Destination: Void: Prequel to the Pandora Sequence by Frank Herbert Page A

differed. She would know her own capacities, certainly. Besides, she was scheduled to follow Bickel on the board in the normal rotation.
    His glance followed the Com-central track, the way the board circled around their positions. Bickel was in number one spot, then Prue, then Flattery—and he sat here on the end.
    It’s my watch, Timberlake told himself.
    He felt perspiration start in his palms.
    Bickel had taken the board in his turn, obviously begrudging every minute away from his damned compu-tations. He would not volunteer.
    I’ve got to take that board, Timberlake told himself.
    He thought of the more than three thousand lives immediately dependent on him when that green arrow slid over to his position … all the other lives and dreams that had been poured into this project.
    Every bit of it pointing a finger at him.
    I can’t! he thought.
    He’s taking too long, Flattery thought. “I’ll give you the board on the count, Tim. I’m wearing pretty thin.”
    Before Timberlake could protest, the count had started and his hand went automatically to the big red switch. Board and arrow came to him. Necessities of the job caught him immediately. Almost a third of the shield temperature control needed trimming to bring it into better balance.
    We should trace out the OMC linkages for this and install automatics for the gross part of the job, he thought.
    Presently, he fell into the routine of the watch.
    “Here’s our operating procedure,” Bickel said. He looked up, caught an exchange of knowing glances between Flattery and Prue, hesitated. Something going on between those two? If it was man-woman problems, that could cause trouble.
    “You were saying,” Prudence said.
    Bickel saw she was staring directly at him. He cleared his throat, glanced at his figures and schematics for reassurance. “The computer must be the basis for anything we build, but we can’t interfere with core memory and switching controls. That means we have to use an electronic simulation model. Part of the AAT system …”
    “What about communication with Moonbase?” Prudence asked.
    That’s a stupid question, he thought, but he hid his irritation. “A switching system will automatically restore AA function when the reply burst hits our antennas. We’ll use an alarm klaxon.”
    “Oh.” She nodded, wondering how far she could go before he realized he was being irritated purposely.
    “This will be an operational model,” he said. “It’ll duplicate real characteristics of the total system, but won’t function as completely as the computer-based system. However it will give us direct observation of functions with conventional equipment. It’ll tell us where we have to go unconventional. The environment, the signals, and the system parameters can be observed and changed as development progresses. And we’ll only need a one-way, fused link with the computer to permit it to record all our results.”
    This much was predictable, Flattery thought. But where does he go from here?
    “We’ll generate an environment in scaled time and apply its own effect signals to the system under analysis,” Prudence said. “Good. What then?”
    “Based on my experience with the UMB experiments,” Bickel answered, “I can tell you which avenues aren’t worth exploring and which avenues may give us an artificial consciousness. May do it. From here on in, it’s cut and try.”
    “Are we going to have to fight the time lag and possibility of transmission errors while we let Moonbase analyze our progress?” Flattery asked.
    Bickel glanced at his computations and schematics, looked back at Prudence. “Do we have a mathematician aboard competent enough to break down the embodied transducers of our results?”
    Prudence looked across Bickel at the displays and stacks of schematics. She had followed enough of what he was doing there to combine that with the programming he had handed her, but it was the same old self-reflexive circle every time they