An xt called stanley, p.6
An XT Called Stanley, page 6
The central processing unit was vast. It was designed to operate in cycles at sixty per second. In each cycle the central processing unit would receive an input from a fast memory file. To give this input a name we called it a dose. A dose was two to the thirty-second power bits or 859 volumes of information. Jean, an avid reader, might read that much in seven years. Sixty times a second the central processing unit would take in a dose, act on it and then return another dose to the fast memory. This returned dose was presumably the results of its cogitations. In one minute the central processing unit could ingest three million volumes of information. “It’ll be real smart,” Max had said.
Roger Steward worked on the memory. There was the fast memory file which would hold two to the sixteenth power or 65,536 doses. That’s the number of doses the central processing unit could generate in eighteen minutes. There would also be two permanent memories to record all input and output of the central processing unit. For these permanent memories Roger used molecular files.
Tom and Max sent up the input output exchange which required almost as much circuitry as the central processing unit. The alien message didn’t specify the nature of the input output equipment. Apparently this was for us to decide. The alien brain would presumably learn how to use the communication equipment at its disposal.
Tom and Max decided to give the alien brain four television cameras, four microphones, two sound pillars and a wall-sized projection screen. Two of the television cameras and microphones were directed back toward the projection screen and sound pillars. This way the super brain would be able to hear and see what it was voicing and projecting. This feedback would be crucial for the brain’s learning about its own equipment. The other two television cameras and microphones were directed out into the room. With these cameras and microphones the brain would be able to see and hear us. The brain would be given an alphanumeric terminal for the high speed transmission of written records,
Tom devised a sensing plate for the brain. It was a half meter square consisting of finely packed sensors, most of which were sensitive to pressure; the others sensitive to temperature and moisture. With this plate Tom thought we could convey a sense of touch to the super brain. I think Max thought the sensing plate was a waste of time, but for the sake of peace he said nothing. The super brain could clearly handle more equipment but Max thought it would be wise to keep it humble.
With all the work on the central processing unit I didn’t make much contact with the other scientists at the Institute. And Max certainly didn’t encourage contact outside our group. It seemed that every time he saw me talking with another scientist he would come over and join in the conversation. On the surface it all appeared very friendly but the end result was that the other scientists were elbowed out of the conversation and the next time I saw them they would nod politely but keep right on going. It was almost as if Max had told them that I was on his team and any communications to me should be directed through him.
Max even chided me for not eating dinner with him and the rest of his team. “By the way,” he asked one day at lunch. “How come we never see you over at Einstein Hall? That’s where we have dinner. Bob, you should really let me get your apartment changed. I can get you one on Einstein’s Alley.”
I sighed.
“How is the ‘Fellows’ Hall over on Ninth Alley?” Tom asked.
“I don’t know,” I answered. “I haven’t been eating there.”
“Where have you been eating?” Max asked.
“In one of the cafeterias outside.”
“A cafeteria,” Max said in disbelief. “Don’t you know you’re a Fellow of New Hope? I recommended you for membership myself. This is terrible. Eating dinner in a cafeteria all this time.”
I nodded like I was grateful but when Jean stopped by my office that evening I went with her. For weeks I had been practicing “hanging” and I wanted to challenge Fred Gilman. He beat me but not by much and according to Jean I got a hang of seven, although there was some debate.
I usually ate with Jean’s friends. For some reason the fact that I was a Scientist was a mild source of amusement. Sometimes they would say, “Dr. Bob, you’re a scientist,” and then they would ask me why the water fuses always blew on Friday, or why it always rained outside just when they were getting amorous, or why the vending machines hummed on Seventh Alley. To admit my ignorance only left them dissatisfied so I would try to invent some reason for the disturbing phenomenon. Once I got to show my stuff when John Bruno asked why a straight flush was harder to get than a four of a kind in poker.
“There are ten possible straight flushes in each suit giving forty possible straight flushes, but there are only thirteen possible four of a kinds. If there are more straight flushes, why are they harder to get?” he asked.
I explained that with a four of a kind there’s a fifth card in the hand that can be any other card. When you take that into account, you see there are many more four of a kind hands than straight flushes. I may have understood probability and combinatorics better than they did but I didn’t play better poker. By the end of my first evening of playing poker I began to suspect that John Bruno’s question was to set me up. But the stakes were not high.
Once or twice a week we did something after dinner. Usually it was a first-run movie or a soccer match or a game of poker. Occasionally we would stop off at a bar. New Hope provides a reasonably cheap beer, white wine and rye. Jean claimed that the wine was made by the Kool-Aid company.
Sometimes I went swimming with Jean in one of the unfrequented pools on Level Two. The first time I dove in after her and raced to the other end of the pool. I easily beat her so I waited at the edge of the pool like I was bored with so much waiting. She just smiled when she reached me and turned to swim another lap. Again I raced off after her and just managed to beat her again, but I was breathing much too hard to pretend it had been easy. Again she smiled and turned, leaving me too tired to follow. For almost half an hour she kept it up. “Whew,” she said, finally stopping and hanging onto the side of the pool to catch her breath, “that’s forty.”
