A Creed for the Third Millennium (8 page)

'And who is your second choice, Dr
Chasen?' she asked.

Dr Chasen grinned wickedly. 'I can hear
you all asking yourselves, Which made the booboo, my computer or me? Relax!
There's nothing wrong with my computer. It put him in my sample. Senator David
Sims Hillier VII. What more can I say? Need I say more?'

The moment Dr Chasen uttered the name,
there was a huge collective sigh. The golden boy! There he was in an
eight-by-ten colour print under Dr Carriol's eyes; the most liked, the most
admired, the most respected man in America. David Sims Hillier VII, U.S.
Senator. At thirty-one too young to be President, but bound to be President
before he turned forty. Six feet four inches in height, therefore not afflicted
by the Napoleon complex. Beautifully built, therefore not afflicted by the Atlas
complex. Fair hair, wavy and likely to remain enviably thick into old age. Deep,
brilliant blue eyes. Classically regular features, yet not at all pretty. Even
in the photograph one could see how masterfully the chin would jut in real life.
The curves of the mouth were firm, disciplined, unsensuous, and the eyes looked
strong, intelligent, resolved, wise. He was all those; nor was he selfish,
cruel, shallow, impractical, or indifferent to the plight of those born into less affluent
circumstances than he himself had been.

Dr Carriol put the picture away.
'Objections?'

'Did you dig deep, Moshe?' asked Dr
Hemingway.

'Yes, indeed I did. Into everything. And
if he has feet of clay, I can't find a trace of the substance.' Dr Chasen nodded
seriously. 'He's — perfect!'

'Then why,' demanded Dr Abraham, voice
cracking to a squeak, 'did you pick an obscure half-mad-looking psychologist
from a backwater like Holloman, Connecticut, ahead of the best man in
America?'

This question Dr Chasen considered with
obvious respect. Instead of galloping in with a glib pat answer, he frowned and
took his time and was honest about his own ignorance. Most unusual behaviour
from Moshe Chasen when dealing with the scepticism of his colleagues. 'I cannot
explain why,' he said. 'I
just know in my bones that Dr Joshua Christian
is the
only
man who fits the criteria of the commission we were given, at
least in my sample of possible candidates. I still think it! Very vividly do I
remember Judith sitting five years ago right where she's sitting now and giving
us this job, and I remember how she kept hammering away about charisma. That,
she said, was what was going to make this exercise the most important exercise
of its kind ever undertaken. Because we were going to use the most modern tools
and methods to try to pinpoint an intangible. If we could do it, she said, we
would make statistical analytical history. And prove a point, and put
Environment so far ahead even of Justice and Treasury that we'd be the
undisputed kings of data processing. So when I nutted out my programs for the
computer, I skewed them towards factors indicating charisma.'

He ran his fingers through his hair in
exasperation, sensing that he wasn't home yet. 'I mean, what
is
charisma?' he asked rhetorically. 'Originally it was a word used only to
describe the God-given power of saints and holy men to capture and mould
the spirits of those they encountered. Then during the last half of the last
century it got so bowdlerized it was used to categorize the impact of pop stars,
playboys and politicians. Now we should all know Judith pretty well. We knew her
well even before Operation Search began! And knowing her, I figured that what
she meant by charisma was something a lot closer to the old definition than the
current one. Judith doesn't deal in superficialities.'

He had captured them at last, even Dr
Carriol, who had sat up much straighter in her chair and was staring at him as
if she had never really seen him before.

'Most of the time, especially since the
advent of mass media,
how
a person speaks and acts out his ideas is as
important as the content of his ideas. God help the person who writes a
genuinely significant book and then lays an egg on the Marlene Feldman Hour,
because that's where thinking America gets its impressions of Joe Blow the
significant writer! How many times has one Presidential candidate aced the
opposition on a televised debate simply because he can project himself and his
ideas better than the opposition? And how do you think old Gus Rome managed to
keep the country on his side and overpower both Houses? Televised fireside chats
to the nation is how! He'd sit there and look straight into the camera without
blinking those big clear fascinating eyes, pouring his mind and his spirit
across the gap between the White House and Main Street Anywhere so effectively
that everyone who watched him and heard what he said was convinced the man spoke
from his heart to that one listening person alone. He was a strong, indomitable
and utterly sincere man, with the ability to project what he was! And he knew
the ideas and the words that act as keys to unlock emotions.'

