Robert Heinlein - The Number of the Beast

"Because you made it null. You fed 'garbage in' and expect me to be surprised at 'garbage out'-when you did it a-purpose."

"I did not either, I didn't!"

I kissed the end of her nose. "Deety darling, you should trust your instincts. Here's one way to tell Gay to do that without defining even one new term into her vocabulary. Tell her to expect a three-part program. First part: bounce one minimum, ten klicks. Second part: transit twelve point five klicks true course two-two-five. Third part: drop to one klick H-over-G and hover. At that point, if what you described as your location is roughly correct, you will see her and can coach her to a landing without using Jake's twister."

"Uh... twelve and a half kilometers can't be done in units often kilometers. Powered flight?"

"Waste juice? Hon, you just flunked high school geometry. Using Euclid's tools, compass and straight edge, lay out that course and distance, then lay out how to get there in ten-klick units-no fractions."

My wife stared. Then her eyes cleared. "Transit one minimum true course one-seven-three and two thirds, then transit one minimum true course twoseven-six and one third. The mirror image solution uses the same courses in reverse. Plus endless trivial solutions using more than two minima."

"Go to the head of the class. If you don't spot her, have her do a retreating search curve-in her perms, in an Aussie accent. Honey girl, did you actually do that Euclid style?"

"I approximated it Euclid style-but you didn't supply compass and straight edge! Scribe circle radius twelve point five. Bisect circle horizontally by straight edge through origin; quarter it by dropping a vertical. Bisect lower left quadrant-that gives true course two-two-five or southwest. Then set compass at ten units and scribe arcs from origin and from southwest point of circle; the intersections give courses and vertices for both major roots to the accuracy of your straight edge and compass. But simply to visualize that construction-well, I got visualized angles of two-seven-five and one-seven-five. Pretty sloppy.

"So I did it accurately by Pythagorean proposition by splitting the isosceles triangle into two right triangles. Hypotenuse is ten, one side is six and a quarter-and that gives the missing side as seven point eight-zero-six-twofour-seven plus-which gives you one course and you read off the other by the scandalous Fifth Axiom. But I did check by trig. Arc sine point seven-eightzero-six-two-four-seven----"

"Hold it! I believe you. What other ways can you program Gay to find you, using her present vocabulary?"

"Uh....urn juice?"

"If necessary."

"I would have her bounce a minimum, then maximize my signal. Home on me."

"Certainly. Now do the same thing without using juice. Just Jake's twister."

Deety looked thoughtful and about twelve years old, then suddenly said, "Drunkard's Walk'!"-added at once, "But I would place a locus around the Walk just large enough to be certain that I'm inside it. Gay should plot signal level at each vertex. Such a plot would pinpoint the signal source."

"Which way is faster? Home straight in under power? Or Drunkard's Walk?" Deety answered, "Why, the-"-looked startled. "Those are solid-state relays."

"Jake sets verniers by hand-but when Gay is directing herself there are no moving parts. Solid state."

"Zebadiah, am I thinking straight? Using power, at that distance-call it twelve kilometers-Gay should be able to home on me in three or four minutes. But-Zebadiah, this can't be right!-using no power and relying on random numbers and pure chance in a Drunkard's Walk, Gay should find me in less than a second. Where did I go wrong?"

"On the high side, Deety girl. Lost your nerve. The first fifty milliseconds should show the hot spot; in less than the second fifty she'll part your hair. All over in a tenth of a second-or less. But, honey, we still haven't talked about the best way. I said that you should trust your instincts. Gay is not an 'it.' She's a person. You'll never know how relieved I was when it turned out that you two were going to be friends. If she had been jealous of you- May the gods deliver us from a vindictive machine! But she's not; she thinks you're swell."

"Zebadiah, you believe that?"

"Dejah Thoris, I know that."

Deety looked relieved. "I know it, too-despite what I said earlier."

"Deety, to me the whole world is alive. Some parts are sleeping and some are dozing and some are awake but yawning... and some are bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and always ready to go. Gay is one of those."

"Yes, she is. I'm sorry I called her an 'it.' But what is this 'best way'?"

"Isn't it obvious? Don't tell her how-just tell her. Say to her, 'Gay, come find me!' All four words are in her vocabulary; the sentence is compatible with her grammar. She'll find you."

"But how? Drunkard's Walk?"

"A tenth of a second might strike her as too long-she likes you, hon. She'll look through her registers and pick the optimum solution. She might not be able to tell you how she did it, since she wipes anything she's not told to remember. I think she does; I've never been certain."

Jake and Hilda had wandered off while Deety and I had been talking. They had turned back, so we started toward them. Sharpie called out, "Zebbie, what happened to that hike?"

"Right away," I agreed. "Jake, we have about three hours. We ought to be buttoned up before sundown. Check?"

"I agree. The temperature will drop rapidly at sundown."

"Yup. We can't do real exploring today. So let's treat it as drill. Fully armed, patrol formation, radio discipline, and always alert, as if there were a 'Black Hat' behind every bush."

"No bushes," objected Hilda.

I pretended not to hear. "But what constitutes 'fully armed,' Jake? We each have rifles. You have that oldstyle Army automatic that will knock down anything if you're close enough but-how good a shot are you?"

"Good enough."

"How good is 'Good enough'?" (Most people are as accurate with a baseball as with a pistol.)

"Skipper, I won't attempt a target more than fifty meters away. But if I intend to hit, the target will be within range and I will hit it."

I opened my mouth... closed it. Fifty meters is a long range for that weapon. But hint that my father-in-law was boasting?

Deety caught my hesitation. "Zebadiah-Pop taught me pistol in the campus R.O.T.C. range. I've seen him practice bobbing targets at thirty meters. I saw him miss one. Once."

Jake harrumphed. "My daughter omitted to mention that I skip most surprise targets."

"Father! 'Most' means 'more than fifty percent.' Not true!"

"Near enough."

"Six occasions. Four strings, twenty-eight targets on three-"

"Hold it, honey! Jake, it's silly to argue figures with your daughter. With my police special I won't attempt anything over twenty meters-except covering fire. But I hand-load my ammo and pour my own dumdums; the result

is almost as lethal as that howitzer of yours. But if it comes to trouble, or hunting for meat, we'll use rifles, backed by Deety's shotgun. Deety, can you shoot?"

"Throw your hat into the air."

"I don't like the sound of that. Sharpie, we have five firearms, four people- is there one that fits you?"

"Cap'n Zebbie, the one time I fired a gun, I went backwards, the bullet went that-a-way, and I had a sore shoulder. Better have me walk in front to trip land mines."

"Zebadiah, she could carry my fléchette gun."

"Sharpie, we'll put you in the middle and you carry the first-aid kit; you're medical officer-armed with Deety's purse gun for defense. Jake, it's time we stowed these swords and quit pretending to be Barsoomian warriors. Field boots. I'm going to wear that same sweaty pilot suit, about equivalent to jump suits you and Deety wore-which I suggest you wear now. We should carry water canteens and iron rations. I can't think of anything that would serve as a canteen. Damn! Jake, we aren't doing this by the book."