follow orders. Anything else?”
“No,
Sir. Thank you, Sir.”
Day
88/2544
Janicot
noticed Foster’s expression as she entered his office. He pointed to the chair
facing his desk, and she sat down without a word.
“From
your expression I’m guessing that you have bad news, Major?” asked Janicot.
“Yes,
Sir. With Oracle now operational, we’ve just asked it to give us its evaluation
of the most likely outcome of Operation Sledgehammer. It’s predicting a complete
failure of the Makassar component, Sir.”
Janicot
was speechless with shock for a few seconds. “How is that possible, Major
Foster? Our ships have neutron armor for God’s sake!”
Foster
nodded. “Oracle is predicting that the FEDs will have developed atomic warheads
that can penetrate the one mm of armor those ships carry.”
“Wait
a minute. Why would the FEDs suddenly feel the need to develop those kinds of
weapons when no one has used or needed anything like that in almost five
centuries?”
Foster
sighed. Hindsight was such a bitch. “Savannah, our first heavy cruiser,
demonstrated its neutron armor when it engaged in combat with, and successfully
defeated, a FED cruiser in Earth orbit eight months ago, Sir.”
“Oh,
hell!” Janicot silently cursed himself for his short-sightedness. At the time
it never occurred to him that deploying an armored cruiser as a commerce raider
would generate these kinds of repercussions. Now it was all too obvious. He had
screwed things up big time. Did I just lose the war for us? That thought
was so terrifying that he had to close his eyes and hold his breath for a few
seconds. He then remembered that he wasn’t alone. He made a conscious effort to
regain his composure as he opened his eyes and looked at Foster.
“Is
there more?” he asked.
Foster
cleared her throat before answering. “Not yet. We’ve asked it to evaluate our
best short, medium and long term strategies, assuming that its Makassar
prediction is correct. It’s still working on those requests, Sir.”
“Good.
Naturally I want to hear those results as soon as you get them. Have you formed
an impression of how our Oracle compares with the original yet, Major?”
“Yes,
Sir. Even in the short period since its completion, I’ve already seen enough to
say that its speed and capacity to handle complex questions is comparable with
the FED prototype, but that’s just Phase One of course. The big question is how
much more capable will it be when we finish doubling the size of the device in
Phase Two?”
“Any
chance it’ll be as good as the Majestic device they’re deploying on Hadley?”
asked Janicot. His hopes crashed when he saw Foster shake her head.
“No,
Sir. I feel safe in saying that. Majestic isn’t just a bigger computer. It’s
comprised of an improved kind of computing architecture. If Majestic was the
same size as Oracle, it would still be significantly more capable. The fact
that it’s also bigger just makes the difference in capabilities even more
noticeable.”
“I
see. How big would our Oracle have to be in order to be in the same league as
their Majestic, Major?”
Foster’s
eyes widened when she heard that question. “I ah…that’s a difficult question to
answer, Sir.”
Janicot
smiled in sympathy. “I know I’m asking a tough question. What’s your best
guess?”
“Ten
times as big…maybe…but you see, Admiral, I’m not even sure if it’s possible to
build a comparable computer using Oracle-type components, no matter how big it
might be. There comes a point where you get diminishing marginal returns to
scale. In other words, the technology has a built-in limit to how effective it
can be. Any attempt to scale up an Oracle device will eventually reach a point
where the device will be twice as big but will NOT be twice as effective, if
you see what I mean.”
Janicot
did see what she was getting at. Doubling