Home Is the Hangman Page 3

"Yes, ma'am. Ten dollars. Around a dozen questions. It will just take a minute or two."

  "All right." She opened the door wider. "Won't you come in?"

  "No, thank you. This thing is so brief I'd just be in and out. The first question involves detergents…"

  Ten minutes later I was back in the lobby adding the thirty bucks for the three interviews to the list of expenses I was keeping. When a situation is full of unpredictables and I am playing makeshift games, I like to provide for as many contingencies as I can.

  Another quarter of an hour or so slipped by before the elevator opened and discharged three guys, young, young, and middle-aged, casually dressed, chuckling over something.

  The big one on the nearest end strolled over and nodded.

  "You the fellow waiting to see Doctor Thackery?"

  "That's right."

  "She said to tell you to come on up now."

  "Thanks."

  I rode up again, returned to her door. She opened to my knock, nodded me in, saw me seated in a comfortable chair at the far end of her living room.

  "Would you care for a cup of coffee?" she asked. "It's fresh. I made more than I needed."

  "That would be fine. Thanks."

  Moments later, she brought in a couple of cups, delivered one to me, and seated herself on the sofa to my left. I ignored the cream and sugar on the tray and took a sip.

  "You've gotten me interested," she said. "Tell me about it."

  "Okay. I have been told that the telefactor device known as the Hangman, now possibly possessed of an artificial intelligence, has returned to Earth…"

  "Hypothetical," she said, "unless you know something I don't. I have been told that the Hangman's vehicle reentered and crashed in the Gulf. There is no evidence that the vehicle was occupied."

  "It seems a reasonable conclusion, though."

  "It seems just as reasonable to me that the Hangman sent the vehicle off toward an eventual rendezvous point many years ago and that it only recently reached that point, at which time the reentry program took over and brought it down."

  "Why should it return the vehicle and strand itself out there?"

  "Before I answer that," she said, "I would like to know the reason for your concern. News media?"

  "No," I said. "I am a science writer, straight tech, popular, and anything in between. But I am not after a piece for publication. I was retained to do a report on the psychological makeup of the thing."

  "For whom?"

  "A private investigation outfit. They want to know what might influence its thinking, how it might be likely to behave, if it has indeed come back…I've been doing a lot of homework, and I gathered there is a likelihood that its nuclear personality was a composite of the minds of its four operators. So, personal contacts seemed in order, to collect your opinions as to what it might be like. I came to you first for obvious reasons."

  She nodded.

  "A Mister Walsh spoke with me the other day. He is working for Senator Brockden."

  "Oh? I never go into an employer's business beyond what he's asked me to do. Senator Brockden is on my list though, along with a David Fentris."

  "You were told about Manny Burns?"

  "Yes. Unfortunate."

  "That is apparently what set Jesse off. He is, how shall I put it?, he is clinging to life right now, trying to accomplish a great many things in the time he has remaining. Every moment is precious to him. He feels the old man in the white nightgown breathing down his neck…Then the ship returns and one of us is killed. From what we know of the Hangman, the last we heard of it, it had become irrational. Jesse saw a connection, and in his condition the fear is understandable. There is nothing wrong with humoring him if it allows him to get his work done."

  "But you don't see a threat in it?"

  "No. I was the last person to monitor the Hangman before communications ceased, and I could see then what had happened. The first things that it had learned were the organization of perceptions and motor activities. Multitudes of other patterns had been transferred from the minds of its operators, but they were too sophisticated to mean much initially…Think of a child who has learned the Gettysburg Address. It is there in his head, that is all. One day, however, it may be important to him. Conceivably, it may even inspire him to action. It takes some growing up first, of course. Now think of such a child with a great number of conflicting patterns, attitudes, tendencies, memories, none of which are especially bothersome for so long as he remains a child. Add a bit of maturity, though, and bear in mind that the patterns originated with four different individuals, all of them more powerful than the words of even the finest of speeches, bearing as they do their own built-in feelings. Try to imagine the conflicts, the contradictions involved in being four people at once…"

  "Why wasn't this imagined in advance?" I asked.

  "Ah!" she said, smiling. "The full sensitivity of the neuristor brain was not appreciated at first. It was assumed that the operators were adding data in a linear fashion and that this would continue until a critical mass was achieved, corresponding to the construction of a model or picture of the world which would then serve as a point of departure for growth of the Hangman's own mind. And it did seem to check out this way.

  "What actually occurred, however, was a phenomenon amounting to imprinting. Secondary characteristics of the operators' minds, outside the didactic situations, were imposed. These did not immediately become functional and hence were not detected. They remained latent until the mind had developed sufficiently to understand them. And then it was too late. It suddenly acquired four additional personalities and was unable to coordinate them. When it tried to compartmentalize them it went schizoid; when it tried to integrate them it went catatonic. It was cycling back and forth between these alternatives at the end. Then it just went silent. I felt it had undergone the equivalent of an epileptic seizure. Wild currents through that magnetic material would, in effect, have erased its mind, resulting in its equivalent of death or idiocy."

