Robert Heinlein - Time Enough For Love

"I didn't say that-although I could have said it."

"I generalized something you did say. You said also that you never 'argued with the weather...which I would generalize to mean: Don't indulge in wishful thinking. Or as 'Face up to the facts and act accordingly.' Though I prefer the way you put it; it has more flavor. And 'Always cut the cards.' I haven't played card games in many years, but I took that to mean: Never, neglect any available means of maximizing one's chances in a situation controlled by random events."

"Hmm. Gramp would have said, 'Stow the fancy talk, Sonny.'"

"So we'll put it back into his words: 'Always cut the cards...and smile when you lose.' If indeed that is not your own phrasing and simply attributed to him."

"Oh, his all right. Well, I think it is. Damn it, Ira, after a long time it is hard to tell a real memory from a memory of a memory of a memory of a real memory. That's what happens when you think about the past: You edit it and rearrange it, make it more tolerable-"

"That's another one!"

"Oh, hush up. Son, I don't want to reminisce about the past; it's a sure sign of old age. Babies and young children live in the present, the 'now.' Mature adults tend to live in the future. Only the senile live in the past...and that was the sign that made me realize that I had lived long enough, when I found I was spending more and more time thinking about the past...less of it thinking about now-and not at all about the future."

The old man sighed. "So I knew I had had it. The way to live a long time-oh, a thousand years or more-is something between the way a child does it and the way a mature man does it. Give the future enough thought to be ready for it-but don't worry about it. Live each day as if you were to die next sunrise. Then face each sunrise as a fresh creation and live for it, joyously. And never think about the past. No regrets, ever." Lazarus Long looked sad, then suddenly smiled and repeated, "'No regrets.' More wine, Ira?"

"Half a glass, thank you. Lazarus, if you are determined to die soon-your privilege, certainly!-what harm could there be in remembering the past now...and getting those memories on record for the benefit of your descendants? It would be a much greater legacy than leaving your wealth to us.

Lazarus' eyebrows shot up. "Son, you are beginning to bore me."

"Your pardon, sire. May I have permission to leave?"

"Oh, shut up and sit down. Finish your dinner. You remind me of- Well, there was this man on Novo Brasil who complied with the local custom of serial bigamy but was always careful to see that one of his wives was as utterly homely as the other was startlingly beautiful, so that-Ira, that dingus you have listening to us: Can it be keyed to pick out particular statements and arrange them as a separate memorandum?"

"Certainly, sir."

"Good. There's no point in telling how Ranch Master Silva?-yes, I think 'Silva' was his name, Dom Pedro Silva-how he coped with it when he found himself stuck with two beautiful wives at once, except to note that when a computer makes a mistake, it is even more stupidly stubborn about correcting it than a man is. But if I thought long and hard, I might be able to dig out those 'gems of wisdom' you think I have. Paste diamonds, that is. Then we wouldn't have to load up the machine with dull stories about Dom Pedro and the like. A key word?"

" 'Wisdom'?"

"Go wash out your mouth with soap."

"I will not. You stuck your chin into that one, Senior.

'Common sense'?"

"Son, that phrase is self-contradictory. 'Sense' is never 'common.' Make the keying word 'Notebook'-that's all I have in mind, just a notebook to jot down things I've noticed and which might be important enough to place on record."

"Fine! Shall I amend the programming now?"

"You can do it from here? I don't want' you to interrupt your dinner."

"It's a very flexible machine, Lazarus; the total complex is the one I use to govern this planet-to the mild extent that I do govern it."

"In that case I feel sure you can hang an auxiliary printout in here, one triggered for the keying word. I might want to revise my sparkling gems of wisdom-meaning that extemporaneous remarks sound better when they aren't extemporaneous-or why politicians have ghost writers."

"'Ghost writers'? My command of Classic English is less than perfect; I don't recognize the idiom."

"Ira, don't tell me you write your own speeches."

"But, Lazarus, I don't make speeches. Never. I just give orders, and-very seldom-make written reports to the Trustees."

"Congratulations. You can bet that there are ghost writers on Felicity. Or soon will be."

"I'll have that printout installed at once, sir. Roman alphabet and twentieth-century spelling? If you intend to use the language we've been talking?"

"Unless it would place too much strain on a poor innocent machine. If so, I can read it in phonetics. I think."

"It is a very flexible machine, sir; it taught me to speak this language-and earlier, to read it."

"Good, do it that way. But tell it not to correct my grammar. Human editors are difficult enough; I won't accept such upstart behavior from a machine."

"Yes, sir. If you will excuse me one moment-" The Chairman Pro Tem raised his voice slightly and shifted to the New Rome variant of Lingua Galacta. Then he spoke in the same language to the taller technician.

The auxiliary printout was installed before the table served them coffee.

After it was switched on, it whirred briefly. "What's it doing?" asked Lazarus. "Checking its circuits?"

"No, sir-printing. I tried an experiment. The machine has considerable judgment within the limits of its programs and memoried experience. In adding the extra program I told it also to go back, review everything you have said to me, and attempt to select all statements that sounded like aphorisms. I'm not sure it can do this, as any definition of 'aphorism' it has in its permanents is certain to be quite abstract. But I have hopes. However, I told it firmly: No editing."

"Well. 'The astounding thing about a waltzing bear is not, how gracefully it waltzes but that it waltzes at all.' Not me, some other bloke; I'm quoting. Let's see what it has."

Weatheral gestured; the shorter technician hurried to the machine, pulled a copy for each of them, fetched them back.

Lazarus looked his copy over. "Mmmm...yes. That next one isn't true-just a wisecrack. Must reword the third one little. Hey! It put a question mark after this one. What an impudent piece of junk; I checked that one out centuries before it was anything but unmined ore. Well, at least it didn't try to revise it. Don't recall saying that, 'but it's true and I durned near got killed learning it."

Lazarus looked up from the printout copy. "Okay, 'Son. If you want this stuff on record, I don't mind. As long as I am allowed to check and revise it...for I don't want my words to be taken as Gospel unless I have a chance to winnow out the casual nonsense. Which I am just as capable of voicing as the next man."

"Certainly, sir. Nothing will go into the records without your approval. Unless you choose to use that switch...n which case any unedited remarks you have left behind I will have to try to edit myself. That's the best I can do."

"Trying to trap me, huh? Hmm- Ira, suppose I offer you a Scheherazade deal in reverse."

"I don't understand."

"Is Scheherazade lost at last? Did Sir Richard Burton live in vain?"

"Oh, no, sir! I have read The Thousand Nights and a Night in the Burton original...and her stories have come down through the centuries, changed again and again to make them understandable to new generations-but with, I think, the flavor retained. I simply do not understand what you are proposing."

"I see. You told me that talking with me is the most important thing you have to do."