flinch. The noise was followed by the sight of two jets passing low over the island. The glowing hot tailpipes split apart as the two aircraft banked steeply to either side of the mountain. When they reappeared, they were flying wingtip to wingtip heading back out to the sea in the far distance. 'What was that?' Laura asked.
'There's a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier out there paying us a visit.'
'What do they want?' Gray looked tired again — at the end of his rope.
'Control. They want to control me.'
'Well… what're you gonna do? I mean, Joseph… an aircraft carrier? Jets?'
'They won't try to stop me before I decelerate the asteroid. They can't risk it. But after…' He worked his teeth together. 'I'll level this island before I let them have it.'
She measured him by the expression he wore, and she had no doubt he was telling the truth. 'But would you kill to keep it?' she asked, and he looked away. 'Would you kill those sailors and pilots?'
Still he said nothing. 'Joseph, that's one thing I have to know. It's nonnegotiable.'
After a long pause, he said simply, 'No.' The admission sounded like a defeat. He scanned his creations with his gaze, but this survey seemed to evoke little pleasure. 'What I'm doing here, Laura, is important. It may just be the most important thing ever undertaken in human history. But I couldn't take the lives of those men. That's asking too much.'
'Joseph, listen to me. Nobody's asking anything of you.'
He reflected upon her statement in silence, and then finally he said, 'I'm asking it of myself. Now, let's get you seen about.'
Gray headed for the stairs to the computer center entrance, and Laura took a few painful steps to follow. 'Joseph?' she called out, and he returned to her immediately. He slipped his arm around the small of her waist, and she lowered her head onto his shoulder for the short walk down the computer center steps.
Laura limped into the conference room, and everyone looked up.
Hoblenz was the first to speak. 'You all right there, Doc?'
'Just a few scrapes and bruises. It's nothing, really.' Her chair next to Gray was empty, and Gray stood to pull it back from the table.
'I hope Hightop treated you well,' Dr. Griffith said with a broad smile on his face as she sat.
'He was quite a gentleman,' Laura replied, feeling much better after a couple of codeine tablets.
Griffith laughed loudly at her remark. Now that the Model Eights were out of the closet, he glowed with pride for his pets.
No one else at the table was smiling. 'I'm sorry I interrupted,' Laura said. 'I feel like I've crashed a wake.'
Gray undertook to fill her in. 'Dorothy was just saying that something inside the computer has started a stampede. The viruses are fleeing some threat. They're trying to copy themselves all over the place, replicating massively as if they were being stalked and threatened with extinction.'
No one said anything. Georgi stared at his hands, his fingers woven together and his thumbs jousting. Margaret looked off into space — her whole body twisted away from the table. Hoblenz stared at Laura.
'So what are we going to do?' Dorothy asked softly, tossing her prized palmtop onto a yellow notepad.
'We're going to do our jobs,' Gray said.
A sigh of frustration burst from Filatov. 'But the computer's down to fifty-five percent capacity! We should've crashed hours… days ago.'
'And we didn't,' Gray replied.
'But we don't know why we didn't! How can the computer be doing everything on fifty-five percent capacity? It's impossible!'
'I think I can answer that,' Laura said, looking at Gray. When he returned her gaze but said nothing, she continued. 'The computer is partitioned in half. The computer we all talk to is located in the main pool underneath us, and the Other is in the annex. The Other controls the Model Threes and most of the facilities around the island.'
'Not the assembly building,' Gray interjected, and everybody looked his way. 'The computer can't recognize it from the outside but it has managed to hang on to all of its operations inside.' There was silence, and all his department heads wore looks of great astonishment. Gray turned back to Laura. 'You can go on now.'
Laura had the complete attention of the table. 'My guess is that the functions being performed flawlessly are all on the Other's virus-free side of the partition. Is the 'stampede' occurring in the main pool?' she asked Dorothy.
The girl nodded. 'We're not even getting any reports from the annex.'
Laura was strangely unexcited at having guessed correctly. She felt a sense of security and confidence in rendering her opinions that might have owed itself to the painkillers.
'So what is the Other?' Margaret asked — her question directed not to Gray but to Laura.
'I don't know. The best analogy that I've been able to come up with is that it's a second personality that inhabits the computer. That, of course, raises the possibility of multiple personality disorder, which in humans is totally debilitating.'
No one scoffed at Laura's theories this time. There wasn't even the obligatory snort from Margaret.
'Any other questions?' Gray asked, as if he himself had conducted the briefing.
'Yeah,' Hoblenz replied in his gravelly voice. 'What was on those rockets, Mr. Gray?' Everyone looked at the black-clad soldier in shock but then slowly, one by one, turned their eyes to Gray.
'Were there weapons in those payload bays? Is that what those robots in the assembly building have been loading?'
Gray's face was a mask.
He said nothing.
'I would also like to hear your answer to that question, Mr. Gray,' Filatov joined in, not looking up from his clenched hands.
'The media — the news broadcasts carried on our own programs are saying that you might have launched some sort of orbital weapon platform. Since none of us here knows what was on those flights — including even your own director of space operations, apparently' — Filatov nodded across the table at the silent man—'for all we know that report is accurate.'
Gray took a quick inventory of the faces around the table, ending with Filatov's. 'I would tell you if you needed to know.'
The emotions registered on the faces Laura surveyed ranged from anxiety to outright anger. 'What about the navy ships?' Hoblenz asked. 'There's about two thousand marines offshore our island. They may be over the horizon, but their hovercraft and helicopters can be here inside an hour. What's your plan, Mr. Gray?'
'My plan is for all of you to go about your jobs, and for me to go about mine. But since it seems to be of great interest' — his eyes panned the table and stopped on Laura—'let me assure you that I do not intend to engage in hostilities with anyone. If I've created the impression in the capitals of the world that I have an ace up my sleeve, then fine. But if I've created that impression in any of you, let me repeat one more time that there will be no bloodshed on this island or anywhere else.'
'What if the robots don't oblige?' Hoblenz asked.
'That's another matter entirely.'
'I've got men out there patrolling dark streets and risking their lives. Or so it would seem to them and to me. I'd like to know so I can tell 'em whether or not any of those robots are of the dangerous variety.'
'You can tell them they are not.'
'Well I know I can tell them that, but is it true?'
'If you mean true in the sense of whether any robots are homicidal, the answer is that they are not. They are, as we all know, dangerous machinery to be given a healthy measure of respect. But let me reassure you that none of the six Model Eights that are operational are homicidal in their intentions, goals, or plans.'
'What about the other forty-two or so down under that mountain?' Laura asked.
'They aren't yet operational,' Gray said as if that did away with her concern. 'Now, I suggest you all return to your posts.'
No one said anything as they filed out.
Laura pushed her chair back from the table. 'Not you, please,' Gray said.