“You’re a scientist,” she said, slicking her dark hair back with both hands. “There must be a better way to keep track of laps. The only way I can do it is to keep repeating the lap I’m on over and over again with every stroke.”
“I don’t see how you do it,” I said. “I was exhausted after two laps.”
“Don’t you exercise?” she asked, looking concerned.
I shrugged.
“You should. You know with the lower gravity your heart can atrophy. You really should exercise. I swim forty laps four or five times a week. It took me awhile to work up to that.” She was looking at me like I might drop dead any moment.
I shrugged it off but the next day I was at it. Three weeks later I went swimming with Jean again. This time I didn’t go rushing out ahead. I stayed with her stroke for stroke until the last two laps when I poured it on. I beat her handily but when she caught up to me she smiled and turned for another lap. “I’m up to forty-four laps,” she said when she finished. Then she laughed.
Once I got started on the road to physical fitness I took up the cause with all the enthusiasm of a reformed sinner. Besides swimming with Jean I also took up rowing on a simulator that I had installed in my bedroom. The simulator was quite a sophisticated piece of machinery. Using my bedroom view screen the simulator created an image of a lake and a competing shell. The simulator measured my pulse, blood pressure and work output and set the stroke, resistance and competition accordingly. I could set the simulator for an easy or hard workout. The simulator also kept a record of all my past performances so I could see how I was progressing. Hardly a week went by that I didn’t improve a notch.
Most evenings Jean and I would go back to the Institute after dinner. I would work on the central processing unit and she would do technical typing. Around twenty-two thirty I would wander down to the office to get something or other. Usually she was there and we would talk. Often it would be after one when I dropped her at her dorm. Sometimes when we’d had a long discussion I’d find a hand written note in my office the next day when I came back from lunch. It was her way of getting the last word.
It took until September for me to realize how involved I was. One Thursday I went to find Jean at twenty-two thirty and she brushed me off. I went off with a shrug. Around midnight I went back to the office and found Jean looking distraught.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“! don’t know if I can finish this. I promised Dr. Peters I’d have it done two days ago.”
“Can’t it wait?”
“No,” she said vehemently. She looked close to tears.
“Let me help you,” I said.
She looked at me uncertainly.
“Please,” I said. “If I hadn’t spent so much time talking to you, you would have been done days ago. Let me type some formulas.”
She smiled. “If Marge found out you were helping me she’d have a cow.”
“I won’t tell.”
We worked until almost three. I walked her back to her dorm. When we reached the entrance she put her arms around me and hugged me. Then she ran to the door before I could do or say anything. The next day after lunch I found a note from Jean saying I was one of the nicest guys she’d known. I decided not to return that sheet for erasure.
That evening Jean wasn’t at dinner nor was she at the Institute after dinner. I called her room but I got no answer. A little later I hceard someone come in and I went out into the hall hoping to see Jean. It was Sally Haskins, wearing a low-cut evening gown and heels.
“Do you know where Jean is?” I asked.
“It’s Friday, you know, the last day of work. Jean’s out celebrating with Fred.”
“Fred?” I repeated.
Sally went on down the hall leaving me in stunned silence. It simply hadn’t occurred to me that Jean might be involved with someone else. I was hurt. I didn’t know what to do. I had gotten closer to Jean than any girl in my life and yet I’d never dated her or kissed her. The most I could claim is that I had bought her several cups of coffee. It was ridiculous for me to feel betrayed that she had gone out with another man, but I did.
I hadn’t wanted to fall in love with her. She was not at all what I had been looking for. My ideal woman was tall and blond, a successful scientist with a sophisticated manner. Jean was not tall. She had dark hair, deep-set eyes and a childish enthusiasm. She was a secretary who’d only been to a two-year business school and I was enough of a snob so that this counted heavily against her. Yet that night when I found out she was out with Fred, I felt desperate.
At first I tried to be rational. I knew enough about girls to know that you should play it cool. I remembered a girl at Harvard who was my next door neighbor for a year. She had a number of boy friends. One night one of them arrived and declared in a loud voice that he loved her. My apartment in Cambridge didn’t have vacuum gaps in the walls. I couldn’t help hearing what he said. He kept saying, “Don’t you realize that I love you?” I couldn’t hear what she was saying but it was obviously not what he wanted to hear. He seemed a perfect fool to me. He kept repeating his assertion as though by sheer repetiton he could carry the day. Even I found myself wanting to tell lim to get lost. Apparently that’s what she told him because I never heard him again.
I didn’t want to follow his example, but I felt the situation was desperate. I needed Jean. If I didn’t have her I’d be lonely the rest of my life. By midnight I was beyond reason. I programmed my phone to call Jean every five minutes until she answered. A little after one she did.
“Yes,” she answered with annoyance. The video was turned off.
“Jean,” I said.
“Bob,” she said in surprise.
“I’ve got to see you,” I said.
“I’m not dressed.”
“No, I mean in person. Can I meet you outside your dorm?”
“What is it?”
“Please, can I see you?”
