Robert Heinlein - The Number of the Beast

"Deety, why are you taking off cover plates? I thought you were strictly a programmer? Software. Not a mechanic."

"I am strictly a software mathematician. I wouldn't attempt to modify this monster even on written orders from my lovable but sneaky husband. But how in the name of Allah can a software hack think about simplification analysis for program if she doesn't know the circuitry? The first half of this book shows what this autopilot was manufactured to do... and the second half, the Xeroxed pages, show the follies Zebadiah has seduced her into. This bleedin' bundle of chips now speaks three logic languages, interfaced-when it was built to use only one. But it won't accept any of them until it has been wheedled with Zebadiah's double talk. Even then it rarely answers a code phrase with the same answer twice in a row. What does it say in answer to: 'You're a smart girl, Gay.'?"

"I remember. 'Boss, I bet you tell that to all the girls. Over."

"Sometimes. Oftenest, as that answer is weighted to come up three times as often as any of the others. But listen to this:

"Zeb, I'm so smart I scare myself.'

"Then why did you turn me down for that raise?'

"Never mind the compliments! Take your hand off my knee!'

"Not so loud, dear. I don't want my boyfriend to hear.'

"-and there are more. There are at least four answers to any of Zebadiah's code phrases. He uses just one list, but the autopilot answers several ways for each of his phrases-and all any of them mean is either 'Roger' or 'Null program; rephrase."

"I like the idea. Fun."

"Well... I do myself. I animize a computer; I think of them as people....nd this semirandom answer list makes Gay Deceiver feel much more alive....hen she isn't. Not even versatile compared with a ground-based computer. But-" Deety gave a quick smile. "I'm going to hand my husband some surprises."

"How, Deety?"

"You know how he says, 'Good morning, Gay. How are you?' when we sit down for breakfast."

"Yes. I like it. Friendly. She usually answers, 'I'm fine, Zeb."

"Yes. It's a test code. It orders the autopilot to run a self-check throughout and to report any running instruction. Which takes less than a millisecond. If he didn't get that or an equivalent answer, he would rush straight here to find out what's wrong. But I'm going to add another answer. Or more."

"I thought you refused to modify anything."

"Aunt Hillbilly, this is software, not hardware. I'm authorized and directed to amplify the answers to include all of us, by name for each of our voices. That is programming, elementary. You say good morning to this gadget and it will-when I'm finished-answer you and call you either 'Hilda' or 'Mrs. Burroughs."

"Oh, let her call me 'Hilda.'"

"All right, but let her call you 'Mrs. Burroughs' now and then for variety."

"Well... all right. Keep her a personality."

"I could even have her call you-low weighting!-'Nanny Goat."

I guffawed. "Do, Deety, please do. But I want to be around to see Jacob's face."

"You will be; it won't be programmed to answer that way to any voice but yours. Just don't say, 'Good morning, Gay' unless Pop is listening. But here's one for my husband: Zebadiah says, 'Good morning, Gay. How are you?'-and the speaker answers, 'I'm fine, Zeb. But your fly is unzipped and your eyes are bloodshot. Are you hung over again?"

Deety is so solemn and yet playful. "Do it, dear! Poor Zebbie-who drinks least of any of us. But he might not be wearing anything zippered."

"Zebadiah always wears something at meals. Even his underwear shorts are zippered. He dislikes elastic."

"But he'll recognize your voice, Deety."

"Nope. Because it will be your voice-modified."

And it was. I'm contralto about the range of the actress-or girl friend- who recorded Gay Deceiver's voice originally. I don't think my voice has her sultry, bedroom quality but I'm a natural mimic. Deety borrowed a wigglescope-oscilloscope?-from her father, my Jacob, and I practiced until my patterns for Gay Deceiver's original repertoire matched hers well enough- Deety said she could not tell them apart without close checking.

I got into the spirit of it, such as having Deety cause Gay Deceiver occasionally to say to my husband, "Fine-except for my back ache, you wicked old Billy Goat!"-and Jacob tripped that reply one morning when I did have a back ache, and I feel sure he had one, too.

We didn't put in answers that Deety felt might be too bawdy for Jacob's "innocent" mind-I didn't even hint how her father actually talked, to me in private. Let us all preserve our illusions; it lubricates social relations. Possibly Deety and Zebbie talked the same way to each other in private-and regarded us "old folks" as hopelessly square.

Most males have an unhealthy tendency to obey laws.

Deety:

Aunt Hilda and I finished reprogramming in the time it took Zebadiah and Pop to design and make the fail-safes and other mods needed to turn Gay Deceiver, with the time-space widget installed, into a continua traveler- which included placing the back seats twenty centimeters farther back (for leg room) after they had. bee~p~11ed out to place the widget abaft the bulkhead md ~~eld it to the shell The ~P~essing contiols and triple verniers wcic

remoted to the driver's instrument board-with one voice control for the widget, all others manual:

If any of our voices said, "Gay Deceiver, take us home!" car and passengers would instantly return to Snug Harbor.

I don't know but I trust my Pop. He brought us home safe twice, doing it with no fail-safes and no dead-man switch. The latter paralleled the "Take us home!" voice order, was normally clamped closed and covered-but could be uncovered and held in a fist, closed. There were other fail-safes for temperature, pressure, air, radar collision course, and other dangers. If we wound up inside a star or planet, none of this could save us, but it is easy to prove that the chances of falling downstairs and breaking your neck are enormously higher than the chance of co-occupying space with other matter in our native universe-space is plentiful, mass is scarce. We hoped that this would be true of other universes.

No way ahead of time to check on the Number-of-the-Beast spaces-but "The cowards never started and the weaklings d~jed on the way." None of us

ever mentioned not trying to travel the universes. Besides, our home planet had turned unfriendly. We didn't discuss "Black Hats" but we all knew that they were still here, and that we remained alive by lying doggo and letting the world think we were dead.

We ate breakfast better each morning after hearing Gay Deceiver offer "null report" on news retrievals. Zebadiah, I am fairly certain, had given up his cousin for dead. I feel sure Zebadiah would have gone to Sumatra to follow a lost hope, were it not that he had acquired a wife and a prospective child. I missed my next period, so did Hilda. Our men toasted our not-yet bulging bellies; Hilda and I smugly resolved to be good girls, yes, sir!-and careful. Hilda joined my morning toning up, and the men joined us the first time they caught us at it.

Zebadiah did not need it but seemed to enjoy it. Pop brought his waistline down five centimeters in one week.

Shortly after that toast Zebadiah pressure-tested Gay Deceiver's shell-four atmospheres inside her and a pressure gauge sticking out through a fitting in her shell.

There being little we could do while our space-time rover was sealed, we knocked off early. "Swim, anybody?" I asked. Snug Harbor doesn't have a citytype pool, and a mountain stream is too cooold. Pop had fixed that when he concealed our spring. Overflow was piped underground to a clump of bushes and thereby created a "natural" mountain rivulet that passed near the house; then Pop had made use of a huge fallen boulder, plus biggish ones, to create a pool, one that filled and spilled. He had done work with pigments in concrete to make this look like an accident of water flow.