The Turing Option

21 February 16, 2024

Brian could not fall asleep. It was the excitement of the move, the new bed perhaps, all of the things that had happened that day conspired to keep him awake. At midnight he decided to stop twisting and turning and do something about it. He threw back the covers and got out of bed. The room circuitry detected this, checked the time, then turned on the dimmed lights that were just enough to enable him to walk without stumbling. The medicine chest was not as kind to him. It had been programmed not to let anyone take medicine in the dark — and he blinked in the sudden glare when he opened the door. If you can’t sleep take two with a glass of water, the doctor had printed on the label. He did as instructed and made his way back to bed.

The dreams began as soon as he fell asleep. Confused happenings, bits of school, Paddy appeared in one of them, Texas sunshine, the glare of the sun on the Gulf. Blinking into its glare. Rising in the morning, setting in the evening. How beautiful, how wrong. Just an illusion. The sun stays where it is. The earth goes around the sun, around and around.

Darkness and stars. And the moon. Moving moon, spinning around the earth. Rising and setting like the sun. But not like the sun. Moon, sun, earth. Sometimes all three lined up and there was an eclipse. Moon in front of sun.

Brian had never seen a total eclipse. His father had, told him about it. Eclipse: La Paz, Mexico, in 1991. On July 11 the day became dark, moon in front of sun.

Brian stirred in his sleep, frowning into the darkness. He had never seen an eclipse. Would he ever? Would there ever be an eclipse here in the Anza-Borrego desert?

The equation to answer this should be a simple one. Just a basic application of Newton’s laws. The acceleration is inverse to the square of the distance.

Each object pulled by the other two.

Sun, earth, moon. A simple differential equation.

With just eighteen variables.

Set up the coordinates.

Distances.

The earth was how far from the sun?

The Handbook of Astronautics, figures swimming before him, glowing in the dark.

The distance from the earth to the sun at its nearest point.

The axes and degrees of inclinations of the earth and the moon’s orbits…

The precise elements of these orbits — their perihelions, velocities and eccentricities.

Figures and numbers clicked into place — and then it happened.

The differential equation began working itself out before him. Within him? Was he watching, living, experiencing? He murmured and twisted but it would not go away or stop.

Streaming by, number by number.

“November 14, 2031,” he shouted hoarsely.

Brian found himself shouting, sitting up in bed and soaked with sweat, blinking as the lights came on. He fumbled for the glass of water on the night table, drained most of it and dropped back onto the crumpled bed. What had happened? The experience had been so strong, the racing figures so clear that he could still see them. Too strong to be a dream -

“The IPMC. The implant processors!” he said aloud.

Had that been it? Had he in the dreaming state somehow accessed the computer that had been planted in his brain? Could he possibly have commanded it to run some procedure? Some program for solving the problem? This seemed to be what had happened. It had apparently solved the problem, then fed the solution back to him. Is this what had happened? Why not? It was the most logical, plausible, least frightening explanation. He called out to his computer to turn on, then spoke a description of what had happened into its memory, adding his theory as well. After this he fell into a deep and apparently dreamless sleep. It was well after eight before he woke again. He turned the coffeemaker on, then phoned Dr. Snaresbrook. Her phone answered him and said that she would ring him back. Her call came as he was crunching into a second slice of toast.

“Morning, Doc. I have some interesting news for you.” After he finished describing what had happened there was a long silence on the line. “You still there?”

“Yes, sorry, Brian, just thinking about what you said — and I believe you might very well be right.’’

“Then it is good news?”

“Incredibly good. Look — I’m going to shift some appointments around and see if I can’t get out there by noon. Is that all right with you?”

“Sounds great. I’ll be in the lab.”

He spent the morning skimming through his recovered backup notes, trying to get a feel for the work he had done, the research and construction — all of the memories the bullet had destroyed. It was a strange sensation reading what he had written, almost a message from the grave. Because the Brian who had written these notes was dead and would remain dead forever. He knew that there was no way that he at the age of fourteen would ever grow into the very same man of twenty who had written this first report, based on several years of research. In the end to build the world’s first humanlike intelligence.

Nor could he understand any of the shorthand notes and bits of program that his twenty-year-old self had written. He smiled ruefully at this and turned back to the first page. The only way to proceed was to follow everything, step by step. He would read ahead, whenever he could, to avoid dead ends and false starts. But basically he would have to recreate everything that he had done, do it all over again.

