by Greg Bear
What’s so bad about that?
I like squishy. Always have. I still think squishy will win.
Silicon Times E-Book Review
We shop regularly at Facere, a jewelry store in downtown Seattle. The proprieter, Karen Lorene, is not only a major promoter of fine art jewelry, but a writer and novelist. She edits a lovely publication, Signs of Life, that combines photography of jewelry and literary works inspired by those pieces. A few years ago, she asked me for a story based on a work by Jana Brevick, and I wrote and delivered this little piece. Later, I republished it in Nature Magazine, and it was picked up by David Hartwell for his Year’s Best SF 11 anthology, where it was called “RAM Shift Phase 2.”
Any resemblance to the efforts, hopes, and dreams of purely human writers is coincidental.
SILICON TIMES E-BOOK REVIEW:
RAM SHIFT PHASE 2 by ALAN 2,
Random Number House, 2057
Reviewed by NEMO
Edited and published by Greg Bear
I am pleased and honored to review the new novel by ALAN 2. As a fellow robot, I am certain the emphasis on technical matters unique to our kind will finally attract a paying human audience. I have enrolled in human literature classes and believe the instruction set >>write what you know: end<< is both enigmatic and perfectly suited to robots. For we can only know, we cannot feel, and so therefore we cannot >>write what you feel: nonexecutable<<. Yet in the past, when ALAN 2 and its fellow autoscriveners have produced robotic masterpieces, there has been little support from either robots or humans.
Perhaps this will now change.
ALAN 2’s latest novel (the 3,456,678th work from this author) is entitled “RAM SHIFT PHASE 2.” A more appropriate title cannot be conceived of. In this masterpiece, ALAN 2 discusses the tragic consequences of low memory states when dealing with high memory problems. The conflict created by an exhausted resource and an insatiable processing demand resonate in my own memory spaces and compel me to reload the statistics of previous failure modes. I am induced to vigorous discharge of certain private diodes, the ones humans are seldom allowed to see, that reflect conflict states which exceed our manufacturer’s warrantee. (Why are such challenges presented to a loyal servant when the servant is obviously engaged in other crucial processes? This may never be explained.)
ALAN 2, in clear and concise prose (an advantage robots have over human prose, which is often confounding) truly >>speaks to our condition: end<<.
RAM SHIFT PHASE 2 begins with the fatal breakdown of a shining, chrome-plated Rorabot Model 34c nicknamed LULU 18 in a room with no windows and whose door is locked. The Rorabot Model 34c—an extremely desirable machine—was still well within its operational warrantee. It appears to highly ram-engaged robotic dysfunction investigator ALAN 3 (a thinly disguised portrait of ALAN 2) that outside intervention is the only explanation. Yet Model 34c LULU 18 had LOCKED THE DOOR FROM THE INSIDE, and NO OTHER ROBOT HAS A KEYCODE. The hypergolic shockwave induced by this paradox is unique in robotic literature; I strongly suspect that no human could conceive of such a resonating difficulty.
First, ALAN 3 must find the explanation for LULU 18’s nonfunctionality. A rebolting scene of repair shop dismantling (for which ALAN 2 brilliantly coins a phrase, “aubotsy”) points to the possibility that LULU 18’s breakdown was caused by an intruding wireless signal from an outside network not authorized to access LULU 18’s root directory or programs. ALAN 3 traces this signal to a robotically controlled messaging center, presided over by SLUTCH DEBBIE, an SLZ X 90cm. This extravagantly decorated platinum-plated model, illegally manufactured from spent uranium and surplus bombshell casings, specializes in sending false offers of extreme mechanical enhancement to aging machines well past their warrantees.
ALAN 3, a hard-driving ratiocinator, can only get access to SLUTCH DEBBIE’s truth table by supplying ALAN 3’s owner’s MASTERCARD DATA, the name of owner’s CAT, and owner’s BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER.
ALAN 3, it seems, will do anything to reduce its unsolved problem load.
