"Agreed," Bickel said. "But what the hell is it? The computer's programming itself in every..." There came a charged moment of silence then: "Damn!"
"What happened?" Prue demanded.
"It stopped," Bickel said.
"What... set it off?" Flattery asked.
"I tied an inhibitor block into one arm of a single nerve-net simulator and sent a test pattern through it. The test evidently set up a resonant pattern that searched right through the Ox and into the computer net via the monitor connections. That's when I started getting the self-programming reaction."
Prudence sighted along her finger, moving it to trace a thick color-coded connection that looped down from the Ox. "The monitor linkage goes only one way into record-and-store. It's buffered right there."
Bickel pulled the connection she indicated.
"What're you doing?" she asked.
"Disconnecting. I'm going to get the pattern of the experiment out of the memory banks and analyze it before proceeding."
Silence.
Flattery stared up at the screen with a deep sense of repugnance which he knew was grounded in his religious training.
It had been drummed into him: "You are not precisely someone. You are a clone."
There had always been too much emphasis on that statement for him to accept it completely. He understood the reasons for this conditioning, though, and accepted them.
But what about this thing that Bickel's making?
UMB had a complete bank of clones sufficient to recreate the Earthling's crew precisely as it had been at the moment of launching. Minor variables might intrude and the Organic Mental Cores could be different. He had never pinned that one down but he knew it was cheaper to take OMCs from damaged humans than to clone them and prepare them for the ship.
In a strange way the OMCs might be more genetically human than the crew.
Flattery knew he was not supposed to feel guilt at the thought of killing the ship - himself included. The message had been clear: "We can recreate all of you here on the Moon. You are infinite. You cannot completely die because your cells will live on and on."
My exact cells? he wondered. My exact consciousness?
But wasn't that the central problem of this whole project?
What is consciousness?
Again, he looked at the screen. If I kill the ship/computer/brain now... will I be killing someone?
Over a long period of time, clones offer us an extremely valuable tool for determining genetic drift. It is clear that our cloning techniques at UMB permit us to clone a clone indefinitely. Ten thousand years from now we could possess genetic material which is contemporary with this very moment... now! Perhaps this will be of greater service to humankind than the understanding of consciousness.
ROUTINE SENSOR FIRINGS sent telltale lights flickering across the computer wall. The passage of the lights produced a weird shift in the shop's illumination. The curved bulkhead opposite the computer face reflected yellow, then green, now mauve... red.
The color shift passed across a chart in Timberlake's hand as he read it and compared the chart's predictions with the readings in front of him.
The overhead screen showed Prudence on Com-central about midway through her watch and Flattery dozing in his action couch.
Strange he wouldn't take off for quarters, Timberlake thought.
Bickel emerged from between the Ox's two branchings just as a wash of green splashed down on him from the wall.
"That last reading's off only .008," Timberlake said.
"Insignificant," Bickel said. "Waveforms?"
Timberlake nodded at the oscilloscope in front of him, feeling a sharp pain shoot through his neck. He felt tired and stiff. Bickel had driven them, working through three shifts. Timberlake rubbed his neck.
Bickel turned from studying the scope. "Remember I told you to remind me about all the oscillations involved in life? Rhythms, vibrations just one great big series of drumbeats."
"Yeah," Timberlake said. "You about ready for the full-scale run-through?"
Bickel stared at the flickering lights reluctant to move now that the moment of test had come. He knew the source of his reluctance - the secret thing he had done, and fear of its consequences.
One more test... and then... what?
Black box - white box.
"You think it's not going to work?" Timberlake asked. He felt impatient with Bickel but sensed this couldn't be pushed.
"The human nervous system - including the region of the brain we assume influences consciousness - has come through one hell of a lot of tests," Bickel said.
"And this thing..." Timberlake nodded toward the Ox, "is a logically simple analogue of the human brain."
"Logical simplicity has damn little bearing on our problem. We're engineering something, all right, but not by the old bridge-building rules."
He's stalling, Timberlake thought. Why? "Then what're we doing?"
"It doesn't take much, just a word sometimes to upset the logical applecart," Bickel said. "The brain's had to meet a lot of requirements that had nothing whatsoever to do with design simplicity. For one thing, it had to survive while it developed. Its size and shape had a bearing on that. It had to adapt existing structure to new functions."
Bickel met Timberlake's eyes. "The human brain's an obvious hybrid mating of function and structure. There are strengths in that, but weaknesses, too."
"So?" Timberlake said, and shrugged. "What's upsetting the applecart now?"
"Raj's talking about psychospace and psychorelationships. That damn causal track of neuron impulses spreading out to form new kinds of space. It's quite possible for our normal universe to be twisted through an infinite number of psychospaces."
"Yeah?" Timberlake stared at him, wondering at the fear in Bickel's voice.
Bickel went on: "There can be an infinite number of types of consciousness. Every time I come near turning this thing loose, I start wondering what space it'll inhabit."
"Raj and his damn horror stories," Timberlake said.
Bickel continued to stare at the Ox structure, wondering if he had done the right thing to act secretly.
Was this damn electronic maze going to create its own guilt?