Page 29 - Tales the Maggid Never Told Me

The Golem of NASA

The Agency’s files provided level upon level of intelligence gathered
at regular intervals, including the means of recognizing persons
from the satellite’s bird’s-eye view. Obeying Parkinson’s Law,
these files expanded endlessly into ever-larger random-access
storage devices provided by the taxpayers of America.
Then the golem revealed its reasoning.

WAR:LARGE-SCALE:
INSTIGATOR: PROBABILITY=.87
CASUALTIES INCURRED: JEWS= 243,875
OTHERS= 3,875,450
POINTS: -08537

PEACE:REGIONAL SETTLEMENT:
NEGOTIATOR: PROBABILITY=.02
CASUALTIES AVOIDED: JEWS= 678
OTHERS= 4,932
POINTS: 00017

NET POINTS: -08520

Gabe was astounded. Four days ago he had run the program
to list the five most dangerous individuals, and every one of
them had been an Arabic name. He wracked his brain to come up
with something in recent international news which might have
caused the golem to go haywire. Perhaps something out of the
public view had been entered by the Agency’s analysts. He typed;

new factors(days=4)

And the golem replied:

AGENCY DISBURSEMENT=US$500,000
(CREDIT SUISSE)
(ACCT=385-93888-002)
(CLASSIF=TOPSECRET)

Gabe blinked, feeling moisture beneath his button-down
collar. He needed no further explanation. Whatever reason the
Agency had for slipping those funds to the general, the golem
had interpreted the action as tipping the scales toward wholesale
destruction of Jews. And that was the highest value in the golem’s

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