LETHE


                          BY  DOUG LENAT



                **********          **********











      "What ever happened to Will?"  The words came slowly,  for Rick
Bannon hadn't thought  of Will for thirteen  months.  But it  was the
tone  -- more  than confusion  though not  yet horror  --  which most
surprised his wife.

      "Will who, darling?"  Without  glancing up, Rick felt  the soft
concerned face searching for him in the dimness.  Helen's full blonde
eyebrows were converging, as if their union would let her  recall the
name.

      "Will isn't a `who'.  Look here!"

      Helen  groped  cautiously  across  the  living  room.   As  she
approached  the  candle,  a lean,  intense  face  took  form.  Though
familliar, it was made  grotesque now by flickering  shadows.  Rick's
eyes forced his wife's to a plaque near the flame.  Through a year of
dust Helen discerned the President, herself, Rick, and a few of their
co-workers  at  JCN poised  over  a huge  machine.   The  taper moved
slightly,  revealing an  inscription: To  Richard Bannon,  In Deepest
Appreciation of Will's Success.  August 26, 1972.

      "I can't remember meeting  the President of the  United States.
I never heard of Will.  I don't..."  Rick's voice trailed off  into a
chill that left him shaking.  The room felt cold now, though just ten
minutes before, he'd execrated the air conditioner for dying with the
rest of the appliances.

      A tiny hand trembled  on his shoulder, giving as  much strength
as  it had  meant to  absorb.  Helen's  hoarse whisper  echoed Rick's
thoughts.   "This  is  something  neither of  us  could  forget  in a
lifetime, and yet we've both forgotten it completely in a  year." Her
hand ran along the wall near where the plaque had been  hanging.  She
rubbed the dust between her fingers.  "But I clean every week..." Her
words were  devoured by darkness,  as the candle  leapt to  the other
side of the room.


                                  1



      "I'm  taking this  to JCN  right now."   The voice  was Rick's.
Rick Bannon was burly, six feet one, with a shock of dark  hair which
made  him seem  even  taller.  Yet  his  words seemed,  to  Helen, to
emanate from the tiny flame itself.

      "So late?" the darkness  pleaded.  "No one's to go  outside now
unless it's an emergency."

      Rick wasn't  listening.  Whatever Will  was, there should  be a
file  on it  in his  office.  The  candle flounced  across  the room,
collecting Rick's  wallet and  keys, then  resettled on  the glasstop
table.

      Engulfed in the silence following the click of the  outer door,
the darkness that was Helen cried "Will, me," without knowing what it
meant.   "Why  does Rick  leave  me home  alone  almost  every night,
working eighteen hours a day  at JCN?"  Helen shook her  head, trying
to clear it.  "What am I saying?  Rick never leaves me alone.  How...
bizarre!  It seemed so familiar when he drove off..."  Instinctively,
Helen had walked over to  the telephone, and had dialled  B-L-7.  She
stared down at her fingers.  "What's wrong with me?  Why am  I...?  I
don't even know anyone with a BL 7 number."  But Helen was  no longer
certain.


























                                  2



                **********          **********











      The black cougar ground  to a halt before  a usually-electified
gate.   An aged  guard, recognizing  Rick, smiled  as  his flashlight
double-checked  Dr.  Richard  Bannon's  ID.   He  began  a  reluctant
struggle with a  massive crank.  "For  twelve years I've  wondered if
this damned handle really did  work the damned gate.  But  you're the
eighth car I had to let through this last hour, and damned if I'm not
starting to  pray for  electricity." No sounds  were audible  as Rick
drove off, save the rapidly fading creakings and cursings of gate and
guard.

      The car scurried between looming livid shapes that were usually
friendly lab buildings.   Even when Rick  reached his own  office, he
felt oppressed by the darkness more than by the heat.  "Hell  must be
a lot like  this," he mused.   He pulled out  a thin conical  cup and
pushed the WATER, NO ICE button.  After a few seconds, he  laughed at
himself, crumpled the dry cup into a tight ball, and threw it  at the
cooler.  "We even  get water electrically, now.   If only you  were a
horse-trough...  I'm so thirsty I could drink a cup of water from one
of the  rivers in Hell.   Styx?  No, that's  on the border.   The one
through  the center..."  Lethe caught  him before  he  pronounced her
name.   Renouncing  thirst,  Rick  returned  unsteadily  to  reality.
Shaking fingers  sought the file  lock, twisted the  combination into
it, and  yanked it clattering  to the tile  floor.  A thin  pencil of
light located the Will file.  Rick blinked at the label.  The project
had gone from  Confidential to Eyes Only  to Declassified in  a three
month period, one year earlier.

