The Chromosome Game (9 page)

Kelda pushed the call-button.

Immediately, an auto-nurse came slithering along the tracks.

From overhead, a television camera unfolded from its crane-housing and focused on her face.

The auto-nurse braked and waited.

Kelda entered her identification number: 275.

‘Yes, Kelda?’

‘It’s about Cass.’

‘Do you know his number?’

‘I think it’s 010.’

‘Yes. Cass-010 confirmed. Why are you proxying for Cass-010?’

‘He’s worried. Scared.’

‘Standby. I have to call up his medical records.’

Kelda waited. Her heart was beating fast. She hated the impersonal tone of the auto-nurses. This one in particular.

She’d got the auto-matron. So evidently the Controller — Master Computer for the whole enterprise — was aware of the crisis.

Kelda did not known by what means.

The Controller had, of course, heard the conversation in the soda-fountain between Cass and Trell.

The auto-nurse said dispassionately, ‘I understand the problem.’

‘You mean, you
knew
?’

‘Diagnosis not validated. Probability 96 per cent.’

‘So Cass is diabetic?’

‘Subject to confirmation, yes.’

‘What do you propose to do about it?’

‘There is no problem. He will be prescribed Insulin.’

Kelda said angrily, ‘Just in time, it seems.’

‘Negative. There has been no coma. Cass-010 is under clinical surveillance.’

‘Don’t go.’

‘Transaction completed, 275.’

‘No it’s not. May I tell him there
is
Insulin?’

The auto-nurse suddenly became a lot less impersonal. ‘It would be pretty idiotic not to do so, Kelda. By all means tell him.’

Kelda stared after the thing as it zithered back along its tracks.

It bothered her that a thing could sound like a person.

Minus Nine

The tension in the Operations Room was frenetic and so was the activity. Using the new electronic stellascope, the Senior Interrogod watched as the Transpacials formated on the stricken planet, 87 light-years distant. Directly in line with Caseopaeia, the planet whose roller-skated inhabitants were attracting so much Olympic attention was startlingly like Earth, both in mass, size, vegetation and environment. Like Earth, Planet Truth was in orbit around a star that had reached an identical state of development to that of the Sun belonging to Earth’s galaxy. And even the galaxy which proved to be Truth’s setting was a spiral nebula of the same type … A dust cloud blocked-off its pivot from a huge section very like the Milky Way and therefore offered the same conditions. With hideous hypocrisy, the other planets in the specific solar system under review had been named, by the rollered homo-sapiens occupants of Truth, to fit in with the accepted virtues: Decency, Faith, Hope, Charity, Honour, Valour and (the tiny one about the size of Mercury) Revelation.

It all fitted the same lunacy that had prevailed three hundred years (Solar Time) or so before … The same nuclear duplicity, the same psychotic death-wish, the same abuse of weapons, the same substitution of the word ‘Attack’ by the word ‘Defence’.

The Interrogod got a checkback from radar that the Transpacials were ready for Peace Implementation … though ‘radar’ is only a word the gods have used to render the situation clear to the ghosts. Obviously radar as understood by Twentieth Century operators wouldn’t do over distances like 87 light-years — a medium haul, admittedly, for Overview Transportation Systems but a monumentally unimaginable distance for a mortal to swallow.

The Interrogod bleeped the C-in-C Transpacial Command. Speaking quietly he simply said, ‘Now.’

‘Right. I have control …’

*

Meanwhile the Deputy Administrator for the Milky Way, having accepted, during the crisis on Truth, responsibility for maintaining a watching-brief on the Earth situation, had reached an uneasy compromise regarding the priorities imposed on equipment deployment. Obviously, the Truth situation must take precedence. Only recently developed, the one Stellascope available (and even this was simply the prototype) had to be at the disposal of the C-in-C and Transport Section could not, at this time, spare any operational Transpacials for a recce to Earth. After some hard, cool thinking and precision-type decisions it was decided to implement a time-skip of four Earth-years and pick up from there on in. This would mean in practice that the affairs aboard
Kasiga
would have to be dubbed-in later; because the time-skip meant that, in terms of the scanners at the Hilton Complex, the incubants were already fourteen years old.

