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vi Contents

2.2 Numbers 55
2.2.1 Positional Notation 56
2.3 Binary Arithmetic 57
2.4 Signed Integers 59
2.4.1 Sign and Magnitude Representation 60
2.4.2 Two’s Complement Arithmetic 60
Calculating Two’s Complement Values 61
Properties of Two’s Complement Numbers 62
Arithmetic Overflow 62
2.5 Introduction to Multiplication and Division 63
2.5.1 Shifting Operations 63
2.5.2 Unsigned Binary Multiplication 64
2.5.3 High-speed Multiplication 64
Booth’s Algorithm 66
2.5.4 Division 67
Restoring Division 68
Non-Restoring Division 70
2.6 Floating-Point Numbers 71
Normalization of Floating-Point Numbers 72
Biased Exponents 72
2.6.1 IEEE Floating-Point Numbers 72
IEEE Floating-Point Format 73
Characteristics of IEEE Floating-Point Numbers 75
2.7 Floating-Point Arithmetic 77
Rounding and Truncation Errors 78
2.8 Floating-Point Arithmetic and the Programmer 79
2.8.1 Error Propagation in Floating-Point Arithmetic 81
2.8.2 Generating Mathematical Functions 81
Using Functions to Generate New Functions 83
2.9 Computer Logic 84
2.9.1 Digital Systems and Gates 86
2.9.2 Gates 86
Fundamental Gates 87
The AND Gate 87
The OR Gate 87
The Inverter 88
Derived Gates—the NOR (Not OR), NAND
(Not AND), and Exclusive OR 89
2.9.3 Basic Circuits 91
The Half Adder and Full Adder 93
The Decoder 97
The Multiplexer 97
The Voting Circuit 98
The Prioritizer 100
2.10 Sequential Circuits 101
2.10.1 Latches 102
Clocked RS Flip-flops 104
D Flip-flop 105
The JK Flip-Flop 108
2.10.2 Registers 109
Shift Register 110
Left-Shift Register 111
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 Contents vii

2.10.3 Asynchronous Counters 113

Using a Counter to Create a Sequencer 114
2.10.4 Sequential Circuits 115
2.11 Buses and Tristate Gates 118
Registers, Buses, and Functional Units 120
Summary 122
Problems 123

Part II Instruction Set Architectures

3 Architecture and Organization 130
3.1 Introduction to the Stored Program Machine 130
3.1.1 Extending the Processor: Dealing with Constants 136
3.1.2 Extending the Processor: Flow Control 139
Status Information 141
Example of a Branch Instruction 142
3.2 The Components of an ISA 146
3.2.1 Registers 146
General-Purpose Versus Special-Purpose Registers 147
3.2.2 Addressing Modes—an Overview 149
Memory and Register Addressing 151
3.2.3 Instruction Formats 151
3.2.4 Op-codes and Instructions 152
Two Address Machines 153
One Address Machines 153
Zero Address Machines 153
One-and-a-Half Address Machines 154
3.3 ARM Instruction Set Architecture 155
3.3.1 ARM’s Register Set 156
3.3.2 ARM’s Instruction Set 156
3.4 ARM Assembly Language 157
3.4.1 Structure of an ARM Program 158
3.4.2 The Assembler – Practical Considerations 161
3.4.3 Pseudoinstructions 164
3.5 ARM Data-processing Instructions 167
3.5.1 Arithmetic Instructions 167
Addition and Subtraction 167
Negation 168
Comparison 168
Multiplication 169
Division 170
3.5.2 Bitwise Logical Operations 170
3.5.3 Shift Operations 171
Arithmetic Shift 173
Rotate 173
Implementing a Shift Operation on the ARM 173
3.5.4 Instruction Encoding—An Insight Into
the ARM’s Architecture 175
3.6 ARM’s Flow Control Instructions 176
3.6.1 Unconditional Branch 176
3.6.2 Conditional Branch 177
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viii Contents

