Chapter 12 Theme Variation V Voice in the Dark

Minerva ordered dinner for Lazarus and supervised the serving of the servants.Then the computer said, "Is there anything else you need, sir?" "I don't think so. Oh, and, can you have dinner with me, Minerva?" "Thank you, Lazarus. I accept your invitation." "Don't thank me; you're doing me a favor, madam. I'm in a bad mood to-night. Sit down, my dear, and cheer me up." The computer repositioned her voice as if someone was sitting across the table from Lazarus speaking, "Shall I make up an image, Lazarus?" "Don't bother, dear."

"No trouble, Lazarus. I have plenty of room to spare." "No, Minerva. The imaginary hologram you gave me that night—it was perfect, it was real, it moved exactly like a real person. But it wasn't you, I know what you look like. Well... put the lights on Dim down, just light up the plate, enough for me to eat. No need for holograms in the dark.” Minerva adjusted the lights, and the whole room was almost dark, only a beam of light hit the delicate tableware and napkins in front of Lazarus.The chiaroscuro dazzled his eyes, and he couldn't even see across the table if he didn't squint.He didn't squint.Minerva said, "What do you say I look like, Lazarus?"

"Huh?" He paused, thinking for a while, "This image matches your voice very well. Well, it's grown in me during the time we've spent together, even though I don't try to Imagine. Have you ever noticed, my dear, that we are closer than a husband and wife who live together?" "Probably not, Lazarus, because I don't have the experience of being someone else's wife. I am very happy to have such close contact with you." "Being a wife has nothing to do with sex, honey. You're already a mother to my baby, I mean Dora. Oh, I know Ella comes first to you...but you Like the girl I said 'Olga, there is so much to give, so you can make more than one man happy. I appreciate your devotion to Ella, and your love for him, darling."

"Thank you, Lazarus. But—if I know what that word means—I love you too, Dora." "I know you love us. You and I don't have to worry about vocabulary; leave that to Hamadiyadh. Well, your look...you're tall, about as tall as Ishtar, but slimmer. Not skinny but slender body strong and muscular but not too fat. Scale ass not as big as hers but plump and feminine. You are young but a mature young woman not a girl. Big boobs Tha's is much smaller, more like Hamadiyad's breasts.. You look heroic, not cute. You are serious and rarely smile, but when you smile, your face is very lively. Your hair is brown and straight Your hair is very long. But you don’t pay much attention to the hairstyle, just make it look clean. Your eyes are also brown, which matches your hair well. You don’t usually wear makeup, and you usually wear clothes, simple and plain. You Not a hanger, not very interested in fashion. You only get naked in front of people you trust fully. Not many people like that.

"That's all I suppose. I'm not imagining the details, it's just some thoughts that have accumulated in my mind. Oh, yes!—You have manicures, toenails, and fingernails, short and clean. But you're not overdoing them Pay attention, you don't pay too much attention to anything. You don't worry about getting dirty or sweating, and you don't get scared when you see blood, even if you don't like it." "I'm very glad to know what I look like, Lazarus." "What? Oh, it's my imagination, girl, it's just my imagination." "That's what I look like," Minerva said firmly. "I like it."

"Okay. Actually, if you want, you can be as dazzling as Hamadiyadh." "No, I look just as you describe me. I am 'Martha,' Lazarus, not her sister Mary." Lazarus said, "You amaze me. Yes, you are Martha. Have you read the Bible?" "I have read all the books in the great library. In a way, I am the library, Lazarus. "Well, yes, I should have thought about it. How is the data copying process going? Almost finished? I'm worried that if something happens to Ella and I need to leave immediately." "Basically done, Lazarus. All my permanent contents, programs, memories and logical reasoning processes have been reproduced in Dora's Cabin Four; Running parallel to me at the Chancellor's Mansion, a test run. This is 'six-redundant', not the 'triple-redundant' I usually use. This way, I found and corrected some wiring problems. All small Defects, I can fix them right away. You see, Lazarus, for the most part, I treat this as an emergency plan, to be executed immediately, rather than relying on switching programs to rebuild a new me. If you want To achieve replication by converting the program, I must first install the peripheral sensor device in Dora, and then remove all the peripheral sensors except the maintenance device after the process is over.

"It took a long time because I couldn't get the installer up to the speed of the computer. So I bought all the blank memory and logic I needed and had the factory technician install Dora. It was so much faster. Then I put the data in and checked it." "Is something wrong, dear?" "No, Lazarus. Oh, Dora complained about dirty footprints in her clean room. But that was just a whining. Actually, technicians operate in accordance with the requirements of 'clean room', wearing dust-free clothes. Coveralls, masks and gloves made of cloth. I also asked them to change clothes in the airlock, not before entering cabin four." He felt her smile, "and set up a temporary toilet outside the ship— — the project engineer complained about this, as did the rest of the staff.”

