The Reproductive System (Gollancz SF Library) (3 page)

The brothers flicked a glance at the empty tank, another at the chart, another at Cal.

‘We expected more of an MIT valedictorian,’ Karl said nastily, as if speaking to his brother.

‘That’s right, Karl. He has not only ruined experiment 173b, but we have not had a single original idea from him, and he has not hypothesized a single biomechanical arrangement.’

‘True enough, Kurt.’ The brothers, perhaps because of their similarity, seemed to find it desirable to identify one another often. ‘True it is, Kurt. I begin to wonder if MIT’s standards have not declined.’

Hita cleared his throat. Steering themselves, as it were, by the clipboards under their arms, the two spun towards him. ‘But, gentlemen,’ he said, ‘Potter was just now discussing with me his new idea for a biomechanical arrangement. A sort of steel-shelled oyster, wasn’t it, Cal?’

‘Yes. A sort of—um—steel-shelled oyster. Yes. You see, it would have a number of advantages. Too numerous to mention.’

‘Such as—?’ said the twins together.

‘Well—instead of a pearl, it produces a ball-bearing. A slow way to make ball-bearings, admittedly, but then we’re not really interested in the manufacture of—’

‘I hope, Kurt, that he will follow out his line of inquiry,’ said Karl.

‘And write a monograph,’ Kurt added. ‘But meanwhile we’ll assign him to Project 32 as a special assistant. He can help wire up circuits, Karl.’

Cal felt he had been both chastised and given a second chance. He was about to stammer out his thanks when the light above the door glowed a second time.

‘Good evening !’ boomed Grandison Wompler from the doorway. ‘Say, it’s long after five, and we don’t pay overtime, you know.’

The Mackintosh twins drew themselves up slightly. Karl said, ‘Dedication to the human race cannot be curtailed by mere time.’

‘Our work goes on,’ his brother intoned, ‘day and night, committed ever to the achievement of peace in our time, final, eternal peace—’

‘That’s fine. But do you have to have all these lights on?’ Grandison entered, waving aside the aimed pistol of the marine guard, and donned a white lab coat from a locker.

‘Our newest project will consume immense quantities of power,’ Kurt informed him. ‘But it will benefit the human race immeasurably.’

‘Great. Good work, boys. But will it get me a new contract? Will it put Millford on the map? Will it make the government want to shower money on me?’

The twins looked at one another for a flickering second. ‘It will indeed,’ they chorused.

Louie stuck his head in the door and shouted to Hita, ‘Oh, there you are.’ He smiled and nodded at the marine guard, who was trying to decide whether or not to shoot him. ‘Hita, I’ll meetcha in the gym, OK?’ Hita smiled and nodded, and the ebullient intruder withdrew.

Grandison turned around and noticed the statistician. ‘Hi there,
amigo
!’ he said grinning, and walked over to him, hand extended. Hita was the only member of the staff with whom Grandison ever shook hands.
‘Como esta Usted?’

‘
Muy bien
,’ replied the Japanese, without enthusiasm.

‘That’s fine, fine. Now, if any of these fellows don’t treat you right, you just come tell me, hear? I signed a government contract, and that means I got to give fair and equal employment to You Fellows. It don’t matter what your race, creed, colour or religion is, you’re all Americans !’

‘But I’m not an American,’ Hita protested. Grandison affected not to hear him.

‘Yes, I rebuilt this company from nothing, in less man a year—and I want to keep what we got. We got the finest cafeteria, the best coffee machines, the nicest bowling alleys and gym, the cleanest bomb shelters money can buy—and I want us to keep ’em. I want all you boys, black and white, to put your backs into it and really pull—for the company !’

‘I’m sure we’re all doing our best,’ said Hita, picking up a pair of scissors. ‘Well, I must go.
Adios
.’

‘We, too, must leave, Kurt,’ said Karl. ‘We must confer with Dr. S. just now. Potter here can show you around the lab, Mr. Wompler.’ The brothers moved off, in lock-step.

‘Say,’ said Grandison behind his hand. ‘I heard someone say their name was Frankenstein.’ His voice dropped to a confidential whisper and his face grew solemn. ‘They ain’t—they ain’t Jews, are they?’

‘I believe they are Irish Protestants, sir,’ said Cal, trying to keep his face straight. ‘Their name is Mackintosh. Would you

like to see the lab?’

‘Yes, fine.’

At each exhibit, Grandison would pause while Cal named the piece of equipment. Then he would repeat the name softly, with a kind of wonder, nod sagely and move on. Cal was strongly reminded of the way some people look at modern art exhibitions, where the labels become more important to them than the objects. He found himself making up elaborate names.

‘And this, you’ll note, is the Mondriaan Modular Mnemonicon.’

‘—onicon, yes.’

‘And the Empyrean diffrean diffractosphere.’

‘—sphere. Mn. I see.’

Nothing surprised Grandison, for he was looking at nothing. Cal became wilder. Pointing to Hita’s desk, he said. ‘The chiarascuro thermocouple.’

‘Couple? Looks like only one, to me. Interesting, though.’

A briar pipe became a ‘zygotic pipette’, the glass ashtray a ‘Piltdown retort’, and the lamp a ‘phase-conditioned Aeolian’. Paperclips became ‘nuances’.

‘Nuances, I see. Very fine. What’s that thing, now?’ He pointed to an oscilloscope. Cal took a deep breath.

‘Its full name,’ he said, ‘is the Praetorian eschatalogical morphomorphic tangram, Endymion-type, but we usually just call it a ramification.’

The old man fixed him with a stern black eye. ‘Are you trying to be funny or something? I mean, I may not be a smart-aleck scientist, but I sure as hell know a television, when I see one.’