3.6.3 Compare and Test Instructions 178

3.6.4 Branching and Loop Constructs 178
The FOR Loop 178
The WHILE Loop 178
The UNTIL loop 179
Combination Loop 179
3.6.5 Conditional Execution 179
3.7 ARM Addressing Modes 181
3.7.1 Literal Addressing 182
ARM’s Way 183
3.7.2
Register Indirect Addressing 184
3.7.3
Register Indirect Addressing with an Offset 187
3.7.4
ARM’s Autoindexing Pre-indexed
Addressing Mode 190
3.7.5 ARM’s Autoindexing Post-Indexing Mode 191
3.7.6 Program Counter Relative (PC-Relative)
Addressing 192
3.7.7 ARM’s Load and Store Encoding 193
3.8 Subroutine Call and Return 194
3.8.1 ARM Support for Subroutines 196
3.8.2 Conditional Subroutine Calls 197
3.9 Intermission: Examples of ARM Code 198
3.9.1 Extracting the Absolute Value 198
3.9.2 Byte Manipulation and Concatenation 198
3.9.3 Byte Reversal 199
3.9.4 Multiplication by 2n 2 1 or 2n 1 1 200
3.9.5 The Use of Multiple Conditions 200
3.9.6 With Just One Instruction… 200
3.9.7 Implementing Multiple Selection 201
3.9.8 Simple Bit-Level Logical Operations 201
3.9.9 Hexadecimal Character Conversion 201
3.9.10 Character Output in Hexadecimal 202
3.9.11 To Print a Banner 202
3.10 Subroutines and the Stack 203
3.10.1 Subroutine Call and Return 205
3.10.2 Nested Subroutines 206
3.10.3 Leaf Routines 207
3.11 Data Size and Arrangement 209
3.11.1 Data Organization and Endianism 209
3.11.2 Data Organization and the ARM 211
3.11.3 Block Move Instructions 216
Block Moves and Stack Operations 217
Applications of Block Move Instructions 219
3.12 Consolidation—Putting Things Together 220
Four-Function Calculator Program 220
Summary 223
Problems 224

4 Instruction Set Architectures—Breadth and Depth 228

Historical Background 230

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 Contents ix

4.1 The Stack and Data Storage 231

4.1.1 Storage and the Stack 232
The Stack Frame and Local Variables 234
Example of an ARM Processor Stack Frame 237
4.1.2 Passing Parameters via the Stack 239
Pointers and C 242
Functions and Parameters 243
Pass-by-Reference 246
Using Recursion 248
4.2 Privileged Modes and Exceptions 251
4.3 MIPS: Another RISC 254
MIPS Instruction Format 255
Conditional Branches 256
4.3.1 MIPS Data Processing Instructions 257
Flow Control 258
MIPS Example 259
Other Loads and Stores 259
MIPS and the ARM Processor 259
4.4 Data Processing and Data Movement 260
4.4.1 Indivisible Exchange Instructions 263
4.4.2 Double-Precision Shifting 264
4.4.3 Pack and Unpack Instructions 265
4.4.4 Bounds Testing 266
4.4.5 Bit Field Data 268
4.4.6 Mechanizing the Loop 272
4.5 Memory Indirect Addressing 273
Using Memory Indirect Addressing to
Implement a switch Construct 277
Using Memory Indirect Addressing to
Access Records 280
4.6 Compressed Code, RISC, Thumb, and MIPS16 282
4.6.1 Thumb ISA 282
Design Decisions 283
4.6.2 MIPS16 287
4.7 Variable-Length Instructions 288
Decoding Variable-Length Instructions 292
Summary 294
Problems 294

5 Computer Architecture and Multimedia 298

5.1 Applications of High-Performance Computing 299
Computer Graphics 301
5.1.1 Operations On Images 303
Noise Filtering 303
Contrast Enhancement 303
Edge Enhancement 304
Lossy Compression 305
JPEG 305
MPEG 308
MP3 308

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x Contents

Digital Signal Processing 309

DSP Architectures 312
The SHARC Family of Digital Signal Processors 312
5.2 Multimedia Influences—Reinventing the CISC 314
Architectural Progress 315
5.3 Introduction to SIMD Processing 318
Packed Operations 319
Saturating Arithmetic 321
Packed Shifting 323
Packed Multiplication 323
Parallel Comparison 324
Packing and Unpacking 325
Coexisting with Floating-Point 326
5.3.1 Applications of SIMD Technology 328
Chroma Keying 328
Fade In and Out 330
Clipping 332
5.4 Streaming Extensions and the
Development of SIMD Technology 333
5.4.1 Floating-point Software Extensions 336
5.4.2 Intel’s Third Layer of Multimedia Extensions 338
5.4.3 Intel’s SSE3 and SSE4 Instructions 338
5.4.4 ARM Family Multimedia Instructions 340
Summary 342
Problems 343

PART III Organization and Efficiency

6 Performance—Meaning and Metrics 348
6.1 Progress and Computer Technology 351
Moore’s Law 351
Semiconductor Progress 352
Memory Progress 354
6.2 The Performance of a Computer 356
6.3 Computer Metrics 358
6.3.1 Terminology 359
Efficiency 359
Throughput 360
Latency 360
Relative Performance 360
Time and Rate 361
6.3.2 Clock Rate 361
The Clock and the Consumer 365
6.3.3 MIPS 365
Instruction Cycles and MIPS 367
6.3.4 MFLOPS 369
6.4 Amdahl’s Law 371
Examples of the Use of Amdahl’s Law 372
6.5 Benchmarks 374
LINPACK and LAPACK 374

