Lost Past (20 page)

             
“You, of course,” Arthur replied. “They tried to benefit from Hernandez and his clones, but they brought back only a little information. They spent their time indulging in their proclivity for violence, rather than gathering information.”

             
“How do you know this?”

             
“You told me, John. You said that I should be careful of Hernandez and his clones because they were violent sociopaths. You also warned the
Plict
, but they thought they could control them.”

             
John realized if he were as good a psychiatrist as people claimed, he would have
reached accurate conclusions about Hernandez. The conclusions were confirmed when the airline passengers were sent to their deaths. He also understood why Hernandez was the unmistakable leader; the clones were never allowed to develop leadership skills, because Hernandez never let them. If one of them started to develop the skills, Hernandez would support the others against him.

             
“Ever since I woke up with amnesia, people have told me how good a psychiatrist I am. Now I find that I am just the result of the genetics and training from the
Plict
. I can’t take any credit.” John was surprised to see Arthur smiling at that. “What?”

             
“We’ve had this conversation before,” Arthur said gently. “I will tell you now what I told you then: We are all the product of our genes and our environment. Some quirk in genetics made me good in physics. My parents were both physics professors and they nurtured it. I can’t really take credit for the hours they spent with me outside of school or the genetic ability that made it easy for me to learn. The only thing I can take credit for is that I took advantage of my opportunity.”

             
“Are your parents still alive?”

             
“No, they both died in
their
eighties. They were near forty when I was born and made a project of raising me. They lived long enough to see me get the Nobel Prize. I’m grateful for that.” Arthur’s analysis was reasonable, but John
wondered if the
comparison to an accident of genetics and having the right parents could be compared to the deliberate manipulation by the
Plict
.

             
While Arthur was writing a program for some theoretical calculation, John explored the building. He walked up and down all the corridors he could reach without opening any doors. It was partly for exercise, but he wanted to mem
orize the layout of the place. Through open doors, h
e saw a number of
Plict
working on computers, using sign language, which made computer entry a relatively active job. A
Plict
stopped him and signed, “What are you doing?”

             
“Exercising.” It was at least partly true, and he felt guilty for not giving the complete truth.

             
The
Plict
couldn’t frown without a mouth, but John felt he would have frowned if he had one. “Limit your exercising to the corridor near your room. Don’t go downstairs and don’t open any doors.” T
hat meant t
here was a downstairs, but the entry must be behind a door. The
Plict
guided him back.

             
Arthur asked him what he wanted to eat and showed him a cache of frozen, canned, and dried food. It was depressingly large. “They went to Earth and robbed a grocery store. Well, they left money, but I suspect the money will be held as evidence if it wasn’t stolen by the first person on the scene. We can’t eat their food.”

             
“How did they get money?”

             
“You gave it to them or Hernandez and company did. Years ago, you sold synthetic jewels and invested the profit. You requested your salary be in U.S. dollars, which really made
Katrine
mad.”

             
“I left her unsupported?” That bothered John, because he didn’t like to think of himself shirking a responsibility, in spite of how horrible a person
Katrine
was.

             
“She took all your money and slept around. You divorced her, but she thought she could get you back, and you told me she probably could have for several years if she behaved herself. You finally realized what an idiot you’d been.” Arthur reacted to John’s expression and said, “Your words. You were loyal to her. It’s not a fault.”

             
John didn’t want to interrupt Arthur’s calculations and tried to use a vacant computer he found. The computer didn’t respond either to his sign language or his mouthing of words. Arthur was sympathetic and offered the use of his computer, but the computer didn’t respond to John. Arthur volunteered to input John’s commands on the computer, but John said, “I think I would not be tolerated as much if I kept you from your research.” Arthur shrugged and turned back
to
his calculations.

             
John found a Bud and asked him for computer access, but it was politely denied. The next day, they took him to a room where a computer was set up to respond to him. It only gave him shows from Earth
, but none were broadcast after John’s kidnapping
. The Bud explained they had a satellite in orbit, which sent information to any
Plict
ship that cam
e.
             

             
After watching a Spanish language show, just to keep up on his Spanish, John went back to where Arthur was working again. Arthur took half hour breaks to exercise twice a day, but did it in his room.

             
“I have a feed from
Vigint
City,” Arthur said. “There’s a flu epidemic and everyone is under quarantine. I programmed it to record any mention of Linda.” John realized Arthur wasn’t spending all of his time doing research; he was hacking.

             
“Can you add Cara and Wilson to that?”

             
“Sure.” Arthur stepped over to the computer and made the change. “We have something.”

             
It was an amateur ad showing how to wash clothes. Linda came on and picked up a pair of pants, saying, “After the clothes have dried for several hours, reposition them so that the damp areas are exposed to air. It helps for them to be hanging free.” The camera zoomed in to show the damp areas on the inner legs and crotch of the pants. Linda then hung the pants on the edge of a bed with a cup of water weighting each leg so they couldn’t fall. “When you are not using it, you can hang it on your exercise equipment.”