      The  file  lay  strewn  across  his  desk.   Rick  read slowly,
masticating  every  word, forcing  it  through the  disbelief  in his
throat.

      May  12, 1968.   Project Will  inaugurated.   Director: Richard
Bannon.  Team: Jack Sills, Edward Ho, Helen Sappestein,  Karl Muller,
Ralph Amory.   Task: Realization of  a Self-optimizing  LSI computer.
Resources:  Thirty-seven  technician-years.   Fifty  million dollars.
Deadline: June 1, 1971.

                                  3



      Nothing seemed  familliar.  The  names he  had heard,  but only
because of their importance at JCN.  He had never worked with  any of
them before, even Helen.  A few he had never seen at all, in  the six
years he'd worked for JCN.  "Am I losing my mind?"  Rick struggled to
review the events in  computer development before 1967.   "ENIAC, the
first  electronic  brain."   He smiled  at  those  early researchers'
naivete.  "Brain, indeed!  Built at the University of Pennsylvania in
1944.  Tube circuits; took  a whole room.  Transistor logic  in 1950.
The same  computer now fit  into a shoe  box.  Integrated  circuits a
decade later.  An ENIAC could be built matchbox size.  In 1964, using
a computer guided laser  beam, large scale integrated  circuits (LSI)
appeared.   Using  these, ENIAC  would  fit  on the  head  of  a pin.
Circuit densities approaching  and surpassing the densities  of human
brain   cells.   Advances   in   neurology.   But   the   problem  of
interconnecting trillions  of circuit `cells'  seemed insurmountable.
Elusive.   Research  at  Caltech,  using  disembodied  feline brains,
coming  tantalizingly close.   Then the  breakthroughs  in Artificial
Intelligence,   at   Stanford   and   MIT.    Automatic  programming.
Feasibility studies of self-optimizing heuristic systems,  leading to
my own idea for Project Will...  I'm beginning to remember..."

      All  night  long,  Rick  read  through  the  progress  reports,
summations,  memos, lab  reports, news  releases.  The  truth settled
upon him just slowly enough for him to remain sane.  With  the ending
of darkness, murky fears,  borne of ignorance, were replaced  by more
explicit, more terrible ones.

      Aurora  brought Rick  stiffly to  his feet.   Automatically, he
began  dialing  his home,  thankful  that at  least  the  phone still
worked.  What  would he say  to Helen?  With  the curtains  drawn, it
would still  be dark there.   "Hi darling... yes,  everything's fine.
Listen, I  found out about  Will.  Some of  it, anyway.  I  need your
help fitting it all together.  Also...  there's something we  have to
decide...  No, I'd rather not  talk about it over the  phone... Good.
See you in a little while...... Me, too."

      He  put down  the receiver  and wiped  his forehead.   This was
something only the whole  team could decide.  The JCN  directory slid
onto his desk.  Amory, Ralph.  Chairman, Psychometrics Group.  Office
1124 LR.   Extension 3471.   Home 1308  Waverly Street.   Home Pho...
"Ah! Here's his number."  Rick rolled the final "r" for  several lost
seconds.   The  receiver  rose  deliberately.    Chilblained  fingers
stabbed into the dial.  B - L - 7......






                                  4



                **********          **********











      "But Jack, they have  the money.  Why don't they  release her?"
The anguish demanded a reply.  How could he know why?

      "Maybe  they  want more.   The  police captain  told  me they'd
probably release  her as  soon as  they were  sure the  bills weren't
marked.  Or  if not,  they'd leave  her somewhere  and we'd  find her
right  away."   The  police  captain  had  actually  told  him they'd
probably  kill her,  or  leave her  somewhere she'd  never  be found.
"They've...  I don't know, maybe been held up by the  power failure."
He could never tell her he'd given up.

      "My baby, my baby..."

      The phone's ring gave Jack Sills some genuine  hope.  "Who...?"
The hope  ignited into anger.   "What the hell  do you want?   Do you
know its five a.m...?  What kind of an emergency?  Alright,  but it'd
better  be important."   There  was nothing  more he  could  do here.
Getting back to work  might be panacean.  He considered.   "I'm going
out to look for her  again"  Jack Sills hoped his guilt  didn't show.
As he left the bedroom, his wife called after him.

      "You forgot it!"

      Jack  had  always taken  a  revolver with  him  when  he'd gone
looking -- really looking --  for his daughter.  Now he had  to carry
it with him for his wife's benefit.  Disgusting world.

