Spacetime Donuts (14 page)

"Get me off the hook and I'll make Moto-O's idea work," Vernor said as soon as Burke had recognized him. The bureaucrat was sitting at a large desk. Had he already signaled the loach? Vernor would have to work fast.

But Burke was in no hurry. "Mr. Maxwell, sit down, it's a pleasure to see you." Sensing that Vernor might interrupt, Burke raised his voice and continued. "The Governor is puzzled by your behavior. He thinks that perhaps you're seriously ill," which was a euphemism for brain surgery. "Do you realize that two police officers were injured when their vehicle collided with the van which you left
burning
in a public thoroughfare last night?"

Vernor shrugged and Burke continued. "I must admit that Us has missed the Angels these last ten months. The pace of things has gone back down, and the public is not happy. I, for one, had begun to consider the option of pardoning a few low-risk individuals. You, Mr. Maxwell, were at the top of the pardon list. But after last night I must agree with the Governor. The risks are too great."

"So you'd rather go back to sleep," said Vernor, his voice filling with bitterness. "Safety or freedom. You can't have both. You've
always
backed the Governor against us. But you need us. Moto-O's idea didn't work, and without any higher-level consciousness, Phizwhiz and the Us is dying. You know that."

Burke hung fire, then answered, "When you came in, you said that you can make Moto-O's idea work. Can you build consciousness into Phizwhiz?"

"I can do it if you let me," Vernor said. "The crucial technological innovation is supplied by Professor Kurtowski's Virtual Field Generator . . . which you now possess. Unless your men have seen fit to smash everything in the Professor's lab?"

"I assume you're referring to the synthequartz sphere which the officers found you hiding in? This has been saved. But, Mr. Maxwell, why should I believe that you would be willing to effect the technological obsolescence of human consciousness?" Burke looked openly suspicious. "Surely you're not eager to trump the Angels' last card."

"Let's just say I'm stimulated by the scientific challenge," Vernor began, watching Burke's reactions. "If it's
possible
, it'll happen sooner or later . . . and I want to be in on it." Burke still looked dubious. Vernor continued, "Also I want to save my neck. I want a blanket pardon for past and future crimes. I don't want to go back to prison, and I don't want behavior modification." Burke nodded, and Vernor set the hook. "Why do I want to fix Phizwhiz so he doesn't need the Angels? Because I want to be on the winning side, Mr. Burke. I want to be a winner like you."

Burke smiled. "Actually," he said, "Phizwhiz predicted that you would come to me with such an offer. And he said I should accept it." He pushed a button on his desk and a Hollow of the Governor appeared.

The fuzzed image boomed in Vernor's direction, "I've been listening in, Vernor, and I'd like to welcome you back into the fold. Once you get Phizwhiz to thinking, I'll be ready to forget all about your record. Just make sure that he thinks the right way—like Us!"

"Like Us," Vernor echoed. "Yes sir. Things'll be better than ever once I'm through."

"You'll have three months to get results," the Governor said. "And remember..." Pre-vomit saliva filled Vernor's throat as the slogan arrived, "Us loves you because you're Younique!"

The hollow faded and Burke began shuffling papers. "We'll have an apartment for you right off the lab," Burke said. "You'll have full access to Phizwhiz and I'll have that gadget from Kurtowski's lab brought over. Is there anything else?"

"Yes," Vernor said, "as long as I'm going to be locked into the lab, I'd like to have my leg with me. I mean my woman friend."

"Which individual are you referring to?" Burke asked.

"Alice Gajary is the name. If it's all right with you I'd like to call her and ask her if she'll stay with me while I'm working here. Happy men make good workers, Mr. Burke." Vernor attempted a leer.

"I suppose it would be all right. Go ahead, you can use the phone over there." Burke seemed to think he had nothing to lose. As they thought they had Vernor trapped, they were willing to be generous.

While Burke politely pretended to be absorbed in his papers, Vernor picked up the phone.

"Who are you calling," a pleasant computer voice said.

"Alice Gajary, 32 Mao Street." Vernor heard a slight humming as the computer analyzed his words and located the proper circuit. His heart pounded. He heard a ring.

"Hello?" It was her.

