Psychohistorical Crisis

38

DINNER WITH HAHUKUM KONN, 14,798 GE

Classical Logic, the consistent kind, has a fatal flaw. No matter how you arrange the consistency of your axioms, you come up with a logic that is only a subset of the class of all logical systems. Yetthe very act of embracing consistency has sealed off the gateways to any of those larger systems; you have trapped yourself inside a walled fortress with no exit. There are always, always fascinating truths that lie outside those walls. A consistent logician makes a good bureaucrat but a terrible explorer. Heretical inconsistency is the only way through the walls. But being inconsistent contracts you to a devil for a guide. He may lead you to exterior treasures, but it is more probable that he will lead you to falsehood, madness, and death. That is life. From inside a Fortress of Consistency you must seek a way out. But once outside a Fortress of Consistency you must seek your way back in.

—Second Rank Psychohistorian Hahukum Konn after drinking wine

On his return through the Pyramid’s maze, Eron’s interest in ancient measuring instruments inspired him to dally at a shop which carried primitive artifacts in its come-on display. There was the usual landfill bric-a-brac: ceramic insulators, fishbowl castles, handled cups, even a manual ceramic dispozoria—but what caught Eron’s attention were the calculators. The rotund salesman was magnanimously happy to see him, to the point of bowing his head lower than he had to, the tassels in his braids flapping expectantly. He had all kinds of strange numeric devices piled in dusty corners: brass dials in mahogany for multiplying; pocket (nonworking) supercomputers in hardened silicon; a replica of an automatic weaving device; miniature Babbage engines which, according to their engraved inscriptions, had once been given out as souvenirs at the ten thousandth anniversary of the invention of computing; a rack of abaci; an encrusted (fake) cash register, all at atrocious prices.

Eron was tempted by the Greek diagrammismos, an early base-2 device that helped simian man divide and multiply by 2, 4, 8,16, 32, et cetera, an important calculation in a fledgling merchant culture that cannot easily do roots. He played with a Mesopotamian abacus that could convert between decimal and hexadecimal computation, but what Eron came away with was a slide rule and its template because Rossum’s #26 had meticulously placed the construction date of their fossil aerobattleship as prior in time to even the crudest kind of electronic calculation. That slide rule was going to be useful.

During the day Eron was always working with Konn’s engineers. Their task was full of puzzles. They had been able to construct a virtual model of the Fortress that would fly in a virtual universe—but only if they equipped it with devices not yet known in the mechanical crankshaft age. Konn had made Eron’s job clear—authenticity or be nailed to a religious icon upside down. But whenever Eron goaded the engineers to test a model that was programmed only with technology known to be known to the ancients, it always crashed into its virtual landscape of checkered farmland with red bams and windmills and quaint villages or into the virtual skyscrapers. One of Konn’s engineers had a wry theory that advanced beings from outer space had been aiding Washington State in its war with Goering. Sapiens were too primitive to...

Back at the hangar, Eron put the slide rule into good slipping condition and used his nanocalib to check the markings. It was a precision instrument. It would give at least three-decimal-place accuracy to a careful hand. He spent the evening using it to do physics problems, then made up a six-tyne of them at the office manufacturum and gave them out to the incredulous engineers in the morning. He was the junior member of the team but a Faraway education in physics still carried clout, and when he insisted they they redo all of their calculations on the slide rule they argued politely rather than dismissing him.

As their final ploy, the three senior engineers returned to their mnemonifier to bring out a set of critical specs that couldn’t be computed on a slide rule. Eron just smiled. “Ah, that must be your problem.” He suggested that the Seattle City-State authorities couldn't have designed their war machines around specs that required more accuracy than a slide rule provided. “They didn’t have a technically sophisticated society. Their soldiers did have powered wheels and a few other useful inventions but, aside from a handful of elite aerial phaetons and some coal-stoked treaded vehicles for support, had to fight on the ground bare-chested without even a computerized bayonet. They didn’t have any computers. They had Look-Up Tables.”

“War was impossible before computers! Rithians were pastoral animals!”

“Gardak, you’re an engineer, not a historian. The original infantrymen didn’t even have wheels when they conducted war—coal stoked or otherwise. War predates the chariot. They walked. Their swords weren’t powered!”

“You must be wrong. During the Goering War the Amerindians used the Fortress to deliver atomic explosives. They had a computer at their atomic labs. The Feynman Scriptos as much as says so.”

Eron smiled. “I looked into that Old Englic is not a well-understood language. They wrote prolifically but on media that wasn’t rated to last. The passages you are referring to just might be construed to suggest a crude computer—but was more probably a network of slaved women tied to mechanical gear multipliers passing notes to each other at the orders of a supervising paternalist manning the rostrum and an assistant who chanted out timing signals. It is well known that the Americs were slave owners. We even have a picture of one of their master-priests in a kind of visor cap. Blast weapons are very low tech.”

