The Mammoth Book of 20th Century SF II (6 page)

Larkin stopped in involuntary awe. He was used to the sight of important men, but not so many at one time, and never so close. There was Secretary Kell, of Agriculture; Wachsmuth, of Commerce;
General Vines, Chief of Staff; and a battery of others so imposing that Larkin found his mouth hanging embarrassingly open. He closed it immediately.

Reddington introduced him. The men nodded one by one, but they were all deathly serious, their faces drawn, and there was now no conversation. Reddington waved him to a chair. Most of the others
were standing, but Larkin sat.

Reddington sat directly facing him. There was a long moment of silence during which Larkin realized that he was being searchingly examined. He flushed, but sat calmly with his hands folded in
his lap. After a while Reddington took a deep breath.

“Dr. Larkin,” he said slowly, “what I am about to say to you will die with you. There must be no question of that. We cannot afford to have any word of this meeting, any word
at all, reach anyone not in this room. This includes your immediate relatives, your friends, anyone – anyone at all. Before we continue, let me impress you with that fact. This is a matter of
the gravest national security. Will you keep what is said here in confidence?”

“If the national interests – ” Larkin began, then he said abruptly, “of course.”

Reddington smiled slightly.

“Good. I believe you. I might add that just the fact of your being here, Doctor, means that you have already passed the point of no return . . . well, no matter. There is no time.
I’ll get to the point.”

He stopped, looking around the room. Some of the other men were standing and now began to move in closer. Larkin felt increasingly nervous, but the magnitude of the event was too great for him
to feel any worry. He gazed intently at Reddington.

“The Polls close tonight at eight o’clock.” Reddington glanced at his watch. “It is now six-eighteen. I must be brief. Doctor, do you remember the prime directive that we
gave to SAM when he was first built?”

“I think so,” said Larkin slowly.

“Good. You remember then that there was one main order. SAM was directed to elect, quote,
the best qualified man
. Unquote. Regardless of any and all circumstances, religion, race,
so on. The orders were clear – the best qualified man. The phrase has become world famous. But unfortunately” – he glanced up briefly at the men surrounding him – “the
order was a mistake. Just whose mistake does not matter. I think perhaps the fault lies with all of us, but – it doesn’t matter. What matters is this: SAM will not elect a
president.”

Larkin struggled to understand. Reddington leaned forward in his chair.

“Now follow me closely. We learned this only late this afternoon. We are always aware, as you no doubt know, of the relatively few people in this country who have a chance for the
presidency. We know not only because they are studying for it, but because such men as these are marked from their childhood to be outstanding. We keep close watch on them, even to assigning the
Secret Service to protect them from possible harm. There are only a very few. During this last election we could not find more than fifty. All of those people took the tests this morning. None of
them passed.”

He paused, waiting for Larkin’s reaction. Larkin made no move.

“You begin to see what I’m getting at?
There is no qualified man
.”

Larkin’s eyes widened. He sat bolt upright.

“Now it hits you. If none of those people this morning passed, there is no chance at all for any of the others tonight. What is left now is simply crackpots and malcontents. They are
privileged to take the tests, but it means nothing. SAM is not going to select anybody. Because sometime during the last four years the presidency passed the final limit, the ultimate end of
man’s capabilities, and with scientific certainty we know that there is probably no man alive who is, according to SAM’s directive, qualified.”

“But,” Larkin interrupted, “I’m not quite sure I follow. Doesn’t the phrase ‘elect the best qualified man’ mean that we can at least take the best
we’ve got?”

Reddington smiled wanly and shook his head.

“No. And that was our mistake. It was quite probably a psychological block, but none of us ever considered the possibility of the job surpassing human ability. Not then, thirty years ago.
And we also never seemed to remember that SAM is, after all, only a machine. He takes the words to mean exactly what they say: Elect the best, comma,
qualified
, comma, man. But do you see,
if there is no qualified man, SAM cannot possibly elect the best. So SAM will elect no one at all. Tomorrow this country will be without a president. And the result of that, more than likely, will
mean a general war.”

