Destination void w 1, p.8
Destination: Void w-1, page 8
part #1 of WorShip Series
"We're almost at red-line temperature in Sector C-8 of the hyb tanks," she said. "Everything I do seems to make the system oscillate."
Flattery's hands flashed out to the life-systems repeater switches, brought his own monitors alive. He scanned the instruments, commanded, "Call Tim."
"Nothing I do seems to work!" she panted.
He glanced at her, saw she was fighting the board, not working with it.
"Call Tim!" he said.
She hit the command circuit switch with the heel of her left hand, shouted, "Tim to Com-central! Emergency!"
Again, Flattery scanned his instruments. There appeared to be three points of temperature shift outside the hyb tanks with corresponding variation inside. As Prue tried to compensate for one fluctuation, the others fell farther toward the red.
He had to force himself to keep his hands off the controls. If tank temperature went into the red without dehyb precautions, there'd be deaths among the helpless occupants. Despite Prue's desperate efforts, death was approaching three sectors of the C-8 tank-some four hundred human lives in there.
The hatch from the computer shop banged open. Timberlake leaped through with Bickel right behind.
"Hyb tanks," Prudence gasped. "Temperature."
Timberlake threw himself across Com-central into his action couch. His vacsuit rasped against the cocoon lips as he turned, grasped the traveler controls. "Give me the red switch," he snapped. "To hell with the count! I'm taking it."
And he took it, the big board swinging across much too fast.
"C-8," she said, sinking back and wiping perspiration from her forehead.
"I've got it," he said. He scanned the dials and gauges, his fingers playing over the console.
Bickel slipped into his own couch, tripped his repeaters. "It's in the hull shielding," he said.
"First two layers," Timberlake said.
Prudence put a hand to her throat, tried not to look at Bickel. He mustn't suspect our attention's on him, she thought. Then: Wouldn't it be monstrous irony to lose our colonists and burden ourselves with guilt before the need for it?
"That's doing it," Bickel said.
She looked across the board above Timberlake, saw the warning telltales winking out, the dials swinging back into normal range.
"Faulty feedback for a patch of our shell reflectors focused on C-8," Timberlake said. "The system started to oscillate and that threw the overload switches, left us wide open."
"Another design failure," Bickel sneered.
And such a simple problem, Bickel thought. The hull curve acted like a lens to focus energy within the ship... unless reflector and shell shielding systems compensated.
Prudence traced the line of the remaining telltales. "C-8's on a line with that robot stores section you raided. Is that all it takes to throw the ship off balance?"
"Gives you a wonderful feeling of confidence in the Tin Egg's design, doesn't it," Bickel said.
They didn't warn me! she thought. They cheated. Calculated emergencies, they said, just enough to keep a fine edge on your reaction abilities. Reaction abilities!
"You overcompensated, Prue," Timberlake said. "Make minimal adjustments to avoid oscillation while you hunt for the source of your trouble. You had sensor telltales flaring right out through the ship to pinpoint where you needed shielding reinforcement."
I panicked, she thought. "I guess I let myself get too tired." Even as she spoke she sensed how lame the excuse sounded. '
I was too intent doing the job on Flattery, she thought. I had him headed for a nice corner where he'd have to fight his way out... and I missed the ship trouble until it was almost ready to wreck us.
It occurred to her then to wonder if one of the crew had her as a "special project" to keep her abilities toned up... on edge.
"Prue, you've got to remember that when the overload switches go, the computer automatics are out of the circuit," Bickel said. "This thing was designed to be brought back into line by a conscious intelligence - one of us or an OMC."
"Oh, shut up!" she flared. "I made a mistake. I know it. I won't do it again."
"No damage was done," Timberlake said.
"I don't need you to defend me!" she snapped. And she thought: No damage! Nothing was harmed except one of the crew - me! She pressed her hands together to still their trembling. We're sitting ducks for any real emergency. We can't turn back without the risk of a runaway dive into Sol or becoming another of her wandering comets. We can't go on unless we solve the unsolvable.