Dr. Snaresbrook phoned him at twelve-thirty when she arrived: he shut down his work and joined her in the Megalobe clinic.

“Come in, Brian,” she said, looking him up and down with a critical eye. “You’re looking remarkably fit.”

“I’m feeling that way as well. An hour or two reading in the sun every day — and a short walk like you said.”

“Eating well?”

“You bet — the army rations are very good. And look at this…” He took off his cap and rubbed the fuzz growing there. “A mini crew cut. It’ll be real hair one day soon.”

“Any pain from the incisions?”

“None.”

“Dizziness? Shortness of breath? Fatigue?”

“No, no and no.”

“I’m immensely pleased. Now — I want you to tell me exactly what happened, every detail.”

“Listen to this first,” he said, passing over a disk. “I recorded this just after I had the dream. If I sound sort of stoned it’s because I took that sleeping potion you gave me.”

“That fact alone is interesting. It was a tranquilizer and that might have been one of the contributing factors to the incident.”

Snaresbrook listened to the recording three times, making notes each time. Then she questioned Brian closely, going over the same ground again and again until she saw that he was tiring.

“Enough. Let’s have a cup of coffee and I’ll let you go.”

“Aren’t you going to see if I can do it again — but consciously this time?”

“Not today. Get some rest first—”

“I’m not tired! I was just falling asleep from saying the same things over and over again. Come on, Doc, be a sport. Let’s try it now while the whole thing is fresh in my mind.”

“You’re right — strike while the iron is hot! All right — let’s start with something simple. What would be the square of… of 123456?”

Brian visualized the number, tried to find somewhere to put it. He pulled and pushed mentally, twisting his thoughts about it. Tried harder, grunted aloud with the effort.

“15522411383936! That’s the square, I’m sure of it!”

“Do you know how you did it?” she asked excitedly.

“Not really. It was sort of like groping for a memory, something like a word almost on the tip of one’s tongue. Reaching and finding it.”

“Can you do it again?”

“I hope so — yes, why not? I don’t know how it worked in the dream, but I think that I can do it again. But I have no idea how I do it.”

“I think I know what is happening. But in order to verify my diagnosis I’ll have to hook you up to the connection machine again. See what is going on in your brain. Will that be all right?”

“Of course. I must find out how this is happening.”

She turned on the connection machine while he settled into the chair. The delicate fingers made their adjustments and he leaned back, ordered his thoughts.

“Then here is what we will do.” She moved the cursor through the menu on her screen. “Here is an article I downloaded into my computer yesterday from a journal. It’s titled ‘Protospecialist Intensities in Juvenile Development.’ Do you know anything about the subject?”

“I know a bit about what protospecialists are. The nerve centers located in the brain stem that are responsible for most of our basic instincts. Hunger, rage, sex, sleep — things like that. But I don’t think that I ever read any article like that.”

“You couldn’t have, it was only published a few months ago. Then I am going to load it into your implant CPU’s memory — under that title.” She quickly touched the keys, then turned back to him. “It should be there now. See if you are aware of it. Are you?”

“No, not really. I mean I can remember the title because I just heard it.”

“Then try to do what you did a little while ago, what you did in the dream. Tell me about the article.”

Brian’s lip tightened as he frowned, struggling inside his brain with invisible effort.

“Something — I can’t tell. I mean there is something there if I can only get close to it. Get a handle on it…” His eyes opened wide and he began to speak, the words tumbling from his lips.

“…as the child grows, each primitive protospecialist grows level after level of new memory and management machinery and, at the same time, each of them tends to find new ways to influence and exploit what the others can do. The result of this process is to make the older versions of those specialists less separate and distinct. Thus, as those different systems learn to share their cognitive attachments, the resulting cross-connections lead to the more complex mixtures of feelings characteristic of more adult emotions. And by the time we’re adults, these systems have become too complicated even for ourselves to understand. By the time we’ve passed through all those stages of development, our grown-up minds have been rebuilt too many times to remember or understand much of how it felt to be an infant.”

Brian clamped his lips shut, then spoke again, slowly and hesitantly. “Is that… it? What the article was about?”

Dr. Snaresbrook looked at her screen and nodded. “That is not what it was about — that is it word for word. You’ve done it, Brian! What sensations are connected with it?”

He frowned in concentration. “It’s like a real memory, though not exactly. It’s there but I don’t know all about it. I sort of have to read through it in my thoughts before it is complete, understandable.”