Larkin understood. He sat frozen in his chair.

“So you see our position,” Reddington went on wearily. “There’s nothing we can do. Reelecting President Creighton is out of the question. His stroke was permanent, he may
not last the week. And there is no possibility of tampering with SAM, to change the directive. Because, as you know, SAM is foolproof, had to be. The circuits extend through all forty-eight states.
To alter the machine at all requires clearing through all forty-eight entrances. We can’t do that. For one thing, we haven’t time. For another, we can’t risk letting the world
know there is no qualified man.

“For a while this afternoon, you can understand, we were stumped. What could we do? There was only one answer, we may come back to it yet. Give the presidency itself to SAM –
”

A man from across the room, whom Larkin did not recognize, broke in angrily.

“Now Reddington, I told you, that is government by machine! And I will not stand – ”

“What else can you
do!
” Reddington whirled, his eyes flashing, his tension exploding now into rage. “Who else knows all the answers? Who else can compute in two seconds
the tax rate for Mississippi, the parity levels for wheat, the probable odds on a military engagement? Who else but SAM! And why didn’t we do it long ago, just feed the problems to
him
, SAM, and not go on killing man after man, great men,
decent
men like poor Jim Creighton, who’s on his back now and dying because people like you – ” He broke
off suddenly and bowed his head. The room was still. No one looked at Reddington. After a moment he shook his head. His voice, when he spoke, was husky.

“Gentlemen, I’m sorry. This leads nowhere.” He turned back to Larkin.

Larkin had begun to feel the pressure. But the presence of these men, of Reddington’s obvious profound sincerity, reassured him. Creighton had been a great president, he had surrounded
himself with some of the finest men in the country. Larkin felt a surge of hope that such men as these were available for one of the most critical hours in American history. For critical it was,
and Larkin knew as clearly as anyone there what the absence of a president in the morning – no deep reassurance, no words of hope – would mean. He sat waiting for Reddington to
continue.

“Well, we have a plan. It may work, it may not. We may all be shot. But this is where you come in. I hope for all our sakes you’re up to it.”

Larkin waited.

“The plan,” Reddington went on, slowly, carefully, “is this. SAM has one defect. We can’t tamper with it. But we
can
fool it. Because when the brain tests a man,
it does not at the same time identify him. We do the identifying ourselves. So if a man named Joe Smith takes the personality tests and another man also named Joe Smith takes the Political Science
tests, the machine has no way of telling them apart. Unless our guards supply the difference, SAM will mark up the results of both tests to one Joe Smith. We can clear the guards, no problem there.
The first problem was to find the eight men to take the eight tests.”

Larkin understood. He nodded.

“Exactly. Eight specialists,” Reddington said. “General Vines will take the Military; Burden, Psychology; Wachsmuth, Economics; and so on. You, of course, will take the
Political Science. We can only hope that each man will come out with a high enough score in his own field so that the combined scores of our mythical ‘candidate’ will be enough to
qualify him. Do you follow me?”

Larkin nodded dazedly. “I think so. But – ”

“It should work. It has to work.”

“Yes,” Larkin murmured, “I can see that. But who, who will actually wind up – ”

“As President?” Reddington smiled very slightly and stood up. “That was the most difficult question of all. At first we thought there was no solution. Because a president must
be so many things – consider. A president blossoms instantaneously, from nonentity, into the most important job on earth. Every magazine, every newspaper in the country immediately goes to
work on his background, digs out his life story, anecdotes, sayings, and so on. Even a very strong fraud would never survive it. So the first problem was believability. The new president must be
absolutely believable. He must be a man of obvious character, of obvious intelligence, but more than that, his former life must fit the facts: he must have had both the time and the personality to
prepare himself for the office.

