“I designed it to be decadent, Justin. Good plumbing is the finest flower of decadence and one I have always enjoyed when I could get it.”
“Uh—my clothes are still in Ira’s office. Even my toiletries. Absentminded, I’m sorry.”
“No matter. Ira may fetch your bag, but he’s absentminded, too. Depilatories, deodorants, scents—no problem. I’ll lend you a toga or something.”
“Buddy Boy! I mean ‘Father.’ Does that mean we dress for dinner?”
“Call me Buddy Boy; I’m hardened to it. Go as far as you like, darlings . . except that as usual Mama Hamadryad must okay any cosmetics. Back to how I acquired these daughters who are my sisters, Justin: Having conferred, this gang of genetic pirates came clean and threw themselves on the mercy of the court. Me. So I adopted these two, and we registered them, and the registration will be straightened out one day, as I explained. How Minerva gave up the profession of computer and assumed the sorrows that flesh is heir to is a longer story. Want to synopsize it, dear?—and fill him in later if you wish.”
“Yes, Father.”
“None of your lip, dear; you’re a grown woman now. Justin, when we woke this darling, she was about the size and biological age of those two reformed hellions—remind me to take their temperatures, Minerva. I adopted Minerva because she needed a father then. Doesn’t now.”
“Lazarus, I will always need you as my father.”
“Thank you, my dear, but I take that only as a pleasing compliment. Tell Justin your story.”
“All right. Justin, are you familiar with the theories concerning self-awareness in computers?”
“Several of them. As you know, my work is mostly with computers.”
“Permit me to say, speaking from experience, all theories are empty. How a computer becomes self-aware remains as much a mystery, even to computers, as the age-old mystery of flesh-and-blood self-awareness. It just is. But, so far as I’ve heard—quite far in view of the library that was locked in my memories then and is still in Athene’s memories—self-awareness never arises in a computer designed only for deductive logic and mathematical calculations, no matter how big it is. But if it is designed for inductive logic, able to assess data, draw hypotheses therefrom, test them, reconstruct them to fit new data, make random comparisons of the results, and change those reconstructions—exercise judgment the way a flesh-and-blood does, then self-awareness may occur. But I don’t know why and no computer knows. It just does.”
She smiled. “Sorry, I did not mean to sound pedantic. Lazarus figured out that I could go into a blank human brain, a clone brain, using techniques used to conserve memories in rejuvenation clinics. When we discussed this, I had the entire technical library of Secundus Howard Clinic in me—stolen, in a way. I no longer have it; I had to pick and choose what to take along when I went into this skull. So I don’t remember much of what I did, any more than a rejuvenation client knows all that is done to him; you would have to get details from Athene, who still has them—and who, by the way, never had the rather painful awakening that a computer goes through when it first begins to know itself, because I left a piece of me in Athene, oh, like a yeast starter. Athene dimly remembers having been Minerva at one time—about the way we nesh-and-btoods”—Minerva straightened up, smiled, and looked proud—“remember a dream as something not quite real. And I remember being Minerva the Computer somewhat the same way. I remember all my contacts with people very sharpiy—because I chose to keep them, replicate them into this skull. But if anyone were to ask how I handled the transport system of New Rome . . well, I know that I did. but not how I did it.”
She smiled again. “That’s my story: A computer who longed to be a flesh-and-blood and who had loving friends who made is possible . . and I’ve never regretted it; I love being nesh-and-btood—and want to love everybody.” She looked at Justin Foote very soberly. “Lazarus spoke sooth; I have never been a guest wife; I am only three years old as a flesh-and-blood. Should you choose me, you may find me awkward and shy—but not reluctant. I owe you much.”
“Minerva,” said Lazarus, “back him into a corner some other time. You didn’t tell Justin what he wanted to know; you left out the hanky-panky.”
“Oh.”
