James P. Hogan Read Online Free PDF Page A

utilitarian, losing much of the richness of what it meant to be human. Creative originality couldn’t be commanded by planning committees. Fortunately, those who shared this view had prevailed.
    “So, you are the one who works with robots,” Fave went on. “Helmut tells me you designed the lattice-crawlers and manipulator pods that assembled the ship.”
    “Well, I was one of the people involved,” Masumichi agreed.
    “And those are yours, too?” Fave indicated the two GPPs looking on silently.
    “In the experimental stage at present,” Masumichi told her. “The aim is general-purpose helpers that can be directed via natural language. They’re fitting out and decorating the suite, as you can no doubt tell.”
    “How about ones that can dance?” Fave suggested.
    “Now, there’s a thought,” Masumichi said. “But the dynamics involved are a lot more complicated than you probably think.”
    “But even young children can do it.”
    Masumichi smiled. “Many of the most complex things in life give an illusion of being simple because they are done unconsciously. But it’s precisely because we do them unconsciously that makes it so difficult to understand how we do them. Decoding natural language is another example.”
    “If you let him get started on this, we’ll be here all day,” Helmut warned Fave.
    “But I’m interested,” Fave said.
    “We have years ahead of us,” Sonja reminded her.
    A tone sounded from Masumichi’s phone. He pulled it from his jacket pocket and answered. The caller was Iver, an operator in an observation section in the Surface Operations branch of the Aurora ’s Command Directorate, which was where Masumichi had just returned from. Surface Operations was responsible for communications and liaison with the ground bases, and maintained a network of control rooms and facilities through the ship.
    “The identification that you were looking for just came in,” Iver informed Masumichi. “Location confirmed and situation appears stable. Shall I send through the details?”
    Masumichi thought for several seconds. “I’d rather come back there and see for myself,” he said finally. “Just a moment, Iver.” He turned to the others, who were watching. “Something’s come up that I’ve been waiting for. I really need to go and check. Would you excuse me? As Sonja says, we’ve got years to talk about robots.”
    “Not at all,” Helmut said. “We’re the ones who showed up unannounced.”
    “You can stay on and look around some more if you wish,” Masumichi offered.”
    “I’d love to,” Sonja said. “We might pick up some more ideas. You’re sure you wouldn’t mind?”
    Masumichi waved an arm around in the way of a host giving them free run of the place. “Go ahead. It’s not as if I’ve moved in yet. These are GPP-1/A and 1/B. They can help with any questions. It will be a good test for their language processors, too.” And then, into the phone, “I’m on my way back. See you in a few minutes.”
    “Check,” Iver acknowledged, and hung up.
     
    As far as Masumichi had been able to make out from legends of old and the records that had survived, the world had never seen anything quite like the Aurora project. He tried to picture what it meant as he sat with several others in a capsule speeding noiselessly through one of the communications transit tubes running to every part of the ship.
    Undertakings on such a scale had once been coordinated by governments able to command the resources of vast territories, or by organizations, sometimes global in extent, devoted to accumulating wealth through industry and commerce. But nothing of such a nature existed in the emerging post-Conflagration world. The thousands of individuals who had been involved in making Aurora a reality did so out of belief in an idea and personal dedication, with no dependency on concentrated sources of wealth at all. Out of all the diverse drives, visions, challenges, and dreams, a