Ben Bova - Exiled from Earth

Lou’s work seemed simple and straightforward to him. He was training Ramo, the computer, to look over the detailed structure of each gene in a zygote and compare it to the structure of a healthy, undamaged gene.

Ramo, being a computer, knew only what his human co-workers told him. But he had two advantages that no human possessed. First, he had absolutely perfect memory. Once the “map” of a healthy gene was stored in the microcosmic magnetic patterns of his memory bank, he would never forget it, never blur or warp it, never let any emotional conditions prevent him from seeing it exactly as it was given to him. Second, Ramo could work at the speed of light, rather than the tediously slower pace of the human nervous system Ramo could scan dozens of genes and spot the imperfections in their molecular structure in the time it took Lou to count to ten.

Lou often thought of himself as a teacher His job was to teach an extremely clever youngster—Ramo—how to do a very complicated job. A job that no human could do because it would take him too long, and his memory wasn’t good enough Just before the Institute had been closed, Lou had taught Ramo all the patterns of healthy gene structures Ramo knew what healthy genes looked like on a molecular level Now Lou had to teach him how to compare a real set of genes with the healthy structures he already knew how to spot the things that might be wrong with real genes, and how to show these imperfections in his viewscreens. Once this was done, Lou would begin to teach Ramo the biochemists’ remedies for fixing faulty genes. And once that was done, the immense task was finished. The work of genetic engineering could begin.

But, sitting at the master control desk of the computer, Lou was much less than happy. The desk was a huge collection of control panels and viewscreens that reached around his padded chair in a semicircle. Within the reach of his fingers were controls that touched every part of Ramo’s enormous electronic mind.

Lou was frowning as he slouched in the chair. He could see his own reflection in one of the dead viewscreens. He looked the way he felt It was mid-morning, according to the clock, but here inside the computer building it was hard to tell. There were no windows. The building was frigidly air conditioned and heavily soundproofed. Time meant very little to the computer.

Two weeks had gone by since Lou had come to the island. Two weeks, and Bonnie was still as cold and distant as she had been that first day. She worked for Lou, she did her job well. She had lunch with him most days and dinner a few times, in the tiny overcrowded cafeteria that Marcus had put up near the lab complex. She even mended a hole in his pants pocket. But she still acted more like a wary employee than a friend.

I should have never made them bring her here, Lou told himself for the millionth time that morning. She’ll never forgive me for it.

The phone beside him buzzed. He punched the ANSWER button. Marcus’ untanned, bland-looking face appeared on the main viewscreen.

“You wanted to see me?” he asked.

Nodding, Lou said, “Some of the biochemists have been asking me to help them program Ramo to handle their work I don’t mind helping them, but it’s going to take time, and I thought you wanted me to plug ahead on the basic genetic mapping as fast as I can.”

“The biochemists?” Marcus put on a worried frown. “Why do they need special computer programming?”

“They’re working on something to do with drugs that affect the chemistry in the chromosomes, or something like…”

Marcus’ eyes widened for a flash second. Then, he quickly regained his self-control. “No, you’re quite right. You shouldn’t be pulled off what you’re doing to help with that. Let some of the other programmers help them.”

Lou said, “Okay, fine. I’d be glad to help them if they need it.”

“No,” Marcus snapped “Urn, that is, they shouldn’t interfere with your work. Any way I’ll take care of it. If they come to you again, tell them to see me.”

“Okay thanks. Thanks.”

Marcus nodded and cut off the connection. The viewscreen went blank, leaving Lou to look at his own frowning reflection again.

He worked at the control desk the rest of the morning, then around noontime phoned. Bonnie She was working with a trio of Chinese girls on the other side of the building.

“I’m afraid I can’t go to lunch with you, Lou,” she said without smiling “The girls and I are eating right here at our desks, we’ve got mountains of work to do.”

Lou punched the OFF button, and this time turned his gaze away from the viewscreen.

It was well past six o’clock when the phone buzzed again. It pulled Lou out of his total immersion in the work of teaching genetics to Ramo. He suddenly realized that he was bone tired his back ached, his head was throbbing, his eyes burned. But on the main viewscreen Ramo was displaying a detailed enlarged map of the molecular structure of a single gene. And part of the map—the area of the gene that was flawed—was outlined in red Lou typed on the master input keyboard, GOOD WORK RAMO. PERFECT. He muttered the words to himself as the phone kept buzzing.

THANK YOU, Ramo flashed on the viewscreen.

Lou reached out and touched the phone button Ramo’s words disappeared from the screen and Anton Kori’s lean angular face took form on it He was grinning hugely, showing big white teeth with spaces between them that made them look like a cemetery to Lou.

“Can you have dinner with me?” Kori asked “I have a lot to talk about, a lot to show you…”

“Well, I don’t know,” Lou said “I’m kind of beat “

“Oh,” Ron’s smile faded, but only a little. “Maybe. Bonnie can… you have no objection? I’ve got to show these pictures to someone!”

“Bonnie?” Lou felt his nerves flash a warning “Um… look, Anton—I’ll give Bonnie a call and we’ll both drop over to your place. Okay?”

Kori bobbed his head up and down. “Wonderful. Come to my lab. Next to the instrument repair shop. Bonnie knows where it is.”

I’ve got no right to be sore at her, Lou told himself as he angrily punched out Bonnie’s phone number. She wasn’t in her room. Glancing at the clock, Lou tried her office phone.

Her face filled the screen and his anger melted.

“Oh, hello, Lou. I was just leaving for dinner.”

Keeping his voice flat calm, “Kori just called. He’s very excited about something, wants us to eat with him. Can you make it?”

“Sure.” Without a moment’s hesitation.

Lou asked, “Would you have been so free if I had asked you to have dinner with me? Alone?”

For an instant a frightened look flickered in her green eyes.

“What do you mean, Lou?”

“You’ve been seeing a lot of Kori, haven’t you?”

“Lou, I’m a tax-paying citizen or at least I was until I got hijacked here.”

“So you are sore about my having you brought here!”

“Of course I’m sore!” she flashed back “Weren’t you sore when they dragged you away? Do you enjoy being an exile? Is this island any better than the satellite or wherever it is that the rest of the Institute people were sent?”

Lou heard himself mumble, “You don’t want to be around me, is that it?”

“Don’t be sullen,” she said, smiling for the first time. “Lou, whatever we had going between us back at the Institute, it can’t be the same here. It just can’t be.”

“That’s the way you want it?”

She looked sad and lonely now. “That’s the way it’s got to be, Lou.”

“Yeah.” He took a deep breath. “Well, how about dinner? I told Kori we’d both be over…”

“All right,” she said softly. “As long as we understand each other.”