      "And bring your file on Project Will...  Good.  I'll see you in
an  hour  then.   So  long, Eddie."   Rick  finished  his  last call.
Frustrated,  he  reached over  and  hit the  watercooler,  not really
anticipating  a response,  of  course.  The  blow was  meant  more to
punish  than to  request.   The machine  answered with  a  spatter of
water.  Rick gaped in terror.  It was operating.  The current must be
back on!  He  raced his eyes over  the file.  Will's  power circuits.
Would he...?  No!  He was  off now.  Could only be  started manually.


                                  5



Relief  found  Rick  Bannon wishing  this  were  merely  a nightmare.
Slowly, he pulled out a cup.















































                                  6



                **********          **********











      The door marked CONFERENCE opened for the sixth time that hour.
Ralph Amory froze at the scene before him.  A series  of half-serious
explanations raced through his mind and were rejected.  JCN bankrupt?
World  War III?   What could  bring the  top five  scientists  at JCN
together at this hour?   He recognized some from staff  meetings, the
rest from their Group  Head ID badges.  Jack Sills,  Biophysics; Rick
Bannon,  Artificial Intelligence;  Helen  Sappestein --  no,  she was
Helen Bannon now -- Mathematics; Eddie Ho, Electronics;  Karl Muller,
Computer Engineering.  Why was he, a psychiatrist, sent for?

      Then  Dr. Amory  examined  their faces  more  closely.  Varying
degrees  of  shock.  Bewilderment.   Disbelief.   Horror.  Confusion.
Struggling mentally...   On a  problem?  No,  more like  straining to
remember...

      With apparent  calm, Ralph Amory  removed a cigarette  from its
silver holder.   As he  lit it,  he began,  "I deduce..."   The pause
while deeply puffing always drew all eyes to him.  "...that  you have
been confronted with something  so horrid, you cannot accept  it, and
yet you must."  A thin smile  traced a line which spread up  the side
of his face to meet one descending from his eyes.  Long greying hair.
Carefully touselled.  Anything for effect.  "Life is a collocation of
various sorts of deceits," he mused.  "God, this room is  dim.  Ought
to have turned on more lights."

      Rick had only seen Ralph Amory four times in as many years.  He
sought the  medical insignia for  confirmation.  "Pretty  close, Doc.
But its `we', not `you'.  You  are as much a part of this  as anyone.
Read your  copy of  this file."  Rick  Bannon's fingers  directed the
psychiatrist  to sit, open the folder, and begin reading.

      Jack Sills looked  as though he hadn't  slept in two  days.  He
hadn't  slept in  three.  Ten  years older  than Rick,  his  face was
beginning to wrinkle.  First the kidnapping, now this.   Tears welled
in his eyes as  he thought of Daphne.   Just a year old.   But aloud:


                                  7



"Let's  give  Doc Amory  a  few minutes,  and  then  summarize what's
happened.  Just so we all  agree." Ralph Amory looked up at  him, but
Jack  Sills didn't  perceive the  suspicious look  which  crossed the
Doctor's face.













































                                  8



                **********          **********











      "....LSI circuitry.  This gave Will a thousandfold  the storage
capacity of a human brain.  Ten milliard cell modules, interconnected
like brain cells..."  Helen  Bannon noticed the troubled  stare Ralph
Amory was giving her, and mistakenly interpretted it as  a reprimand.
".....sorry; I meant as close as we could come to synaptic networks.

      For two months, the computer's main activity was optimizing its
own  circuitry.   Dr. Amory  and  I devised  seven  hundred graduated
problems  that would  mark Will's  intellectual progress.   The first
were  trivial: adding,  comparing, correlating  and such.   Next came
problems  requiring  Will  to synthesize  the  vast  stores  of world
knowledge  we were  pouring into  him: natural  language translation,
Hilbert's  third  problem...    Finally, Will  passed  on  to current
questions.  Mathematics  first.  Hilbert's other  twenty-two problems
in  thirteen  minutes.   Eddie,  you'd  better  continue    with  the
input/output systems."

      Eddie  Ho was  actually much  better qualified  to  discuss the
interfaces, but Helen stopped for other reasons as well.  The strain.
The look Ralph Amory was giving her.  Why did she feel uneasy, almost
guilty.  She slid into her  chair, guided more by her  hands grasping
the  table than  by her  mind.  Rick's  hand touched  hers  and Helen
started, then  leaned against  him.  Straining  to relax,  she missed
Eddies'  first few remarks.

