Free Manalone by Colin Kapp

pet … The only thing that bound her to him was the money he earned. It seemed now that even his substantial income was insufficient for her wants. He knew that one day she would leave him, and he realized that this consideration was something he had known for a long time. She was a chancer – an opportunist – and he was ceasing to be an attractive opportunity. Slightly numb, Manalone wondered how long it would take her to make up her mind.
    At least, itanswered his problem. Since losing her was inevitable, he need not allow consideration for her to influence his own actions unduly. He was free to make his own way to Hell if he chose.
    ‘Aren’t things beginning to make sense yet, Manalone? You’re quite sure there’s a major crisis and you know that the victims are dying. You even know where and how many are dying – they’re dying in hospitals, five percent of mothers during pregnancy plus their unborn children. Over a thousand deaths per ten thousand cases sampled. What you don’t know is why they’re dying.
    ‘It isn’t radiation. There’s been no significant increase in background count this century. Genetic damage? Possible. It could affect the growing embryo or foetus, but it’s difficult to see how it could kill the mother. Perhaps evolution’s growing tired of the human race and wants to give something else a chance to see what it can do with dominance. One thing’s certain, Manalone, if Paul’s left much of this investigation in note form and the MIPS get hold of it, then you’re probably not going to get the chance to find the answers. Your most pressing need is a life insurance.’
    He did not bother to go to bed that night, but worked on in his studyspace culling information from his files, books and tapes about the immense national computer networks whose electronic webs spanned the country like the nervous system of some giant inorganic beast. Transport, Credit, Archive, and several hundred other functional computing complexes each had their own motor and sensory analogues reaching from coast to coast, but he was secretly pleased to note that the electronic beast of which they were a part was disco-ordinated by virtue of having too many autonomous brains and too little integration.
    ‘By some oversight, Manalone, there’s still room left in the system for human beings. No doubt that will be rectified in time – but just at this moment there’s still a niche between the data links and the peripherals where an individualist might survive.’
    He pulled a padtowards him and began to set up in blocked representation a system analysis for one of the most complex computer programmes he would ever have to write. So engrossed was he in this task that he was scarcely conscious of the dawn breaking and the gradual daylight filtering in through the windows. He was still working at his desk when the contract autram drew up outside the house to take him to the Mills. He did not even look towards Sandra as he left. In some unreal way he felt that she had already gone.
    At the Mills? Manalone ignored his own work and headed straight for the computer laboratory with his notes. Here among the extensive library of programmes and subroutines, he found the flesh which would clothe the bones of his idea. He worked swiftly and with the consummate assurance of a man who knew every element of the complexities with which he worked to a level such that he could feel his way through the software almost by instinct. Accuracy was not particularly essential, but speed was critical.
    Maurine van Holt tracked him down about four hours later. He had expected her a lot sooner. There was something in the twist of her smile which suggested she knew that he had been deliberately avoiding her.
    ‘So here you are, Manalone! I didn’t think you were in today until I checked the gatehouse records.’
    ‘Don’t tell me you missed me?’
    ‘I was – er – interested in finding you. Everyone in the plant must have been