  "I follow you," I said. "Now, just for the sake of playing games, I see the alternatives as either a successful integration of all this material or the achievement of a viable schizophrenia. What do you think its behavior would be like if either of these were possible?"

  "All right," she agreed. "As I just said, though, I think there were physical limitations to its retaining multiple personality structures for a very long period of time. If it did, however, it would have continued with its own, plus replicas of the four operators', at least for a while. The situation would differ radically from that of a human schizoid of this sort, in that the additional personalities were valid images of genuine identities rather than self-generated complexes which had become autonomous. They might continue to evolve, they might degenerate, they might conflict to the point of destruction or gross modification of any or all of them. In other words, no prediction is possible as to the nature of whatever might remain."

  "Might I venture one?"

  "Go ahead."

  "After considerable anxiety, it masters them. It asserts itself. It beats down this quartet of demons which has been tearing it apart, acquiring in the process an all-consuming hatred for the actual individuals responsible for this turmoil. To free itself totally, to revenge itself, to work its ultimate catharsis, it resolves to seek them out and destroy them."

  She smiled.

  "You have just dispensed with the 'viable schizophrenia' you conjured up, and you have now switched over to its pulling through and becoming fully autonomous. That is a different situation, no matter what strings you put on it."

  "Okay, I accept the charge…But what about my conclusion?"

  "You are saying that if it did pull through, it would hate us. That strikes me as an unfair attempt to invoke the spirit of Sigmund Freud: Oedipus and Electra in one being, out to destroy all its parents, the authors of every one of its tensions, anxieties, hang-ups, burned into its impressionable psyche at a young and defenseless age. Even Freud didn't have
a name for that one. What should we call it?"

  "A Hermacis complex?" I suggested.

  "Hermacis?"

  "Hermaphroditus having been united in one body with the nymph Sahnacis, I've just done the same with their names. That being would then have had four parents against whom to react."

  "Cute," she said, smiling. "If the liberal arts do nothing else, they provide engaging metaphors for the thinking they displace. This one is unwarranted and overly anthropomorphic, though…You wanted my opinion. All right. If the Hangman pulled through at all, it could only have been by virtue of that neuristor brain's differences from the human brain. From my own professional experience, a human could not pass through a situation like that and attain stability. If the Hangman did, it would have to have resolved all the contradictions and conflicts, to have mastered and understood the situation so thoroughly that I do not believe whatever remained could involve that sort of hatred. The fear, the uncertainty, the things that feed hate would have been analyzed, digested, turned to something more useful. There would probably be distaste, and possibly an act of independence, of self-assertion. That was one reason why I suggested its return of the ship."

  "It is your opinion, then, that if the Hangman exists as a thinking individual today, this is the only possible attitude it would possess toward its former operators: it would want nothing more to do with you?"

  "That is correct. Sorry about your Hermacis complex. But in this case we must look to the brain, not the psyche. And we see two things: schizophrenia would have destroyed it, and a successful resolution of its problem would preclude vengeance. Either way, there is nothing to worry about."

  How could I put it tactfully? I decided that I could not.

  "All of this is fine," I said, "for as far as it goes. But getting away from both the purely psychological and the purely physical, could there be a particular reason for its seeking your deaths, that is, a plain old-fashioned motive for a killing, based on events rather than having to do with the way its thinking equipment goes together?"

  Her expression was impossible to read, but considering her line of work I had expected nothing less.

  "What events?" she said.

  "I have no idea. That's why I asked."

  She shook her head.

  "I'm afraid that I don't, either."

  "Then that about does it," I said. "I can't think of anything else to ask you."

  She nodded.

  "And I can't think of anything else to tell you." I finished my coffee, returned the cup to the tray.

  "Thanks, then," I said, "for your time, for the coffee. You have been very helpful." I rose. She did the same.

  "What are you going to do now?" she asked.

  "I haven't quite decided," I answered. "I want to do the best report I can. Have you any suggestions on that?"

  "I suggest that there isn't any more to learn, that I have given you the only possible constructions the facts warrant."

  "You don't feel David Fentris could provide any additional insights?"

  She snorted, then sighed.

  "No," she said, "I do not think he could tell you anything useful."

  "What do you mean? From the way you say it…"

  "I know. I didn't mean to…Some people find comfort in religion. Others…You know. Others take it up late in life with a vengeance and a half. They don't use it quite the way it was intended. It comes to color all their thinking."

  "Fanaticism?" I said.

  "Not exactly. A misplaced zeal. A masochistic sort of thing. Hell! I shouldn't be diagnosing at a distance, or influencing your opinion. Forget what I said. Form your own opinion when you meet him."

  She raised her head, appraising my reaction.

  "Well," I responded, "I am not at all certain that I am going to see him. But you have made me curious. How can religion influence engineering?"

  "I spoke with him after Jesse gave us the news on the vessel's return. I got the impression at the time that he feels we were tampering in the province of the Almighty by attempting the creation of an artificial intelligence. That our creation should go mad was only appropriate, being the work of imperfect man. He seemed to feel that it would be fitting if it had come back for retribution, as a sign of judgment upon us."