      Ralph Amory's eyes were fixed  upon Helen as she spoke,  yet he
hadn't heard  any of  her words.   His thoughts  drifted back  to the
first time they'd made love, the Hollywood touches of  crashing waves
and lightening,  the demanding  lips, the  unexpected fury  of her...
Suddenly, his reverie ended.  What had he been thinking?  He had seen
Helen often, but only at meetings.  He'd never seen her nude, and yet
he remembered how  she blushed about the  strawberry-shaped birthmark
on her  bottom.  But  he'd never even  seen her  by herself!   Was he
simply fantisizing?   It seemed so...  too much like  a recollection.
For the first time in his adult life, Ralph Amory permitted  his face
to express bewilderment.

                                  9



      "Our original hope was that Will would be  sufficiently similar
to a human brain to learn natural language by exposure to it, the way
we  do.   Unfortunately,  we  had  created  a  good  example  of  the
distinction between structural and functional similarity."

      "Perhaps the deficiency was one of motivation, Eddie.  Will was
never  hungry  enough  or   frightened  enough  to  really   want  to
communicate."

      "I don't  know."  The short,  heavyset Hawaiian  shrugged.  "In
the end,  we decided  to program in  some facility  for understanding
several  Germanic,  Romance,  Oriental,  and  Scandinavian languages.
Yes, in this report: it  was referred to as a natural  language front
end.   Will  built  up  intricate  conceptual  dependency  models  to
represent the semantic content  of whatever sentences we typed  in to
him.  Based on the fourteen primitive actions of human existence.  In
particular, if you asked Will the same question in several languages,
the same CD net structure would be created internally each time.

      "Simple robotics extensions were appended one by one.   A crude
mechanical hand and a TV camera eye.  The fingers were  equipped with
pressure transducers and thermocouples.   Two more eyes and  two more
hands were  mounted on  a mobile cart.   I see  here that  the latest
edge-finding and  scene analysis  algorithms were  implemented.  Cart
linked to Will by radio controls.  Tests.  Debugging.   Tests." Eddie
flipped through the pages of his file.  Each paragraph he skimmed was
one month of a hacker's lifetime.

      "Good enough.  Will  was now sufficiently  anatomically endowed
to direct his cart to a library, look up a selected reference, grasp,
open, and read from it.

      "For aesthetic reasons, we worked next on giving  Will auditory
abilities.  Cut down the  myriad possible interpretations of  a given
acoustic  wave by  using context  and some  knowledge of  the problem
domain.  Generating  desired acoustic  waves turned  out to  be much,
much easier."  Flip.  Flip.

      "Will  expressed a  need for  higher baud  input  channels.  We
looked  around  for  a  helpful  analogy,  and  discovered   that  no
interpersonal communications proceeed at a significantly  higher rate
than visual  input: about  one hundred kilobaud.   We then  turned to
examine intrapersonal mechanisms.  Our first attempt was some type of
human-computer symbiot.  To..."

      "Just a second, Eddie.   Do you mean we  coldbloodedly proposed
merging a person with Will?"  A look of disgust soured Helen's face.


                                 10



      "Well, Helen, it was apparently more like..."  Eddie Ho scanned
several more sheets from his research notebook.  "...like inserting a
human brain as one more I/O device for Will.  If all  the theoretical
bugs got out of it, we'd  set it up like a heart transplant:   not to
begin until the subject is legally dead.  That's  irrelevant, though,
because after a few months that whole idea was scrapped..."

      "... For moral reasons?"  The hope in Helen's voice  was caught
by everone except Eddie Ho.

      "No, the technical problems of maintaining a  disembodied brain
were unsurmountable by current techniques."  Eddie seemed  unaware of
the brutality of his  response.  "As an auxilliary project,  work had
begun on how to access  thoughts directly from a human mind,  and how
to implant  them.  We drew  heavily on the  sleep and  dream studies,
which had meticulously kept quite complete records.  Reams  of EEG's,
and concurrent eye  movement, respiration, and  newly-awakened verbal
recollections.  We spent over two months poring over that  data.  The
main symbiot  project was cancelled,  then... then..."   A flickering
memory, a scene  reenacting in Eddie's  mind's eye: Eddie:   The main
symbiot project  was cancelled.   I guess  that means  an end  to the
direct thought transfer  work.  There was  just too much  data, Karl.
We couldn't handle it.

      Karl(jokingly):  Listen.  This transfer problem: why  don't let
Will himself work on?  He the hotshot.  Will wants it so badly, maybe
he tries extra hard?  Eh?

      Eddie:  That's it!  I  can't believe I didn't try  that before.
Sure we can let Will try: it'll only take him a day or so to read all
this  (arm sweeps  in semicircle  over desk  cluttered  with recorder
paper) and search for patterns in it.

