The Reprogrammed Copy Of The Download Of Anson Guthrie

 

Harvest Of Stars, 17.

The time frame, time scale and pov of this chapter are very confusing. It is not entitled "Database" so we do not expect it to be a reminiscence or a flashback although its opening page is.

A copy of download Guthrie went to Alpha Centauri. When that copy had returned to the Solar System, it and the original download downloaded into each other, then the copy was deactivated but kept hidden in case of need. The Avantists have found and activated the copy and reprogrammed it to support them. This chapter is narrated from the pov of the reprogrammed copy although, on the first page, p. 166 and three lines at the top of p. 167, he recalls an earlier conversation, I think from before the Centaurian expedition.

After this reminiscence, the text refers to the pov character as "...new Guthrie..." (p. 167) which I think should have told me that this was the reprogrammed copy. The copy needs to impersonate the original. To this end, he links through a hypercomputer to what we now call the internet - "...databases around the planet..." (ibid.) - and scans records of events that had affected the original download during the period when he, the copy, had been deactivated. He puts some of the events into his personal memory and other information, like the names of prominent public figures, into his general background knowledge but rejects most of the input as details that the original would have quickly forgotten but could retrieve from records if necessary.

Conversing by phone with the director of Fireball Earthside operations, he presents himself as the original returned to Quito from North America although in fact the original is still on the run in that country. He fails to recognize the abbreviated form of a colleague's name but claims tiredness. Next he speaks to the North American Sepo chief and forbids him to quiz a friend of Guthrie's. Part of the old Guthrie is still present. Without it, he would be ineffective.