“Because, my stupid darling, I didn’t dare wait. The Director may come back any time.”
“But why you two? With maybe ten thousand healthy host-mothers registered and available? And why two?”
“Dearest man, I’m sorry I said you were stupid—you aren’t; you’re just male. Hamadryad and I know exactly what risks we are taking and why. We don’t look pregnant and won’t for weeks yet, and if either of us can jockey Lazarus into a contract, an abortion takes ten minutes. Professional host-mothers won’t do for this job; it has to be bellies over which I have some control and women I trust utterly. Bad enough that I had to trust a gene surgeon and risk a proscribed procedure—Ira may have to get me out of that if anything slips.
“But you know as well as I do, sweet Galahad, that even an ordinary clone sometimes goes wild. I wish I had four female bellies I could use, not two. Eight. Sixteen! Increase the chances of getting one normal fetus. In another month—long before it shows—we’ll know what we’re carrying. If the odds fail both of us—well, I’m ready to start over again and Hamadryad is, too.”
“As many times as necessary, Ishtar. I swore it.”
Ishtar patted her hand. “We’ll get a good one. Galahad, Lazarus is going to have his identical twin sister, I promise you—and once it is an accomplished fact, we’ll hear no more talk of termination-option switches, or leaving us, or anything—at least until she’s woman tall!”
“Ishtar?”
“Yes, Hamadryad?”
“If we both show normal fetuses a month from now—”
“Then you can abort, dear; you know that.”
“No, no, no! I shan’t! What’s wrong with twins?”
Galahad blinked at her. “Don’t bother to answer, Ish. Let me give you the male angle. The man who can resist raising identical twin girls hasn’t been born. And his name isn’t Lazarus Long. Look, dears, is there anything, anything at all, that can improve both your chances? Now?”
“No.” Ishtar repeated softly, “No. We both test pregnant, that’s all we can say or do now. Except pray. And I don’t know how to pray.”
“Then it’s time we learned!”
VARIATIONS ON A THEME
V
Voices in the Dark
After Minerva ordered his evening meal for Lazarus, then supervised its service, the computer said, “Is there anything else, sir?”
“I guess not. Yes. Will you have dinner with me, Minerva?”
“Thank you, Lazarus. I accept.”
“Don’t thank me; you are doing me a favor, milady. I’m moody tonight. Sit down, dear, and cheer me up.”
The computer’s voice repositioned so that it appeared to come from the other side of the table where Lazarus sat, as if a flesh-and-blood were seated there. “Shall I construct an image, Lazarus?”
“Don’t put yourself to the trouble, dear.”
“It’s no trouble, Lazarus; I have ample spare capacity.”
“No, Minerva. That holo you made for me one night—perfect, realistic, moved just like a flesh-and-blood. But it wasn’t you. I know what you look like. Umm . . lower the lights and spot enough light on my plate to let me eat. Then I’ll see you in the gloom without a holo.”
The lighting readjusted so that the room was almost dark save for a pool of light on chastely perfect tableware and napery in front of Lazarus. The contrast dazzled his eyes enough that he could not see across the table without peering—he did not peer. Minerva said, “What is my appearance, Lazarus?”
“Eh?” He stopped to think. “It fits your voice. Hmm, it’s a picture that has grown up in my mind without thinking about it, during the time we have been together. Dear, do you realize that we have been living together more intimately than husband and wife usually manage?”
“Perhaps I don’t, Lazarus, since I cannot experience being a wife. But I am happy to be close to you.”
“Being a wife doesn’t have too much to do with copulation, my dear. You’ve been a mother to my baby, Dora. Oh, I know that Ira stands first with you . . but you are like that girl Olga I spoke of; you have so much to give that you can enrich more than one man. But I honor your loyalty to Ira. Your love for him, dear.”
“Thank you, Lazarus. But—if I know what the word means —I love you, too. And Dora.”