             
The camera turned to Wilson, showing him removing a shirt hanging from the exercise machine and putting it on. Cara’s voice said, “If you have flu symptoms, don’t wear damp clothes, but clothes will dry faster if you wear them.”

             
Wilson started exercising and said, “They are pleasant to wear while exercising because they keep you cooler, but they are harder to put on than dry clothes.”

             
“She’s fine,” Arthur said, with relief.

             
For an instant John thought Arthur was talking about Cara, but realized Arthur may not even have recognized her voice. John wondered when Cara became more important to him than Linda.

CHAPTER 14

             
“You realize that half the time, they are going to spill the water,” Wilson told Linda.

             
“Yes, but these rooms have nothing that works like a clothesline and nothing that’s movable and heavy,” Linda said.

             
“We’ve taught them to wash their hands, cover their coughs, and blow their noses. What else do we need to teach them?

             
“I don’t know, but we should deliver more handkerchiefs tomorrow,” Cara said.

             
Linda groaned. She programmed the machines, normally used to make clothing, to cut the bolts of cloth into handkerchief-sized pieces and hem the edges. When they decided it was impractical to deliver them to each room, Wilson went upstairs and outside and brought down a few of the small machines that picked strawberries. Linda reprogrammed them to deliver handkerchiefs. Although most of the process was automated, Linda couldn’t figure out how to get the handkerchiefs from the cutting machine to a place the strawberry pickers could reach. The cutting machine was in a cage designed for safety. Someone could lean over the side and pick up the handkerchiefs, but the strawberry pickers’ arms couldn’t reach.

             
It seemed so easy at first, but she was not used to physical labor, even the labor of moving a pile of handkerchiefs from inside the cage to a pile on the floor. She did it for nine hours yesterday and somehow the muscles that she used were not
accustomed to the movement
, even in the exercise program.

             
Fortunately, the strawberry pickers, or small-scale industrial multipurpose machines, as the manual called them, were versatile and easy to program. She translated the name into English and called them SCIMMs. When Wilson described SCIMMs pollinating flowers, she realized the machines must have highly sophisticated software, along with flexible hardware.

             
“I’ll do the handkerchiefs,” Cara said. “Really. I’m almost well, and if I get too tired, I’ll stop.” Linda didn’t think she would, but didn’t comment.

             
“Could the machines go up a ramp? Do their arms work going
downwards
?” Wilson asked.

             
“Yes to both, but the ramp can’t be more than twenty-
three
degrees, according to the manual. There isn’t enough space to put one in the room.”

             
“What about if it zigzags?”

             
“Of course! Why didn’t I think of that,” Linda said. “There’s
a shop that makes furniture in—
” she turned to the computer, “
—
AJ53.” Linda showed him the map.

             
“So the two of you make a ramp, and I do the handkerchiefs tomorrow,” said Cara.

             
“No, you help me with the ramp. If it works, none of us will need to do the handkerchiefs,” Wilson said.

             
“Linda is more mechanical,” Cara said.

             
“She may be, but she is way better with the computer. I want her to spend the day snooping. Someday, they may discover how much computer access we have and limit it.”

             
Warned by Wilson’s comment, Linda decided to implement the program she worked on since she got computer access. The security was laughable, once she was in. As usual, when she was working with computers, she lost track of the time. When Wilson came to tell her
the
ramp was finished, she resented the interruption, although it was the work of only a few minutes to program the SCIMMs to use the ramp. A simple subroutine kept them from
using the ramp simultaneously. The non-automated efforts with the handkerchiefs would be confined to bringing bolts of fabric to an automatic feeder periodically. Linda estimated it needed to be done every hour.

             
“I’ll stay here and do it,” she volunteered. “There’s a computer here and I’ve work to do.”

             
Wilson took some fabric and made up a bed for her on the floor. “Get some sleep,” he said before he left.

             
She didn’t. She programmed the computer to remind her whenever the machine needed attention. Although she knew it was good for her to move periodically, she was annoyed every time her attention was called to the machine. Knowing her own inability to switch tasks easily, she programmed the computer to give her a reminder, and then, a minute later,
minimize
the window she was working on.

             
Fortunately, the computers had a good AI system. The first step was to write a program that hid in the background and monitored whether she was actively on the computer. If she weren’t on the computer at least every third day, it would activate. It would activate earlier if the news shows said she was imprisoned. In consideration of the possibility that the
Vigintees
would keep their word, the program wouldn’t activate if it were reported that the three of them were returned to Earth, although if later reports denied this, it would activate.

             
She decided she might need information about other things too. If Hernandez or any of his clones were released, there would be a thirteen-second failure of the lights, repeated three times. She also arranged signals for other events, although she knew she couldn’t anticipate everything.

             
Worried that she wouldn’t be given another chance, she tried to figure out what else she could do. She already had a feel for the geography of the city. It was a bit more than a mile in diameter and had three levels. The top was the truck garden, where people almost never went. The city was on a single level, and the basement was sometimes accessed for plumbing problems. The water purifying plant was too big, in Linda’s opinion. Although she knew comparable Earth structures were big, she thought the
Plict
would be able to streamline the process to something smaller.