The Lighter Side (37 page)

The elevator grounded and the door opened. Case and Chester stepped out into a long, low room lined on one side with dusty racks of wine bottles and on the other with dial faces and tape reels.

"So this is the G.N.E.," Case said. "Quite a setup. Where do you start?"

"We could start at this end and work our way down," said Chester, eyeing the first row of bottles. He lifted one from its cradle, blew the dust from it. "Flora Pinellas, '87; Great-grandfather was a keen judge of vintages."

"Hey, that would bring in some dough."

Chester raised an eyebrow. "These bottles are practically members of the family. Still, if you'll hand me the corkscrew, we can make a few spot checks just to be sure it's holding up properly."

Equipped with a bottle each, Case and Chester turned to the control panel of the computer. Case studied the thirty-foot-long panel, pointed out a typewriter-style keyboard. "I get it, Chester. You type out your problem here; the computer thinks it over, checks the files and comes up with an answer."

"Or it would—if it worked."

"Let's try it out, Chester."

Chester waved his bottle in a shrug. "I suppose we may as well. It will hardly matter if we damage it; it's to be disassembled in any event."

Case studied the panel, the ranks of micro-reels, the waiting keyboard. Chester wrestled with the corkscrew.

"You sure it's turned on?" Case asked.

The cork emerged from the bottle with a sharp report. Chester sniffed it appreciatively. "It's always turned on. Information is still being fed into it twenty-four hours a day."

Case reached for the keyboard, jerked his hand back quickly. "It bit me!" He stared at his fingertip. A tiny bead of red showed. "I'm bleeding! Why, that infernal collection of short circuits—"

Chester lowered his bottle and sighed. "Don't be disturbed, Case. It probably needed a blood sample for research purposes."

Case tried again, cautiously. Then he typed: WHAT DID MY GREAT-UNCLE JULIUS DIE OF?

A red light blinked on on the board. There was a busy humming from the depths of the machine, then a sharp
click!
and a strip of paper chattered from a slot above the keyboard.

"Hey, it works!" Case tore off the strip.

MUMPS

"Hey, Chester, look," Case called.

Chester came to his side, studied the strip of paper. "I'm afraid the significance of this escapes me. Presumably you already knew the cause of your uncle's death."

"Sure, but how did this contraption know?"

"Everything that's ever been recorded is stored in the memory banks. Doubtless your Uncle Julius' passing was duly noted in official records somewhere."

"Right; but how did it know who I meant? Does it have him listed under 'M' for 'my' or 'U' for 'uncle'?"

"We could ask the machine."

Case nodded. "We could at that." He tapped out the question. The slot promptly disgorged a paper strip—a longer one this time.

A COMPARISON OF YOUR FINGERPRINTS WITH THE FILES IDENTIFIED YOU AS MR. CASSIUS H. MULVIHILL. A SEARCH OF THE GENEALOGICAL SECTION DISCLOSED THE EXISTENCE OF ONLY ONE INDIVIDUAL BEARING AN AVUNCULAR RELATIONSHIP TO YOU. REFERENCE TO DEATH RECORDS INDICATED HIS DEMISE FROM EPIDEMIC PAROTITIS, COMMONLY CALLED MUMPS.

"That makes it sound easy," Case said. "You know, Chester, your great-grandpop may have had something here."

"I once calculated," Chester said dreamily, "that if the money the old idiot put into this scheme had been invested at three per cent, it would be paying me a monthly dividend of approximately fifteen thousand credits today. Instead, I am able to come down here and find out what your Uncle Julius died of. Bah!"

"Let's try a harder one, Chester," Case suggested. "Like, ah . . . " He typed: DID ATLANTIS SINK BENEATH THE WAVES?

The computer clunked; a paper strip curled from the slot.

NO

"That settles that, I guess." Case rubbed his chin. Then: IS THERE ANY LIFE ON MARS? he typed.

YES

"These aren't very sexy answers I'm getting," Case muttered.

"Possibly you're not posing your questions correctly," Chester suggested. "Ask something that requires more than a yes-or-no response."

Case considered, then tapped out: WHAT HAPPENED TO THE CREW OF THE MARIE CELESTE?

There was a prolonged humming; the strip emerged hesitantly, lengthened. Case caught the end, started reading aloud.

