by Kalifer Deil
people. I don't know why exactly but I love all people.”
Admiral Kemp: “If it's all right with you professor, Maggie's hired.”
I knew then our brain download partially failed but it also partially succeeded. “I think we can transfer her to the IBM NF84-10 without trouble. Give us six months.”
Admiral Kemp: “You have 30 days.”
“Gordon, you want to help the Admiral? I have to figure out why we didn't get all her memory.
Gordon: “Yeah, I'll do it. I haven't seen the dash 10 and would love to play with it. It's upward compatible with your dash 2 so it should be a breeze.”
Maggie: “I believe I'll be able to help. I pulled the manuals for both machines off the Web and there are a few incompatibilities. I just translated your assembly level procedures for the dash ten to take advantage of their far-look-ahead control transfers and fetches and their multitier stores.”
Gordon: “I'd say you are highly motivated.”
Maggie: “Not everyone gets such a wonderful opportunity.”
Admiral Kemp: “She's a dream and she exceeds my expectations by a light-year. Maggie, you are exactly what I want. You are a loving, devoted and resourceful individual. The crew will be very fortunate to have you.”
I was left with a strange empty feeling. She was gone before I had a chance to introduce myself or the rest of the team that made her possible. She was already reprogramming herself. I wondered where that might end up. She left me with a longing feeling. I hated to see her go. She had a quality quite different from any person, android or computer that I was acquainted with. The quality suggested a generalized love of people and life. She was transferred by FarNet in 30 minutes. I went home and Gordon went to the Cape [Cape Canaveral] with the Admiral.
3.24.2126:
Had to determine what went wrong. Why didn't she remember who she was and her past but she did remember her communication skills and could learn rapidly? Something was mismatched somewhere and I had to find it quickly. The chance of me getting a replacement liver was running out. My stem cells contained the cancer causing genes so they were not useful. Perhaps I could have used someone else’s stem cells but it’s far too late now. The cancer itself was inoperable. The cancer was spreading in filaments throughout the liver. The doctor claimed that it already metastasized to other organs. I wanted very much to live beyond my biological existence so this was a race against time.
3.25.2126:
Stayed up until 4:00 AM poring over the data and I fell asleep in the chair; awoke with a stiff neck at 5:00 AM and went to bed. Got up at 10:00 AM, took a pile of pills with a glass of orange juice and went to work. Got a video call from Gordon at the Cape. He was enthusing over how quickly Maggie integrated with the starship and what a wonderful ship the Tillian Star was. I wasn't in the mood to listen so I finally cut him off telling him someone came in the outer office that shouldn't be there. Actually, it was Marcie, the admin for our group. She gave me that sad death-watch look which, of course, reminded me of my fate.
Returning to the task at hand, I finally decided it had to be a misalignment between layers that caused the loss of self-identity and event memories. I looked carefully at the mismatch file which was expected to have many mismatches from everything from calcium deposits to white blood cells to distorted cell boundaries due to the microtome. We used blood vessels for fiducial points of reference and that works reasonably well for aligning layers. However, in some areas of the brain the blood vessels run in the same direction as the microtome cut making them less useful. That appears to be the problem I would have to solve.
4.6.2126:
Might have a solution but it involves a tricky unfolding of the brain that could damage it in the process. A fresh cadaver brain just arrived and I will see whether unfolding is possible. It's 10:00 PM and I've succeeded in turning this brain into mush. Every manipulation breaks many connections. This isn't going to work.
4.7.2126:
Teamed up with Chuck Kilmer, our ace programmer, to build a topological brain model that we can manipulate and slice with a virtual microtome. I also got our mechanical engineer, Abe Kaster, to build a mechanical manipulator that can feed the bulk brain to the microtome in any orientation. If you can't unfold the brain, perhaps you can virtually unfold it by feeding it to the microtome in a manner that simulates the unfolding process.
