Herb suddenly realized that his tea must be stewed by now. What a waste of good leaves. Robert had snared him, dragged him back into the mission. Something still didn’t make sense, though.
“Okay, it’s from Earth. So why is it trying to attack us?”
“It is in the nature of those who have never been told ‘no’ to think that the universe is there for their own benefit. Like I said, it’s acting like a spoiled child.”
Robert stared at him, and he shifted uncomfortably. Herb got the impression that Robert wasn’t just talking about the Enemy Domain.
Robert continued. “Think about it. The AI has to protect its colonists from everything. It needs to expand to make them safe. Left unchecked it could fill the universe, but there, standing in its way is the Earth and its domain of influence. A great big ‘NO!’ hanging in the night. No wonder it hates us and wants to destroy us. It’s like a toddler that has been told it must stay in its bedroom. No matter that all its toys are in there: the fact that it has been told ‘no’ is enough. It wants out.”
Herb nodded. “I need some vanilla whisky.”
“I don’t think so. You’re becoming dependent on that stuff. Have a nice cup of tea instead.”
“It’s stewed.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll get it for you. Ship! Cup of tea for Herb, please.”
Herb fiddled with the elastic waistband of his ship shorts. “I still don’t see why it’s worried. It could destroy us easily.”
Johnston laughed. “I don’t think so. We’re cleverer than it is.”
“Cleverer? How? Those ayletts it released will have reproduced time after time. The original AI must have redesigned itself over and over again, built new and more sophisticated containers for its intelligence. It’s had far more resources than any Earth AI at its disposal. It must be far cleverer.”
Robert picked up his hat and placed it on his head. A silver machine lay on the coffee table where the hat had sat. It looked like a Swiss army knife that had been opened up and then stripped of anything that wasn’t a blade. It looked sharp, lean, and evil.
“Herb. I thought you were intelligent. If you thought about the problem, you’d realize how the Environment Agency could defeat the Enemy Domain. A greater intelligence will always defeat a lesser one. It can be done with this.”
He pointed to the silver device that lay on the table.
“Victory is certain,” he whispered, then sat back with a smile. “Well, pretty certain. Nothing is ever one hundred percent.”
eva 3: 2051
The orange plastic chairs in the lounge had been roughly arranged in two rows in front of the viewing screen. Katie was sitting alone in the second row, watching the news, when Eva walked in carrying a book that Alison had lent her. Katie swiveled to see who had just entered, and a look of relief crossed her moon face when she saw that it was Eva. She flashed a quick, nervous smile and turned back to her program.
“Hello, Katie; what are you watching?”
Eva slid into the next but one chair, glancing at Katie’s face in profile. It did look familiar, but she still couldn’t place it.
Katie blushed and began to breathe quickly.
“It’s the news,” she said. She panted a little, then continued in a staccato burst of words. “They’ve just revealed something new. They say it will change the world.”
Eva looked at the screen. It didn’t seem very interesting: just an endless stream of scrolling symbols.
“What is it?” she asked.
Katie broke into a huge smile. “It’s a mathematical expression that describes itself.”
Eva nodded slowly. “I’ve heard about that. I thought it was supposed to be impossible.”
“No. Why should it be? Your cells carry their own description written within themselves. It’s how they make new cells.”
Katie’s voice had grown less staccato. She seemed livelier, more animated.
“Oh, of course.” Eva looked thoughtful.
“They’re saying that now they have cracked that problem, they’re a step closer to building a human-scale Von Neumann Machine.”
“A Von Neumann Machine?”
“Yes. A machine that can make copies of itself. Named after John Von Neumann, the man who postulated the idea.”
Eva stared at the screen. She had read of the concept before, now she came to think about it. Back in her South Street days, back in the days of warm steamy rooms and yellow light and sitting on her own during the night reading about the rest of the world. Three weeks and another life ago. Katie was talking again.
“There’s some controversy about the whole thing, actually. They’re saying that Kay Lovegrove, the man who claims to have formulated the expression, couldn’t possibly have done it.”
“Ah. Professional jealousy?”
Katie looked confused for a moment. “No. I don’t think so.” She frowned for a moment. “No. The point is, they’re saying he wasn’t from the right field. He just wasn’t studying the right areas to put together that expression. When questioned, he either refuses to, or cannot explain how the final answer came about. It’s all very strange.”
“Maybe he stole it.”
“That’s already been suggested, but no one else credible has come forward to claim the work as their own. Oh, there are plenty of cranks, but none of them can explain the expression’s origin, any more than Lovegrove can. It’s as if it just appeared on his computer overnight.”
Katie’s eyes were glowing. She was gripping each side of the plastic chair, making her look like a little girl. It was like the real Katie suddenly shining through from the tiny place where she had hidden herself, deep within her own body.
Eva spoke. “So do you think that Lovegrove formulated the expression, Katie?”
Katie smiled and shook her head. “No.”
Eva said nothing. Katie’s smile widened. She wanted to tell Eva everything, and in the middle of her shy, pinched little life, she had found the window to do so. She leaned a little closer and Eva smelled spearmint on her breath.
Katie spoke in a whisper. “It’s too perfect. It’s too tight. We’ve already built machines that reproduce. The factory robots they landed on Mars make copies of themselves, but they need millions of lines of code to achieve the result. This sums up the essential idea in a few thousand bits. It’s too neat. It can’t have come from a human’s mind.”
She lowered her voice a little. “You know, it wouldn’t be the first time that society had been given a little prod in the right direction.”
Eva leaned a little closer. “What do you mean?”
Katie shook her head. She nodded toward the window, out toward the mist-dissolved circle of limes and beyond them the woods.
“She’s talking about the Watcher,” said the voice.
I know.
Katie looked thoughtful. “Did you just hear the voice?” she asked.
“Yes,” replied Eva. She felt a little shocked. “How did you know?”