The Cat Who Walks Through Walls (31 page)

She went on: “A fertilized egg is not aware but a baby is. After Papa Mannie discovered that his computer was self-aware, he noted that this computer, which had been expanded outrageously as more jobs were assigned to it, had reached a point of complication where it had more interconnections in it than has a human brain.

“Papa Mannie made a great theoretical leap: When the number of interconnections in a computer become of the same close order as the number of interconnections in a human brain that computer can wake up and become aware of itself…and probably will. He wasn’t sure that it always happened, but he became convinced that it could happen and for that reason: the high number of interconnections.

“Richard, Papa Mannie never went any farther with it. He was not a theoretical scientist; he was a repair technician. But the way his computer was behaving bothered him; he had to try to figure out why it was acting so oddly. This theory resulted. But you need not pay attention to it; Papa Mannie never tested it.”

“Hazel, what was this odd behavior?”

“Oh. Mama Wyoh told me that the first thing Manuel noticed was that Mike—the computer, I mean—Mike had acquired a sense of humor.”

“Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes. Mama Wyoh told me that, to Mike—or Michelle—or Adam Selene—he used all three names; he was a trinity—to Mike, the entire Luna Revolution, in which thousands died here and hundreds of thousands died on Earth, was a joke. It was just one great big practical joke thought up by a computer with supergenius brain power and a childish sense of humor.” Hazel grimaced, then grinned. “Just a great, big, overgrown, lovable kid who should have been kicked.”

“You make it sound like a pleasure. Kicking him.”

“Do I? Perhaps I should not. After all, a computer could not possibly do right or wrong, or experience good or evil in the human sense; it would have no background for it—no rearing, if you please. Mama Wyoh told me that Mike’s human behavior was by imitation—he had endless role models; he read everything, including fiction. But his only real emotion, all his own, was deep loneliness and a great longing for companionship. That’s what our revolution was to Mike: companionship…play…a game that won him attention from Prof and Wyoh and especially Mannie. Richard, if a machine can have emotions, that computer loved my Papa Mannie. Well, sir?”

I was tempted to say nonsense or something even less polite. “Hazel, you are demanding bald truth from me—and it will hurt your feelings. It sounds like fiction to me. If not your fiction, then that of your foster mother, Wyoming Knott.” I added, “Sweetheart, are we going out to attend to our chores? Or are we going to spend all day talking about a theory on which neither of us has any evidence?”

“I’m dressed and ready to go, dear. Just one little bit more and I’ll shut up. You find this story unbelievable.”

“Yes, I do.” I said it as flatly as possible.

“What part of it is unbelievable?”

“All of it.”

“Truly? Or is the sticking point the idea that a computer can be self-aware? If you accept that, does the rest of it become easier to swallow?”

(I tried to be honest. If that nonsense did not make me gag, would the rest be acceptable? Oh, certainly! Like the gold spectacles of Joseph Smith, like the tablets handed down to Moses from the Mount, like the red shift to the big bang—accept the postulate and the rest goes down smoothly.) “Hazel-Gwen, if we assume a self-aware computer with emotions and free will, I would not boggle at anything else—from ghosts to little green men. What was it the Red Queen did? Believe seven impossible things before breakfast.”

“The White Queen.”

“No, the Red Queen.”

“Are you sure, Richard? It was just before—”

“Forget it. Talking chessmen are even harder to swallow than a prankster computer. Sweetheart, the only evidence you offer is a story told you by your foster mother in her old age. That’s all. Uh, senile, maybe?”

“No, sir. Dying, but not senile. Cancer. From exposure to a solar storm when she was quite young. So she thought. As may be, it was not senility. She told me this when she knew she was to die…because she thought the story should not be lost completely.”

“You see the weakness of the story, dear? One death-bed story. No other data.”

“Not quite, Richard.”

“Eh?”

“My adoptive father Manuel Davis confirms all of it and then some.”

“But—You always spoke of him in the past tense. I think you did. And he would be…how old? Older than you are.”

“He was born in 2040, so he would be a century and a half old now…not impossible for a Loonie. But he’s both older and younger than that—for the same reasons I am. Richard, if you talked to Manuel Davis and he confirmed what I’ve told you, would you believe him?”

“Uh—” I grinned at her. “You might force me to bring to the issue the stalwart common sense of ignorance and prejudice.”

