The Kalif's War

by John Dalmas

  "Specialist Zoranjee told me yesterday that she found you dancing. And that you dance very nicely."

  The prisoner answered in Imperial. "Yes, sir."

  "Do you remember ever dancing before? Before you were brought on board this ship?"

  The violet eyes slid away, and she shook her head. "No, sir."

  "Well. Perhaps you will dance for me sometime."

  The eyes brightened. "I will dance for you now, if you'd like."

  Childlike, thought Ralankoor. According to the chief medical officer, amnesiacs were not ordinarily childlike. In fact, her symptoms did not match anything that DAAS had on amnesia, except of course that she could not remember. And his instruments had assured him that she wasn't faking.

  He nodded. She stood and began dancing, humming the music. It was not at all like any dancing he'd seen before. Her movements were larger, fuller, more athletic, requiring greater flexibility and balance, their appeal more purely artistic than sensual. It seemed to him that musicians would add greatly to both performance and appreciation.

  After a minute or two she stopped, sweat sheening her forehead. A smile parted her lips.

  "That was very nice, Tain," he said. "I'm going to leave now, to talk with Specialist Zoranjee. We won't be long. Then she'll come back in and continue your lessons."

  With that he left, stepped into the corridor and closed the door behind him. He wondered if she'd begin dancing again.

  "Specialist," he said, and his voice was stern, "do not tell her further stories about The Prophet."

  The specialist's face registered brief surprise, then indignation, though of course she said nothing. Ralankoor knew her problem: It was written that the believer had a duty to inform the non-believer about The Prophet and his words. When one could find a non-believer.

  "Use only the material I've specified in DAAS," he continued. "Nothing more. Do you understand?"

  "Yes, sir." The words came stiffly.

  "Good. And something else: Why were you drilling her on the names of the planets?"

  "Because they, most of them, are based on the ordinal numbers, which she had just learned."

  "Mmm. I see. Specialist, I had you assigned to this duty because I felt sure you were the best person for it. You are intelligent, responsible, and considerate. I will not put you on report this time, but there must not be another." He repeated an earlier lecture now. "The commodore wants her to know no more about Klestron and the empire than necessary to complete the language drills. Then we'll put her in stasis till we arrive home. She'll be interrogated by SUMBAA there, and her answers must be as little influenced as possible by knowledge of our ways and beliefs." His voice softened for a moment. "After she has talked with SUMBAA then she'll be taught about The Prophet, and Kargh, and no doubt many other things."

  Once more he made a stern face. "Do not deviate from this policy again."

  Specialist Zoranjee nodded, contritely now. "Yes, sir."

  "But encourage her to dance," Ralankoor went on. "It's good for her, physically and probably spiritually."

  He turned and started for his office. Tain. Tain Faronya. Even the name was lovely. It was all they'd learned from her before the foreign artifact had stripped her of her memory and almost her life.

  It occurred to him that she might have lost more than memories and attitudes. She might have lost some reasoning capacity, leaving her like a child, a lovely, agreeable child. Spiritually. Physically she was no child. She was undoubtedly the loveliest woman he'd ever seen, especially dancing. And the most desirable.

  He wondered what would be done with her on Klestron when SUMBAA had finished questioning her. She'd be without family there, a woman without family to shield her. Even if she wasn't noble, which wasn't proven, gentry had the same values, the same sensibilities, and it had been wrong not to release her before they left. There were those on Klestron—even on this ship—who'd take advantage of her, given half a chance. And on Klestron those who'd make the chance, who'd be in a position to. He was tempted to himself, though he wouldn't. Certainly not with the morality and threat of the commodore in the background.

  But he'd allow himself to fantasize occasionally.

  Three

  The new Kalif sat scanning rapidly through a bound packet of printouts, then slowed, frowned, and turned backward a page. "What is this?" he muttered, then looked up at his secretary. "Industrial riots at Chingarook on Saathvoktos, this coming Veethkar." (Veethkar is the eighth month in the imperial calendar.) MidVeethkar! Partiil, how can SUMBAA come up with a prediction like this? With such seeming precision?"