“And you see immediately what all that means. Most businessmen are out. Their lives have been too social, they wouldn’t have had the time. For the same reason all government and
military personnel are also out, and we need hardly say that anyone from the Bureau of Elections would be immediately suspect. No. You see the problem. For a while we thought that the time was too
short, the risk too great. But then the only solution, the only possible chance, finally occurred to us.

“The only believable person would be – a professor. Someone whose life has been serious but unhurried, devoted to learning but at the same time isolated. The only really believable
person. And not a scientist, you understand, for a man like that would be much too overbalanced in one direction for our purpose. No, simply a professor, preferably in a field like Political
Science, a man whose sole job for many years has been teaching, who can claim to have studied in his spare time, his summers – never really expected to pass the tests and all that, a humble
man, you see – ”

“Political Science,” Larkin said.

Reddington watched him. The other men began to close in on him.

“Yes,” Reddington said gently. “Now do you see? It is our only hope. Your name was suggested by several sources, you are young enough, your reputation is well known. We think
that you would be believable. And now that I’ve seen you” – he looked around slowly – “I for one am willing to risk it. Gentlemen, what do you say?”

Larkin, speechless, sat listening in mounting shock while the men agreed solemnly, one by one. In the enormity of the moment he could not think at all. Dimly, he heard Reddington.

“I know. But, Doctor, there is no time. The Polls close at eight. It is now almost seven.”

Larkin closed his eyes and rested his head on his hands. Above him, Reddington went on inevitably.

“All right. You are thinking of what happens after. Even if we pull this off and you are accepted without question, what then? Well, it will simply be the old system all over again. You
will be at least no worse off than presidents before SAM. Better even, because if worse comes to worst, there is always SAM. You can feed all the bad ones to him. You will have the advice of the
cabinet, of the military staff. We will help you in every way we can, some of us will sit with you on all conferences. And you know more about this than most of us, you have studied government all
your life.

“But all this, what comes later, is not important. Not now. If we can get through tomorrow, the next few days, all the rest will work itself out. Eventually we can get around to altering
SAM. But we must have a president in the morning. You are our only hope. You can do it. We all know you can do it. At any rate there is no other way, no time. Doctor,” he reached out and laid
his hand on Larkin’s shoulder, “shall we go to the Polls?”

It passed, as most great moments in a man’s life do, with Larkin not fully understanding what was happening to him. Later he would look back to this night and realize the enormity of the
decision he had made, the doubts, the sleeplessness, the responsibility and agony toward which he moved. But in that moment he thought nothing at all. Except that it was Larkin’s country,
Larkin’s America. And Reddington was right. There was nothing else to do. He stood up.

They went to the Polls.

At 9:30 that evening, sitting alone with Reddington back at the apartment, Larkin looked at the face of the announcer on the television screen, and heard himself pronounced
President-elect of the United States.

Reddington wilted in front of the screen. For a while neither man moved. They had come home alone, just as they had gone into the Polls one by one in the hope of arousing no comment. Now they
sat in silence until Reddington turned off the set. He stood up and straightened his shoulders before turning to Larkin. He stretched out his hand.

“Well, may God help us,” he breathed, “we did it.”

Larkin took his hand. He felt suddenly weak. He sat down again, but already he could hear the phone ringing in the outer hall. Reddington smiled.

“Only a few of my closest friends are supposed to know about that phone. But every time anything big comes up – ” He shrugged. “Well,” he said, still smiling,
“let’s see how it works.”

He picked up the phone and with it an entirely different manner. He became amazingly light and cheerful, as if he was feeling nothing more than the normal political goodwill.

“Know him? Of course I know him. Had my eye on the guy for months. Really nice guy, wait’ll you meet him . . . yup, college professor, Political Science, written a couple of books .
. . must know a hell of a lot more than Poli Sci, though. Probably been knocking himself out in his spare time. But those teachers, you know how it is, they don’t get any pay, but all the
spare time in the world . . . Married? No, not that I know of – ”