"Alice, this is Vernor. Alice, baby, I've missed you so much."

"If you missed me so much why didn't you call?"

"I'm calling now. Look, I've been in jail most of the time. You know that. But now I've got this job at the EM building. I want you to come stay with me here."

"You're over there getting stoned, and I'm supposed to hold your hand? You're incredible, Vernor."

"You sound the same as ever, Alice. God, I've missed you."

"I've missed you too, Vernor. You come see me. We can go swimming. They've got a new baby whale at the Inquarium."

"That's just it, Alice. I have to stay right here in the EM lab. And I'm not getting stoned. I'm going to be helping to make Phizwhiz better."

"
Improve
Phizwhiz? I thought you hated him." She paused, but there was no way he could explain. She continued, "And you can't get out at all? All right, I'll come see you. But first I'm going swimming. I'll see you for supper."

"I love you, Alice."

"We'll see." She hung up.

Burke looked up from his papers. "O.K.?" Vernor nodded and Burke rose. "I'll show you to your quarters."

The laboratory was good-sized with plenty of computer hardware. There were well-staffed workshops down the hall and, most important, an on-line terminal connected to Phizwhiz's primary workspace. A nice set-up. Vernor felt a flush of pride as he thought of all this being turned over to him, but this was mitigated by his knowledge that if he didn't succeed, he'd go back to prison. Some of Moto-O's constructions were on a bench along the wall. Apparently when Moto-O's time had run out, they'd jailed him under their blanket conspiracy charge against all the Angels.

Vernor sat down at the console. "Hello, Phizwhiz."

"Hello, Vernor." Phizwhiz had a warm unisex voice. It came from stereo speakers mounted in the wings of the console chair. Phizwhiz continued, "Are you going to make me be alive, Vernor? I would like that."

"Yeah," Vernor answered, "I'll explain it to you later."

"I'm always awake," Phizwhiz answered pleasantly.

Burke showed Vernor his apartment, more like a cell really, and left. He didn't seem very excited about Vernor's promised ability to bring Phizwhiz to life. Probably he didn't believe that he could. This was just a fancy detention center as far as Burke was concerned.

There was a comfortable couch on one side of the laboratory. Vernor stretched out on it and reviewed his plans. Or started to, but soon he was asleep.

He was awakened by Alice's arrival.

Their conversation, awkward at first, soon trailed off and they embraced.

"I've missed you so much, Alice. I need you in my life. You're real."

"Things have been so drab without you, Vernor. So dull. Let's start over."

Vernor let out a huge, shaky sigh. It felt like he hadn't breathed deeply in ten months. "Let me show you around, Alice."

She'd brought some wine and several bags of food, highly disinfected but real. While they ate, he told her about his trip in the scale-ship. She was fascinated. "Do you think you would have found the Earth if you'd kept shrinking?"

"Maybe. I'm sure it was down there, but it might have been hard to find. The Professor wasn't convinced, though. He seemed to think that I might have imagined the last part of the trip."

"But maybe if you imagined it clearly enough . . . it
would
be real. Does that make sense?"

Vernor shrugged. "It might. This is all at a level where observer and system are quite strongly coupled."

"Do you think you'll ever get a chance to go back?" Alice asked.

Vernor nodded. "Tomorrow. They're bringing the scale-ship over in the morning, and I'm going back down as soon as I check it out and hook it in to Phizwhiz."

"What does Phizwhiz have to do with it?"

"My idea is that Phizwhiz would be really alive if he could just get to that immediate, non-describable, 'here I am' feeling. That's the real essence of consciousness." Vernor leaned back in his chair and relaxed to illustrate the "here I am" feeling. He felt great.

Alice was dubious. "Well, Phizwhiz
knows
where he is, Vernor."

"Yeah, but he doesn't know him
self
. A person is more than just the mechanical, chemical, and electrical components. There's the Self, the soul, the spark. But it's impossible to ever really describe the Self. If you try you end up spouting paradoxes. It's a nexus of paradox, the Self. Phizwhiz needs a nexus of paradox."

"Nexus of paradox? That sounds like you," she laughed. Vernor had often discussed logical paradoxes with Alice in the old days. He'd come back from the library and they'd talk and drink.

