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twenty

"Conrad Ashling is a mathematical neurophysiologist. For many years he has specialized in the study of human memory and the mechanics of learned behavior. In fact, he's probably one of the world's top half-dozen authorities on the subject."

Jarrow had already got the feeling that Kay was some kind of scientist, whereas Josef came across more as an organizer and leader: the kind of person that most people would associate with an organization like Pipeline. They had eaten a lunch of cheese-and-ham sandwiches with strong tea, brewed European style in a pot. Kay was at last explain-ing some of the background to Jarrow and Rita around the woodstove in the room that they had first entered. Josef was with them. The silent man had left with Arnold in the van. Leon and Susan were in the kitchen.

Kay continued, "He was with MIT for a while, but when official interference in his work became intolerable he quit and set up a research company of his own, still in Massachusetts, called Memco."

Jarrow had read bits and pieces that sounded as if they related to that kind of thing. "I take it we're talking about the actual physical apparatus of learning?" he said. Kay nodded.

Rita thought she followed. "You mean that when you learn something new, it has to be stored somehow," she said.

"Exactly." Kay nodded. "Well, to put it shortly, Ashling developed a way of transferring that learning from the brain of one individual into the brain of another. So the second individual acquired the knowledge instantly, without having to go through the learning process itself."

In normal circumstances Jarrow would have been flabbergasted by such a suggestion. But after the things that he had been forced to come to terms with in the course of the last few days, he was already half prepared for something like this. He sat back in the chair, frowning, jumping ahead in his mind and trying to anticipate how a possibility like that might explain his present condition.

"You mean like the electronic codes in a computer? The way you can copy a file out of one machine and into -another," Rita said.

"I thought some people were starting to say it's chemical," Jarrow murmured distantly. "Coded into complex molecules. . . . Don't ask me how, though."

"You've got the general idea," Kay told them. "In fact, both processes enter into it. But the way the brain works can't be thought of in the same way as computers—which is what sent most mainstream research up the wrong path for a number of years. No two human brains contain the same configuration of neural connections. Therefore the same information isn't stored in the same way, as it would be in different computers that are designed the same way to handle the same data representations. What happens is that genetic directions lay down a general pattern that has certain commonalities in the embryonic nervous systems, but the actual configuration that's realized is a result of selection and reinforcement between competing neural subnets as they develop, guided by experiences and to a certain degree by chance. Then, later, after a unique connectivity is established at the physical level, a secondary process of adaptive modification is superposed on it, essentially in the form of selective reinforcement of preferred pathways, based on the variable sensitivity of synaptic -receptors."

Jarrow looked away, shaking his head. "Sorry. I teach social adaptability, not biology." Rita just stared glazedly.

"It means that the computer model of the brain isn't really accurate," Kay said. "Brains aren't wired to any preexisting design that's stored somehow in the chromosomes. They develop through a process of competition and selection among complex neuronal groups, and they're all different. So you can't just take the same pattern out of here and put it in there."

At least Rita followed that part. "Okay," she accepted. "So what do you do?"

"I think of it in terms of high-level languages," Josef offered. "They let you move the functionality of a program between machines—in other words what the program does, even though the machines are different and might operate in different ways. But you still get the same results, which is what matters."

"Yes," Kay agreed. "And the concepts that people think and communicate in are indeed high-level constructs. What Ashling did was find a way of reprogramming the synaptic pathways to emulate the mode of high-level symbolic synthesis derived from another brain, even though the underlying micro-operations supporting it are quite different. You could think of it as emulating a part of one person's mind inside another, with the wiring that's already there."

To Rita, that sounded pretty much like what she'd said in the first place. If scientists wrote cookbooks it would take a hundred pages to tell you how to make a pancake.

Jarrow was seized by a sinking feeling. Did that mean that he really was Demiro, somehow emulating Jarrow? That he was really dead? . . . But what else did the facts of the last two days tell him, if he faced up to them? Weren't the records in Minneapolis enough? Or the physical discrepancies between the person he remembered being and the one who stared back at him from a mirror now?

But until now, there had been the hope, however irrational and unsupportable, that somehow there might be a different answer. He hadn't realized how much he had been hiding from himself until now. Rita understood it too, but with her the effect was different. He could see it shining in her eyes.

