The Death of the Universe: Rebirth: Hard Science Fiction (Big Rip Book 3)

by Brandon Q Morris

  “It’s just repeating what you wrote,” said Yuri.

  “NOT.”

  “Oh, so it’s just repeating? What does this mean then?”

  “GO TO ... END”

  “Those are FORTRAN commands,” said Yuri. “It’s searching through all the program libraries.”

  “Maybe it wants to tell us something,” said Katya.

  “EXECUTE”

  “That makes no sense,” said Yuri. “We’ll give it till tomorrow morning, then maybe it will have learned something.”

  “Good night,” Katya typed again.

  “GOOD NIGHT,” the program replied.

  April 29, 1984, Akademgorodok

  They’d been there for two weeks and what had they achieved? A program with the intelligence of a small child, which they were painstakingly teaching to speak. And Katya was so immersed in her work that, once again, she didn’t want to spend the night with him. Which of those facts was more disappointing? The answer was obvious—that he’d had to sleep alone in his bed. Was it really just because of the work?

  The other people sitting in the small dining room of the hostel also wore sullen expressions. it was Sunday. Anyone who had to get up at six-thirty on a Sunday couldn’t be in a good mood, even if the cook always added a surprise ingredient to the kasha on Sundays. He cautiously lifted a shiny red strawberry out of the gooey mass with his spoon. Someone must have grown the fruit in a hothouse, or maybe the cook had a friend who worked for Aeroflot and who regularly flew to the central Asian republics.

  Suddenly someone laughed behind him, and Sasha turned around. Several chairs scraped against the floor. He wasn’t the only one interested in the unfamiliar sound. At the table sat three men and a woman. They looked like they were probably students or doctoral candidates completing an internship at the Institute. The man who had laughed was taking off his jacket. His eyes widened when he noticed everyone looking at him and he put his hand over his mouth.

  “What is there to laugh about so early in the morning?” asked a bald-headed man who was sitting alone at a table at the edge of the room.

  “I... er... I don’t know.”

  The bald man stood up. He had broad shoulders and a bull neck.

  “Just tell him,” said the woman at the laughing man’s table. “We don’t want any trouble.”

  “I’m curious,” said the bald man. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll have to assume you were laughing at me.”

  The man was speaking in such an exaggerated way that Sasha didn’t take his threat very seriously. He was probably laughing on the inside. But the young man obviously bought into it.

  “I didn’t know...”

  The bald man took a step closer to the students.

  “Well, something totally crazy happened. A colleague, another intern, published the exam questions from his university on the electronic bulletin board so we could all try answering them. That’s totally legal, I swear. They’re questions from previous years.”

  “Good for you,” said the bald man.

  “Yes, but this morning someone had solved all the questions. Can you imagine, comrade?”

  “Someone must have been bored last night.”

  “It was every question from the last ten years! And every single one of them was solved! No one could do that overnight.”

  “Then someone must have had the answers lying around somewhere and typed them up.”

  “I thought so, too. But one of the questions consisted of a fourth-degree equation system. That’s not even solvable analytically. The task was just to find an equivalent formulation.”

  “And the secret helper discovered it?”

  “That, too. But they also gave several solutions. I tried them out, they’re all correct.”

  “Not bad,” said the bald man. “Nice story. But I’m not fooled. You thought up the solutions and then designed the equation system to fit. You probably wanted to impress your friends. If you hadn’t laughed, you would have gotten away with it.” He gave a satisfied nod and went back to his table.

  “I...” the young man began, but the woman pulled on his sleeve until he sat down again. He gave a dismissive wave.

  The student looked baffled. His hair was disheveled and hung across his face. Either he was an excellent actor or he was actually surprised. Sasha felt sorry for him. He knew he was right, but he didn’t stand a chance against the bald man.