“Of course. That’s because it is in the computer’s memory, not yours. You can access it but you won’t understand it until you have gone through it, paying attention to and thinking about what each sentence means. Making the proper sort of links with other things you already know. Only then will you have made the cross-connections that are true understanding.”

“No instant plug-in knowledge in the head?”

“I’m afraid not. Memory is made of so many cross-connections, that can be accessed in so many ways, that it is not linear at all like a computer’s memory. But once you have gone through it once or twice it will be part of your own memory, accessible at any time.”

“It’s fun,” he said, then smiled. “My goodness, I even know the page numbers and footnotes! Do you think we could do it with a whole book — or an encyclopedia?”

“I don’t see why not, since there is still plenty of memory available in the implant CPU. It would certainly speed up the process of relearning. But — this is such a wonderful thing! Direct access to a computer by thought alone. It is such a wide-open concept with such endless possibilities.”

“And it could help my work. Is there any reason why I couldn’t load in all my earlier research notes so I could access them just by thinking about it?”

“No reason that I can think of.”

“Good. It would be nice to have everything there to digest. I’ll do it now, upload all of the retrieved notes from my backup GRAM here—” He yawned. “No, I won’t. Tomorrow will be soon enough. I want to think about this a bit in any case. It all takes some getting used to.”

“I agree completely. But this is more than enough for one day. If you are thinking of going back to the lab — don’t. You are now through with work.”

Brian nodded agreement. “In all truth I had planned to take a walk, think this new thing out.”

“A good idea — as long as you don’t tire yourself.”

He put on his sunglasses before he stepped out in the midday desert glare. An armed corporal opened the door for him, fell in a few paces behind as he spoke softly into his lapel microphone. Other soldiers were out on both flanks, another walking ahead. Brian was getting used to their constant presence, barely noticed it now as he strolled along the path to his favorite bench by the ornamental pool. The Megalobe executive buildings were on the other side of the water, but shielded from sight by the trees and shrubbery. He was the only one who ever seemed to come here and he enjoyed the silence and privacy. He scowled when his phone buzzed. He thought of not answering it, then sighed and undipped it from his belt.

“Delaney.”

“Major Wood at reception. Captain Kahn is here. Says you weren’t expecting her today but would it be okay to talk to you?”

“Yes, of course. Tell her I’m at…”

“I know where you are, sir.’’ There was more than a hint of firmness in the Major’s voice at the suggestion that he didn’t know Brian’s location down to the nearest millimeter. “I’ll escort her to you.”

They came down the path from the main entrance, the wide-shouldered bulk of the Major dwarfing Shelly’s small but shapely figure. She wasn’t in uniform today and was wearing a short white dress more suitable to the desert climate. Brian stood up when she came close; Woody turned sharply on his heel and left them alone.

“I’m not disturbing your work, am I?” There was a thin line of worry between her eyes.

“Not at all. Just taking a break as you see.”

“I should have called first. But I just got back from L.A. and wanted to put you in the picture about progress. I have been working with some of the best investigators in the LAPD. With the kind of work you are doing I’m sure you know all about Expert Systems?”

“I wouldn’t say all — and I am surely out of touch with work done in the last years. But tell me, what language do you write your programs in?”

“LAMA 3.5.”

He smiled. “That’s good news. My father was one of the team that developed LAMA, Language for Logic and Metaphor. Is your machine detective up and running?”

“Yes, it is in a working prototype stage. Works well enough to be interesting. I call it ‘Dick Tracy.’ ”

“How does it work?”

“Basically, it is pretty straightforward. Three main sections. The first is a bunch of different Expert Systems, each with a specific job to do. These specialists are controlled by a fairly simple manager that looks for correlations and notices whenever several of them agree on anything. One of them has already searched through data bases all over the country, making lists of all transportation methods. Now it is compiling its own data bases about automobiles, trucks, air travel and so on. Even water transportation systems.”

“Out here in the desert?”

“Well, the Salton Sea is not very far. Then I have a lot of other specialist programs compiling various kinds of geographic data, especially satellite scans in this area for the period of time we are interested in.”

“Sounds good.” Brian stood. “I’m getting stiff — want to walk a bit?”

“Of course.” She looked about her as they strolled down the path. “Is this a military base? There seem to be an awful lot of soldiers about.”

“All mine,” he said, and smiled. “You notice how they keep pace with us?”