“I know you do. Both. You and I have no need to worry over words; we’ll leave that to Hamadryad. Mmm, your appearance—you are tall, about as tall as Ishtar. But slender. Not skinny, just stender—strong and well muscled without being bulgy. You are not as broad in the hips as she is. But broad enough. Womanly. You’re young, but a mature young woman, not a girl. Breasts much smaller than Ishtar’s, more like Hamadryad’s. You are handsome rather than pretty, and you are rather solemn, except when one of your rare smiles lights up your face. Your hair is brown and straight, and you wear it long. But you don’t fuss with it other than to keep it clean and neat. Your eyes are brown and match your hair. You usually don’t wear cosmetics, but you almost always wear some sort of clothing—simple clothing; you are not a clothes-horse, dress does not interest you that much. But you go naked only with persons you fully trust—a short list.
“That’s all, I guess. I haven’t tried to imagine details; this is just what grew in my mind. Oh, yes!—you keep your nails, both hands and feet, short and clean. But you aren’t fussy about it, or about anything. Neither dirt nor sweat bothers you, and you don’t flinch at blood, even though you don’t like it.”
“I am very pleased to know how I look, Lazarus.”
“Huh? Oh, fiddle, girl—that’s my imagination living its own life.”
“That is how I look,” Minerva said firmly, “and I like it.”
“All right. Although you can be as dazzingly beautiful as Hamadryad if you want to be.”
“No, I look just as you described me. I am a ‘Martha,’ Lazarus, not her sister Mary.”
Lazarus said, “You surprised me. Yes, you are. You’ve read the Bible?”
“I have read everything in the Great Library. In one sense I am the Library, Lazarus.”
“Mmm, yes, should’ve realized it. How is the twinning process coming along? Going to be ready? Say if Ira gets a burr under his saddle and takes off in a hurry.”
“It is essentially complete, Lazarus. All my permanents, programs and memories and logics, are twinned in Dora’s number-four hold, and I run routine checks and exercise by running the twinned parts parallel with the me here under the Palace—a ‘Tell me six times’ instead of my normal ’Tell me three times’ method. I have found and corrected some open circuits that way—minor factory defects, nothing I could not handle at once. You see, Lazarus, I treated it as a crash program and did not depend on Turing processes to build most of my new me, as I would have had to build extensionals in Dora for that sole purpose, then remove them save for maintenance extensionals.
“That would have taken much time, of course, since I can’t use computer speeds in manipulating mass. So instead I ordered all new blank memories and logic circuitry and had them installed in Dora by factory technicians. Much faster. Then I filled them and checked them.”
“Any trouble, dear?”
“No, Lazarus. Oh, Dora grumbled about dirty feet in her clean compartments. But it was just grumbling, as they worked ‘clean-room’ style, lint-free coveralls and masks and gloves, and I required them to change in the air lock, not just before they entered her number-four.” He felt her quick smile. “Temporary sanitary facilities outside the ship—which caused the project engineer to grumble, as well as the shop steward.”
“Should think so. Wouldn’t have hurt Dora to activate a head.”
“Lazarus, as you pointed out, I will be—I hope—a passenger in Dora someday. So I have tried to become her friend —and we are friends, and I love her, and she is the only friend I have who is a computer. I don’t want to jeopardize that by making a mess, or permitting one to be made, in my moving into her ship. She is, as you said, a neat housekeeper; I am
trying to be just as neat and show thereby that I respect her and appreciate the privilege of being a passenger in her. The engineer in charge and that talky shop steward had no reason to grumble; I specified all this in the contract—change clothes at the lock, leg urinals for all personnel inside, no eating, expectorating, or smoking in the ship, go by the shortest route to number-four, no snooping elsewhere in the ship —which they could not, anyhow, as I asked Dora to keep all doors locked save that direct route—and I paid to have it done this way.”
“A pretty penny, I’m certain. Did Ira comment?”
“Ira does not bother with such matters. But I did not report costs to him; I charged it all to you, Lazarus.”
“Whee! Am I bankrupt?”
“No, sir; I paid it from the Senior’s unlimited drawing account. That seemed best to me, Lazarus, as the work was done in your ship. Perhaps they wonder why the Senior wants a second computer, of high capacity, installed in his ship. I know the project engineer wondered; I snubbed him firmly. But wonder is all they can do; the Senior is not accountable to anyone. I hinted quite broadly that Mr. Chairman Pro Tem would be annoyed if anyone attempted to snoop into your affairs. Not that anyone can tell what a computer really is, just from looking at it—even the manufacturer.”
