"Until we came to the honkers' planet, then, nobody had ever said anything to you about the Imago? Or hinted at its existence?"
No.
"Can you remember anything before the plane crash in which your father died?"
No.
"No?" Jack said. "Then how can you remember the Gaol writing? You must have learned it before you came to Earth."
She printed: I don't know. I just do.
"Then your mind isn't completely blocked off," Jack said.
"Maybe we could pry it open wider. But we don't have time to try even if we had the psychological tools."
He paused, then said, "You don't remember anything before the plane crash. But you can somehow use Gaol writing. Maybe there are other things you could use."
How to find what these were, if there were any?
He wished he could go back to Earth and locate the Daws, the last people to have known Tappy. They could tell him muchmaybe.
Had the Daws or other people before them imposed this hypnotic memory-block? If they had, they could also cancel it.
Then there were the honkers, the beings who he, when he first saw them, had assumed were sapient but not very bright. One of them had implanted that tiny bead or egg in between her breasts and thus kept her from being subject to Malva's will. That showed that they were no dummies. It also showed that they must know much. If he and Tappy could get back to the honkers' planet, they might find out more or perhaps all about this mystery.
And if only Tappy were six years older and thus close enough to maturity that ...
There you go again, he told himself. If, if, if.
IF!
That word suddenly glowed in his mind like a Times Square of revelation. Its light generated what might be a great idea.
Maybe it would work. But he'd have to ask the AI if they could do such a thing.
He sent out a mental message.
"Get your half-metal asses down here.
THEY. consisting of one female AI, met Jack by the fountain.
Before he proposed his plan, Jack asked it about something that had occurred to him while he was waiting for the AI to show uPious idea except that it involved It had little to do with the previ Tappy Is mind. Also, it might be important later on.
"could you get through the block that keeps her from remembering her first six years?" he said.
"My data indicates that it would be extremely difficult and would take a long time," the AI said. "We don't have time for that. Also, it's tricky even with the instruments we have. Using them could drive her mad or even completely destroy the memory now inhibited."
Jack said, "I thought I'd ask for future reference."
He explained what he had in mind for her immediately and asked the AI if his plan was workable. Within the deadline, that is.
The AI took about ten seconds to consider. Jack thought that it must be linked to a data bank because it surely did not have the required information in its brain. There was no use asking it about a linkage just to satisfy his curiosity. It did not matter enough for him to waste time over it.
"It's possible that we can do what you have proposed," the AI said. "Of course, we can't give her a complete false memoimposing trillions ry covering seven years. That would mean . I and trillions of data of different kinds, sensory, iconic, verbal, oneiromantic . . ."
"I get the idea," Jack said. "No use to list them all."
"Thus, the impressions would have to be relatively few. But they would be vivid; they would seem to be real. As I've been informed, you humans have great gaps in your memory."
"Some don't," Jack said. "A few gifted people have photographic memories."
"We know that," the AI said. "In the woman's case, it doesn't matter. She can't remember back before she was six years old, and any seeming gaps of memory after her treatment could be accounted for by the traumas she's endured. However, since she would supposedly be twenty years old, how would we fool her? Wouldn't she wonder why she, a twenty-year-old, still looks thirteen?"
"She'd just think that she looks very young for her age," Jack said. "She's one of those people who probably will look younger than their age. I suggest that you insert a few memories of people telling her how young she looks."
"Noted. It'll be done. But ... we have doubts that the memory insertion will deceive the Imago."
"I don't know if it will be fooled or it won't be," Jack said. "It makes no difference. We have to try. And we'd better get cracking very soon."
He started to say something more on the subject, but no sound came from his mouth. His lips were open, and his jaw hung down.
Then he snapped it shut and frowned.
The AI waited patiently for him to speak.
"All of a sudden," Jack murmured, "all of a sudden. .
"What?" the AI said.
"It struck me that I've got an ethical problem! I haven't asked Tappy if it's okay if we mess around with her mind! It's a terrible thing to do that and not even ask her if we can! Yet, the situation is such that we can't ask her if she'll cooperate! To do that would negate the plan from the start!"
"The larger ethical issue overrides the smaller," the AI said.
"Our data makes that clear."
"You have no intuition about ethics," Jack said. "You rely on data. We humans do, too, but we also have feelings. Mine tell me that we are sinning against Tappy."
"We know the definition of 'sin'," the AI said. "It's a philosophical and theological concept which has no relation to realityexcept as it governs the behavior of Homo sapiens ... and some other sentients."
"How about the Imago's concept of sin, its ethical standards?"
"I have no direct knowledge of that. But it always works for the general good of sentient groups who are also ethical."
Jack thought that no group, or individual, for that matter, believed that it was doing evil. Did Hitler or Stalin or Mao believe that he was evil? No. What they did was for the good of the group they ruled. Or so they believed. Apparently, though, the Imago could perceive what and who was truly good.
"Go away," Jack said. "Let me think."
"The larger does not always outweigh the smaller," the AI said.
"But, in this case, it does."
It turned and walked out of the tent and around the doorway.
Jack paced back and forth. Presently, he heard the tinkling of the little bell which he had gotten from the AI and then placed on the table near Tappy's bed. She could not call out to him if she wanted him, but the bell could be heard throughout the tent and some distance away from it. He went to the bedroom, where she was now sitting on a pile of pillows near the bed.
"What do you want?" he said.
She held up her recorder. He went to her and read what she had printed on it. By now, he was becoming fairly proficient in reading the Gaol alphabet. He only had to refer to his equivalence list twice.
She had written: What is happening?
"I've been busy with the AI," he said. He hesitated, then said, lying, "We're going to put you under hypnosis and try to break through your memory barrier. Maybe, if we're lucky, we can find out what happened before the plane crash."
Suddenly, he had known what he must do to her. It was making him lie to her because the most important thing, the only really important thing, was to develop that entity inside her to the Imago phase.
God help her! God help him! They were, from the cosmic viewpoint, only agents. In some respects, their fate was no more important than the Al's. But it mattered greatly to Tappy and him.
They were not unfeeling robotic AI.
Tappy looked anything but happy. In fact, her left hand was gripping her right hand tightly, and she was biting her lip.