It wasn't her book he wanted to discuss. Instead, he wanted to tell her about what he'd just seen, and not seen, in Tokyo.
"Loved dinner." He settled into a leather chair, the one next to her long bookcase, and drained his snifter. "I was afraid I was turning into a fish over there." He laughed, but only briefly. Social hour was over. "Tam, I wanted to ask you if you could maybe help me out with something."
"What do you have in mind?"
"Well, you know I've always thought I was on top of what Tokyo is doing, but now I'm not so sure anymore. I'm afraid things are starting to get away from me."
"Such as?"
"Okay. Now, it's no secret I've been to Japan a lot. I've got my share of friends over there, people I respect and admire very much. But this trip started to get very strange. It's as though I'm suddenly an outsider. Just another gaijin. I'm puzzled, and I wonder if maybe I ought to be worried."
Gaijin. That sounds familiar, she thought. But it wasn't something that usually bothered Allan. She brushed her brown hair back out of her eyes and studied him. He'd never been more serious.
"What happened?"
He paused. "You know about their big artificial intelligence effort, called the Fifth Generation Project. If it goes the way they're saying, before too much longer they'll have programs, software, to design the next generation of computer technology. "
This was supposed to be news? Come on, Allan. Everybody knew. It was the talk of the industry. Japan's goal was computer logic capable of replicating human thought processes, a monumental, maybe impossible, undertaking.