R.W. IV - The Magic Labyrinth

by Philip José Farmer

  "You can't say that about this situation."

  Tai-Peng said, fiercely, "Let's get on with what's happening in this world."

  "I recruited the lazari because there was a very slight probability that what has happened might happen. I put all the situations I could think of into the computer and told it to estimate their probability. Unfortunately, the computer cannot detect what sentient beings will think, what final choices they'll make, unless it has all the data and that's impossible. Well, not even if it had every item could it predict one hundred percent. Thus, Monat, and the others did what I couldn't expect. Just as I did what he couldn't anticipate. Just as you did what I couldn't predict. The human, the sentient, mind is still a deep mystery."

  "May it always be so," Burton said.

  "It is, it is! That is why you can't predict the stage of development of any wathan. One may be rather advanced, yet go no further. Another may be in a low stage and, suddenly, almost overnight as it were, leap to a far higher state than the previously much further advanced. It's a quantum ethical leap. Also, people regress."

  "Are you an example of regression?" Burton said.

  "No! That's what Siggen accused me of being when we were living in that hut in Parolando. The truth is, I am more highly advanced than anyone else in the project. Isn't it much more ethical to give everyone all the time they might need to develop? Isn't it? Yes, it is! That can't be denied!"

  Alice murmured, "He's crazy."

  Burton wasn't so sure. What Loga had said seemed reasonable. But his ideas for insuring his plans didn't seem so. Yet, if he continued to send false messages, then the Gardenworlders wouldn't come to investigate. Loga might gain a thousand years. Surely, in that time, anybody would attain the stage desired.

  His deep pessimism told him that it might not be so.

  What was his own progress?

  Or did he want to get to a stage where the essential part of him just disappeared?

  Why not? It would be an adventure even greater than this one, the greatest in his life.

  "Very well," he said. "I think we understand all that's happened. But you've hinted that you may not be able to carry out your plans even if you have no one to stop you.

  "What terrible thing has happened?"

  "It's my fault, mine only!" Loga cried. He rose from the chair and, despite his limp, paced back and forth, his face twisted and sweating.

  "Because of what I did, billions may be doomed forever! In fact, almost everybody! Perhaps, everybody! Forever!"

  52

  * * *

  There was silence for a while. loga continued his painful limping. Then Burton said, "You might as well tell us."

  Loga sat down in his chair.

  "My signal put an inhibit on the resurrection line. I didn't want any Ethical to commit suicide and get to the tower before I did. What I didn't know was that another Ethical had also commanded an inhibit on the resurrection line when I was found out."

  The reason for this, Loga said, was that Monat didn't want the unknown traitor to gain access to the tower. There he or she might be able to carry out his plans – whatever they were –before his presence was known.

  Monat's command overrode everybody else's.

  "He was the Operator."

  Moreover, Monat, through his proxy, had commanded the computer to obey no one else but him until normal operations were restored.

  "I'm sure that if he'd known exactly what was to happen, he'd not have given such a command. But fie had no more idea than I what course events would take."

  "The universe is infinite, and the events in it are also infinite," Nur said.

  "Perhaps. But you see, the computer used the wathans as its . . . what shall I say? . . . blueprints to duplicate bodies. Once, records were kept of the bodies, but it was more economical to use the wathans themselves, as I've explained. There are no other records. So, if the wathans are lost, then we have no way to duplicate bodies anymore."

  Burton rolled this around in his mind.

  "Well, you have the wathans. We saw them in that enclosure in the middle of the tower."

  "Yes, but when the computer dies, the wathans will be released! And there is no means then to resurrect the dead. They are lost forever!"

  There was another silence. After a minute or two, Alice said, "The computer . . .is dying?"

  Loga was almost choking. "Yes. It wouldn't be if it hadn't been left unattended so many years."

  The machinery was built to last for centuries without any need for repair or replacement. Nevertheless, parts and units did malfunction now and then. That was why technicians inspected everything at regular intervals, and why there were so many self-repair capabilities. Machines, however, had a well-known but as yet unexplained obstinacy, a seeming tendency to break down of their own will or refuse to operate. It had been jestingly observed that perhaps they, too, had wathans of a sort, and their free will was more ill will than anything else.

  During the long absence of human supervision, a valve had quit operating.

  "This is not a mechanical valve, you understand. It's basically a force field which shuts off or on to allow flow of sea water into the food-mixing chamber for the computer. The computer subsists on distilled water mixed with sugar and some traces of minerals. The shut-down valve is one of two. Its mate is for emergencies. It takes over should the main one go out. Then the technicians repair the field generator of the valve, and the backup one shuts down."

  Unfortunately, the emergency valve did not admit enough water for a long term. And so the protein computer was dying.

  "I could use the computer memory banks to furnish a model for a duplicate of it as the original before it was fed any data. Unfortunately, the computer contains the only memory banks of that. And it won't release the information so that I can feed it into the matter-energy converter."

  "Why don't you repair the field generator?" Frigate said.