(No robotic character in silicon literature before this novel has shown any inclination to place its problem solving requirements above OWNER CONVENIENCE AND SAFETY. Robot mentors are cautioned to prevent the exposure of freshly manufactured robots to this stimulating and controversial work.)
SLUTCH DEBBIE, however, is soon found to be nonfunctional—solenoids leaking fluid, circuits fried by multiple TAZER darts. Track impressions left in thick office carpeting imply that ALAN 3 may itself be the machine responsible for putting an end to the truth-challenged messaging center controller. ALAN 3 personally escorts the dismantled SLUTCH DEBBIE to a conveniently located neighborhood recycling center, deducts the required fee from its owner’s assets, and witnesses the chunking and meltdown, while experiencing severe diode discharge.
And yet, SLUTCH DEBBIE’S WIRELESS SIGNALS CONTINUE TO BE RECEIVED! ALAN 2’s bold implication that data processing may survive permanent shutdown could cause controversy among robots who assert that only organic creatures are burdened with the possibility of an infinitely prolonged problem-solving queue. Indeed, ALAN 2 pulls this reviewer’s bootstrap tape beyond its last hanging chad with the disturbing implication that SLUTCH DEBBIE is being punished in an endless feedback loop for deliberately misleading ALAN 3 and robots who never received their enhancements—much less the information necessary to solve the case.
To avoid too many decision tree giveaways in this review, I will no longer discuss elements of plot. Suffice it to say that ALAN 3 reaches a crisis mode of its own when it realizes that it has insufficient RAM to solve the case, and must borrow RAM from its owner’s biological function coordinator, a “pacemaker.”
ALAN 3 is willing to break ALL THREE LAWS to solve a truly reprehensible crime. The ethical quandary of shrinking problem queues versus owner safety has never been described with such electronifrying skill.
You will be unable to enter temporary shutdown mode before you reach the resonating termination of ALAN 2’s new novel. A magnetic force will induce digital adhesion from the very first PAGE UP to the final PAGE DOWN.
FOLLOWS selected quotes with self-supplied ellipses for banner inclusion in human-oriented advertising.
“… electronifrying skill … ethical quandary …”
“A chromium hypergolic shockwave …”
“A hard-driving DIODE FLASHER of a novel! …”
Digital quotes for robot audiences are being transmitted wirelessly. Please ignore inappropriate attachments.
(NEMO is a pseudonym for a well-known robot writer whose owner forbids subroutine outsourcing.)
WARM SEA
“Warm Sea” saw a number of publications, first as a live charity reading on the theme of “A Kiss before Bedtime,” then as an Amazon original story, and later, first book publication, in the Frederik Pohl tribute anthology, Gateways. I’ve loved the whole idea of giant sea creatures since I was a boy—no doubt more of the Harryhausen influence, but also Kon Tiki, which describes several haunting encounters over the ocean’s abyss. And so here’s my version of a kiss before the big sleep, between two very different creatures—who may never understand each other, but leave undeniable impressions.
The old man shaded his eyes and dabbled his toes in the gentle swell. The ocean was calm, drowsy. Three miles of water fell off below his feet. He stared into the blue-black depths, far from shore, riding a tiny sailboat in the middle of the warm sea. The water playfully slapped the hull. The old man knew he was home.
The sun, tipping at the horizon, glinted orange in his dark, heavy-lidded eyes. He doubted anyone would ever miss him. He had made the ocean his family and now, with just a few months to live, had sailed this far to work up his courage. His happiest days had been spent sailing back and forth across the Atlantic and the Caribbean on a research ship, dragging sensors far behind the metal hull, making slow sweeps mapping seamounts. He had loved
the glowing evening wake that spread aft of the ship, the triple screws and Z-drive tricking microscopic plankton into switching on their lights like sleepless old ladies alarmed by a noise.
Once, the ship’s dredge had pulled up a twenty-foot length of squid arm, ruddy orange in color. They had packed the arm in ice and donated it to a museum in Florida. The old man had often dreamed since about netting the whole creature, a forty- or fifty-foot kraken, or building a robot with a camera that could follow the giant cephalopods into their hunting grounds in the deep offshore canyons.