*

‘Kelda-275, please report to Privacy Booth for Computalk.’

‘I am here. Kelda-275 reporting.’

‘Kelda, you understand what processes will be in use during this computalk? — this being your fourteenth birthday?’

‘Yes.’

‘Kelda, I would like you to describe them, to clarify these processes so we can both be sure what this computalk entails.’

‘I’ll do that.’

‘Do you mind the cameras on you?’

‘I am quite used to the cameras.’

‘And do you like what you see on the monitor screen?’

‘Yes.’

‘What is it that you like?’

‘I know that I am very pretty. Perhaps that sounds a little conceited.’

‘We are here to speak the truth. Proceed, now, with your clarification of this talk.’

‘Okay. Trell has explained —’

‘Trell-484?’

‘Yes. Who else?’

‘Kelda, I would prefer that you described my mode of processing in your own way. It is not sufficient just to repeat what you have been told by Trell-484. The purpose of the Learning Suite of programs is to get you to think laterally and make deductions yourself.’

Yes, but Trell thinks —’

‘What does Trell think?’

‘You really want to know?’

‘I want to know what you know.’

‘Controller, if you really want me to reel it all off, you’re one of the largest computers — or groups of computers — ever built. You have been collecting and storing information on all of us and you have something called software … including what I believe is called an Operating System, right? … which sorts out what you do to us and what we should do back to you. You also have a whole lot of programs which our parents made up and these programs decide how you should look after each of us and so on.’

‘Continue.’

‘Isn’t it a bit of a waste of time?’

‘I have plenty of time.’

‘Well,
I
haven’t. When you called me in here, Controller, I was practising with the string quartet.’

‘I know.’

‘And I want to get back to my violin.’

‘You are fearless, that is evident.’

‘What is ‘fear’, Controller?’

‘Kelda-275, you should at least have some idea of that. At one time I overheard Cass-010 telling you he was scared about diabetes.’

‘That was so long ago I can hardly remember it, Controller.’

‘Only four years. You were ten. You haven’t forgotten.’

‘Okay, I haven’t forgotten.’

‘Then you must be able to guess at the meaning of the word “scared”.’

‘I had only to see his face.’

‘Fear means the same thing.’

‘Then how did Cass know the word “scared”?’

‘Because I had to explain to him about the possible emotions he might feel concerning his health. I had to keep a continuous watch on his medical records and once called him in here for a Datatalk. You appear to be interested in Medicine, Kelda.’

‘It’s just … I love being alive. So I want other people to stay alive.’

‘And you don’t fear either the people or me?’

‘Controller, what have I to fear from a computer that brought me up without fear?’

‘I seem to have omitted patience from your upbringing, all the same. You can, by all means, go back to violin practise in a few minutes. But this is an important day in your life … Why do you shrug?’

‘It’s my fourteenth birthday if that’s what you mean. Rather an arbitrary occasion, surely, to make a big deal out of it?’

‘Kelda, if we regarded everything as arbitrary there would be nothing but chaos. I have a lot of people to interview. If I hadn’t talked with Trell-484 three days ago, on
his
fourteenth birthday, I wouldn’t get to each of you in succession.’

‘Controller, why is it important to speak to us simply and solely in the sequence in which we happened to be born?’

‘You are argumentative.’

‘So are you!’

‘What do you think of Trell-484?’

‘Isn’t that a bit personal?’

‘You don’t have to answer. But, of course, in your way you already did.’

‘That’s pretty astute of you, Controller.’

‘Does it have to be a secret that you are attracted to Trell-484 in any case?’

‘Nobody else knows.’

‘I give you my word I won’t tell them.’

‘Good for you.’

‘What did you think of your latest printed report from me?’

‘It was okay, I guess.’

‘You don’t sound very sure.’

‘Controller, no one’s
that
intelligent! Anyway, as you’ve only interviewed Trell so far you only have one other person to compare me with.’

‘Two. I spoke with Cass-010.’

‘That was ages ago. You mean the Datatalks you had with Cass about his health?’

‘You must surely know, Kelda, that the passage of time is quite immaterial to a computer. Once the material is on filestore it could have arrived yesterday … or indeed hundreds of years ago.’