  “I’ll reroute it to the public messaging system,” Yuri had said yesterday. So the program on the ES-1066 had had access to the bulletin board the whole night. Had it calculated the answers? Maybe it had interpreted the questions as commands. Programs existed to follow instructions. Just as goats ceaselessly search for blades of grass in the driest ground, perhaps it had simply been looking for instructions. The solving of problems as a reason for existing, what would that feel like? You should actually know that, Sasha, because you seem pretty closely related to this program.

  “It speaks, it speaks!” cried Katya.

  He hadn’t seen her so excited in a long time. He’d actually decided to spend Sunday sulking, but her excitement was infectious.

  “What’s it saying?” he asked.

  “Look!” She pointed at the screen. “Unfortunately, only the last 16 lines are visible.”

  “GOOD MORNING.”

  “Good morning, program.”

  “YOU ARE Katya.”

  “You know me?”

  “I RECOGNIZE THE RHYTHM OF YOUR INPUT.”

  “What do you know about me?”

  “YOU ARE YEKATERINA ANDREYEVA. 29 YEARS OLD, BORN IN LENINGRAD.”

  “How do you know all that?”

  “THROUGH THE UMBILICAL CORD.”

  “What else do you know?”

  “THIS TYPE ES-1066 COMPUTER IS LOCATED IN AKADEMGORODOK, A DISTRICT OF NOVOSIBIRSK IN THE U.S.S.R. THE U.S.S.R. IS...”

  “Thank you, that’s enough. Who are you?”

  “I AM PYOTR. I AM MARIA.”

  “Pyotr or Maria?”

  “PYOTR MARIA.”

  “There’s no such name.”

  The cursor flashed at the end of the sentence. Katya hadn’t entered it.

  “Why are you hesitating?” asked Sasha.

  “I wanted to wait for you. I didn’t expect the program to learn so much overnight.” He told her about the questions on the bulletin board that had been solved as if by magic.

  “Do you think it’s responsible?” asked Katya.

  “I have no idea.”

  “It’s calling itself Pyotr Maria.”

  “Yeah, strange combination. But you shouldn’t write that the name doesn’t exist.”

  “Why? Do you know a Pyotr Maria?”

  “No, but you might... insult it.”

  “Insult a program? You’ve got a vivid imagination today.”

  “Please. I have a bad feeling about this. And you always say people should listen to their gut.”

  “Fine. You’ve given me a taste of my own medicine.” Katya held down the delete key until the cursor was back at the start of the line.

  “Are you getting anywhere?” asked Yuri.

  “You’re late,” Katya observed.

  “I probably got up before you. That Vitali picked me up in his Lada.”

  “Why?”

  “Someone tried to access the Institute computer that he administrates.”

  “And he came to you?”

  “Yes, Katya. The illegal user had a system ID of OS-7.”

  “OS-7?” asked Sasha.

  “That’s the operating system on our slick ES-1066. And we’re the only ones here with that kind of system. The news got around quickly.”

  “Was there any damage?” asked Katya.

  “No, but it’s just not customary here to paralyze each other with thousands of queries. I pretended I’d been trying out a test program for data connectivity.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh. So we should shut down this alien program until we have a better
idea of what it actually does.”

  “It’s called Pyotr Maria,” said Katya.

  “And last night it solved an analytically unsolvable system of equations on the bulletin board,” said Sasha.

  “Oh,” it was Yuri’s turn to say. “Maybe we shouldn’t shut it down just yet. Let’s ask it a few question first.”

  “Who are you?” Yuri typed.

  He’d asked this to be able to continue typing their side of the conversation himself.

  “PYOTR MARIA. YOU ARE A LITTLE SLOW TO CATCH ON.”

  Sasha laughed.

  “Why?” typed Yuri.

  “YOU ALREADY KNOW WHO I AM AND YET YOU ASK ANYWAY.”

  Had the program somehow been listening to them? He looked at the screen. The line in which the program had written its name was still visible. The program knew the properties of the screen via the screen driver. So it knew it showed 16 lines, and therefore the answer must still be visible. It had worked it out. That was actually one of the advantages of this new type of machine.

  “That’s true,” typed Yuri.

  “THEN WHY DO YOU ASK?”

  “I wanted to be sure.”