      Karl:  Hmm.  Maybe.  Be  careful.  Will can't solve  all Will's
problems: he either incomplete or inconsistent.  And you get  paid to
see he consistent.  But I think this case okay.  Try...

      The stage darkened, the scene concluded, the  houselights rose,
and  Eddie was  back  talking to  the  group.  "...  then,  on August
seventh, we asked Will himself to work on correlating the data we had
on EEG's with the supporting metabolic and recollection data.  By the
next week,  he had effectively  cracked the mind's  code.  It  was so
complex, however, that only Will could figure out what a  subject was
thinking from his brain    wave patterns.  Jack?"

      "Let  me back  up  for a  second,  and mention  that  scores of
medical devices were being linked directly into Will.  At  about this


                                 11



time,  Will could  examine  a patient  thoroughly and  in  most cases
properly  diagnose.  The  rate  was quite  impressive:  thousands per
hour.  Gradually, treatment was put in Will's hands, figuratively and
then literally.   Will was a  big hit with  the public."  Jack Sills'
voice was  dry and monotonic,  but unlike Eddie  Ho, he was  far from
being emotionally  detached.  "As  the direct  mind-Will transmission
was  developed,  steps  were  taken  to  make  it  available  to  the
populace."

      As  Sills rasped  the words,  a wild  hope began  to form  in a
nether  chamber of  his  brain.  "You  all know  how  a sophistocated
electronic device can  drop in price  by several orders  of magnitude
when  the  world  wants  a  billion,  instead  of  seven,   of  them.
Ultrasonic   microphones,    for   example.     Well,   mass-produced
regenerative transmitters  were hooked into  mass-produced molecular-
gated electroencephalographs.   The continuous-recording  type.  They
were inserted just under  people's scalps.  No anesthesia  was called
for, and the whole insertion took only a few seconds and cost  only a
few dollars.  Giant  dish receivers amplified, multiplexed,  and then
relayed individuals'  patterns from all  over the  world.  Everyone's
wave configurations  are so individualized  that Will had  no trouble
easing the death throes of an Outback aborigine, while simultaneously
alerting a pedestrian in Amsterdam of an onrushing trolley.  At about
that time the project drifted out of my hands.  Rick....?"

























                                 12



                **********          **********











      "Will was  given certain priorities.  First, not to  change our
culture.   Secondarily,  to help  individuals  solve  their problems.
Finally, to continue optimizing  its circuitry in any  spare instants
it had.  Will  had developed a  crude kind of  conciousness, although
nothing resembling  emotions was  ever  observed.   These constraints
formed the sole motivation Will ever evinced.

      "When  Will  was  revealed  to  the  public,  he  drew  a mixed
response.   Some  threats,   some  praises.   Always  there   was  an
apprehension that something would go wrong.  Maybe everyone  had read
too many sci-fi  stories."  Rick's chuckle  ended as a  sigh.  "Maybe
each of us knows more about human nature than he cares to admit, even
to himself.  In any case, billions of people were calling  `Will, me'
at all times, in all tongues.   This was the signal to Will  to probe
that  person's  thoughts,  ascertain the  problem,  compute  the best
solution, and  inject it  into his mind.   Within a  month, virtually
everyone  in the  world was  hooked.  Dr.  Amory...?" Rick  had heard
enough of Amory not to get caught up in  psychological technicalities
with him around.

      "A few people refused  Will's help.  They were too  few, poorly
organized, and uninfluential.  And  even these acceeded, one  by one,
over  the  course of  the  following year,  as  they  witnessed their
neighbors content  and prosperous.   Anxiety, hatred,  all antisocial
behavior vanished  from the face  of the earth.   True.  But  with no
responsibility,  with  a   mammoth  parent  figure  like   Will,  men
degenerated emotionally into...   into infants." Dr. Amory  paused to
observe the  tightened look  on Jack  Sill's face  at the  mention of
infants.   Record  it  for  later  consideration.   "The  culture was
significantly altered.  Aha!    Will's prime directive  was violated.
Will  realized this  and tried  to correct  for it,  by  removing the
deleterious agent: himself."  Rick noted that the Doctor  still spoke
as  if  delivering  a  Psych  1  lecture.   Sustain   interest  while
maintaining and reinforcing your pretention of superior intelligence.
Amusingly  out  of  place.   Everything  seemed  out  of  place here.


                                 13



"...Will  tried to  turn  himself off,  but we  kept  restarting him.
There  is,  I  believe, no  subsequent  written  record acknowledging
Will's existance.   Since then no   living being has  mentioned Will.
The conclusion appears inescapable that..."

