Part 3 (1/2)

”He could do sums that told him things like that-much more complicated than the ones you've learned so far,” Kort said.

Taya pulled a face. She didn't dare ask if she'd have to learn how to do sums like that one day. ”So had Scientist proved it?” she asked instead.

”He thought he had. But when he showed Skeptic the sums, Skeptic pointed out that all they showed was that cold places that weren't stars could exist, and that if they did, big molecules that couldn't exist in stars might form on them; they didn't prove that such places did exist, or that such molecules had formed on them. Mystic said the whole idea of big, intelligent molecules was ridiculous anyway. There were stars outside Merkon that grew bigger and bigger-but they just turned into big stars, not intelligent stars.”

The tunnel looked out on both sides into strange rooms packed with bewildering machines. Some of them moved intermittently, and there were many lights, pulsating glows of various colors, and occasional brilliant flashes. Kort told Taya that they were in the part of Merkon where Scientist still did most of his work.

”Another mind was called Biologist, and he gave Thinker a new idea,” Kort went on. ”Biologist was fascinated by machines and what made them alive, and he had been finding out more about evolution ever since Evolutionist discovered it. He realized that what enabled machines to be complicated enough to be intelligent was the amount of information stored inside the machines that built them. Now, that information was pa.s.sed on from one generation of machines to the next-and sometimes it was changed to make the newer machine work better. So really, it wasn't the machines that were evolving at all; it was the information they pa.s.sed on that was actually evolving.”

”Yes, I can see that,” Taya agreed. ”As far as machines go, anyhow. But I'm not sure what it's got to do with molecules.”

”That was the new idea,” Kort told her. ”The way a molecule is put together can also store information.

If the information stored in a machine could cause machine parts to come together in the right way to make a complicated machine system, then maybe the information stored in a molecule could cause chemicals to come together in the right way to make a complicated chemical system, and perhaps that was what had evolved and become intelligent.”

Taya had stopped to watch a fountain of yellow sparks surrounded by a blue glow inside a gla.s.s shape in one of the rooms off to the side of the tunnel. ”So now it wasn't the molecule itself that had to be intelligent,” she said over her shoulder.

”Correct.” They resumed walking ”And I bet I can guess what happened then,” Taya said. ”Thinker thought it might be true. Mystic said it was just as silly as the other idea. And Skeptic said he'd believe it when somebody showed him a molecule that could build intelligent chemicals.”

”That's what happened. And so Scientist started making enormous molecules and putting them into all kinds of chemicals to see if they would a.s.semble into anything. But there was nothing to tell Scientist what kind of molecule to make, and the number of possibilities was larger than any number you can think of.”

”Even millions and millions?”

”Much larger than that-so large that Scientist would never be able to try even a small fraction of them.

He did try, though, for years and years, but everything failed. . . . Oh, he did manage to produce a few that produced tiny specks of jelly that grew for a while, but they soon stopped and broke down into chemicals again. Not one of them ever looked like being remotely intelligent, never mind capable of making a machine. And Skeptic said that if it would take Scientist forever to find the right molecule, even with all his knowledge and intelligence, how could it have just come together on a cold place outside Merkon, without any intelligence? There was nothing out there that could provide an equivalent method of selection. Mystic said that was what he'd been telling them all along.

”But Thinker looked at it another way: If Evolutionist and Biologist were right, then a molecule that could a.s.semble an intelligent chemical system had existed, and had been selected somehow, somewhere in the universe. Whether or not Scientist could explain how it had been selected was a different question. If Scientist could just discover what that molecule had been like, then he could forget about all the other countless possibilities that there would never be enough time to try anyway. Scientist agreed, but couldn't imagine where to begin looking; so he asked Thinker to think of an idea for that, too.

”There was only one place that Thinker could think of to look. Biologist had discovered that there were lots of codes in the information that older machines copied into newer machines, which n.o.body had ever understood-they copied it because that was the way things had always been done. Some of those codes went back to the earliest machines-the ones that had existed before any of the minds were aware of anything at all.”

”You mean the machines that the chemical intelligence made, before machines knew how to make machines?” Taya asked.

”Yes, which meant that some of that meaningless data that older machines had always copied into newer machines could have been written into the first machine by the chemical intelligence that made it. And maybe-just maybe, for some reason-there might be something in there that could give Scientist a clue of how to make the right molecule.”

