Harry Harrison - The Turing Option

Snaresbrook raised her hand to stop her, checked again that the recording light was on. “Do you remember that moment well, Dolly?”

“I could never forget it.”

“Then you must tell me about it, every detail. For Brian’s sake. His memory has been — shall we say injured. It is there but we have to remind him about it.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Will you help me — even if you don’t understand?”

“If you want me to, Doctor. If you tell me that it is that important. I am used to taking things on faith. Paddy was the brains in the family. And Brian of course, I think they both looked down on me, not that they ever said. But a person can tell.”

“Dolly, I give you my word that you are the only person in the world who can help Brian now, at this moment in time. No one can look down on you now. You must restore those memories. You must describe everything, just as you remember it. Every single detail.”

“Well, if you say it is that important, that it will help, I will do my best.” She sat up straight, determined. “At that time, when he was young, the boy was very dear to me. Only when he was older did he grow so distant. But I think, I know, that he needed me then.”

They both looked so tired as they came toward her, Paddy holding the boy’s hand. Father and son — there was no mistaking that red hair with the gold highlights.

“I must get the bags,” Paddy said. His unshaven cheek rough when he kissed her. “Look after him.”

“How do you do, Brian? I’m Dolly.”

He lowered his head, turned away, was silent. So small too for an eight-year-old. You would have guessed his age at six at the most. Scrawny and none too clean. A bad diet for certain, worse habits. She would take care of that.

“I’ve fixed your room up — you’ll like it.”

Without thinking she reached out to take him by the shoulder, felt him shiver and pull away. It was not going to be easy; she forced a smile, tried not to show how uncomfortable she felt. Thank God, there was Paddy now with the bags.

When the car started the boy fell asleep almost at once in the backseat. Paddy yawned widely then apologized.

“No need. Was it an awful trip?”

“Just long and wearisome. And, you know” — he glanced over his shoulder at Brian — “not easy in many ways. I’ll tell you all about it tonight.”

“What was the problem about the passport you mentioned on the phone?”

“Red tape nonsense. Something about me being born Irish and a nationalized American and Brian still being Irish, though the adoption papers should have taken care of that. But not according to the American consul in Dublin. They found some forms to fill out and in the end it was easier to get Brian an Irish passport and sort the rest out at this end.”

“We’ll do that at once. He is an American boy now and has no need for a strange foreign passport. And wait until you see. I fixed up the spare room like we agreed. A bunk bed, a little desk, some nice pictures. He’s going to like it.”

Brian hated this strange place. He was too tired at first to think about it. Woke up when his father carried him into the house. He had some strange-tasting soup and must have fallen asleep at the table. When he woke in the morning he cried out in fear at the strangeness of everything. His bedroom, bigger than the parlor at home. His familiar world was gone — even his clothes. His shorts, shirt, vest, gone while he slept. New clothes in bright colors now replaced their grays and blacks. Long trousers. He shivered when the door opened, pulled up the covers. But it was his father; he smiled, ever so slightly.

“Did you have a good sleep?” He nodded. “Good. Take yourself a shower, right in there, it works just like the one in the Dublin hotel. And get dressed. After breakfast I’ll show you around your new home.”

The shower still took some getting used to and he still wasn’t sure that he liked it. Back home in Tara the big cast-iron bathtub had been good enough.

When they walked out he felt that it was all too strange, too different to take in at once. The sun was too hot, the air too damp. The houses were all the wrong shape, the motorcars were too big — and drove on the wrong side of the road. His new home was a strange place. The pavement was too smooth. And water all around, no hills or trees. Just the flat, muddy-looking ocean and all the black metal things in the water on all sides. Why did it have to be like that? Why weren’t they on land? When they had arrived at the big airport they had changed to another plane, had flown across the state of Texas — that is what his father had called it — to get here, an apparently endless and empty place. Driven from the airport and parked the car.

“I don’t like it here.” He said it without thinking, softly to himself, but Paddy heard.

“It takes some getting used to.”

“Middle of the ocean!”

“Not quite.” Paddy pointed to the thin brown line on the distant horizon; it shimmered in the heat. “That’s the coast, just over there.”

“There ain’t no trees,” Brian said, looking around at this strange new environment.

“There are trees right in front of the shopping center,” his father said.

Brian dismissed them. “Not real trees, not growing in barrels like that. It’s not right. Why isn’t this place properly on the land?”

They had walked the length of the metal campus and the adjoining housing area. Stopped now to rest on a shaded bench overlooking the sea. Paddy slowly filled his pipe and lit it before he spoke.

“It’s not simple to explain, not unless you know a lot about this country and how things work here. What it comes down to is that it is all a matter of politics. We have laws in the United States about research money, research projects at the universities, who can and cannot invest. A lot of our big corporations felt we were falling behind Japan, where government and industry cooperate, share money and research. They couldn’t change the laws — so they bent them a little bit. Here, outside the continental three-mile limit, we are theoretically exempt from state and federal law. This university, built on old oil rigs and dredged land, is ruthlessly product-orientated. They have spared no expense at headhunting teachers and students.”

“Headhunters live in New Guinea and kill people and cut off their heads and smoke them and shrink them. You got them here too?”

Paddy smiled at the boy’s worried look and reached out to ruffle his hair; Brian pulled away.

“Different kind of headhunters. That’s slang for offering someone a lot of money to leave their old job. Or giving big grants to get the best students.”

Brian digested this new information, squinting out at the glare of the sun upon the water. “Then if you was headhunted here, then you must be something special?”

Paddy smiled, liking the way Brian’s brain worked. “Well, yes, I suppose I must be if I am here.”

“What do you do?”

“I’m a mathematician.”

“Twelve and seven is nineteen like in school?”

“You start there and then it gets more complicated and more interesting.”

“Like what f’rinstance?”

“Like after arithmetic there’s geometry. And after that comes algebra — and then calculus. There is also number theory, which is sort of out of the mainstream of mathematics.’’

“What’s number theory?”

Paddy smiled at the serious expression on the little boy’s face and started to dismiss the question. Then thought twice about it. Brian seemed to be always surprising him with odd bits of information. He appeared to be a bright lad who believed that everything could be understood if you asked the right questions. But how could he possibly begin to explain higher mathematics to an eight-year-old? Well, one step at a time.