“We sometimes referred to him as the Operator because he was head of the project and chief engineer of the biocomputer.”
“The computer which Spruce mentioned?” Burton said. “The giant protein computer?”
“Yes.”
“Spruce lied to us in other things, though,” Burton said. “He said he was born in the fifty-second century A.D. and that a sort of chronoscope was used to record the bodies of those who’d died.”
“We all had the same false stories if we should somehow get caught and were forced to talk. Of course, we could kill ourselves, but, if there was a chance of escaping, we’d stay alive. Anyway, when you questioned Spruce, Monat was present, and he led Spruce along, fed him the questions which had prepared answers.”
“We’ve figured that out,” Burton said.
“How do you record the dead?” Nur said.
“The wathans contain everything that the body contains. That is, the records of the body, including the brain, of course, and this recording is the basis for duplication of the body.”
“But.. .but,” Frigate said. “Then the duplicates, the resurrected, wouldn’t be the same as the dead model! They’d just be duplicates!”
“No. The wathan is the source and the seat of self-awareness. That is not a copy. The wathan leaves the dead body, takes its self-awareness with it. But it is unconscious, most of the time, anyway. There are some indications that, under certain conditions and for a brief time, the wathan may be conscious after leaving the body. But we don’t have enough evidence to state definitely that this can occur. This newly enfleshed wathan may be hallucinating.
“Anyway, the wathan furnishes all the data we need to make a new body, and then it attaches itself to the duplicate.”
Burton wondered how many times this information would have to be repeated to some of the group before it was finally accepted.
“Why did you decide to carry out your own project?” Nur said.
Loga grimaced.
“I’ll talk about that later.”
The planet was re-formed into a Rivervalley many millions of miles long. The tower and the underground chambers were constructed at the same time. The wathans were fed into the duplicate bodies made in the underground places. The physical defects of the bodies were rectified. Any metabolic disturbances were corrected. Dwarfs and midgets were given a normal height, but pygmies retained their original height. The wathans were attached to the bodies during this process, but the bodies had no self-awareness since the brains of the duplicates were kept unconscious. Nevertheless, the wathans were recording changes. Then, the duplicates were destroyed and, on general resurrection day, the bodies were duplicated again but along the banks of The River.
“My premature awakening in the chambers?” Burton said. “Was that an accident?”
“Not at all,” Loga said. “I was responsible for that. You were one of those I’d picked to help me in my plan—if it ever became necessary that I’d need your help. I caused you to be awakened so that at least one of the group would have some inkling of what was being done to you people. It would also fire your determination. You have a vast curiosity; you would never be satisfied until you got to the bottom of this mystery.”
“Yes, but when you visited us, you lied to us,” Nur said. “You told us you’d picked only twelve. As it’s turned out, you must have chosen many more than that.”
“In the first place, I wasn’t the only one who visited you. Sometimes, Tringu did. He was completely with me in my objections to some features of this project. He was the only one I could trust. I couldn’t even tell Siggen what I was doing.
“In the second place, I couldn’t limit the group to twelve. Chance alone was against that few ever getting to the tower, if I needed them for what I had in mind. So, I actually chose one hundred and_ twenty-four. I lied to you about the number because, if you were ever caught by my people, you’d not be revealing the full truth.
“That is also why I didn’t reveal everything to you and why I lied about some things. If you’d been caught and your memories were read, you’d not be able to give them the complete plan. And you’d have contradictory stories.
Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 163 164 165 166 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185 186 187 188 189 190 191 192 193 194 195 196 197 198 199 200 201