One of the many staggering problems he faced was to discover how the process by which a human mind was reduced or amplified to pure optics and electronics could be made to operate in reverse.
Hawksmoor very early interviewed the expert system called Freya by Annie Zador and her fellow fleshly bioworkers. Freya was distinct from the biolab’s overall intelligence, and she—Nick definitely visualized her as a woman—had remained intact throughout Hoveler’s efforts at disruption.
Nick’s visualization of Freya was vague and variable. To him she was never actually anything more than an intellect expressed in a cool, compassionate voice.
Nick, having introduced himself to Freya, soon assumed—quite naturally, as part of his security function—the job of scanning Freya’s programming. It really was part of his assigned job to make sure that, during the time when the station had been occupied territory, she had not become some kind of a berserker trick.
He verified that her programmed benevolence had not been poisoned. Then he talked with her some more and introduced his problem—without, of course stating it as his: “How fully developed would an organic brain need to be before I could download into it the patterns of myself?”
That was a stunner, even for Freya. It took her some time to frame an answer.
From the start of his investigation it had been obvious to Hawksmoor that the gray matter of a newborn infant, let alone that of a fetal brain, would never answer his purpose. Even were he capable of setting aside all his built-in moral objections to such a procedure, only a partial downloading could be accomplished under the restrictions of minimum space and complexity imposed by the infant brain.
The expert system too reacted with moral horror. Freya seemed on the verge of shutting herself down.
“The question is purely theoretical. No such operation is contemplated,” Nick assured Freya firmly.
She in turn insisted that such an operation would not be technically possible, even under optimum conditions.
Hawksmoor continued his probing questions.
Freya upon reflection offered the opinion—purely theoretical, she insisted firmly—that there might be two ways in which an entity like Nick could obtain a carnal body for himself. One way would be to grow a body, from the stock of zygotes and/or other miscellaneous human genetic material available on the bioresearch station. To grow one selectively, taking care to preserve the developing brain as a tabula rasa, blank as regards any personality of its own, but capable of receiving his.
Of course, normally, bodies grown in the laboratory, just like those developed according to the ancient and organic course of nature, give every indication of being possessed by their own minds and spirits from the start.
The second possibility—and this, again, Freya was ready to admit only after persistent questioning, as a theoretical procedure, totally unacceptable in practice—would be to wipe clean an existing adult brain. This would involve inflicting an extensive pattern of carefully controlled microinjuries, to erase whatever personality pattern was currently present. Then the microstructure of the brain would be encouraged to heal, the healing brought about in such a way that the infusion of the new patterns was concomitant with it.
There would be some practical advantages to this ethically unacceptable scheme, the expert system admitted: instead of a minimum of fifteen or sixteen standard years, the host organ would be ready in a mere matter of months to receive the downloaded personality. But during that time the equipment would have to run steadily and undisturbed.
Nick went away to ponder in secret what he had learned.
Plainly it would be necessary to get free somehow of both the berserker and oppressive human authority before any such ambitious project could succeed.
Nick also considered attempting to run the experiment back on the yacht, where fleshly, inquisitive people now seldom visited. But it would be essential to move the necessary equipment from the station to the yacht—and again, he could not be sure of being able to work undisturbed for a long time. Moving Jenny and himself as required was easier.
Freya, when Nick talked to her again, insisted there was only one possible way to download the information content of an electronic man or woman into an organic brain, especially the only partially developed brain of an infant. It was at best a very tricky operation.
It would be something like the reverse of the process of recording, upon some optelectronic matrix, the personality pattern of a living brain. And even if some quicker method could be devised, it seemed inevitable that the incoming signals would scramble, destroy, whatever native pattern of personality the developing brain had already begun to form.
If a mature brain was used as the matrix, according to Freya, the native pattern would very likely triumph over the one being superimposed.
Or, given the two conflicting patterns, the resultant person might well be some hybrid of the two. Some memories, not all, would belong to the native personality.
The plan Nick finally decided on, one worked out in consultation with Freya (the latter requiring continual assurance that all this was merely theoretical), involved subjecting the maturing organic brain to alternating periods of deep though unfrozen sleep, in which the brain could grow organically, with periods of intense loading. First the rough outlines of the desired personality patterns would be impressed upon the developing matrix, and then later the details. Inevitably, Freya warned, certain errors would creep into the process; the resultant fleshly person would possess the memories of the electronic predecessor/ancestor, but could not be considered an exact copy.
“But then no fleshly human is, today, an exact copy of himself or herself of yesterday.”
“I really hope the two of you are not working on an actual project. To deceive me in such a matter would be most unethical.”
Nick, who had begun withdrawing along a path of circuits, turned back sharply. “The two of us?” He had not so much as ever hinted to Freya, he was sure of it, the actual existence of a program version of the Lady Genevieve.
“Yes.” Freya was almost casual, as she usually was when anything but the sanctity of life was under discussion. “I have very recently given very much the same information to Premier Dirac. I assumed the two of you were having a discussion.”