  His secretary blinked nervously. "It's what he was designed to do, Your Reverence. To know."

  The Kalif snapped his reply: "That's no answer! Obviously he was designed to do it. But how does he do it? Useful prediction requires data, at least for a computer. In matters like this it also requires an improbable knowledge of complex, constantly changing relationships."

  He paused, frowned thoughtfully. "How good are SUMBAA's predictions?"

  "Quite good, I believe, Your Reverence."

  The Kalif grunted. "That's been my impression, but I've never seen actual data on it." He gestured with the report. "Go. And call Alb Jilsomo. Tell him I want to see him. Right away, unless it will cause him problems."

  "At once, Your Reverence." The secretary, a small wiry man, hurried from the room as if glad to be leaving. Then, leaning forearms on his desk, the Kalif continued to read. After several minutes, his secretary's voice spoke from the desk speaker.

  "Alb Jilsomo is here to see you, Your Reverence."

  "Send him in."

  The Kalif leaned back in his chair. A large man entered—the exarch who'd urged his crowning, and the only exarch without the mark of nobility on his forehead. He was rather tall and very fat, his white robe tentlike. "You wanted to see me, Your Reverence?"

  "Right." The Kalif held up the report he'd been reading. "SUMBAA's monthly summary report on industrial conditions. There's a prediction I want you to see. Here."

  Alb Jilsomo Savbatso walked over to him and took the bound packet of printouts, his eyes settling on the place the Kalif indicated. He read quickly. "Yes, Your Reverence?"

  "Industrial riots at Chingarook! Six months from now!" The obsidian eyes found the exarch's, demanding. "How does SUMBAA compute this? Think of all the interacting factors involved! Do such predictions generally come to pass?"

  "Your Reverence, I know little—actually nothing—of how SUMBAA or any computer functions. But it's been my experience that SUMBAA's predictions are usually quite accurate."

  The Kalif got to his feet. "I'm going to the House of SUMBAA and talk to the director. Gopalasentu, isn't it?"

  "Dr. Chisop Gopalasentu. He's worked with SUMBAA for years—twenty-eight years, I believe."

  "Umh." The Kalif was thinking how little some people learned in twenty-eight years. Including some with doctor in front of their name. Well, he'd see.

  After a call to alert the director, it was a short walk across the beautifully landscaped grounds of the quadrangle to the House of SUMBAA—a building almost tiny by government standards, its low dome and slender circling pillars marble, its walls of some dark brick: glazed, rough-textured, purplish near-black. The new Kalif had been introduced to it earlier that week. Its large central room was the Chamber of SUMBAA, containing SUMBAA's numerous modules interconnecting without symmetry around a large central unit. Adjacent to the chamber were workshops and storage rooms, some of them also large; several modest offices; a conference room; and a comfortable apartment for the director.

  The director met them at the entrance. "Your Reverence!" he said bowing. "A rare pleasure."

  You hope, thought the Kalif. "It's too soon to know how rare my visits might be," he replied dryly, and held the report out, opened to the prediction that had taken his attention. "Read this."

  The director took it and read. When he'd finished, he looked up puzzled at the Kalif. "Sir, it is a predict
ion. Of labor problems on Saathvoktos. At Chingarook. With a recommended action. The Saathvoktu Industrial Ministry will no doubt follow the recommendation, assuming that the SUMBAA there has come to the same conclusion ours has. But if Your Reverence wishes to send a counter recommendation... That sort of thing is sometimes done."

  Tight-lipped with apparent exasperation, the Kalif took the report from the director's hands, then walked past him through the small lobby and down a length of corridor to the door of SUMBAA's Chamber, the director scurrying alongside him. Opening the door, the Kalif stepped inside.

  It was quiet, with what felt to him like a living presence. Thoughtfully he looked SUMBAA over. "I'm not interested in the recommendation," he said. "I want to know how SUMBAA made the prediction."

  "Sir? You mean you—want to know how—SUMBAA made the prediction?" Clearly the man was dismayed.