Kay didn't want to dwell on this point, and went on, "Ashling's thought was of the commercial potential. He saw Memco as the forerunner of a whole new industry, as one day becoming the IBM of a new technological field. Imagine what it would mean to become an instant chess player, musician, speak a new language overnight, or become a skier and really do something different this vacation—as long as you remember to tone up the muscles first. Probably all kinds of things you'd never think of. Who knows?"

Kay shrugged and emitted one of those sighs with which people dismiss a daydream. "But the corporate empire and personal fortune that Ashling envisaged never happened. Certain agencies of the government began showing an interest in all this, and soon afterward his operation was taken over and classified."

Josef interjected, "They persuaded him of the defense implications, its potential as an aid to military training, for example, and painted a specter of what would happen if something like this became the object of an arms race with the Offworlders. Better to keep it out of sight, under control. . . . And, of course, they could tempt him with the thought of virtually unlimited funding and resources. Ashling was a more or less loyal and patriotic kind of person—then, anyway—and he agreed to continue working for them -secretly, under government direction."

"In any case, he was under no illusions about the kind of harassment he'd be inviting if he wouldn't cooperate," Kay added. "So his private venture was finished either way."

Rita lit a cigarette. "You talked about that in Atlanta," she said, nodding toward Jarrow.

"You mean when I was Tony?"

"Yes. About some of the things you'd found you could do after you went on the program. . . . I guess I should say 'Tony' could. He'd never talked about any of that before—when he came back on leave, I mean. He just used to say he was involved with new training methods. Nothing at all about mind implants, or whatever you'd call them."

"A good soldier, observing security," Josef commented. "A bit of a rebel underneath, maybe, but not irresponsible."

"That was Tony," Rita agreed.

"What kinds of things did he tell you about in Atlanta?" Jarrow asked her curiously. By now he had gotten used to using the third person when they talked about Demiro.

"He could strip down weapons he'd never seen before, and put them together again. He found he could work all kinds of equipment that he'd never been trained in. Under-stood all kinds of mathematical stuff—and that wasn't Tony's thing at all. But he said it seemed to work. What else was there?"

"I think we know the kind of thing you mean," Josef said. "But it doesn't really matter much, because that was all just a cover." Jarrow and Rita looked surprised. Josef explained, "The real aim of the project, code-named Southside, was political. You see, what somebody, somewhere, had glimpsed when they looked into this new technology of Ashling's was the possibility of being able to reprogram somebody's poli-tical beliefs." He gave them a moment or two to think about that. Jarrow found it hard to accept. Surely governments wouldn't do something like that? . . . Anyway, not our -government?

Kay picked it up again from there. "People in this -society aren't repressed by overt force, or any of the other cruder methods of days gone by."

Jarrow's face tightened as he listened. He didn't accept that this was a repressive society at all, and didn't think the presumption should go unchallenged, but at the same time he didn't want to go making a fuss about it right now. Who did these Offworld people think they were, running what amounted to a spy network and now making insinuations like this?

Kay went on, "It's done by control and manipulation of information. And it follows that the main threats to such a regime come not from traditional bullets-and-barricades revolutionaries, but from effective purveyors of counter-information: public figures, celebrities, trendsetters, and so on, who challenge the conventional wisdoms that 'everyone knows' to be true. They become the nuclei from which waves of undesirable thought are likely to spread, and therefore where any destabilization would begin."

"Somebody like Daparras for instance?" Rita said.

"Good example," Josef agreed. "And look where he ended up." It should have been jail, Jarrow thought to himself. The man was a menace, a cult hero among half his students, and an out-and-out terrorist.

Kay continued, "But suppose that instead of making martyrs out of such people, you could convert them?" She paused to let them reflect on the proposition. "By changing the underlying belief structure that was responsible for their views. . . . Slowly, a little at a time, so that it would look like a process of deeper insight and enlightenment taking root, rather than smack of their being 'got at,' as would be the case if it happened too suddenly. You'd be able not only to eliminate such inconvenient people as problems, but actually transform them into assets who'd bring their followers around with them as their own conversion progressed. No fuss. No ugly confrontations. Just what governments like."

"And Ashling's system could really do that?" Rita said. Her face looked pained, as if she were having trouble accepting the enormity of it.

"That was what they wanted to find out," Kay answered. "And the even nicer thing was that if just the beliefs that were of concern could be modified, leaving the rest of the personality intact, outward appearances would remain normal. So your former adversary could continue exerting his or her own brand of charisma, only working this time in your interests instead of against them."

"Neat, eh?" Josef commented.

"Are you sure you're not imagining a lot of this?" Jarrow challenged, unable any longer to prevent himself from putting up some defense.