“I like that.”

“I like it even more. As you might imagine I don’t really look forward to a fourth attack on my life. Now the question is, can the system you’ve put together help us catch up with those crooks? Has Dick Tracy come up with hot leads yet?”

“Not really. It is still processing data.”

“Then throw it onto a GRAM and bring it here. The big computer that I’m using will give you all the computational power that you could ever need.”

“That would really speed things up. I’ll need a day or two to pull all the loose ends together.” She glanced up at the sun. “I think that I better go now. I am sure that I can get everything finalized by Wednesday, copy all my notes, and bring the GRAM out Thursday morning.”

“Perfect. I’ll walk you back to the guardhouse — I’m not allowed near the gate — and let Woody know what is happening.”

After she had gone he realized that he should have asked her for a copy of LAMA 3.5 — then laughed at his stupidity. The days of carrying programs around on disks, other than those that needed top security, were long gone. He headed for the lab. He probably had a copy of the program there on CD ROM. If not he could download from a data base.

This new-old world of 2024 still took some getting used to.

February 21, 2024

Benicoff and Evgeni were waiting in front of Brian’s lab when he got there in the morning.

“This is Evgeni’s last day here and we want to check you out on the whole system before he leaves.”

“Back to Siberia, Evgeni?”

“Soon I hope — you got too hot a place here. But first I go to do a bunch of tutorials in Silicon Valley, finish technical instruction on latest hardware. USA make them, Russia buy them, I fix them. Help design next version. Plenty of rubles in Evgeni’s future, bet my arse.”

“Good luck — and plenty of rubles. What’s the program, Ben?” He touched his thumb to the plate and the door clicked open.

“Troubleshooting. All the equipment has been set up and is operating — Evgeni is a great technician.”

“Write that out on paper — recommendation worth plenty more rubles!”

“I will, don’t worry. But when you go we don’t want to have any more technicians around this place.”

“Sounds a winner. But what if a massive crash knocks out the whole system?”

“There not one system — is network of couple systems. Each got copy of network program that contains all diagnostic material from every machine. On top of this every memory and diagnostic report is copied from each machine to a couple of others every few minutes.”

“So whatever goes wrong, we should usually be able to recover all the functions. At the worst, we might only lose what was computed in the past few minutes.”

“Da. And in most cases, lose nothing at all. “You got trouble, E-mail to me in…”

“Visitors at the front entrance,” the security computer said.

Brian touched an ikon on the screen, and it displayed a view from the outside video pickup. Two soldiers were standing at attention, one on each side of Captain Kahn.

“Back in a minute,” he said, then walked the length of the lab to the entrance and thumbed open the door for her.

“I hope I’m not too early? The Major told me that you were already here.”

“No, perfect timing. Let me show you your terminal and get you set up. I guess you’ll want to download your program and files first.”

She took a GRAM out of her purse. “All in here. I didn’t want to send them through public lines. This is now the only copy — the rest has been wiped from the police computer. There is an awful lot of classified material that we don’t want anyone else looking at.”

He led the way through the lab to a partitioned office at the far end.

“Just the terminal, desk and chair here now,” he said. “Let me know if there is anything else you might need.”

“This will be fine.”

“Done,” Ben said, standing and stretching. “I double-checked and Evgeni has done a great job. All the instructions for accessing and using the programs are right here in RAM.”

“I want to see that — but can you wait half a mo’? Shelly just came in and we can talk to her as soon as she has downloaded her Expert Program. This is a good chance for us to find out how far she has gotten.”

They walked Evgeni to the entrance, where he pumped their hands strenuously.

“Good equipment, good fun working here!”

“Good luck — and plenty rubles.”

“Da!”

Shelly turned around in her chair when they came in and pointed to the empty office.

“Sorry about the hospitality.”

“I’ll get a couple of chairs,” Ben said. “And some coffee. Anyone else interested? No? Two chairs then and one coffee.”

“Any results to tell us about?” Brian said.

“Some. I have written the program to link the data-base manager with the discovery program and the human interface. It is mostly — I hope — debugged. I started it up with the goal of solving the Megalobe robbery. It has been running now for a couple of days. By now it might be ready to answer some questions. I held off until you were both here at the same time. This is your investigation, Ben. Do you want to go ahead?”

“Sure. How do I get into the program?”

“I started out using a working label of ‘Dick Tracy’ — and it stuck, I’m afraid. That and your name are all you need.”

