Who would approach what he had found out on the river with awe. Find it friendly, whether or not it was an intelligence. The ship could fit in. . . with the gardens he intended. Long rhythms, the seeding of plants and the growing of trees and the shaping of them. No project he had approached had offered him so much. To travel the rivers and find them and to come home to Anne, who maintained all he learned. . .
He smiled to himself. " Anne. Send the pseudosome here. Botany four." She came, a working of the lift and a tread of metal feet down the corridor and through the outer labs into this one. "Assistance?"
"You had a standard program for this area. Maintenance of water flow. Cleaning."
"I find record of it."
"Activate it. I want the lights on and the water circulating here."
"Yes, Warren." The lights blinked, the sixth one as well, in the darkness where her chin should be. "This is not your station."
"It is now."
"This is Rule's station."
"Rule stopped functioning. Permanently." His lips tightened. He disliked getting into death with a mind that had never been alive. "I'm doing some of Rule's work now. I like to do it."
"Are you happy?"
"Yes."
"Assistance?"
"I'll do it myself. This is human work."
"Explain."
He looked about at her, then back to his work, dropping the seeds in and patting the holes closed. "You're uncommonly conversational. Explain what?"
"Explain your status."
"Dear Annie, humans have to be active about twelve hours a day, body and mind. When we stop being active we don't function well. So I find things to do. Activity. Humans have to have activity. That's what I mean when I use doin an unexplained context. It's an important verb, do. It keeps us healthy. We always have to have something to do, even if we have to hunt to find it." Annedigested that thought a moment. "I play chess."
He stopped what he was doing in mid-reach, looked back at her. As far as he could recall it was the first time she had ever offered such an unsolicited suggestion. "How did thatget into your programming?"
"My first programmer was—"
"Cancel. I mean why did you suddenly offer to play chess?"
"My function is to maintain you happy. You request activity. Chess is an activity." He had to laugh. She had almost frightened him, and in a little measure he was touched. He could hardly hurt Anne's feelings. "All right, love. I'll play chess after supper. Go fix supper ahead of schedule. It's nearly time and I'm hungry."
It was chicken for dinner, coffee and cream pie for dessert, the silver arranged to perfection. Warren sat down to eat and Annetook the chair across the table and waited in great patience, arms before her.
He finished. The chessboard flashed to the screen above.
She won.
"You erred in your third move," she said. The board flashed up again, renewed. She demonstrated the error. Played the game through a better move. "Continue." She defeated him again. The board returned again to starting.
"Cancel," he said. "Enough chess for the evening. Find me all the material you can on biology. I want to do some reading."
"I've located the files," she said instantly. "They're in general library. Will you want display or printout?"
"Display. Run them by on the screen."
The screen changed; printed matter came on. He scanned it, mostly the pictures. "Hold," he said finally, uninformed. The flow stopped. " Anne. Can you detect internal processes in sentient life?"
"Negative. Internal processes are outside by sensor range. But I do pick up periodic sound from high-level organisms when I have refined my perception."
"Breathing. Air exchange. It's the external evidence of an internal process. Can you pick up, say, electrical activity? How do you tell—what's evidence to you, whether something is alive or not?"
"I detect electrical fields. I have never detected an internal electrical process. I have recorded information that such a process exists through chemical activity. This is not within my sensor range. Second question: movement; gas exchange; temperature; thermal pattern; sound—"
"Third question: Does life have to meet all these criteria for you to recognize it?"
"Negative. One positive reading is sufficient for Further investigation."
"Have you ever gotten any reading that caused you to investigate further. . . here, at this site?"
"Often, Warren."
"Did you reach a positive identification?"
"Wind motion is most frequent. Sound. All these readings have had positive identification." He let his pent breath go. "You do watch, don't you? I told you to stay alert."
"I continue your programming. I investigate all stimuli that reach me. I identify them. I have made positive identification on all readings."
"And are you never in doubt? Is there ever a marginal reading?"
"I have called your attention to all such cases. You have identified these sounds. I don't have complete information on life processes. I am still assimilating information. I don't yet use all vocabulary in this field. I am running cross-comparisons. I estimate another two days for full assimilation of library-accessed definitions."
"Library." He recalled accessing it. "What are you using? What material?"
"Dictionary and encyclopedic reference. This is a large program. Cross-referencing within the program is incomplete. I am still running on it."
"You mean you've been processing without shutdown?"
"The program is still in assimilation."
He sank back in the chair. "Might do you good at that. Might make you a better conversationalist." He wished, "all the same, that he had not started it. Shutdown of the program now might muddle her, leave her with a thousand unidentified threads hanging. "You haven't gotten any conflicts, have you?"
"No, Warren."
"You're clever, aren't you? At least you'll be a handy encyclopedia."
"I can provide information and instruction."
"You're going to be a wonder when you get to the literary references." A prolonged flickering of lights. "I have investigated the literature storage. I have input all library information, informational, technical, literary, recreational. It's being assimilated as the definitions acquire sufficient cross-references."
"Simultaneously? You're reading the whole library sideways?"
A further flickering of lights. "Laterally. Correct description is laterally. The cross-referencing process involves all material."
"Who told you to do that?" He rose from the table. So did she, turning her beautiful, vacant fact toward him, chromium and gray plastic, red sensor-lights glowing. He was overwhelmed by the beauty of her.
And frightened.
"Your programming. I am instructed to investigate all stimuli occurring within my sensor range. I continue this as a permanent instruction. Library is a primary source of relevant information. You accessed this for investigation."