"Yes."
Good. Log-on anytime you like. If you want to exit the House system just say log-off. Storing and recall is automatic. It will always find your place but it won't activate until you say hello. Denys can explain the details. Goodbye. Don't forget to log-off.
She looked at uncle Denys. Whispered: "Do I?" He nodded and she said: "Log-off."
The screen went dark and folded down again.
ARCHIVES: RUBIN PROJECT: CLASSIFIED CLASS AA
DO NOT COPY WITHOUT COMMITTEE FORM 768
CONTENT: Computer Transcript File #5979 Seq. #28
Emory I/Emory II
2415: 1/24: 2332
B/1: Hello, Ari.
AE2: Hello.
B/1: Are you alone?
AE2: Florian and Catlin are with me.
B/1: Anyone else?
AE2: No.
B/1: You're using House input 311. What room are you in?
AE2: My bedroom. In uncle Denys' apartment.
B/1: This is how this program works, Ari, and excuse me if I use small words: I wrote this without knowing how old you'd be when you logged-on or what year it would be. It's 2415. The program just pulled that number out of the House computer clock. Your guardian is Denys Nye. The program just accessed your records in the House data bank and found that out, and it can tell you that Denys ordered pasta for lunch today, because it just accessed Denys' records and found out the answer to that specific question. It knows you're 9 years old and therefore it's set a limit on your keycard accesses, so you can't order Security to arrest anybody or sell 9000 Alpha genesets to Cyteen Station. Remembering what I was like at 9, that seems like a reasonable precaution.
The program has Archived all the routines it had if you were younger or older than 9. It can get them back when your House records match those numbers, and it can continually update its Master according to the current date, by adding numbers. This goes on continually.
Every time you ask a question it gets into all the records your age and your current clearance make available to you, all over the House system, including the library. Those numbers will get larger. When you convince the program you have sufficient understanding, the accesses will get wider. When you convince the program you have reached certain levels of responsibility your access will also get into Security levels and issue orders to other people.
There's a tape to teach you all the accesses you need right now. Have you had it?
AE2: Yes. I had it today.
B/1: Good. If you'd answered no, it would have cut off and said: log-off and go take that tape before you log-on again. If you make a mistake with your codes, it'll do that too. A lot of things will work that way. You have to be right: the machine you're using is linked to the House system, and it will cut you off if you make mistakes. If you make certain mistakes it'll call Security and that's not a good thing.
Don't play jokes with this system, either. And don't ever lie to it or enter false information. It can get you in a lot of trouble.
Now I will tell you briefly there is a way to lie to the system without causing problems, but you have to put the real information in a file with a sufficiently high Security level. The machine will always read that file when it needs to, but it will also read your lie, and it will give the lie to anyone with a lower Security clearance than you have. That means only a few people, mostly Security and Administration, can find out what you hid. This is so you can have some things private or secret.
Eventually you can use this to cover your Inquiry activity. Or your Finances. Or your whereabouts. That file can't be erased, but it can be added to or updated. When your access time in the House system increases and the number of mistakes you make per entry decreases to a figure this program wants, you'll get an instruction how to use the Private files. Until then, don't lie to the program, or you'll lose points and it'll take you a long time to get beyond this level.
You've probably figured out by now you can't question the program when it's in this mode. You can stop this tutorial at any point by saying: Ari, wait. You can go out of this mode and ask a question and come back by saying, Ari, go on.
Don't ever think that this program is alive. It's just lines of program like the programs you can write. But it can learn, and it changes itself as it learns. It has a base state, which is like a default, but that's only in the master copy in Archives.
Sometimes this program transcribes what I tell you for your guardian Denys. Sometimes not. It's not doing that now. I'm writing to files only you can access, by telling the Minder you want to hear the file from this session, by hour and date. This is an example of a Private file. Do you understand how to access it?
AE2: Yes.
B/1: If you make a mistake the program will repeat this information.
Never ask for a Private file in front of anyone but Florian and Catlin. Not even Denys Nye can see the things I tell you in Private files. If he tries to do this, this program will send an order to Security. This program has just sent a message to Denys' Base that says the same thing. Trust me that I have a reason for this.
Sometimes a file will be so Private I will tell you to be totally alone. This means not even Florian and Catlin. Never ask to review those files when anyone else is present. They won't print out either, because they involve things very personal to you only, that not even your friends should know about you.
Many of these things involve your studies and they will simply come out of my own notes.
A lot of times they will come simply because you've asked a question and the computer has found a keyword.
You carry my keycard, my number, and my name. My records exist only in Archives and yours are the current files. Don't worry about my being dead. It doesn't bother me at all at this point. You can call me Ari senior. There isn't any word in the language that says what we are to each other. I'm not your mother and I'm not your sister. I'm just your Older. I assume that word is still current.
Understand, Ari, there is a difference between myself, who say these words into a Scriber, —and Base One. Base One can use a language logic function to talk with you much more like a living person than I can, because it's real-time and I'm not, and haven't been since 2404.
That's the computer accessing my records, understand, to find out that date.
Base One can answer questions on its own and bring up my answers to certain questions, and you can talk back and forth with it.
But never get confused about which one is able to talk back and forth with you directly.