[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
now is a matter of definition.
You might ask the same question-" puff, pull, "about me."
"Huh." I thought for a minute. "Why are they so crazy?"
"Imperfect transcription, I would say. But that is not the important thing." I
waited until he drew on his pipe to get ready to tell me the important thing.
"It seems rather sure, Robin, that the transcription occurred by some sort of
chemical readout of the actual brains of the prospectors."
"You mean the Heechee killed them and poured their brains into a bottle?"
"Certainly not, Robin! First, I would hazard the opinion that the prospectors
died naturally rather than being killed. That would degrade the chemistry of
brain storage and contribute to the degradation of the information. And
certainly not into a bottle! Into some sort of chemical analogs, perhaps. But
the point is, how did this happen to be?"
I groaned. "Do you want me to abolish your program, Al? I could get all this
quicker from straight visual synoptics."
"Sure thing you could, Robin, but not," he twinkled, "perhaps, as
entertainingly. At any rate, the question is, how did the Heechee happen to
have equipment to read out a human brain?
Think about it, Robin. It seems very improbable that the chemistry of the
Heechee would be the same as the chemistry of a human being. Close, yes. We
know that from general considerations, e.g., what they breathed and ate.
Fundamentally their chemistry was not unlike ours. But peptides are quite
complex molecules. It seems most unlikely that a compound which represents,
e.g., the ability to play a Stradivarius well, or even toilet-training, would
be the same in their chemistry as in ours." He started to relight his pipe,
then caught my eye and added hurriedly, "So I
conclude, Robin, that these machines were designed not for Heechee brains."
He startled me. "For humans, then? But why? How? How did they know? When-"
"Please, Robin. At your instructions, your wife has programmed me to make
large deductions
file:///F|/rah/Frederik%20Pohl/Pohl,%20Frederi...0-%20Beyond%20The%20Blue%20Ev
ent%20Horizon.txt (35 of 121) [1/15/03 6:32:55 PM]
file:///F|/rah/Frederik%20Pohl/Pohl,%20Frederik%20-%20Heechee%202%20-%20Beyond
%20The%20Blue%20Event%20Horizon.txt from small data. Therefore I cannot defend
all that I say. But," he added, nodding sagely, "I have this opinion, yes."
"Jesus," I said. He did not seem to want to add anything to that, so I tucked
it away and went on to the next worry. "What about the Old Ones? Are they
human, do you think?"
He tapped his pipe out and reached for the tobacco pouch. "I would say not,"
he said at last.
I didn't ask him what the alternative was. I didn't want to hear it.
When Albert had run himself dry for the moment, I told Harriet to put my legal
program on.
I couldn't talk to him right away, though, because right then my dinner came
up and the waiter was a human being. He wanted to ask me how I had got through
the fever, so that he could tell me how he had, and that took time. But at
last I sat down in front of the holo tank, sliced into my chicken steak and
said, "Go ahead, Morton, what's the bad news?"
He said apologetically, "You know that Bover suit?"
Page 47
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
"What Bover suit?"
"Trish Bover's husband. Or widower, depending on how you look at it. We filed
the appearance, only unfortunately the judge had a bad attack of the fever
and- Well. He is wrong in the law, Robin, but he denied our request for time
to set a hearing date and entered summary judgment against."
I stopped chewing. "Can he do that?" I roared through my mouthful of prime
rare chicken.
"Well, yes, or at least he did it. But we'll get him on appeal, only that
makes it a little more complicated. Her lawyer got a chance to argue, and he
pointed out that Trish did file a mission report. So there's some question
whether she actually completed the mission, do you see?
Meanwhile-"
Sometimes I think Morton is too humanly programmed; he does know how to draw
out a discussion so. "Meanwhile what, Morton?"
"Well, since the recent, ah, episode, there seems to be another complication.
Gateway Corp wants to go slow until they figure out just where they are with
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]