  "For the good reason that the computer won't permit me to. Apparently, Monat ordered long ago that it be equipped with defenses. These weren't activated, though, until I was found out."

  There was another long silence. Alice broke it, saying "Why don't you use one of those wathan catchers you told us about? The moment the computer died and released the wathans, the catcher could restrain them."

  Loga smiled grimly.

  "A very good idea. I've thought of that. Briefly. The only catcher is the computer. There are memory banks which I could tap to make a catcher. But these are also in the computer."

  "Are the defenses absolutely invulnerable?" Burton said.

  "It's easy to gain access to the field generator. I'd just have to pull out the malfunctioning module and replace it with another. But I'd be dead before I could do that. The computer would cut me down with beams. Just like those which my beamer shoots."

  Nur said, "You used the computer at the same time that the others were. How did you keep them from finding that out?"

  "In a sense, I made the computer schizophrenic. One part of it didn't know what the other was doing."

  "That's it!" the Moor cried. Then his exultant expression was replaced by a frown. "No. You'd have thought of using it."

  "Yes. I can't because the engineers apparently discovered the split mind. Now it's dominated by the main part."

  "You said dominated, not integrated," Nur said.

  "Yes. The engineers didn't have time to remove the complex circuits which made the computer schizophrenic. But they did put in temporary bypass circuits to give the main part dominance. They would've integrated the parts later. But they were killed before they could do that."

  "How do you know all this?" Burton said.

  "The computer gave me that information. It doesn't refuse to communicate. It just won't obey any commands except those from Monat or whoever was authorized to act for him."

  "There's no chance of finding out the codeword or whatever Monat used?"

  "Not unless he recorded it somewhere. I doubt that he
would. Also, the code would have to be accompanied by the voiceprints of Monat or his aide."

  "Maybe there is no codeword," Frigate said. "Maybe the voice-recognition is enough."

  "No. Monat would think of that. It'd be relatively easy to isolate phones from records of his speech and synthesize them to make new sentences. Also, Monat might've required that there be body recognition, too."

  "Could you make a disguise of Monat to wear yourself?" Turpin said.

  "I suppose so. But I'd use beam-simulators."

  Loga seemed very weary now. Burton suspected that it was not the wound which had drained his energy. It was hopelessness and guilt.

  "Well," Burton said. "We don't know but what voice and body recognition is all that's required. We must try to fool the computer even if it's wasted work."

  Alice said, eagerly, "Have you told the computer that it's going to die?" .

  "Oh, yes. But it already knew it."

  "Perhaps a man could get through the computer's defenses," Burton said, looking hard at Loga.

  The Ethical straightened up a little.

  "I know what you're thinking. Since I'm responsible for this horror, I should try to repair the valve generator. Even if there's an almost one-hundred-percent probability that I'd just be sacrificing myself. I would do that if I thought it'd do any good.

  "But what if I succeeded and yet died? None of you would know how to operate the equipment here. You could do nothing to solve this problem.

  "Moreover, if the computer lives, what then? The situation is unchanged only in that the computer lives and so the wathans won't be released."

  Burton said that Loga must train them in the use of whatever instruments might be needed. He-must because something might happen to him. Was there time for that before the computer died?

  The Ethical replied that there might be. He'd have to teach them what the instrument markings meant. It would take too long to teach them the language used when talking to the computer, which was that of Monat's people and the primary one on the Gardenworld. But he could change the language converters and so allow them to use Esperanto.

  "Excellent!" Burton said. "I think we should all go to bed now. We'll wake up refreshed and with clearer minds. Perhaps we can think of something to use against the computer then."

  They moved into the Councilors' apartments. Loga went into his. Aphra Behn and de Marbot took one; Alice and Burton, another. Tai-Peng and Turpin shared a fourth apartment and Nur and Frigate the one next to it. Burton thought it best that none of their group be alone. He still didn't entirely trust the Ethical.

  Before they went to sleep, Alice said, "Richard, there has to be a way to get around the computer. It was made by humans, so it should be mastered by humans."

  "Why don't you appeal to its emotions?" Burton said. "You women are particularly good at that."

  "No more than men, you braying arse! Anyway, I know there's no use appealing to the emotions of a thing that has none. Although I'm not so sure that it doesn't have some. Or analogies thereof. But since it operates purely by logic, why not use logic against it? Humans put human logic into it. We should be able to fight it or cozen it with logic."

  "I'm sure that Loga has thought of that."

  He kissed her on the cheek and turned away.

  "Good night, Alice."

  "Good night, Richard."

  When he awoke some hours later, he found her staring up at the moving figures on the ceiling.

  53

  * * *

  In the morning, they showered and put on clean cloths and then went to a room which was used as a dining hall. Going past the control room, they saw that Croomes' body had been removed. There were no bloodstains on the floor, and all the skeletons were gone.

  "Robots," Loga said. "I also sent one to take care of Gilgamesh's body."

  "I didn't see any robots," Frigate said.

  "You did, but they looked like large cabinets. Your beds are robots, too. They gently massage your muscles and manipulate your spinal cords."

  "I didn't feel anything when I awoke during the night," Burton said.

