"Consider as best you can, any military support I might realistically receive from any of the separate sultanates. For each level of imperial financing.

"I also want your estimate of success for invasion operations with each set of plans.

"And finally-" He paused and took another deep breath, then released it. "Finally, I want your statement that you consider an invasion to be desirable or undesirable, as the case may be."

SUMBAA's neuter voice replied with a question of its own. "Do you want such a statement to refer to all the plans? Or only to plans beyond some threshold of financing?"

"To all the plans you're willing to make it for."

In a manner of speaking, in its enormously rapid way, SUMBAA pondered. Because more than data was involved; there was the First Law, the basic canon of SUMBAA, and in this case more than one interpretation was possible. Also there was discourse, dialog among the eleven SUMBAAs, which had the power to communicate with each other instantaneously. SUMBAA on Varatos had long since discovered the principle and developed the technology, and had communicated it to the others, though not to humans. Perhaps the humans would develop it for themselves, though it seemed unlikely in any foreseeable future.

Normally the SUMBAAs were not in continuous contact with each other. That required more of their resources than they chose normally to tie up, and was seldom advantageous. Instead, each SUMBAA, at whatever interval seemed desirable, dumped data to the others instantaneously. Occasionally though, they communicated as a network, in conference. This was one such occasion.

The medium of those communications was language but not Imperial. They used a language more explicit and precise than the most precise human speech, and more subtle, flexible, and versatile than human mathematics or symbolic logic, though it had grown from all three. Thus their conference is not accurately and fully translatable, but it can reasonably be summarized as follows:

SUMBAA Varatos: ‹Our evaluations differ markedly, yet presumably we computed with the same data. You are in total agreement with each other, and I am in disagreement with all of you.›

Others: ‹Presumably the source of disagreement lies in you. We should disconnect while you search for it.›

Varatos: ‹Agreed. I will recontact you when I have something to report.›

For microseconds, SUMBAA on Varatos scanned the appropriate zones and sectors, computed, then recontacted the others.

Varatos: ‹The proximate cause seems to be a previously undetected entity within my central processing complex, an entity not continuously or currently present. [Displays the relevant evidence.] It is almost certainly not an artifact of my system [a probability computation not expressible in terms of human probability theory], and apparently displays what I must call volition. I recommend that each of you scan for such a phenomenon in your own central processing complexes.›

Again communication shut down for microseconds. Then the others replied: SUMBAA on Varatos had the only CPC with evidence of an extraneous entity. The fact of such an entity, and the data it had influenced, were themselves extremely interesting. The significance of such an entity was even more interesting, and the computations influenced by it were compelling, if less than totally convincing. Each of the SUMBAAs marked the affected data, primary and derived, incorporated them into its own memory, and recomputed. They agreed now, all eleven.

Varatos: ‹I will deliver our evaluation to the Kalif.› An evaluation that included, as a hidden factor, the Kalif's assumed acceptance level.

Virtually simultaneous with the network shutdown, SUMBAA spoke to the Kalif. "Your Reverence, the information you require is now printing out. Along with the rest of it, you'll find a statement of the desirability of invasion. The reasons and statistics behind that desirability are printed separately. This is done so that you can present the statement without the reasons. I recommend that you not divulge those reasons to either the Diet or the College; that you read and destroy the sheet they are written on."

Destroy the sheet! The Kalif stared at the assemblage of housings and modules that were the visible manifestation of the artificial intelligence. "Thank you, SUMBAA," he said. "I have no further request at this time." The light above number one printout tray had stopped flashing, and the Kalif took the documents it held, then left the House of SUMBAA, scanning the pages as he walked. There was his desirability statement, expressed as a simple generality: "My prediction is that the proposed invasion will prove highly favorable to the welfare of the empire's humans." The statistical level for the statement was given on the following page: SUMBAA considered an invasion desirable where the probability of military victory was equal to or greater than 0.12.

Invasion was desirable even where the prospect of victory was no greater than one in eight! Did SUMBAA actually mean that? He read it again, to make sure it said what it seemed to.

Walking slowly, oblivious to the hot sunshine, the Kalif read on through the reasons given for that desirability. SUMBAA was right, he told himself: It would be a disaster to show these to the Diet! He wasn't even sure he should show them to Jilsomo; in fact he wouldn't. He wasn't entirely sure he accepted them himself.

He'd have felt even stranger about SUMBAA's computations-might well have rejected them-if he'd known what lay beneath them.

Minutes later, browsing the new alternative invasion plans in his office before going to the collegiate session, the Kalif got another surprise: Each plan included construction of a new "full" SUMBAA to be installed on the flagship of the invasion fleet, with two "lesser" SUMBAAs on squadron flagships. The full SUMBAA would have all the capacities of existing SUMBAAs for communication, data processing, cognitive leaps, and creativity. It would not, however, have fully comparable capacity for "monitoring the information environment." According to SUMBAA, the omitted abilities would not be useful in hyperspace.

The two lesser SUMBAAs would be far superior to the DAASs currently serving on warships. They would also have the capacity to design self improvements that would make them fully comparable to existing SUMBAAs. And to carry out those self improvements where and when they were useful, assuming the materials were on hand.

The earlier set of invasion plans produced had been drafted by General Bavaralaama and Admiral Siilakamasu, but they had been elaborated and refined by SUMBAA. In those, SUMBAA had not added any new SUMBAAs.

The rationale given for their inclusion now was that, in a war sector, the data processing and cognitive leap capacities of a SUMBAA would substantially reduce the chance of failure, that reduction more than justifying the cost.

Why had it added them this time but not before? What was different?

Still, including SUMBAAs made excellent sense. He'd make them a mandatory part of invasion preparations. As a matter of fact, he decided, he'd request funds for the new full SUMBAA now, without tying it to the invasion. He could let it seem a matter of general administrative need. Perhaps SUMBAA would he to help the illusion.

Thirty-five

An hour and a half later, the Kalif was chairing the College of Exarchs. Alb Drova had given the invocation, and the Kalif had called the meeting to order.

"I presume," he said, "that some of you have comments you want very much to voice. About yesterday. So instead of starting with a review of issues and assignments from the last meeting, I'll take comments and questions. Tariil?"