* * * * *
Fay groaned faintly. "Bugs operate by instinct, Gussy," he said. "A
patterned routine. They do not scan situations and consequences and
then make decisions."
"I don't expect bugs to make decisions," Gusterson said. "For that
matter I don't like people who go around alla time making decisions."
"Well, you can take it from me, Gussy, that this tickler is just a
miniaturized wire recorder and clock ... and a tickler. It doesn't do
anything else."
"Not yet, maybe," Gusterson said darkly. "Not this model. Fay, I'm
serious about bugs thinking. Or if they don't exactly think, they
feel. They've got an interior drama. An inner glow. They're conscious.
For that matter, Fay, I think all your really complex electronic
computers are conscious too."
"Quit kidding, Gussy."
"Who's kidding?"
"You are. Computers simply aren't alive."
"What's alive? A word. I think computers are conscious, at least while
they're operating. They've got that inner glow of awareness. They sort
of ... well ... meditate."
"Gussy, computers haven't got any circuits for meditating. They're not
programmed for mystical lucubrations. They've just got circuits for
solving the problems they're on."
"Okay, you admit they've got problem-solving circuits--like a man has.
I say if they've got the equipment for being conscious, they're
conscious. What has wings, flies."
"Including stuffed owls and gilt eagles and dodoes--and wood-burning
airplanes?"
"Maybe, under some circumstances. There _was_ a wood-burning airplane.
Fay," Gusterson continued, wagging his wrists for emphasis, "I really
think computers are conscious. They just don't have any way of telling
us that they are. Or maybe they don't have any _reason_ to tell us,
like the little Scotch boy who didn't say a word until he was fifteen
and was supposed to be deaf and dumb."
"Why didn't he say a word?"
"Because he'd never had anything to say. Or take those Hindu fakirs,
Fay, who sit still and don't say a word for thirty years or until
their fingernails grow to the next village. If Hindu fakirs can do
that, computers can!"
Looking as if he were masticating a lemon, Fay asked quietly, "Gussy,
did you say you're working on an insanity novel?"
* * * * *
Gusterson frowned fiercely. "Now you're kidding," he accused Fay. "The
dirty kind of kidding, too."
"I'm sorry," Fay said with light contrition. "Well, now you've sniffed
at it, how about trying on Tickler?" He picked up the gleaming blunted
crescent and jogged it temptingly under Gusterson's chin.
"Why should I?" Gusterson asked, stepping back. "Fay, I'm up to my
ears writing a book. The last thing I want is something interrupting
me to make me listen to a lot of junk and do a lot of useless things."
"But, dammit, Gussy! It was all your idea in the first place!" Fay
blatted. Then, catching himself, he added, "I mean, you were one of
the first people to think of this particular sort of instrument."
"Maybe so, but I've done some more thinking since then." Gusterson's
voice grew a trifle solemn. "Inner-directed worthwhile thinkin'. Fay,
when a man forgets to do something, it's because he really doesn't
want to do it or because he's all roiled up down in his unconscious.
He ought to take it as a danger signal and investigate the roiling,
not hire himself a human or mech reminder."
"Bushwa," Fay retorted. "In that case you shouldn't write memorandums
or even take notes."
"Maybe I shouldn't," Gusterson agreed lamely. "I'd have to think that
over too."
"Ha!" Fay jeered. "No, I'll tell you what your trouble is, Gussy.
You're simply scared of this contraption. You've loaded your skull
with horror-story nonsense about machines sprouting minds and taking
over the world--until you're even scared of a simple miniaturized and
clocked recorder." He thrust it out.
"Maybe I am," Gusterson admitted, controlling a flinch. "Honestly,
Fay, that thing's got a gleam in its eye as if it had ideas of its
own. Nasty ideas."
"Gussy, you nut, it hasn't _got_ an eye."
"Not now, no, but it's got the gleam--the eye may come. It's the
Cheshire cat in reverse. If you'd step over here and look at yourself
holding it, you could see what I mean. But I don't think computers
_sprout_ minds, Fay. I just think they've _got_ minds, because they've
got the mind elements."
"Ho, ho!" Fay mocked. "Everything that has a material side has a
mental side," he chanted. "Everything that's a body is also a spirit.
Gussy, that dubious old metaphysical dualism went out centuries ago."
"Maybe so," Gusterson said, "but we still haven't anything but that
dubious dualism to explain the human mind, have we? It's a jelly of
nerve cells and it's a vision of the cosmos. If that isn't dualism,
what is?"
"I give up. Gussy, are you going to try out this tickler?"
"No!"
"But dammit, Gussy, we made it just for you!--practically."
"Sorry, but I'm not coming near the thing."
"Zen come near me," a husky voice intoned behind them. "Tonight I
vant a man."
* * * * *
Standing in the door was something slim in a short silver sheath. It
had golden bangs and the haughtiest snub-nosed face in the world. It
slunk toward them.
"My God, Vina Vidarsson!" Gusterson yelled.
"Daisy, that's terrific," Fay applauded, going up to her.
She bumped him aside with a swing of her hips, continuing to advance.
"Not you, Ratty," she said throatily. "I vant a real man."
"Fay, I suggested Vina Vidarsson's face for the beauty mask,"
Gusterson said, walking around his wife and shaking a finger. "Don't
tell me Trix just happened to think of that too."
"What else could they think of?" Fay laughed. "This season sex means
VV and nobody else." An odd little grin flicked his lips, a tic
traveled up his face and his body twitched slightly. "Say, folks, I'm
going to have to be leaving. It's exactly fifteen minutes to Second
Curfew. Last time I had to run and I got heartburn. When _are_ you
people going to move downstairs? I'll leave Tickler, Gussy. Play
around with it and get used to it. 'By now."
"Hey, Fay," Gusterson called curiously, "have you developed absolute
time sense?"
Fay grinned a big grin from the doorway--almost too big a grin for so
small a man. "I didn't need to," he said softly, patting his right
shoulder. "My tickler told me."
He closed the door behind him.
As side-by-side they watched him strut sedately across the murky
chilly-looking park, Gusterson mused, "So the little devil had one of
those nonsense-gadgets on all the time and I never noticed. Can you
beat that?" Something drew across the violet-tinged stars a short
bright line that quickly faded. "What's that?" Gusterson asked
gloomily. "Next to last stage of missile-here?"
"Won't you settle for an old-fashioned shooting star?" Daisy asked
softly. The (wettable) velvet lips of the mask made even her natural
voice sound different. She reached a hand back of her neck to pull the
thing off.
"Hey, don't do that," Gusterson protested in a hurt voice. "Not for a
while anyway."
"Hokay!" she said harshly, turning on him. "Zen down on your knees,
dog!"