David Brin - Infinity's Shore

Peepoe spoke up. “You mean the Karrank-k%?’

She did a creditable job of expressing the double-aspirated slide tone at the end, sounding like a steam kettle about to explode.

“Yes, quite. Well, I’d been wondering what kind of ecosystem could support them down there. And it got me thinking …”

Brookida halted. Then all three dolphins whirled around as the wall segment behind them began emitting a low, scraping hum. The grating vibration hurt Kaa’s jaw.

Soon, the entire habitat groaned to a rasping sonic frequency Kaa recognized.

It’s a saser! Someone’s attacking the dome!

“Harnesses!”

At his shouted command, they all dived toward the rack where heavy-duty tool kits were hung, ready for use. Kaa streaked through the open end of his well-worn apparatus, and felt its many control surfaces slide smoothly into place. A control cable snaked toward the neural tap behind his left eye. Robotic arms whirred as he jerked the harness free of its rack. Peepoe’s unit popped loose just half an instant later.

A rough rectangle crept across the opposite wall, above and below the waterline, glowing hot.

“They’re cutting through!” Peepoe cried.

“Breathers!” Kaa shouted. From the back of his harness, a hose swarmed over his blowhole, covering it with a moist kiss and tight seal. A blast of canned air tasted even more tinny than the recycled stuff within the dome. Kaa sent a neural command activating his torch cutter and saser, tools that could second as weapons in close combat.…

But they didn’t respond!

“Peepoe!” He shouted. “Check your—”

“I’m helping Brookida!” she cut in. “His harness is stuck!”

Kaa slashed the water with his flukes, squealing a cry of frustration. With no better options, he interposed his body between theirs and the far wall…

… which abruptly collapsed in a wave of pummeling froth.

Gillian

I HAVE DISCOVERED SEVERAL THINGS OF INTEREST,” the Niss Machine told Gillian, after she wakened from a brief induced sleep. “The first has to do with that wonderfully ostentatious native machine, built and operated by the urrish tinkerer, Uriel.”

Sitting in her darkened office, she watched a recorded holo image of wheels, pulleys, and disks, whirling in a flamboyant show of light and action. Not far from Gillian, the ancient cadaver, Herbie, seemed to regard the same scene. A trick of shadows made the enigmatic, mummified face seem amused.

“Let me guess. Uriel created a computer.”

The Niss reacted with surprise. Its spiral of meshed lines tightened to a knot.

“You knew?”

“I suspected. From the kids’ reports, Uriel wouldn’t waste time on anything useless or abstract. She’d want to give her folk something special. The one thing her founding ancestors absolutely had to throw away.”

“Possession of computers. Good point, Dr. Baskin. Uriel could aim no higher than to be like Prometheus. Bringing her people the fire of calculation.”

“But without digital cognizance,” she pointed out. “An undetectable computer.”

“Indeed. I found no reference to such a thing in our captured Galactic Library unit. So I turned to the precontact 2198 edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica. There I learned about analog computation with mechanical components, which actually had a brief ascendancy on Earth, using many of the same techniques we see in Uriel’s hall of spinning glass!”

“I remember hearing about this. Maybe Tom mentioned it.”

“Did he also mention that the same thing can be achieved using simple electronic circuits? Networks of resistors, capacitors, and diodes can simulate a variety of equations. By interconnecting such units, solutions can be worked out for limited problems.

“It provokes one to consider the military potential of such a system. For instance, operating sneak-attack weapons without digital controls, using undetectable guidance systems.”

The Niss holo performed a twist that Gillian interpreted as a shrug.

“But then, if the notion were feasible, it would have found its way into the Library by now.”

There it was again. Even Tymbrimi suffered from the same all-pervading supposition — that anything worth doing must have been done already, over the course of two billion years. The assumption nearly always proved true. Still, wolfling humans resented it.

“So,” Gillian prompted. “Have you figured out what Uriel is trying to compute?”

“Ah, yes.” The line motif spun contemplatively.

“That is, perhaps.

“Or rather … no, I have not.”

“What’s the problem?”

The Niss showed spiky irritation.

“My difficulty is that all the algorithms used by Uriel are of Terran origin.”

Gillian nodded.

“Naturally. Her math books came from the so-called Great Printing, when human learning flooded this world, most of it in the form of precontact texts. A mirror image of what Galactic society did to Earth. On Jijo, we were the ones to unleash an overpowering wealth of knowledge, engulfing prior beliefs.”

Hence also Gillian’s recent, weird experience — debating the literary merits of Jules Verne with a pair of distinctly unhuman youngsters named “Alvin” and “Huck,” whose personalities had little in common with the stodgy Galactic norm.

The Niss agreed, bowing its tornado of laced lines.

“You grasp my difficulty, Doctor. Despite Tymbrimi sympathy toward Earthlings, my makers were uplifted as Galactic citizens, with a shared tradition. While details of my programming are exceptional, I was designed according to proven principles, after eons of Galactic experience refining digital computers. These precepts clash with Terran superstitions—”

Gillian coughed behind her hand. The Niss bowed.

“Forgive. I meant to say, Terran lore.”

“Can you give an example?”

“I can. Consider the contrast between the word/concepts discrete and continuous.

“According to Galactic science, anything and everything can be accomplished by using arithmetic. By counting and dividing, using integers and rational fractions. Sophisticated arithmetic algorithms enable us to understand the behavior of a star, for instance, by partitioning it into ever-smaller pieces, modeling those pieces in a simple fashion, then recombining the parts. That is the digital way.”

“It must call for vast amounts of memory and raw computing power.”

“True, but these are cheaply provided, enough for any task you might require.

“Now look back at precontact human wolflings. Your race spent many centuries as semicivilized beings, mentally ready to ask sophisticated questions, but completely lacking access to transistors, quantum switches, or binary processing. Until your great savants, Turing and Von Neumann, finally expressed the power of digital computers, generations of mathematicians had to cope by using pencil and paper.

“The result? A mix of the brilliant and the inane. Abstract differential analysis and cabalistic numerology. Algebra, astrology, and geometrical topology. Much of this amalgam was based on patently absurd concepts, such as continuity, or aptly named irrational numbering, or the astonishing notion that there are layered infinities of the divisibly small.”

Gillian sighed an old frustration.

“Earth’s best minds tried to explain our math, soon after contact. Again and again we showed it was self-consistent. That it worked.”

“Yet it accomplished nothing that could not be outmatched in moments by calculating engines like myself. Galactic seers dismissed all the clever equations as trickery and shortcuts, or else the abstract ravings of savages.”

She acceded with a nod.

“This happened once before, you know. In Earth’s twentieth century, after the Second World War, the victors quickly split into opposing camps. Those experts you mentioned — Turing and von Whoever — they worked in the west, helping set off our own digital revolution.