“And when you were philosophizing about awareness in computers, you left out the key point, it seems to me, one I know but you may not even though you’ve been a computer and I have not. Because this key point applies both to computers and to flesh-and-bloods. My dear—and Justin—and it won’t hurt you two erratic geniuses to listen—all machinery is animistic—‘humanistic,’ I want to say, but that term has been preempted. Any machine is a concept of a human designer; it reflects the human brain, be it wheelbarrow or giant computer. So there is nothing mysterious in a machine designed by a human showing human self-awareness; the mystery lies in awareness itself, wherever it’s found. I used to have a folding camp cot that liked to bite me. I don’t say that it was aware—but I learned to approach it with caution.
“But, Minerva, darling, I’ve seen some big computers, almost as smart as you were, that never developed self-awareness. Can you tell us why?”
“I confess I can’t, Lazarus. I’d like to ask Athene when we get home.”
“She probably doesn’t know either; she’s never met any other major computer but Dora. Captain Lazuli, how far back do you remember? Once you—or your comrade in crime —claimed to remember nursing. Suckling, I mean.”
“Of course we do! Doesn’t everybody?”
“No. Me, for example. I was a bottle baby; I don’t remember even that. Not worth remembering. In consequence I’ve been looking at tits and admiring them ever since. Tell me, one of you, when you remember nursing, can you recall which of your mothers was giving you suck?”
“Of course!” Lorelei said scornfully. “Mama Ishtar has big tits—”
“—and Mama Hamadryad has much smaller ones even when they’re filled with milk—”
“But she gave just as much milk.”
“Different flavor though. Made it nice to trade off each meal. Variety.”
“But we liked both flavors! Tell him, Laz.”
“Enough. You’ve made the point I wanted. Justin, these kids were self-aware and aware of other people—their mothers at least—at an age when a crèche baby is just a doughy blob . . which says something about why crèches have never worked well. I want the counterpoint: Minerva, what do you remember of the time when you were an unawakened clone?”
“Why, nothing, Lazarus. Oh, some odd dreams when I was putting me—my selected memories—into my new me, this one. But I didn’t start that until Ishtar said the clone was big enough. That was not until shortly before I withdrew from my former me and Ishtar woke me. It could not be instantaneous, Justin; a protein brain won’t take data at computer speeds, Ishtar had me be very slow and careful. Then for a short time—short human time—I was both places, computer and skull; then I surrendered the computer and let it become Pallas Athene, and Ishtar woke me. But, Lazarus, a clone in vitro is not aware; it’s like a fetus in utero. No stimuli. Correction: minimum stimuli and nothing that leaves a permanent memory track. Unless you count reports of regression under hypnosis.”
“No need to count them,” Lazarus replied. “True or false, such cases are irrelevant. The relevant counterpoint is ‘minimum stimuli.¹ Honey, those big computers with awareness potential but without self-awareness are that way because nobody bothered to love the poor things. That’s all. Babies or big computers—they become aware through being given lots of personal attention. ’Love’ as it’s usually called. Minerva, does that theory match up with your earliest years?”
Minerva looked soberly thoughtful. “That was about a century ago in human time—call it a million times that in computer time. I know from the records that I was assembled a few years before Ira took office. But the earliest personal memories I have—and those memories I saved and did not leave in Athene or in the computer in New Rome—the earliest I c
an remember of me is waiting eagerly and happily for the next time Ira would speak to me.”
Lazarus said, “I need not belabor the point. With babies you breast-feed them and nibble their toes and talk to them and blow in their bellybuttons and make them laugh. Computers don’t have bellybuttons, but attention works just as well on them. Justin, Minerva tells me that she left nothing of herself in the computer under the palace.”
“That is correct. I left it intact as a computer and programmed for all its duties . . but I dared not leave any personal memory, any part of the me, could not let it remember that it had once been Minerva; that wouldn’t have been fair to it. Lazarus warned me, and I was most careful, checking all the billions of bits and wiping where necessary.”
Justin Foote said, “I missed a turn somehow. You did this in New Rome . . but you’ve been awake here only three years?”