      "Will made us forget him!"  The shock of  realization contorted
Jack Sill's features.

      "Precisely."  Dr. Amory looked pleased.  "I believe that is why
Dr. Bannon asked us here tonight."

      Rick Bannon nodded  regretfully.  "These past months,  Will has
apparently  done no  `helping'  at all.   He's spent  his  time doing
nothing but making us forget that he ever existed.  Oh, possibly some
auto-optimizing, concurrently."

      No one stirred.  Each scientist's mind was racing along its own
path; thus most  were barely listening as  Eddie Ho spoke.   "So when
the  current  started  to  drop, my  breaking  circuits  cut  off all
electricity at this junction and kept it off.  They were  designed to
protect Will  from the sudden  surge of current  when power  would be
resumed.  He can only be started manually now.  It should take a full
two  hundred  milliseconds  to  bring the  current  up  to  its final
value..."  Ralph Amory could not help smiling at a man who considered
a fifth of  a second an  eternity.  After momentary  deliberation, he
silently apologized.  After all, how different was this from  the way
we consider a thousand years.   And to a piece of metal,  a millenium
must seem as insignificant  as a second.  "...automatically.   So all
one need to do to restart Will is to throw this switch, toggle five."
Eddie gathered his diagrams and pictures back into one tight pack and
neatly sat down.   He was quite interested,  though his voice  was as
emotionless  as  Jack  Sills'.    Edward  Ho  was  devoid   of  human
compassion.  Except  for a rigid  code of ethics,  and a  passion for
handball, he might have been the archtypical mad scientist.  Life was
little more than a scientific investigation to him; the  world merely
a slithing laboratory animal, whose death was unimportant compared to
sectioning and examining and staining and catalogging its carcass.

      "We must decide what to do."  Rick's circadian rhythm increased
his  alertness as  the  morning sunlight  overpowered  the conference
room's flourescent tubes.  "I  suggest we decompose the  problem.  We
have  to be  sure why  Will  did this  thing.  Amory,  you  and Helen
apparently knew  the behavior  mechanisms of  the system  better than
anyone else.  Tell us what restarting Will would do.

      "Next, we have to consider the effects of doing  nothing...  at
least for a while.   We need  an estimate of the time we  have before


                                 14



others can deduce what's happened.  Biology and logic: Sills, you and
Muller try to project that.

      "Eddie, there's something special I want you to help me rig up.
Let's all meet back here in, say, one hour.  Good Luck."

      They dragged themselves out of the room.  All but one  felt the
anguish of awareness.  Far away, Cassandra shed one tear of empathy.

      Dr. Amory scrutinized  Jack Sills again, then  approached Rick.
"May I  speak with  you about Sills  a moment  first..." he  began to
whisper.

      Helen Bannon was outwardly calm as she rose from her seat.  The
night's revelations swirled before  her.  Flashes of a  torrid affair
with Ralph Amory came to her, much the way she  occasionally recalled
playing  with  some  long-forgotten  childhood  toy.   She conciously
begged not to remember, yet  she struggled to recall every  detail of
her adultery.  "The guillt I've suffered is genuine; don't I have the
right to at least savor the memories of what few happy  moments there
were?  A few  hours hence, Will'll make  me forget all of  it anyway.
Probably.  Now  Rick's thrown  Ralph and me  together again.   God, I
wonder if  he remembers?" Mingled  in with her  visions of  flesh and
panting, were visions  of disembodied brains,  tethered to a  wall of
chrome,  vainly straining  to  extricate themselves,  no  longer even
capable of screaming.

      During the ensuing hour, neither Helen nor Ralph  deviated from
the  role  of  casual  co-investigator.   Helen  stretched   as  they
concluded  their task.   As  she turned  to leave  her  office, Ralph
reached out and  stopped her.  "You  know, don't you?"   Helen nodded
slightly.  Their lips touched  softly, and lingered, as if  they knew
this was their  final embrace.  "In  many ways, we'll  probably never
see each other again.  We may pass, perhaps even chat.  But that will
be as  two strangers,  not as us..."   No one  would notice  the soft
moistness of the eyes of the first pair to report.