“All right,” she agreed.
I hurried over to her dorm and found her waiting outside in the corridor. A little down from her entrance there is a sort of glassed-in affair where they grow plants and flowers. There was a bench where we sat down. All my thoughts as to what I was going to say deserted me.
“Jean, I love you,” I said. “I don’t want you going out with anyone but me. I know I haven’t taken you out or anything. But I want to. I wanted to take you out tonight. I want to be with you all the time. I don’t know how much you’re involved with Fred. Please tell me you’re not. I want to know if I have a chance.”
Jean smiled. “You have more than a chance.”
“Really,” I said.
“Yes,” she said.
That was very good news. I hugged her and she hugged me. Then I kissed her for the first, second and many more times. Some time later another couple stuck their heads in.
“We were just leaving,” Jean said.
As we left I asked what was the best restaurant in New Hope.
“The North Star,” she answered.
“Can I take you there tomorrow night?” I asked.
“You don’t have to take me there,” she said.
“I’d like to.”
“All right,” she agreed.
We kissed goodnight and I went back to my apartment. It had gotten quite late.
When I awoke the next morning I was pleased and also a little scared. I knew my mother wouldn’t approve of Jean and part of me didn’t approve either. Never mind if she made me happy, the part of me that didn’t approve wasn’t the slightest bit interested in happiness.
That morning my personal computer reminded me I had a date with Jane Webster that evening. Her telephone tree had called the previous week and asked me for a date and I had accepted, but with my involvement with Jean I had forgotten about it. I called her apartment but she wasn’t in. Her telephone tree told me she was sunning herself at her neighborhood pool. As I approached the pool area, I noticed most of the sunbathers were nude.
“Is Jane Webster here?” I asked, not knowing where to look. “I’m Jane,” one of the girls said, getting up and coming over to me.
“I’m Robert Trebor,” I said. “I think you asked me for a date tonight.”
“Oh, yes,” she said. She seemed to be enjoying my discomfort. “I was really intrigued by your ‘get acquainted interview.’”
“Well, I’m sorry I can’t go out with you tonight. Something’s come up.”
“That’s too bad,” she said. “How about Tuesday?”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I can’t go out with you at all. I’ve gotten involved with someone.”
“How nice. Who is she?”
“Jean Odell.”
“That’s no reason we can’t go out together. I’m completely discreet. She won’t find out.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “It wouldn’t be right. She promised me she wouldn’t go out with anyone else. It’s not that you’re not attractive, but…” I could feel myself blushing.
“You’re sweet,” she said. “I’ll give you a good report.” With that she turned and went back to her group. She said something and they all laughed.
I left with very mixed emotions. I had never understood why she had asked me for a date in the first place. It wasn’t until much later that I learned that Jane Webster was one of New Hope’s raters. This is a society of women who systematically date all the available men of feller status and rate them on everything from conversation to sexual performance. New Hope was and probably still is a very male dominated place and I guess this was a way for some women to try and even the score. Any woman in New Hope could for a modest fee look up the rating of most of the male fellers. Most men pretended that the rating system was a joke, but it wasn’t. I can’t complain because either as a joke or as a reward for being faithful to Jean, I was given a stud rating. But it was months before I knew anything about raters.
Any hesitation I had about Jean vanished when I picked her up at her dorm that evening. She was beautiful. She was wearing a red dress of a silky material with a plunging neckline, a black shawl and black high heel shoes. Her hair was done up in a French twist. She was wearing a pearl necklace and matching earrings. In one hand she had a small black evening bag. I recognized a different perfume when I took her hand.
“Please lead the way,” I said. “Unless you want to get lost.”
The main feature of the North Star is that it’s dark. If the tables didn’t have lights you’d bump into them. In the restaurant you have an actual view of the Northern sky. In space the stars don’t twinkle. They’re much sharper and closer than on Earth. The northern sky as seen from New Hope pivots on the constellation Draco rather than on the North Star as on Earth. This is because New Hope spins on an axis perpendicular to the plane of the Earth’s orbit. In New Hope the sky makes one revolution each minute. I showed off my knowledge of the northern constellations. We could just see Sagittarius on the edge of the view.
“That’s where it came from,” I said, lowering my voice. “Right out of the center of the Milky Way. That’s where the center of the galaxy is, but the signal came from much closer than that. Rick determined that they must have picked up our early radio broadcasts.”
“Then they know we’re here?” Jean said. I thought there was a lull in the conversation at the next table. I nodded in their direction. Jean put her hand to her mouth and we dropped that topic.
We ordered veal and a bottle of white wine from Earth. The bill went with the decor. It was astronomical. I could have eaten for three weeks on that, but I had money to burn.
After dinner we went back to my apartment. I had bought a bottle of Canadian Club that day in anticipation of this moment. I offered her a drink and she accepted. Then I put on a concert and we got comfortable together. We got to kissing and cuddling and petting. I had never had my hands on a woman before and my heart was beginning to pound. Jean was kissing me like it would be all right if I went further but my stomach was out to sabotage me. I began to disengage.