TEN
Meanwhile, the handful of organic people living under Dirac’s command found their initial relief at what had seemed a victory gradually turning into desperation.
But the Premier, supported by Brabant and Varvara Engadin, fiercely put down any open dissension before it could rise above the level of subdued muttering.
It’s all right,Kensing tried to reassure himself. At the moment we don’t have a drive capable of getting us home—the small craft would be inadequate, starting from here within the nebula—and there’s no use fretting about when to pull out until we have the capability. Meanwhile, someone has to be in charge, to keep up morale, to keep the people busy.And who was better qualified as a leader than Dirac?
Besides, Kensing realized that even if the Eidolonwas ready to go, Annie, and probably Hoveler as well, would still be determined not to abandon their billion protocolonists.
Eventually, Kensing hoped, it would be possible to somehow cut the station loose from the berserker’s forcefields so that the restored yacht could eventually tow it home.
Meanwhile, things could have been worse. The berserker remained quiet, and all life-support systems on yacht and station were working. Things could have been much worse.
The Premier always had at least one organic person besides the automated systems standing sentry duty, watching the berserker for signs of activity. Meanwhile, under his firm command, his remaining handful of people were steadily consolidating their position aboard the research station.
The attempt to restore the cargo inventory system, in their ongoing effort to save the protocolonists, occupied most of Zador and Hoveler’s time. The fact that Dirac put a high priority on saving the cargo enlisted the wholehea
rted support of the two surviving bioworkers.
Another project to which the Premier gave a high priority was that of establishing a relatively secure area from which any berserker spy devices had been absolutely excluded.
At the center of this domain Dirac had chosen a cabin for himself, and established his headquarters there.
Meanwhile, two other people aboard the station were under suspicion of being goodlife, despite the fact that since Dirac’s boarding no one had heard them confess to that crime.
Dirac wanted to resolve that situation, to clear the air, as he put it. Quietly the Premier asked Scurlock to come and see him in his stateroom, and to bring Carol along.
Scurlock showed up alone, and entered the room to stand facing Dirac, who sat regarding him from a kind of rocking chair. A few of the cabins aboard had rather luxurious appointments.
When the Premier gestured to another chair, Scurlock took it uneasily. Then he reported that Carol had refused to come to the meeting. “She’s not well, you know, Premier.”
“Has Dr. Zador looked at her?” Dirac’s voice indicated a fatherly concern. “Or have you taken her to a medirobot?”
“I’ve asked her to try one or the other, but she declines.”
The Premier rocked a few times. “All right, let it go for now. I’ll talk to you.” He rocked a few more times, while Scurlock waited apprehensively. Then he said: “I can quite appreciate that the pair of you were in a very difficult situation when the berserker had you directly in its custody.”
“Yes sir, it was difficult.”
“I really think it would be unjust to blame you, either of you, for anything you may have said or done under those conditions.”
“That’s it, sir! That’s very true. I’m only afraid that everyone isn’t going to be so understanding.” Scurlock’s large, nervous hands had begun to wrestle with each other in his lap.
Dirac was soothing. “I think perhaps I can help you with the problems you face regarding other people’s attitudes. That is, assuming that you and I can work together now. Understand that when—if—we eventually return to settled planets, you and Carol are going to need all the help that you can get. Accusations of goodlife activity are not taken lightly.”
“Yes sir. I’m well aware of that.”
Dirac spoke slowly. “At the moment we—all of us aboard the station—find ourselves in a situation not much different, I think, from that which you and Carol faced as actual prisoners of the machine. For us, too, some kind of accommodation with the machine, at least for the short term, is in order. Do you agree?”
“With the berserker, sir?”
“That’s what I meant by the machine, yes.”
“Oh, I do agree, Premier!”
“I’m not sure that the other people on board will be ready to understand this point as well as you and Carol will. So I’d like to keep this discussion just between us for the time being.”
“I understand, Premier.”
“Do you?” Dirac rocked and ruminated. “Of course the machine may now really be completely dead—except for its drive and autopilot. Or it may not. I would like to know the truth about its condition. That seems to me an essential first step.”
Scurlock nodded.
“So I mean to send you on a scouting trip, Scurlock. I’ve chosen you because the machine knows you. It did not kill you or hurt you when it had the chance. Therefore I think you will do well as a scout, as my investigator.”
Scurlock said nothing. He looked frightened, but not yet absolutely terrified.
Dirac nodded his apparent approval of this reaction. He continued: “If necessary, if the machine is not yet dead, then you will serve as my—ambassador.”
Surlock let out a small sigh. Then he nodded.
The Premier continued. “There are certain things we—the people now in control of this station—want; first of all, that there be no further berserker attacks against us. Also there are certain things the machine—assuming it not yet dead—must want, according to its programming. We find ourselves now in a situation where total victory is not possible for either side. So, as I said before, an accommodation may be our only real choice.”