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 Contents xi

Oracle Applications Standard Benchmark 375

PC Benchmarks 376
Comparison of High-Performance Processors 376
PCMARK7 A Commercial Benchmark for PCs 378
6.6 SPEC 382
SPEC Methodology 384
The SPEC CPU2006 Benchmarks 386
SPEC and Power 389
6.7 Averaging Metrics 391
Geometric Mean 392
Harmonic Mean 393
Weighted Means 394
Summary 394
Problems 395

7 Processor Control 398

7.1 The Generic Digital Processor 401
7.1.1 The Microprogram 404
Modifying the Processor Organization 406
7.1.2 Generating the Microoperations 410
7.2 RISC Organization 414
7.2.1 The Register-to-register Data Path 416
Load and Store operations 417
Jump and Branch Operations 418
7.2.2 Controlling the Single-cycle
Flow-through Computer 419
Execution Time 422
7.3 Introduction to Pipelining 423
7.3.1 Speedup Ratio 427
7.3.2 Implementing Pipelining 427
From PC to Operands 429
Implementing Branch and Literal Operations 430
7.3.3 Hazards 434
Delayed Branch 436
Data Hazards 437
7.4 Branches and the Branch Penalty 442
7.4.1 Branch Direction 443
7.4.2 The Effect of a Branch on
the Pipeline 444
7.4.3 The Cost of Branches 445
7.4.4 The Delayed Branch 448
7.5 Branch Prediction 451
Static and Dynamic Branch Prediction 453
7.6 Dynamic Branch Prediction 454
7.6.1 Branch Target Buffer 456
7.6.2 Two-Level Branch Prediction 459
Combining Instruction Addresses
and Branch History 463
Summary 464
Problems 465

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xii Contents

8 Beyond RISC: Superscalar, VLIW, and Itanium 472

Overview of Chapter 8 473
8.1 Superscalar Architecture 473
In-Order and Out-of-Order Execution 479
8.1.1 Instruction Level Parallelism (ILP) 482
Data Dependencies and Register Renaming 484
8.1.2 Superscalar Instruction Issue 486
Control Dependencies 488
Examples of Superscalar Processors 490
The Alpha 490
The Pentium 492
8.1.3 VLIW Processors 499
Interrupts and Superscalar Processing 502
8.2 Binary Translation 504
The IA-32 code 505
8.2.1 The Transmeta Crusoe 506
8.3 EPIC Architecture 510
8.3.1 Itanium Overview 512
IA64 Assembler Conventions 514
8.3.2 The Itanium Register Set 515
The Not a Thing Bit 517
Predicate and Branch Registers 517
Other Itanium Registers 518
8.3.3 IA64 Instruction Format 518
8.3.4 IA64 Instructions and Addressing Modes 519
Addressing Modes 523
8.3.5 Instructions, Bundles, and Breaks 524
IA64 Bundles, STOPs, and Assembly Language Notation 527
8.3.6 Itanium Organization 529
The McKinley—The Itanium 2 531
The Itanium 9300 Tukwila Processor 532
The Itanium Poulson Processor 532
Is the IA64 a VLIW Processor? 532
8.3.7 Predication 532
Compare Instructions in Detail 534
Preventing False Data Dependency in
Predicated Computing 537
Branch Syntax 538
8.3.8 Memory Access and Speculation 539
Control Speculation 540
The Advanced Load 541
8.3.9 The IA64 and Software Pipelining 543
Registers and Function Calls 548
Summary 549
Problems 549

Part IV The System

9 Cache Memory and Virtual Memory 554
Memory Hierarchy 554

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 Contents xiii

9.1 Introduction to Cache Memory 558

9.1.1 Structure of Cache Memory 560
Principle of Locality of Reference 560
9.2 Performance of Cache Memory 561
9.3 Cache Organization 565
9.3.1 Fully Associative Mapped Cache 566
Associative Memory 569
9.3.2 Direct-Mapped Cache 570
9.3.3 Set-Associative Cache 574
9.3.4 Pseudo-Associative, Victim,
Annex, and Trace Caches 579
9.4 Considerations in Cache Design 581
9.4.1 Physical versus Logical Cache 581
9.4.2 Cache Electronics 582
9.4.3 Cache Coherency 582
9.4.4 Line Size 583
9.4.5 Fetch Policy 585
9.4.6 Multi-Level Cache Memory 586
9.4.7 Instruction and Data Caches 587
9.4.8 Writing to Cache 589
9.5 Virtual Memory and Memory Management 592
9.5.1 Memory Management 592
9.5.2 Virtual Memory 595
Memory Management and Multitasking 595
Address Translation 596
Two-Level Tables 598
Summary 601
Problems 602