Take it easy, Prue," Flattery soothed. "We probably put you on the big board too soon after getting you out of hyb."
Thanks for the excuse! she thought.
Flattery glanced around the room, seeing the poised silence of Bickel and Timberlake-both of them scorched by Prue's anger. Bickel slid out of his couch, secured a set of test leads in the clip at his left shoulder. A multimeter could be seen protruding from his breast pocket. Timberlake was refining the hull temperature adjustments, putting the system back into the computer circuits.
Flattery returned his attention to Prudence. She shouldn't have panicked, he thought. Not the type. She has a woman's wide perspective and confidence in her intuition. She should be better at the big board than any of us. Is she under greater strain? Does she know something I don't?
CHAPTER 13
We understand synergy to mean the fortuitous working together of a set of components which we have assembled in our attempt to achieve artificial consciousness. Working together, the components produce more than...
- Prudence Lon Weygand (#3), Incomplete segment from message capsule
IT REQUIRED ALMOST twenty minutes for Prudence to regain her composure. By that time, Timberlake had run a check-list survey on every hyb-tank complex. He did it with a compulsive determination that none of them misunderstood. His function as life-systems engineer had been ignited.
Flattery let the thing run its course and a bit longer. Bickel was fretting to get back to his work, but Timberlake needed this role reinforcement. And Prudence needed recovery time.
Bickel finally had enough waiting.
"Can we get back to work?" he demanded.
"I can take the board now, Tim," Flattery said.
Timberlake studied his instruments. "Okay. On the count."
They shifted the board, and Timberlake sat up, a sharp ache across his back telling him how tense he had been.
"Let's get back to the shop," Bickel said.
"How far along are you?" Prudence asked.
"Barely beginning," Bickel said. "Let's get cracking."
"Is a man just a machine's way of making another machine?" she asked.
"Just like Sam Butler's hen," Timberlake said. "Philosophy 1."
"Philosophy some other time, huh?" Bickel suggested.
"Just a minute," she said. "By attempting to reproduce an artificial consciousness, we're monkeying with variation of variability. Now, there's a field that all good little divines" - she nodded toward Flattery - "and most scientists have agreed by a compact of silence is the exclusive territory of God in Heaven and God's handiwork on earth - the genes."
"Yeah," Bickel said. "That's great. Let's solve it some other time."
"You still don't get it, none of you," she said.
Bickel glared at her. "Don't I? Okay, Prue. Let's strip off the fancy verbiage. We're damned if we solve this problem and dead if we don't. Is that what you were trying to say?"
"Bravo!" she said, and turned to look at Flattery.
Flattery scowled at his board, pointedly ignoring her.
"You see, Raj?" she asked.
She can't possibly know my instructions, Flattery thought. She might guess, but she can't know. And certainly she couldn't stop me if I had to blow us all to Kingdom Come.
"Yes, I see," Flattery said. "Don't underestimate John Lon Bickel."
At the sound of his name, Bickel's head came up. He stared at Flattery's profile, seeing the way the man's sensitive fingers moved like spider legs across the big board.
"You're so very clever, Raj," she said. "And so damn stupid!"
"That's enough of that!" Bickel snapped, turning to glare at Prudence. "We'd better clear a little air, here. We're on our own, Prue. You've no idea how much on our own we are. We have to depend on each other because we sure as hell can't depend on the Tin Egg! We can't afford to snap and bite at each other."
Oh, can't we now, she thought.
"We're trapped on a ship that contains only one top-drawer mechanism," Bickel said. "We've only one thing that functions smoothly and beautifully the way it should - our computer. Everything else works as though it'd been designed and built by six left-handed apes."
"Bickel thinks this was all deliberate," Timberlake said.
Prudence caught herself in an involuntary glance at Flattery, forced her attention away from Bickel and onto Timberlake. This is far too early for Bickel to suspect, she thought.
Timberlake avoided her eyes. He looked like a small boy who'd been caught stealing jam.