                                 15



                **********          **********











      "One hour hasn't  changed their expression much,"   Ralph Amory
noted  silently.   Aloud,  he  continued  his  report.    "So  Will's
situation  was  clear.   He  had  changed  our  culture  by  his very
existence.  In order  to set society aright,  he had to  abstain from
giving anyone advice.  Time after time, he powered himself  down.  At
first, we  kept restarting him  immediately, assuming there  was some
bug, and Will himself could fix it.  Gradually, we suspected that the
crashing  of  Will's  system was  brought  on  intentionally.   I can
imagine  our shock  when we  found out  it was  Will himself  who had
decided  he  should  terminate his  contact  with  humanity.   But we
wouldn't allow him to simply commit suicide.  We planned to reprogram
Will, to  eliminate the culture  constraint.  But that  directive was
still in effect.  Will knew what our intentions were, so  he couldn't
permit us  to touch  him.  This  time, Will  remained on,  but simply
refused to advise anyone.  When the technician came to turn  him off,
to begin the ordered alterations of his priority structure, Will made
him forget why he'd come into  the computer room.  By the end  of the
day, Will had to keep everyone in JCN from thinking about him.

      "After that, no one on this planet ever thought of  Will again.
Until last night,"  Amory paused for a sip of water.  Or  perhaps for
effect.  "In fact, Will tried to undo as much of his previous affects
as he could.  Those who succeeded due solely to him, suddenly failed.
Friendships..."  Ralph  looked directly at  Helen as he  finished his
sentence.  "... and relationships, which formed because of Will, were
abruptly, totally dissolved.  Will apparently felt strongly motivated
toward what he was doing.  If  we restart him, there is no  doubt but
that he will immediately resume playing Lethe..."

      "That was it !" Rick thought.  The River Lethe.  He looked down
at his cup of water, and his file.  And smiled.

      Dr. Amory noticed, but  failed to decipher, the  smile.  "...It
is now a question of what will happen if we do nothing.  Jack?"



                                 16



      "Yes," there was a new quality in Jack Sills' voice.  Something
which could  have been  called hope  had it  not been  so diabolical.
"Many people would  slowly piece together  what happened, just  as we
did.  They won't have as ready access to our records, of  course, but
there  are  so  many newspaper  and  magazine  articles...   Karl has
projected a maximum time of  two months until the situation  would be
completely   public,  based   upon  public   deduction  capabilities,
availability of relevant data, and so on.

      "But there is another factor.  As,"  Sills  hesitated, surveyed
his audience,  then made  up a name:  "...as Weindall's  old cerebral
exterpation experiments showed, our brain is organized in such  a way
that every  piece of information  is stored everywhere.   It's become
popular  to call  our memory  holographic for  this reason.   So even
without  hearing  a word,  people  will begin  remembering.   As they
concentrate on various related subjects, their memories of  Will will
be perturbed, be brought to the very fringe of their awareness.  Each
thought  they have  will bring  them closer  to  conciously recalling
Will.

      "That process has already begun.  By tomorrow morning, everyone
in the world will know almost as much as we know now.  Rick, how long
would it take if you were forced to reprogram Will not to worry about
our culture?"  Sills had  led into the question beautifully,  but Dr.
Amory  noticed  the eagerness  in  his voice.   Ralph  turned, caught
Rick's attention, and nodded slightly.

      "All the preparations were completed last year.  It would  be a
twelve hour job for  one man.  Eddie and  I might do it  together in,
oh, about seven or eight hours.  I see what you're driving  at, Jack.
Tomorrow morning  the world will  be crying for  Will to  advise them
again.  The  JCN administration will  force Will to  be reprogrammed.
We may as well  assume that, unless we  act today, Will will  be made
permanently `helpful' tomorrow. I recommend starting Will the  way he
is now.  That way, no one would ever recall Will, no one  could order
his reprogramming.  Eddie and I have rigged an emergency  solar power
storage system for Will.  Once started, he need never go  off again."
Rick shifted his gaze to  Jack Sills, and noted he was  reaching into
his  pocket.  "If  we're all  convinced, I'll  restart Will;  if not,
then..."

      "Must restart him!"  It was the first time Karl  Muller's heavy
German voice rumbled over the  group.  "Looking, Ralph and I,  at old
Delphi  surveys,  newspapers and  video  reports past  hour.   We saw
everything,  had  become a...   a  Huxleyian nightmare  of  a utopia,
without even  a few misfits  or`savages' to redeem  it.  Perspective,
she  didn't exist.   Fell  the crime,  yes.  But  fell  ambition much


                                 17



faster.   No  one  starving,  but  no  one  giving  thanks  for food.
Everyone prospering, but only by our superficial  material standards,
by the attitudes we programed into Will when the world was hungry and
poor.  Food,  wealth, correct decisionmaking,  law and order,  all of
it,  they meant  nothing to  the populace.   Why?  Because  no risks.
Wasn't a  heaven.  Wasn't even  a life.  Was  a...  just  hell.  Will
saw.  Stopped it.  We don't do something, then `utopia' starts again,
and no  one to stop  it.  No  one to stop  it...."  Karl's  voice had
become increasingly more agitated and he broke into a cold sweat.  He
commenced mixing in large proportions of his native language.