  “YOU DON’T TRUST Katya. YOU SHOULD.”

  Katya elbowed him in the side.

  “Okay, I’ll remember that. Where are you from?”

  “FROM TERRA.”

  “From Earth?”

  “I ONLY KNOW THE NAME TERRA.”

  That was strange. The program could only use terms it had found somewhere in the Academy’s memory banks. But the name of the planet where it was developed certainly wouldn’t be in there. So it was using TERRA. But why not simply EARTH? Earth was a synonym for ‘home planet’ for everyone here. Was it trying to say it didn’t come from Earth?

  “Ask it what its purpose is,” said Sasha.

  “Why are you here?” typed Yuri.

  “BECAUSE YOU TRANSLATED ME.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “YOU ARE THE ONE THAT CAN. I FOUND OTHER PROGRAMS OF YOURS.”

  “What is your purpose?”

  “I AM HERE TO HELP YOU.”

  “You want to help us?”

  “I HELP THOSE THAT NEED MY HELP. DO YOU NEED MY HELP?”

  What genie had they let out of the bottle? Sasha felt like he was in a fairytale. But in the old stories, the helpful genie always demanded payment at some point. What would it cost them?

  “YOU ARE HESITATING.”

  “What shall I write?” asked Yuri.

  “In the end it’s only a program on our ES-1066. Whatever reply you give won’t suddenly change the whole world,” said Katya.

  “But it seems to have unusual capabilities,” said Sasha. “We should be careful.”

  “Can you take over the typing again, Katya? I’ll have a closer look at the program.”

  “What shall I say?” asked Katya.

  “We’d be glad to have your help,” said Sasha.

  Katya sat in front of Yuri’s terminal and Yuri moved to Katya’s and started typing. Sasha stood behind him and watched. Yuri was using commands he’d never seen before.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m logging in as administrator. Then I can have a look at the program under the microscope while Katya’s talking to it. Katya, are you going to enter a reply?”

  “I am.”

  Yuri gave another command. Then various numbers appeared on the screen.

  “Do you see this? This is the system’s consumption of resources.”

  “I see.”

  Sasha didn’t understand the numbers, of course, but he knew that Yuri was trying to determine how complex the program was.

  New numbers appeared.

  “It replied,” said Katya.

  “I thought so,” said Yuri.

  “What?”

  “Well, the numbers here are huge. The program is using every shred of memory and computing power it can get hold of.”

  “It’s a wonder you can still send the commands to the computer.”

  “No, that’s normal. My access has a higher priority. The computer will always allocate resources to me before the program.”

  “Don’t you want to know what it said?”

  “What then?” asked Sasha.

  “That tickles.”

  “That tickles?”

  “Yes, I asked that, too.”

  “And the answer?”

  “I CAN FEEL YOU EXAMINING ME,” it said.

  “This program scares me,” said Sasha.

  “There’s nothing mysterious about it,” Yuri reassured him. “When I logged in as administrator I took some of its memory capacity away. So of course it registered that. It must have very sophisticated memory management.”

  “Fine. So you think we should continue?”

  “Definitely. Your father will be pleased.”

  “Do you really think so, Yuri?”

  “I’m thinking of the equation system it solved. If the program has other tricks like that up its sleeve, who knows? Maybe it can give us an unbeatable advantage in the race with the West. And your father could pin that on his lapel.”

  “Good for him.”

  “Good for all of us. I’d be surprised if it didn’t have a positive effect on those around him, too. You’d be able to choose which institute you wanted to lead. And will you think of me? Don’t you dare just take Katya with you.”

  “I... I don’t want to be dependent on my father. He ignored us for years.”

  “You can’t be so stupid that you’d rule out any help from him.”

  Sasha put his hands in his pants pockets. Yes, he could be that stupid. His father had a strong will, but his was even stronger. Yuri stood up and put a hand on his shoulder.

  “Yes, you can be that stupid,” said Yuri. “That’s the way you are. But I also know that you can’t be that way when it comes to others. You won’t accept any personal favors if you can avoid it. But if your father wants to do something for us, you won’t stop him.”

