The Man-Kzin Wars 07

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Bruno dimly felt Carol lay him in the autodoc of Dolittle. His eyes fluttered open. A curving metal wall above him. Carol's lips, moving. Her voice, as if underwater, all gargles and rumbles. Bits and pieces of sounds, syllables flying like frightened birds. Hard to capture.

"Bruno, I have to get us out of here. We don't have any choice but Dolittle." Her eyes were close to his, her lips near his ear. "It's that or become ratcat food, love.”

Words and meanings met and fled one another in his damaged mind.

He felt her hands tucking his arms into the coffinlike box of the autodoc, connecting telltales to various parts of his body. Numb. He struggled to force words past dead lips.

"Love… " he managed to grunt.

Bruno watched the blur that was Carol's face smile sadly. A glint around her eyes in the painful light?

"I love you, too, chiphead." Her vague face sobered. "The autodoc will fix you, I think." She kissed him, a faint pressure on his dead lips, and vanished from his fading horizon.

The lid of the autodoc whined shut, clicked with finality. In the darkness, he felt the pressure of sensors against his wrists and neck. There was a low gurgling in the microgravity as the autodoc began to fill with healing liquid. A mask lowered gently over his face, and he felt the bright whiff of pure oxygen burn in his lungs.

Bruno felt the darkness in his mind rise like a relentless tide, carrying him again into oblivion.

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Ten-year-old Bruno looked at the isolation tank curiously. Thick wires and consoles and strange machines meshed like some jigsaw puzzle of electronics. Faceless technicians stood around at a discreet distance, saying nothing. But always watching.

"And this could help me talk to computers?" he asked, incredulous.

Colonel Early of UN Special Projects smiled reassuringly, his teeth white in his seamed coal-black face.

"That's right, son. You already know how to give machines mental commands through your interface, right?”

"Sure." That was easy. You just thought it, and it happened It was like asking someone how to make their arm raise up. You just did it.

"Well, we want you to do much more than that, with this machine. Can I tell you what we have in mind?" His tone was easy, patient.

Bruno trusted Colonel Early. He had paid for Bruno's education, had spent a fair amount of time either in person or via hololink with Bruno. It was lonely in the research institute, and the scientists made him feel like a project, or an alien. They talked at him, not with him.

Just because they had repaired the brain damage he had suffered as a kid with neuronal emulator macrocircuitry, they felt he was property, not a person. Techtalk. Do this. Do that. Never why he should do this or do that. It made Bruno angry, and sometimes uncooperative.

Colonel Early could always talk him back into working with the scientists, though.

"Okay," he replied to Colonel Early, who stood patiently, waiting. He always listened to Bruno, treated him like a grownup. Bruno would do a great deal for Colonel Buford Early.

"Well, we would like to link you up to a real computer. A big one, not like the little cybernetic links you've been working on. Once we do that, then we will put you in the isolation tank." Early pointed at the small tank, covered with controls and interface monitor units. Conduits snaked to a solid wall of computer systems. "The human mind, Bruno, needs stimulation.”

Bruno frowned. "And in an isolation tank, I won't get it?”

Colonel Early nodded, looking serious. "That's right, son. But your brain will search for a way to get that stimulation, it has to have it, but you won't he able to see, hear, or feel inside the tank. Eventually, your brain will learn to link up with the computer interface circuitry.”

Bruno squinted, thinking. "What will it be like?”

"People who connect up with higher-order computers via their brains are called – " "Linkers," Bruno interrupted. "That's right, son. Linkers. They say that a Linker can know everything." "Everything?" Bruno was suddenly fascinated. Colonel Early looked a little sad. "I doubt it. Did you ever hear of Faust, son?" "Fawst? Who's that?" The older man sighed. "I guess you weren't on the approved list. Nobody is, anymore." He brightened a bit. "But we think that you will be better at interfacing with a computer than other Linkers.”

"Because I'm a chiphead." Bruno grated, peeved. He made a face. Colonel Early put a hand on Bruno's shoulder, gentle. " 'Chiphead' is a bad word, Bruno." He stared directly into Bruno's eyes, held them. "It is an ignorant term used by uneducated, prejudiced people.”

Bruno said nothing, his lips twisted in resentment. He had heard a lot of people call him a chiphead over the years, once they had learned about where he lived, and his history. The accident. What was inside his head. He hated being different.

"That's why the scientists look at me funny, isn't it?" Bruno asked. He couldn't look at the other man. Colonel Early persisted. He hooked two fingers under Bruno's chin and forced his eyes up toward his own.

"Bruno, it's a word used by little people who are afraid of new things. You should pity them." "If you say so." He was unconvinced. At least Colonel Early liked him. Even if he was a chiphead. They waited together in the crowded room for a few moments. Colonel Early said nothing. He never was overbearing. "Will it hurt?" he finally asked. "No, son. It will be scary at first, and very lonely. Until your brain learns to Link, that is." A bit of enthusiasm entered his voice. "And then I'll know everything?" Colonel Early smiled in real amusement. "Well, I wouldn't go quite that far, son. You will know a great deal more than anyone else, I can promise you." Bruno thought a moment. "Would I be able to help you with your work at the UN?" he asked. "Son, that is why I am asking. My children are all grown now, as are my grandchildren. And I can't get a permit for more children.”

Bruno smiled. "That's okay, Colonel Early. I don't have a father or mother. But I guess you know that already.”

He certainly did. Colonel Early's had been the first face Bruno had seen when he had awakened in the hospital after the accident and the first set of operations.

Again they waited together, silent. Colonel Early never pushed Bruno, and he appreciated it.

"I'll do it," Bruno finally said, ignoring the mutters of the technicians around the isolation tank.

"Good.”

"When do we start?”

"How about now?" Colonel Early said, handing Bruno the helmet with all of the strange plugs and wires. It was heavier than it looked, and Bruno held it awkwardly. "Let me help." Early lowered the helmet onto Bruno's head slowly, reverently.

Like a crown.

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Bruno Takagama moaned against the soft mask of the respirator in the autodoc tank. Mechanical fingers began to probe the burns around his neck socket. Small swimming robots cruised toward his wounds in the ocean of the autodoc's fluids, bearing tiny medical instruments poised at the ready. Noting his distress, the autodoc diagnostic circuitry administered a strong sedative. Soon he slept dreamlessly.