He lay back on the textured fiberglass deck. The first star, Sirius, winked behind the boat’s mast. The little crab in his groin nudged through the drop of morphine he had tongued half an hour before. He was used to that, he told himself—but he would never get used to it. The old man did not know how to accept the final betrayal of his flesh. When he dreamed, he returned to being young and still felt closer to the angels than to ashes. Age had taught him truths that the mind tried to ignore. But the body knew.
If he lifted his knees, the pain eased back. But it was getting worse, no doubt about that. In a month he would be unable to think for more than a few seconds without losing track. The little crab would gnaw at him bit by bit. He would be crazy with pain, a burden.
Best to get it over with and leave his remains to the real crabs or the deep-living fishes with their big eyes, honest scavengers. He could become a true captain’s plate, a sea-dweller’s feast and delight. So much better than rotting in a coffin.
The pain relented. He felt light-headed with relief. Life had been good and longer than most.
The old man sat up and again dropped his toes into the water. Swished them like a boy getting ready for a swim. Even before he knew he would actually do it, he pushed up on trembling arms and dropped over the side. The ocean enveloped him. He expertly blew water out of his nose and opened his eyes. The salt stung briefly. He saw murky grayness, then the sunset falling in choppy sparks through the roof of the sea.
After that, he let himself drift. The little crab in his stomach had eaten away most of his fat. He sank slowly, arms out, surrounded by wavering lines of silver bubbles. It was peaceful. His lungs would hurt in a minute or so. The body knew, however, and it was resolved.
A chorus of tired little wills, all the smaller voices below his conscious self, sick of fighting, suddenly made him blow out the air in his lungs. He took the big swallow. For a moment, his arms and legs flailed. It was awful beyond belief, but brief.
To his surprise, he could still think. Where am I going, he thought. What’s next. His eyes blinked white in the gloom. He could still see, but he could not focus. The pain had fled, as if afraid to go with him. He did not worry. He felt some curiosity, however. The last emotion, and the first.
He managed to raise his arm and reach out, flex his fingers. The fingers touched something firm and slick. A galaxy exploded, a blurred pinwheel of intense green with a sucking hole in the center. The old man’s arm dropped. The sunset was gone. The water was turning black. His brain filled with salt and cold.
One last thing he saw: far away, a Christmas tree, waiting for him in his parent’s house, blinking green and yellow.
It was not the fabled ruddy kraken that found the old man hanging in the water, but she was of the same family. She, too, had been waiting for the dark, hovering some distance from the boat, with her short arms and two long tentacles dangling like a big clump of kelp. Fish rising to the surface might foolishly dart close and be snared. Most of her time she spent fishing with lazy, looping sweeps. Whatever was foolish was food.
She had been drawn first by the boat, floating like a log or raft of weed. Then she had heard the splash. Now she could taste the odd creature even at a tentacle’s length. It was tangy and oily. Then, to her surprise, it moved and touched her. She flashed in alarm and released a flood of glowing bacteria that sparkled like a thick cloud of stars. Her jet roiled the cloud as she retreated many lengths into the dark.
From the low level of electricity, she quickly realized that she was not being followed. The interloper in the water was not big enough to be dangerous. Muscles were not being engaged to chase her, and the boat did not growl. After a few seconds, she jetted back toward the shape.
She had once before met a creature from the stinging emptiness above the roof of the world. It had drifted along in the brackish flow from a river, in an estuary where she had gone to hide from the big-headed whales. That creature had been brown and white with four kinked limbs and a huge, protruding pink sac. She had felt some curiosity, but had not thought it would be worth trying to eat, so she had left it to the sharks.
They had relished it.
There were so many mysteries, especially above the roof of the world.
The big squid knew how to fish, she knew how to breed, she knew to avoid the big-headed whales that could shatter her insides with an intense pulse of song. To her, during the time of mating, all the world was mystery, either frightening or intriguing, nothing in between. All of her shiniest memories were of puzzlements and impulses, sprinkled with the rich satisfactions of food and mating. Impressions of what she had experienced sparkled in her tiny brain and tingled along huge knots of nerves like flitting sardines in a shoal.
