Eighty Minute Hour. Brian Aldiss
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lay on couches on their stomachs – not the most comfortable of positions for Gisbone, a well-fleshed man with plenty of belly – surveying the trajectories of shipping in the region of Mars. They had six monitors to watch, most of them filled with blank space most of the time, any one of which could have its contents switched to one of two larger screens if the contents proved important enough.
The profusion of screens caused a certain amount of headache. In addition, Jupiter, as omnipresent to Doomwitch as a hunch on a hunchback’s shoulder, was causing a static storm – Jupiter IV being in transit – and distorting images.
In the lab behind the observation bay in which Glamis and Gisbone were working, Jules de l’Isle-Evens sat with lightbrush and screen, working on an arachnoid-like polygraph, the coordinates of which he was plotting from a notebook.
Dimittis was cooking flapjacks.
All four joined in their computer-song.
GLAMIS
The inter-reactions of the biosphere
Proceeding at their statutory pace
Produced an ocean-vat of amino-acid.
From there the stages, difficult but placid,
That led us upwards to the human race
Are now deterministically clear.
JULES
The next step onwards has an equal clarity.
Like ripples on a lake-face interlocking,
Each stage becomes more complex than the last,
Governed by mathematic law. Thus, fast,
We recognise the new scheme time is clocking;
Computers have with mankind now gained parity.
QUARTET
Yes, this is the riddle that peasants and commuters
Put to each other in Nineteen Nine Nine
As they dig up their fields or they drive in a line –
As they slump by their holocubes or go to dine out –
Yes, this is the riddle that peasants and commuters
Put to themselves in that terrible moment of doubt –
‘Are we compos mentis enough for computers?’
GISBONE
The biochemic interweaving force
That we call Nature, aeons back devised,
From cell and jell, computers light enough
To work effectively and fast, be tough,
And utilize a power-source micro-sized –
Computers called the human brain, of course.
DIMITTIS
Their brains began to take the world and mark it
For conquest by platoons of eager tools.
The latest tool – how clever can you get?! –
Thinks clearer, faster, than the brains do yet.
In truth, it makes them all look floundering fools:
They gone and priced themselves out of the market!
QUARTET
Yes, this is the riddle that girls, boys, and neuters
Put to each other in Nineteen Nine Nine
As they look to the future and try to divine
If it’s worth procreating or even mating this year –
Yes, this is the riddle that girls, boys, and neuters
Put to themselves in that terrible moment of fear –
‘Are we compos mentis enough for computers?’
Glamis restored a lock of hair to its correct position and turned again to her screens. Combinationist politician’s hostess during her first marriage, priestess in the Swinging Church of Jesus Christ’s Free Will during her second, subjective manipulationist in defiance mensiatry during her third, now she was a jill-of-all-trades in the expanding post-war world during her final divorce.
She looked good, younger than her sister Loomis, and with slightly less reptile ancestry under the eyes.
‘It appears to be a Smix-Smith tight-beam traveller on Six,’ she told Gisbone, rattling off coordinates and switching magnifications.
‘Got it,’ Gisbone said. A faint dotted trace arced across his screen, with blackness behind it. Then the whole picture broke and flared into colour. All the other screens before them did the same. They were confronted by a row of late Kandinskis.
‘Switch to L-Beam,’ said the computer calmly. Even on the alternate system, the Kandinskis remained, vibrating vigorously.
Gisbone had already hit the alarm button.
Glamis locked her monitor and switched to tape. She rolled over to Gisbone’s couch to watch, or help if necessary.
De l’Isle-Evens let the cobweb graph ride on into darkness and switched his own link through to the observation panel.
Dimittis allowed a flapjack to burn and, swallowing another, ran through from the galley.
‘Check chronology!’ Gisbone gasped.
‘Checking,’ de l’Isle-Evens said quietly.
They watched the battle on the screen – momentarily, until a metal mouth spat copy and spoke.
‘Chronology check. Space-time coordinates X on Alpha. Date line variant, dip minus zero zero eight three forty-one gaffs. Trace-subject now subjectivated at Western time 1999, March twenty, thirteen twenty-one hours.’
They didn’t even waste time looking at each other. De l’lsle-Evens was rattling on the master-terminal.
‘That’s it,’ he said, reading off the passing figures from his screen. ‘It’s another time-prolapse. The Smix-Smith tight-beam traveller we were tagging has disappeared, together with its surrounding continuum … minus 008341 gaffs … that’s – here it is –’
Dimittis had got there first, using his greasy fingers.
‘The ship prolapsed two years, eight months, and a bit,’ he read out. ‘The slip is on the increase.’
‘Two and two-thirds years! Okay, that’s it …’
The watchers rose from their couches, their faces sober. Behind them, disregarded, little encapsuled lives gestured under the glazed jelly surfaces of the monitors. The four of them moved into the lab. Glamis sucked her generous lower lip. Nobody spoke. Their life-forces flowed out, mingled with the banal hum of sophisticated machineries, spread to join the enveloping currencies of the universe.
‘Someone had better put it into words,’ Gisbone said. ‘This is the second time. We can’t write this off as some unaccountable electronic fault. We can’t blame this one on Jupiter playing up …’
He had to force himself to go on. ‘For reasons we have yet to discover, aberrations are developing in the universe time-flow. The hitherto uninterrupted, ceaseless, remorseless flow of time is disrupted …’
‘At least the disruption appears to be extremely localised,’ Dimittis said.
Glamis gave a laugh with a hint of hysteria in it. ‘For God’s sake, let’s not start adjusting to such a – an unutterable situation!’
‘Besides, this extreme localisation, if it goes on, may prove to be the most uncomfortable feature