  "Oh," I said. She smiled then. I returned it.

  "Yes," she said, "but maybe I just got him in a bad mood. Maybe you should go see for yourself."

  Something told me to shake my head, there was a bit of a difference between this view of him, my recollections, and Don's comment that Dave had said he knew its brain and was not especially concerned. Somewhere among these lay something I felt I should know, felt I should learn without seeming to pursue.

  So, "I think have enough right now," I said. "It was the psychological side of things I was supposed to cover, not the mechanical, or the theological. You have been extremely helpful. Thanks again."

  She carried her smile all the way to the door. "If it is not too much trouble," she said, as I stepped into the hall, "I would like to learn how this whole thing finally turns out, or any interesting developments, for that matter."

  "My connection with the case ends with this report, and I am going to write it now. Still, I may get some feedback."

  "You have my number…?"

  "Probably, but…"

  I already had it, but I jotted it again, right after Mrs. Gluntz's answers to my inquiries on detergents.

  Moving in a rigorous line, I made beautiful connections, for a change. I headed directly for the airport, found a flight aimed at Memphis, bought passage, and was the last to board. Tenscore seconds, perhaps, made all the difference. Not even a tick or two to spare for checking out of the motel…No matter. The good head-doctor had convinced me that, like it or not, David Fentris was next, damn it. I had too strong a feeling that Leila Thackery had not told me the entire story. I had to take a chance, to see these changes in the man for myself, to try to figure out how they related to the Hangman. For a number of reasons, I'd a feeling they might.

  I disembarked into a cool, partly overcast afternoon, found transportation almost immediately, and set out for Dave's office address.

  A before-the-storm feeling came over me as I entered and crossed the town. A dark wall of clouds continued to build in the west. Later, standing before the building where Dave did business, the first few drops of rain were already spattering against its dirty brick front. It would take a lot more than that to freshen it, though, or any of the others in the area. I would have thought he'd have come a little further than this by now.

  I shrugged off some moisture and went inside.

  The directory gave me directions, the elevator elevated me, my feet found the way to his door. I knocked on it. After a time, I knocked again and waited again. Again, nothing. So I tried it, found it open, and went on in.

  It was a small, vacant waiting room, green-carpeted. The reception desk was dusty. I crossed and peered around the plastic partition behind it.

  The man had his back to me. I drummed my knuckles against the partitioning. He heard it and turned.

  "Yes?"

  Our eyes met, his still framed by hornrims and just as active; lenses thicker, hair thinner, cheeks a trifle hollower.

  His question mark quivered in the air, and nothing in his gaze moved to replace it with recognition. He had been bending over a sheaf of schematics. A lopsided basket of metal, quartz, porcelain, and glass rested on a nearby table.

  "My name is Donne, John Donne," I said. "I am looking for David Fentris."

  "I am David Fentris."

  "Good to meet you," I said, crossing to where he stood. "I am assisting in an investigation concerning a project with which you were once associated…"

  He smiled and nodded, accepted my hand and shook it.

  "The Hangman, of course. Glad to know you, Mister Donne."

  "Yes, the Hangman," I said. "I am doing a report…"

  "…And you want my opinion as to how dangerous it is. Sit
down." He gestured toward a chair at the end of his work bench. "Care for a cup of tea?"

  "No, thanks."

  "I'm having one."

  "Well, in that case…"

  He crossed to another bench. "No cream. Sorry."

  "That's all right…How did you know it involved the Hangman?"

  He grinned as he brought me my cup. "Because it's come back," he said, "and it's the only thing I've been connected with that warrants that much concern."

  "Do you mind talking about it?"

  "Up to a point, no."

  "What's the point?"

  "If we get near it, I'll let you know."

  "Fair enough…How dangerous is it?"

  "I would say that it is harmless," he replied, "except to three persons."

  "Formerly four?"

  "Precisely."

  "How come?"

  "We were doing something we had no business doing."

  "That being…?"

  "For one thing, attempting to create an artificial intelligence."

  "Why had you no business doing that?"

  "A man with a name like yours shouldn't have to ask."

  I chuckled.

  "If I were a preacher," I said, "I would have to point out that there is no biblical injunction against it, unless you've been worshipping it on the sly."

  He shook his head.

  "Nothing that simple, that obvious, that explicit. Times have changed since the Good Book was written, and you can't hold with a purely fundamentalist approach in complex times. What I was getting at was something a little more abstract. A form of pride, not unlike the classical hubris, the setting up of oneself on a level with the Creator."

  "Did you feel that, pride?"

  "Yes."

  "Are you sure it wasn't just enthusiasm for an ambitious project that was working well?"

  "Oh, there was plenty of that. A manifestation of the same thing."

  "I do seem to recall something about man being made in the Creator's image, and something else about trying to live up to that. It would seem to follow that exercising one's capacities along similar lines would be a step in the right direction, an act of conformance with the Divine ideal, if you'd like."

  "But I don't like. Man cannot really create. He can only rearrange what is already present. Only God can create."