To the Stars -- and Beyond. Damien Broderick

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ made a grab for his arm, but missed. Arthur headed straight for Blanche. Randal stood up, prepared to defend her, but Arthur stopped short. His round face was flushed, and he posed angrily, hands on hips. Blanche had a sudden urge to laugh at him.

      “Well, I suppose you’re still not satisfied,” said Arthur.

      “We might be, if you tell us what the AINI project is,” said Randal.

      “That’s none of your business.”

      “It might be if it involves coercion and fraud. Let’s see what the judge thinks.”

      “Monster,” said Blanche, “you’ve been allowing experiments with the body of your own mother.”

      “You don’t know anything,” shouted Arthur. “Mother would be furious if she heard you say that!”

      Camus arrived, and pulled Arthur back. “You won’t accomplish anything by this. They don’t have a case,” he said.

      “We’ll see,” said Randal.

      Blanche smiled, pleased by Arthur’s boyish rage. “You always got away with tantrums when you didn’t get your way, dear. If you’d been mine, I wouldn’t have allowed it.”

      “How fortunate you weren’t able to have children,” snarled Arthur.

      “Arthur, please!” Camus pulled him away backwards by both arms.

      “No! This has to stop here. I’m going to have my AINI unit brought in for testimony. It’ll settle everything once and for all.”

      “The patents, Arthur. We can’t—”

      “The patents are filed, and the hearing is closed. If anything leaks to the press we’ll sue her for everything she has. Let me go!” Arthur twisted in Camus’ grip, and broke it.

      “Wait for me here. I need to make a private call.” Arthur turned to Blanche and pointed a shaking finger at her. “Now you’re going to get it!”

      Everyone was amazed as Arthur stormed away from them. For one instant, Randal Haug and Richard Camus were sympathetic colleagues. Randal shrugged his shoulders in dismay, and Camus said, “What can I do? The funding was his, and he has the authority. The board, of course, will blame me.”

      Randal shook his head sadly. Blanche was mystified by everything she’d just heard.

      Two hours later, she understood everything.

      * * * *

      “What’s all this?” asked Judge Maxwell, after he’d seated himself. He gestured at a large, black screen and computer console with projection system that had been set up along one wall of the courtroom. Two fisheye cameras mounted on the console pointed outwards into the room.

      “My client wishes to perform a demonstration he feels will clear up this entire matter, Your Honor,” said Camus.

      “Any objections to this, Counselor Haug?”

      “No, Your Honor. The only questions we have regarding the contract relate to details about the AINI project, and we’re told the demonstration will answer those questions.”

      “Good. You may proceed, Counselor Camus.”

      “Ah, the demonstration will be given by Arthur Winslow. He’s familiar with the technology, and has been using it on a regular basis since his mother’s death.”

      Maxwell looked at Haug.

      “No problem, Your Honor.”

      Arthur stood up, adjusted the knot on his tie and walked to the computer, turned, cleared his throat and folded his hands together over his stomach.

      “The apparatus behind me houses what we call the AINI Model 10. By AINI we mean ‘Artificially Intelligent-Neural Integration.’ It is basically a combination of a brain that stores data and a learning center that can synthesize new data from old. In other words, it’s an artificial intelligence system with a solid state brain made up of rare-earth-impregnated-carbon-nanotubes.”

      Arthur opened two doors at the base of the console, revealing what looked like a solid cube of silver metal. “This is the brain.”

      Everyone looked at him blankly, searching for understanding and relevance. “Rubbish,” muttered Blanche, and Arthur heard her.

      He glared straight at her, closed the console doors behind him, and softly said, “It’s my mother’s brain, now, and if you’ll listen I’ll tell you how that happened.”

      Blanche gasped. Randal squeezed her arm, and hushed her.

      Arthur blushed, and his voice quavered. “It all started with the Josephson Junction SQUID arrays to map magnetic storms in the brains of epileptics, but as resolution increased, our scientists began to see repeated neural current patterns related to specific thoughts, especially in memory recollection. We were soon down to the neuron level in resolution. Each memory, each thought, is a definite, three-dimensional current pattern in real time. It’s like scanning a picture, and this is what AINI does, building up a library of memories and thoughts that can be reassembled by an AI system to satisfy any scenario.”

      Arthur’s voice cracked. He seemed to be struggling, and took out a handkerchief to wipe his forehead. His eyes were suddenly quite moist.

      “It was my mother who came up with the idea of using AINI to store more than the body of someone you loved when they died.”

      Arthur choked, cleared his throat again, and blew his nose with the handkerchief. Blanche rolled her eyes, and sighed.

      “She was interested in many things, and she’d had a series of small strokes, little blackouts that frightened her. We were so close. She heard about the freezing process at Advanced Technologies. If something bad happened, we wanted to have hope. Medicine is advancing fast, and then the people at Advanced Tech told us about AINI. They were looking for human subjects for testing. And Mother volunteered her time and her money.”

      Arthur took two steps towards Blanche, and pointed a finger at her. “While you were flitting around with your elite social functions, my mother was making major contributions to both science and technology. She funded the entire project, and spent nearly five years of nights and many days under the SQUID array cap, having the neural currents of her own brain mapped and deciphered. She was still doing it the day she—she—”

      Arthur paused, and breathed deeply, wiped his eyes with the handkerchief.

      “This is sick,” mumbled Blanche, too loudly.

      Arthur gave her a look that promised pain and suffering. “Why don’t we just let Mother tell you about it herself,” he said softly.

      “Randal, how long do we have to hear this?” said Blanche.

      “Your Honor,” began Randal, “I would like to—”

      “I was about to give a demonstration relevant to this hearing, and I have the court’s permission to do it,” said Arthur.

      “Then do it,” said Judge СКАЧАТЬ