10 Main Memory 606

10.1 Introduction 606
10.1.1 Principles and Parameters of
Memory Systems 608
Random Access and Sequential
Access Memory 608
Volatile and Nonvolatile Memory 609
Read/Write and Read-Only Memory 609
Static and Dynamic Memory 609
Memory Parameters 610
10.1.2 Memory Hierarchy 611
10.2 Primary Memory 612
10.2.1 Static RAM 612
The Static RAM Memory System 615
The Write Cycle 617
Byte/Word Control 618
Address Decoding 620
10.2.2 Interleaved Memory 622
10.3 DRAM 623
10.3.1 DRAM Timing 627
Write-Cycle Timing 630

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xiv Contents

10.3.2 Developments in DRAM Technology 631

SDRAM 632
DDR DRAM 634
DDR2 and DDR3 DRAM 634
DDR4 636
10.4 The Read-Only Memory Family 637
10.4.1 The EPROM Family 638
The EEPROM 639
Flash Memory 639
Multi-Level Flash Technology 640
NAND and NOR Flash 641
Wear Leveling in Flash Memories 643
10.5 New and Emerging Nonvolatile Technologies 646
10.5.1 Ferroelectric Hysteresis 648
10.5.2 MRAM—Magnetoresistive Random Access Memory 651
10.5.3 Ovonic Memory 652
Summary 654
Problems 654

11 Secondary Storage 658

11.1 Magnetic Disk Drives 659
11.2 Magnetism and Data Storage 660
11.2.1 The Read/Write Head 662
The Recording Process 663
11.2.2 Limits to Magnetic Recording Density 664
11.2.3 Principles of Data Recording on Disk 666
Platter Technology 670
The GMR Head—A Giant Step in Read-Head Technology 671
Pixie Dust 672
The Optically Assisted Head 673
11.3 Data Organization on Disk 674
11.3.1 Tracks and Sectors 676
Formatting a Disk 678
Interleaving 679
11.3.2 Disk Parameters and Performance 679
Accessing Sectors 682
The Internal Disk Cache 684
Transfer Rate 684
11.3.3 SMART Technology 684
Effect of Temperature on Disk Reliability 686
11.4 Secure Memory and RAID Systems 688
RAID Level 1 689
RAID Level 2 and Level 3 690
RAID Level 4 and Level 5 691
Failure of RAID 5—An Example 692
RAID Level 6 692
11.5 Solid-State Disk Drives 693
Special Features of SSDs 695
11.6 Magnetic Tape 698

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 Contents xv

11.7 Optical Storage Technology 700

11.7.1 Digital Audio 701
11.7.2 Reading Data from a CD 702
Disk Speed 705
The Optical Read-Head 706
Focusing and Tracking 706
Buffer Underrun 707
11.7.3 Low-Level Data Encoding 708
11.7.4 Recordable Disks 711
Re-Writable CDs 711
Magneto-Optical Storage 713
11.7.5 The DVD 714
Recordable DVDs 715
11.7.6 Blu-ray 715
Summary 717
Problems 717

12 Input/Output 720
12.1 Fundamental Principles of I/O 721
Memory-Mapped Peripherals 723
12.1.1 Peripheral Register Addressing Mechanisms 725
12.1.2 Peripheral Access and Bus Width 727
Preserving Order in I/O Operations 729
Side Effects 730
12.2 Data Transfer 731
12.2.1 Open-Loop Data Transfers 731
12.2.2 Closed-Loop Data Transfers 732
12.2.3 Buffering Data 733
The FIFO 734
12.3 I/O Strategy 739
12.3.1 Programmed I/O 739
12.3.2 Interrupt-driven I/O 740
Interrupt Processing 741
Nonmaskable Interrupts 742
Prioritized Interrupts 742
Nested Interrupts 743
Vectored Interrupts 745
Interrupt Timing 746
12.3.3 Direct Memory Access 749
12.4 Performance of I/O Systems 751
12.5 The Bus 752
12.5.1 Bus Structures and Topologies 753
12.5.2 The Structure of a Bus 755
The Data Bus 756
Bus Speed 756
The Address Bus 759
The Control Bus 760
12.6 Arbitrating for the Bus 761
12.6.1 Localized Arbitration and the VMEbus 763
Releasing the Bus 766