“Go along with you! Put on your foot, dear, please. I want to take you out and get you at least one more outfit before we move; your trousers have spots on the stains. I’m not being a good wife.”

“Yes, ma’am; right away, ma’am. Where is your Papa Mannie now?”

“You won’t believe this.”

“If it doesn’t involve right-angled time or lonely computers, I’ll believe it.”

“I think—I haven’t checked lately—I think Papa Mannie is with your Uncle Jock in Iowa.”

I stopped with my foot in my hand. “You’re right; I don’t believe it.”

“Rascality has limits; stupidity has not.”

NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
1769-1821

How can you argue with a woman who won’t? I expected Gwen to start justifying her preposterous allegation, citing chapter and verse in an attempt to convince me. Instead she answered sadly, “I knew that was all I could expect. I’ll just have to wait. Richard, do we have any other stops to make besides Macy’s and the main post office before we can go out to the Warden’s Complex?”

“I need to set up a new checking account and then transfer my present account down from Golden Rule. My cash in pocket is becoming rather seldom. Anemic.”

“But dearest, I’ve tried to tell you. Money is no problem.” She opened her purse, dug out a wad of money, started peeling off hundred-crown notes. “I’m on an expense account, of course.” She held them out.

“Easy, there!” I said. “Save your pennies, little girl.
I
undertook to support
you
. Not the other way around.”

I expected a retort involving “
macho
” or “male chauvinist pig” or at least “community property.” Instead she flanked me. “Richard? Your bank account in Golden Rule—Is it a numbered account? If not, under what name?”

“Huh? No. ‘Richard Ames,’ of course.”

“Do you think Mr. Sethos might take an interest?”

“Oh. Our kindly landlord. Honey, I’m glad you’re here to do my thinking for me.” A track leading straight to me as plain as footprints in snow…for Sethos’s goons to follow to collect that reward for my carcass—dead or alive. Of course all bank records are confidential, not alone numbered accounts—but “confidential” means only that it takes money or power to break the rules. And Sethos had both. “Gwen, let’s go back and booby-trap his air conditioning again. But this time we’ll use prussic acid instead of Limburger.”

“Good!”

“I wish we could. You’re right, I can’t touch that ‘Richard Ames’ bank account as long as storm warnings are up. We’ll use your cash—treat it as a loan. You keep track of it—”

“
You
keep track of it! Damn it, Richard, I’m your wife!”

“Fight over it later. Leave the wig and the geisha costume here; we won’t have time today…as I must first go see Rabbi Ezra. Unless you want to run your errands while I run mine?”

“Buster, are you feverish? I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

“Thanks, Maw; that’s the answer I wanted. We go see Father Ezra, then we go hunt living computers. If there is time left, we’ll do the other chores when we get back.”

It being before noon, we looked for Rabbi Ezra ben David by going to his son’s fish market across from the city library. The Rabbi lived in a room back of the shop. He agreed to represent me and act as a mail drop. I explained to him my parallel arrangements with Father Schultz, then wrote a note for him to send to “Henrietta van Loon.”

Reb Ezra accepted it. “I’ll stat it from my son’s terminal at once; it should be printed out in Golden Rule ten minutes from now. Special delivery?”

(Draw attention to it? Or accept slower service? Something was stewing in Golden Rule; Hendrik Schultz might have some answers.) “Special delivery, please.”

“Very well. Excuse me a few moments.” He rolled out of his room, was back quickly. “Golden Rule acknowledged receipt. Now to other matters—I was expecting you. Dr. Ames. That young man who was with you yesterday—Is he a member of your family? Or a trusted employee?”

“Neither one.”

“Interesting. Did you send him to ask me who was offering a reward for you and the amount of the reward?”

“I certainly did not! Did you tell him anything?”

“My dear sir! You asked for the traditional Three Days.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Not at all. Since he took the trouble to seek me out here instead of waiting for my business hours, I assumed some urgency. Since you did not mention him, I concluded that the urgency was his, not yours. Now I assume, unless you tell me otherwise, that he intends you no good.”

I gave the Rabbi a condensed version of our relations with Bill. He nodded. “You know Mark Twain’s remarks on such matters?”

“I think not.”

“He said that, if you pick up a stray dog, feed it and take care of it, it will not bite you. This, in his opinion, is the principal difference between a man and a dog. I don’t agree fully with Twain. But he had a point.”