“All right.” Ben turned to the terminal. “My name is Benicoff and I am looking for Dick Tracy.”

“Program on line,” the computer said.

“What is your objective?”

“To locate the criminals who committed the crime in the laboratory of Megalobe Industries on February 8, 2023.”

“Have you located the criminals?”

“Negative. I have still not determined how exit was accomplished and how the stolen material was removed.”

Brian listened in awe. “Are you sure that this is only a program? It sounds like a winner of the Turing test.”

“Plug-in speech program,” Shelly said. “Right off the shelf. Verbalizes and parses from the natural language section of the CYC system. These speech programs always seem more intelligent than they are because their grammar and intonation are so precise. But they don’t really know that much about what the words mean.” She turned back to Ben. “Keep querying it, Ben, see if it has come up with any answers. You can use ordinary language because it has a large lexicon of criminal justice idioms.”

“Right. Tell me, Dick Tracy, what leads are you exploring?”

“I have reduced the search to three possibilities. One, that the stolen material was hidden nearby for later retrieval. Two, that is was removed by surface transportation. Three, that it was removed by air.”

“Results?”

“Hidden nearby, very unlikely. Surface transportation more probable. However removal by air is the most likely when all factors are considered.”

Benicoff shook his head and turned to Shelly. “What does it mean by most likely? Surely a computer can do better than that, give us a percentage or something.”

“Why don’t you ask it?”

“I will. Dick Tracy — be more precise. What is the probability of removal by air?”

“I prefer not to assign an unconditional probability to a situation with so many contingencies. For this kind of situation it is more appropriate to estimate by using fuzzy distributions rather than deceptively precise-seeming numbers. But plausibility summaries on a scale of one to one hundred can be provided if you insist.”

“I insist.”

“Hidden nearby — three. Removed by surface transportation — twenty-one. Removed by air — seventy-six.”

Ben’s jaw dropped. “But — suspend program.” He turned to the others, who were as astonished as he was. “We’ve investigated the air theory very thoroughly and there is just no way they could have flown the stuff out of here.”

“That’s not what Dick Tracy says.”

“Then it must know something that we don’t know.” He turned back to the computer. “Resume operation. What is basis for estimate of removed-by-air estimate?”

The computer was silent for a moment. Then, “No summary of basis is available. Conclusion based on weighted sum of twelve thousand intermediate units in discovery program’s connectionist evaluation subsystem.”

“That’s a common deficiency of this type of program,” Shelly explained. “It’s almost impossible to find how it reaches its conclusions — because it adds up millions of small correlations between fragments of data. It’s almost impossible to relate that to anything we might call reasoning.’’

“It doesn’t matter — because the answer is wrong.” Benicoff was irritated. “Remember — I was in charge of the investigation. The airport here at the plant is completely automated. Most of the traffic is copters, though we get executive jets as well as cargo VTOLs and STOLs.”

“How does an automatic airport work?” Brian asked. “Is it safe?”

“Safer than human control, I can assure you. It was finally realized back in the 1980s that more accidents were being caused by human error than were being prevented by human intervention. All aircraft must file flight plans before takeoff. The data goes right into the computer network so every airport knows just what traffic is going out or coming in — or even passing close by. When an aircraft is within radar range a signal identifies them by transponder and they are given clearance or instructions. Here at Megalobe all of the aircraft movements are of course monitored and recorded by security.”

“But security was compromised for that vital hour.”

“Doesn’t matter — everything was also recorded at the Borrego airport control tower, as well as the regional FAA radar station. All three sets of records agree and the technical investigation proved that it would have been impossible to alter all of them. What we saw were true records of all aircraft movements that night.”

“Were there any flights in or out of the airport during that hour?”

“Not one. The last flight was at least an hour before the blank period, a copter to La Jolla.”

“How big an area does the radar cover?” Brian asked.

“A lot. It’s a standard tower unit with a range of about one hundred and fifty miles. From Borrego it reaches out right to the Salton Sea to the east and across it to the hills beyond. Forty, fifty miles at least. Not as far in the other directions with all the hills and mountains that surround this valley.”

“Dick Tracy, activate,” Shelly said. “During the day in question, twenty-four hours, how many flights were recorded by the Megalobe radar?”

“Megalobe flights, eighteen. Borrego Springs Airport, twenty-seven. Passing flights, one hundred and thirty-one.”