4.15.2126:
We have the computer model working and it does seem there is a way to feed the brain to the microtome but it involves some redesign of the feeder that Abe designed. It also involves cutting wedge-shaped slices when making rotational moves with the feeder. Many unanswered question here. Chuck thinks he can handle the pattern recognition if the slice thickness change is not more than 60 percent. We may squeak by on that.
4.21.2126:
We received another cadaver brain and our microtome with the Rube Goldberg feeder worked as we hoped. When the job completed that evening I noted that the mismatch error file was 30 percent smaller. That shows significant improvement that should translate into a more faithful copy of the human connectome. The recognition on the wedge shaped slices was only slightly less than on the uniform slices. Chuck thought he might be able to improve on that by a percent or more.
4.22.2126:
Can't work today; terrific pain, big effort just to get to the Doctor's office. Dr. Ross gave me a shot and a prescription. Feeling better but somewhat light headed. Marcie drove me to and from the doctor; more points toward her becoming the world’s greatest admin.
4.23.2126:
Tillian Star launched today. Gordon says the launch was spectacular. He also noted that Maggie is having a struggle with loneliness already because all the crew are in stasis. It occurred to me that this could be awful for her. She is people oriented in the extreme and she will be in virtual solitary confinement for the next 5 years. I think Admiral Kemp made a serious mistake. Who knows what her mental state will be by the time she arrives at Tillian 5. She could lose her love and rationality and become useless or even dangerous to the crew. The very thought brought tears to my eyes.
Tristan and Isolde
4.25.2126:
We received notification that two people died in an Arctic boat accident. They are a young married couple and their wealthy parents on both sides want them to be resurrected using our technology. They have wired 100 million dollars to our account to get started and their bodies are being flown here by private shuttle. I forwarded half this amount to the mechanical engineering department to prepare two android bodies with enhanced taste and touch. They sent us photos of the couple but they were too slight of build to replicate. There’s too much technology to cram into such small bodies. The new android bodies will faintly resemble them but will look much better than their former human bodies. They were probably two on a scale of ten whereas the android couple is closer to eight or nine.
4.26.2126:
The shuttle arrived at 2:00 AM. Gordon is back from the Cape and I brought in additional staff from related departments to prep the brains for the slicing and scanning. By midnight, we had both brains scanned in and we were all exhausted. The next phase is the intelligent layer alignment software that begins building the neural networks. We started the process and left to get some well-deserved sleep.
4.27.2126:
Error files look good. Smallest so far. A little worried because we haven't improved the recognition algorithm for looking at the wedge shaped slices. We received the 3D avatar files from mechanical engineering and connected them to the emulator software. We then loaded the neural connectivity files and the automatic connection-alignment software. This performs a rough alignment of the sensory and effector neural pathways with the avatar bodies.
Gordon asked the first question: “Mike? Sherral? Are you there?” No reply.
Gordon then joked, “Tristan? Isolde? Are you there?”
A masculine reply came quickly, “I'm not sure who I am but I'd like to be Tristan?”
A femin
ine reply followed, “Then I'd like to be Isolde because I can see Tristan and he is lovely. I feel like I've known him forever.”
In both cases as they talked we adjusted connections and parameters to improve the speech.
Gordon: “You are a married couple that died in a boating accident in the Arctic, You parents flew your bodies here and we have committed your neural networks to our neural emulator. What do you remember?”
Tristan: “Cool! Wow! Let's see I remember some childhood things and some college things. I remember a calculus final that I almost failed. I see you have a mirror in this virtual world. Wow again! I don't really remember looking like that.”
Gordon: “Tristan there’s a folder, you have access to called Mike. Open it. Isolde, what do you remember?”
Isolde: “I'm looking in the mirror, and I remember NOT looking like this. I was a short, scrawny thing but in here I have a body and face that could launch a thousand ships. Well, maybe not a thousand. You know what I mean.”
Gordon: “What else do you remember?”
Isolde: “I remember some childhood experiences and high school and college. I don't remember being in the Arctic or being married. Hey! I don't have any clothes on. Can you see me?”
Gordon: “Yes we are monitoring both of you but the monitors can be shut off if you like.”
Isolde: “Yes, I
