The Gentle Giants of Ganymede

'But I do,' Hunt pointed out needlessly, but with a certain sense of satisfaction.

'I know, and you shouldn #146;t, and that #146;s my question,' ZORAC concluded.

Hunt stubbed out his cigarette and lapsed into thought again. 'What about the funny enzyme that Chris Danchekker is always talking about? He found it in all the preserved Oligocene animals in the ship here, didn #146;t he? There were traces of a variant of it in Charlie too. D #146;you reckon that could have something to do with it? Maybe something in the environment on Minerva reacted in some complicated way and got around the problem and the enzyme appeared somehow in the process. That would explain why today #146;s terrestrial animals haven #146;t got it; the ancestors they #146;re descended from never went there. Perhaps that #146;s why modern Man doesn #146;t have it either #151;he #146;s been back on Earth for a long time now and away from the environment that stimulated it. How about that?'

'Impossible to confirm,' ZORAC pronounced. 'Inadequate data available on the enzyme at present. Very speculative. Also, there #146;s another point it doesn #146;t explain.'

'Oh, what?'

'The radioactive decay residues. Why should the enzymes found in the Oligocene animals appear to have been formed from radioisotopes while the ones found in Charlie didn #146;t?'

'I don #146;t know,' Hunt admitted. 'That doesn #146;t make sense. Anyhow, I #146;m not a biologist. I #146;ll talk about all this to Chris later.' Then he changed the subject. 'ZORAC #151;about all those equations you computed.'

'Yes?'

'Why did you compute them? I mean. . . do you just do things like that spontaneously. . . on your own initiative?'

'No. Shilohin and some of the other Ganymean scientists asked me to.'

'Any idea why?'

'Routine. The computations were relevant to certain researches that they are conducting.'

'What kind of researches?' Hunt asked.

'On the things we have been discussing. The question that I suggested a few minutes ago was not something that I originated myself; it was a question that they have been asking. They are very interested in the whole subject. They #146;re curious to find out how Man came to exist at all when all available data says he shouldn #146;t and all their models predicted that he would destroy himself if he did.'

Hunt was intrigued to learn that the Ganymeans were studying his kind with such intensity, especially since they appeared to have progressed so much further in their deductions than the UNSA team had. He was surprised also that ZORAC would so readily divulge something that could be considered sensitive information.

'I #146;m amazed that there aren #146;t any restrictions on you talking about things like that,' he said.

'Why?'

The question caught Hunt unprepared.

'Oh, I don #146;t know really,' he said. 'On Earth I suppose things like that would only be accessible to people authorized. . . certainly not freely available to anyone who cared to ask for it. I suppose I. . . just assumed it would be the same.'

'The fact that Earthmen are neurotic is no reason for Ganymeans to be furtive,' ZORAC told him bluntly.

Hunt grinned and shook his head slowly.

'I guess I asked for that,' he sighed.

Chapter Sixteen

The first and most important task that the Ganymeans had faced #151;that of getting their ship in order again #151;had now been successfully accomplished. So the focal point of their activities shifted to Pithead, where they commenced working intensively toward their second objective #151;coming to grips with the computer system of the wrecked ship. Whether the Ganymean race had migrated to another star, and if so which star, had still not been answered. A strong probability remained that this information was sitting waiting to be found, buried somewhere in the intricate molecular circuits and storage banks that went to make up the data-processing complex of a ship that had been built after the answers to these questions were known. The ship might even have been involved in that very migration.

The task turned out to be nowhere near as straightforward as the first one. Although the Pithead ship was of a later and more advanced design than the Shapieron , its main drives worked on similar principles and used components which, although showing certain modifications and refinements in some instances, performed functions that were essentially the same as those of their earlier counterparts. The drive system thus exemplified a mature technology that had not changed radically between the times of the two ships #146; construction, and the repair of the Shapieron had been possible as a consequence.

The same was not true for the computer systems. After a week of intensive analysis and probing, the Ganymean scientists admitted they were making little headway. The problem was that the system components that they found themselves trying to comprehend were, in most cases, unlike anything they had seen before. The processors themselves consisted of solid crystal blocks inside which millions of separate circuit elements of molecular dimensions were interconnected in three dimensions with complexities that defied the imagination. Only somebody who had been trained and educated in the design and physics of such devices could hope to unravel the coding locked inside them.

Some of the larger processors were completely revolutionary in concept, even to the Ganymeans, and seemed to represent a merging of electronic and gravitic technologies; characteristics of both were inextricably mingled together to form devices in which the physical interconnections between cells holding electronic data could be changed through variable gravitic-bonding links. The hardware configuration itself was programable and could be switched from nanosecond to nanosecond to yield an array in which any and every cell could function as a storage element at one instant or as a processing site the next; processing could, in the ultimate, be performed everywhere in the complex, all at the same time #151;surely the last word in parallelism. One interested but bemused UNSA engineer described it as 'soft hardware. A brain with a billion times the speed. . .'

And every subsystem of the ship #151;communications, navigation, computation, propulsion control, flight control, and a hundred others #151;consisted of a network of interconnected processing nodes like that, with all the networks integrated into an impossible web that covered the length and breadth of the vessel.

Without detailed documentation and technical design information there was no way of tackling the problem. But no documentation was available. All the information was locked away inside the same system that they needed the information to get into; it was like having a can with the can opener inside it.

So, at the next progress meeting aboard the Shapieron , the senior Ganymean computer scientist declared himself ready to quit. When somebody commented that the Earthmen wouldn #146;t have given up so easily, he thought about it, agreed with the evaluation and went back to Pithead to try again. After another week he came back again and stated, emphatically and finally, that if anybody thought the Earthmen could do better they #146;d be welcome to try. He #146;d quit.

And that, it seemed, was that.

There was nothing further to be achieved on Ganymede. Therefore the aliens at last announced their long- awaited decision to accept the invitation that had been extended to them by the world #146;s governments, and come to Earth. This did not mean that they had also accepted the invitation to settle there. Admittedly there was nowhere else within many light-years for them to go, but many of them still harbored misgivings at what might await them on the Nightmare Planet. But they were rational beings and the rational thing to do was obviously to go and see the place before prejudging it. Any decision as to what to do about the longer-term future would wait until they were in possession of more concrete information on which to base it.

A number of UNSA personnel from the Jupiter missions were at the end of their duty tours and already scheduled to return to Earth as the comings and goings of ships permitted. The Ganymeans offered a ride in the Shapieron to anybody planning on going their way and were almost overwhelmed by the rush to accept.