“Three wonderful years! You see—”
“Let me interrupt, dear; I’ll tell him the hanky-panky. But first—Justin, have you dealt with the executive computer in New Rome since we migrated? Of course you have—but have you been in the office of Madam Chairman Pro Tem when she was using it?”
“Why, yes, several times. Just yesterday—no, I mean the yesterday before I left; I keep forgetting that I missed transit time.”
“What name does she use in speaking with it?”
“I don’t think she uses a name. I’m fairly certain she does not.”
“Oh, the poor thing!”
“No, Minerva,” Lazarus said quietly. “You left it in good health; it simply won’t wake up until it has a mistress, or master, who appreciates it. Which might not be long,” he added grimly.
Justin Foote said, “Might be any time. Lazarus, that old, uh—cancel that. Arabelle loves the spotlight. Appears at public meetings, shows up in the Colosseum. Stands up and waves her scarf. Seems odd, after the quiet way Ira ran things.”
“I see. A sitting duck. Seven to two she’s assassinated in the next five years.”
“No bet. I’m a statistician, Lazarus.”
“So you are. All right—Hanky-panky. Lots of it. Ishtar set up an auxiliary Howard Clinic in the Palace. Her excuse: Me, the Senior. But a cover-up for a much more extensive bio facility. Minerva picked her parents; Ishtar stole the tissues and faked some records. Meanwhile, our skinny friend my daughter Minerva—”
“She is not! She’s just right for her height and body type and bio age!”
“—and deliciously curved!”
“—had twinned her computer self in a hold of my yacht ‘Dora,’ placing the contract in my name and charging it to me, and nobody dared inquire why the Senior—some advantages to age, especially among Howards—wanted a huge computer in a yacht that already had one of the fanciest computers in the sky. While back in my borrowed penthouse where nobody was allowed to go—other than a short list all as dishonest as I am—a clone was growing in a facility installed in a room I didn’t need.
“Comes time to migrate, a very large case containing what was then a very small clone, goes to the skyport marked as part of my personal baggage—this baggage between us, of course—and is loaded into the ‘Dora’ without inspection, such being a prerogative of being Chairman . . for as you may recall I didn’t hand the gavel back to Arabelle until our transports had lifted and I was about to raise ship myself, with Ira and the rest of my personal party aboard.
“While I’m taking the clone aboard, Minerva withdraws herself from the executive computer and is safe and snug in a hold of the ‘Dora’ . . with her gizzards packed with every bit of data in the Grand Library and the entire records of the Howard Clinic including secret and confidential stuff. A most satisfying caper, Justin, the most good, clean, illegal fun I’ve had since we stole the ‘New Frontiers.’ But I’m telling you this not to boast—or not much—but to ask if we were as slick as we thought we were. Any rumors? Did you suspect anything amiss? How about Arabelle?”
“I feel sure that Arabelle does not suspect. Nor have I heard of Nelly Hildegarde bursting any blood vessels. Mmm, I suspected something.”
“Really. Where did we slip?”
“Hardly the word, Lazarus. Minerva, when I had occasion to consult you, while Ira was Chairman Pro Tern, how did we talk?”
“Why, you were always most friendly, Justin. You always told me why you wanted something instead of just telling me to dig it out. You would chat, too; you were never too much in a hurry to be pleasant. That’s why I remember you so warmly.”
“And that, Lazarus, is why I sniffed something dead behind the arras. You and your party had been gone about a week when I wanted something from the executive computer. When you have an old friend with a pleasant voice—your voice is unchanged, Minerva; I should have recognized it—but I was bedazzled by your appearance—when you call this old friend and are answered by a flat, mechanical voice . . and any deviation from programming language is answered by: ‘NULL PROGRAM—REPEAT—WAITING FOR PROGRAM’—then you know that an old friend is dead.” He smiled at the girl between them. “So I can’t tell you how delighted I am to learn that my old friend was reborn as a lovely young girl.”
Minerva squeezed his hand, blushed slightly, and said nothing.
“Hmm—Justin, did you compare notes with anyone?”
“Ancestor, do you think I’m a fool? I mind my own business.”
