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"Good. You are mad," Otho boomed. "Now think about how to get even."
"Getting even isn't what I want," Sten said.
"By my mother's beard. We're back to that again. What do you want? Say it.
Then we'll board my ships and see all their souls burning in hell."
"I want& justice," Sten finally said. "Dammit. I want every being in the
Empire to know the council's crime. Their hands are bloody. Justice, dammit.
Justice!"
"I don't believe in justice, myself," Otho said gently. "No true Bhor does. It is a
fairy story created by other, weaker species who look for higher truths
because their own lot is so miserable.
"But I am a tolerant being. If justice is your meat, load up my plate, my friend.
We both shall eat.
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"Now. Decide. What form do you wish this justice to take? And by my father's
frozen buttocks, if you retreat to that pool of emotional muck again, I shall
personally remove your limbs. One by one."
Sten didn't need that kind of coaxing. It suddenly came to him exactly what
kind of justice would do.
"Load the ships, my friend," Sten said.
Otho bellowed with delight. "By my mother's great, gnarly beard, there's a
Blessing upon us. We'll drink all their souls to hell!"
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
T
he computer was a bureaucrat's dream. As a pure storage center, it had few
equals on the civilian market. But the key to its beauty was its method of
retrieval.
The R&D team leader had come to Kyes with the design proposal ten years
before. Kyes had spent four months with the group, firing every thinkable
objection and whole flurries of "supposes" to test the theoretical limits. He
had not found one hole that could not be plugged with a few symbols added to
the design equation.
He had ordered the project launched. It was so costly that in another era Kyes
would have automatically sought financial partners to spread the risk.
Certainly he had briefly toyed with the idea. But the computer if it could be
brought on-line would reap such enormous profits that he had dismissed the
thought.
More important than the profits was the potential influence.
The computer was a one-of-a-kind device, with patents so basic that no other
corporate being could even contemplate a copy without risking loss of
fortune, family, reputation, and well-being to Kyes's battalions of attorneys.
From the moment it was first proposed, he knew it would replace every
system used by every government in the Empire. And the terms of its sale
would be set by him and him alone.
Once installed, his influence would grow as quickly as the newly created
wealth. After all, only one firm his would be permitted to perform
maintenance and periodic upgrading. In short, mess with Kyes and your
bureaucracy would collapse. The state itself would quickly follow.
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Almost every action of any social being created a record. The first problem
was what to do with that record so that others could view it. If there was only
one, no problem. It could be put under a rock, the spot marked, and someone
with directions could retrieve it at his leisure. But records bred more quickly
than cockroaches. Hunter-gatherers rapidly ran out of space on cave walls;
scribes filled libraries with parchment; clerks jammed filing cabinets until
the drawers warped; and even at the height of the Empire, it was possible for
data to swamp the biggest computers.
But that was no longer so severe a problem. More banks or linkups could
always be added. Modern systems had gone so far beyond light optics that
speed was also no encumbrance.
There was one threshold, however, that no one had ever broken through:
How to find one small byte of information hidden in such a great mass. The
great library of legend at Alexandria reputedly employed several hundred
clerks to search the shelves for the scrolls their scholarly clients requested.
Days and weeks might pass before a certain scroll was located. That did not
please the scholars, who were usually visiting on a beggar's budget. Their
many bitter complaints survived the fire that destroyed the library. And that
was in the long time past, when there was not much to know.
In Sten's time, the problem had grown to proportions that would stagger a
theoretical mathematician contemplating the navel of the Universe.
Consider this small example: A much-maligned commissary sergeant has
been ordered to improve the fare at the enlisted being's club. Morale is sadly
sagging to the point that the commander herself is under the scrutiny of her
superiors. Suggestions are made many, many suggestions that will be
carried out. One of the suggestions concerns narcobeer. But not any old
narcobeer. The commander recalls one brand whose name she
disremembers that she shared with the troops on some long-forgotten
battleground a century or more ago.
That is the only hint. Nothing more.
The commissary sergeant swings into action. Fires up his trusty computer.
And the computer is asked to find that clottin' beer. The list he receives will
almost certainly include the brand favored by his commander. But it just as
certainly will be buried in a million or more possibilities, with no means of
narrowing the search short of ordering every one and spending several
lifetimes letting the commander taste-test each one. Although enjoyable, this
solution has obvious flaws.
With Kyes's computer it would be no trouble at all. Because it had been
designed to understand that living minds had definite limits. The computer
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r [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]