with pipe thrusts. The bioassay had produced not an answer but a puzzle, a basic chemistry that was neither human, nor yet inhuman enough to come from creatures evolved around some other star. “Also,” said Albert, puffing, “there is the question of the Heechee seat. It does not fit a human being. But neither does it fit the Old Ones. So for whom was it designed? Alas, Robin. We do not know.”
A quick flicker, the socks now gone, the pipe out and being filled, and Albert was talking about prayer fans. He had not, Albert apologized, unriddled the fans. The literature was vast but he had searched it all. There was no imaginable application of energy and no instrumentation that had not been applied to them. Yet they had stayed mute. “One can speculate,” Albert said, striking a match to his pipe, “that all of the fans left for us by the Heechee are garbled, perhaps to tantalize us. I do not believe this. Rafliniert 1st der Herr Hietschie, aber Boshaft 1st er nicht,” In spite of everything, Essie laughed out loud. Der Herr Hietschie indeed! Had she written this sense of comedy into her program? She thought of interrupting him to command that he display this section of his instructions, but already that replay had ended and a slightly less rumpled Albert was talking about astrophysics. Here Essie almost closed her ears, for she quickly had enough of curious cosmologies. Was the universe open-ended or closed? She did not strongly care. Was some large quantity of mass “missing”, in the sense that not enough could be observed to account for known gravitational effects? Very well, then let it stay missing. Essie felt no need to go looking for it. Someone’s fantasy of storms of indetectible pious, and someone else- someone named Kiube’snotion that mass might be created from nothing, interested her very little. But when the conversation switched to black holes, she paid close attention. She was not really concerned with the subject. She was concerned with Robin’s concern for it.
And that, she told herself justly as Albert rambled on, was petty of her. Robin had kept no mean secrets. He had told her at once of the love of his life, the woman named Gelle-Klara Moynlin whom he had abandoned in a black hole-had told her, actually, far more than she wanted to know.
She said, “Stop.”
Instantly the three-dimensional figure in the tank abandoned the word it had been speaking in midsyllable. It gazed politely at her, awaiting orders.
“Albert,” she said carefully, “why did you tell me Robin was studying question of black holes?”
The figure coughed. “Why, Mrs. Broadhead,” Albert said, “I have been playing a recording prepared especially for you.”
“Not this time. Why did you volunteer this information other time?”
Albert’s expression cleared and he said humbly, “That directive did not come from my program, gospozha.”
“I thought not! You have been interacting with the psychoanalytic program!”
“Yes, gospozha, as you programmed me to do.”
“And what was the purpose of this intervention from the Sigfrid von Shrink program?”
“I cannot say for sure-but,” he added hastily, “perhaps I can offer a guess. Perhaps it is that the Sigfrid estimates your husband should be more open with you.”
“That program is not charged with care of my mental health!”
“No, gospozha, not with yours, but with your husband’s. Gospozha, if you wish more information, let me suggest that you consult that program, not me.”
“I can do more than that!” she blazed. And so she could. She could speak three words-Daite gorod Polymat-and Albert, Harriet, Sigfrid von Shrink, every one of Robin’s programs would be subsumed into the powerful program of her own, Polymath, the one she had used to write them in the first place, the overriding program that contained every instruction they owned. And then let them try cunning evasions on her! Then let them see if they could maintain the confidentiality of their memories! Then- “God,” Essie said aloud, “am actually planning to teach lesson to my own programs!”
“Gospozha?”
She caught her breath. It was almost a laugh, nearly a sob. “No,” she said, “cancel above. I find no fault with your programming, Albert, nor with shrink’s. If shrink program judges Robin should release internal tensions, I cannot overrule and will not pry. Further,” she corrected herself fairly.
The curious thing about Essie Lavorovna-Broadhead was that “fairness” meant something to her, even in dealing with her constructs. A program like Albert Einstein was large, complex, subtle, and powerful. Not even S. Ya. Lavorovna could write such a program alone; for that she needed Polymath. A program like Albert Einstein learned, and grew, and redefined its tasks as it went along. Not even its author could say why it gave one bit of information and not another. One could only observe that it was working, and judge it by how it carried out its orders. It was unfair to the program to “blame” it, and Essie could not be so unfair.
But, as she moved restlessly among her pillows (twenty-two minutes left!) it came to her that the world was not entirely fair to her. Not fair at all! It was not fair that all these fairytale wonders should be pouring in upon the world-not now. It was not fair that these perils and perplexities should manifest themselves, not now, not while she might not live to see how they came out. Could Peter Herter be dealt with? Would the others of his party be saved? Could the lessons of the prayer fans and the explorers make it possible to do all the things Robin promised, feed the world, make all men well and happy, allow the human race to explore the universe? All these questions, and before this day’s sun had set she might be dead and never to know the answers! It was not fair, any of it. And least fair was that if she died of this operation she would never know, truly, which way Robin would have chosen, if somehow his lost love could be found again.
She became aware that time was passing. Albert sat patiently in the tank, moving only occasionally to suck his pipe or scratch under the hem of his floppy sweater-to remind her, that is, that he was still in standby mode.
Essie’s thrifty cybernetician’s soul was indignantly ordering her to use the program or turn it off-what a shocking waste of machine time! But she hesitated. There were questions still to ask.
At the door the nurse was looking in. “Good morning, Mrs. Broadhead,” she said when she saw that Essie was wide awake.
“Is it time?” Essie asked, her voice suddenly unsteady.
“Oh, not for a few minutes yet. You can go on with your machine if you want to.”
Essie shook her head. “Is no point,” she said and dismissed the program. It was a decision lightly taken. It did not occur to her that some of the unasked questions might be consequential.
