CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The next day, while Hunt was away in the city, Gina and Sandy had lunch together in a drab cafeteria on the level below PAC’s residential sector. The food was plain and monotonous. When anyone complained to the Jevlenese catering staff about it, they were told that the supply system was messed up. It had become usual to attribute every failure and discomfort to JEVEX’s being shut down.

“Squid shit and processed shoebox again,” Sandy said, looking down at what was supposed to be a sandwich. “It’s not really what you’d expect when you come all this way, is it? Our guys did better down the ice hole on Ganymede.”

“How did you ever end up at a place like Ganymede?” Gina asked curiously.

“When you work with people like Chris and Vic, anything’s possible.”

“Yes… I think I can believe it.”

“Well, look at you. You’ve known Vic for a week. Here you are.”

Gina looked around. “You’re right. It’s sure a lot different from the Vishnu, I have to admit.”

“Although I think ZORAC is, somehow… ‘cuter’ than VISAR. It cracks jokes. Did you ever hear of a computer that cracks jokes before?”

“Maybe being stranded in space for twenty-five years affected it,” Gina said. “The Ganymeans would be okay. They could handle it. I’m beginning to get the feeling that a lot of things that would completely screw us up in the head don’t bother them at all.” She inspected a peculiar-looking yellow fruit with orange lobes. “Although we still have the direct link to VISAR here.”

They munched in silence for a while, exchanging grimaces over their respective dishes.

“I haven’t been near VISAR since we arrived,” Sandy said.

She spoke in an odd, pointed tone, as if she were trying to convey something deeper to test Gina’s reaction. It took Gina a few seconds to register the fact. Her expression changed, but before she could say anything, Sandy went on. “How well did you get to know VISAR when we were on the ship? It’s not just ZORAC with a different I/O system, you know. Did you take any time to… experiment with it at all?”

Gina stopped eating and stared across the table, interrogating Sandy’s face silently. “Experiment with it?” she repeated.

“Yes.”

“It depends what you mean.”

Sandy answered in a way that sounded as if she had been wanting to bring the subject up with somebody for a long time. “Do you have any idea of just how weird that thing is, once you get into it? You’re so right: the Thuriens must be a lot different from us up here.” She tapped the side of her head. “People don’t realize how different.”

Gina sat back in her seat and took in the tenseness that had come over Sandy suddenly. She knew now what Sandy was getting at, but she replied in a way that evaded the point. “Do you mean how they can live with that universal bugging system everywhere, and not be bothered by it? Yes, I agree that’s strange. It would bother me. And all that pointless detail they have to go into. Maybe they have a different notion of reality.”

Sandy shook her head. “No. That wasn’t what I meant. I was talking about the way it puts information into your head. It’s not just that it can make you think you’re somewhere else and not know the difference. It can manufacture places-whole worlds, whatever-that don’t exist at all. And they’re just as real-I mean, there’s no way you can tell the difference. It can be anything you like.”

“Go on,” Gina said, not willing to commit herself just yet.

Sandy put down her fork and gestured briefly, then brushed her hair aside. Whatever recollections she was bringing to mind seemed to be troubling her. “But it goes a lot farther than just creating things that you tell it to. It can go right into your head and pull out things you didn’t even know were there-things about yourself that you didn’t know existed. Or maybe if you did, you buried them down deep somewhere because life has enough problems that you can do something about, without wasting time hassling yourself over things you’re not gonna change anyhow. But can you imagine what it’s like to find them staring you in the face?”

Gina held her eye and nodded slowly. “Yes, I know,” she confessed finally. “I fooled around with it, too. I know what you’re talking about.”

“You did?”

“Yes.”

“And how did it…” Sandy left the question hanging and showed an empty hand.

“Terrifying,” Gina said. “I haven’t gone near it again, either.”

Sandy nodded. It was woman-to-woman now. They understood each other without need of secrets. She looked at Gina and pulled her zip-up sweater tighter around herself. “Want to know something? I can kill people.” Despite herself, Gina couldn’t prevent a startled look from crossing her face. Sandy nodded as if seeing Gina’s reaction provided a source of relief. “That’s something I found out. Want to know something else? I get a kick out of it. How’s that for finding that what you thought you were all your life isn’t you?”

Gina saw that Sandy had paled and was trembling. She leaned forward to lay a reassuring hand on her arm. “Don’t worry. Everyone has something. Look, if it’s any-”

Sandy pulled her arm away defensively. “It’s a psychic fucking Freud with a one-million IQ, for chrissakes. Maybe Thuriens don’t have things they’d rather not know, or maybe they can deal with them-I don’t know. But…” Her voice trailed off. She looked up at Gina and sighed. “I’m sorry. I guess I was looking for someone to dump on.”

“That’s okay.”

Sandy took a long swig of real Coke from a batch that had been ordered from Earth by PAC’s Terran contingent and arrived with the Vishnu. “Yet we were only out there a couple of days.” She set the can down and made a sweeping motion with her arm. “But outside there’s a whole planet that’s been junked on something like that for as long as anyone can remember. And everyone’s asking what drove them crazy? Are they kidding? It’s pretty clear to me what drove them crazy.”

Gina regarded her long and hard. Why she hadn’t said anything herself, when she had reached the same conclusion even before they left the ship, she didn’t know. Now that she had heard it from Sandy, it all seemed so obvious.

“Finish your squid shit,” she said.

Sandy pushed the plate away. “I’ll puke. Why?”

“Because I think you’re right. It’s time we told the others. Probably we should have said something a long time ago.”

They found Danchekker perched on a stool in the main lab, pondering some curves expressing the variation in programming complexity exhibited by sample populations of anquilocs-the peculiar Jevlenese flying animal that could inherit learned behavioral modifications. Apparently the anquiloc was just one of a family of related creatures with such abilities.

“Have you heard people argue that machine intelligence is superior to our kind because it builds up its knowledge base cumulatively?” he asked as they entered. Evidently he had been preoccupied in a line of thought and was bouncing it off the first targets to appear. “They see it as a crippling disadvantage that we have to spend a quarter of our lives learning the same basics over and over with each generation, after which we use little, add less, and take most of it with us when we go.” The professor waved at the solid image of an anquiloc hanging in a flying posture above a bench top to one side. “But can you imagine what the consequences of an advanced development from that animal would be? One of the things about ourselves that we should be thankful for is that conditioning isn’t inheritable. After all the effort that was expended on turning virtually an entire generation into Nazi fanatics, their children were born as untainted by it as Eskimos. But think how much more insufferable fanatics would be if the process of indoctrination created its own gene. What would our friend Baumer give for a tool like that?” He turned fully on the stool and saw that Gina and Sandy were waiting to say something. “Anyway, ladies, what can I do for you?”