Yoshikawa,” he directed.
The team appeared within two minutes, bearing their apparatus. Sayre stood aside and watched. The task was simple, this part of it.
Yoshikawa unscrewed a covering disc and touched the switch beneath. Noiselessly, Guthrie ceased to function. Deft hands opened the case, removed the discs, and set them aside.
Sayre regarded them pensively. The flickering, flowing web of exchanges—electrons, holes, photons, fields—that was thought had died away. Frozen within the configurations of atoms were those patterns which recorded memories, habits, inclinations, instincts, reflexes, everything that had operated in the forebrain of living Anson Guthrie, together with some indeterminate fraction of its ancient nonhuman inheritance; and everything that ghost-Guthrie underwent after the transfer until the making of this copy; and everything that afterward passed through the copy’s own sensors and cerebrations.
Such were the program and database, those several thick discs which had been placed in a rack on the table. The hardware was an analogue of the long-disintegrated brain itself, the inborn potentialities, the capabilities it had gained and the losses it had suffered through a turbulent lifetime. No other software was compatible with this. Every download, of the few that ever existed, had been as unique in every way as its mortal prototype.
But organisms could be modified. So, by different methods, direct rewriting and superimposed sequences, could programs be.
Yoshikawa inserted the new discs. For a while she and her team worked with instruments they connected to the case. Sayre shivered, waiting. Finally they conferred, removed the meters and scopes, closed the box. Yoshikawa switched the circuits back on.
Eyestalks extruded. Sayre summoned total self-mastery. He trod forward to meet that gaze. Looming above, he said, “Guthrie.”
“Y-yes.” The reply lagged. The lenses roved about before they steadied on him.
Sayre smiled and spoke with great gentleness, as one did to correctees at certain stages of their reeducation. “Bienvenido, Anson Guthrie. Do you know what you are?”
“Yes, I … do.” The words stumbled. “I’m not, not used to it—yet—”
“That’s all right. To be expected. Take your time. Familiarize yourself. You’ll have all the help you want. Ask any questions you wish. Your memory will show that we are completely honest with you.”
In the silence that followed, the ventilator seemed to whisper unnaturally loudly. “You seem to have been,” said the object at length. “I feel sort of confused, but I think it’ll straighten out.”
“It will, I’m sure. Let’s make a little test. What are you?”
“I’m a copy—of a copy—of a copy made from a live man—But you’ve given me new information!” Sudden strength rang forth. “I was wrong. I didn’t understand the situation, nor what Xuan was getting at, not really. I’ll have to think more about that, but—” The voice trailed off. After a minute: “Well, Sayre, my mind is changed. We’re allies. Thanks. I guess.”
4
A KNOCK SOUNDED . Lee and Kyra tucked Guthrie in the closet before they admitted the servant. He wheeled in a dinner cart, set the meal forth, salaamed, and left them. They brought their lord out and settled down to eat.
Kyra discovered she was ravenous. Seasoned lamb, pilaf, eggplant, pita, cucumber salad dressed with yogurt, sweet side dishes, soured milk, fruit sherbet, coffee, all were prepared in ways strange to her but tasted supreme. Lee said it was traditional fare. These folk must have gone to considerable trouble and expense getting their nanotanks programmed for the ingredients. Maybe they bought some from an actual farm.
Nourishment restored hopefulness and, for a while, kept exhaustion at bay. After the servant, summoned by a buzzer, had removed the debris, talk began to range freely, beyond matters of escape and comeback.
Lee seemed to gain less animation than