They were approaching the end of the tunnel now. Taya could see that it ended at a large, s.h.i.+ny white door. She glanced curiously up at Kort, but the robot carried on walking slowly and continued. ”So Scientist concentrated on trying to understand the codes that had been handed down from the earliest times. And eventually, after many more years, he found what he was sure was the secret he'd been searching for. Some of the oldest codes of all contained arrays consisting of millions of numbers. If those numbers were read in a certain way, they looked just like the instructions for building precisely arranged sets of gigantic molecules. So Scientist a.s.sembled the sets just as the instructions said, and then began supplying them with chemicals to see if the chemicals would grow into anything.”

They had stopped outside the white door. Taya stared up at Kort with suspense written across her face.

The robot gazed down in silence for a few seconds, inviting her to complete the obvious for herself. But she hadn't made the connection. ”What happened?” she asked with bated breath. ”Did they grow into something?”

Kort shook his head slowly. ”Not at first. There were many things that Scientist still didn't know. Some of them did grow into strange, unfamiliar forms, but they soon stopped. Scientist had nothing to tell him what chemicals to supply, or how they should be given.” The robot's black, ovoid eyes seemed to take on an inner light as they bore down on the tiny, upturned face, now deathly pale suddenly. ”He had to learn that they would only grow when they were kept warm; that they had to be always bathed in air; that the air had to be kept slightly moist. . . . We had to learn how to make the special food that they needed, to provide light that was right for their delicate liquid eyes, to keep them covered to protect their fragile skin.” Taya's eyes had widened into almost full circles. Her mouth fell open but no sound would come out. That was the first time Kort had said ”we.” He nodded. ”Yes, Taya, there was much to learn. There were many failures.”

Taya could only stand paralyzed, staring up at the seven-foot-tall metal colossus, as the truth at last burst into her mind. Kort's voice swelled to echo the pride he could no longer conceal. ”But in the end we succeeded! We produced a speck of jelly that grew and acquired shape until it could move of its own accord. We nurtured it and tended it, and slowly it transformed into something the like of which we had never glimpsed in the entire cosmos.” Kort was trying to make her share his jubilation, but even as he spoke he could see her beginning to tremble uncontrollably. At the same time, alarm signals poured into his circuits from all over Merkon.

He stooped down and lifted Taya level with his eyes. ”Don't you see what this means, Taya? Long, long ago, before there were any machines, there was another kind of life. They made the place that has become Merkon. They built the machines that the machines of Merkon have evolved from. They were incredible scientists, Taya. They understood all the things that we have been trying for so long to learn.

They gave us the secret that enable them to grow out of simple, unstructured matter that drifts between the stars. Without that secret, all our efforts would have come to nothing. Our greatest achievement, the culmination of all our work, was just a fragment of the wisdom with which they began.

”And now, Taya, we know what they were. They were like you! You will grow, and you will become again what they were. You asked if you could ever learn enough to understand machines. Of course you can . . . and far more than that. It was your kind that created the machines! You will teach us! You will know more than all the minds of Merkon put together could even think to ask. You will bring to Merkon the wisdom and the knowledge that once existed in another world, in another time.”

The robot peered into her face, searching for a sign of the joy that he felt. But when at last she could speak, her voice was just a whisper. ”There were once other Tayas . . . like me?”

”Yes, just like you.”

”What . . .” Taya had to stop to swallow the lump forming at the back of her throat. ”What happened to them, Kort? Where did they . . . go?”

Kort could feel tremors in her body, and his eyes saw that her skin had gone cold. An unfamiliar feeling came over him. For once, he realized, he had misjudged. His voice fell. ”We have no way of telling. It was very long ago. Before Merkon changed, there were places that were built to contain air. We can only a.s.sume that your kind of life once inhabited whatever Merkon was built to be. We don't know what became of them.” He could see the tears flooding into her eyes now. Gently, in the way she found comforting, he moved her onto his arm.

”Other Tayas lived here, long ago?” There was a hollowness and an emptiness in her voice that Kort had never heard before. She clutched at his neck, and his skin sensors detected warm salty water rolling down across the joints. ”There isn't anyone anywhere like me. I don't belong here, do I, Kort? I don't want to be in this world. I want to be in the world where there were other Tayas.”

”That world doesn't exist any more,” Kort replied somberly. ”Of course you belong in this one. And we're changing it all the time, so it will become even more like yours.”

”But I'll always be . . . alone. I've never felt alone before, but I do now. I'll always feel alone now, for years and years and years. . . .” She pressed her face against the side of the robot's head and wept freely. ”How long will it go on? What will happen to me, Kort?”