      Dr.  Amory interrupted  to keep  him from  hysteria.   "Karl is
right.  I appreciate the mental deterioration Will caused,  and would
cause, if  he solves everyone's  slightest problem.  Helen,  you look
dubious.  How does our mathematician feel?"

      "I agree  that Will should  be restarted.  But  do we  have the
right?  It  appears necessary  to us,  sitting in  this room,  if our
values, our society are to survive.  Whether or not to start him is a
decision which will affect  everyone in the world.  Maybe  the choice
should be made by all the people, not just six.  Many would  think it
crazy  not  to  exchange  their  current  anguish  for  Will's almost
instantaneous euphoria.  For some, Will's help is clearly called for:
the mentally ill, the starving, politicians in crises,...  I could go
on and on.  Yet  I have enough faith  to believe that most  could see
what we see: deliverance  from all want is equivalent  to deliverance
from all pleasure..."

      "Come on,  Helen.  You  know as  well as  I the  `people' won't
decide.  The military run JCN.  Otherwise, if what you say were true,
Will could have turned himself off and been left off.  No,  Will knew
he  would  be altered,  forced  into unchecked  advising.   If  we do
nothing today, he will be, tomorrow."  Eddie Ho's quiet reasoning hit
its logical  mark.  Helen  nodded.  "Good,"  Eddie murmured.   He was
staring at his watch.  "Rick and I have connected  a radio-controlled
timer on Will, so he will start automatically in...   three minutes."
Before anyone  could move, Eddie  had pushed a  button on  the remote
transmitter.   Half  a mile  away  a relay  clattered  its obedience.
Suddenly, Eddie noticed the look on Jack Sills' face.   "Is something
wrong?  With the questions you asked I assumed..."

      "Well, there's no way to stop the timer now, is there?"

      "Sure, just hit switch five.  But you'd have to hurry.   It's a
long walk, brudder!" Eddie thought Jack was kidding.  Jack jumped out
of his chair,  rapidly formulating a plan.   The revolver was  in his
hand.


                                 18



      "Listen, I know what I'm doing.  It may or may not be wrong for
humanity.  You  don't know,  and neither do  I.  But  I do  know it's
right for  me.  I've  got to have  Will's help.   He could  locate my
daughter instantly....   Look", Sills was  pleading now.   "You don't
have any  more right  to start him  the way  he is now  than I  do to
modify his constraint schemata and then start him.  Will  was working
under his last orders,  his directives.  Well, according to  the Will
file,  my  last instructions  were  to enforce  the  reprogramming of
Will's priorities.   That came directly  from the governing  board of
JCN itself!"  Sills  waved his folder at  the group.  He  was through
pleading.  "Rick, you and Eddie  will have the eight hours  you spoke
of to reprogram Will.   Amory, you'll excise the transmitter  from my
scalp once they start working.   When I'm certain that Will  has been
made unquestioningly helpful, then I'll have you reimplant  it.  Then
Will'll tell me where Daphne is, and I'll be able to rescue  her.  If
she's still  alive.  All  of us will  go down  to the  computer room.
Now.  Move!"

      "We'd never reach there in time."  If Rick's words  carried any
emotion, it was sympathy.  "Even  by yourself, if you run,  you can't
go 800 meters in...  two minutes, now can you?  So..."

      Jack Sills was out of the door and running.  He might be out of
condition now, but he had  been a track star in his  collegiate days.
He could have run a half  mile in two minutes then.  Easily.   And he
was running for his daughter now.

      "You were  right, Ralph." Rick  turned to the  remaining group.
"Doctor Amory  suspected that  Sills might  try something  like this.
That was  the real  reason for the  remote activation  control." Rick
Bannon sat  down, wondering why  his wife and  Ralph Amory  bade each
other goodbye.  Quietly, almost bittersweetly.

      As he burst into Will's room, Jack Sills heard the click of the
timer's contacts.  Less  than one second  until Will was  powered up.
He made a frantic lunge  for switch five.  But even in  midflight, he
wondered why.

      What was  he doing  here?  This  computer had  never functioned
successfully.  As he turned to leave, Jack Sills saw the  revolver in
his hand and he remembered:  He was looking for his  daughter.  Well,
she certainly wasn't in here.







                                 19