Flattery broke the silence. "Deliberate?" he asked.
"Yeah," Timberlake said. "He thinks the other six ships had the same kind of failure - something rotten with the OMCs."
Bickel's far more alert and suspicious than anyone suspected, Prudence thought. Raj or I will have to side with him; there's no other way to keep control of the situation.
"Why... the OMCs?" Flattery asked.
"Let's not tiptoe around it," Bickel said. "The thing's obvious. What feature of these ships is never mentioned in the stress analyses? What feature do we assume is proof against failure?"
"Surely not the OMCs," Flattery said. He tried to hold his voice to a bantering level, failed, and thought: God help us. Bickel's seen through the sham far too soon.
"Certainly the OMCs," Bickel said. "And they gave us three of the damn things! One in service and two for backup. Never a hint that an OMC could fail, yet we had three on the Tin Egg!"
"Why?" Prudence asked.
"To make damn sure we got beyond the point of no return before we got the cold-turkey treatment," Bickel said.
I guess I'm elected, Prudence thought. She said: "More of Project's goddamn maneuvering! Sure. It'd be right in character."
Flattery shot a startled look at her, returned his attention to the big board before Bickel noticed.
"Cold turkey;" Bickel said. "This ship's one elaborate simulation device with a single purpose - and my guess is the others were the same."
"Why?" Flattery demanded. "Why would they do such a thing?"
"Can't you see it?" Bickel asked. "Don't you recognize the purpose? It casts its shadow over everything around us. It's the only thing that makes any sense out of this charade. The secrecy, the mystery, the maneuvering - everything's calculated to put us on a greased slide into a very special ocean. It's not just cold turkey, it's sink or swim. And the only way we can swim is to develop an artificial consciousness."
"Then why such an elaborate sham?" Flattery asked. "Why all the colonists, for example?"
"Why not the colonists?" Bickel countered. "Ready replacements for any members of the crew slaughtered on the way. Another arrow in the quiver just in case we do get over the hump to a habitable planet where we can plant the seed of humankind. And... maybe there's another reason."
"What?" Prudence demanded.
"I can't say just yet," Bickel said. "It's just a hunch... and there's something a hell of a lot more important we have to consider - the destructive potential of this project."
"You'd better explain that," Flattery said, but he could feel in the dryness of his throat and mouth that Bickel already had seen through to the horror element of Project Consciousness.
"Let's not kid ourselves," Bickel said. "If we really solve this, the whatever-you-call-it we develop could be a kind of ultimate threat to humankind...ogue, Frankenstein's monster, cold intelligence without warm emotions, an angry horror." He shrugged. "Once there was an island in Puget Sound; you all know about it. What happened? Did they solve it?"
"So we install inhibitions, fail-safe features," Prudence said.
"How?" Bickel asked. "Can we develop this consciousness without giving it free will? Maybe that was the original problem with our Creator - giving us consciousness without permitting us to turn against... what? God?"
Consciousness, the gift of the serpent, Flattery thought. He wet his lips with his tongue. "So?"
"So this ship has an ultimate fail-safe device to protect Earth and the rest of humanity," Bickel said. "The only sure one I can think of, given all the variables, is a human being - one of us." He looked at each of them. "One of us set to pull the pin and blow us all to hell if we go sour."
"Oh, come now!" Flattery said.
"It could be you," Bickel said. "Probably is... but maybe you're too obvious."
Prudence put a hand to her breast, thought: Holy Jesus! I never once considered that. But Bickel's right... and it's Raj, of course. He's the only one that fits. What do I do now?
Timberlake stirred out of a deep silence. He had heard the argument and the only thing that surprised him was how easy it was to accept Bickel's summation. Why was Bickel right? He was right, of course. But why did they accept it when the thing really wasn't that obvious? Was it awe of Bickel - clearly the strongest mind among them? Or was it that they already knew the facts - unconsciously?
"I tell you something," Timberlake said. "Bickel's right and we know it. So one of us is set to pull the pin. I don't want to know who."