I asked him to name a retainer, paid it without dickering, plus something for luck.

The Authority Complex (officially the “Administration Center,” a name found only in print) is west of Luna City, halfway across Mare Crisium. We were there by noon—that tubeway is not ballistic but is nevertheless fast. Once aboard, we were there in twenty minutes.

Noon was the wrong time to arrive. The Complex is made up of government offices; everything shuts down for a leisurely lunch hour. Lunch seemed a good idea to me, too; breakfast was in the remote past. There were several lunchrooms in the tunnels of the complex…with every chair filled with the broad beams of civil servants or occupied by tourists with red fezzes. Queues waited outside Sloppy Joe and Mom’s Diner and Antoine’s number two. “Hazel, I see vending machines ahead. Can I interest you in a warm Coke and a cold sandwich?”

“No, sir, you cannot. There’s a public terminal just beyond the food dispensers. I’ll make some calls while you eat.”

“I’m not that hungry. What calls?”

“Xia. And Ingrid. I want to be sure Gretchen got home safely. She could have been waylaid just as we were. I should have called last night.”

“Only to soothe your own worry; either Gretchen was home day before yesterday evening…or it’s too late and she’s dead.”

“Richard!”

“That’s what worries you, isn’t it? Call Ingrid.”

Gretchen answered and squealed when she saw Gwen-Hazel. “Mama! Come quick! It’s Mistress Hardesty!”

Twenty minutes later we switched off. All that had been accomplished was to tell the Hendersons that we were at the Raffles and that our mailing address was care of Rabbi Ezra. But the ladies enjoyed visiting and each assured the other that she would come visit in person sometime soon. They exchanged kisses via terminal—to my mind a waste of technology. And of kisses.

Then we tried to call Xia…and a man came on screen whom I did not recognize; he was not Xia’s day-shift desk clerk. “What do you want?” he demanded.

Hazel said, “I’d like to speak to Xia, please.”

“Not here. This hotel has been shut down by the Bureau of Sanitation.”

“Oh. Can you me where she is?”

“Try the Chief of Public Safety.” The face flickered off.

Hazel turned to me, her eyes filled with worry. “Richard, this can’t be right. Xia’s hotel is as squeaky clean as she is.”

“I see a pattern,” I said grimly, “and so do you. Let me try.”

I moved in, queried for code, called the office of the top cop, HKL. An elderly desk sergeant answered. I said, “Gospazha, I’m trying to reach a citizen named Dong Xia. I was told—”

“Yeah, I booked her,” she answered. “But she made bail an hour ago. Not here.”

“Ah so. Thank you, ma’am. Can you tell me where I might reach her?”

“Haven’t the slightest. Sorry.”

“Thank you.” I switched off.

“Oh, dear!”

“Leprosy, sweetheart. We’ve got it; anyone who touches us catches it. Damn.”

“Richard, I’m stating the simple truth. In my childhood when this was a penal colony, there was more freedom under the Warden than there is now with self-government.”

“Maybe you exaggerate but I suspect Xia would agree with you.” I chewed my lip and frowned. “You know who else has caught our leprosy. Choy-Mu.”

“You think so?”

“Seven to two.”

“No bet. Call him.”

Query showed him to be a private subscriber, so I called his home. I heard a recording, sans picture: “Marcy Choy-Mu speaking. Can’t say when I’ll be home but I will call in soon for messages. At me gong, please record.” A gong sounded.

I thought furiously, then said, “Captain Midnight speaking. We are booked into the old Raffles. A mutual friend needs help. Please call me at the Raffles. If I am not there, please leave message telling when and where I can reach you.” I switched off again.

“Dear, you didn’t give him Rabbi Ezra’s code.”

“On purpose, Sadie girl. To keep the Rabbi’s code out of Jefferson Mao’s hands; Choy-Mu’s line may be monitored. I had to give him somewhere to call back…but I can’t risk compromising the Rabbi Ezra connection; we must have it for Father Schultz. Table it, beautiful; I’ve got to query for HKL ground control.”

“Hong Kong Luna ground control. This terminal is for official business; make it brief.” It was voice only.

“May I speak to Captain Marcy?”

“Not here. I’m his emergency relief. Message? Make it snappy; I’ve got traffic in four minutes.”