“No. Too late to grieve.”
“It’s never too late for grief. I’ve grieved every instant since you told me. But I locked it in the back of my mind for the Cause leaves no time for grief. Mannie, if it would have bought freedom for Luna–or even been part of the price–I would have eliminated Shorty myself. Or you. Or myself. And yet you have qualms over blowing up a computer!”
“Not that at all!” (But was, in part. When a man dies, doesn’t shock me too much; we get death sentences day we are born. But Mike was unique and no reason not to be immortal. Never mind “souls”–prove Mike did not have one. And if no soul, so much worse. No? Think twice,)
“Wyoming, what would happen if we blew up Mike? Tell.”
“I don’t know precisely. But it would cause a great deal of confusion and that’s exactly what we–”
“Seal it. You don’t know. Confusion, da. Phones out. Tubes stop running. Your town not much hurt; Kong Kong has own power. But L-City and Novylen and other warrens all power stops. Total darkness. Shortly gets stuffy. Then temperature drops and pressure. Where’s your p-suit?”
“Checked at Tube Station West.”
“So is mine. Think you can find way? In solid dark? In time? Not sure I can and I was born in this warren. With corridors filled with screaming people? Loonies are a tough mob; we have to be–but about one in ten goes off his cams in total dark. Did you swap bottles for fresh charges or were you in too much hurry? And will suit be there with thousands trying to find p-suits and not caring who owns?”
“But aren’t there emergency arrangements? There are in Hong Kong Luna.”
“Some. Not enough. Control of anything essential to life should be decentralized and paralleled so that if one machine fails, another takes over. But costs money and as you pointed out, Authority doesn’t care. Mike shouldn’t have all jobs. But was cheaper to ship up master machine, stick deep in The Rock where couldn’t get hurt, then keep adding capacity and loading on jobs–did you know Authority makes near as much gelt from leasing Mike’s services as from trading meat and wheat? Does. Wyoming, not sure we would lose Luna City if Mike were blown up. Loonies are handy and might jury-rig till automation could be restored. But I tell you true: Many people would die and rest too busy for politics.”
I marveled it. This woman had been in The Rock almost all her life. . . yet could think of something as new-choomish as wrecking engineering controls. “Wyoming, if you were smart like you are beautiful, you wouldn’t talk about blowing up Mike; you would think about how to get him on your side.”
“What do you mean?” she said. “The Warden controls the computers.”
“Don’t know what I mean,” I admitted. “But don’t think Warden controls computers–wouldn’t know a computer from a pile of rocks. Warden, or staff, decides policies, general plans. Half-competent technicians program these into Mike. Mike sorts them, makes sense of them, plans detailed programs, parcels them out where they belong, keeps things moving. But nobody controls Mike; he’s too smart. He carries out what is asked because that’s how he’s built. But he’s selfprogramming logic, makes own decissions. And a good thing, because if he weren’t smart, system would not work.”
“I still don’t see what you mean by ‘getting him on our side.'”
“Oh. Mike doesn’t feel loyalty to Warden. As you pointed out: He’s a machine. But if I wanted to foul up phones without touching air or water or lights, I would talk to Mike. If it struck him funny, he might do it.”
“Couldn’t you just program it? I understood that you can get into the room where he is.”
“If I–or anybody–programmed such an order into Mike without talking it over with him, program would be placed in ‘hold’ location and alarms would sound in many places. But if Mike wanted to–” I told her about cheque for umpteen jillion. “Mike is still finding himself, Wyoh. And lonely. Told me I was ‘his only friend’–and was so open and vulnerable I wanted to bawl. If you took pains to be his friend, too–without thinking of him as ‘just a machine’–well, not sure what it would do, haven’t analyzed it. But if I tried anything big and dangerous, would want Mike in my corner.”