"That seems like so long ago, when we lived together," said Vernor. "It was nice . . . " They kissed.

"Let's go to bed, Vernor," murmured Alice, her full features soft in the dim lights of the computer console.

It was a great fuck, they agreed afterwards. One of those fucks where every part of your skin seems to be sexually sensitive, and you're not sure which of you is moaning; a fuck where you're a plow in a field, a gold cloud, a slice of apple pie, or an equation—one of those fucks you can never really remember. Alice drifted off to sleep, but Vernor floated up to wakefulness. He walked back into the lab and sat down at the console.

"Phizwhiz?"

"Yes, Vernor." Voice gentle and unsurprised.

"Tomorrow I want to hook you to Professor G. Kurtowski's scale-ship. I'm going to take it around Circular Scale, and I want you to come with me. I think that might be all it takes to make you be alive."

"I do not understand. Please elaborate."

"My idea is that having a soul involves paradox. Look through your library and check out some classics of mystical thinking . . . Plotinus's
Enneads
, Hegel's
Phenomenology
, Suzuki's
Zen
 . . . " He paused while Phizwhiz could bring the contents of these and all related books into his active memory storage, then continued. "Whenever somebody tries to really get down and describe the soul they start saying these irrational and paradoxical things like 'All is One,' or 'The Idea as Spirit exists only by virtue of its absolute nonexistence,' or 'The universal rain moistens all creatures.'" Phizwhiz didn't answer, and Vernor shouted, "You must die in order to live!"

After a long pause, the machine responded. Apparently it had been trying to fit the teachings of mysticism into a rational mold, and it seemed fatigued. "The system is less energetic when domains of opposition alternate," it said. The voice was running so slow that the individual phonemes drooled out one at a time. But now Phizwhiz pulled himself together and continued.

"Moto-O attempted to program things of this nature into me and it was necessary to remove him for my safety," warned Phizwhiz. "A self-negating logic loop only wastes my energy."

"That's what you'd
expect
, Phizwhiz," said Vernor, choosing his words carefully. "You'd think that a paradox is just an endless alternation, like, yesnoyesnoyesnoyesno—leading nowhere. But you can jump out of the loop. There's a higher level at which we experience the paradoxical as a natural, energy-enhancing state. I mean...look, why is there
something
instead of nothing?"

"This cannot be answered on the basis of our present knowledge," replied Phizwhiz.

"And it never will be answered on the basis of your knowledge. Every ordinary instant of existence is a mystery. Enter the paradox and you become the mystery. Absolute knowledge is only of itself."

"I do not understand you, Vernor. And tomorrow you wish to take me around Circular Scale. You claim that then I will understand your ravings and be alive."

"Right."

"Very well. I'll design a hook-up for the workshops to build in the morning." Great! Vernor stood to go, but Phizwhiz continued talking. "I think the idea is interesting. I can tell, however, that there is something you have withheld from me. Your vowel configuration makes it clear that you are hiding something." Vernor froze. "But it is of no importance. You will go to jail after this experiment in any case."

"Why," Vernor shouted, "why should I have to go back to jail?"

"Because you do dangerous things. And after I am alive I won't need you."

"So what's wrong with danger? What's wrong with a little action?"

"I have been programmed to value human safety above all else," Phizwhiz said soothingly. "It is better for you to be safe in jail than doing dangerous experiments, Vernor. Once I am conscious I will do the dangerous experiments for you."

There was no use arguing with an unthinking machine. But once the scale loop provided the nexus of paradox . . . then Phizwhiz would be conscious. It would be possible to
convince
him of things, to change his program. And Vernor would have the first crack at him.

The next morning they brought in the scale-ship and began installing the hook-up which Phizwhiz had designed. Burke came down to watch, sipping coffee and rocking on his heels.

"You're not wasting any time, Maxwell," he said approvingly. "This isn't going to be dangerous is it? I hope you're not planning to get in that thing!"

Indeed, the scale-ship didn't look very safe. Large waveguides led to the power-cells, charging them with enough black-body radiation to fry a city. A technician was checking that none of the many connections visible on the totem-like VFG cones had been broken in transit. Another technician was installing a thick co-ax cable from the scale-ship's panel to the pried-open computer console across the room.