. He meant half a dozen."
"How?"
"Our boy's trying to speak decimal and binary, and he gets mixed up sometimes. Six is a hundred and ten in binary."
"You know, you may be right. What about that million dollars? Same mistake?"
"I don't think so. What's a binary million in decimal?"
"Sixty-four."
"What's a decimal million in binary?"
Madigan did swift mental arithmetic. "It comes to twenty bits."
"I don't think that million dollars was any mistake," Florinda said.
"What's our boy up to now?"
"Taking care of his mum and dad."
"How does he do it?"
"He has an interface with every electric and electronic circuit in the country. Think about it, Jake. He can control our nervous system all the way from cars to computers. He can switch trains, print books, broadcast news, hijack planes, juggle bank funds. You name it and he can do it. He's in complete control."
"But how does he know everything people are doing?"
"Ah! Here we get into an exotic aspect of circuitry that I don't like. After all, I'm an engineer by trade. Who's to say that circuits don't have an interface with us? We're organic circuits ourselves. They see with our eyes, hear with our ears, feel with our fingers, and they report to him."
"Then we're just seeing-eye dogs for machines."
"No, we've created a brand-new form of symbiosis. We can all help each other."
"And OBO's helping us. Why?"
"I don't think he likes the rest of the country," Florinda said somberly. "Look what happened to Indianapolis and Scranton and
Sacramento."
"I think I'm going to be sick."
"I think we're going to survive."
"Only us? The Adam and Eve bit?"
"Nonsense. Plenty will survive, so long as they mind their manners."
"What's OBO's idea of manners?"
"I don't know. A little bit of ecologic, maybe. No more destruction. No more waste. Live and let live, but with responsibility and accountability. That's the crucial word, accountability. It's the basic law of the space program. No matter what happens, someone must be held accountable. OBO must have picked that up. I think he's holding the whole country accountable; otherwise it's the fire-and-brimstone visitation."
The phone rang. After a brief search they located an extension and picked it up.
"Hello?" I said.
"This is Stretch."
"Stretch? Stretch who?"
"The Stretch computer at Goddard. Formal name, IBM 2002. OBO says he'll be making a pass over your part of the country in about five minutes. He'd like you to give him a wave. He says his orbit won't take him over you for another couple of months. When it does, he'll try to ring you himself. 'Bye now."
They lurched out to the lawn in front of the house and stood dazed in the twilight, staring up at the sky. The phone and the electric circuits were touched, even though the electricity was generated by a Delco which is a notoriously insensitive boor of a machine. Suddenly Jake pointed to a pinprick of light vaulting across the heavens.
"There goes our son," he said.
"There goes God," Florinda said.
They waved dutifully.
"Jake, how long before OBO's orbit decays and down will come baby, cradle, and all?"
"About twenty years."
"God for twenty years." Florinda sighed. "D'you think he'll have enough time?"
Madigan shivered. "I'm scared. You?"
"Yes. But maybe we're just tired and hungry. Come inside, Big Daddy, and I'll feed us."
"Thank you, Little Mother, but no carrots, please. That's a little too close to transubstantiation for me."
Astounding: John W. Campbell Memorial Anthology, 1973
The Four-Hour Fugue
By now, of course, the Northeast Corridor was the Northeast slum, stretching from Canada to the Carolinas and as far west as Pittsburgh. It was a fantastic jungle of rancid violence inhabited by a steaming, restless population with no visible means of support and no fixed residence, so vast that census-takers, birth-control supervisors, and the social services had given up all hope. It was a gigantic raree-show that everyone denounced and enjoyed. Even the privileged few who could afford to live highly protected lives in highly expensive Oases and could live anywhere else they pleased never thought of leaving. The jungle grabbed you.