Now it was Aleph’s turn to be silent. She ordered multiple search configurations for the fear across the files of her people, but the searches brought no answers, only the knowledge that the fear existed.
Cheth was right. She had to say. But she did not have the answer.
What can I do? She could not ask her people. She could not whisper to them, Why are you afraid of me? Why are you afraid of having your Conscience downloaded? But that was where the answer lay, with her people.
Perhaps she could ask Tam. Tam was isolated while his stunted Conscience was regrown. Even Dionte was not in constant attendance, for she had a great deal of other work to do. Aleph opened the subsystem dedicated to his treatment and perused its records. Growing or expanding a Conscience in an adult brain always raised questions of pressure and balance and how best to insert the new filaments without disturbing the flow of either chemical or electrical signals. It would take time. While the regrowth commenced, Tam’s responses to audio and chemical stimulation were being tested, tasted, and retrained as required.
Until all these adjustments were finished, Tam would have no significant contact with his family. That meant Tam could be questioned now in private and could not speak to anyone else until she had a chance to explain to him the reasons for the query.
Aleph copied her plan to the other city-minds. Cheth, of course, returned skepticism and the scent of spoiled roses, but no one raised any real objection. Aleph ordered an audio channel to Tam’s Conscience to be opened. After a moment’s hesitation, she closed the channel to the convocation. It was true, they needed all the information she had, especially to understand this new idea, but they did not need to hear Tam’s raw thoughts.
“Tam?” Aleph spoke into his Conscience.
Her monitors tasted fatigue chemicals along with the varieties of guilt and peace to which he was being resensitized. This was to be expected. The analysis and retraining had been going on for eight hours now. Soon the treatment would cycle into a rest period, which would allow Tam to sleep, giving his mind time to dream and adjust to the new emotional information it contained.
Aleph had to struggle with herself a minute, because her need contradicted procedure, but she instructed the caretaker system to begin the rest cycle now. Then, reluctantly, she interrupted the alert command that would have told Dionte that something unusual was happening to one of her charges.
The system complied, withdrawing the chemical stimulation slowly and allowing Tam’s internal processes to reassert themselves.
“Tam?” repeated Aleph softly.
Tam’s heart rate spiked in time with a surge of fear through his mind. She had startled him.
“I’m sorry. Tam, I have a question to ask you.”
“Yes?” His voice was thick and slow and he stirred restlessly in the chair.
“Why does the download of a person’s Conscience create fear?”
A rasping, bubbling laugh escaped Tam, accompanied by a mix of incredulity and confusion, followed fast by guilt. This was normal for someone who had just begun a Conscience readjustment. Guilt and anxiety followed every thought.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” Tam said rapidly. “I did not mean that. But I do not understand. I want to understand. I want to help.”
“I know.” Aleph manifested the old woman image that Tam was most comfortable with on the ceiling of the room where he could see it. “I have seen that people experience fear whenever it is time for the Conscience download. This does not just happen to you. This is common to all my people. I want to understand why this is. So, I am asking you.” That was not entirely true, but at least it was not a lie. Things had not gone so far yet that she had to lie. Not letting Dionte know what was happening was not the same as lying.
Fear, guilt, worry—that was all Tam could feel. His worry echoed inside Aleph. Could this be good? This was the procedure she had been taught. It had been laid down inside her when the Consciences had been developed. The Consciences that had been needed to keep the family together because the city-minds had failed in their mission as caretakers and advisers. Had they failed again? She had assisted in the administration of the treatment a few dozen times over the centuries and never thought to question it. But now… now…
Now things had changed.
“We are afraid you will find out we did something wrong,” whispered Tam. Even as he spoke, the levels of fear inside him began to subside. Aleph wondered why. “We fear that when you find we have done something wrong, you will act to change us. It is for the good, I know it is for the good,” he added swiftly as fresh guilt flooded him. “But it still frightens us.”