And Scurlock nodded once again.
Nick, after a discussion with the Premier, nudged the Eidolonforward on its supposedly faltering drive, arranging for the yacht to hitch a ride by maneuvering into one edge of the berserker-generated towing field. Now the Eidolontoo was being dragged along. Hawksmoor assured his organic companions that the yacht, even half crippled as it was, would be able to break free at a moment’s notice. Meanwhile his efforts to repair the drive would be facilitated by being able to turn it completely off.
The violent berserker opposition to Dirac’s boarding party had ceased so quickly that most of the Solarians still refused to believe that all the bad machines had been destroyed. Beyond that, Dirac himself had not yet publicly taken a position, but others were ready to argue on both sides of the question.
Brabant and Engadin were arguing.
The woman said: “Its machines have definitely retreated.”
“Yes, but why? Ask yourself that. Berserkers don’t just retreat. Or rather, they retreat only when they feel certain of gaining some advantage. It’s obviously setting a trap for us.”
Engadin disagreed strongly with the bodyguard: “I don’t think they’ve retreated at all. What’s happened, I believe, is that they’ve used up all their mobile hardware, or depleted it down to the last reserve. This giant thing on top of us is an ancient machine, judging by the look of its outer hull, and it’s been through a lot of fights; I think the fact is that we’ve really blasted their last mobile unit.”
Brabant looked doubtful. “That’s a possibility, but we don’t dare count on it.”
“Anyway,” Varvara Engadin insisted, “there are no active, mobile, berserker devices anywhere on the station. And just in time, I’d say.” It was obvious to all that a little more onboard fighting might have left the station uninhabitable by breathing beings. “Rendering space installations uninhabitable is exactly what a berserker ought to try to do. I tell you, it’s got nothing left to throw at us.”
The big man shook his head gloomily. “I might be tempted to believe that. Except this berserker has been an exception right from the start. Seemingly utterly mad. A real oddball. It could easily have vaporized the station right where it was, in orbit around Imatra. Much less difficult than dragging a thing like this away.”
“Which means what?”
“That question has a two-part answer, an easy part and a hard one. The easy part is, no, this berserker is not utterly mad. It had some coldly logical reason for not destroying this facility. Because it has, or had, some special use for it. Or for something or someone being carried aboard. And that might even explain why it’s not fighting us now. It just doesn’t want to risk having its prize shot up. It would rather bide its time and hope we fly away on the Eidolon.”
The woman nodded slowly. “I have to admit you may be on to something there … and the hard part?”
“That is deciding what the special use could be.”
“What else couldit be but our billion protocolonists? So maybe, logically, the best thing we could do is shoot up the station’s cargo ourselves.”
The bioworkers were outraged when they heard this suggestion.
Once more, Dirac sided with them. “We can always shoot things up. But we do have a very valuable cargo here, and we are still exhausting every possibility to find the Lady Genevieve.”
No one, except perhaps the Premier himself, actually believed that anymore. Several wondered why they were really lingering aboard, but no one dared insist upon an answer.
The bioworkers and Dirac as well had been relieved to discover that the period of active berserker occupation had involved no widespread destruction among the cargo of protopeople. Nor did any great volume of tiles seem to have been removed from their usual storage places—though given the immense number of
stored units, and the severe confusion of the record-keeping system, it was impossible to be sure about that.
Certainly there was no evidence that the berserker had ever started to grow Solarians for some hypothetical corps of mamelukes, of goodlife slaves. None of the artificial wombs had been activated or moved from their original places of installation, though there was evidence suggesting one or more had been examined. As far as could be determined without detailed examination, none were damaged. None were currently in use.
Nick had to wait until this general inspection was over before he could hope to get his own secret project under way. Dirac was still conducting armed patrols, an armed and suited escort accompanying every fleshly technician’s foray into the huge storerooms, in case something was still lurking.
Faced with the seemingly immense difficulties of providing bodies, Nick tried to persuade Jenny to abandon her demand for flesh. He kept promoting, subtly as he thought, virtual reality as a form of paradise, but Jenny, whenever she suspected him of doing this, continued to insist violently on regaining flesh.
She began to accuse Nick of having robbed her of her body; maybe his real goal all along had been to reduce her to his own fleshless, unreal condition, thinking to possess her that way. After all, she had only his word that her injuries had been so severe. Well, he could forget it, it wasn’t going to work. No man was going to have her until she had been given her body back. The mere idea of electronic lovemaking, of attempting to program exquisite extrapolations on the sense of touch, was quite enough to make her sick.
Eventually the Premier, feeling increasingly confident about safety aboard, declared armed escorts now optional.
Early one morning—Dirac had set station time equal to ship’s time aboard the Eidolon—Kensing, leaving the stateroom he now shared with Annie, asked her: “A zygote is basically a blueprint, correct? Basically very compactly stored information?”
Berserker Wars (Omnibus) Page 74
