Unwise Child by Randall Garrett (early reader chapter books .TXT) 📖

them are unaware of the implications of the entire field. Could Snookums work with such a body of knowledge?”

[167] “Sure,” said Leda. “Why not?”

“What if there was absolutely no way for Snookums to experiment with this knowledge? What if he simply did not have the equipment necessary?”

“You mean,” she asked, “something like astrophysics?”

“No. That’s exactly what I don’t mean. I’m perfectly well aware that it isn’t possible to test astrophysical theories directly. Nobody has been able to build a star in the lab so far.

“But it is possible to test the theories of astrophysics analogically by extrapolating on data that can be tested in a physics lab.

“What I’m talking about is a system that Snookums, simply because he is what he is, cannot test or experiment upon, in any way whatsoever. A system that has, in short, no connection with the physical world whatsoever.”

Leda Crannon thought it over. “Well, assuming all that, I imagine that it would eventually ruin Snookums. He’s built to experiment, and if he’s kept from experimenting for too long, he’ll exceed the optimum randomity of his circuits.” She swallowed. “If he hasn’t already.”

“I thought so. And so did someone else,” said Mike thoughtfully.

“Well, for Heaven’s sake! What is this system?” Leda asked in sudden exasperation.

“You’re close,” said Mike the Angel.

“What are you talking about?”

“Theology,” said Mike. “He was pumped full of Christian theology, that’s all. Good, solid, Catholic theology. Bishop Costin’s mathematical symbolization of it is simply a result of the verbal logic that had been smoothed out during the previous two thousand years. Snookums could reduce [168] it to math symbols and equations, anyway, even if we didn’t have Bishop Costin’s work.”

He showed her the book from Mellon’s room.

“It doesn’t even require the assumption of a soul to make it foul up a robot’s works. He doesn’t have any emotions, either. And he can’t handle something that he can’t experiment with. It would have driven him insane, all right. But he isn’t insane.”

Leda looked puzzled. “But—”

“Do you know why?” Mike interrupted.

“No.”

“Because he found something that he could experiment with. He found a material basis for theological experimentation.”

She looked still more puzzled. “What could that be?”

“Me,” said Mike the Angel. “Me. Michael Raphael Gabriel. I’m an angel—an archangel. As a matter of fact, I’m three archangels. For all I know, Snookums has equated me with the Trinity.”

“But—how did he get that idea?”

“Mostly from the Book of Tobit,” said Mike. “That’s where an archangel takes the form of a human being and travels around with Tobit the Younger, remember? And, too, he probably got more information from the first part of Luke’s Gospel, where Gabriel tells the Blessed Virgin that she’s about to become a mother.”

“But would he have figured that out for himself?”

“Possibly,” said Mike, “but I doubt it. He was told that I was an angel—literally.”

“Let me see that book,” she said, taking The Christian Religion and Symbolic Logic from Mike’s hand. She opened [169] it to the center. “I didn’t know anyone had done this sort of work,” she said.

“Oh, there was a great fuss over the book when it came out. There were those who said that the millennium had arrived because the truth of the Christian faith had been proved mathematically, and therefore all rational people would have to accept it.”

She leafed through the book. “I’ll bet there are still some who still believe that, just like there are some people who still think Euclidian geometry must necessarily be true because it can be ‘proved’ mathematically.”

Mike nodded. “All Bishop Costin did—all he was trying to do—was to prove that the axioms of the Christian faith are logically self-consistent. That’s all he ever claimed to have done, and he did a brilliant job of it.”

“But—how do you know this is what Snookums was given?”

“Look at the pages. Snookums’ waldo fingers wrinkled the pages that way. Those aren’t the marks of human fingers. Only two of Mellon’s other books were wrinkled that way.”

She jerked her head up from the book, startled. “What? This is Lew Mellon’s book?”

“That’s right. So are the other two. A Bible and a theological dictionary. They’re wrinkled the same way.”

Her eyes were wide, bright sapphires. “But why? Why would he do such a thing, for goodness’ sake?”

“I don’t know why it was done,” Mike said slowly, “but I doubt if it was for goodness’ sake. We haven’t gotten to the bottom of this hanky-panky yet, I don’t think.

“Leda, if I’m right—if this is what has been causing Snookums’ odd behavior—can you cure him?”

[170] She looked at the book again and nodded. “I think so. But it will take a lot of work. I’ll have to talk to Fitz about it. We’ll have to keep this book—and the other two.”

Mike shook his head. “No can do. Can you photocopy them?”

“Certainly. But it’ll take—oh, two or three hours per book.”

“Then you’d better get busy. We’re landing in the morning.”

She nodded. “I know. Captain Quill has already told us.”

“Fine, then.” He stood up. “What will you do? Simply tell Snookums to forget all this stuff?”

“Good Heavens no! It’s too thoroughly integrated with every other bit of data he has! You might be able to take one single bit of data out that way, but to jerk out a whole body of knowledge like this would completely randomize his circuits. You can pull out a tooth by yanking with a pair of forceps, but if you try to take out a man’s appendix that way, you’ll lose a patient.”

“I catch,” Mike said with a grin. “Okay. I’ll get the other two books and you can get to work copying them. Take care.”

“Thanks, Mike.”

As he walked down the companionway, he cursed himself for being a fool. If he’d let things go on the way they were, Leda might have weaned herself away from Snookums. Now she was interested again. But there could have been no other way, of course.

[171]

19

The interstellar ship Brainchild orbited around her destination, waiting during the final checkup before she landed on the planet below.

