“I am sure you will find them so,” Sven-2 said, picking up the conversation when they approached. “I believe that your plan has been to visit the country of Rumania. To search for any traces or clues that might lead you to Dr. Bociort. Is that not correct?”
“Yes.”
“It will not be necessary. You must go to Switzerland. I have located this country in Europe—”
“I know where Switzerland is. But why are you telling me this?”
“Because of a most interesting anomaly I found in the software. It didn’t seem to make any sense and at first I thought it might be part of a computer virus. But when I examined it more closely I found that it was a loop of instructions buried in another sequence that was programmed to bypass the loop. It was then that I recognized it as a fragment of code written in the old computer language LAMA-3.”
“But that’s impossible — almost impossible. There is only one person in the world who knows that language.”
“Three, you might say. You, because you invented it for your own use, and…”
“And you, because evidently you must have inherited a copy of that part of my brain! But who would be the third person you referred to? Bociort! Because he deciphered my notes. But this can only mean…”
“… that this was his message intended for you.”
“Out with it! What did it say!”
“Close examination of the fragment of unexecutable code revealed that it was a command that read… sequence terminated because of a type-2341 8255-8723 banjax.”
“Banjax! That’s Irish slang, means sort of fouled up.”
“I agree. I have heard you use the term upon occasion and a search of dictionary data bases determine its origin. Therefore I felt that this loop was put there to draw your attention. Which meant the numbers might have some significance. A brief cryptanalysis revealed the content.”
“To you perhaps — -but it just sounds like numbers to me.”
“Not just numbers — but a message.”
“Do you understand it?”
“I believe I do. It starts with the numbers 2 and 3. If you take the letters of the alphabet the first two digits of the message then become ‘BC.’ Which could stand for Bociort.”
“Isn’t that a little farfetched? It could also be the abbreviation for Before Christ or Baja California.”
“Perhaps, but not if you know what you are looking for. The number 41 is the international dialing code for Switzerland, 82 the code for St. Moritz. The remaining six digits could be a phone number in that city.”
Brian was stunned. It was almost too easy. But it was surely no accident. Had it been put in there on purpose — for him to find?
“The solution of this problem seems to be to place a phone call to this number,” Sven said.
“Agreed — but not from here or anywhere on this base. There is no way we can follow through with this until I am out of here and have access to a telephone that isn’t tapped. Sven, you remember the number until then. Meanwhile let’s put it on the long finger.”
“I am not familiar with that term.”
“I am,” Sven-2 said. Was there a hint of intellectual superiority in its words? “It is an Irish colloquialism equivalent to the American term ‘to spike,’ meaning to put aside for the moment, both terms derived from an outmoded office device consisting of a length of sharpened rod held vertical in a metal base…”
“Enough!” Brian ordered. “That is a very academic lecture. You should be teaching school.”
“Thank you for saying that; it is an option to consider.”
Brian looked bemusedly at the rack of electronic equipment with the invisible and very humanlike brain inside. A bit of biblical quote sprang instantly to mind. What hath God wrought!
No God here. What had he wrought!
37
December 16, 2024
Erin Snaresbrook found the call waiting on her phone when she came out of surgery.
“Hi, Doc, Brian here. Could you phone me when you get a minute?”
She replaced the telephone and found that her heart was pumping a bit fast. She smiled wryly. Wonderful. Three hours of surgery to remove a tumor from that boy’s brain, and her pulse beat just plugged along normally all the time. Now one phone call and her body was getting ready to run a hundred meters in ten seconds. Even though she had been expecting this call. Not dreading it, just reluctantly expecting it.
She made a double espresso before she even considered calling back, sipped most of it. It was six in the evening. He couldn’t possibly want to see her today? No, the agreement was for a few days’ lead time at least. The coffee finished, she hit the button to code in his number.
“I got your message, Brian.”
“Thanks for ringing back. Look, I think your suggestion was right that we ought to have a few more sessions with my CPU. And we’ll do it right here in the lab where we can use the MI as well.”
“I’m glad you agree. Tomorrow?”
“No, too soon. I have some work to finish first. What do you say to Thursday afternoon? Around three?”
“That’s fine. See you there.”
It wasn’t fine at all. She had to rearrange a half dozen appointments to make the time. Well, she had promised.
She had driven this route so often that it was exactly three o’clock on Thursday afternoon when she drove through the Megalobe gate. There were two soldiers sitting on the clinic steps when she drew up.
“Sick call, boys?” she asked as she got out.
“No, ma’am, we’re volunteers. Brian said you had some equipment to move today and we volunteered. After he paid us for the drinks.”
“You don’t have to do that, the machine’s not so heavy.”
“Yes, ma’am. But there’s two of us and just one of you. And good old Billy here can do a hundred push-ups. You wouldn’t want all that red-meat muscle to go to waste?”
“You’re right, I wouldn’t.” She unlocked the trunk. “If you’ll bring that box inside we’ll load it up.”
She had some foam rubber, that she had used as padding when her connection machine had been brought here from the hospital, and she put that into the box. Under her instruction they loaded in the machine, then carried it out to the car.
“I told you it Wasn’t heavy,” she said.
“No, ma’am. But we’ll take it out as well at the other end. We promised.”
“Climb in. I’ll give you a lift.”
“Sorry, but it’s the Major’s orders. No driving in vehicles on base and double-time between buildings.”
They jogged off, were waiting when she got there since she had to go the longer way around by road. Brian opened the door and the two soldiers carried the box in while the guards at the door looked on. It was all very simple.
“My heart was in my throat the entire time,” she said after they were gone and the door closed.
“Get the nerves over with now because the real fun is later.”
“Fun! I prefer surgery anytime.”
Dr. Snaresbrook’s connection machine was unloaded and carefully stowed away. Brian put a small bit in the chuck of the electric drill and made a hole in the lid of the reinforced metal box.
“Sven didn’t like the idea of being locked away in the dark all the time.” He held up a metal button with a flexible lead running from it. “Got a sound and optic pickup here. Mount it behind the hole, plug it in—”
“And you have a suitcase that watches you and listens to your conversations! This thing is getting crazier all the time.”
Sven had been monitoring everything. As soon as Brian was finished the MI stepped into the box and plugged in the connections. The robot seemed to melt into the container as each of its myriad joints folded against the next one — like blades on a hundred-tool Swiss Army knife. Compacted even further until the treelike structure was an almost solid mass at the bottom of the box. The eyestalks retracted and swiveled to watch Brian as he packed the dummy head in next to its inert central torso cylinder, put in the hat as well, shoes, gloves and clothes, and on top of everything a carry-on airline bag.