Human Error Page 4
anger that would cut off all appropriations to theProject.
He wondered, in sudden weariness, if this would not be an unmixedblessing, after all.
* * * * *
The next three days were spent in telephone and telegraph communicationwith members of his profession as he proceeded to recruit a staff.
On Friday, Betty arrived with the kids. By the end of the followingweek, laboratory furniture had been installed and the first trickle ofpotential staff members was coming in to see what Superman was allabout. Nat, too, had been busy forming his own staff and setting upbasic equipment.
Paul had the feeling that they were opposing camps setting up on thesame site of exploration. He tried to tell himself it was completelyirrational, until Nat approached him a few days later.
"Quite a crew you're getting in here," the technician said. "You'll haveto take Oglethorpe up on his offer of new buildings if you expect tofind couch space for all your boys."
"That's what you're here for," Paul suggested mildly, "to do away withcouches."
"Right." Nat nodded. "Anything a couch can do, a meter can do twice asefficiently."
"Sometimes both are necessary. You forget my specialty is psychometry."
"No, I'm not forgetting," said Nat. "But that's what makes it so hardfor me to figure out. You're attempting to span two completelyincompatible fields: science and humanities. Man behaves either as amachine or as a creature of unstable emotion. To function as one youhave to suppress the other."
"Splitting Man in two has never produced an answer to anything. It hasbeen tried even longer than couches--and with far less result."
"I'll make you a small side bet. We're going to have to work together onSuperman, and coordinate all our procedures and results. But I'll betthe final answer turns up on the side of a completely mechanistic man,shorn of all other responses and motivations."
"I'll take that!" Paul said with a grim smile. "I don't know how much ofan answer we'll find, but I know _that_ won't be it!"
"Let's say a small celebration feed for the whole crew when Superman iscompleted. Nothing chintzy, either!"
They shook on it. And afterward Paul was glad the incident had occurred.It left no doubt about the direction Nat Holt would be traveling in hiswork.
* * * * *
Four weeks to the day, from the time Paul had stepped into Oglethorpe'soffice, he called the first meeting of his staff leaders. Invitations tothe General and to Nat Holt were deliberately omitted. He wanted thisfirst get together to be a family affair.
He felt just a little shaky in the knees as he got up before that groupfor the first time.
"I won't repeat what you already know," Paul said carefully. "You allknow the background events that produced Project Superman.
"I am sure that each of you has also caught the two basic errors thathave been assumed by the Space Command, first, that an errorless man ispossible, and second, that genuine scientific discovery can be securedwholly upon command. General Oglethorpe recognizes that we considerthese assumptions erroneous, but he also knows that our professionalintegrity demands that we pursue vigorously a course which he believeswill result in success.
"We recognize, too, that we are not here to invent or produce anythingthat does not already exist. But, in a sense, our superiors and some ofour co-workers expect us to do exactly that.
"We can agree, however, that most of Man's potential still remains to bediscovered. And for us, who have hoped for a means of understanding thatpotential, this Project is the fulfillment of dreams. If we fail to takefull advantage of it, we will win the condemnation of our profession fora century to come.
"Space Command has already concluded that a man can be stripped of hishumanity and driven to an utterly mechanistic state with the roboticresponses of a machine. Let there be no mistake about it: we have beenbrought here to validate that conclusion.
"We will validate it by default, so to speak, unless we can produce aclean-cut analysis and demonstrations of the thing that most of usbelieve: that the essence of Man is more than a piece of machinery or acollection of bio-chemical reactions.
"Our science of mind and Man is on trial. If we fail, we give consent toa doctrine that will spread from space technology to all the rest of oursociety, and bind Man in an iron mold that will not be broken forgenerations. While we have been hired and will ostensibly work at thetask of developing an errorless man, our basic purpose must be tovalidate the humanity of Man!"
He waited for their reaction. Outside, far across the open desert at thestation, a rocket screamed into the air. They waited until the sounddied away.
Professor Barker stood up. "There is scarcely a human being who has notby now read or heard the words of Captain West's appeal. They will belooking for the day when there will come marching from our laboratories,like a robot, the errorless man he asked for.
"Do you mean we have to fight the stated objectives of this Project? Canwe not discover sufficient understanding to establish some method oftraining which will accomplish, in another way, the things the SpaceCommand needs?"
"We are not fighting the Space Command's desire for more adequate menfor its ships," said Paul. "We are fighting only against the falseconclusions they have already formed concerning the nature of such men.
"We must solve the problem of human error. We know its purpose in thelearning process. We must discover the reason for its existence in a_learned_ process. We have to find out what training actually means.
"We have to ask how we know when an error has been made. It is obvious,of course, when a spaceship rams a fixed orbit station. But what of thesubtler situations, where results are less dramatic, or are postponedfor a long time--?
"The primary thing to remember at this point is that our basic goal isto prevent any false confirmation of the dogma that Man is no more thana badly functioning machine, which will gain value when he has beentinkered with sufficiently so that he can slip in beside the gears andvacuum tubes and be indistinguishable from them. And to reach this goalwe must discover his true nature."
* * * * *
It was two weeks later that General Oglethorpe made his first visitsince Superman got under way. The soldier's face seemed more deeplylined and his eyes more tired than Paul remembered seeing them before.
"You seem to have things well in hand," he said. "How soon can you giveus some tangible results?"
"Results! We've just started housekeeping. In a year, maybe two, we'llhave an idea where to begin a concentrated search for what you want toknow."
The General shook his head slowly, his eyes remaining on Paul's face."You aren't going to have anything like a year. You haven't got time torun down one line of research and then another. Run them all at once--athousand of them if you want to. Why do you think you've got the budgetyou have!"
"Some things," said Paul, "like threading a needle--or analysing a humanbeing--don't go much faster when a thousand men work at it than whenthere's only one."
"They do when there're a thousand needles to thread--or brains to pick.And that's what we're up against here. We need a volume of the kind ofmen we've been talking about, and we need them quick!"
"We have to find out how to get the first one."
"And you haven't got as much time now as we thought you had whenSuperman began. They're trying to close us up.
"We hadn't planned to build another Wheel right away, not until somerefinements of design had been worked out, and we had some results fromSuperman.
"Now, all that's been scrapped. We've received orders from Washingtonthat erection of a second Wheel is to begin at once, using the plans ofthe first one. Fabrication of structures is already under way."
"I don't understand," said Paul.
"If we don't get another one up there within a matter of weeks, thishysterical opposition among the public is liable to prevent us evergetting one there again. We have to act while we still have author
ity,before the crackpots persuade Congress to take it away. And by the timeit's built, I want some men to put in it. Men who can be trusted to notjeopardize it the moment they put their clumsy feet aboard. I want them,Medick, and I intend to have them. That's by way of an order!"
The General rose, but Paul remained seated. "You can't get them thatway, and you know it," the latter said. "We'll do all we can, as I'vetold you before."
"I think you'll do considerably more, now. That was quite a talk youdelivered to your boys a couple of weeks ago. We will 'ostensibly workat the task of developing an errorless man',