He grimaced, looking as if suddenly he
was repelled to nausea by what he was thinking, then he visibly got himself
under command, and said, 'Have you ever heard any of Hitler's speeches, or seen
him in old film clips haranguing a crowd? Ridiculous! He comes across as a
posturing, screaming, infantile little man. There were plenty of Germans who
used the same tactics Hitler did, appealed to the same frustrated national
feelings, put up the same hapless and innocent scapegoats, but those other
Germans didn't have what Hitler had — the ability to
inspire,
to bury
good sense and intellect under a landslide of emotion. He was evil personified,
but he had charisma. Or take his arch enemy, Winston Churchill. The bulk of
Churchill's most telling speeches were either pinched straight out of the works
of other people, or paraphrased. Little of what he actually said was original,
and often to us he comes across as unbelievably sentimental, real cornpone hokum
stuff. But the man had the most magnificent way with him, and like Hitler he was
there at the time the people could be reached and influenced by what he said,
and
how he said it. He inspired! Charisma. Neither Hitler nor Churchill
was sexy or handsome or, I understand, particularly charming. Unless they needed
to be charming, when, I understand, they could charm the birds right out of the
trees. St Francis of Assisi had charisma, and he could literally charm the birds
right out of the trees. Now he had the real McCoy. But so did Hitler, and
Churchill, and Augustus Rome. Okay. Let's move on a bit, take a look at
Iggy-Piggy the pop star and Raoul Delice the playboy. Do they have charisma? No!
They're both sexy, they're both colossally charming, they're both objects of
adulation. Yet when the winds of time blow them away, no one will even remember
their names. They do not have genuine charisma. They don't have what it takes to
lead a nation to its finest hour, or to the nadir of its history. And
Senator David Sims Hillier VII? The computer says
he doesn't have charisma of the kind I'm sure our Judith is looking for. My
chief researcher agreed with the computer. And I agree with both of them. Where
right from the first early pass of the entire sample through the first of the
early programs, Dr Joshua Christian's name kept popping to the top. No matter
what we did, his name was a cork we couldn't keep under. That
simple.'

Dr Carriol nodded. 'Thank you, Moshe.'
She smiled. 'I know it's a bit of an anticlimax after all this, but you'd better
get on and give us your choice for third place.'

Dr Chasen came down from where he had
been dwelling, and opened the last file. 'Dominic d'Este. An eighth-generation
American. One-quarter black blood from a full black grandparent. Aged
thirty-six. Married, two children, SCB second child approval number DX-42-6-084,
the older child a girl aged eleven, in school, straight A's, the younger a boy
aged seven, in school, classified extremely bright. He made a perfect ten on the
Carriol scales for marriage and parenthood.' This with an ironic nod towards the
head of the table.

Dr Carriol acknowledged it, and went back
to studying the handsome face in the photograph between her hands. A
superlatively handsome face. The black blood didn't really show except in the
eyes, which were night dark and of that curious, wonderful liquidity peculiar to
people of black origins.

'Dominic d'Este was an astronaut on the
Phoebus series, speciality solar engineering, but he is now Mayor of Detroit. He
devotes all his time and energy to preserving his city as a spring-summer-autumn
centre of trolley car and omnibus building and other metal engineering. When
contracts are advertised in Washington regarding Phoebus or relocation or any
major project calling for either massive or precision metal engineering, he's right there
lobbying like crazy for Detroit. He received the Pulitzer Prize for his book
entitled
Even the Sun Dies in Winter,
and he serves on the President's
council for urban preservation. He also hosts the ABC television talk show
"Northern City", very strong indeed on the Sunday ratings. Finally, he is
accounted the finest public speaker in the country after Senator
Hillier.'

'Objections?' asked Dr
Carriol.

'Just —
too
good-looking,' growled
Dr Hemingway.

Everyone grinned.

'I agree, I agree!' cried Dr Chasen,
extending his hands in self-exculpation.

