Harry Harrison - The Turing Option

“Exponential, that’s what you mean?”

“Perfectly correct.” She smiled with pleasure. “It would seem that we’re well on our way to restoring your mathematical ability.”

“What will I have to do?”

“Nothing for now, you’ve had a long enough day for the first session.”

“No, I haven’t. I feel fine. And don’t you want to work with my new information in case it slides away when I go to sleep? You were the one who told me that a given period of time must pass before my short-term memory becomes long-term memory.”

Erin Snaresbrook chewed her lip, chewed at this idea. Brian was right. They ought to get on with the process as soon as possible. She turned to Dolly.

“Can you be here tomorrow? Same time?”

“If you want me.” Her voice was very cold.

“I do, Dolly. Not only do I want you but I need you. I know you must feel upset about this — but I hope that you won’t forget the boy Brian once was. Brian the man is still Brian the child whom you took into your home. You can help me make him whole again.”

“Of course, Doctor, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t think of myself, should I? Until tomorrow, then.”

They were both silent until the door closed behind her.

“Guilt,” Brian said. “The priest was always talking about it, the nuns in school too. Expiation as well. You know, I don’t think that I ever called her Mother. Or Mom like the other kids — or even Mammy the way we do in Ireland.”

“No blame or remorse, Brian. You are not living in your past but are re-creating it. What’s done is done. Cold logic, as you always told me.”

“Did I say that?”

“All the time when we were working together on the machine — when my thought processes got woolly. You were very firm about it.”

“I should have been. It saved my life once.”

“Want to tell me about it?”

“Nope. It’s part of my past, remembered in all too clear embarrassment. The time when I let a bit of stupid emotion get a hold of me. Can we move on, please? What’s next?”

“I’m going to plug you into the computer again. Ask you questions, establish connections, stimulate areas of your brain near the trauma and record your reactions.”

“Then let’s go then — hook them up.”

“Not at once, not until we have established a bigger data base.”

“Get things rolling then, Doctor. Please. I am looking forward to growing up again. You said we worked together before?”

“For almost three years. You told me that my brain research helped you with your AI. You certainly helped me develop the machine. I couldn’t have done it without you.”

“Three years. Since I was twenty-one. What did I call you then?”

“Erin. That’s my first name.”

“A little too presumptuous for a teenager. I think I’ll settle for Doc.”

Snaresbrook’s beeper signaled and she looked at the message on its screen. “You rest for a few minutes, Brian. I’ll be right back.”

Benicoff was waiting for her outside — and looking most unhappy.

“I have just been informed that General Schorcht is on his way over here. He wants to talk to Brian.”

“No, that’s impossible. It would interfere too much with what we are doing. How could he have known that Brian is conscious? You didn’t tell him—”

“No way! But he has his spies everywhere. Maybe even your office bugged. I should have thought of that — no, a complete waste of time. What he wants to know, he finds out. As soon as I heard he was coming here I got on the phone, went right to the top. No answer yet so you will have to help me. If he gets this far we need a holding action.”

“I’ll get my scalpels!”

“Nothing quite that drastic. I want you to stall. Keep him talking as long as possible.”

“I’ll do better than that,” Erin Snaresbrook said, reaching for the phone. “I’ll use the same trick he pulled, send him to the wrong room…”

“No you won’t. I’m in the right room now.”

General Schorcht stood in the open doorway. The slightest smile touched his grim features, then instantly vanished. A Colonel was holding the door open and there was another Colonel at the General’s side. Snaresbrook spoke without emotion, the tone of the surgeon in the operating room.

“I’ll ask you to leave, General. This is a hospital and I have a severely ill patient close by. Kindly get out.”

General Schorcht marched up to the woman and stared down at her coldly. “This has long ceased to be humorous. Stand aside or I will have you removed.”

“You have no authority in this hospital. None whatsoever. Mr. Benicoff, use that phone, get the nurse’s station. This is an emergency. I want six orderlies.”

But when Benicoff reached for the phone the Colonel placed his hand over it. “No phone calls,” he said.

Dr. Snaresbrook stood firmly with her back against the door. “I will place criminal charges against you for these actions, General. You are in a civilian hospital now, not on a military base—”

“Move her aside,” General Schorcht ordered. “Use force if you have to.”

The second Colonel stepped forward. “That would be unwise,” Benicoff said.

“I’m removing you from this investigation as well, Benicoff,” the General said. “You have been uncooperative and disruptive. Get them both out of here.”

Benicoff made no attempt to stop the officer when he stepped by him and reached for the doctor. Only then did he clasp his hands together into a joined fist — that he swung hard into the small of the Colonel’s back over his kidneys, knocking him gasping to the floor.

In the silence that followed this sudden action the sound of the telephone ringing was sharp and clear. The Colonel who had his hand over it started to pick it up — then turned to General Schorcht for instructions.

“This is still a hospital,” Dr. Snaresbrook said. “Where telephones are always answered.”

The General, radiating cold menace, stood motionless for long seconds — then nodded his head.

“Yes,” the Colonel said into the phone, then stiffened, almost coming to attention.

“For you, General,” he said, and held out the phone.

“Who is it?” General Schorcht asked, but the Colonel did not answer. After an even briefer hesitation the General took it.

“General Schorcht here. Who?” There was a long silence as he listened, before he spoke again. “Yes, sir, but this is a military emergency and I must decide that. Yes I do remember General Douglas MacArthur. And I do remember that he overstepped his orders and was removed from command. The message is clear. Yes, Mr. President, I understand.”

He handed the phone back, turned and walked from the room. The officer on the floor climbed painfully to his feet, shook his fist at Benicoff, who smiled back happily, before he went after the others.

Only when the door had closed behind them did Erin Snaresbrook permit herself to speak.

“You pulled some long strings, Mr. Benicoff.”

“The President’s Commission is making this investigation — not that military fossil. I think he had to be reminded who was his commander in chief. I liked that reference to MacArthur and the expression on General Schorcht’s face when he remembered that President Truman fired the General.”

“You have made an enemy for life.”

“That happened a long time ago. So now — can you tell me what is happening? How is Brian progressing?”

“I will in just a moment. If you will wait in my office, I’ll finish up with him. I won’t be long.”

Brian looked up when the door opened and the doctor came in.

“I heard voices. Something important?”

“Nothing, my boy, nothing important at all.”