“Borrego Springs is just eight miles away,” Shelly said, “but they had no flights in or out during the period in question, none that night at all. All three sets of radar records were identical, except for inconsequential minor differences, on all the passing flights. These are flights that are detected at the radar fringes that don’t originate or end in the valley.”

“There seems to be a lot of air traffic out here in the desert,” Brian said. “One hundred and seventy-six in one day. Why?”

“Business flights to Megalobe we know about,” Ben said. “Borrego Springs has a few commercial flights, the rest are private planes. The passing stuff is the same, plus some military. So we are back to zero again. Dick Tracy says that the stuff left by air. Yet there were no flights out of the valley. So how could it have got out of the valley? Answer that and you have the answer to the whole thing.”

Ben had phrased the question clearly. How could it have got out of the valley? There was a paradox here; it had to go out by air, nothing went out by air. Brian heard the question.

His implanted CPU heard the question as well.

“Out of the valley by truck. Out of the area by air,” Brian said.

“What do you mean?” Shelly asked.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “I didn’t say that, the CPU did.” He tried not to smile at their blank expressions. “Look, we’ll go into that some other time. Right now let’s analyze this. How far could the truck have gone?”

“We worked out a computer model early in the investigation,” Ben said. “The maximum number of men to have loaded the truck, without getting in each other’s way, is eight. The variables are driving time from the gate to the lab, loading time, back to the gate. Once out of the gate the best figure we could come up with was twenty-five miles distance at fifty-five miles an hour. There were roadblocks up on every road out of here as soon as the crime was reported, well outside that twenty-mile zone. Radar covered the area as well, from copters and ground units, and after dawn the visual searches began. The truck could not have escaped.”

“But it did,” Shelly said. “Is there any way a truck and cargo could have been airlifted out? We don’t know — but we are sure going to find out. Let me at the computer, Ben. I am going to have this program check every flight recorded that day within a hundred- then a two-hundred-mile radius.”

“Couldn’t the criminals have gotten records of that flight erased? So there would be no traces at the time of the crime?”

“No way. All the radar signals are maintained for a year in FAA archives, as well as screen-dumps from each air traffic controller’s terminal. A good computer hacker can do many wonderful things, but the air traffic system is simply too complex and redundant. There are hundreds, maybe thousands, of different kinds of records of every detected flight.”

Shelly did not look up, was hard at work, oblivious of them as they left.

“Shelly doesn’t know about the implant CPU,” Ben said. “Was that what you were talking about?”

“Yes. I haven’t had a chance to tell you, but Dr. Snaresbrook and I have had some success in my accessing the CPU by thought alone.”

“That is — what can I say — incredible!”

“That’s what we think. But it is early times yet. I have instructed it to do some math — that’s how it started, in a dream, would you believe it? And I read data from its memory files. It is all exciting and a little frightening. Takes some getting used to. I have a strange head and I’m not sure I like it.”

“But you’re alive and well, Brian,” Ben said grimly. “I saw what that bullet did to you…”

“Don’t tell me about it! Someday, maybe. In fact I would like to forget this for a while, get on with AI. And you and Shelly get on with your Dick Tracy program. I don’t like hiding — or the perpetual threat to my life. I’m beginning to feel like Salman Rushdie — and you remember what happened to him! I would like to, what can I say, rebuild my life. Be as normal as the rest of you. I’m beginning to feel like some kind of freak—”

“No, Brian — don’t ever think that. You are a tough kid that has been through too much. Everyone who has worked with you admires your guts. We’re on your side.”

There was little more that could be said. Ben mumbled an excuse and left. Brian punched up yesterday’s work where he had been transcribing his notes in more complete and readable form but it made no sense to him. He realized that he was both depressed and tired and could hear Dr. Snaresbrook’s voice giving the obvious order. Right, message received, lie down. He told Shelly that he would be back later and went to his rooms.

He must have fallen asleep because the technical journal was lying on his chest and the sun was just dropping behind the mountains to the west. The black depression still possessed him and he wondered if he should call the doctor and report it. But it just didn’t seem serious enough. Maybe it was the room that was getting him down — he was spending more time alone here than he had in the hospital. At least there someone was always popping in and out. Here he even had to eat his meals alone; the novelty of this had worn off quickly.

