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. ."
"We don't know," Bickel said. "As long as we don't know, we don't have to
obey."
Or disobey, Flattery thought. "How is it the computer seems to function on
information demand, but not for AAT translation?"
"That could mean only one band to debug," Prudence said. "If it does . . ."
She broke off staring at Bickel.
Bickel had his eyes closed. Perspiration beaded his forehead. The circuitry
was as clear in his mind as though projected there from outside himself. He
had never completely disconnected the Ox from the AAT system which they had
used for the Ox's interpretive routines.
An empty sensation expanded through his chest as he realized every signal from
outside into the AAT had gone through the Ox into the computer -- there to be
lost, there to mix up the AAT translator loops.
"You didn't disconnect the plugboard from the Ox," Timberlake whispered.
"But my computer readout comes through my AAT board," Bickel said. He could
hear the desperation in his own voice. "Every program demand I put on the
computer went through those same Ox circuits!"
"You were using subroutines with known addresses," Prudence pointed out.
"And everything you asked for has been scattered through the entire system and
lost," Timberlake said.
"Has it?" Bickel asked. He opened his eyes. There was only one logical way
to be certain, of course. It would not do any more damage than already, had
been done . . . if there was damage.
We didn't think of Bickel cutting us off from UMB this way, Flattery thought.
Destroying the translator loops!
Without the translator system to decode the multirepetitive laser-burst
messages, the umbilicus crew might just as well use hand signals for its
messages to and from Moonbase. Bickel could build a radio transmitter, of
course. It would take only a few watts to punch a message across these
distances, but no preparations had been made at UMB for such a communications
method. And the number of eavesdroppers would be enormous.
Carefully, because he had to be certain the first time, Bickel switched five
patches in his AAT board, triple-checked them.
"What're you doing?" Timberlake demanded.
"Be quiet," Prudence ordered, as she recognized what Bickel intended.
"But he's already --"
"A diagnostic routine," Bickel said. "We'll use a simulsynchronous B-register
search with a repeat on our original test of the Ox circuitry. If harm has
already been done, this will just go right through the same channels. It
can't do any more harm."
"And the B-register search could tell us where our data went," Timberlake
said. "Yeah."
"Are you sure?" Flattery asked.
"The technique is right," Prudence said.
Working quietly, triple-checking, Bickel patched together the necessary
program. He took a deep breath, sent the first elements of the diagnostic
routine through the inputs, setting the balance of the test for off-line
operation. He had to keep a constant check on this, key each step himself.
Presently, he began to get DDA output. He put it on conditional transfer with
printout at each step in the control sequence.
He felt breathing at his shoulder, looked up to see that Prudence had
abandoned her action couch, knelt beside him to stare up at the readout.
"The data has been shifted, not lost," she whispered.
"That's how it looks," Bickel said.
"It might as well be lost!" Timberlake barked.
"No," Bickel refuted him. "The computer's fully operative as long as we route
everything through the Ox."
"Why didn't the AAT work?" Timberlake demanded.
"Come off that, Tim," Bickel said. "You helped me build that test setup."
"The incoming messages were going through the AAT circuits twice," Timberlake
said. "Sure."
"The bits canceled themselves out all along the line," Bickel said. "We
probably didn't get a fifth of the message."
"It did seem short," Prudence said.
"That message is the only thing we've really lost," Bickel said. "I'll ask
for a repeat on --"
"Wait!" Flattery said.
"Yes?" Bickel looked at him.
"What do you tell UMB happened to the original message!" Flattery asked. He
glanced away from the big board, met Bickel's gaze. "And what if they were
telling us to cease and desist?"
"You know something," Timberlake said, "the beginning and end of Hempstead's
message didn't seem to be garbled at all."
"Standard call and signoff," Bickel said. "They could be recognized and
translated from the smallest fractional bits."
"But the message load was lightest at the beginning," Timberlake said. "And
that could be part of the explanation there. You'd get minimum cancellation.
We might be able to salvage more of the message . . . especially in the first
parts before the load jammed it up."
This is exceedingly cautious for Timberlake, Flattery thought. Is he coming
around to Bickel's viewpoint?
Bickel found himself moving hesitantly, not knowing why, but unable to escape
the logic in Timberlake's argument. He slid out the message print, shuttled
it to the replay rack. If only the print had been the first step in the
reception, instead of intermediate, he thought. He removed his feedback
patches, sent the print directly into the Ox and then into AAT, routed the
readout through the Optical Character Print system and into the screen above
them.
Hempstead's original call appeared there, and they all looked up at it.
That had to be accurate, Bickel thought.
There came that original long delay, then: "CHOOSE BY LOT FROM THE COLONISTS
IN HYBERNATION A SUITABLE BRAIN TO REPLACE YOUR ORGANIC MENTAL CORE PERIOD
MEDICAL PERSONNEL ARE DIRECTED TO TAKE A HUMAN BRAIN COMMA INSTALL IT AS
TEMPORARY ORGANIC MENTAL CORE COMMA AND RETURN SHIP TO BIDGEYBIDGEYBIDGEY
SOMETIMES WITH THE HIT IT PERIOD PERIOD PERIOD PERIOD PERIOD ON THE QUESTION
OF DEFINING CONSCIOUSNESS COMMA YOU HAVE THIS DATA SEVERAL TIMES IN YOUR
COMPUTER COMMA AND YOU CAN REFER THERE PERIOD REFERENCE IS MADE TO DATA ITEM
ANINSZERO FOR NERVE BARRIER AND THRESHOLD DATA ITEM YOUR COMPUTER PERIOD BEST
DIVE YET PERIOD NEW ORGANIC MENTAL CORE PERIOD MEDICAL PERSONNEL ARE DIRECTED
TO ABANDON ALL SUCH REPEATS IN THEIR WASTE OF ORDER PERIOD"
Bickel broke the sequence. "Do you want any more of it?"
"It's getting increasingly unreliable," Flattery said. "I see no need."
"Those callous, dirty sons-of-bitches!" Timberlake snarled.
CHAPTER 17
"Remember that I am thy creature; I ought to be thy Adam, but I am rather the
fallen angel, whom thou drivest from joy for no misdeed. . . . Like Adam, I
was apparently united by no link to any other being in existence. . . . Satan
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