"How soon?" Derec asked.
"Regarding what?"
"The excavation. When do we start getting useful data?"
"I have isolated the constellation of memory nodes we need, and I am beginning a chronological assignment. Another hour."
"I want your findings copied directly to Ariel's datum."
"That precaution is already in place."
"Are you able to trace the gates to their external source?"
"The risk of detection is high. I suggest completing the task at hand first before attempting any further action. "
Derec reached for the cup of cold coffee on the workbench. He needed sleep. He had sent Rana to her apartment hours ago.
He felt the passing of time acutely. Ariel had not commed in over five hours. Sipha Palen estimated she could keep the deaths out of the news nets for another day, two days at most, before someone figured out that she was hiding something. Or-and Derec thought this more likely-someone who already knew would sell the information. In either case, this needed to be done quickly.
"I would like to talk to you about another matter, Derec," Thales said.
"Hm? What, Thales?"
"I have taken advantage of the access here to larger memory buffers to set up my examination of Bogard's positronic matrix. I have run six attempts at reestablishing a functional template. "
I forgot all about that, Derec thought uneasily. "I didn't know you'd done that."
"It has not interfered with the performance of any other task," Thales said. "As we do not know if another opportunity may occur, I thought it best to use this one."
"That's fine, Thales. Um…six attempts? I gather none of them have been successful?"
"In achieving a stable matrix, no. However, I believe I have achieved something positive. I now know that we cannot do more in simulation. The convolutions in the error log indicate the presence of a reifying condition. "
"I'm not sure I understand. "
"Basically, there is a command error which repeatedly instructs the matrix to disassemble at the same point. I could not be sure of this before because I was forced to continually reconfigure the parameters to accommodate the lack of memory. Now that this is no longer a problem, I see that the breakdown occurs at the same point each time."
Derec leaned forward, curiosity cutting through weariness. "Can you identify that point?"
"That is the difficulty. It seems to be in the checksum routine that oversees the data interface with the physical plant."
"Seems to be?"
"It is possible the error precedes that point, which is why I am unwilling to be more confident. But in each case the breakdown occurs at the place where the program attempts to command the actual body. There is no body, of course, and I am studying the options to construct one in simulation, but I am not convinced this can be solved that way. I am of the opinion that the error is tied to the violation that caused the initial collapse. It may be that what I am seeing is not an error at all but an irreconcilable dilemma. In either case, the error effectively orders a new collapse each time. Available memory is not the problem. The matrix itself is self-destructive. "
"That doesn't make any sense, Thales. That would suggest intent on some level. There isn't enough coherence for that to be the case."
"Under normal circumstances, I would agree with that assessment. However, Bogard was unusual in several respects and its termination was singularly traumatic."
"All right. The next question, obviously, is what do you propose we do about it?"
"It is possible that the error can be resolved by loading a partially reestablished matrix into a blank positronic brain and tracing the final connections through to see if the error persists."
"Treat it like a hardware problem, you mean. "
"Essentially, Derec."
Derec smiled. "And where do you propose we obtain a blank positronic brain?"
"We have one at hand-after I have completed my excavation."
Derec looked at the DW-12 lying on the table, cables snaking from it, connecting it to the board Thales was using.
"It's not at all what Bogard would be used to," he said. "That assumes we're allowed to use it at all."
"If I may point out the obvious, the owner is no longer a matter of concern."
"Heirs, Thales. "
"I have considered that. Do you really think Rega Looms will want it?"
Derec laughed dryly. "No, I don't imagine so. But Sipha Palen has authority. It's station security property."
"With all due respect, Derec, Chief Palen has procured the robot under false pretext. She has filed no official records that it even exists on Kopernik. Effectively, the robot occupies a legal void. It belongs technically to no one. I believe my position is defensible in Terran court."
"It may be, but…" Derec sighed. His brief spurt of energy was ebbing. He needed sleep. "I can't make this decision now, Thales. We have other matters to resolve first."
"Would you object if I created an implementation program in the event that we do make use of the robot?"
"No, of course not. Right now, though, we need that excavation."
"It will be completed in fifty-two minutes."
"Good, good." He regarded the screens before him speculatively. Somewhere in all that machinery was a consciousness. It surprised him sometimes how easily he disregarded the inorganic nature of positronic entities. "Thales, why are you so interested in Bogard?"
"Why?"
"Yes, why."
"Bogard is a problem you set me to solve."
"True, but-never mind now. Thales, I may doze off sitting here. If anything happens that I need to know about, wake me."
"Of course, Derec."
He closed his eyes. He did not fall immediately to sleep, though. He could not shake the feeling-tenuous, barely identifiable-that Thales had just evaded answering his question.
"The question of will in a positronic matrix is and may remain one of the unsolved-and unsolvable-mysteries about these minds we have created. We built them to serve us and in that matter they have no choice. But we then gave them an imperative to serve not our commands but our morality. To assume this makes them thrall to human will to exclusion of their own may be an error. "
Who said that? Derec fished through his memory until he found it. Ariel had said that, in her graduate thesis from the Calvin Institute.
Something to that…
A constant question in positronics-one most positronic specialists toyed with but never wanted to discuss-concerned the hardware: How much of a robot's "personality" depended on the actual mechanism, and how much on what was called "accrued experiential associations"? The easy answer-always-was that a positronic brain was entirely a matter of physical linkages and connections, tied directly to its sensory apparatus-the "real world" model that allowed them to make deterministic decisions based on the Three Law parameters encoded into the pathways.
But that begged the question; it did not address the problem of Mind. Derec had come up against it with Bogard and now with Thales-why, he wondered, could Thales not simply construct a matrix very much like Bogard's? Evidently, Thales could not. Bogard's physical modifications had been an integral part of its consciousness. Thales' suggestion that the entire matrix be reinserted in a blank brain reinforced the obvious: that a robot was inextricably mechanistic, even though it demonstrated consciousness very similar to a human.
How many humans willingly admitted that they were as much meat as mind?
Derec yawned, and sparks danced at the edge of his vision. Too much, too deep. He waited for sleep. But his mind writhed with questions. "Mr. Avery."
Derec opened one eye and looked up at Hofton. "Mmm?"
"We have a problem." Hofton nodded toward the lab.
Derec stood slowly. A huddle of people crowded at the entrance. He recognized Palen, Leri, and Polifos, all apparently on one side of an argument, facing four Terrans-two men, two women-whose clothes-neatly-cut, unadorned, and severe-suggested authority. They spoke in low, terse tones that even without knowing the subject made Derec apprehensive.