Gorgoroth (Haladras #2)

TWENTY

"You have a gift," said Jonobar softly, as he observed Rolander's work.

"Do you think so?"

"Indeed. Keep this up and you'll be head of the Department of Machinery and Automata at the University of Strybrn one day."

Rolander beamed inside. He couldn't imagine attaining such a high honor. But Professor Jonobar did not strike him as a man who used much flattery or who lavished undeserved compliments. Still, Rolander felt he could never fully master the art and science of automata.

He and Professor Jonobar had been working on Rolander's new mechanical hand for nearly . Their progress was gratifying. Already, they had built the skeletal structure for the forearm, wrist, and palm. The wrist boasted a full three-hundred and sixty degree range of motion, with the pair pronation and supination joint movements-nearly identical to an actual human wrist. This was made possible by an intricate array of motors and complex artificial joints. They were currently building their first articulating finger, the index finger. It would have three joints, capable of the orchestrated motion of an ordinary finger. The difficulty in building the fingers was the minuteness of the joints, and the fineness of the motion. But they were doing it. He, Rolander Finch, was actually building a finger. His finger. And if he could build one finger, he could build five.

The real magic behind the hand would not be in the joints or its motors and actuators, but in its ability to interface with Rolander's muscles and nervous system. Tiny electrodes and electrode arrays would be implanted into his muscles and nerves. These electrodes would pick up the electric pulses sent from his brain. In turn, the electrodes would amplify these pulses, sending them to a controller, a micro-transistor array. This micro-transitor array would then translate and route the pulses into electronic instructions, which would dispatch to the myriad of motors and actuators. Thousands of biosensors lining the fingers and palm, would send signals back up through the nervous system to the brain. The result will be a hand capable of functioning nearly identically to a real hand. If Rolander and Jonobar did their job well, the brain will scarcely notice the difference.

Despite the artificial nerve system, Rolander would still face challenges in learning to use the hand as naturally as his real hand. Jonobar explained the mechanical hand would lack some of the fine motor movements of a real hand. Some being so minute and subtle, man could not-yet-reproduce them artificially. And the biosensors would require some getting used to. It was very likely he would accidentally snap a few dozen styluses before he learned to hold one properly. But with practice, Jonobar felt confident Rolander could learn to master his new hand. Rolander's brain would adapt, learn to cope with the subtle changes in input and feedback.

Though the prospect of having a right hand again filled Rolander with hopeful anticipation, he found himself more enthusiastic about the actual process of building it. If they could recreate such a complex machine as the human hand, they could build anything. The possibilities made him giddy-happier than he'd felt since before...

A sudden noise from outside Rolander's window brought his attention away from his work.

"What is that?" asked Rolander.

Jonobar raised his eye brows.

"Sounds like marching to me."

They went over the window and peered down.

Four stories below, the bailey droned with the stamp of soldiers' boots. More soldiers than Rolander had ever seen at the castle before. Not only soldiers filled the bailey, but war machines as well. Not many. Enough to tell the tale that this was no mere military training exercise. Too many soldiers for that.