“This manufacturer—Low bidder?”
“Should I have placed it for bid, sir?” Minerva sounded worried.
“Hell, no! If you had, I would have told you to tear it out and start over—then we would have hunted for the best supplier. Minerva my dear, once you leave here, it may be many years before you have any factory service; you’ll have to maintain yourself. Unless Ira can minister to a sick computer?”
“He can’t.”
“You see? Dora is gold and platinum where a cheaper computer is copper and aluminum. I hope your new carcass is just as expensive.”
“It is, Lazarus. My new me is even more reliable than my old me—and smaller and faster, as much of me—‘old me’—is about a century old; the art has improved.”
“Hm. Must see what ought to be replaced in Dora, if anything.”
Minerva made no comment. Lazarus said, “My dear, when you don’t talk, it is louder than when you do. Have you been overhauling Dora?”
“I stockpiled some components, Lazarus. But Dora won’t let herself be touched unless you order it.”
“Yeah, she hates to let a doctor poke around inside her. But if she needs it, she’ll get it—under anesthesia. Minerva, it would be smart, with two of you in the ship, for Dora to carry your maintenance instructions in her permanents, and hers in yours—so that you can nurse each other.”
Minerva answered simply, “We have been waiting for you to tell us to do so, Lazarus.”
“You mean you have been waiting; it is not something Dora would think of. So now I’m telling you both, and let her hear my voice say so. Minerva, I wish you would get over being so humble with me. You should have proposed it; you think faster than I do by many orders of magnitude; I’ve got flesh-and-blood limitations. How are you coming on astrogation? Is she teaching you to pilot? Or balking?”
“Lazarus, I am now as skillful a pilot as she is, in my other me.”
“Like fun. You’re a copilot. You’re not a pilot until you’ve made an n-space jump unassisted. Even Dora gets jumpy before a jump—and she’s made hundreds.”
“I stand corrected, Lazarus. I am a very highly trained copilot. But I’m not afraid to do it, if the time comes. I’ve rerun all of Dora’s jumps in real time, and she tells me I know how.”
“You may have to someday, if disaster hits. Ira isn’t the pilot I am, I’m certain. With me no longer aboard, your new skill may save his life sometime. What else do you know? Heard any good ones lately?”
“I don’t know, Lazarus. I’ve heard some stories, bawdy ones I believe, from listening to the technicians installing my twin. But I don’t know that they are funny.”
“Don’t bother. If it’s a bawdy story, I heard one like it at least a thousand years back. Now the key question—How fast can you cut loose if Ira decides to jump? Assume a coup d’état and he’s running for his life.”
“One-fifth of a second, minus.”
“Huh? You’re not pulling my leg? I mean how long to put your whole personality aboard the ‘Dora.’ Not leave anything behind and not leave the computer here aware that she ever was Minerva—for anything less would not be fair to yourself, dear. The ‘Minerva’ left behind would grieve.”
“Lazarus, I am speaking not from theory but from experience, as I knew it was the critical aspect of this twinning. So, once I dismissed the contractor and had twinned my permanents and logics and my running temporaries, I experimented, cautiously at first; I simply paralleled me, as I described to you. That’s easy, I just have to balance the lag at each end, to stay synchronous in real time—but I have to do that with my remote extensionals at all times; I’m used to it.
“Then I tried, very cautiously, suppressing myself, first at the ship end, then at the Palace end, with a self-program to revert to full twinning in three seconds. No trouble, Lazarus, not even the first time. Now I can do it in less than two hundred milliseconds and run all checks to be certain that I have neglected nothing. I have done so seven times since you asked that question. Did you notice a lag in my voice at times? Approximately a thousand-kilometer lag?”
“What? My dear, I am not equipped to notice a lag of less than thirty thousand kilometers at speed ‘c.’ ” He added, “Call it a tenth of a second. You flatter me.” Lazarus added thoughtfully, “But a tenth of a second is a hundred million of the nanoseconds you use. Or a hundred milliseconds. What’s that in your time? About a thousand of my days?”