"No argument," Bickel said. "Whoever it is... if this thing goes sour, I'd be the last person in the... Tin Egg to stop him."
CHAPTER 14
The Zen master tells us that an omnipresent idea can be hidden by its own omnipresence - the forest lost among the trees. In our normal daily behavior we are most estranged, most in the grip of an illusory idea of the self. Every enchanting inclination of pride and its ego, of convention and its master - social training - conspires to maintain the illusion. The semanticist calls it the inertia of old premises. And this is what holds our analyses of consciousness within fixed limits.
SHE WROTE "Prudence Lon Weygand" at the foot of the log tape, started it rolling through the autorecorder, made the synchronous shift to Flattery's tape as he took over the board. The counter said it was her thirty-fifth change of shift.
Flattery squirmed in his couch, settling himself for the four-hour watch. Reflections on the dial faces were hypnotic. He shook his head to bring himself to full alertness, heard the hiss of fabric as Prudence got out of her couch. She stood there a moment stretching, did a dozen deep-knee bends.
How easily they accept the possibility that I'm the executioner, Flattery thought. He noted how wide awake and alert Prudence appeared. This four-hours-on, four-hours-off routine could be endured as long as no serious problems arose, but it played hob with the metabolic cycle. Prudence should be headed for food and rest, but she obviously was wide awake.
She glanced at Flattery, saw he was settled in for the watch, checked the repair log. Nothing was flagged urgent. That made it a bit more than twenty-five hours with nothing more than minor adjustments on the big board. Smooth. Too smooth.
Danger keeps you honed to a fine edge, she thought. Extended peace makes you dull.
But she wondered if Project had anticipated the special danger she had found for herself, and she thought: Am I the stick to beat not only the others, but myself?
The line of her own research seemed so obvious, though: define the chemical sea in which consciousness swam. The ultimate clue lay, she thought, in the serotonin adrenalin fractions. The thing she sought was an active principle, something between synhexyl and noradrenalin, a flash producer of neurohormones. The end product would be the root-stimulator of human consciousness. Find that chemical analogue and she could give fine detail to the workings of consciousness; provide a point-to-point sequencing which they could follow with machine simulation.
On the course she had chosen, the dangers to her person were enormous. She had no other guinea pig upon whom to test the derivatives her ingenuity produced. The possibility of deadly error was always present. The last substance, a relative of cohoba with an extra nitrogen addition, had ignited her mind, transported her into a weird consciousness. All sounds had become liquids which merged within her to be translated by a centrifuge process of awareness. It had been a terrifying experience, but she refused to stop.
It was only possible to make the tests during the deep rest periods in her own private cubby, and there was always the possibility some physical response would betray her. She could not afford that; the others would unite to prevent the tests, she knew: Such was their conditioning.
"You'd better get something to eat and try to rest," Flattery said.
"I'm not hungry."
"At least try to rest."
"Maybe later. Think I'll wander in and see how Bickel and Tim're doing." She looked at the big screen overhead. It was tuned to the peak-corner lenses of the computer shop.
"We have to have a constant monitor on each other," Timberlake had argued. "We can't wait for somebody to yell help."
The screen showed Bickel alone in the shop, but another eye had been keyed; it showed Timberlake asleep in his cubby adjoining the shop.
Four hours on and four hours off plus this constant looking over each other's shoulders will have us batty in a week, she thought.
Bickel looked up to his own screen-eye, saw Prudence watching, said: "Satan finds mischief for idle hands."
They mock me, Flattery thought. They laugh at God, at the Devil, at me.
"How about some coffee?" Prudence asked, speaking to Bickel.
"Coffee later," he said. "No more food of any kind in here, anyway. We have to keep the cover plates open and we can't risk contaminating the fine structure. If you're free, I could use some help."
She took one low-grav step across to the hatch lock, let herself through, stopped just inside the shop to study what Tim and Bickel had accomplished since her last free period.