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xvi Contents

The Arbitration Process 766

VMEbus Arbitration Algorithms 767
12.6.2 Distributed Arbitration 768
NuBus Arbitration 768
12.7 The PCI and PCIe Buses 772
12.7.1 The PCI Bus 772
Data Transactions on the PCI Bus 776
12.7.2 The PCI Express Bus 781
PCIe Data Link Layer 784
12.7.3 CardBus, the PC Card, and ExpressCard 785
CardBus Cards 787
ExpressCard Cards 788
12.8 The SCSI and SAS Interfaces 789
SCSI Signals 790
SCSI Bus Transactions 792
SCSI Messages and Commands 792
12.9 Serial Interface Buses 794
12.9.1 The Ethernet 795
12.9.2 FireWire 1394 Serial Bus 797
Serial Bus Addressing 800
The Physical Layer 800
Arbitration 803
Initialization 804
The Link Layer 804
12.9.3 USB 805
USB – The First Two Generations 805
Electrical Characteristics 806
Physical Layer Data Transmission 808
Logical Layer 809
USB 3.0 811
Summary 812
Problems 813

PART V Processor-Level Parallelism

13 Processor-Level Parallelism 820
Dimensions of Parallel Processing 822
A Brief History of Parallel Computing 823
13.1 Why Parallel Processing? 825
13.1.1 Power—The Final Frontier 826
13.2 Performance Revisited 829
Performance Measurement 831
13.3 Flynn’s Taxonomy and Multiprocessor Topologies 833
13.4 Multiprocessor Topologies 835
13.5 Memory in Multiprocessor Systems 842
13.5.1 NUMA Architectures 842
13.5.2 Cache Coherency in Multiprocessor Systems 843
The MESI Protocol 844
False Sharing 847

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 Contents xvii

13.6 Multithreading 847

13.7 Multi-core Processors 851
Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Processors 852
13.7.1 Homogeneous Multiprocessors 852
Intel Nehalem Multi-Core Processor 854
AMD Multi-Core Processors 854
ARM Cortex A9 Multi Core 856
IBM Power7 857
The GPU 858
13.7.2 Heterogeneous Multiprocessors 861
The Cell Architecture 861
13.7.3 Networks on a Chip 862
13.8 Parallel Programming 865
13.8.1 Parallel Processing and Programming 867
OpenMP 868
13.8.2 Message Passing Interface 870
13.8.3 Partitioned Global Address Space 871
13.8.4 Synchronization 872
The Spinlock 873
Summary 874
Problems 874

Bibliography 876
Index 888

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 Preface

The twenty-first century is an age of scientific and technological wonders. Computers have
proved to be everything people expected—and more. Bioengineering has unraveled the mys-
teries of the cell and enabled scientists to synthesize drugs that were inconceivable a decade
ago. Nanotechnology provides a glimpse into a world where the computer revolution is com-
bined with engineering at the atomic level to create microscopic autonomous machines that
may, one day, be injected into the body to carry out internal repairs. Ubiquitous computing
has given us cell phones, MP3 players, and digital cameras that keep us in touch with each
other via the Internet. The computer is at the core of almost all modern technologies. This
book explains how the computer works.
The discipline called computing has been taught in universities since the 1950s. In
the beginning, computing was dominated by the large mainframe, and the subject con-
sisted of a study of computers themselves, the operating systems that controlled the com-
puters, languages and their compilers, databases, and business computing. Since then,
computing has expanded exponentially and now embraces so many different areas that
it’s impossible for any university to cover computing in a comprehensive fashion. We
have to concentrate on the essential elements of computing. At the heart of this disci-
pline lies the machine itself: the computer. Of course, computing as a theoretical concept
could exist quite happily without computers. Indeed, a considerable amount of work on
the theoretical foundations of computer science was carried out in the 1930s and 1940s
before the computer revolution took place. However, the way in which computing has
progressed over the last 40 years is intimately tied up with the rise of the microprocessor.
The Internet could not have taken off in the way it has if people didn’t have access to very
low-cost computers.
Since the computer itself has had such an effect on both the growth of computing and the
path computing has taken, it’s intuitively reasonable to expect that the computing curriculum
should include a course on how computers actually work. University-level Computer Science
and Computer Engineering CS programs invariably include a course on how computers work.
Indeed, professional and course accreditation bodies specify computer architecture as a core
requirement; for example, computer architecture is central to the joint IEEE Computer
Society and ACM Computing Curriculum.
Courses dealing with the embodiment or realization of the computer are known by a
variety of names. Some call them hardware courses, some call them computer architecture
courses, and some call them computer organization courses (with all manner of combinations
in between). Throughout this text, I will use the expression computer architecture to describe
the discipline that studies the way in which computers are designed and how they operate. I
will, of course, explain why this discipline has so many different names and point out that the
computer can be viewed in different ways.
Like all areas of computer science, the field of computer architecture is advancing rap-
idly as developments take place in instruction set design, instruction level parallelism, cache
memory technology, bus systems, speculative execution, multi-core computing, and so on.
We examine all these topics in this book.
Computer architecture underpins computer science; for example, computer performance
is of greater importance today than ever before, because even those who buy personal com-
puters have to understand systems architecture in order to make the best choice.
Although most students will never design a new computer, today’s students need a much
broader overview of the computer than their predecessors. Students no longer have to be
competent assembly language programmers, but they must understand how buses, interfaces,
cache memories, and instruction set architectures determine the performance of a computer
system.
xix
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xx Preface