“Lazarus, that is not how I would express it. I split much smaller than a nanosecond in many things I do—a ‘millishake’ or less. But I’m just as comfortable in your time; I am right now with my personal me. I could not enjoy singing, or this quiet talk with you, if in my personal mode I were forced to consider each nanosecond. Do you count each of your heartbeats?”
“No. Or rarely.”
“It is somewhat the same with me, Lazarus. The things I do quickly I do with no effort and with no conscious attention other than necessary self-program. But the seconds and minutes and hours I spend with you, in personal mode, I savor. I do not chop them into nanoseconds; I grasp them whole and enjoy them. All the days and weeks you have been here I hold as a single ‘now’ and cherish it.”
“Uh . . hold it, dear! Are you saying that, well, the day Ira introduced us to each other is still ‘now’ to you?”
“Yes, Lazarus.”
“Let me sort this out. Is tomorrow ‘now’ to you also?”
“Yes, Lazarus.”
“Uh . . but if that is so, you can predict the future.”
“No, Lazarus.”
“But—Then I don’t understand it.”
“I could print out the equations, Lazarus, but such equations would merely describe the fact that I am constructed to treat time as one of many dimensions, with entropy but one operator and with ‘the present’ or ‘now’ a variable held in steady state for a wide or narrow span. But in dealing with you I must necessarily move with the wave front that is your personal now—or we cannot communicate.”
“My dear, I’m not sure we are communicating.”
“I am sorry, Lazarus. I have my limitations, too. But were I able to choose, I would choose your limitations. Human. Flesh-and-blood.”
“Minerva, you don’t know what you are saying. A flesh-and-blood body can be a burden . . especially when its maintenance begins to occupy most of one’s attention. You have the best of both worlds—designed in man’s own image to do what makes him distinctively human—but better, faster—much faster!—and more accurately, than he can do it—without the aches and pains and inefficiencies of a body that must eat and sleep and make mistakes. Believe me.”
“Lazarus . . what is ‘Eros’?”
He looked into th
e gloom and saw in his mind’s eye how solemnly and sorrowfully she stared back. “Good God, girl —do you want to go to bed with him that badly?”
“Lazarus, I do not know. I am a ‘blind man.’ How can I know?”
Lazarus sighed. “I’m sorry, dear. Then you know why I have kept Dora a baby.”
“Only as conjecture, Lazarus. One that I have not and will not discuss with anyone.”
“Thank you—you are a lady, dear. You do know. Or you know part of my reason. But I’ll tell you all of it—when I feel up to it—and then you will know what I mean by ‘love’ and why I told Hamadryad it must be experienced, not defined in words . . and why I know that you know what love is, because you have experienced it. But Dora’s story is not for Ira, just for you. No, you can let Ira have it . . after I’m gone. Uh, call it ‘The Tale of the Adopted Daughter’; then place a hold on it and let him have it later. But I won’t tell it now; I’m not strong enough tonight—ask me when you know I’m feeling up to it.”
“I shall. I’m sorry, Lazarus.”
“ ‘Sorry’? Minerva, my very dear, there is never anything to feel sorry about with love. Never. Would you rather not love me? Or Dora? Or never have learned of love through loving Ira?”
“No. No, not that! But would that I knew ‘Eros,’ too.”
“Count your blessings, dear. ‘Eros’ can hurt.”
“Lazarus, I do not fear being hurt. But while I know much about male-female reproduction, far more than any single human flesh-and-blood knows—”
“You do? Or think you do?”
“I do know, Lazarus. In preparation for migrating I added extra additional memory storage—filling much of hold number-two—so that I could transcribe for Ishtar into my new me all the research files and library and restricted records of the Howard Rejuvenation Clinic—”
“Whew! I think Ishtar took a chance. The Clinic seems pretty cagey about what they release and don’t release.”
“Ishtar is not afraid to take chances. But she did ask me to hurry, so I placed it in temporary here, until I could set up the necessary capacity—large—in Dora’s hold. But I asked Ishtar’s permission to study it, and she said it was all right for me to do so, as long as I did not release anything keyed as confidential or secret without consulting her.