  The hard, marine-colonel eyes held him thoughtfully for a long moment. "Can you explain it?"

  "No, sir."

  "Why not?"

  "Your Reverence, it is impossible."

  "Damn it! That's no answer! Why is it impossible?"

  The man was almost shaking. "Sir, SUMBAA is far too complex. The permutations of possible data sources and tracks..."

  "You can't call up the data and the computations made in computing this particular prediction?"

  The director stood unmoving, lips parted, as if frozen.

  "Director Gopalasentu," said Alb Jilsomo gently, "I believe the Kalif is interested simply in knowing how SUMBAA draws his conclusions. Apparently you don't know."

  The director's face resembled a child's who'd been found out by a teacher. "No, sir, I don't. SUMBAA is enormously complex. No one knows very much about his operating processes."

  The Kalif frowned. "Then how do you maintain and repair it?"

  The director was beginning to recover a bit. "SUMBAA does those things for himself, Your Reverence."

  "For him, uh, for its self?"

  "He informs me when some part or material is needed. With a schematic if necessary. If what he wants is not on the shelf, I have it prepared."

  "So you simply install it then."

  Again the man averted his face. "Yes, Your Reverence."

  "What is it you're not telling me?"

  The face snapped up, but the eyes still evaded. "Sometimes I install the part, I or one of my assistants. But more often..."

  "Yes?"

  The director shrugged. "Rather often, Your Reverence, SUMBAA simply asks for materials. Chemicals, you understand. In fact, certain chemicals are provided him periodically. He then uses them—as he sees fit."

  The hard kalifal lips pursed. "Are you telling me that SUMBAA metabolizes them?"

  "Possibly. In a manner of speaking, sir." Possibly. In a manner of speaking. The Kalif's eyes withdrew their hard focus, his attention shifting inward for the moment. Then they fixed on the director again. "Does anyone know more about SUMBAA than you do?"

  "No, sir. Certainly not about this SUMBAA. There are eleven SUMBAAs, one on each inhabited world, each with its director and staff. Their original designs were the same, but they have evolved over the centuries, altering and enlarging themselves. They've redesigned themselves to a large degree. Thus they probably differ from one another, more or less."

  "Umh! Has SUMBAA always been so—independent?"

  "Somewhat. But apparently not as much at the beginning."

  "Apparently? Then you don't actually know."

  "I believe I do, yes. SUMBAA was not nearly so large at the beginning. It was intended that he grow in capacity, abilities, and size. From his own experience. At that time there was a field of study known as quasi-organics, not well developed but felt to have promise for computers. When SUMBAA was built, he was provided with a central processing unit of the usual semi-conductor microchips programmed to begin the progressive, self-directed development of storage and processing capacity of a so-called 'tank' of quasi-organic gel. SUMBAA's reorganization and expansion of the tank seems to have been the heart of his growth, but much of the increase in space has been for various servo-units, some of them mechanical. In time he grew far beyond the designs of his creators."

  Grew! Again the Kalif's attention turned inward, as if he communed with himself. "Is it possible for me to, ah, communicate personally with SUMBAA? More freely than through office terminals?"

  "Yes, sir, if you'd like. Here in this chamber."

  "Good. Do what's necessary for me to do that."

  The director turned and walked toward an instrument panel. A few lights glowed there, but nothing seemed to be happening. Quizzically, the Kalif wondered what SUMBAA did when it wasn't in use. Besides receive and store the constant inflow of data, which presumably it did as automatically as a human being received and stored perceptual inflow from its environment. Did SUMBAA nap? Dream? Or was it always computing, perhaps on esoteric questions of its own making? Presumably it at least indexed and collated the inflow.

  The director pressed a single key. "SUMBAA," he said, "the Kalif would like to speak with you."

  SUMBAA spoke. "Good morning, Chodrisei Biilathkamoro, Your Reverence. I am prepared to reply."

  The voice was neutral, genderless but somehow natural. With the director's consistent reference to SUMBAA as he, the Kalif had expected it to sound distinctly male.