Moreover, students with an understanding of computer architecture are better equipped

to study other areas of computer science; for example, a knowledge of instruction set archi-
tectures gives students a valuable insight into the operation of compilers.
My motivation for writing this book springs from my experience in teaching an interme-
diate level course in computer architecture at the University of Teesside. I threw away the
conventional curriculum that I’d inherited and taught what could be best described as Great
Ideas in Computer Architecture. I used this course to teach topics that emphasized global con-
cepts in computer science that helped my students with both their operating systems and C
courses. This course was very successful, particularly in terms of student motivation.
Anyone writing a text on computer architecture must appreciate that this subject is taught
in three different departments: electrical engineering (EE), electrical and computer engineering
(ECE), and computer science (CS). These departments have their own cultures and each looks
at the computer from their own viewpoint. EE and ECE departments focus on electronics and
how the individual components of a computer operate. EE/ECE-oriented texts concentrate on
gates, interfaces, signals, and computer organization. Many students in CS departments don’t
have the requisite background in electronics, so they can’t follow texts that emphasize circuit
design. Instead, computer science departments place more stress on the relationship between
the low-level architecture of the processor and the higher-level abstractions in computer science.
Although it is near impossible to write a text optimized for use in both EE/ECE and CS
departments, Computer Organization and Architecture: Themes and Variations is an effective
compromise that provides sufficient detail at the logic and organizational levels for EE/ECE
departments without including the degree of detail that would alienate CS readers.
Undergraduate computer architecture is taught at three levels: introductory, intermedi-
ate, and advanced. Some schools teach all three levels, some compress this sequence into two
levels, and some provide only an introduction. This text is aimed at students taking first- and
second-level courses in computer architecture and at professional engineers who would like
an overview of current developments in microprocessor architecture. The only prerequisite is
that the reader should be aware of the basic principles of a high-level language such as C and
have a knowledge of basic algebra.
It is difficult to pitch a book at precisely the right level. Indeed, such an ideal level doesn’t
exist. Different students react in different ways to any specific text. If you make a book very
focused and follow a narrow curriculum, you appeal only to students on a tiny handful of
courses. Computer Organization and Architecture: Themes and Variations is well-suited to a
wide range of courses, because it covers the basics and some of the more advanced topics in
computer architecture.

Features of the Book

Why inflict yet another text on computer architecture on the world? Computer architecture is
a fascinating topic. It’s all about how you can take vast numbers of a single primitive element
such as a NAND gate and make a computer. It’s all about how common sense and technology
meet. For example, the cache memory that makes processors so fast is conceptually no more
complicated than the note on the back of an envelope. Equally, the way in which all proces-
sors operate uses a technique invented by Ford for car production: the pipeline or production
line. I have tried to make the subject interesting and have covered a greater range of topics
than absolutely necessary. For example, in this text we will look at memory devices that oper-
ate by moving an oxygen atom from one end of a crystal to the other.
The title of this text, Computer Organization and Architecture, emphasizes the struc-
ture of the complete computer system (CPU, memory, buses, and peripherals). The subtitle
Themes and Variations indicates that there is a theme (i.e., the computer system) and also
variations, for example, the different approaches to increasing the speed of a CPU or to orga-
nizing cache memory.
It is often easier to describe something in terms of what it isn’t rather than what it is.
This book is not concerned with the precise engineering details of microprocessor systems

