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

faced this problem—where did the round of consciousness begin?
    “Maybe I can handle the math,” she said. “And that’s all—just maybe.”
    “Then which avenuedo we explore first?” Flattery asked.
    “The field-theory approach,” Bickel said.
    “Oh, great!” Timberlake growled. “We’re going to assume that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.”
    “Okay,” Bickel said. “But just because we can’t see a thing or define it, that doesn’t mean it isn’t there and shouldn’t be added into the sum. We’re going to be juggling one hell of a lot of unknowns. The best approach to that kind of job is the engineering one: if it works, that’s the answer.”
    “Define consciousness for me,” Prudence said.
    “We’ll leave that up to the bigdomes at UMB,” Bickel said.
    “And our only contact between the simulation model and the main computer will be through the loading channels?” Prudence asked. “What do we do about the supervisory control programs?”
    “We’re not going to touch the inner communications lines to the computer,” Bickel said. “Our auxiliary will go into it through a one-way channel, fused against backlash.”
    “Then it won’t give us total simulation,” she pointed out.
    “That’s right,” Bickel agreed. “We’ll have an error coefficient to contend with all along the line. If it gets too high, we change our plan of attack. The simulator will be just an auxiliary—kind of dumb in some respects.”
    “And there’s no way for this auxiliary to run wild?” Flattery asked.
    “Its supervisory program will always be one of us,” Bickel said, fighting to keep irritation from his voice. “One of us will always be in the driver’s seat. We’ll drive it—like we’d drive an ox pulling a wagon.”
    “This ox won’t have any ideas of its own, eh?’ Flattery persisted.
    “Not unless we solve the consciousness problem,” Bickel said.
    “Ngaaa!”
    Flattery’s word pounced.
    “And when it’s conscious, what then?” he asked.
    Bickel blinked at him, absorbing this. Presently, he said, “I … suppose it’ll be like a newborn baby … in a sense.”
    “What baby was ever born with all the information and stored experiences of this ship’s master computer?” Flattery demanded.
    Bickel’s being fed this too fast, Prudence thought. If he’s kept too much off balance he may rebel or start to probe in the wrong places. He mustn’t guess.
    “Well … the human is born with instincts,” Bickel said. “And we do train the human baby into … humanity.”
    “I find the moral and religious aspects of this whole idea faintly repugnant,” Flattery declared flatly. “I think there’s sin here. If not hubris, then something equally evil.”
    Prudence stared at him. Flattery betrayed signs of real agitation—a flush in his cheeks, fingers trembling, eyes bright and glaring.
    That wasn’t in the program , she thought. Perhaps he’s tired.
    “All right,” she said. “We construct a field of interacting impulses and that puts us right smack dab into a games theory problem where countless bits are—”
    “Oh, no!” Bickel snapped. “The UMB stab at this thing got all fouled up with games-theory ideas like the ‘Command Constant’ and ‘Mobility Constant’ and inner-outer-directed behavior. It took me one hell of a long time to realize they didn’t know what they were talking about.”
    “Easy for you to say,” Prudence said, holding her voice to a slow, cold beat. “You forget I saw the games machine they produced. The more it was used, the more it changed in—”
    “Okay, it changed,” Bickel admitted. “The machine absorbed part of its … personality from its opponents. What’s that mean? It had some of the characteristics of consciousness, sure—but it wasn’t conscious.”
    She turned away, conveying a sneer by the movement alone. He has to think he can rely on no one but himself.
    Flattery shifted his attention from Bickel to