Again with the laugh. "That's the whole point! This is where the logic boards bury and disinter the data!" Waterhouse says. "I'll show you!" And before Comstock can order him not to, Waterhouse has nodded to a corporal standing at the other end of the room, wearing the protective earmuffs that are generally issued to the men who fire the very largest artillery. That corporal nods and hits a switch. Waterhouse slams his hands over his ears and grins, showing a little too much gum for Comstock's taste, and then time stops, or something, as all of those pipes come alive playing variations on the same low C.
It's all Comstock can do not to drop to his knees; he has his hands over his ears, of course, but the sound's not really coming in through his ears, it is entering his torso directly, like X-rays. Hot sonic tongs are rummaging through his viscera, beads of sweat being vibrated loose from his scalp, his nuts are hopping around like Mexican jumping beans. The crescents of mercury in all those U-tubes are shifting up and down, opening and closing the contacts, but systematically: it is not turbulent sloshing around, but a coherent progression of discrete controlled shiftings, informed by some program.
Comstock would draw his sidearm and put a bullet through Waterhouse's head, but he'd have to take one hand off one ear. Finally it stops.
"The machine just calculated the first hundred numbers in the Fibonacci sequence," Waterhouse says.
"As I understand it, this RAM is just the part where you bury and disinter the data," Comstock says, trying to master the higher harmonics in his own voice, trying to sound and act as if he saw this kind of thing daily. "If you had to give a name to the whole apparatus, what would you call it?"
"Hmmm," Waterhouse says. "Well, its basic job is to perform mathematical calculations--like a computer."
Comstock snorts. "A computer is a human being."
"Well ... this machine uses binary digits to do its computing. I suppose you could call it a digital computer."
Comstock writes it out in block letters on his legal pad: DIGITAL COMPUTER.
"Is this going to go into your report?" Waterhouse asks brightly.
Comstock almost blurts
Waterhouse goes into that dreadful laugh again.
"Do you have anything else to report before we adjourn?" Comstock says, desperate to silence him.
"Well, this work has given me some new ideas on information theory which you might find interesting--"
"Write them down. Send them to me."
"There's one other thing. I don't know if it is really germane here, but--"
"What is it, Waterhouse?"
"Uh, well ... it seems that I'm engaged to be married!"
Chapter 68 CARAVAN
Randy has lost all he owned, but gained an entourage. Amy has decided that she might as well come north with him, as long as she happens to be on this side of the Pacific Ocean.
This makes him happy. The Shaftoe boys, Robin and Marcus Aurelius, consider themselves invited along--like much else that in other families would be the subject of extended debate, this goes without saying, apparently.
This makes it imperative that they