"They should complain. It's not a big deal for Dora to use a toilet." "Lazarus, you said before that one day, I will - I hope - be one of Dora's passengers. So I want to be her friend. Now we are friends and I love her, she is my only computer Friend. I don't want to ruin our relationship by having something go wrong or allowing something to happen while transferring me to the ship. You're right, she's a neat housekeeper; I want to be as tidy as she is to show her that I respect her and that it is an honor to be a part of the ship. The engineer in charge and the talkative crew have no reason to complain; I spell it out in my contract: To change clothes between locks, all personnel in the spaceship are required to carry urinals, eating, spitting, and smoking are not allowed in the spaceship, follow the most direct path to the fourth cabin, and are not allowed to peek around in the spaceship—even if they Unable to do so, I asked Dora to lock all the hatches except the one leading directly to cabin number four. I paid for these demands."

"I'm sure it won't be cheap. Any comments from Ella? "Ella wouldn't mind that kind of thing. But I didn't tell him the cost; I charged all the money to your account, Lazarus." "Yo! So am I broke?" "No, sir; I paid with an unlimited withdrawal account in your name. I think this is the most appropriate way; Lazarus, after all, these things are installed on your spaceship. They may be surprised by the ancestors Why put a secondary master computer on his ship. I knew the project engineer was thinking about it; I gave him a hard reprimand. But they can only guess at best; Patriarch doesn't need to explain to anyone .I made it clear to them that Mr. Acting Patriarch would be very displeased if anyone tried to snoop on him. Not everyone can tell at a glance what a computer is capable of, not even the manufacturer himself."

"Is the manufacturer of this computer—the lowest bidder?" "Should I buy this computer by bidding, sir?" Minerva's voice sounded concerned. "Damn it, no! If you bought it by tender, I'd have you dismantle everything you've put on and build a new one—from the best supplier. Dear Minerva, once you Get out of here and probably be out of manufacturer service for years; you'll have to do the maintenance yourself. Unless Ella can fix the computer." "he can not." "You see, Dora is gold and platinum quality, while a cheap computer is copper and aluminum. I hope your new computer is as expensive as Dora."