Cal assured him it was not a television, and proved it by switching it on. ‘See,’ he said, pointing to a pattern of square waves, ‘there are the little anapests.’

‘I’ll be damned ! So they are.’

Cal went on to show him a few revanchist doctrines before the president, satisfied, took his departure.

‘Keep up the good work,’ he called out, ‘and take good care of the company equipment. Them ramifications don’t grow on trees y’know.’

Cal began to chew his fingernails off, one by one, leaning against a lab table and dropping the parings in a Piltdown retort.
How long can I get away with this?
he wondered.
They still think I’m from MIT. And so I am. From Miami Institute of Technocracy
.

Miami Institute of Technocracy was the only school in the nation that gave a Bachelor of Applied Arts degree in biophysics. Cal had graduated in a class of four : Harry Stropp, Bachelor of Physical Education, Mary Junes, Home Economics Technician, Barthemo Beele, Associate of Journalism. Cal had headed the class.

I’ll confess to Dr. Smilax
, he decided.
I can explain it was all a mistake
. He switched off the lights and left. The marine guard remained alone, standing at attention in the darkness.

Cal stopped at the hall bulletin board. A new notice had been posted, and now, stalling for time, he stopped to read it.

‘
PROJECT
32. Supervisors :
DR. K. MACKINTOSH & DR. K. MACKINTOSH
. Special Assistant :
POTTER
. Inspection will be 21 June 196–. At some time after this date,
DR. A. CANDLEWOOD
(Behavioural Psychol.) will join the staff.’

Cal looked from the signature (impersonally mimeographed) to the door marked :

T. Smilax M.D.
NO UNAUTHORIZED PERSONNEL
THIS MEANS YOU
ABSOLUTELY RESTRICTED AREA

Changing his mind, Cal spun around and headed for the main door. As he passed the open window of the gymnasium building, he heard Hita shout, ‘Hai !’ There was the sound of shearing paper.

T
OP
S
ECRET
T
OP
S
ECRET
T
OP
S
ECRET
T
OP
S
ECRET

I.
The Purpose of Project
32

Project 32 is the code name of a series of experiments undertaken at the Wompler Research Laboratory in Millford, Utah, in 196–. The purpose of Project 32 was to determine :

(a) if it were possible to set into motion an autonomous, self-reproducing mechanism, a ‘Reproductive System’, and

(b) the military use, if any, of such a system.

II.
The Background of Project
32

Prior to the initiation of this project, it was generally considered impracticable, if not impossible, to design and set into motion a system capable of self-support, learning and reproduction. (a) Although computers had been programmed to perform simple analogies
¹
or ‘learn’, i.e., profit from their mistakes in straight-forward games, they showed little promise as learning machines. And for a system to be autonomous, it must be able to discriminate portions of its environment, analogize from past experiences and profit from mistakes of a rather complex nature. (b) Although ‘autonomous’ automated production lines already existed, they were at the mercy of their environments for power and materials. (c) Some computers had already been used to solve problems in circuitry, thus in effect ‘redesigning’ themselves. But there remained what seemed an unbridgeable gap between these and a true self-reproducing machine.

III.
The Experiments

Early experiments comprised attempts to construct living/non-living ‘symbioses’ : Inculcating in the nervous system of a coelentrate an electric motor circuit;
²
encasing oysters in shells of flexible steel;
³
equipping mice with electro-hydraulically-operated tails;
⁴
and many similar attempts, none satisfactory.

IV.
The Theory

Out of these early experiments a modular of cellular system was conceived of, functioning somewhere between a polypidon
and a highly structured society. Each cell should be :

(a) Organized along similar lines with its fellows, and equipped to recognize order and respond to it.

(b) Equipped to repair intracellular breakdowns, as far as possible, and to ‘eat’ non-functional cells.

(c) Able to convert power and material from its environment into itself, and to construct new cells like itself from any surplus power and material, i.e., to reproduce.

(d) Able to prevent its own destruction by flight, by diversion of or neutralization of the destructive agent. E.g., if made of steel, it should (1) flee from sea-water contact; (2) paint itself to seal put sea-water; or (3) develop some chemical means to neutralize the corrosive action of sea-water.

No practical means were available to test or even construct a working model of this theoretical system, until the completion and adaptation of the QUIDNAC computer.

V.
The Quidnac

The QUIDNAC, or Quantifiable Universal Integral DNA Computer, as originally designed by T. Smilax, had three qualities that recommended it to the project : (a) compact size; (b) a virtually infinitely-extensible memory; (c) suitability for learning complex analogic processes. In addition, T. Smilax was the head of Project 32.

VI.
General Principles of Construction of Cells

Each cell may be considered in some respects an egg, having ‘yolk’, ‘white’ and ‘shell’. In this simplified scheme :

(a) The ‘yolk’ consisted of the QUIDNAC computer, along with various coupling and control devices to functions in the ‘white’ and ‘shell’.

(b) The ‘white’ contained automatic production tools and storage facilities for raw materials, spare tools and parts, and power.

(c) The ‘shell’ of metal armour contained means of locomotion, sensory devices, paint, simple extensors, and (though not in all cases) means of communication.

Within this framework many variations were constructed, differing in their means of locomotion, sensory devices, means of communication and production methods. It was expected that,

in addition to variations proposed by the experimenter, others would be adapted or invented by the system itself.

* * *

‘I just don’t get it,’ said Cal, laying down his soldering gun. Though he spoke to Louie Wompler, all the army and navy technicians around them looked up, eager for a chance to stop and talk. Louie sat frowning at a folded piece of paper in his hand.