“Apology, about grade two. No, you’re not a fool, unless you go back and work for the old harridan.”
“When will the next wave of migrants head this way? I hate to waste the work I’ve done on your life, and I would hate to abandon my personal library.”
“Well, sir, no tellin’ when a streetcar will be by this time o’ night. Discuss it later.” Lazarus added, “That’s our house ahead.”
Justin Foote looked, saw a building partly visible through trees, turned back to speak to Minerva. “Something you said earlier, Cousin, I did not understand. You said ‘I owe you so much.’ If I was pleasant to you—at New Rome, I mean—you were at least as pleasant to me. More likely the debt is the other way; you were always most helpful.”
Instead of answering, she looked at Lazarus. He said, “Your business, my dear.”
Minerva took a deep breath, then said, “I plan to name twenty-three of my children for my twenty-three parents.”
“So? That seems most warmly appropriate.”
“You’re not my cousin, Justin—you’re my father. One of them.”
XIV
Bacchanalia
After the track through the gormtrees at the northern edge of Boondock swings right, one has a view of the home of Lazarus Long, but I hardly noticed it when I first saw it; I was much bemused by a statement by Minerva Long. Me her father? Me?
The Senior said, “Close your mouth, Son; you’re making a draft. Dear, you startled him.”
“Oh, dear!”
“Now quit looking like a frightened fawn, or I’ll be forced to hold your nose and administer two ounces of eighty-proof ethanol disguised as fruit juice. You’ve done nothing wrong. Justin, does disguised ethanol interest you?”
“Yes,” I agreed fervently. “I recall a time in my youth when that and one other subject were all I was interested in.”
“If the other subject wasn’t women, we’ll find a monastic cubbyhole where you can drink alone. But it was—I know more about you than you think. All right, we’ll have a libation or six. Not those two, they’re potential, alcoholics.”
“Slanderous—”
“—though regrettably true—”
“—but we did it only once—”
“—and won’t do it again!”
“Don’t commit yourself too far, kids; a brannigan might sneak up on you. Better to know your resistance than to be tripped through ignorance. Grow up, put on some mass, and you’ll be able to cope with it. Or Ishtar mixed up your genes, which she didn’t. Now about this other matter, Justin. Yes, you’re one of Minerva’s parents . . and that’s a very high compli
ment, because those twenty-three chromosome pairs were picked from tissues of thousands of superior people, using fearsome mathematics to handle the multiplicity of variables, plus Ishtar’s knowledge of genetics, and some unnecessary advice from me, before this little darling got the precise mix she wanted to be.”
I started to set up the type problem in my head—yes, that would be some problem, extremely more difficult than the ordinary genetics problem of advising one male and one female—then dropped it, as I had its delightful answer by her left hand. Lazarus was still speaking:
“Minerva could have been male, two meters tall, massing a hundred kilos, built like Joe Colossus, and hung like a stallion mule. Instead she elected to be what she is: slender, female, shy—I’m not sure she selected for that last. Did you, dear?”
“No, Lazarus; no one knows which genes control that. I think I get it from Hamadryad.”
“I think you got it from a computer I used to know—and took along all of it as Athene certainly is not shy. Never mind. Some of Minerva’s donor-parents are dead; some are alive but unaware that a bit of tissue from a clone in stasis or from the live-tissue bank was borrowed—as in your case. Some know that they are donor-parents—me, for example, and you heard Hamadryad mentioned. You’ll meet others, some being on Tertius, where it’s no secret. But consanguinity is not close for anyone. One twenty-third? The genetic advisers wouldn’t run that through a computer; it’s an acceptable risk. Plus the fact that none of us donor-parents of Minerva have any known skeletons hanging on our family trees. You could safely have progeny by her; so could I.”
“But you refused me!” Minerva startled me with the vehemence with which she accused Lazarus of this. For a moment she was not shy; her eyes flashed.
“Now, now, dear. You were only a year out of vitro and not fully grown even though Ishtar forced you past menarche still in vitro. Ask me on another occasion; I might startle you.”