“You keep saying ‘official number.’ Why?”
“I have incomplete data which might be relevant. Let me state them before advancing even tentative conclusions. Nominally the Security Officer’s department aside from clerks consists only of the bodyguard. But I handle payrolls for Authority Complex and twenty-seven is not the number of personnel charged against the Security Department.”
Prof nodded. “Company spies.”
“Hold it, Prof. Who are these other people?”
Mike answered, “They are simply account numbers, Man. I conjecture that the names they represent are in the Security Chiefs data storage location.”
“Wait, Mike. Security Chief Alvarez uses you for files?”
“I conjecture that to be true, since his storage location is under a locked retrieval signal.”
I said, “Bloody,” and added, “Prof, isn’t that sweet? He uses Mike to keep records, Mike knows where they are–can’t touch ’em!”
“Why not, Manuel?”
Tried to explain to Prof and Wyoh sorts of memory a thinkum has–permanent memories that can’t be erased because patterns be logic itself, how it thinks; short-term memories used for current programs and then erased like memories which tell you whether you have honeyed coffee; temporary memories held long as necessary–milliseconds, days, years–but erased when no longer needed; permanently stored data like a human being’s education–but learned perfectly and never forgotten–though may be condensed, rearranged, relocated, edited–and last but not finally, long lists of special memories ranging from memoranda files through very complex special programs, and each location tagged by own retrieval signal and locked or not, with endless possibilities on lock signals: sequential, parallel, temporal, situational, others.
Don’t explain computers to laymen. Simpler to explain sex to a virgin. Wyoh couldn’t see why, if Mike knew where Alvarez kept records, Mike didn’t trot over and fetch.
I gave up. “Mike, can you explain?”
“I will try, Man. Wyoh, there is no way for me to retrieve locked data other than through external programming. I cannot program myself for such retrieval; my logic structure does not permit it. I must receive the signal as an external input.”
“Well, for Bog’s sake, what is this precious signal?”
“It is,” Mike said simply, “‘Special File Zebra'”–and waited.
“Mike!” I said. “Unlock Special File Zebra.” He did, and stuff started spilling out. Had to convince Wyoh that Mike hadn’t been stubborn. He hadn’t–he almost begged us to tickle him on that spot. Sure, he knew signal. Had to. But had to come from outside, that was how he was built.
“Mike, remind me to check with you all special-purpose locked-retrieval signals. May strike ice other places.”
“So I conjectured, Man.”
“Okay, we’ll get to it later. Now back up and go over this stuff slowly–and, Mike, as you read out, store again, without erasing, under Bastille Day and tag it ‘Fink File.’ Okay?”
“Programmed and running.”
“Do that with anything new he puts in, too.”
Prime prize was list of names by warrens, some two hundred, each keyed with a code Mike identified with those blind pay accounts.
Mike read out Hong Kong Luna list and was hardly started when Wyoh gasped, “Stop, Mike! I’ve got to write these down!”
I said, “Hey! No writing! What’s huhu?”
“That woman, Sylvia Chiang, is comrade secretary back home! But– But that means the Warden has our whole organization!”
“No, dear Wyoming,” Prof corrected. “It means we have his organization.”
“But–”
“I see what Prof means,” I told her. “Our organization is just us three and Mike. Which Warden doesn’t know. But now we know his organization. So shush and let Mike read. But don’t write; you have this list–from Mike–anytime you phone him. Mike, note that Chiang woman is organization secretary, former organization, in Kongville.”
“Noted.”
Wyoh boiled over as she heard names of undercover finks in her town but limited herself to noting facts about ones she knew. Not all were “comrades” but enough that she stayed riled up. Novy Leningrad names didn’t mean much to us; Prof recognized three, Wyoh one. When came Luna City Prof noted over half as being “comrades.” I recognized several, not as fake subversives but as acquaintances. Not friends– Don’t know what it would do to me to find someone I trusted on boss fink’s payroll. But would shake me.