Frederik Pohl Heechee 4 Annals of the Heechee

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Ironically, Bremsstrahlung repeated, "Her ancestor?"
"No, of course I mean not really hers, Father, but she carries the
Ancestor in her pod. Her name is Ophiolite, the Ancestor, I mean."
"For a human," Bremsstrahlung said approvingly, "this Oniko shows considerable
intelligence. I have wondered why more humans don't carry memory pouches. Of
course, they don't require the radiation as we do, but still, the pods are so
convenient in other ways."
"Yes, but she has an Ancestor in hers."
Weary as he was, Bremsstrahlung was a good father. He sank down on a forkrest,
his pod loose beneath him, to explain things to his son. "You must remember,
Sternutator, that if a group of Ancestors were inadvertently left behind
during the Removal, it must have been very lonely for them. Of course, they
would have formed attachments to the first intelligent beings who appeared
there, even if they were human."
"Yes, but," said Sneezy, ~'I don't have an Ancestor in my pod yet."
"Children don't have Ancestors in their pods," Bremsstrahlung explained.
"Even many adults do not, because the Ancestors are very busy with important
work, but when you grow up-"
"Yes, but," said Sneezy, "she does."
Bremsstrahlung groaned and stood up. Neatly hanging his memory pouch beside
the bath door, he begged, "Later, son, please! I'm really tired."
It wasn't just intellectual curiosity with Sneezy. It wasn't even the jealousy
of one kid toward another with a better toy. There were almost moral questions
involved, perhaps almost religious ones.
Both Heechee and humans had learned how to supplement their own brains with
machine-stored intelligences, but they went by different routes. Human beings
had gone the way of calculators and computers and servo-mechanisms, all the
way to the supple and enormous gigabit webs that nurtured such Artificial
Intelligences as Albert Einstein. (And, for that matter, me.) The Heechee had
never developed A.!. They hadn't had to. They had learned early on how to
store the minds of their dead in machine form. Few Heechee truly, permanently
died. They wound up as Ancient Ancestors.
A human astronomer who desired to calculate the orbital elements of the
planets of a double-star system would as a matter of course turn the problem
over to a computation facility. A Heechee would employ a battery of dead
Ancestors. As a practical matter, one system worked as well as another.
But it was not entirely a practical matter. Humans didn't revere their
computers. Heechee Ancient Ancestors, on the other hand, deserved- and
demanded-a kind of respect.
Sneezy's mother came in while his father was still bathing. She listened to
his questions and said, rubbing the back of his neck, "Mter dinner, Sterny,
all right? It takes a lot out of your father when he's on extra shifts in the
Dream Seat. And, then, of course, he's worried."
Sneezy gaped. Worried? Fatigued, yes; Sneezy expected that. That was the price
a watcher paid, sitting in the Dream Seat for hours on end, trying to sense
some alien presence, always fearing that he might some day succeed-as some
day, surely, someone would, with consequences no one could guess.
But worried?
When at last the cookthing had dinner on the table and his parents were
restored and almost relaxed, Bremsstrahlung said heavily, "It was not a
planned Drill, Sternutator. Two shift watchers thought they detected
something, so the emergency was called." He writhed his forearms, like a
shrug. "What they felt is very uncertain~ It was not clear, not strong-but
they are good watchers. Of course there had to be a shutdown."
Sneezy stopped eating, knife halfway to his mouth. His father said quickly,
"But I felt nothing at all when I came on. I am sure of that. No one else did
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then, either."
"There have been false alarms before," Femtowave said hopefully.
"To be sure. That's why there are so many of us: to make sure such alarms are
false. It may be a million years before the Assassins come out, you know. Who
can tell?" Bremsstrahlung finished his meal quickly, then sat back on his
pouch. "Now, Sternutator, what are your questions about your human friend,
Oniko?"
Sneezy rolled his eyes slowly. Oh, yes, he had had a million questions, but
the thought that maybe there had been a real signal of emerging Assassins had
driven all of them out of his mind. False alarm, all right, but how did any
watcher know for certain that any alarm was false?
But those were the questions his father obviously did not want to discuss.
Sneezy searched and came up with one of the things that had been troubling.
"Father? It is not just the pod. Oniko has so much 'money.' Why are they so
'rich'?" He used the English words, although they had been speaking
Heechee, since their own tongue had no such concepts.
Bremsstrahlung shrugged his wide, wiry shoulders-it was the [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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