Alongside Bover’s scowling face, my secretary program’s appeared. She looked like a cartoon of the Good Angel whispering into Bover’s ear, but actually what she was saying was for me: “Sixty seconds until Mr. Herter’s reminder,” she said.
I had forgotten that old Peter had given us another of his two hour notices. I said to Bover, “It’s time to button up for Peter Herter’s next jab,” and hung up-I didn’t really care if he remembered, I only wanted to terminate the conversation. Not much buttoning up was involved. It was thoughtful-no, it was orderly-of old Peter to warn us each time, and then to perform so punctually. But it mattered more to airline pilots and automobus’s than to stay-at-homes like me.
There was Essie, however. I looked in to make sure she was not actually being perfused or catheterized or fed. She wasn’t.
She was asleep-quite normally asleep, with her dark-gold hair spilling all around her, and gently snoring. And on the way back to my comfortable console chair I felt Peter in my mind.
I had become quite a connoisseur of invasions of the mind. It wasn’t any special skill. The whole human race had, over a dozen years, ever since the fool kid, Wan, began his trips to the Food Factory. His were the worst, because they lasted so long and because he shared his dreams with us. Dreams have power; dreams are a kind of released insanity. By contrast, the one light touch we’d had from Janine Herter was nothing, and Peter Herter’s precise two-minute doses no worse than a traffic light- you stop a minute, and wait impatiently until it is over, and then you go on your way. All I ever felt from Peter was the way he felt-sometimes the gut-griping of age, sometimes hunger or thirst, once the fading, angry sexual lust of an old man all by himself. As I sat down I remember telling myself that this time was nothing at all. More than anything else, it was like having a little dizzy spell, too much crouching in one position, when you stand up you have to pause a moment until it goes away. But it didn’t go away. I felt the blurriness of seeing things with two sets of eyes at once, and the inarticulate anger and unhappiness of the old man-no words; just a sort of tone, as though someone were whispering what I could not quite hear.
It kept on not going away. The blurriness increased. I began to feel detached and almost delirious. That second vision, that is never sharp and clear, began to show things I had never seen before. Not real things. Fantasy things. Women with beaks like birds of prey. Great glittering metal monsters rolling across the inside of my eyelids. Fantasies. Dreams.
The two-minute measured dose of reminder had gone off track. The son of a bitch had fallen asleep in the cocoon.
Thank God for the insomnia of old men! It didn’t last eight hours, not much more than one.
But they were sixty-odd unpleasant minutes. When I felt the unwanted dreams slide tracelessly out of my mind, and was sure they were gone, I ran to Essie’s room. She was wide awake, leaning back against the pillows. “Am all right, Robin,” she said at once. “Was an interesting dream. Nice change from my own.”
“I’ll kill the old bastard,” I said.
Essie shook her head, grinning up at me. “Not practical,” she said.
Well, maybe it wasn’t. But as soon as I had satisfied myself that Essie was all right, I called for Albert Einstein: “I want advice. Is there anything that can be done to stop Peter Herter?”
He scratched his nose.
“You mean by direct action, I assume. No, Robin. Not by any means available now.”
“I don’t want to be told that! There must be something!”
“Sure thing, Robin,” he said slowly, “but I think you’re asking the wrong program. Indirect measures might work. As I understand it, you have some legal questions unresolved. If you could resolve them, you might be able to meet Herter’s demands and stop him that way.”
“I’ve tried that! It’s the other way around, damn it! If I could get Herter to stop, then maybe I could get Gateway Corp to give me back control. Meanwhile he’s screwing up everybody’s mind, and I want it stopped! Isn’t there some kind of interference we could broadcast?”
Albert sucked his pipe. “I don’t think so, Rob,” he said at last. “I don’t have a great deal to go on.”
That startled me. “You don’t remember what it feels like?”
“Robin,” he said patiently, “I don’t feel anything. It is important for you to remember that I am only a computer program. And not the right program, really, to discuss the exact nature of the signals from Mr. Herter-your psychoanalytic program might be more helpful. Analytically I know what happened-I have all the measurements of the radiation involved. Experientially, nothing. Machine intelligence is not affected. Every human being experienced something, I know because there are reports to say so. There is evidence that the larger-brained mammals-primates, dolphins, elephants-were also disturbed; and maybe other mammals were too, although the evidence is sketchy. But I have not experienced it directly. . . . As to broadcasting an interfering pattern, yes, perhaps that could be done. But what would be the effect, Robin? Bear in mind that the interfering signal would come from a nearby point, not one twenty-five light-days away; if Mr. Herter can cause some disorientation, what would a random signal do at close range?”
“It would be bad, I guess.”
“Sure thing, Robin. Probably worse than you guess, but I could not say without experimentation. The subjects would have to be human beings, and such experiments I cannot undertake.”
Over my shoulder Essie’s voice said proudly, “Yes, you exactly cannot, as who would know better than I?”
She had come up behind me without a sound, barefoot in the thick rug. She wore a neck-to-ankle robe and her hair was done up in a turban. “Essie, what the hell are you doing out of bed?” I demanded.
“My bed has become excessively tedious,” she said, kneading my ear in her fingers, “especially occupied alone. Do you have plans for this evening, Robin? Because, if invited, I would like to share yours.”
“But-“ I said, and, “Essie-“ I said, and what I wanted to say was either “You shouldn’t be doing this yet!” or “Not in front of the computer!” She didn’t give me a chance to decide which. She leaned down to press her cheek against mine, perhaps so that I might feel how round and full it had once again become.
“Robin,” she said sunnily, “I am far more well than you believe. You may ask the doctor, if you wish. She will tell you how very rapidly I have healed.” She turned her head to kiss me quickly and added, “I have some affairs of my own for the next few hours. Please continue chatting with your program until then. I am sure Albert has many interesting things to tell you, isn’t that so, Albert?”
“Sure thing, Mrs. Broadhead,” the program agreed, puffing cheerfully on his pipe.
“So, then. It’s settled.” She patted my cheek and turned away, and I have to say that as she walked back to her room she did not in the least look unwell. The robe was not tight, but it was shaped to her body, and the shape of her body was really fine. I could not believe that the wadding of bandage all along her left side was gone, but there was no sign of it.
Behind me, my science program coughed. I turned back, and he was puffing on his pipe, his eyes twinkling.
“Your wife is looking very well, Robin,” he said, nodding judiciously.
“Sometimes, Albert,” I said, “I don’t know just how anthropomorphic you are. Well. What very interesting things do you want to tell me about?”
“Whatever you want to hear, Robin. Shall I continue on the subject of Peter Herter? There are some other possibilities, such as the abort mode. That is, setting aside for the moment the legal complications, it would be possible to command the shipboard computer, known as ‘Vera’, to explode the fuel tanks on the orbital craft.”
“Hell it would! We’d destroy the greatest treasure we’ve ever found!”
“Sure thing, Robin, and it’s even worse than that. The chance of an external explosion damaging the installation Mr. Herter is using is quite small. It might only anger him. Or strand him there, to do as he chooses, as long as he lives.”
“Forget it! Don’t you have anything good to tell me about?”
“As a matter of fact, Robin,” he grinned, “I do. We’ve found our Rosetta stone.” He shrank away to a dwindling spray of colored flecks and disappeared. As a luminous spindle-shaped mass of lavender color replaced him in the tank, he said, “That is the image of the beginning of a book.”