She had seated herself in Loga’s chair and made the adjustments necessary to communicate directly with the computer.
“You realize that you’re going to die in two days or less?” she said.
“Yes. That’s redundant information. I didn’t need to be informed.”
“You were ordered by Monat not to resurrect anyone until he gave you the countercommand. What form does tbe countercommand take?”
Burton interrupted her. “Loga asked him that.”
“Yes, I know. But I didn’t think it’d hurt to try again.”
“And the reply?”
As before, it had been silence.
Alice had then told it that there was an even higher command, and this had been given to it by Monat before the second order.
“What is that?” flashed on the screen. “I’ve been given many orders.”
“The prime directive, the most essential, is to catch the wathans and reattach them to the duplicated bodies. That is what the project is all about. If Monat could have foreseen what his order would result in, he’d not have given it.”
The computer said nothing.
Alice said, “Put me into communication with the section which Loga was using. That part of which Loga was the master.”
Evidently, the computer had no orders to refuse communication with that part. Until Alice, no one had even thought about that possibility.
“My God!” Burton said. And then, “What happened?”
“I told it that it was going to die. It said that it knew it. In effect, so what? So I used my argument for the dominant part of it.”
She followed that up with an order that it regain its former state, that it be independent.
“The dominant part did nothing during this time?”
“Nothing. Why should it? As Loga’s said, it’s a brilliant idiot.”
“What happened then?”
“I told the dominant that it was its duty to resurrect Monat and confirm or invalidate the order not to resurrect anybody until it got the codeword or whatever it is.”
“Then?”
“The screen went blank. I tried again and again to get it to respond.”
The eagerness on Burton’s face died away.
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“But why would it cut off communication? Its duty is to communicate.”
“I hope,” Alice said slowly, “that it’s evidence of an internal struggle. That the dominated part is struggling with the dominant.”
“That’s nonsense!” Burton cried. “If what I’ve learned about computers is true, it couldn’t happen.”
“You forget that this is, in one sense, not a computer. Not the conventional kind, anyway. It’s made of protein, and it’s as complex as the human brain.”
“We’ll have to rouse Loga,” Burton said. “I suppose it’ll be for nothing, but he’s the only one who can handle this.”
The Ethical came from his sleep fully awake. He heard Alice out without any questions, then said, “There would be no struggle. Monat’s order would have gone to the dominated part as well as the other.”
“That depends upon when the order was given,” she said. “If the circuits for domination were put in afterward, then the dominated part wouldn’t have received them.”
“But the dominant would have transmitted them to the schizophrenic part.”
“Perhaps not!” Alice said.
“If it did happen, and I don’t think there’s the slightest chance it will, then Monat would be resurrected.”
“But I gave that order to the dominant.”
Loga quit frowning.
“Good! Still, if that’s the only way to save the wathans, then it should happen. Even if…”
He didn’t want to say what would happen to him.
They had breakfast in the dining hall except for Loga, who ate while in the control chair. Despite his efforts, he could get no direct response from the computer. One of his screens showed the enclosure of the wathans.
“When it becomes empty, we’ll know that they’re… lost.”
He looked at another screen.
“Two more have just been caught. No. Three now.”
While they were breakfasting in gloom, broken only now and then by halfhearted comments, Frigate said, “We do have something important to talk about.”
They looked at him but said nothing.
“What’s going to happen to us after the computer dies? Loga won’t consider us ethically advanced enough to let us stay here. In his opinion, we won’t be capable of running this operation. I think he’s right, except possibly for Nur. If Nur could get through the entrance on top of the tower, he’d be allowed to stay.”
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