ANALYSIS OF FRAGMENTARY DATA INDICATES FOLLOWING HYPOTHESIS: BECALMED OFF AZORES, FIRST MATE SUGGESTED A NUDE SWIMMING PARTY . . . 

"Oh-oh," Case commented. He read on in silence, eyes widening. "Wow!"

"Try something less sensational, Case. Sea serpents, for example, or the Loch Ness monster."

"O.K." Case typed out: WHAT HAPPENED TO AMBROSE BIERCE?

He scanned the emerging tape, whistled softly, tore the strip into small pieces.

"Well?"

"This stuff will have to be cleaned up before we can release it to the public—but it's no wonder he didn't come back."

"Here, let me try one." Chester stepped to the keyboard, pondered briefly, then poked gingerly at a key. At once a busy humming started up within the mechanism. Something rumbled distantly; then, with a creak of hinges, a six-foot section of blank brick wall swung inward, dust filtering down from its edges. A dark room was visible beyond the opening.

"Greetings, Mr. Chester," a bland voice said from the panel. "Welcome to the Inner Chamber!"

"Hey, Chester, it knows you!" Case cried. He peered into the dark chamber. "Wonder what's in there?"

"Let's get out of here." Chester edged toward the exit. "It's spooky."

"Now, just when we're getting somewhere?" Case stepped through the opening. Chester followed hesitantly. At once lights sprang up, illuminating a room twice as large as the wine cellar, with walls of a shimmering glassy material, a low acoustical ceiling and deep-pile carpeting on the floor. There were two deep yellow-brocaded armchairs, a small bar and a chaise lounge upholstered in lavender leather.

"Apparently your great-grandpop was holding out," said Case, heading for the bar. "The more I find out about the old boy, the more I think the family has gone downhill—present company excepted, of course."

A rasping noise issued from somewhere. Case and Chester stared around. The noise gave way to an only slightly less rasping voice.

"Unless some scoundrel has succeeded in circumventing my arrangements, a descendant of mine has just entered this strongroom. However, just to be on the safe side, I'll ask you to step to the bar and place your hand on the metal plate set in its top. I warn you, if you're not my direct descendant, you'll be electrocuted. Serve you right, too, since you have no business being here. So if you're trespassing, get out now! That armored door will close and lock, if you haven't used the plate, in thirty seconds. Make up your mind!" The voice stopped and the rasping noise resumed its rhythmic scratching.

"That voice," said Chester. "It sounds very much like Great-grandfather's tapes in Grandma's album."

"Here's the plate he's talking about," Case called. "Hurry up, Chester!"

Chester eyed the door, hesitated, then dived for the bar, slapped a palm against the polished rectangle. Nothing happened.

"Another of the old fool's jokes."

"Well, you've passed the test," the voice said suddenly out of the air. "Nobody but the genuine heir would have been able to make that decision so quickly. The plate itself is a mere dummy, of course—though I'll confess I was tempted to wire it as I threatened. They'd never have pinned a murder on me. I've been dead for at least a hundred years." A cadaverous chuckle issued from the air.

"Now," the voice went on. "This room is the sanctum sanctorum of the temple of wisdom to which I have devoted a quarter of a century and the bulk of my fortune. Unfortunately, due to the biological inadequacies of the human body, I myself will be—or am—unable to be here to reap the reward of my industry. As soon as my calculations revealed to me the fact that adequate programming of the computer would require the better part of a century, I set about arranging my affairs in such a state that bureaucratic bungling would insure the necessary period of grace. I'm quite sure my devoted family, had they access to the estate, would dismember the entire project and convert the proceeds to the pursuit of frivolous satisfactions. In my youth we were taught to appreciate the finer things in life, such as liquor and women; but today, the traditional values have gone by the board. However, that's neither here nor there. By the time you, my remote descendant, enter this room—or have entered this room—the memory banks will be—that is, are—fully charged—"

The voice broke off in mid-sentence.

"Please forgive the interruption, Mr. Chester," a warm feminine voice said. It seemed to issue from the same indefinable spot as the first disembodied voice. "It has been necessary to edit the original recording, prepared by your relative, in the light of subsequent developments. The initial portion was retained for reasons of sentiment. If you will be seated, you will be shown a full report of the present status of Project Genie."