Copyright 2012 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).
Editorial review has deemed that any suppressed content does not materially affect the overall learning experience. Cengage Learning reserves the right to remove additional content at any time if subsequent rights restrictions require it.
Another Random Scribd Document
with Unrelated Content
long time under very trying conditions; and the experience has left
him with a problem. It is not exactly claustrophobia...."
He paused, as if to let Beryl recall other remarks about Lydman.
Their general air of gravity seemed to impress her.
"I'll be ... glad to help," she said reluctantly.
"Fine!" said Smith. "Probably nothing will be necessary. Now, I think
we had better go in and tell Si, so that everyone will be alerted to
the situation."
Westervelt caught the glance that passed between Parrish and Beryl.
He was almost certain that each of them was mentally counting the
people who had known before they had been told.
That's what you get for being so busy in the dead files, he thought.
They trouped in behind Smith. Simonetta watched as if they had
been a parade. Smith, with an occasional comment from Parrish,
told her the story.
"So that is the partial reason for staying late," he concluded,
"although, of course, the case of Harris comes first."
Westervelt had wandered over to a window. He adjusted the filter
dial for maximum clarity and looked out.
From where he was, he could see a great black carpet across part of
the city, spreading out from somewhere beneath his position until it
was cut by a sharp line of street lights many blocks away. Beyond
that, the city looked normal. To the near side of the invisible
boundary and, he supposed, for a like distance in the opposite
direction behind his viewpoint, there were only sparse and faint
glows of emergency lights. Some were doubtless powered by
buildings with the equipment for the purpose, others were the lights
of police and emergency vehicles on the ground or cruising low
between the taller buildings.
I wonder what they actually do when something like this happens?
he thought. What if they think they have it fixed, turn on the juice
again, and it blows a second time?
His reverie was interrupted by the sound of Simonetta's phone. From
where he was, he could see Joe Rosenkrantz's features as the
operator asked for Smith.
"Oh, there you are, Mr. Smith," said Joe. "Pauline has been trying all
over. Trident is transmitting, and I thought you would want to be
here. They say they have a relay set up right to Harris."
Smith let out a whoop and made for the door.
"He'll be right there," Simonetta told the grinning TV man.
Parrish and Westervelt trailed along. When the latter looked back, he
saw that Simonetta had replaced Beryl; and he could hardly blame
the blonde for seizing the chance to sit down and collect her
thoughts. He felt like crawling into a hole somewhere himself.
Passing the library, Parrish cocked an eyebrow at him. Westervelt
nodded. He went in and told Lydman about the call. The ex-spacer
was interested enough to join the procession.
When Westervelt followed him into the communications room, Joe
Rosenkrantz was explaining the set-up to Smith.
"Like before, we go through Pluto, Capella VII, and an automatic
relay on an outer planet of the Trident system, but you won't see
anything of that. It's after we get Johnson that the fun begins."
He leaned back in his swivel chair before the screen and surveyed
the group.
"Johnson is gonna think to a fish near his island. This fish thinks to
one swimming near Harris. They claim Harris answers."
Smith ran both hands through his hair.
"We try anything," he said. "Let's go!"
Joe got in contact with Johnson, the Terran D.I.R. man, among other
things, on Trident. The latter was not quite successful in hiding an I-
told-you-so attitude.
"Harris himself confirms that he is being held on the ocean floor," he
said. "He seems to be a sort of pet, or curiosity."
"Can you make sense out of the messages?" asked Smith. "I mean,
is there any difficulty because of a language barrier? We don't want
to make some silly assumption and find out it was based on a
misunderstanding."
After the weird pause caused by the mind-numbing distance,
Johnson replied.
"There isn't any language barrier in a thought, but you might say
there's sometimes an attitude barrier. Usually, we can pick up an
equivalent meaning if we assume, for instance, that our time sense
is similar to that of these fish."
"Well, try asking Harris how deep he is," suggested Smith.
They watched Johnson look away, although the man did not seem to
be going through any marked effort of concentration. Hardly thirty
seconds of this had elapsed when they saw him scowl.
"This fish off my beach can't get it through his massive intellect that
he can't think directly to another fish at your position. He thinks you
must be pretty queer not to have someone to do your thinking for
you."
Smith turned a little red. Westervelt admired Joe Rosenkrantz's
pokerface. Johnson appeared to be insisting.
"Harris says he is two minutes' swim under the surface," he
reported.
"Well, how far from your position, then?" asked Smith.
The distance turned out to be a day-and-a-half swim.
"Does he need anything? Are they keeping him under livable
conditions?"
The pause, and Johnson relayed, "They pump him air and feed him.
He needs someone to get him out."
"How can we find him?" asked Smith. "Can he work up any way of
signaling us?"
"You are signaling him now, he says. He wants you to get him out."
Smith looked around him for questions. Lydman suggested asking
how Harris was confined. Smith put it to Johnson, and after the
maddening pause, got an answer.
"He says he's in a big glass box like a freight trailer. It's like a cage.
Inside, he is free to move around, and he wants to get out."
"Then have him tell us where it is!" snapped Smith.
"He doesn't know," came the reply. "They move about every so
often."
"What did I say?" whispered Parrish. "Nomadic."
No one took the time to congratulate him because Smith was asking