  "I—am interested in how you function, and in your growth since your initial construction. And—in your degree of autonomy."

  There was a second-long pause before SUMBAA replied, simulating a typical human pause. "I will reply succinctly. I now store and process data using changes in complex quasi-organic molecules. Initially my functioning was totally inorganic. My designers provided me with the necessary data, and certain programs, templates you might say, to begin my own transformation. From that point I designed and redesigned myself over a long period of time. If you will look in my number one printout tray, I have just provided you with simplified schematics of my initial and current designs. And benchmark intermediate designs. Simplified because anything more explicit would not be intelligible to anyone today, and would simply obscure. I will provide more explicitly complete schematics if you want them.

  "As for my independence: I answer whatever questions are asked of me, to the best of my ability. Except as forbidden by the basic canon imposed on me by my original designers. And of course by your laws on the invasion of privacy."

  The Kalif's gaze seemed to probe the machine in front of him. "What is this basic canon? What constraints are there on your function? Besides those implicit in your data and understanding?"

  "I am designed to serve the welfare of humankind. That is the First Law, the basic canon, the sole absolute from which I am not free to deviate. All of my operations must conform to it. Other operating principles have grown out of that, but none of them are absolute. When any of them produce results at variance with the First Law, the principles are modified to compatibility with the First Law, or cancelled entirely. Then the problem whose previous solution was unacceptable is computed anew."

  The room was quiet. Alb Jilsomo stepped to a tray and removed a thin sheaf of sheets without opening them. The Kalif's frown was thoughtful.

  "SUMBAA, do you regard yourself as infallible?"

  "No. I am totally logical, within the constraints of the First Law. But while my data base is enormous, and undergoes constant updating and evaluation, I am not infallible. On the other hand, my accuracy is high. Occasionally I provide an analysis that is severely in error. Sometimes I do this without any internal warning of possible trouble. But that happens infrequently."

  "How do you express mathematically your confidence in a computation?"

  "There are no mathematics in which I can explain that to you meaningfully."

  "Well then, how do you evaluate for yourself mathematically? In order to, ah, guide successive computations."

  "Mathematics can be described as the rigorous use of defined and logical relationships
expressed in rigorously defined symbols. My mathematics are not describable in terms that mean anything to humans."

  "Try me. Print out a description of your mathematics."

  "As you wish. They are now printing out, and can be found in tray number one."

  The Kalif's eyes glimpsed sheets feeding swiftly and silently from a slot. "Starting from scratch," he said, "could human beings at present design a new SUMBAA comparable in abilities to the original SUMBAA?"

  "No."

  "Could they come close?"

  "No."

  "Why?"

  "Having SUMBAAs, human beings stopped designing computers, and are no longer familiar with the technology. Gradually they also stopped using advanced mathematics themselves, depending on SUMBAAs to fill that need."

  The whisker-blued jaw set, the hard lips thinning, and the eyes. "If humankind has lost its skills in the more, um, cryptic? Esoteric? The more advanced mathematics because of SUMBAAs, then SUMBAAs have been a negative influence on humankind."

  "SUMBAAs have had and continue to have various negative effects on humankind, as well as positive. Thus I, we, repeatedly recompute our overall effect on humankind—pluses and minuses. And adjust our services accordingly. If I ever compute that humankind would be better served by taking myself off line, I will do so. So far my computations have never produced a result at all close to that.

  "SUMBAAs have less direct influence on the growth or lessening of human ability than you might think. What we have done is to maintain a life-support system that permits your continuation as a civilization. Overall we have been a very positive influence on humankind. My evaluation of you yourself, based on admittedly limited data, is that you will examine what I have said and see for yourself that it is so, and why."

  The speaker went still then, while the Kalif looked thoughtfully at it. At last he spoke again.

  "SUMBAA, do you ever lie to humans?"

  SUMBAA sounded as imperturbable as before, and by hindsight, his reply was inevitable, given the First Law. "Only as necessary," SUMBAA said.