Slant by Greg Bear Read Free Book Online Page A

eleven different buildings along Southcoast. She is connected to these extensions through a variety of I/Os by ribes and satlinks and even a few tentative quantum gated links (which she finds annoying; they do not work all the time, and may in fact slow her thinking if relied upon exclusively). "She's so small!" Ayesha says. Nathan smiles. "She was twice as big before the refit." "Still, so small, to be so famous." Jill is listening, Nathan knows. She listens attentively to all of her inputs, but he does not know that a significant portion of her is in unlinked isolation, devoted much of the time to considering a mystery. She has pondered this mystery for several years, ever since her shutdown and redesign. She does not clearly remember events after her Feedback Fine Detail Collapse. But she remembers some things she should not be able to remember, and this is what intrigues her. "Why is she a she?" Ayesha asks. "She decided on her own. Roger Atkins may have started it When he named her after a girlfriend. Besides, she's a mother. We seed other hinkers from her." Jill is the most advanced thinker ever made, the first--on Earth--to become self-aware. She has a sibling in deep space, far from Earth, who achieved self / SLANT 35
    assume that it, too, suffered Feedback Fine Detail Collapse, and that all of its functions locked up, so that it now drifts around another star, alone and probably in a state equivalent to death. Generations from now, when other, more complex ships head for the stars, perhaps they will find and resurrect her sibling. Jill hopes she will be around for a reunion. She silently follows Nathan and Ayesha with her glass-almond eyes, mounted on thin rods protruding from the walls around the room. Ayesha valks around her like a zoo visitor examining an interesting animal in a cage. "She's the most powerful mind on the planet," Nathan says proudly. "Unless you believe Torino." "What does Torino say?" "He thinks there's a world-spanning bacterial mind," Nathan says lightly. "A mind, in germs?" Ayesha says, drawing her head back incredulously. "Really?" "Not like a human mind, or even like Jill, not socially self-aware. He thinks every bacterium is a node in a loosely connected network. That would make them parts of the largest distributed network anywhere--on Earth, at least." "Yeah, well, Jill can talk," Ayesha says. "And bacteria can't." Jill remembers some aspects of the FFDC collapse. She can even model some of its features. But after the collapse, her self-awareness ceased to exist. Or rather, it became so finely detailed, she modeled her selves so continuously and with such high resolution, that she reached her theoretical limits. And for a time, ceased to be. But in that time ... She has not told her creators about aspects of that mostly blank time. That not everything was blank puzzles her. "She doesn't even have a boyfriend, and already she's a mother!" Ayesha says wryly. "Better make her a boyfriend soon, or she's going to start cruising." "She's not even ten years old. We can ask her how she feels about it. Would you like to talk with her?" Ayesha suddenly blushes. "My God, is she listening?" "Of course. We keep nothing from Jill. Jill, how's it flowing today?" "Smooth, Nathan. And you?" "Damped a migraine at noon and I'm still a little cranky. This is my fiancee, Ayesha. Time to talk?" "For you, always," Jill says. "Hello, Ayesha." "I'm so embarrassed!" Ayesha says. "I'm sorry to be talking about you... behind your back... Where is your back?" "No offbnse taken. Where is my back, Nathan?" "I haven't the slightest idea. You're getting more sparky every week. I like that. My team needs a loop resolution report by two to hand over to the Feds, you know, the Thinker Safety people."
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    and Well-Being committee, headed by Rep. Maria Caldwell, D-WA., as a positive force in her life, but Mind Design's executives do not appreciate government interference. "Right. And I also need, ASAP, your work on