He did that first week in May and I had to troubleshoot. I was a private contractor, not on Authority’s payroll. You see—or perhaps not; times have changed. Back in bad old days many a con served his time, then went on working for Authority in same job, happy to draw wages. But I was born free.
Makes difference. My one grandfather was shipped up from Joburg for armed violence and no work permit, other got transported for subversive activity after Wet Firecracker War. Maternal grandmother claimed she came up in bride ship–but I’ve seen records; she was Peace Corps enrollee (involuntary), which means what you think: juvenile delinquency female type. As she was in early clan marriage (Stone Gang) and shared six husbands with another woman, identity of maternal grandfather open to question. But was often so and I’m content with grandpappy she picked. Other grandmother was Tatar, born near Samarkand, sentenced to “re-education” on Oktyabrakaya Revolyutsiya, then “volunteered” to colonize in Luna.
My old man claimed we had even longer distinguished line–ancestress hanged in Salem for witchcraft, a g’g’g’greatgrandfather broken on wheel for piracy, another ancestress in first shipload to Botany Bay.
Proud of my ancestry and while I did business with Warden, would never go on his payroll. Perhaps distinction seems trivial since I was Mike’s valet from day he was unpacked. But mattered to me. I could down tools and tell them go to hell.
Besides, private contractor paid more than civil service rating with Authority. Computermen scarce. How many Loonies could go Earthside and stay out of hospital long enough for computer school?–even if didn’t die.
I’ll name one. Me. Had been down twice, once three months, once four, and got schooling. But meant harsh training, exercising in centrifuge, wearing weights even in bed–then I took no chances on Terra, never hurried, never climbed stairs, nothing that could strain heart. Women–didn’t even think about women; in that gravitational field it was no effort not to.
But most Loonies never tried to leave The Rock–too risky for any bloke who’d been in Luna more than weeks. Computermen sent up to install Mike were on short-term bonus contracts–get job done fast before irreversible physiologlcal change marooned them four hundred thousand kilometers from home.
But despite two training tours I was not gung-ho computerman; higher maths are beyond me. Not really electronics engineer, nor physicist. May not have been best micromachinist in Luna and certainly wasn’t cybernetics psychologist.
But I knew more about all these than a specialist knows–I’m general specialist. Could relieve a cook and keep orders coming or field-repair your suit and get you back to airlock still breathing. Machines like me and I have something specialists don’t have: my left arm.
You see, from elbow down I don’t have one. So I have a dozen left arms, each specialized, plus one that feels and looks like flesh. With proper left arm (number-three) and stereo loupe spectacles I could make untramicrominiature repairs that would save unhooking something and sending it Earthside to factory–for number-three has micromanipulators as fine as those used by neurosurgeons.
So they sent for me to find out why Mike wanted to give away ten million billion Authority Scrip dollars, and fix it before Mike overpaid somebody a mere ten thousand.
I took it, time plus bonus, but did not go to circuitry where fault logically should be. Once inside and door locked I put down tools and sat down. “Hi, Mike.”
He winked lights at me. “Hello, Man.”
“What do you know?”
He hesitated. I know–machines don’t hesitate. But remember, Mike was designed to operate on incomplete data. Lately he had reprogrammed himself to put emphasis on words; his hesitations were dramatic. Maybe he spent pauses stirring random numbers to see how they matched his memories.
“‘In the beginning,'” Mike intoned, “God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And–‘”
“Hold it!” I said. “Cancel. Run everything back to zero.” Should have known better than to ask wide-open question. He might read out entire Encyclopaedia Britannica. Backwards. Then go on with every book in Luna. Used to be he could read only microfilm, but late ’74 he got a new scanning camera with suction-cup waldoes to handle paper and then he read everything.