[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
may know, your former company is in re-ceivership, and I am hereby empowered
to repossess your body.'
ELEVEN
The glory days were about to return. Holly found it quite impossible to
suppress his permanent smirk.
It had taken almost three weeks for the skutters to channel all the spare
run-time from Holly's thousands upon thousands of terminal stacks into the
small, single Central Processing Unit which controlled his highest levels of
thought.
But now they were ready.
'Right then,' said the Toaster. 'We're ready.'
Holly nodded.
'We've just got to take out the circuit breaker, and pray we don't get an
overload.'
'What happens if we do get an overload?'
'You'll explode,' said the Toaster, simply.
'Fair enough,' said Holly.
A skutter moved across the Drive-room floor, and its claw pulled out the
inhibitory circuit board.
All over the ship, the lights dimmed to emergency level. Cables, dormant for
centuries, rumbled with power.
'It's coming,' said Holly, tonelessly. 'I can hear it.'
Millions of circuit boards sparked into life. From the outer reaches of the
ship, the surging energy thundered towards the Drive room, and Holly's CPU.
'Whatever happens,' he said to the Toaster, 'no regrets. It's got to be better
than being stuck with you.'
Then it happened.
Holly's digital image expanded off the screen in a stunning explosion of
colour. Huge blue bolts of static lightning ripped across the walls of the
Drive room. Terminals fizzed and jerked as the thousands of cables discharged
their loads into his Central Processing Unit.
Holly felt the power enter him.
He felt as if his whole being had been blown apart and scattered to the
corners of the universe.
And just as he thought it was abating, just as he thought the massiveness of
what had happened to him had finished, the second wave burst into him,
smashing him, fragmenting him again.
Page 21
ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
And then there was silence. A choking cloud of rubber-smoke hung low over the
floor.
And Holly's splintered image reformed itself on the screen in a scream of
colours.
He opened his eyes.
His image was different. Larger, more intense, with higher definition. But the
greatest difference was in his eyes. His eyes had lost their darting anxiety.
They were smiling, benign.
Holly was at total peace with himself.
He summoned the digital readout of his estimated IQ.
There were two figures. The first was a six, the second was an eight.
Sixty-eight.
Still, he kept smiling.
There was a plip, and the two figures were joined by another. Now, they read
three hundred and sixty-eight.
There was a pause, and another plip.
Now the IQ readout was two thousand, three hundred and sixty-eight.
Holly's smile broadened.
There was a final plip and the figures were joined by a one.
Holly's new IQ was twelve thousand, three hundred and sixty-eight.
He was more than twice as intelligent as he'd been at the height of his
genius.
'I know everything,' he said, without a trace of conceit. He turned his huge,
kindly eyes towards the Toaster.
'Ask me anything. Absolutely anything at all.'
'Anything?'
'Metaphysics, philosophy, the purpose of being. Anything.'
'Truly anything, and you will answer?'
'I shall.'
'Very well,' said the Toaster. 'Here is my question: would you like some
toast?'
'No, thank you,' said Holly. 'Now ask me another. The whole sphere of human
knowledge is an open book to me. Ask me another question.'
The Toaster pondered. There were so many questions it wanted to pose. Finally,
it selected the most important of them all, and asked it. 'Would you like a
crumpet?'
'I'm a computer with an IQ of twelve thousand, three hundred and sixty-eight.
You, of all the intelligences in the universe - a lowly, plastic Toaster, with
a retail value of $£19.99 plus tax - you alone have the opportunity to have
any question answered. You could for instance, ask me the secret of Time
Travel. You could ask me: is there a God, and what is His address? You don't
seem to understand: I know everything, and I want to share it with you.'
'That's not answering my question,' said the Toaster.
'No, I would not like a crumpet. Ask me a sensible question. Preferably one
that isn't bread-related.'
'There isn't anything I want to know that isn't bread-related,' said the
Toaster.
'Try and think of something,' Holly insisted.
There was a long silence. The Toaster fell into a deep study. Eventually, it
stirred. 'What about a toasted currant bun?'
'That's a bready question.'
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]