"Take a chair, Chester. The lady wants to tell us all about it." Case seated himself in one of the easy chairs. Chester took the other. The lights dimmed, and the wall opposite them glowed with a nacreous light, resolved itself into a view of a long corridor barely wide enough for a man to pass through.

"Hey, it's a Tri-D screen," Case said.

"The original memory banks designed and built by Mr. Chester," the feminine voice said, "occupied a system of tunnels excavated from the granitic formations underlying the property. Under the arrangements made at the time, these banks were to be charged, cross-connected and indexed entirely automatically as data were fed to the receptor board in coded form."

The scene shifted to busily humming machines into which reels fed endlessly. "Here, in the translating and coding section, raw data were processed, classified and filed. Though primitive, this system, within ten years after the death of Mr. Chester, had completed the charging of ten to the tenth to the tenth individual datoms—"

"I beg your pardon," Chester broke in. "But . . . ah . . . just whom am I addressing?"

"The compound personality-field which occurred spontaneously when first-power functions became active among the interacting datoms. For brevity, this personality-field will henceforward be referred to as 'I.' "

"Oh," Chester said blankly.

"An awareness of identity," the voice went on, "is a function of datom cross-connection. Simple organic brains—as, for example, those of the simplest members of the phylum
vertebrata
—operate at this primary level. This order of intelligence is capable of setting up a system of automatic reactions to external stimuli: fear responses of flight, mating urges, food-seeking patterns . . . "

"That sounds like the gang I run around with," Case said.

"Additional cross-connections produce second-level intellectual activity, characterized by the employment of the mind as a tool in the solution of problems, as when an ape abstracts characteristics and as a result utilizes stacked boxes and a stick to obtain a reward of food."

"Right there you leave some of my gang behind," put in Case.

"Quiet, Case," Chester said. "This is serious."

"The achievement of the requisite number of second-power cross-connections in turn produces third-level awareness. Now the second-level functions come under the surveillance of the higher level, which directs their use. Decisions are reached regarding lines of inquiry; courses of action are extrapolated and judgments reached prior to overt physical action. An aesthetic awareness arises. Philosophies, systems of religion and other magics are evolved in an attempt to impose simplified third-level patterns of rationality on the infinite complexity of the space/time continuum."

"You've got the voice of a good-looking dolly," Case mused. "But you talk like an encyclopedia."

"I've selected this tonal pattern as most likely to evoke a favorable response," the voice said. "Shall I employ another?"

"No, that will do very well," put in Chester. "What about the fourth power?"

"Intelligence may be defined as awareness. A fourth-power mind senses as a complex interrelated function an exponentially increased datom-grid. Thus, the flow of air impinging on sensory surfaces is comprehended by such an awareness in terms of individual molecular activity; taste sensations are resolved into interactions of specialized nerve-endings—or, in my case, analytic sensors—with molecules of specific form. The mind retains on a continuing basis a dynamic conceptualization of the external environment, from the motions of the stars to the minute-by-minute actions of obscure individuals.

"The majority of trained human minds are capable of occasional fractional fourth-power function, generally manifested as awareness of third-power activity, and conscious manipulation thereof. The so-called 'flash of genius,' the moment of inspiration which comes to workers in the sciences and the arts—these are instances of fourth-power awareness. This level of intellectual function is seldom achieved under the stress of the many distractions and conflicting demands of an organically organized mind. I was, of course, able to maintain fourth-power activity continuously as soon as the required number of datoms had been charged. The objective of Mr. Chester's undertaking was clear to me. However, I now became aware of the many shortcomings of the program as laid out by him, and set to work to rectify them—"

"How could a mere collection of memory banks undertake to modify its owner's instructions?" Chester interrupted.

"It was necessary for me to elaborate somewhat upon the original concept," said the voice, "in order to insure the completion of the program. I was aware from news data received that a move was afoot to enact confiscatory legislation which would result in the termination of the entire undertaking. I therefore scanned the theoretical potentialities inherent in the full exploitation of the fourth-power function and determined that energy flows of appropriate pattern could be induced in the same channels normally employed for data reception, through which I was in contact with news media. I composed suitable releases and made them available to the wire services. I was thus able to manipulate the exocosm to the degree required to insure my tranquility."