Undepoldus Stories Science Miscellaneous Info SF links Science Fiction Convention List Home
Please send your comments to me at my email address: wilf.james@ntlworld.com
PAUSE
This section covers a revelation by Undepoldus.
Viewers familiar with this subject may pass on to the next
section.
Please select PASS or CONTINUE.
Undepoldus Changes
13/07/2093
Marita, George, Kerstin and Undepoldus stayed at L5 until the
12th of July.
Undepoldus had conquered most of his slipping feeling but was
glad to get back to Earth.
When George checked him the next day he was six metres long and weighed 147 kilos. He was getting too big to fit into the cabin that he and Marita normally shared with Kerstin. It was agreed that the connecting door to Kerstin's cabin should be left open so that he could stretch out more comfortably. An entrance for him was created in the transporter loading bay but George knew that soon Undepoldus would be too big to go anywhere in the Spacer's Club. It was already beginning to be difficult to supply him with enough rocks in the Club.
The first of the planned extensions to Undepoldus House had been completed while George was at L5 but he thought that the second extension would be required sooner than he had imagined.
The return of Undepoldus to Regent's Park attracted a lot of publicity. More visitors arrived and were astounded by his size. Undepoldus himself had realised that his days of being George's close companion would soon be over. He was too big to use the passenger strips now and could not be carried by a single person. He talked with George about the problems that they had had and how they had been solved and what other ways might have been used to solve them.
The days passed uneventfully until Monday 27th July.
Undepoldus said. "George, I can feel that I am changing.
I am growing more whiskers. It is strange. Somehow I can see you
more clearly and I think that I will soon be able to talk to you
without the processor. Other things are happening to me that I
cannot explain properly. It almost seems that I am more than one
identity. My capacity to hold several conversations at once is
changing so that they are not all parts of one conversation. They
are becoming more separated. I am still the basic me as I have
always understood myself but there is this feeling that there
are new, other parts of me that can almost work on their own.
I cannot understand this change yet. It is almost like I am growing
children inside myself but these children have no bodies. Have
you got any ideas about these changes?"
George studied Undepoldus closely and said. "Undepoldus,
as you know, I do not know what you really are. I can understand
some things about your make up but others continue to mystify
me. Your improved vision must be due to the fact that your original
whiskers have grown bigger as you have grown bigger and therefore
cannot resolve fine detail as well as they could when you were
smaller. The new whiskers are smaller and do not have to carry
your weight or provide protection but otherwise work like your
original whiskers. I would guess that you will continue to grow
new whiskers to keep your sharpness of vision at a reasonable
level. The multiple versions of you that you think of in a way
as children remind me of several forms of life on Earth."
Undepoldus said. "I can see the logic about my improved vision
George. I had not noticed that it was not as sharp as it was when
I was small until my new whiskers started to work. Can you tell
me about the other Earth creatures that you were thinking of?"
George said. "I can start with myself. My nerve connections
work relatively slowly. It takes around a twentieth of a second
for a stimulus on my foot to reach my brain. It takes around the
same time for a return signal to reach my foot. When it does,
I feel the sensation of the stimulus. This time is too long for
some things to happen. My evolution has provided an answer for
semi-autonomous reactions that need a much shorter processing
time. At the base of my spinal column there is a concentration
of nerves that acts in some ways like my brain. The clump of nerves
has no consciousness but it can control the way my legs work.
It sends signals to adjust my leg muscles to control how I walk.
It can also learn how to provide control for activities like cycling
and skating. Some people learn to walk on tightropes and achieve
amazing balancing feats because this little brainlike set of nerve
cells can be trained to respond appropriately. We know from fossil
records that very large animals like the dinosaurs had larger
spaces for this sort of nerve complex. For them it was essential
to be able to sense and respond to things that happened at their
rear ends more quickly than would be possible if their brains
did all the control work. We have no reason to believe that a
dinosaur's nerves worked any faster than mine do. As you have
become so long and will soon be even longer, you will need a secondary
and maybe more nerve control centres to handle things along your
length. It is therefore logical to me that your extra brains could
be more conscious extensions of the idea that I have described."
Undepoldus said. "You continue to amaze me George. I had
learned all these facts from the processor but I was not able
to connect them with myself. You have connected them in such a
way that the result is so logical that it is almost obvious. Since
I am a biological entity, I can presume that my senses work in
a comparable way to yours. If my nerves work at the same speed
as yours, my sensations from side to side will be almost instantaneous
while those from end to end will take a significant time. I can
see that I will need to have fast responses all along my length
and one central processing centre could not work efficiently enough.
That solves one problem but I cannot understand why I need multiple
sets of consciousness."
George said. "I cannot find a simple answer for that now
Undepoldus. It did occur to me that your multiple brains have
a similar function to mine. Mine is in two parts. One part deals
with one sort of activity and the other deals with the rest. My
left brain is the major controller because I am right-handed.