Josef waved a hand casually in his direction. "What about you? Do you think you've been imagining things?" he countered. Jarrow subsided disconsolately.

Kay moved on more briskly, before they could bog down on such issues. "The project was set up under the code name Southside at the Pearse military psychological labs in Georgia, about fifty miles from Atlanta. Demiro was one of the volunteers selected. But something very strange happened in his case. It must have been somewhere around six months ago. Exactly what went wrong, we don't know. But it was enough to warrant a faked death certificate as a cover-up."

Jarrow looked suspiciously at her and Josef in turn. "You seem to know a hell of a lot, all the same," he remarked. "How come?"

"And where does this scientist, Ashling, fit in?" Rita asked.

"Advance neuroresearch is also being conducted Off-world," Kay replied. "In fact, I'm connected with it myself, part of a group headed by a man you've probably not heard of: a Russian called Ulkanov. Science usually works that way—if different people are heading along the same road, you'd expect them to get to the same place, though not necessarily at the same time. In fact, Ulkanov and Ashling got to know each other quite well during Ashling's MIT days—before the restrictions on scientific exchange visits were tightened up. Ashling was ahead, though. There's no question he's a genius. That's why we were more than interested when Josef's people contacted us with the news that Ashling wanted out." She turned to Josef. "Why don't you tell your side of it from there."

Josef leaned forward to toss a couple more logs into the stove, closed the iron door on the front, and settled back again. "Ashling was told that the purpose of Southside was to assess the feasibility of using his technique as a way of accelerating military training. He agreed to cooperate on that basis. However, he's one of those methodical people who believe in knowing everything thoroughly. He did his own quiet probing around at Pearse, and in the process discovered that the training story was just a cover for the political objectives that Kay described a moment ago. That side of it was being handled by another scientist, called Nordens, who supposedly was there to assist Ashling."

Kay looked inquiringly at Rita. "Out of curiosity, did Tony seem different in any way sometimes, when he came back on leave?"

Rita looked uncertain. "Different? . . . How? I'm not sure what you mean."

"Was Tony what you'd call a political kind of person? Did he talk about things like that? Have strong opinions?"

"Well . . . yes, in some ways I guess you could say he did. It used to get him into trouble at the base sometimes—at Kankakee, before he went to Georgia."

"Did any of those views seem to have changed at all, in the later months, after he'd been there for some time?"

Rita tried to think back, but shook her head. "It's been so long. Such a lot's happened. I really can't remember."

"It doesn't matter," Kay said.

"But you can see why he'd be an ideal subject," Josef said.

"You see, to maintain the cover, they did experiment with all the volunteers on implanting some genuine technical and other skills, of the kind that the program was supposed to be about. But the real work went on behind that. All of the volunteers were picked for having strong, offbeat poli-tical opinions, to see if they could be modified. Ashling found out, and was horrified. That was when he decided that he wanted nothing more to do with it. He knew of Pipeline—there is an amazing network of jungle drums among scientists—and through means that I have no intention of revealing was able to make contact with us and indicate that he wanted to defect. As a sign of good faith, he provided us with copies of some of the secret records from Pearse on the subjects who were undergoing political processing."

"How long ago did he contact you?" Jarrow asked.

"Early in September, I think it was." Josef glanced across at Kay. She returned an affirmative nod. He went on, "We fed the information back through the system, and as Kay said, the Offworlders were very interested. News found its way to Ulkanov, and he was behind the decision to bring Ashling out. All that took time, of course, and then there were the arrangements to make, but by last Saturday all was ready. With some help from us, Ashling slipped the surveillance that he was kept under all the time, and we installed him in a room at the Hyatt in Atlanta with three of our men to await a courier who would arrive the next day to take him through. But something went wrong. Early the next morning we received a message from Ashling on a number that we had given him to be used in emergencies." Josef glanced at Kay. "Do you have it there?"

Kay produced a message text and handed it to Jarrow. It read:

Unforeseen developments have resulted in drastic change of situation. Regret am unable to proceed with plan. Imper-ative you clear your suite at Hyatt immediately. Also convey following to Ulkanov. Will explain all when opportunity permits. Grateful for your efforts. Ashling.

"What was with it?" Jarrow inquired, passing the text to Rita.

Kay handed him several sheets packed with mnemonics and scientific jargon that conveyed absolutely nothing. "I've seen this kind of thing before, when I was with Ulkanov on Luna," she commented. "it's an encryption technique that some scientists have developed among -themselves for getting things past censors in the Consolidation countries."

