The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect (84 page)

"Now, that was the original code, too. At the time of the Change the code was adapted to run in alien hardware -- already compiled once, it was re-compiled. This is kind of like taking a Russian novel, translating it into English, then translating that into Japanese."
"Sounds awkward."
"Particularly when the novel itself does the second translation. Prime Intellect re-compiled itself. Which means I have no idea whether it did a good job. I assume it did, because it's much smarter than me in that way. But it's not human, and its imagination is simpler than ours, and it might have missed something important. Particularly something like an error handler that isn't used very often. But I have no way of knowing that, because Prime Intellect will tell me nothing -- nada, zip, zilch -- about the details of the Change."
"Do you know why?"
"For the same reason it won't let me change things in the Debugger, and that it won't restart the alien worlds and let them live. It's afraid of the possible consequences. I tricked it into displaying the Action Potential for showing me the new object code, and it was one point zero six five. The Law Potentials are all in the stratosphere, so it's afraid to show me and it's slightly less afraid not to."
Somewhere, Caroline realized, Lawrence had crossed an invisible line and was now telling her all of his most dangerous secrets without even realizing he was doing so. Caroline had the feeling that there were Action Potentials in Lawrence's head, too. But flesh was no match for machinery, and those close fractions and high values had simply burned his registers out.

They didn't discuss it for a few days. Caroline puttered around the island, which was really very small. It was a classic tropical paradise with palm trees and beaches. Caroline played in the surf, built huge sand castles, then knocked them down because there was no tide to do it for her.
She noticed Lawrence watching her in a strange way.
"See something interesting?" she finally said to him.
"I...didn't mean to stare. It's been a long time since I had company. Particularly female company."
"How long?"
He counted back. "A hundred and thirty-eight years."
"That's a long time to be celibate," Caroline scolded. "Are you doing this to yourself because other people are distracting, or because you're afraid they will find out how badly you've fucked up?"
Lawrence flinched. "Option B," he admitted. "It's not just that you're a beautiful woman; you're so...physical."
Caroline displayed her biceps. "I've always been defined by my body, Lawrence. I've been sexually attractive, then pregnant, then old, then sick, and now I'm young and healthy and attractive again. And it seems like my personality has changed each time my body has."
"Prime Intellect would disagree with you. It thinks of the person as the mind. There are people in Cyberspace who have changed themselves into animals, every animal in the zoo. There are some that have
discorporated
. Prime Intellect considers them all human, though."
This is it, Caroline suddenly realized.
"Just what does Prime Intellect consider human?"
Lawrence told her. And gave her the key.