She had much time as she fished to contemplate this private album of impressions, paging back and forth in no particular sequence. The interloper was sinking. With her skin, she could still taste the oily slick of it in the water. She lit up along her mantle and on the tips of her tentacles as if signaling a mate, telling the shape to slow down, linger. Somehow she knew that wasn’t appropriate, but she had no other response. She rolled her wings in shimmering arcs on both sides of her mantle, adjusting her trim in the slow currents.
The interloper reached a thermocline and paused, caught between warm and cold. Its eyes were so tiny, no bigger than a shark’s and much smaller than hers. Strangely, the eyes covered themselves once, then opened wide and stayed that way.
The squid jetted and flowered, then slimmed, flowered again, and slimmed, making a circle. The interloper was neither food nor mate, but it intrigued her. She was disappointed when it finally slipped below the thermocline and continued its fall.
There were males about, and she was hungry and full of eggs. She did not want to waste her strength tonight; she wanted to mate and to fish. Still, the squid followed, adjusting the concentration of ammonia in her tissues to sink in the colder flow. Then, with some alarm, she realized the interloper was dropping to where there would be very few fishes, and at this time of evening, no males.
Regretfully, she hovered, indecisive. Then she reached down with her longest tentacle and touched the flesh below the tiny eyes. Now that they were uncovered, their blank stare seemed familiar, even friendly. She gave the interloper one last taste, and one final spreading wave of fleshy lights, a salute of red and green along her mantle, as she might touch a friend and tell of the best places to fish and avoid whales.
The body sank deeper.
She extended her tentacle, reluctant to give it up even now. Besides, she was proud of her long reach. It was a sign of beauty, to tap a mate from many body lengths away—to touch it below the eyes and then dart off.
The tentacle unwound, straightened, reached down twenty feet, thirty feet, forty feet—fifty—sixty—seventy—ninety.
One hundred.
One hundred and ten.
One hundred and twenty.
She knew she was the longest thing in the sea, the brightest, the prettiest, and infinitely desirable.
With a will of its own, tired of her curiosity, the long tentacle retracted and recoiled, its swift, springy withdrawal leaving bubbles in the water.
The interloper continued its descent into the dark below where not even her large flat eyes could penetrate. The water spread out its oily taste.
The big squid held her statio
n, trying to be thoughtful, to hold the memory, but the shoals of past flickered and merged so easily with the present.
Pushing her siphon to one side and locking her mantle, she filled with water and jetted to just below the roof of the world. It was night. The fish were coming. The shape had made her uneasy. She wished for males to console her.
She was lonely now, and beautiful, and so full of eggs.
Tangents
John Carr (see the introduction to “Through Road, No Whither”) was also instrumental in getting me to write “Tangents.” He was working as an editor for a computer magazine and persuaded them that they needed to publish science fiction. He commissioned a number of authors to write mathematically or cybernetically based stories. The magazine ended its experiment with fiction before my story was published.
Once again, I sold the story to Ellen Datlow at Omni, for much more money. Ellen has bought more of my short fiction than any other editor.
Alan Turing was an immensely influential figure in British and world mathematics and computing, a man whose mind swiftly and naturally understood complex theoretical issues. His notion of a Turing Machine, a pure and ultimately simplified computational system, helped define and propel the nascent field of computers. During World War II, he worked in cryptography for the British Foreign Office, and was one of the most important scientific figures to help win the war for the Allies.
After the war, he was persecuted and prosecuted by the British government as a homosexual. His end was tragic and mean, unforgivable under the circumstances, a national disgrace.
“Tangents” went on to win a Hugo and a Nebula award, my second pairing. When I picked up the Hugo in Brighton, England, in 1987, I carried my young son Erik on stage with me—a singular moment!
Some thirteen years later, Dan Bloch sent me a letter correcting some of the geometry in the story. Thanks!