The Ambassador Part 9

"I'm beginning to accept the fact--if not to understand," said Lindsay.

The president said, "Lindsay, from the point of view of your planet you have done nothing improper. But from the point of view of this planet...." He let silence and a shrug of thick shoulders finish the sentence.

"I had no idea," Lindsay began, "that conditions on Earth...." He let his own voice trail off.

Giovannini finished it for him. "You had no idea people on Earth were so d.a.m.ned neurotic," he said, and sighed. Then, "Lindsay--call me Johnny, will you? All my friends do--Lindsay, for generations now people by and large have been forfeiting confidence in themselves to confidence in computers.

"They have had good reason. Computer judgment has been responsible for the first true age of world peace in history. It may not be healthy but it's a d.a.m.n sight healthier than war. And it has transformed this republic from an unwieldy group of states into a controlled anarchy that can be run by pushb.u.t.tons under ordinary conditions."

He paused while the Martian lit a cigarette, then went on with, "Thanks first to Sylac, then to Elsac, we learned that Vermont was happiest under its Town Meeting method, North Carolina needed its oligarchy, while my native state, California, is much better off divided in two.

Texas became happy with its triple legislature--they never are happy unless they have a little more of everything down there. It was the same in other countries--Canada, South America, Spain...."

"And England?" Lindsay said softly.

The president sighed again. "England," he admitted, "is a bit of a problem--out of all proportion to its size and current importance. But the British are stubborn about their inst.i.tutions. They've hung onto a Royal Family a hundred years longer than anyone else. We can hardly expect them to give up their beloved socialism so soon."

"Just as long as Mars is not expected to pay for this indulgence, it's quite all right with my people," Lindsay told him.

"What's _your_ first name--Zalen?" the president asked. "Well, Zalen, I know it's a problem but we all have to give a little or crowd somebody out. Zalen, people are getting killed on account of you right now."

"I've nearly been killed a couple of times myself."

"I know. Regrettable," said Giovannini. "The UW crowd never has understood security. That's why I had to kidnap you, Zalen. Couldn't have you killed, you know. Not now anyway."

"Glad you feel that way, Johnny." Lindsay told him drily. "But hasn't it occurred to you that if people here are so easily set off it might be a good idea to knock out this computer business once and for all?"

The president puffed on his cigarette. Then he said, "Zale, twenty years ago, maybe even ten, it could have been done. Now it's too late. Which is why the ninety-billion-dollar investment in Giac. We've got to give them an absolute computer, one that will remove forever the basic distrust of computer judgment that underlies the neuroses you just mentioned."

"Quite possibly," said Lindsay. "But I haven't actually done a d.a.m.ned thing myself to undermine computer judgment. The mistakes have been made by the so-called experts who have fed their machines inadequate information. Those mistakes were infantile. They suggest some sort of neurosis on the part of the feeders. They could be mistake-p.r.o.ne, you know."

President Giovannini chuckled again. "Of course they're mistake-p.r.o.ne, Zalen," he said. "Some of them, anyway. And it's getting worse. That's the real reason for Giac. Wait'll you see it!"

"You think I'm going to be around that long, Johnny?" Lindsay asked. "I understand I'm to be sent back to Mars--if I live that long."

"No, Lindsay, we need you--I'll explain in a moment. And we aren't going to let you die and become a martyr for generations of anti-computerites.

We can't have that now, can we?"

"I'll go along with you on it," said Lindsay, wondering what the president was leading up to.

"Good!" The president beamed at him. "Zalen--I want _you_ to be the first person to put Giac through a public test. That's how much I trust that machine. I want you, the man who has fouled up two computers, including Elsac, to try her out."

And Lindsay could only nod. The governors of Mars might not approve but after the uproar he had caused on this mission they could hardly object.

President Giovannini's scheme was fully up to that renowned statesman's reputation for political astuteness. The more Lindsay thought it over the more beautiful was its simplicity.

Mere word that he was to conduct the first public test would quell the rioting. And unless Lindsay could show this mightiest of all symbolic logic computers to be fallible, computer rule would be entrenched on Earth as never before.

But what if, in some way, he succeeded in confounding the computer?

Lindsay shuddered as he thought of the rioting he had so recently witnessed on the vidar-screens.

His face must have revealed his distress for the president said, "You're worn out, Zalen. Can't have that, you know. Not with the big test coming tomorrow."

Lindsay barely remembered leaving the president and being led to a sleeping chamber somewhere in the vast mansion. When he woke up it was dark and Nina was perched on the edge of his contour couch, looking unexpectedly demure in a grey bolo with white collar and cuffs.

He said, as articulate as usual when she surprised him, "Hi."

"About time you woke up," she said. "Do you know you snore?"

"I can't help it," he told her. Then, coming fully awake, "How the devil did you get _here_?"

"I walked," she informed him succinctly. She stood up, her magnificent figure silhouetted against the light. "Better get dressed--your duds are over there." She nodded toward a walldrobe. "I'll wait in the bathroom."

She breezed out.

When he looked at the clothing he was to wear he sensed that Nina had selected it for him. It was a little brighter in color, a little more daring in cut, than what he would have picked for himself.

Nina was placing jewels carefully in her hair, which she had released to form a sleek halo around her magnificent head, when he entered the bathroom. A small palisade of glittering jeweled hairpins protruded from her mouth. She had shed her demure bolo and stood revealed in glittering black bodice-bra and evening skirt-clout.

After placing the last jewel in her hair she swung about and said, "There--how do I look?"

"Gorgeous," he told her.

"You look a bit dull," she said. She dug a box out of a travel-bag placed in a corner of the room. "Here," she said. "Put this on--left side."

"This" proved to be a magnificent sunburst decoration, a glittering diamond-encrusted star. He said, "What is it?"

"Grand Order of the United Worlds--a fine diplomat you are! I picked it up for you this afternoon before flying here. Just stick it on...." She came over, took it from him, pressed it firmly against his bolo till the suction grips caught hold.

He put his arms around her. She let him hold her a moment, then pushed clear in the immemorial gesture of women dressed for a party who do not want to have their grooming mussed. "Not now," she said. "We'll have plenty of time."

"Not for what's worrying _me_," he said. "Nina, I've got to put Giac through its paces in front of the whole world tomorrow. And I don't know what to ask it. I've got a blind spot where symbolic logic is concerned."

"Don't fret yourself," said the girl calmly. "I'm not worried about _you_. Not after what you've managed to do to all the other computers you've faced. Come on--we're having dinner with the president."

"Who the h.e.l.l _are_ you anyway?" he asked her bluntly. "You don't even look the same."

She laughed. "I should _hope_ not," she told him. "After all, I could hardly grace the president's table as a mere UW secretary--_or_ as a New Orleans top model. Come on!"

He went--and got his second shock when President Giovannini greeted Nina with a manner as close to obsequiousness as that professionally free-and-easy politician could muster. He said, "My dear Miss Norstadt-Ramirez. I do hope you'll forgive me for ordering such summary action this morning. If I'd had the slightest idea...."

"I was boiling," Nina told him. "I was just about ready to order Aetnapolitan to pull the props out from under you when the riots started. Then I blessed your s.h.i.+ny little head and came up here."

"I am honored," said the president.

Lindsay, walking through the proceedings in a fog, was even more laconic than a clipped British envoy who, along with a recovered Senator Anderson, was a member of the party.