“It is just not possible for them to have built that Fortress without a computer functioning error-free to at least ten places!”

“You think so? Gardak, that’s true only if your intention is to re-create that fossil aerocar in an improved version.”

“I’m a professional. I improve every immature idea.” “That’s an approach,” Eron agreed. “I’ve seen your airflow design for the wing surface to minimize drag. Clever little powered grooves. You’ve embedded more computational oomph in one wing panel than their Eytortionists used to collect taxes to support the war. You’re aiming for a replica that flies by itself while the crew drinks tea. You’re trying to make the skin immune to the impact of inertial weaponry. You’re trying to build in the ability to fight from a distance, out of danger, and—just in case the automatic pilot can’t stay out of danger—you’ve added target-seeking spitters.” He scowled. “They used hand-operated manual spitters.” “But Konn won’t authorize sentient beam weapons! And you can’t hand-man a spitter that’s tossing lead into a thirty-five meters per jiff wind at a moving target!”

Eron shrugged. “And how about that little unobtrusive package of just-in-case atomics?”

“It’s just there for an emergency or when Konn gets tired of pussying along and wants to go supersonic. He doesn’t have to use it.”

“He doesn’t want it!”

“But that lumbering battlewagon runs on hydrocarbons. The engines could die. It’s heavy. It would drop like a stone.” “So? The original ones crashed! They were blown out of the sky. The Seattlites lost hundreds of heroes every time they sent those contraptions of aluminum and rivets out on a bombing mission!”

“But it’s not a hero who is going to fly it. That idiot Konn is going to be flying it. It has to be safe,” whimpered the engineer.

Another of the more sanguine engineers piped up to counter the wail of his colleague. “That old windbag Hahukum is expendable. Forget him. It is you and I who have to test fly the damn thing before the Admiral gets in it.” Eron wouldn’t relent. The slide rule was in. That was an order. In protest the engineers sent a delegation to Konn.

Presently Hahukum Konn came back out of his giant mushroom with the delegation following meekly. He wore a dress uniform of blue and braid and the Latin symbols USAAF, which meant something like SPQR, which Eron recognized from reading Virgil. Then Konn mounted an impromptu podium—a mobile staired runabout used in the hangar—silently making sure that all of his engineers and workmen were watching before he spoke in tones that the Emperor of the Galaxy might have used.

He ordered them to carry out Physicist Eron Osa’s instructions to the letter. He might even have been grinning.

And then he relaxed, inspected progress on the fuselage in the distant manner of an Admiral in control, and finally cornered Eron privately. “You’ve been here a long time and we haven’t had our discussion yet. Come over for supper tonight.” An abstract look came over his face as he consulted his fam, then he smiled again and mentioned the time. “When you come, do not ignore my dog. He’s my inspector-general and will not let you in until you have passed security. Make sure that you have washed all enemy smells off your hands.” Eron was alert and neatly dressed and washed at suppertime. Rhaver was asleep on the entrance step but jerked up his nose. “SupperGuestOnTime,” he announced, slowly getting to his feet. Dutifully he sniffed Eron, his crotch as well as his hands, and then reached up with entwining fingers and opened the door. “SlipMeBone. GetChance. MasterSome-timesNotAttentive.”

The table was already set with elaborate Rithian linen mats, a wine jug of cut glass, and long candles. The abundant utensil types were of lucent ceramic. Konn was already seated, did not rise, but expected Eron to seat himself.

“HeTookBath,” commented Rhaver, curling up at a strategic place underneath the table.

“Wine?” offered Konn. Then he turned his head and spoke to no one. “Magda, he’s here.”

Magda immediately arrived from the kitchen with soup and rolls. She was a very pretty girl with a sapiens hauteur. “You’re in for a treat,” said Konn. “Her particular Rithian eccentricity is her refusal to use a cuisinator

“You don’t always get your meals on time, though,” said the girl.

“Only Rhaver minds.”

“UsedToIt. NoSoupCourseForRhaver,” came from underneath the table.

“Magda, meet my finest student. At least that’s what he promised me in his overflowery self-praising resume. Eron Osa, I think the name is, if I’m remembering correctly.”

She curtsied, which seemed to be a Rithian custom— when politeness was intended. ‘Taste the soup! Is it good? I do sex very well, too, if you indulge. Moderate prices. Rithians have had time to perfect the sexual arts.” She brushed his hair back. “You don’t want to get hair in your soup,” she proclaimed.

"TellHerSoupIsGood. Uncouth Visitor." Rhaver was watching his guest’s manners.

Magda directed her attention under the table. “Enough out of you, or you don’t get your bone!”

At the magic dog-word, Konn perked up. “No bone for Rhaver. He’s too fat.”

Rhaver whimpered.

“The soup is very good,” exclaimed Eron. “I’ve never tasted the like.”

“It’s leek,” she said, and disappeared back into her kitchen.

