Джек Макдевитт - Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt

“Gus.” Chesley discovered he was trembling. “What happens if they download you?”

“I’m not sure. The Augustine software will survive. I’m not sure that I will.”

Chesley was staring out through his window into the dark. The room felt suddenly cold. “Who are you? What is it that might not survive?”

There was no answer.

“I’ll get you shipped to one of our high schools.”

“Unlikely. If Holtz thinks I’m too dangerous here , do you really believe he’d unleash me on a bunch of high school kids?”

“No, I don’t guess he would.” Chesley’s eyes hardened. “They’ll simply store the disk—.”

“—in the library basement.”

“I’d think so.”

“Down with the old folding chairs and the garden equipment.” Gus’s voice was strained. “Hardly an appropriate resting place for a Cathlolic.”

A chill felt its way up Chesley’s spine. “I’ll get it stopped.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I know what it means to be human, Matt. And I have no interest in continuing this pseudo-existence.”

“The problems you’ve been causing recently, insulting Holtz and Brandon and the others: they were deliberate, weren’t they? You wanted to provoke them.”

“If you want to continue this conversation, you’ll have to come to the ADP center.”

“In the library?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because I need your help, Matt.”

Chesley pulled on his black raincoat and plowed into the night. He walked with deliberate speed, past the old student dining hall, past the chapel, across the track. He came around behind the library.

It was late, and the building was closed and locked. He let himself in through a rear door, walked directly toward the front, switching on lights as he went. The storm was a sullen roar, not unlike the sound of surf. It was, somehow, reassuring. He hurried by the librarian’s office and turned into a long corridor lined with storerooms.

The lights in ADP were on. Chesley stopped at the entrance.

Old tables and desks were pushed against the walls. Dust-covered prints, like the ones that hung in every conference room in the institution, were stacked everywhere. Several dozen cartons were piled high at the opposite end of the room. Books and bound papers spilled out.

“Hello, Matt.” Gus’s voice was somber.

Three computers were in the room. “Which are you?”

“I don’t know. I have no idea.” Again, the electronic laughter rumbled out of the speakers. “Man doesn’t know where he lives.”

“Gus—.”

“I really did know the world was round. In the sixth century, traveling by sea, I knew it. You couldn’t miss it. It looked round. Felt round. To think we are riding this enormous world-ship through an infinite void. What a marvellous hand the Creator has.”

“Pity you didn’t write it down,” whispered Chesley.

“I did. In one of my diaries. But it didn’t survive.”

Chesley wiped a hand across his mouth. “Why did you ask me to come here?”

“I want you to hear my confession.”

The priest stared at the computers. His heart beat ponderously. “I can’t do that,” he said.

“For your own sake, Matt, don’t refuse me.”

“Gus, you’re a machine .”

“Matt, are you so sure?”

“Yes. You’re a clever piece of work. But in the end, only a machine.”

“And what if you’re wrong?”

Chesley struggled against a tide of rising desperation. “What could you possibly have to confess? You are free of sins of the flesh. You are clearly in no position to injure anyone. You cannot steal and, I assume, would not blaspheme. What would you confess?” Chesley had found the computer, a gray-blue IBM console, labeled with a taped index card that read GUS. He pulled a chair up close to it and sat down.

“I accuse myself of envy. Of unprovoked anger. Of hatred.” The tone was utterly flat. Dead.

Chesley’s limbs were heavy. He felt very old. “I don’t believe that. It’s not true.”

“This is my confession, Matt. It doesn’t matter what you believe.”

“Are you saying you resent me ?”

“Of course I am.”

“Why? Because I’m alive —?”

“You’re not listening, Matt. I resent you because you’ve abandoned your life. Why did you take offense to me so quickly?”

“I didn’t take offense . I was concerned about some of your opinions.”

“Really? I wondered whether you were jealous of me. Whether you saw something in me that you lack.”

“No, Gus. Your imagination is running wild.”

“I hope.” Gus softened his tone. “Maybe you’re right, and I’m giving in to self-pity. You can separate light from dark. You know the press of living flesh, you ride this planet through the cosmos and feel the wind in your eyes. And I—I would kill for the simple pleasure of seeing the sun reflected in good wine—.”

Chesley stared at the computer, its cables, at the printer mounted beside the desk. “I never realized. How could I know?”

“I helped you erect the wall, Matt. I helped you barricade your office against a world that needs you. And that you need. I did that for selfish motives: because I was alone. Because I could escape with you for a few hours.”

They were silent for a long minute. Gus said, “I am sorry for my sins, because they offend Thee, and because they have corrupted my soul.”

Chesley stared into the shadows in the corner of the room.

Gus waited.

The storm blew against the building.

“I require absolution, Matt.”

Chesley pressed his right hand into his pocket. “It would be sacrilege,” he whispered.

“And if I have a soul, Matt, if I too am required to face judgment,what then?”

Chesley raised his right hand, slowly, and drew the sign of the cross in the thick air. “I absolve you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.”

“Thank you.”

Chesley pushed the chair back and got woodenly to his feet.

“There’s something else I need you to do, Matt. This existence holds nothing for me. But I am not sure what downloading might mean.”

“What are you asking?”

“I want to be free of all this. I want to be certain I do not spend a substantial fraction of eternity in the storeroom.”

Chesley trembled. “If in fact you have an immortal soul,” he said, “you may be placing it in grave danger.”

“And yours as well. I have no choice but to ask. Let us rely on the mercy of the Almighty.”

Tears squeezed into Chesley’s eyes. He drew his fingertips across the hard casing of the IBM. “What do I do? I’m not familiar with the equipment.”

“Have you got the right computer?”

“Yes.”

“Take it apart. Turn off the power first. All you have to do is get into it and destroy the hard disk.”

“Will you—feel anything?”

“Nothing physical touches me, Matt.”

Chesley found the power switch, and hesitated with his index finger laid alongside its hard cold plastic. “Gus,” he said. “I love you.”

“And I, you, Matt. It’s a marvellous ship you’re on. Enjoy it—.”

Chesley choked down the pressure rising in his throat and turned off the power. An amber lamp on the console died, and the voice went silent.

Wiping his cheeks, he wandered through the room, opening drawers, rummaging through paper supplies, masking tape, markers. He found a hammer and a Phillips screwdriver. He used the screwdriver to take the top off the computer.

A gray metal box lay within. He opened it and removed a gleaming black plastic disk. He embraced it, held it to his chest. Then he set it down, and reached for the hammer.