Human Error Read online

of this," SenatorHart said. "We need to get this mob away from your gates for one thing.The news programs keep them constantly before the public eye and thewhole country is stirred up."

  "We'll take care of it at once," General Oglethorpe said. "As Dr. Medickhas indicated, this discovery is so new that even I had not beeninformed of it. Morgan's mob will go away as soon as they hear the news.And that, in turn, will reassure the entire country. We can arrange fora broadcast by Dr. Medick to the whole nation."

  Paul was swept along as arrangements were made to make a statement toMorgan and his group camped outside the Base, to the press, and to thepublic in general.

  Oglethorpe cornered him after the meeting with the Committee. "This ison the level," he said, "not something you cooked up on the spur of themoment?"

  "It's on the level," said Paul. "You were right all along."

  When he returned to his office an urgent message from Barker awaitedhim. He hurried down to the testing laboratory, where the older mangreeted him in excitement and anxiety.

  "It looks like we've got something by the tail and can't let go of it.Come in and have a look."

  Paul followed him and found Captain Harper in an observation room,writhing on a cot in a storm of tears and emotional fury. He beatagainst the walls and the floor with his fists as his sobbing continuedbeyond control.

  "What happened to him?" Paul demanded.

  "We have three others in the same condition," said Barker. "We tried todetermine the effect of a pure feedback impulse, and fed it back to eachof them in amplified form as we found it on their charts. This is whathappened. I'm afraid we may have cost them their sanity, and we don'tknow why."

  "How could their own feedback do such a thing to them?" he asked inwonder. "What part of the chart did you take it from?"

  "We used the impulse that didn't get through, the one that was blockedso that error resulted. Apparently this is the alternative to error." Henodded toward the writhing, sobbing man. "Harper reached a point wherehe _had_ to fail or else be subject to this psychic storm."

  Paul ran his long, bony fingers through his hair. "This makes less sensethan ever! If that's true, then we've got to take back what we've toldOglethorpe. His errorless man isn't possible, after all."

  "I don't know." Barker shook his head thoughtfully. "Evidently theproduction of error is a protection against the admission of thisintolerable feedback impulse. But the question remains: why is itintolerable, and why does it become so after numerous other feedbackimpulses have been passed?

  "Yesterday we thought we had it all wrapped up. Now it's blown openwider than ever before!"

  * * * * *

  Oglethorpe's public relations man prepared a statement to the effectthat further danger from pilot error in rocket ships and the secondWheel could be considered as completely eliminated with the new trainingprocesses that would make men incapable of technical errors.

  Paul knew it was as ineffectual as the average Government release, buthe made no protest in his concern for Harper and the three other men. Hesigned the statement automatically.

  He was presented the following day, however, with arrangements to giveit personally to the members of Morgan's Caravan from the top of one ofthe sound trucks. He did protest then that any flunky on the Base couldread it to the crowd as well as he. But Oglethorpe insisted he do itpersonally.

  With official pompousness the big, olive-green truck rolled out from theBase. Paul rode beside the driver and Metcalf, the public relations man.He'd not told Oglethorpe about their latest development. If this psychicreaction to feedback proved an impenetrable barrier there'd be timeenough to give Space Command the bad news. In the meantime a Wheel wouldbe built, the public would be mollified, and Superman would continueon--to what unknown ends Paul didn't know.

  The massed camp of the fanatic followers of Morgan appeared in thedistance like a discarded rag on either side of the road. Then as theyapproached it broke into individual knots of sand-scoured, unwashedpeople clustered about their tents. Morgan hadn't given much thought toadequate facilities before leading them out here.

  The truck rolled to a halt in the center of the camp. Morgan himself, along, lanky figure in a dusty black suit, came at the head of a group ofhis people to meet them. "I hope you have the news we are waiting for,"he said cordially.

  "We have a statement," said Metcalf. "Dr. Medick here, who has made animportant discovery that will enable all of you to return to your homes,will read it to you."

  Paul could have stayed in the cab, but he preferred to climb to theplatform atop the truck to get a look at the crowd Morgan had assembled.He hesitated a moment with the paper in his hands, then took up the mikeand read the statement Metcalf had prepared. "The United States SpaceCommand wishes to announce that--"

  It fell utterly flat on completely non-understanding ears. Paul lookedover the mass of faces and knew it had failed. Something far more thanthis was needed. A little feedback, he thought grimly. A little feedbackof the idiocy of their present situation to correct their course andreturn it to normalcy.

  "Five hundred years ago there might have been a crowd of people justlike you," he said suddenly in low tones. "There was a harbor, and somesmall ships, and a man who believed he could sail them over the edge ofthe world. On the shore were people who thought he was a fool and ablasphemer, and a few who thought he was right--or at least hoped hewas.

  "Five hundred years ago was the beginning of a new freedom from theprison of a tiny, constricted world. Today, another freedom waits oursuccessful conquest of space. And whenever a freedom has been won therehave been more who jeered against it than have cheered for it. You aretoday making a choice--"

  He talked for ten minutes, and when he was through he knew that he'daccomplished his goal. Even before the sound truck pulled out, the carsof the Caravan were breaking away from the mass and disappearing in thedistance.

  "Nice job," Metcalf congratulated, as if he'd been responsible for ithimself.

  "Just a little feedback in the right place--" murmured Paul absently.

  "Feedback? What's that--new kind of propaganda technique--?"

  "Yeah, you might call it that. How could a guy have been so _blind_--?"he said fiercely, more to himself than to his companions.

  He hurried to the laboratory as soon as the truck got him back to Base.He rounded up Barker and Nat Holt and a dozen of his other top men. "Theanswer's been under our noses all the time," he said. "We've been toobusy fighting each other for the sake of our own preconceived notions tohave seen it!"

  "What are you talking about?" Holt demanded.

  "Feedback. Can't you guess what it is?"

  "No."

  "Are you willing to let us give you a small dose--something less thanthe level given Harper and his men--and then tell us what you find outabout it?"

  Nat Holt looked hesitant. "If you think you know what you're talkingabout. There's no point in my getting in a condition like Harper's."

  "We'll pull you out before you get anywhere near that far."

  Still dubious, he took a seat amid the mass of pulse generatingequipment and electro-encephalograph recorders. A single pair offeedback terminals were fitted to his skull. The generator was set toduplicate his own feedback impulse taken from a moment of failure.

  Paul switched on the circuits and advanced the controls carefully. Alook of pain and regret crossed Holt's face. He cried out with awhimper. "Turn it off!"

  "A second more--," Paul said. He advanced the control a hair and waited.The technologist began to cry suddenly in a low, sobbing voice.

  Paul cut the switch.

  For a moment Holt continued to slump in the chair, his shouldersjerking. Then he looked up, half-bewildered, half-furious. "What did youdo to me?" he demanded.

  "You did it to yourself," Paul reminded him. "That's your own feedbackpulse just beefed up a little, remember. How did it feel?"

  "Terrible! No wonder a guy dodges that. It's enough to make him wreck a
space station to avoid the full blast of it."

  "What would you call it?"

  "I don't know--," Holt hesitated. "Grief, maybe. Regret--anxiety. Butregret, mostly, I guess."

  "That's your feedback," Paul said as he removed the terminals and turnedto the others. "These feedback pulses we've isolated are nothing butstabs of pure emotion."

  He turned with a faint smile to Holt. "You and Harper and the rest ofthe iron-bowelled boys were so convinced that the pure mechanical manwould be utterly devoid of all emotional responses and content! And Iwas so