Soon after the Braincap came into general use, some highly intelligent and maximally zealous bureaucrats realized that it had a unique potential as an early-warning system. During the setting-up process, when the new wearer was being mentally 'calibrated' it was possible to detect many forms of psychosis before they had a chance of becoming dangerous. Often this suggested the best therapy, but when no cure appeared possible the subject could be electronically tagged or, in extreme cases, segregated from society. Of course, this mental monitoring could test only those who were fitted with a Braincap but by the end of the Third Millennium this was as essential for everyday life as the personal telephone had been at its beginning. In fact, anyone who did not join the vast majority was automatically suspect, and checked as a potential deviant.
Needless to say, when 'mind-probing', as its critics called it, started coming into general use, there were cries of outrage from civil-rights organizations; one of their most effective slogans was 'Braincap or Braincop?' Slowly even reluctantly it was accepted that this form of monitoring was a necessary precaution against far worse evils; and it was no coincidence that with the general improvement in mental health, religious fanaticism also started its rapid decline-
When the long-drawn-out war against the cybernet criminals ended, the victors found themselves owning an embarrassing collection of spoils, all of them utterly incomprehensible to any past conqueror. There were, of course, hundreds of computer viruses, most of them very difficult to detect and kill. And there were some entities for want of a better name that were much more terrifying. They were brilliantly invented diseases for which there was no cure in some cases not even the possibility of a cure
Many of them had been linked to great mathematicians who would have been horrified by this corruption of their discoveries. As it is a human characteristic to belittle a real danger by giving it an absurd name, the designations were often facetious: the Godel Gremlin, the Mandelbrot Maze, the Combinatorial Catastrophe, the Transfinite Trap, the Conway Conundrum, the Turing Torpedo, the Lorentz Labyrinth, the Boolean Bomb, the Shannon Snare, the Cantor Cataclysm...
If any generalization was possible, all these mathematical horrors operated on the same principle. They did not depend for their effectiveness on anything as nave as memory-erasure or code corruption on the contrary. Their approach was more subtle; they persuaded their host machine to initiate a program which could not be completed before the end of the universe, or which the Mandelbrot Maze was the deadliest example involved a literally infinite series of steps.
A trivial example would be the calculation of Pi, or any other irrational number. However, even the most stupid electro-optic computer would not fall into such a simple trap: the day had long since passed when mechanical morons would wear out their gears, grinding them to powder as they tried to divide by zero...
The challenge to the demon programmers was to convince their targets that the task set them had a definite conclusion that could be reached in a finite time. In the battle of wits between man (seldom woman, despite such role-models as Lady Ada Lovelace, Admiral Grace Hopper and Dr Susan Calvin) and machine, the machine almost invariably lost.
It would have been possible though in some cases difficult and even risky to destroy the captured obscenities by ERASE/OVERWRITE commands, but they represented an enormous investment in time and ingenuity which, however misguided, seemed a pity to waste. And, more important, perhaps they should be kept for study, in some secure location, as a safeguard against the time when some evil genius might reinvent and deploy them.
The solution was obvious. The digital demons should be sealed with their chemical and biological counterparts, it was hoped for ever, in the Pico Vault.
37 Operation Damocles
Poole never had much contact with the team who assembled the weapon everyone hoped would never have to be used. The operation ominously, but aptly, named Damocles was so highly specialized that he could contribute nothing directly, and he saw enough of the task force to realize that some of them might almost belong to an alien species. Indeed, one key member was apparently in a lunatic asylum Poole had been surprised to find that such places still existed and Chairperson Oconnor sometimes suggested that at least two others should join him.
'Have you ever heard of the Enigma Project?' she remarked to Poole, after a particularly frustrating session. When he shook his head, she continued: 'I'm surprised it was only a few decades before you were born: I came across it while when I was researching material for Damocles. Very similar problem in one of your wars, a group of brilliant mathematicians was gathered together, in great secrecy, to break an enemy code... incidentally, they built one of the very first real computers, to make the job possible.'
'And there's a lovely story I hope it's true that reminds me of our own little team. One day the Prime Minister came on a visit of inspection, and afterwards he said to Enigma's Director: "When I told you to leave no stone unturned to get the men you needed, I didn't expect you to take me so literally".'
Presumably all the right stones had been turned for Project Damocles. However, as no one knew whether they were working against a deadline of days, weeks or years, at first it was hard to generate any sense of urgency. The need for secrecy also created problems; since there was no point in spreading alarm throughout the Solar System, not more than fifty people knew of the project. But they were the people who mattered who could marshal all the forces necessary, and who alone could authorize the opening of the Pico Vault, for the first time in five hundred years.
When Halman reported that the Monolith was receiving messages with increasing frequency, there seemed little doubt that something was going to happen. Poole was not the only one who found it hard to sleep in those days, even with the help of the Braincap's anti-insomnia programs. Before he finally did get to sleep, he often wondered if he would wake up again. But at last all the components of the weapon were assembled a weapon invisible, untouchable and unimaginable to almost all the warriors who had ever lived.
Nothing could have looked more harmless and innocent than the perfectly standard terabyte memory tablet, used with millions of Braincaps every day. But the fact that it was encased in a massive block of crystalline material, criss-crossed with metal bands, indicated that it was something quite out of the ordinary. Poole received it with reluctance; he wondered if the courier who had been given the awesome task of carrying the Hiroshima atom bomb's core to the Pacific airbase from which it was launched had felt the same way. And yet, if all their fears were justified, his responsibility might be even greater.
And he could not be certain that even the first part of his mission would be successful. Because no circuit could be absolutely secure, Halman had not yet been informed about Project Damocles; Poole would do that when he returned to Ganymede.
Then he could only hope that Halman would be willing to play the role of Trojan Horse and, perhaps, be destroyed in the process.
38 Pre-emptive Strike
It was strange to be back in the Hotel Grannymede after all these years strangest of all, because it seemed completely unchanged, despite everything that had happened. Poole was still greeted by the familiar image of Bowman as he walked into the suite named after him: and, as he expected, Bowman/Halman was waiting, looking slightly less substantial than the ancient hologram.