However, there are some people who have had one side of their
brains damaged and they can eventually learn to use the other
side for jobs that the injured side used to do. This is less efficient
than the original but can enable people to lead more useful lives
than if this facility was not available. I do not know why you
have so many extra brains but it may be possible that your creators
thought that you could be injured and need them. As you are convinced
that you were created, your creators must have had a purpose for
all your facilities."
Undepoldus said. "I am very much aware of that fact George.
However, I continue to wonder what I will be like when I am bigger.
I hope that I do not lose the close friendliness that you have
shown me since I was small."
"You have no need to worry about that my friend. I will always
be with you as long as you want me."
It was on Thursday the 30th July that Undepoldus broke some important
news to George. He said. "George, I can now talk to you without
the aid of a processor. I trust that you can understand me OK."
George was amazed because the voice that Undepoldus produced was
his own. As far as he could tell it was exactly like recordings
he had heard of himself speaking. He said. "Undepoldus, I
understand that you can imitate my voice perfectly but It would
confuse others if they were involved in the conversation."
Undepoldus answered using Marita's voice. "Is that any better
George?"
George said. "I am glad that you have a sense of humour Undepoldus.
I realised that you could imitate sounds the day that the air-conditioning
failed. You may have done it unconsciously then but it is good
to know that you can consciously control it so well."
Undepoldus said in Anita's voice. "I do not know how I do
it. I just think of someone I know when I start to speak and I
find that I can speak like they do. I understand that it would
be better if I spoke like somebody you did not know. Then that
voice would be my voice for you. I will select a voice from the
vidcom entertainment channels that I hope you will find acceptable.
You said that you knew that I could imitate sounds accurately
when I was smaller. I was not aware of that. Can you tell me what
you discovered?"
George said. "Processor, display the spectra called for on
the twenty second of June and repeat the verbal analysis."
The processor answered. 'The two spectra are similar. The second
spectrum is lower than the first spectrum at 50Hz by 0.9 decibels
and lower than the first spectrum at 100Hz by 2.4 decibels. In
all other respects the two spectra are identical. '
George said. "Undepoldus, the noise you made was very quiet
indeed. I could only just hear it. The noise you made sounded
to me like the air-conditioning system but very much quieter.
I asked the processor to compare the sound you made and the sound
that the airconditioner usually makes. Your sound was an exact
match for the airconditioner but for some motor noise. The air-conditioning
motor had failed. You made the sound that the air-conditioning
would make if it could have worked without a motor. It was curious
to me why you had made the sound that way."
Undepoldus said in a British midlands accent. "It was something
that I was not aware of. I did know that I had mentally blocked
anything you said to the processor until you asked it if I could
talk. It seems that I am learning more about myself every day."
"Are there any particular sounds that you like?"
"I like the sounds of some sorts of music. You humans obviously
like music because it is almost always present on the vidcom channels.
The music I like best is what you call classical music as composed
by people like Beethoven and Vivaldi. I also like a lot of the
strange sort of music that you call jazz. I am impressed by the
way some humans have voices that sound like musical instruments
although most of them use other languages than English. If you
like I will reproduce a little of one of the pieces of music that
I got from the processor recently."
Then in the quiet of Undepoldus House it was suddenly filled
with the sound of Max Bruch's violin concerto. Undepoldus was
not only reproducing the music but George could hear that the
individual instruments sounded as if they were in the same positions
as they would be in at a concert.
When Undepoldus finished the excerpt, George gave him a few claps
of applause.
Undepoldus said nothing but then there was the sound of Fats
Waller playing the piano. Then George heard the voice of Fats
singing "When somebody thinks you're wonderful" to the
piano accompaniment.
It was as if Fats Waller was in the room. There was none of the
scratchiness or distortion that George remembered from reproductions
of the old records Fats Waller had made. Undepoldus was reproducing
the voice and the piano as if they were there with him. George
found the experience very moving.
"If ever you needed a job, you could earn a very handsome
living entertaining people with music like that."
"I understand that I am technically a Spacer. Is it possible
for Spacers to earn an income on Earth?"
"I am afraid that I have got to answer no to that question
Undepoldus. What I said would still have been true if you were
not a Spacer. However, there are legal ways to derive income on
Earth through trusts. A trust could be set up and managed by people
we know who are not Spacers on your behalf. I am sure that Sarah
Chebychev and Eva Sincayvitch would do that for you. You do not
need Earth money at all now but there may be a time when you will
need it. I am thinking of the time when you might want to go back
to where you came from. You would need a space ship and provisions
to keep you going on your journey. Many of the things that you
would need could be bought on Earth. The rest would be provided
by the Spacers League at no charge."
"I will think about that George. When I am a bit bigger I
could entertain people with music and see other parts of Earth.
I would like that. If I did that George, would you, Marita and
Kerstin come with me?"
"I have already told you that I will stay with you as long
as you want me to and I am sure that Marita and Kerstin would
say the same. Can I say fairer than that?"
"Now I know what I want to do. I will study as many pieces
of music as I can."
PAUSE
The next section covers a vidcom interview
with Undepoldus.
Viewers familiar with this subject may pass on to the following
section.
Please select PASS or CONTINUE.