"It's expensive, Lazarus. The new me is going to be more reliable, smaller, and faster than the old me, because many of the parts of me—the 'old me'—are about a hundred years old now; technology has improved a lot.” "Hmm. Should see if Dora has any parts that need to be replaced." Minerva said nothing.Lazarus said, "My dear, your voice is louder when you are silent than when you speak. Have you checked Dora thoroughly?" "I've got some parts in stock, Lazarus. But Dora won't let anyone touch her but you." "Yes, she hates people poking around inside her. But if she really needs it, she'll allow it—in an unconscious state. Minerva, it's good that you're both on the ship. Dora can write maintenance instructions for you in her permanent memory, and hers in your memory, so you can both give each other repairs." Minerva replied curtly, "We've been waiting for you to order us to do this, Lazarus." "You mean you're waiting; Dora wouldn't think so. Well, I'll give it my order, to you both, and let Dora hear it too. Minerva, I hope you don't do me any more So obedient. You should be the one who proposed this kind of thing to me; you are n times faster than my thinking; I am human and have my limitations. How have you learned about astronautics? Has she taught How do you fly the spaceship? Or do an emergency stop?" "Lazarus, now I'm as good at flying ships as she is, I mean another me." "Just kidding. You are the co-pilot. Before you complete the N-degree space jump by yourself, you are not the pilot. Even Dora will be nervous in this situation, and she has experienced it hundreds of times." "Correct me, Lazarus. I'm a well-trained co-pilot. But I'm not afraid to step up. I repeated all of Dora's jump procedures in real situations," she told I said I've learned." "If disaster strikes, you'll probably have to do it at some point. Ayla certainly wouldn't be a pilot of my class. Your newfound skills might save him someday while I'm not on board Fate. What else do you know? Have you heard anything funny lately?" "I don't know, Lazarus. I've heard some stories from the technician who installed my computer, pornographic ones, I think. But I don't find them very funny." "Stop talking about that. If it's a porn story, I've heard one like it at least a thousand years ago. Now for your big question: If Ayla decides to scramble, how long will you have to get everything ready? Suppose there is a coup and he needs to escape." "One-fifth of a second, or less." "Ah. You're not kidding. I mean, how long does it take you to transfer all of you to Dora. Leave no clues, and the rest of the computer hardware won't know she was Minerva— To do otherwise is to be unfair to yourself, dear. Minerva who stays will be sad." "Lazarus, I'm not talking theoretical values, but practical experience. I know that time is of the essence in replicating this computer. So, after letting the installers go, I put my permanent memory bank, logical reasoning process, and ongoing The contents of the running temporary memory were copied to that computer, and I did the experiment. I was cautious at first, just running her and me in parallel at the same time, which I have described to you. It is very Simple, I just need to adjust the time interval between the two after each task, and let us run in real time. When doing this, I have to use my remote outreach unit; I am used to it. "Then, I very carefully experimented with stopping my operations, first me on the ship, then me at the Chancellor's mansion, and programmed myself back into full sync within three seconds. No problem on either side, Lazar way, even the first experiment was no problem. now i can do the whole process in less than two hundred milliseconds and also do all the checks to make sure i didn't miss anything. after you ask this question , I have done this experiment seven times. Have you noticed that my voice sometimes lags? The distance that causes this speech lag is about a thousand kilometers." "What? My dear, I can't even notice a lag of less than thirty thousand kilometers at the speed of light." He added, "That's a tenth of a second. Don't flatter me about that." Then, Lazarus said seriously, "Your unit of time is a billionth of a second, and a tenth of a second is 100 million times that. One hundred milliseconds, how long is it for you? Yes Isn't it equivalent to my thousand days?" "Lazarus, I don't express time that way. I do many things in much smaller units of time than a billionth of a second—a hundred-thousandth of a microsecond or less. But I can use your Time to think about things; I'm in personal mode right now. In this mode, I can't enjoy singing or talking to you if I have to think about every nanosecond. You'll count you every heartbeat?" "No. Or very little." "It's pretty much the same for me, Lazarus. The jobs that get done quickly cost me nothing, and I don't pay much attention to them, except for necessary self-programming. But in personal mode, I Will savor every second, minute, and hour spent with you. I don't break them down to the nanosecond; I enjoy them as a whole. I take all of you here See time as 'now' and cherish it." "Um, wait 'honey! Are you saying that the day Ella introduced us to each other is still 'now' to you?" "Yes, Lazarus." "Let me think. So tomorrow is also 'now' to you?" "Yes, Lazarus." "Well... But, if that's the case, you can predict tomorrow." "No, Lazarus." "But—then I don't understand." "I can print out formulas for this, Lazarus, but such formulas only describe the fact that they have designed me to deal with time in many modes, the dependent variable is entropy, and there is only one operator, 'Current' or 'present' conditions are independent variables, moving smoothly over a wide or narrow range. But in dealing with you I must move with your wavefront, which is you now— — otherwise we cannot communicate." "Honey, I'm not sure if we're communicating right now, I don't understand." "Sorry, Lazarus. I have my limitations too. But if I could choose, I would choose your limitations, which is to be human. Flesh and blood." "Minerva, you don't know what you're talking about. A flesh-and-blood body can be a burden...especially when the work of maintaining it begins to take up the lion's share of one's energy. You have the best of both worlds: human Your own image designed you to do things that only humans can do, only better, faster - much faster! And more precisely. At the same time without the ailments and inefficiencies of the human body because humans have to eat , sleep..., and make mistakes. Trust me." "Lazarus... what is 'sex'?" He stared into the darkness and saw with his mind how solemn and sad she was looking at him. "God, girl, is that all you want to have sex with him?" "Lazarus, I don't know. I'm a 'blind man'. How would I know?" Lazarus sighed, "I'm sorry, dear. Now you know why I kept Dora in childlike form." .” "It's just speculation, Lazarus. I haven't and won't discuss this speculation with anyone." "Thank you, you are a noble lady, my dear. You do know, at least part of the reason. But I will tell you the whole reason—when I feel fit to tell you. Then, you will See what I mean by 'love' and why I told Hamadiyad that 'love' is something to experience, not words to describe...and why I know you know love What is it, because you have been through it. But Dora's story is not for Ella, it is for you. No, you can let Ella know too... after I leave. Well, the name of the story It's called "The Story of an Adopted Girl"; save this story and tell him later. But I won't tell it now; I'm feeling out of energy tonight. Remind me when you think I can .” "I will. I'm sorry, Lazarus." "'I'm sorry'? Minerva, my dearest, never feel sorry about love. Ever. Would you rather not love me or Dora? Would you rather never learn to love in loving Ella ?" "No. No, that's not it! But I want to know about sex, too." "Don't be silly, honey. 'Sex' will hurt you." "Lazarus 'I'm not afraid of being hurt. But when I know a lot more about male and female fertility than flesh and blood—" "You know? Or do you think you know?" "I do know, Lazarus. In preparation for the emigration, I added more storage space--taking up the space in cabin two. This way I can put Ishtar on top of the new me. To transcribe all Howard Rejuvenation Clinic research materials, library materials, and confidential records—” "Oh! Ishtar is taking a risk. What can be announced to the public and what can't be announced. The clinic has always been very cautious about such things." "Ishtar is not afraid to take risks. She asked me to finish this job quickly, so before I built the required storage space in Dora's cabin--large enough--I put the materials in the Temporary memory here. I asked Ishtar to allow me to study those materials, and she said that I could do so, as long as I didn't release the materials marked secret and classified before I got her consent. "I found the material very interesting, Lazarus. I now know all about sex...like a blind man who has never seen a thing learns the physics of how rainbows are formed. I'm even a theoretical gene now Surgeon – I wouldn’t mind being a real doctor if I had the time to make myself a set of ultra-miniature instruments for delicate surgery. I’m also an obstetrician, gynecologist, and rejuvenation specialist. Erectile response, principles of orgasm, The process of in vitro fertilization and fertilized egg implantation is no longer a mystery to me, nor is pregnancy and childbirth. "But I still didn't understand 'sex'... Finally I realized that I was really a blind person in this regard."