"Alan Dean Foster- Instant With Loud Voices" - читать интересную книгу автора (Foster Alan Dean)

was as flexible as his creation and eager to adapt the best ideas of others into its framework.

If only he'll be flexible now, Jerome thought worriedly.

DISRA had been in operation for the past six years, answering questions, pondering hypotheses,
dispensing immensely valuable opinions on everything from Keynesian versus Marxist economics to
particle physics. When the Secondary Matrix was linked with the DISRA Prime two years ago,
Catastrophe Theory had for the first time taken on the aspect of a real science. DISRA had shown itself
capable of predicting major earthquakes as well as fish population stocks. Space probes of many nations
and consortiums were now programmed with previously unimaginable accuracy.

Six months ago construction on DISRA Prime itself had concluded. After a month of testing, Hank
Strevelle had begun the task of programming the complex for a single question.

And, Jerome knew, DISRA was too valuable to mankind for that question to be asked.

He found Strevelle conversing with two technicians. The world's greatest computer scientist was six-four,
thin as an oxygen tank and nearly as pale as the enclosing walls. His hair was brushed straight back and
gave him the look of a man always walking into the wind. Jerome envied him the hair as much as the
brain beneath. We are all frail, he thought.

Strevelle looked away from the techs as Jerome came over. He smiled tolerantly. He knew what was
coming. Jerome had been badgering him with it for weeks.

"Now Ken," he said, "you're not going to hit me with your pet peeve again, are you? Now, of all times?"
He glanced at his wrist. "Five minutes to startup. Give me a break, will you?"

Jerome conducted his words by waving the remote. "I've spent all night and most of the morning hooked
up with the Eastern Nexus. Everything confirms what I've been telling you since the fourth of the month.
You put this question to DISRA and we're liable to lose the whole works. A computer can be
overstressed. Not a normal computer, but nothing about DISRA is normal."

"You're a good man, Ken. Best theoretical engineer I ever worked with. You'll probably be chosen to
run DISRA operations when I retire."

"I can't run what isn't there."

Strevelle let out a resigned sigh. "Look, there are two and a half decades of my life and most of my
reputation in this cube of circuits and bubbles and agitated electrons." He jerked a thumb back at the
softly humming machine. "D'you really think I'd risk all that if I believed there was the slightest chance of
losing capacity, let alone more serious damage?

"The machine runs twenty hours each day, four down for repair and recheck. Half the world depends on
it to make decisions, or at least to offer opinions. Even the Soviets want it kept functional.

They haven't experienced a single wheat or corn failure in the ten years they've been relying on DISRA's
predictions."

"Wilson confirms my calculations."