Snaresbrook listened to the recording three times, making notes each time. Then she questioned Brian closely, going over the same ground again and again until she saw that he was tiring.

“Enough. Let’s have a cup of coffee and I’ll let you go.”

“Aren’t you going to see if I can do it again — but consciously this time?”

“Not today. Get some rest first—”

“I’m not tired! I was just falling asleep from saying the same things over and over again. Come on, Doc, be a sport. Let’s try it now while the whole thing is fresh in my mind.”

“You’re right — strike while the iron is hot! All right — let’s start with something simple. What would be the square of… of 123456?”

Brian visualized the number, tried to find somewhere to put it. He pulled and pushed mentally, twisting his thoughts about it. Tried harder, grunted aloud with the effort.

“15522411383936! That’s the square, I’m sure of it!”

“Do you know how you did it?” she asked excitedly.

“Not really. It was sort of like groping for a memory, something like a word almost on the tip of one’s tongue. Reaching and finding it.”

“Can you do it again?”

“I hope so — yes, why not? I don’t know how it worked in the dream, but I think that I can do it again. But I have no idea how I do it.”

“I think I know what is happening. But in order to verify my diagnosis I’ll have to hook you up to the connection machine again. See what is going on in your brain. Will that be all right?”

“Of course. I must find out how this is happening.”

She turned on the connection machine while he settled into the chair. The delicate fingers made their adjustments and he leaned back, ordered his thoughts.

“Then here is what we will do.” She moved the cursor through the menu on her screen. “Here is an article I downloaded into my computer yesterday from a journal. It’s titled ‘Protospecialist Intensities in Juvenile Development.’ Do you know anything about the subject?”

“I know a bit about what protospecialists are. The nerve centers located in the brain stem that are responsible for most of our basic instincts. Hunger, rage, sex, sleep — things like that. But I don’t think that I ever read any article like that.”

“You couldn’t have, it was only published a few months ago. Then I am going to load it into your implant CPU’s memory — under that title.” She quickly touched the keys, then turned back to him. “It should be there now. See if you are aware of it. Are you?”

“No, not really. I mean I can remember the title because I just heard it.”

“Then try to do what you did a little while ago, what you did in the dream. Tell me about the article.”

Brian’s lip tightened as he frowned, struggling inside his brain with invisible effort.

“Something — I can’t tell. I mean there is something there if I can only get close to it. Get a handle on it…” His eyes opened wide and he began to speak, the words tumbling from his lips.

“…as the child grows, each primitive protospecialist grows level after level of new memory and management machinery and, at the same time, each of them tends to find new ways to influence and exploit what the others can do. The result of this process is to make the older versions of those specialists less separate and distinct. Thus, as those different systems learn to share their cognitive attachments, the resulting cross-connections lead to the more complex mixtures of feelings characteristic of more adult emotions. And by the time we’re adults, these systems have become too complicated even for ourselves to understand. By the time we’ve passed through all those stages of development, our grown-up minds have been rebuilt too many times to remember or understand much of how it felt to be an infant.”

Brian clamped his lips shut, then spoke again, slowly and hesitantly. “Is that… it? What the article was about?”

Dr. Snaresbrook looked at her screen and nodded. “That is not what it was about — that is it word for word. You’ve done it, Brian! What sensations are connected with it?”

He frowned in concentration. “It’s like a real memory, though not exactly. It’s there but I don’t know all about it. I sort of have to read through it in my thoughts before it is complete, understandable.”

“Of course. That’s because it is in the computer’s memory, not yours. You can access it but you won’t understand it until you have gone through it, paying attention to and thinking about what each sentence means. Making the proper sort of links with other things you already know. Only then will you have made the cross-connections that are true understanding.”

“No instant plug-in knowledge in the head?”

“I’m afraid not. Memory is made of so many cross-connections, that can be accessed in so many ways, that it is not linear at all like a computer’s memory. But once you have gone through it once or twice it will be part of your own memory, accessible at any time.”

“It’s fun,” he said, then smiled. “My goodness, I even know the page numbers and footnotes! Do you think we could do it with a whole book — or an encyclopedia?”

“I don’t see why not, since there is still plenty of memory available in the implant CPU. It would certainly speed up the process of relearning. But — this is such a wonderful thing! Direct access to a computer by thought alone. It is such a wide-open concept with such endless possibilities.”

“And it could help my work. Is there any reason why I couldn’t load in all my earlier research notes so I could access them just by thinking about it?”

“No reason that I can think of.”

“Good. It would be nice to have everything there to digest. I’ll do it now, upload all of the retrieved notes from my backup GRAM here—” He yawned. “No, I won’t. Tomorrow will be soon enough. I want to think about this a bit in any case. It all takes some getting used to.”

“I agree completely. But this is more than enough for one day. If you are thinking of going back to the lab — don’t. You are now through with work.”

Brian nodded agreement. “In all truth I had planned to take a walk, think this new thing out.”

“A good idea — as long as you don’t tire yourself.”

He put on his sunglasses before he stepped out in the midday desert glare. An armed corporal opened the door for him, fell in a few paces behind as he spoke softly into his lapel microphone. Other soldiers were out on both flanks, another walking ahead. Brian was getting used to their constant presence, barely noticed it now as he strolled along the path to his favorite bench by the ornamental pool. The Megalobe executive buildings were on the other side of the water, but shielded from sight by the trees and shrubbery. He was the only one who ever seemed to come here and he enjoyed the silence and privacy. He scowled when his phone buzzed. He thought of not answering it, then sighed and undipped it from his belt.

“Delaney.”

“Major Wood at reception. Captain Kahn is here. Says you weren’t expecting her today but would it be okay to talk to you?”

“Yes, of course. Tell her I’m at…”

“I know where you are, sir.’’ There was more than a hint of firmness in the Major’s voice at the suggestion that he didn’t know Brian’s location down to the nearest millimeter. “I’ll escort her to you.”

They came down the path from the main entrance, the wide-shouldered bulk of the Major dwarfing Shelly’s small but shapely figure. She wasn’t in uniform today and was wearing a short white dress more suitable to the desert climate. Brian stood up when she came close; Woody turned sharply on his heel and left them alone.

“I’m not disturbing your work, am I?” There was a thin line of worry between her eyes.

“Not at all. Just taking a break as you see.”

“I should have called first. But I just got back from L.A. and wanted to put you in the picture about progress. I have been working with some of the best investigators in the LAPD. With the kind of work you are doing I’m sure you know all about Expert Systems?”