“Finish your squid shit,” she said.
Sandy pushed the plate away. “I’ll puke. Why?”
“Because I think you’re right. It’s time we told the others. Probably we should have said something a long time ago.”
They found Danchekker perched on a stool in the main lab, pondering some curves expressing the variation in programming complexity exhibited by sample populations of anquilocs—the peculiar Jevlenese flying animal that could inherit learned behavioral modifications. Apparently the anquiloc was just one of a family of related creatures with such abilities.
“Have you heard people argue that machine intelligence is superior to our kind because it builds up its knowledge base cumulatively?” he asked as they entered. Evidently he had been preoccupied in a line of thought and was bouncing it off the first targets to appear. “They see it as a crippling disadvantage that we have to spend a
quarter of our lives learning the same basics over and over with each generation, after which we use little, add less, and take most of it with us when we go.” The professor waved at the solid image of an anquiloc hanging in a flying posture above a bench top to one side. “But can you imagine what the consequences of an advanced development from that animal would be? One of the things about ourselves that we should be thankful for is that conditioning isn’t inheritable. After all the effort that was expended on turning virtually an entire generation into Nazi fanatics, their children were born as untainted by it as Eskimos. But think how much more insufferable fanatics would be if the process of indoctrination created its own gene. What would our friend Baumer give for a tool like that?” He turned fully on the stool and saw that Gina and Sandy were waiting to say something. “Anyway, ladies, what can I do for you?”
“I think we may have an answer to the question of what messed up the Jevlenese,” Gina said, coming straight to the point.
“We already have an answer,” Danchekker replied airily. “They’ve been stifled by millennia of well-intentioned overindulgence by the Thuriens, who made the mistake of thinking that humans are put together in the same way as themselves.”
“So you still don’t think it was JEVEX?”
Danchekker was in an expansive mood and not minded to give anyone a hard time. “Well, in a way I suppose you could say it was,” he conceded. “Although JEVEX was merely the instrument of the cause, not the cause itself, you understand. It provided all their needs, did all their thinking, took away their problems. But the Jevlenese, like any human, is a problem-solving animal. Take away his problems and he’ll promptly invent more; otherwise he’ll languish or resent you for denying him his nature. And that is precisely what we’re seeing the symptoms of. Time and patience are the only answers now, I’m afraid.”
“We don’t think so,” Sandy told him. “We think it could be something specifically to do with the way JEVEX operated.”
Danchekker extended his lanky frame over the back of the stool and looked mildly amused. “Oh, really? That’s most interesting. Do tell me why.”
“JEVEX is pretty much the same as VISAR, yes?” Gina began.
“Well, the Jevlenese system was programmed with different procedural rules and operating parameters.”
“I mean in terms of basic technology and capabilities.”
“Very well, yes.”
Gina pulled up another stool and slid onto it. Sandy remained standing by the bench. “Then let me ask you something, Professor,” Gina said. “How much have you used VISAR yourself?”
“Probably as much as anybody,” Danchekker replied. “I was one of the party that met the first Thurien craft to come to Earth, and nowadays I use it routinely in the course of my work.”
“Yes, but what do you use it for?” Gina persisted. “Describe the operations that it performs.”
Danchekker shrugged in a way that said he couldn’t see the point but would go along with it. “To access Thurien records and data; to confer with Thuriens, and also other Terrans who happen to be at locations connected into the system; and to ‘visit’ locations throughout the Thunen domain, for business reasons, social reasons, or out of pure curiosity. Does that answer you?”