"So you don't know what it means, either?" Jarrow checked. Kay shook her head.

Rita handed back the message text. "So what did you find at the Hyatt?" she asked Josef.

"Ashling was gone. Our three guards were all unconscious, knocked out with a drug. Whoever did it had come in via a shaft in the bathroom from the room upstairs. We got our people out, cleared everything up, and vacated the room. That was on Sunday, the day after Ashling -disappeared."

"Was this the room I woke up in?" Jarrow asked. But even as he said it, he realized that it couldn't have been. The desk clerk said he'd been checked in since Saturday.

Josef shook his head. "No. It was in another part of the hotel."

"So where do I fit in?" Jarrow asked.

"Obviously we'd been blown," Josef replied. "We just took everything out through a side door and decided to stay out of sight for the rest of that day. Then on Monday, when we figured things would have blown over, I went back with Leon, who was one of the three men who had been there on Saturday, to settle with the hotel. And to our amazement, he recognized the agent who had broken in and knocked them out—and who had presumably taken Ashling—still there, walking around the hotel. Leon got out of sight quickly, and we moved in a couple of our other people that the agent hadn't seen before, to see what he did." Josef looked at Jarrow, and although Jarrow knew what was coming next, still he could only stare back disbelievingly. Josef confirmed, "He turned out to be staying in room 1406, and was registered as Maurice Gordon.

"We watched him, hoping for a lead back to Ashling. Then on Monday evening he was joined by a woman." Josef nodded at Rita. "Yourself, of course. But early on Tuesday morning Gordon took us by surprise and vanished himself."

Rita was shaking her head in bewilderment. "Are you saying that Tony was turned into some kind of secret agent or something? Was that part of this training? I can't -believe it. It's just not him."

"We don't know," Josef replied frankly. "The only other lead we had was you. We traced you back to Chicago, and watched your house there in the hope that Gordon, our only lead to Ashling, would show up. But it turned out that we were not the only ones. Federal Security Service agents were staking the place too, presumably also having tracked you back from Atlanta. They watched the house and we watched them, and while this was going on, some of our other people were trying to establish who you were and what connection you had with Southside. Your name didn't mean anything until we found it mentioned in the records that Ashling had from Pearse, given as the former fiancée and nearest relative-equivalent of Warrant Officer Demiro, since listed as killed in an accident." Josef showed his palms briefly. "That was intriguing enough. But what did it mean? What was Maurice Gordon doing there?" He glanced at Rita, then Jarrow. "The real shock came when I looked at the pictures from the Southside files and found that Gordon was Demiro!"

Josef stared at Jarrow, as if to invite comment. Jarrow just stared back, now wanting only to hear whatever might be left to tell.

"Then you appeared suddenly in Chicago. We observed the attempt by the FSS men to grab you at the house, how you dealt with them, and we saw you get away. But get away to where, we didn't know."

Kay came in again at that point. "That was when we concluded that something very serious had gone wrong with the Southside project. We speculated that maybe Gordon-Demiro, whoever—the agent who had been chasing Ashling in Atlanta—might be having second thoughts about where he stood in all this. Why else would he quit, go back to his girl in Chicago, and be chased by the FSS? If so, we reasoned that he might be approachable. That was where Josef and his people helped again. They really are -amazing."

Josef permitted a quick grin. "You'd be surprised how many contacts who have Offworlder sympathies we have been able to cultivate in this country," he replied. "We compiled a list of Demiro and Rita's known friends, and short-listed a half dozen or so that we thought they'd be likely to head for. That was a long night's work. In the morning we called each of them, leaving a message that we hoped Demiro-Gordon would respond to. And the rest you both know."

Which brought them all up to the present. Except for one thing. Jarrow was the obvious one to ask it. "So . . . where do I appear in all this—Richard Jarrow?"

"That's the part that's still missing," Kay said. "Now it's your turn to do the talking. I want you to go over your story again, from the beginning, in detail. Don't leave anything out."

Jarrow gave her a long, uncertain stare. In this new light, the business of his visits to Valdheim was starting to take on a whole new significance. "Okay," Jarrow agreed.

"So, let's go back to the last thing you remember, -before you woke up in Atlanta on Tuesday."

Jarrow described his last visit to Valdheim's, giving as much detail about the machine there as he could recall. Kay listened intently, evidently very interested. Very interested indeed.

 

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