'You haven't mentioned a fact I happen to
know because I know Dominic personally, Moshe,' said Dr Abraham, an ex-NASA data
analyst. 'Mayor d'Este is a serving elder of his church.'

'I am aware of it,' said Dr Chasen.
'However, after several further looks, we decided — the computer, my chief
researcher and I — that the degree of Mayor d'Este's religious commitment and
involvement was not sufficient to disqualify him from our sample.' Dr Chasen
grunted. 'Or disqualify him from final selection, for that matter.'

Dr Carriol put the last file on top of
all the others and pushed them to one side; in the space she cleared by so doing
she laid her hands, one folded lightly over the other, the fingers of both
writhing gently.

'I would like to thank you most
sincerely, and congratulate you on a very long and very demanding job done very,
very well. I trust that all of you have returned your entire samples to the
Federal Human Data Bank and removed all trace of your programs from the
computers?'

They nodded, Dr Abraham, Dr Hemingway and
Dr Chasen.

'Of course you will retain your programs
for future use, but filed in such a way that their true meaning is unintelligible to anyone outside this
room. Have any of you any paperwork or tapes or other evidence of Operation
Search left undestroyed?'

They shook their heads.

'Good! I will take charge of all copies
of the files here this afternoon. Before we go any further, maybe John will find
some refreshments?'

She smiled at her secretary, whose pencil
had not paused since the meeting started; he laid down his notebook and rose
immediately.

Dr Hemingway excused herself to visit the
adjacent toilet facilities, while the other three sat rather limply, not
speaking. But by the time John Wayne had wheeled in his cart bearing coffee and
tea, cakes and sandwiches, wine and beer, and dispensed it with his usual
efficiency unimpaired by the marathon stint of shorthand notation, Dr Hemingway
was back and the other three had regained their vitality.

'I could kick myself for not working out
a program more skewed towards charisma,' said Dr Hemingway as she nibbled on a
smoked salmon sandwich.

'I
think Moshe read far too much
into the original commission,' said Dr Abraham.

All three looked to Dr Carriol, who
merely wiggled her eyebrows, and
that helped
elucidate
nothing.

'It was good fun,' said Dr Chasen, and
sighed. 'I hope phase two is as much fun, Judith?' A fishing statement, but
again Dr Carriol vouchsafed no reply.

Finally she waved the cart away, and
waited until John Wayne had disposed of it and resumed his seat and his pencil
before getting back to business.

'I am aware that you're rather in the
dark as to exactly what phase two of Operation Search entails,' she said. 'Until
today I haven't wanted you to know, because I thought you should be devoting all
your energies to phase one, and I didn't want any of you shortcutting because
subconsciously you were relying on phase two to get you out of any possible
dilemma.' She paused, and looked straight at Dr
Chasen. 'Before I discuss phase two, I had better say that I am removing Dr
Chasen from Operation Search entirely as of today. You're going to a fresh
project, Moshe.
Not
because I consider your contribution to Operation
Search unsatisfactory! Quite the contrary.' Her official stiffness relaxed a
little. 'You did very well, Moshe. I confess you have amazed me.'

'Don't tell me our work didn't measure
up!' gasped Dr Hemingway, face screwed into anguished wrinkles.

'Don't panic, Millie, it measured up
fine. I believe the overall outcome is not altered by Moshe's prejudicial tack
with the data. Don't forget that phase one provided for the unexpected by
offering three candidates from each team. I had thought it would be phase two
that would refine these nine possibles to the point where intangibles could be
dealt with properly. I was thinking of phase one's computer work more as a tool
to remove any human error from what I considered truly computer-assessable data.
So I admit I am fascinated that one of you did manage to devise a program
capable of assessing a massive sample with respect to an intangible. But it is
possible that phase two will reverse Moshe's findings. Which does not detract in
the least from the brilliance of Moshe's approach to phase one. It will merely
show Moshe where he went wrong, and next time he won't go wrong. Don't lose
sight of the fact that there are nine candidates entering phase two, six of whom
did not belong to Moshe's lot. Moshe skewed to favour one of his ten parameters,
the intangible one. But there's every chance that in so doing, he tampered with
the data in such a way that the other nine parameters did not receive sufficient
emphasis.'