Konn watched her with sad eyes. “Poor girl,” he said, “I found her sleeping in the street. She couldn’t pay her insurance premiums and her family kicked her out. She has some grave genetic disorders, nothing drugs can’t handle now, but

I’ve had my doctor look at her and she isn’t going to last more than five or ten more years. I want you to be very kind to her. Girls like her shouldn’t be bom. Space-damned Rithian religions. Rith is the cesspool of every religion that was ever invented. Once some madman invents a religion, a Rithian never throws it away.”

“That’s not really true,” Eron offered cautiously, ticking off the fatalities on his fingers. “There are no longer any Zoroastrians, Christians, Moslems, Jews, Scientologists, or temples built to honor Jupiter.” He paused, having already run out of fingers.

“Except on Splendid Wisdom,” grumbled Konn. “The Currents of Space will forever waft the Wisdom of the Ancients down upon our heads. Thank Space for a roof that covers our whole planet!” Konn directed his attention at the soup. “I can’t get over that girl. She plays the violin, too. She’s a genius for a Rithian sapiens. You and I, we shall treat ourselves to a concert tonight—after we’ve discussed business.” He paused. “No. Before we’ve discussed business.”

“A violin?”

“You can buy violins by the truckload at the Pyramid. I myself have a Stradivarius. It is not a real Stradivarius, of course, I imagine those sirens-of-the-gods have all turned to dust by now, it is just another damn Rithian fake, but it is a good one, a fine mellow tone.”

What kind of madman am I having supper with? thought Eron.

When she brought in the second course, Konn demanded his concert.

“What would you like me to play, sir?”

“INowLeave,” said Rhaver, getting to his feet.

“How about some Saramantin? You play him well. The Fifth?” Saramantin was one of the Rithian composers of the Etalun Dynasty period—about 5390 GE—when the Etaluns were nostalgically financing a renaissance of Rithian Art.

“How can I play and cook at the same time?” she protested.

“You are a genius who can afford to bum your candle at both ends. Come, my dear, you enjoy Saramantin as much as I do.”

Konn was already drunk on wine and a brandy-flavored dessert before they got around to business. Rhaver snuck in for his bone while his master was indisposed and snuck out again. “Brilliant move that, ramming slide rules up the asses of my engineers to make them regret their sins of complication. I knew I was going to love you when I read all the black marks on your school record.” He reverted to his smirk of enjoyment about the slide rule. “The Romans used to do that. They set an enemy’s ass atop a pointed stake and let him contemplate his stupidity while the stake gradually worked its way up into his brain.” Konn laughed, but he was suddenly sober as he turned on his private mnemonifier. “I’ve been watching you struggle with that model of yours. You probably think I haven’t even noticed. I have been fascinated by the way you think. You’ve made every mistake in the beginner’s manual, but what interesting mistakes!”

Eron didn’t know whether he was being complimented or chastised. “But it gets the right answers, sir.”

“All of them, even to the wrong questions!” Konn chuckled. “You’re well on you way to discovering the formula for the Pharaoh’s face powder”

Oh, oh, thought Eron tensely, here it comes.

“The mistake that all beginning psychohistorians make is to generate too much detail. If your head is to be split open, it doesn’t matter whether it is an iron ax or a bronze ax that does the deed. Dramatists care about such detail, psychohistorians don’t. The brilliance of the Founder was his ability to strip away irrelevant detail. If he had hung onto the detail even he was tempted to hoard, all the computers in the Galaxy wouldn’t have held his plan or been able to indicate the numbers that had to be monitored to keep the Great Plan on course.”

Konn’s voice became gentle. He brought up each of Eron’s assumptions and stripped off the irrelevancies. “Here’s

one”—he tapped the screen—“that you are reluctant to edit because it is very insightful; it will tell you how trading organizations form and evolve but at the same time will tell you more than you need to know to follow the evolution of length-and-weight standards. I love it, but you have to take it out. Nothing bloats a psychohistorical prediction to unmanageable size more than the cute variable that has a minor role to play.”

Eron had a pang at the loss of his favorite routine. “Will it still work?”

Konn stood up and brought down from his cabinet a green bottle of wine in the shape of a pelican. “Of course it will still work. Trust me.” The cork popped.

“Are you as good as they say you are?”

“I can still beat the kids with the fam implants.” Eron shivered while Konn poured him wine in a ceramic cup that had once been extraordinarily beautiful before it had been left to weather for ten millennia. “I collect cups from which Rithian messiahs have been known to drink. They are plentiful.”

‘To your health,” toasted Eron.

“And to your promotion. I don’t think I’m going to have the pleasure of nailing you up Roman style. I’m reluctantly forced to promote you to First Assistant.” He chuckled. “That’s a position you may or may not enjoy. I should warn you, though, that as soon as Nejirt Kambu finds out he will take you aside and give you his Konn lecture, everything you’ll need to know to survive me.”

“Should I listen?”

“Of course. He knows much. He’s my failed protege.”