Architects of Emortality - Brian Stableford [74]
“That’s right,” said Hal. “All the supplies that Czastka purchases in his own name are forwarded from Kauai, by the same boat that forwarded the equipment purchased by the pseudonymous accounts we’ve just connected to Rappaccini Inc.
Perhaps, Mr. Lowenthal, your wild hypothesis isn’t as wild as it first seemed.”
Intermission Three: A Mind at the End of Its Tether
Michi Urashima was having trouble with time again. He had lost all sense of it and couldn’t remember what day it was, or what year, or how many times he had grown young and then old again. None of that would have been of much significance had he not had the vague impression that there was something he ought to be doing, some important project that needed attention. He could not remember whether or not he was still forbidden to leave his house, or whether or not there was anywhere else he might want to be.
When he asked what year it was, the silken voice of his household sloth dutifully informed him that it was 2495, but Michi could not remember whether 2495 was the present or the past, so he could not tell whether or not he had suffered an existential slippage. There was no point in asking the sloth whether or not he had lost his mind, because the sloth was too stupid to know.
Although he had lost touch with himself, Michi still had command of vast treasures of factual information. He knew, for instance, that sloths were called sloths because the Tupi word for the three-toed sloth was ai, and AI had stood for artificial idiot or artificial imbecile ever since the concept of artificial intelligence had been subdivided. A sloth could not possibly judge whether or not he had lost his mind; for that he would have needed a silver. Silvers were called silver because the chemical symbol for silver was Ag, which stood for artificial genius. There was no popular shorthand for “artificial individual of average intelligence” because the obvious acronym sounded like a strangled scream. Because AP had been claimed by artificial photosynthesis—LAP for liquid, SAP for solid—there was no such thing as a mere artificial person, and an acronymic rendering of artificial mind would have been too confusing by half.
Actually, Michi thought, the attempt to possess an artificial mind of his very own had indeed led him into dire confusion.
“I am,” he said, and giggled. “I am an AM, or am not an AM, or am caught like a half-living cat between the two. Perhaps I was an AM, and am no longer, or was not but now am, or would be if only I could think straight, like an AM. Perhaps, on the other hand, I am no longer an AM, and am no longer, but am merely an it, held together by IT.” He sat in his armchair and breathed deeply: in, out; in, out; in, out. Slowly but surely, his sense of self came together again, and his sense of temporal location returned. His IT was probably stretched to the limit, but he was not yet an it. Precarious though his grip on reality was, the Miller effect still had not obliterated him from the community of human minds.
Morgan Miller must have been a kindred spirit, he thought. The first man ever to beat the Hayflick limit and discover a viable technology of longevity, and his reward for taking such infinite pains over the project had been two bullets in the back. Unfortunately—as Miller had understood, although his assassins had not—the method had worked far too well. It was so utterly irresistible in renewing the body that it wiped out the mind. Even internal nanotech did that eventually, but at least it gave a man time to breathe, time to play, time to work, time to be… and time, in the end, to lose himself.
“I am,” he said again. “I am Michi still, at least for a little while. Do I have any appointments today?” “Yes,” said the sloth. Before Michi could rephrase the question, he remembered.
Yes, indeed—today, he had an appointment.
“Oh yes,” he said aloud. “I am, I am, I definitely am.” He reached up his hand to caress his skull, running