Shelly had finished for the day and she mumbled goodbye when she left, her thoughts involved in her work. He locked her out and went in the opposite direction. Maybe some fresh air would help. Or some food, since it was getting dark and he had forgotten to eat lunch again. He left the building and walked around the lake and toward the orderly room. He asked if the Major was in — and was taken at once to his office.

“Any complaints — or recommendations?” Woody asked as soon as they were alone.

“No complaints, and I think your troops are doing a tremendous job. They never seem to get in the way, but when I am out of the lab there always seem to be a few in sight.”

“There are a lot more than a few, I assure you! But I’ll tell them what you said. They are trying hard and doing damn well at this assignment.”

“Tell the cooks that I like the food too.”

“The chow hall will be delighted.”

“Chow hall?”

“That’s another name for the mess hall.”

“Mess?”

Woody smiled. “You’re a civilian at heart. We’ve got to teach you to talk like a dogface.”

“Bark you mean?” They both laughed. “Woody, even though I’m not in the Army — is there a chance that a civilian dogface could have a meal in your chow hall?”

“You’re more than welcome. Have all your meals there with the grunts if you like.”

“But I’m not in the Army.”

The Major’s perpetual twisted grin widened at the thought. “Mister, you are the Army. You are the only reason that we are here and not jumping out of planes every day. And I know that a lot of the troops would like to meet you and talk to you.” He glanced up at the time readout on the wall. “Do you drink beer?”

“Is there a Pope in Rome?”

“Come along, then. We’ll have a brew in the club until the chow hall opens at six.”

“There’s a club here? That’s the first I heard.”

Woody stood and led the way. “A military secret which, I would appreciate, you didn’t word about among the Megalobe civilian types. As far as I can find out the entire establishment is dry outside these walls. But this building right now is a military base for my paratroop unit. All army bases have an officer’s club, separate ones for the NCOs and E.M. as well—” He saw Brian’s eyes widen. “The military probably invented acronyms, they love them so much. Noncommissioned officers and enlisted men. This unit is too small for all that boozing discrimination — so we got this all-ranks club.”

He opened the door marked security area — military personnel only and led the way inside. It wasn’t a big room, but in the few weeks that the paratroopers had been here they had managed to add some personal touches. A dart board on one wall, some flags, guidons and photographs — a nude girl on a poster with impossibly large breasts — tables and chairs. And the bottle-filled, beer-pump-sporting bar at the far end.

“How about Tiger beer from Singapore?” Woody asked. “Just tapped a fresh keg.”

“Never heard of it, much less tasted it. Draw away!”

The beer was cold and delicious, the bar itself fascinating. “Some of the troops will be coming in soon, they’ll be happy to meet you,” Woody said, drawing two more glasses. “There is only one thing that I’ll ask of you — don’t talk about your work. None of them will speak to you about what goes on in the laboratory — that order is out — so please don’t volunteer. Hell, even I don’t know what you are doing in there — nor do I want to know. Top Secret, we’ve been told, and that’s all the orders we need. Other than that, shoot the breeze.”

“Shoot the breeze! My vocabulary grows apace!”

Soldiers, some of whom he recognized from their guard duties, came in one by one. They seemed please to meet him personally at last, to shake his hand. He was their age, in fact older than most, and he listened with pleasure to their coarse military camaraderie — heard heroic bragging about sexual prowess and learned some fascinating vulgarities that he had never dreamed existed. And all the time he was listening he never let on that he was only fourteen years old. He was growing up faster every moment!

They told stories and old, familiar jokes. He was included in the talk and was asked what part of the States he came from, phrased politely but with the implication that they were puzzled about his brogue. The soldiers of Irish descent were full of questions and they all listened eagerly when he told them about growing up in Ireland. Later they went into dinner together — getting him a line tray and supplying him with plenty of advice on what to eat and what to avoid.

All in all it was an enjoyable evening and he resolved to eat in the mess hall again, whenever he could. What with all the talk and friendliness, what the Irish called good crack — not to forget all the beers either, he had pulled completely out of the glooms. The grunts were a great bunch of government-issue dogfaces. He would still start the day alone with coffee and toast, since he hated to talk to anyone first thing in the morning. And he had got into the habit of making himself a sandwich to take to the lab for lunch.

But he was going to join the human race for dinner just as often as he could. Or at least that portion of it represented by the 82d Airborne. Come to think of it the human race really was well represented there. White and black, Asian and Latin. They were all good guys.

He went to sleep smiling. The dreams did not bother him this night.