It was not a nice planet. As far as its size went, it could be classified as “Earth type,” but size was almost the only resemblance to Earth. It orbited in space some five hundred and fifty million miles from its Sol-like parent—a little farther away from the primary than Jupiter is from Sol itself. It was cold there—terribly cold. At high noon on the equator, the temperature reached a sweltering 180° absolute; it became somewhat chillier toward the poles.

H2O was, anywhere on the planet, a whitish, crystalline mineral suitable for building material. The atmosphere was similar to that of Jupiter, although the proportions of methane, ammonia, and hydrogen were different because of the lower gravitational potential of the planet. It had managed to retain a great deal more hydrogen in its atmosphere than Earth had because of the fact that the average thermal velocity of the molecules was much lower. Since oxygen-releasing life had never developed on the frigid surface of the planet, there was no oxygen in the atmosphere. It was [172] all tied up in combination with the hydrogen of the ice and the surface rocks of the planet.

The Space Service ship that had discovered the planet, fifteen years before, had given it the name Eisberg, thus commemorating the name of a spaceman second class who happened to have the luck to be (a) named Robert Eisberg, (b) a member of the crew of the ship to discover the planet, and (c) under the command of a fun-loving captain.

Eisberg had been picked as the planet to transfer the potentially dangerous Snookums to for two reasons. In the first place, if Snookums actually did solve the problem of the total-annihilation bomb, the worst he could do was destroy a planet that wasn’t much good, anyway. And, in the second place, the same energy requirements applied on Eisberg as did on Chilblains Base. It was easier to cool the helium bath of the brain if it only had to be lowered 175 degrees or so.

It was a great place for cold-work labs, but not worth anything for colonization.

Chief Powerman’s Mate Multhaus looked gloomily at the figures on the landing sheet.

Mike the Angel watched the expression on the chief’s face and said: “What’s the matter, Multhaus? No like?”

Multhaus grimaced. “Well, sir, I don’t like it, no. But I can’t say I dislike it, either.”

He stared at the landing sheet, pursing his lips. He looked as though he were valiantly restraining himself from asking questions about the other night’s escapade—which he was.

He said: “I just don’t like to land without jets, sir; that’s all.”

“Hell, neither do I,” admitted Mike. “But we’re not going [173] to get down any other way. We managed to take off without jets; we’ll manage to land without them.”

“Yessir,” said Multhaus, “but we took off with the grain of Earth’s magnetic field. We’re landing across the grain.”

“Sure,” said Mike. “So what? If we overlook the motors, that’s okay. We may never be able to get off the planet with this ship again, but we aren’t supposed to anyway.

“Come on, Multhaus, don’t worry about it. I know you hate to burn up a ship, but this one is supposed to be expendable. You may never have another chance like this.”

Multhaus tried to keep from grinning, but he couldn’t. “Awright, Commander. You have appealed to my baser instincts. My subconscious desire to wreck a spaceship has been brought to the surface. I can’t resist it. Am I nutty, maybe?”

“Not now, you’re not,” Mike said, grinning back.

“We’ll have a bitch of a job getting through the plasmasphere, though,” said the chief. “That fraction of a second will—”

“It’ll jolt us,” Mike agreed, interrupting. “But it won’t wreck us. Let’s get going.”

“Aye, sir,” said Multhaus.

The seas of Eisberg were liquid methane containing dissolved ammonia. Near the equator, they were liquid; farther north, the seas became slushy with crystallized ammonia.

The site picked for the new labs of the Computer Corporation of Earth was in the northern hemisphere, at 40° north latitude, about the same distance from the equator as New York or Madrid, Spain, would be on Earth. The Brainchild would be dropping through Eisberg’s magnetic field at an angle, but it wouldn’t be the ninety-degree angle of the [174] equator. It would have been nice if the base could have been built at one of the poles, but that would have put the labs in an uncomfortable position, since there was no solid land at either pole.

Mike the Angel didn’t like the idea of having to land on Eisberg without jets any more than Multhaus did, but he was almost certain that the ship would take the strain.

He took the companionway up to the Control Bridge, went in, and handed the landing sheet to Black Bart. The captain scowled at it, shrugged, and put it on his desk.

“Will we make it, sir?” Mike said. “Any word from the Fireball?”

Black Bart nodded. “She’s orbiting outside the atmosphere. Captain Wurster will send down a ship to pick us up as soon as we’ve finished our business here.”

The Fireball, being much faster than the clumsy Brainchild, had left Earth later than the slower ship, and had arrived earlier.

“Now hear this! Now hear this! Third Warning! Landing orbit begins in one minute! Landing begins in one minute!”

Sixty seconds later the Brainchild began her long, logarithmic drop toward the surface of Eisberg.

Landing a ship on her jets isn’t an easy job, but at least an ion rocket is built for the job. Maybe someday the Translation drive will be modified for planetary landings, but so far such a landing has been, as someone put it, “50 per cent raw energy and 50 per cent prayer.” The landing was worse than the take-off, a truism which has held since the first glider took off from the surface of Earth in the nineteenth century. What goes up doesn’t necessarily have to come down, but when it does, the job is a lot rougher than getting up was.

[175] The plasmasphere of Eisberg differed from that of Earth in two ways. First, the ionizing source of radiation—the primary star—was farther away from Eisberg than Sol was from Earth, which tended to reduce the total ionization. Second, the upper atmosphere of Eisberg was pretty much pure hydrogen, which is somewhat easier to ionize than oxygen or nitrogen. And, since there was no ozonosphere to block out the UV radiation from the primary, the thickness of the ionosphere beneath the plasmasphere was greater.

Not until the Brainchild hit the bare fringes of the upper atmosphere did she act any differently than she had in space.

But when she hit the outer fringes of the ionosphere—that upper layer of rarified protons, the rapidly moving current of high velocity ions known as the plasmasphere—she bucked like