The Rod of Light (Soul of the Robot)

‘Light: nearly immaterial, immortally mobile, ever-lively, ever-diffractive, infinitely absorptive of data. Remember I told you that physical light has an affinity with the superior light. All these qualities render it uniquely adapted to our aim. This evacuated cylinder which I hold in my hands, Jasperodus, is the container of a container. Within it is a beam of lased light in the red wavelength, preserved by being reflected between two mirrors. It is a beam of light which is conscious of itself. For light is our storage retort.’

‘Conscious …’ Jasperodus echoed in a dazed murmur.

‘I promised you amazement.’

With the same air of ceremony, Gargan replaced the cylinder on its crystal mounting.

‘Not simple coherent light, of course,’ he went on quietly. That would have been as useless as a stone. The light had to be given structure, internal integration, a charge of informational energy. There is impressed upon it a schematic which the whole team laboured for several months to create. A schematic, so to speak, of pure intelligence.

‘Some idea of its complexity will be conveyed if I explain the type of modulation used to incorporate it into the beam. The interrupt method sometimes used to stamp data on light is of course much too crude. However, amplitude modulation, frequency modulation and phase modulation all proved inappropriate also. We developed a new, advanced technique: coherence modulation. In this method every photon in the beam is utilised, being phase-shifted to a precisely-controlled degree with reference to the primary phase-train of the beam. You will appreciate the informational density that is achievable by this means. Each photon holds one of a number of values, according to the degree of phase-shift; but it also acquires a hierarchy of significances when related to the phase-shifts around it. The beam therefore holds holistic information, not serial information, and this is a vitally important feature, for without it one could not speak of internal integration in something that does not comprise a mechanism.

‘The highly-refined light I have just described is able to conjugate with, and be a carrier for, consciousness.’

Jasperodus spoke admiringly. ‘Conjugation apart, this modulation you have accomplished is a technical miracle.’

‘It is the least of what we have done.’

‘You moved the cylinder,’ Jasperodus observed. ‘Is that not to risk deterioration of the beam?’

‘No; the schematic is tolerant of small accelerations—the container can be handled. Some deterioration does occur because the beam is reflected from mirrors, near-perfect though these are. Serious degradation will begin after a period of about one year, so that is the maximum period of storage.

‘The beam, incidentally, is exactly one imperial foot in length, as measured by an observer at relative rest. More interesting, perhaps, is that for the sake of stability we took special steps to ensure that it is perfectly parallel: it will never diverge from its vector of its own accord. The reflecting mirrors are absolutely flat, not slightly parabolic as would have to be the case for an ordinary laser beam.’

‘It will never spread?’

‘Never. It is a perfect rod of light, conscious of itself. If released into the endless void, it would speed on its way forever, never deteriorating. There is poetry in that thought.’

‘A rod of conscious light,’ Jasperodus repeated softly. ‘Gargan, you have triumphed. You have accomplished the impossible.’

‘Or we shall, when the final operation is executed.’

‘Yes. You have not yet carried out the infusion process.’

Gargan swivelled his head briefly to the ranked glass globes. ‘A whole new set of difficulties arises there, Jasperodus! But all have been overcome, and yonder is the requisite instrument. You can guess for yourself where the main difficulty lay. To draw consciousness out of a brain, we attract it to a higher potential. To do the reverse, we are trying to pass it from a higher potential to a lower, which is against the general law of nature. When this situation is met with in more mundane technology a pump of some kind is employed, but if consciousness could be pumped how much simpler our task would have been!

‘We have outflanked the difficulty with a subterfuge. We set up a terminal of even higher potential yet—no mean feat, I assure you. The target brain is interposed in the current created between this and the containment vessel, which is used now as the negative terminal. In the instant that consciousness is transferred, both terminals are abruptly, totally, absolutely disconnected. The stuff of consciousness is stranded, left without residence. A proportion of it, rather than dissipate is attracted to the target brain and settles there. The timing of the disconnection, which must occupy an interval of less than one picosecond, is troublesome. This is, of course, the merest sketch of the operation.’

‘Can one speak of quantity in relation to consciousness? Of intensity …?’