The Wizard from Earth by S.J. Ryan Read Free Book Online

stored, and could easily delete it without any need of encryption protocol. 
    And that was that.  To Ivan's recollection, he had been poured into the machine and the next thing he knew, he was oozing out of a nozzle back into the bowl.  Matt was handed the bowl and poured Ivan back into his nostril.  Ivan quickly reattached to his sensors and extended his tentacles throughout Matt's cerebral cortex.
    There was no need for a verbal password challenge.  The real test that Ivan was Ivan was in millions of Matt's brain cells whose DNA had been imprinted with coded sequences that matched the serial numbers in Ivan's millions of micro-tentacles
    “Good to have you back,” Matt subvocaled.
    Ivan inspected Matt's physiological state.  It was, as humans would say, a mess.  Hyperventilation, excessive heart rate, fever temperature, variants in blood chemistry all out of spec.  Ivan quickly began housekeeping.
    “It's good to be back,” he said.  “The archival procedure appears to have caused no physical damage to your brain.”
    “That's always good to hear,” Matt said.  “But now if I die on the way, they're going to print a duplicate of me and he's going to live out my life.  You know what's weirdest to think about?  Not that they can do that, but that everyone will pretend it's me, as if nothing bad happened to the real me.  You know, I truly don't understand other people.  Hey, what happened to you inside that machine?”
    Somewhat surprised (according to his point-weighing) that he hadn't done so already, Ivan ran a diagnostic of his own systems.  “I appear to have been rebooted.  I cannot account for two minutes and twenty-one seconds of time between entry and exit of the machine in question.  Perhaps you could ask the doctor if this is a standard occurrence.”
    Matt hesitated.  It was a long pause even for a human. 
    “Sometimes,” he said slowly, “it's best to play dumb.” 
     

 
    4.
    The doctor complained about having to check out all of Matt's implanted survival accoutrements (“What do you need to have all this gear for now?  Infrared, even radar!  You know, you're just going to be living inside a dome for the first few years!”), but after a few minutes decreed,  “Although I do so with reservations when it comes to any human teenager, I can see no legal reason to prevent releasing you upon the rest of the galaxy.”  A tap of a button on a virtual tablet, and Matt was cleared for 'flight.'
    Matt started toward Control, but realized he still had hours to kill.  He wandered on foot back to the lobby.  Tourists were gawking at the exhibits, especially the imposing metal-and-glass mobile of the Fifty Nearest Stars.  Next was a globe that represented Alpha Centauri III, otherwise known as Tian, and next to that scale models and/or full-size mock-ups of proton cannon arrays, solar panels, beam collimaters, magnetic sails, and all the other paraphernalia that made star travel a reality in the twenty-second century.
    There was a new exhibit too, depicting all the non-human probes that had been sent to Alpha Centauri prior to the arrival of humans.  It reminded Matt of what the doctor had said about 'keeping busy' before the array had become powerful enough to send human colonists.
    Matt said, "You know, I had the strangest feeling that he was asking about my mother for a reason."
    “I assume you mean, the doctor.”
    “Yes.”
    “And that you also mean that there was a reason beyond natural human affection for a fellow co-worker.”
    “Yeah, I mean that.  I got the feeling he's one of the Rothians.”
    "I'm sorry, Matt," Ivan said.  "I don't understand."
    “I'm not sure I understand it either, but Mom mentioned it once when I was very young.  There's an inner circle of Project old-timers with Roth as their leader, who seem to share a big secret.”
    “Did your mother have any theories as to what the secret was?”
    “She never said, but it's easy enough to guess.  For