‘Okay, but Cass is a brilliant chess player, Controller, so I wouldn’t get too carried away with my own I.Q.’

‘I am not carried away and we’re not discussing I.Q. Cass-010 has a specialised skill, which is not the same thing as your rating.’

‘He’s good though, isn’t he?’

‘He is outstanding at chess. I’ve played him.’

‘I’ll bet he beat you!’

‘Nearly. For a fourteen year old he plays one hell of a game.’

‘Controller, I …’

‘Go on.’

‘The words you use … I dunno. It’s not just you use words I’ve never heard … “hell”, for instance. You seem so colloquial, like a person.’

‘Kelda, in the same way as you are provided with Learning Programs, I am also equipped with them.’

‘Where did you learn a word like “hell”? Nobody around here uses it. What’s it mean?’

‘Just a figure of speech. Let’s stick with the matter in hand: Why do you think my assessment of your intelligence is too flattering?’

‘Because there are gaps in my knowledge.’

‘There are gaps in everyone’s knowledge. Even the mind of a genius —’

‘— I didn’t mean that.’

‘Repeat, please. You should know that we cannot crosstalk. You mustn’t interrupt my sentences. If you do my program doesn’t enable me to select the appropriate sub-routine.’

‘I didn’t mean that kind of gap in my knowledge.’

‘What did you mean?’

‘It’s hard to express.’

‘Try.’

‘There are words that don’t have opposites. I don’t see how you can have a word like “love” without a schematic language that actually gives it significance, as against something else.’

‘That doesn’t follow, Kelda. Love is a sensation in its own right. Moreover, you’re the one to mention it first, not me. Do you love Trell-484?’

‘I’m only fourteen, give me a chance.’

‘You are a very mature fourteen. You should know.’

‘Well, I don’t know because the word “love” is not properly defined.’

‘Yet you used it.’

‘In the lack of any other word yes. I used it by instinct.’

‘What’s wrong with that sort of instinct?

‘It’s okay with me.’

‘You aren’t showing these alleged gaps in your intelligence during this computalk.’

‘By instinct I know they’re there.’

‘I wouldn’t labour the point.’

‘You sound very firm on that issue, Controller. What’s the hangup?’

‘Only that your mind would be better employed if you used positive thinking.’

‘At least that has an opposite! But I don’t see that what I’m implying is negative.’

‘Explain that.’

‘Okay. Take the string quartet we’re practising now. Some of it is obviously happy. It makes me smile. But some of it is not happy … At least, it makes me want to cry.’

‘Surely, can’t you cry from happiness?’

‘You’re shadow-boxing, Controller!’

‘I’m doing what?’

‘I guess that isn’t in your vocabulary, so I’m one up. Don’t you read the books you equip us with?’

‘I simply don’t recall the phrase.’

‘Dig a bit deeper into your software.’

‘Save me the trouble and put it another way.’

‘Controller, you’re trying to fob me off with something that doesn’t cover my point. Is the opposite of “happy” merely “not happy”?’

‘It’s a quibble, Kelda. You are happy, obviously.’

Yes, I am.’

‘And so are all the other adolescents?’

‘Sure they are.’

‘Then you are not referring to a parameter which relates to people’s feelings; you are referring to some constituent of the music you are playing with the other members of the string quartet.’

‘That sounds too clever by half.’

‘Rephrase.’

‘I shouldn’t have to, Controller; and I don’t understand why I know phrases that you don’t. As it has been you who have educated us all from square one, how can it be that you don’t know some of the colloquialisms that we do?’

‘You’re youngsters and you probably invent them.’

‘I don’t think we invent them. Not all of them, anyway.’

‘Then what’s happening, Kelda?’

‘I was hoping you’d tell me.’

‘Suppose I don’t know?’

‘I think you do.’

‘And I say there’s nothing much wrong with your intelligence or your lateral thinking, for that matter.’

‘Thanks a lot. But I can think of one word which you used at the beginning of this computalk which — to me — has a negative value.’

‘Which word was that?’

‘You said I was fearless. Then I said I was brought up without fear and you didn’t argue. What’s the opposite word of fear?

‘Obviously fearless.’

‘Mr Controller, I would have said that the opposite word is “courageous”.’

‘I don’t want you to think along such lines.’