Human Error Read online

of every molecule in his body. And then, in justone split second, he makes the decision of a moron, fumbling when heneeded to be precise."

  "Just what did he do?" Oglethorpe asked gently.

  "Our customary approach is to the west turret. This time he had beenordered to go to the east side because of repairs on the other end ofthe hub. Cummins had seen and acknowledged the orders. Apparently, theyslipped his mind during approach to the Wheel and he came up on the westside. Then he remembered and tried to correct his position.

  "Everything must have gone wrong then. The decision was a blunder tobegin with. Wrong approach, yes. But it was suicide to attempt such adetailed maneuver that close to the station. He used his side jets andslammed the _Griseda_ into the Wheel at a forty-five degree angle,locking the ship in the wreckage of the rim and in the girders of thespokes."

  "Was there any previous indication of instability in the pilot that youknow of? We'll get a better answer on that from Adler, but we need toknow if you were aware of anything."

  "The answer is no! Cummins was checked out before the start of theflight just three days ago. He was all right as far as any of our meansof evaluation go. As right as any man will ever be--

  "Jack, listen to me. Remember when we were back at White Sands andtalked of the days when there would be a Wheel up here, and ships takingoff for the Moon and for Mars?"

  "I remember," said General Oglethorpe softly.

  "Well, we've got a piece of that dream. But there'll never be any more,and what we've got is going to go smash unless we correct the oneweakness we've never tackled properly. You'll fail again and again aslong as men like Cummins can destroy twenty years' work and billions ofdollars worth of engineering construction. One man's stupid, moronicerror, and all of this goes to destruction, just as if it had neverbeen.

  "On the ground, a plane crashes--the board puts it down as pilot errorand planes go on flying. You can't do that out here! The cost is toogreat. It's a sheer gamble putting this mountain of machinery and effortinto the hands of men we can never be sure of. You think you know them;you do everything possible to find out about them. But you just don't_know_.

  "We've solved every other technical problem that has stood in our way.Why haven't we solved this one? We've learned how to make a machine thatwill perform in a predictable manner, and when it fails to do so we canprovide adequate feedback alarms and correctors, and we can find thecause of error.

  "With a man, we can do nothing. We have to accept him, in the finalanalysis, on little more than faith.

  "A couple of hundred men are going to die because of a human error. Giveus a monument! Find out why men make errors. Produce a means of keepingthem from it. Do that, and our deaths will be a small price to pay!"

  * * * * *

  These were the words of a dead man. They were heard again and again inthe committee rooms and investigation chambers. They were printed andbroadcast around the world, and they enabled General Oglethorpe to dothe thing that became a burning crusade with him.

  He would probably have failed in his effort if those words hadn't beenspoken by a dying man while a shrieking, white-hot mass plunged throughthe atmosphere to land, finally, in the waters of the Pacific.

  The wreckage missed the city of San Francisco without the necessity ofguidance by the rocket fuel so preciously hoarded by West. The Wheel andthe _Griseda_ were doomed the moment the pilot, Cummins, decided toshift the position of the ship with respect to the station.

  * * * * *

  In the anteroom of the Base Commander's office, Dr. Paul Medick rubbedthe palms of his hands against his trouser legs when the secretarywasn't watching, and licked the dryness that burned the membrane of hislips.

  The secretary remembered him. She probably had been the one to make outhis severance papers and knew all about Oglethorpe's firing him.

  Now she was no doubt wondering about the General's calling him backafter that bitter occasion--just as Paul himself was wondering.

  But he was pretty sure he knew. If he were right it was the opportunityof a lifetime, and he couldn't afford to muff it.

  The girl turned at the sound of a buzz on the intercom. She smiled andsaid, "You may go in now."

  "Thanks." He stood up and told his nerves to quit remembering the lasttime he passed through the door he was now entering. General Oglethorpewas nobody but the Base Commander, and if Paul Medick got thrown outonce more he would be no worse off than he now was.

  Oglethorpe looked up, a grim trace of a smile at the corners of hismouth. He shook hands and indicated a chair by the desk, resuming hisown seat behind it. "You know why I called you--in spite of our pastdifferences."

  Paul hesitated. He didn't want to show his anxiety--and hopefulness--Heweighed the answers that might be expected of him, and said, "It's thiscrash thing--and the appeal of Captain West?"

  "Would there be anything else?"

  "I'm flattered that you thought of me."

  "There's nothing personal involved, believe me! I'd a thousand timesrather have called somebody else--anybody else--but there's nobody thatcan do the job you can."

  "Thanks."

  "Don't bother thanking me. I expect there'll still be a great deal ofdifference between us about the basic goals of this project. But once westart I don't want to have to fire you again."

  "Just what is the nature of this project," said Paul, "its goals? Fillme in on the details."

  "There are no details--beyond what you've read and heard--you're goingto provide them. The objective is to find a kind of man that will keepthe Frank Wests of the future from dying, as those men aboard the Wheeldid."

  "What kind of man do you expect that to be?" Paul asked.

  "One who will eliminate, for all time, the damning verdict that has beenhanded down in tens of thousands of investigations of accident anddisaster: _human error_.

  "We're going to find a kind of man who can be depended on to functionwithout error. One who can undertake a complicated task of knownprocedure and perform it an infinite number of times, if necessary,without a single deviation from standard."

  Paul Medick regarded the General through narrowed eyes. In spite of hisalmost agonizing desire to possess the appointment to head up thisProject he had to have a clear understanding with Oglethorpe now. He hadto risk his chances, if necessary, to make himself absolutely clear.

  He said, "For untold thousands of years the human race has spent itsbest efforts to reach the goal of perfection without achieving it. Nowyou propose to assemble all the money in the world, and all the brainsand say: give us a perfect man! The United States Space Command demandshim!"

  "Exactly." General Oglethorpe's face hardened as he returned Paul'ssteady gaze. "No other technical problem has been able to stand beforesuch an attack. There is no reason why this one should. And the problem_must_ be solved, or we're going to have to abandon space just as westand on the frontier, getting our first real glimpse of it."

  "Your world is such a simple, uncomplicated place, General," said Paulslowly. "You want a man with two heads, four arms, and a tail? Order it!Coming up!

  "That's the way you operated when I set up your basic personnel programfive years ago. It didn't work then; it won't work now."

  The General's face darkened. "It _will_ work. Because it has to. Men aregoing to the stars--because they have to. And they're going to changethemselves to whatever form or shape or ability is required by thatgoal. They've done everything else they've ever set themselves todo--life came up out of the sea because it had courage. Men left theircaves and struck out across the plains and seas, and took up the wholeEarth and made it what it is--because they had courage.

  "But to go to space, courage is not enough. We need a new kind of manthat we've never seen before. He's a man of iron, who's forgotten he wasever flesh and blood. He's a machine, who can perform over and over thesame kind of complicated procedure and never make an error. He's morereliable and endurable than the best
machines we've ever made.

  "I don't know where we'll find him, but he can be found, and you _will_do it, because you believe, as I do, that Man's frontier must not beclosed. And because, in spite of your cynicism, you still understand themeaning of duty to your society and your race. There is no possibilityof your refusal, so I have taken steps already to make your appointmentofficial."

  "You must also have prepared yourself," said Paul, "to accept me withthe basic philosophy that must guide me in this matter. And myphilosophy is that this Project _must_ fail. It has no possibility ofsuccess. The man you seek does not exist. An