Kort waited for a while, stroking her head with a steel finger of his free hand, but the tears didn't stop.

”You won't be alone,” he murmured at last. ”I'll always be here. And you haven't let me finish the story yet.”

”I don't want to hear any more. It's a horrible story.”

Kort's arm tightened rea.s.suringly. ”Then I'll have to show you the rest of it,” he said.

Taya felt Kort move forward, then stop, and she became aware of a warm yellow glow around them.

She raised her head and saw that the white door was open and they had pa.s.sed through it. She sensed that Kort was waiting, and lifted her head higher to look. And she looked . . .

And looked . . .

And then she gasped aloud, her fretting swept away in that instant. Kort set her down on her feet, facing the room. For a while she just stood there and stared. Then, very slowly, as if fearing she was in a dream that might evaporate suddenly, she began walking forward.

They were standing in rows a few feet apart-dozens of them. Each of the boxes was low and flat like a bed, but they were smaller than Taya's. Each was enclosed by a rounded gla.s.s cover stretching from end to end. There were tubes and wires connecting them to machines lining one wall. And through the gla.s.s covers she could see . . .

She didn't have a word for lots of little people like Taya. There had only ever been one Taya.

She stopped and turned to look back at Kort, but the robot made no move. She turned back again and approached the box closest to her-almost reverently, as if the slightest sound or sudden movement might cause the sleeping figure inside to vanish. It had eyes and a nose and a pink mouth . . . and it was bendy everywhere, like her. It wasn't as big as she was-in fact it was a lot smaller-but it was . . . the same.

She moved slowly around the box to peer in from the other side. The Taya wasn't quite the same, she realized. It had darker hair, almost black, and a nose that wasn't the same shape as hers. She turned to look in the box behind her and saw that the Taya in that one had hardly any hair, and a pink patch on its arm that she didn't have. And at the top of its legs its body was curiously different. She looked across at the box in the next row, and at the one next to that. All the Tayas were different . . . the same as her, but all different.

Kort moved forward to stare down from alongside her. Taya looked up at him, but was unable to form any question because her mouth just hung open and wouldn't close. ”Scientist had no way of knowing how long he would be able to keep his tiny chemical thing growing,” he said. ”If it stopped the way the others had, he'd have to start all over again. So, when he had managed to keep one growing properly for one year, he picked out another fifty groups of numbers to make fifty more different sets of giant molecules, and he started them all growing in the same way that he'd managed to make the first one grow. So now he had fifty-one chemical things, but one of them was a year older than the rest.”

Taya was listening rapturously, but she couldn't keep her eyes off the figures in the gla.s.s-covered boxes.

They were all about the same size-bigger than Ra.s.sie, but much smaller than Taya. Their chests were moving the way hers did-not as much as hers, and more quickly . . . but they were moving. Kort's chest never moved like that because he didn't need air. They were really like her. Some of them were darker than she was, a sort of brown instead of pink, and a few almost black. And some were yellowy and some more red. Taya wondered why there weren't any blue ones or green ones or purple ones, too.

She began moving through the room between the boxes, stopping and gazing through every one of the gla.s.s covers to marvel at how delicately a nose was formed here, or to stare at a miniature hand there, or a brown foot that was pink underneath. This one had hardly any eyebrows, while that one had thick black ones; this one had hair that was almost red, and another had tiny ears, not much bigger than Ra.s.sie's.

”By that time all of the minds were saying how clever Scientist was,” Kort resumed. ”But then Skeptic reminded them that nothing Scientist had done so far proved anything about chemical intelligence. All he'd proved was that a set of molecules could cause a chemical structure to grow. And he had a point, because even the one that was a year older had never actually done anything that could be called intelligent. All it had done was kick, squirm about, and eat the food that the machines gave it. So the machines settled down to watch and wait for it to do something intelligent.”

Scientist must have been very clever to make these, Taya thought to herself, never mind what the other minds said. When she had reached the end of the room and looked inside every one of the gla.s.s covers, she turned. She was happy now, Kort could see, and the laughter in her eyes was echoed by the relieved currents flowing into his mind from the entire network of Merkon. But there was something else in her eyes, too. The expression on her face contained more than just the simple happiness that he saw when she watched the stars or created a picture that she especially liked. There was a light of awareness there now, which added to the happiness to produce an effect that was new to him-as if in the last few minutes she had suddenly become older and changed more than she had in all of the previous nine years.