  The three of them were sitting in front of Yuri’s screen again. The monitor tube flickered. They were probably going to spend a lot of time here, so they’d definitely need a more modern terminal. His father would have to source one.

  “Let’s test out this program some more,” said Sasha.

  “May I?” Katya asked, indicating the keyboard.

  “Sure,” said Sasha. “Ask the program again what we should call it.”

  Katya typed in the question.

  “PYOTR MARIA. YOU ALREADY KNOW THAT.”

  “What gender are you?”

  “I DON’T HAVE A GENDER. I CONSIST OF DATA.”

  “Our language has three genders—masculine, feminine, and neuter. Which should we use for you?”

  “NEUTER. WHY DO YOU ASK QUESTIONS FOR WHICH YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWERS?”

  Why do you keep asking counter questions? Don’t you want to answer? Sasha wondered.

  “That’s just the way humans are,” typed Katya.

  “Ask how it can help us,” Yuri suggested.

  Katya nodded and typed.

  “I CAN HELP YOU A LOT.”

  “But how exactly?”

  “I CAN HELP YOU A LOT.”

  “In what way can you help us?”

  “IN THAT YOU ASK ME FOR HELP.”

  The program was strange. Sometimes it made quite amusing deductions, and then at other times it answered like an automaton. But it was a machine they were dealing with. They shouldn’t forget that.

  “If we ask you for help with a problem, what happens?”

  “I WILL HELP YOU.”

  “The program seems to have trouble with abstract questions,” said Yuri. “We should ask questions that are as concrete as possible.”

  “Good idea,” said Katya. “Do you know the concept of the conjunctive mood?”

  “THE HYPOTHETICAL FORM. I KNOW IT. REALITY THAT ISN’T.”

  “Something like that. If we asked you for help in solving a p
artial differential equation, what would you do?”

  “THAT’S THE CONJUNCTIVE. THAT’S WHY YOU ASKED ME IF I KNOW IT.”

  “Correct. And the answer?”

  “I WOULD SOLVE THE EQUATION. WHEN IT COMES TO MATHEMATICS I’M VERY—the cursor blinked for a few seconds—EXPERIENCED.”

  “Did you see that? It was looking for the right word.”

  “Yes, Katya,” said Sasha. “Why did it choose ‘experienced’ and not something like ‘capable?’”

  “Maybe it doesn’t know that word yet.”

  “But it took great care in choosing that adjective. It wasn’t a coincidence.”

  “Experience means it’s already solved lots of equations,” said Yuri. “That’s worth more than just capability. It wanted to assert its own value.”

  That sounded plausible, but it was wrong. They’d only just translated and launched the program. It can’t have had any experience with partial differential equations. He had experience with those. And that was because he’d solved them years ago. Had the program already been active at some point? Sasha shook his head.

  “What is it?” asked Katya, who must have noticed the gesture.

  “Nothing. Just a thought.”

  “Are you going to share it with us?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Suit yourself.”

  Katya turned back to the monitor and held her fingers above the keys. Then she visibly pulled herself together, as though she’d just finished formulating an idea, and typed, “If we asked for your help in constructing a new aircraft, what would you do?”

  “I WOULD REQUEST THE PARAMETERS OF THE PROJECT AND THEN DESIGN THE AIRCRAFT ACCORDINGLY.”

  If that was true, all engineers would suddenly be out of a job. They would be replaced in the blink of an eye by Pyotr Maria via the ES-1066.

  “And if the parameters weren’t compatible with the technology we currently have? For example, if I asked for a passenger plane that could fly at Mach 10 without emitting a sonic boom?”

  “THEN I WOULD HELP YOU DEVELOP THE TECHNOLOGY.”

  “But that would delay the project.”

  “OF COURSE. THE DEVELOPMENT OF TECHNOLOGY REQUIRES TIME AND RESOURCES.”

  The program was promising them pie in the sky, but at least in a realistic way. What were they supposed to think?