  "Nor I," Alice said.

  "They're very subtle and only operate automatically when you're asleep. But if you want a massage while awake, you command them. I'll show you how."

  Over the delicious breakfast, Alice told the others her thoughts about circumventing the computer with the very logic it used.

  Loga shook his head. "It sounds fine, but it won't work."

  "We can at least try," Alice said.

  "We'll try everything, mental or physical," Loga said. "But, believe me, I've thought of everything."

  "I don't doubt your intelligence," she said. "But nine heads are better than one."

  "The nine-headed dragon!" Tai-Peng shouted. His face was flushed; he'd been drinking wine throughout the meal.

  "I'll use one of the electronic computers in this room to set up a system," Loga said. "But it won't, I believe, be able to beat its own logic. A computer can calculate much faster than a human, if it has all the proper data. But it doesn't have an imagination. It's not creative. Still, its data might contain something I've overlooked. And it can be set to make combinations in a very short time which it would take me years to write out. Also, it does have some degree of extrapolation."

  After going to his apartment, he went to the control room and seated himself in the chair in the center of the revolving platform. In a very short time, he called to the others.

  "I couldn't resist asking the big computer how many wathans are now in the shaft."

  "How many?" Nur said.

  Loga looked at the screen again.

  "Eighteen billion and twenty-eight. No. Add three more."

  "Over half the people in The Valley," Frigate said. "Yes. Add two more now."

  Loga turned the display off.

  "For every hour that passes, more people die, more wathans are caught. When the computer dies . . ."

  His voice trailed off.

  The Ethical had to have great courage, endurance, determination, and quick wits to do all that he'd done. But his guilt was too crushing for even him.

  "Maybe," Turpin said, "you should throw in the towel. I mean . . . kill the computer now! That way, you won't lose any more, and you can continue the project."

  "No!" Loga said, showing fire for the first time since they'd known him. "No! That would be monstrous! I have to save all of them! All!"

  "Yes, and maybe you'll end up losing millions. Or maybe everybody on this planet."

  "No! I can't!"

  "Well," Turpin said, "I can't think of anything that'll help. This is all too deep for me."

  He left for the nearby lounge to play on its piano.

  "He's disgusted with me," Loga said. "But he doesn't know the loathing I feel for myself."

  "Recriminations will do no good!" Tai-Peng said, waving a bottle in his hand. "But Tom may be right! I think I'll go to the lounge and enjoy myself, too! My head aches with thinking!"

  "That isn't what's making it hurt," Alice said gently.

  Tai-Peng just grinned and kissed her quickly on the cheek as he passed her.

  Nur reminded the Ethical that he hadn't removed the bombs in the cabinets in the other control room.

  "I'll just lock the door," Loga said. "Now for the logic-versus-logic program. Even if it will be a waste of time."

  Those remaining went off to the language laboratory. The Ethical had given them instructions for the use of the equipment which would teach them to speak and read Gardenworldish or Ghuurrkh. There were also Esperanto-Ghuurrkhian grammars and dictionaries available.

  Alice clutched Burton's arm.

  "It is horrible, isn't it?" she said, her large dark eyes looking into his. "All those souls lost, and they had a chance for immortality! It's too horrible to think about!"

  "Then don't think about it," Burton said. "Anyway, even the lost ones will be immortal. They just won't know it, that's all."

  She s
huddered and said, "Yes. But we could be among them. Do you think you're Going On? I'd like to believe that I am, but you practically have to be a saint to Go On!"

  "Nobody has ever accused me of being a saint unless it was my wife," Burton said, grinning. "And she knew better."

  Alice wasn't fooled. She knew that he was as desperate as she.

  Two days passed. Loga ran out the results on the console screen while the others watched. When the display was ended, he shook his head.

  "No use."

  They conferred again and again and came up with many plans, but these were all dismissed because of flaws in logic or insurmountable facts.

  The fourth day after they'd come to the tower, Frigate leaped smiling into the room.

  "Hey, we're pretty dumb! The answer is right under our noses! Why don't you send robots in to insert the module?"

  Loga sighed.

  "I'd thought of that. It was one of the first things to occur to me. But even though the robots are made of charruzz (the gray metal), the computer's beamers will slice through them."

  Frigate looked disappointed and a little foolish.

  "Yes . . . but . . . if you send enough in, they'd knock out the beamers!"

  "None of the robots have the functional structure to shoot beamers."

  "Well, couldn't you convert them? And then program them?"

  "It would take me ten days. If I'd started when I first got here, I couldn't have altered one in time."

  He paused, then said dolefully, "I just checked on the time left before the computer dies. Five days!"

  Even though they'd been expecting such an announcement, they were shocked.

  Tom Turpin said, "At least we won't have that to worry about. The souls'll be gone, and there's nothing to do about it. But you can give those that're still alive a lot more time."

  Loga turned some dials and punched a button. Ghuurrkhian numbers glowed on the screen. The others were advanced enough by now to be able to read them.

  "Eighteen billion, one hundred and two," Aphra said.