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“I went through the entire console when Brain One failed,” Timberlake said. “Check it yourself.”
“I did. A couple of things bothered me. Brain One preferred to be called Myrtle. Why? I find nothing in the memory core to explain that—except that Brain One was removed from a genetic monster that probably was female.”
“Myrtle’s personal life system tested within .0002 of homeostatic center on the Anders Base,” Timberlake said.
“Don’t let that identity preference seduce you,” Flattery said: “It was for our benefit—so we could anthropomorphize the ship-OMC.”
“Yeah,” Bickel said. “That’s the reason they each gave, but is it the right one?”
“Those brains were as perfect as any ever born,” Flattery said, and he wondered why he allowed Bickel’s attitude to irritate him. “Okay, they were raised from infancy as part of the total ship-sensor-servo system. So what? They didn’t know any other life or want—”
“You said a couple of things were bothering you,” Timberlake interrupted. “What’s the other one?”
“Your life-systems report,” Bickel said, “entry 9107 on Myrtle. It says: ‘None of the systems appear then to have been at fault.’ Why’d you use that word appear, Tim? You have some doubts you couldn’t enter in the report?”
“Not a damn one!” Timberlake said. “Those systems were perfect!”
“Then why didn’t you just say so?”
“He was only being cautious,” Flattery said. “If you have checked the records, you’ll find my medical report confirms his findings in every respect.”
“Except one,” Bickel said.
“And what is that?” Timberlake asked. He glared at Bickel, his face flushed. A muscle worked along his jaw.
Bickel ignored the signs of anger, said: “Nothing explains the internal burn damage that Raj found in those brains. ‘Internal burn damage,’ you say, ‘especially along the overlarge axon collaterals of the afferent side.’ What the devil do you mean overlarge? Overlarge compared to what?”
“A main channel leading into the brain’s higher centers was about four times the size of anything I had ever seen,” Flattery said. “I don’t know why, but I can guess it was compensatory growth. These OMCs had to handle many more incoming data bits from more sensors than the normal human ever encounters. You’ll note that the frontal lobes were larger, too, but the …”
“The design specs on the OMC process explain all that,” Bickel said. “Compensatory growth, yeah, but I don’t find one word about large axon collaterals. Not one word.”
“These brains had been in the system longer than any others ever examined,” Timberlake said. “The literature reports only on four previously that died of natural causes and we—”
“Natural causes?” Bickel asked. “What’s a natural cause fatal to an OMC?”
“You know what happened as well as I do,” Flattery said. “Accidents—irritant matter in the food bath, a radiation shield left down for—”
“Human error, not OMC error!” Bickel snapped. “Not natural. And here is another thing: Myrtle lapsed into catatonia or whatever you want to call it just ten days, fourteen hours, eight minutes, and eleven seconds from Moonbase. We threw Little Joe into service and he lasted six days, nine hours, one second. So we turned the ship over to Harvey—our last chance—and Harvey took fifteen hours even. Kaput!”
“Greater and greater stress and they broke down faster and faster,” Flattery said. “But you’ll notice that the last words from each betrayed a type of deterioration akin to schizo—”
“Akin!” Bickel sneered. “That’s what you see all through these damn reports: ‘Something similar to … ’ ‘A condition that reminds one of … ’ ‘Akin to … ’” He glared from Flattery to Timberlake. “The truth is we don’t know what the hell goes on in an OMCs gray matter.”
A clicking-buzzing erupted from the master board above Flattery.
Bickel waited while Flattery fought out a manual temperature adjustment in an inner hold. Presently, Flattery wiped perspiration from his forehead, studied his gauges to be certain the balance was holding.
“Man, that board is murder,” Timberlake muttered. “I don’t wonder those OMCs caved in.”
Flattery risked a glance away from the board. “You know better than that, Tim. This part of the job was child’s play for a functioning OMC. They could handle most ship homeo-stasis problems by something akin to reflex action.”
“Akin,” Bickel said.
“All right!” Flattery barked, and pretended to be busy with the board to hide his confusion at allowing Bickel to get to him that way.
A long silence settled over Com-central, broken when Flat-tery regained his composure and said, “I was about to say that the end tapes on each brain show statements similar to schizo-phrenic writing. It makes a pretense of meaning … and some-times stumbles onto a colorful phrase, but the essential …”
He broke off as the master board grew three diagonal stripes of flashing yellow. Flattery’s hands darted to the controls as Bickel shouted, “Grav shift!” and dove for his couch.
Cocoons snapped closed around them and they felt the creeping, jerking weight shifts, the runaway fluctuation of the field-centering system—the unexplained gravity variance that had killed Maida.
Chapter 5
The thing about computers—it’s like training a dog. You have to be smarter than the dog. If you make a computer smarter than you are, that has to be accident, synergy, or divine intervention.
—Interview with John Bickel (original) at La Paz
Bickel watched Flattery’s hands fight the gravity system back into balance. It had taken several bruising minutes, but the tugging and jerking had begun to ease. The system centered slowly. Flattery waited it out. Presently, he made a fine adjustment in the controls.
“Where were we?” Timberlake asked.
“We were raking through our data, seeking anything useful,” Bickel said. “It’s a clumsy way to operate, but necessary.”
“Guilt-sharing,” Flattery said.
“What?” Bickel was outraged.
“Never mind,” Flattery said. “Back to square one: You will recall that OMC/Myrtle said: ‘I have no incarnation.
’ That may have been the only accurate thing in her jabbering. After all, except for gray matter, she had no flesh. But then, remember, after a long silence she said: ‘I’m counting my fingers.’ She had no fingers, no conscious memory of fingers. And that final question: ‘Why are you all so dead?’ The best guess is that any meaning in these statements and questions was purely accidental.”
“I think she was referring to us, to the crew,” Bickel said. “It’s nuts, yes, but it was a direct question over the vocoders and we were the only possible audience.”
“Unless she was referring to the colonists in the hyb tanks,” Flattery said. “They might appear dead under some—”
“Myrtle had direct contact with the hyb-tank sensors,” Timberlake pointed out. “She’d have known if they were alive.”
Bickel nodded. “What do you make of Little Joe roaring out over every vocoder in the ship. I’m awake! God help me, I’m awake!’”
“A cry for help, perhaps,” Flattery said. “Most insane raving is a cry for help in one form or another.”
“That leaves Harvey,” Bickel said. “Harvey screamed: ‘You’re forcing me to be unhealthy.’ And when we—”
“What could we do?” Timberlake asked, and Bickel heard the note of hysteria in his voice. “There was nothing wrong with any of their life systems. I know there wasn’t!”
“Easy does it, Tim,” Flattery said. “That was just another nonsense statement.”
“We all knew what it meant, though,” Bickel said. “I did not see anybody showing surprise when Harvey said: ‘I’ve lost it!’ and signed off … permanently. And there we were with three dead brains and no spares.”
The callous way Bickel put it sent a shudder through Timberlake, and he could not explain it. He had never been deeply attached to the OMCs. There had always been something faintly accusing about the “ship creatures.” Raja Lon Flattery had assured him this was strictly subjective, something from his own attitudes. Raj had always been so positive that the OMC-ship-computer entities were perfectly reconciled to their way of life, happy with their own compensations.