what the Tridentians were like. Johnson's mental connection seemed
to develop static. They saw him shake his head as if to clear it. He
turned a puzzled expression to the screen.
"I didn't get that very plainly," he admitted. "A sort of combination of
thoughts—they feed him and they don't taste good."
"Well, tell your fishy friend to keep his own opinions out of it," said
Smith, surprising Westervelt, who had not quite caught up to the
situation.
Johnson, a moment later, grimaced. His expression became
apologetic.
"Don't say things like that!" he told Smith, turning again to the
screen. "It slipped through my mind as I heard you, and he didn't
like it!"
"Who? Harris?"
"No, the fish at his end. I apologized for you."
There was a general restless shifting of feet in the Terran office.
Smith seemed, in the dim lighting of the communications room, to
flush a deeper shade.
"And what does Harris say?"
Johnson inquired. Harris requested that they get him out.
"Goddammit!" muttered Smith. "He must be punchy!"
"It happens," Lydman reminded him softly.
"Yes," said Smith, after a startled look around, "but some were like
that to begin with, and his record suggests it all the way."
He asked Johnson to get a description of the place where Harris
found himself. The answer was, in a fashion, conclusive.
"Like any other part of the sea bottom," reported Johnson. "And,
furthermore, he's tired of thinking and wants to rest."
"Who does?" demanded Smith.
"They won't tell me," said Johnson, sadly.
Smith choked off a curse, noticing Simonetta standing there. He
combed his hair furiously with both hands. No one suggested any
other questions, so he thanked Johnson and told Joe to break off.
"At least, we know it's all real," he sighed. "He was actually taken,
and he's still alive."
"You put a lot of faith in a couple of fish," said Lydman.
Smith hesitated.
"Well ... now ... they aren't really fish," he said. "Let's not build up a
mental misconception, just because we've been kidding about
'swishy the thinking fishy.' Actually, they probably wouldn't even
suggest fish to an ichthyologist, and they may be a pretty high form
of life."
"They may be as high as this Harris," commented Parrish, and
earned a cold stare from Lydman.
"I think I'll look around the lab," said the latter, as the others made
motions toward breaking up the gathering.
Westervelt promptly headed for the door. He saw that Lydman was
walking around the corner of the wire mesh partition that enclosed
the special apparatus of the communications room, doubtless bent
upon taking a short-cut into the lab.
I want to go sit down a while before they pin me on him again,
thought the youth. I need fifteen minutes, then I'll relieve whoever
has him, if Smitty wants me to.
 TWELVE
The light, impotent after penetrating fifty fathoms of Tridentian sea,
was murky and green-tinted; but Tom Harris had become more or
less used to that. It rankled, nevertheless, that the sea-people
continued to ignore his demands for a lamp.
He knew that they used such devices. Through the clear walls of his
tank, he had seen night parties swimming out to hunt small varieties
of fish. The water craft they piloted on longer trips and up to the
surface were also equipped with lights powered by some sort of
battery. It infuriated Harris to be forced arbitrarily to exist isolated in
the dimness of the ocean bottom day or the complete blackness of
night.
He rose from the spot where he had been squatting on his heels. So
smooth was the glassy footing that he slipped and almost fell
headlong. He regained his balance and looked about.
The tank was about ten by ten feet and twice as long, with metal
angles which he assumed to be aluminum securing all edges. These
formed the outer corners, so that he could see the gaskets inside
them that made the tank water-tight. The sea-people, he had to
admit, were quite capable of coping with their environment and
understanding his.
The end of the tank distant from Harris was opaque. He thought that
there were connections to a towing vehicle as well as to the plant
that pumped air for him. The big fish had not made that quite clear
to him. All other sides of the tank were quite clear. Whenever he
walked about, he could look through the floor and find groups of
shells and other remnants of deceased marine life in the white sand.
Occasionally, he considered the pressure that would implode upon
him should anything happen to rupture the walls, but he had
become habitually successful in forcing that idea to the back of his
mind.
Along each of the side walls were four little airlocks. The use of
these was at the moment being demonstrated by one of the sea-
people to what Harris was beginning to think of as a child.
The parent was slightly smaller than Harris, who stood five-feet-five
and weighed a hundred and thirty pounds Terran. It also had four
limbs, but that was about the last point they had in common. The
Tridentian's limbs all joined his armored body near the head. Two of
them ended in powerful pincers; the others forked into several
delicate tentacles. The body was somewhat flexible despite the
weight of rugged shell segments, and tapered to a spread tail upon
which the crustacean balanced himself easily.
Harris felt at a distinct disadvantage in the vision department: each
of the Tridentians had four eyes protruding from his chitinous head.
The adult had grown one pair of eye-stalks to a length of nearly a
foot. The second pair, like both of the youngster's, extended only a
few inches.
The Terran could not be sure whether the undersea currency
consisted of metal or shell, but the Tridentian deposited some sort of
coin in a slot machine outside one of the little airlocks. It caused a
grinding noise. Directly afterward, a small lump of compressed fish,
boned, was ejected from an opening on the inside.
"Goddam' blue lobsters!" swore Harris. "Think they're doing me a
favor!"
He let them wait a good five minutes before he decided that the
prudent course was to accept the offering. Sneering, he walked over
and picked up the food. There was usually little else provided. On
days he had been too angry or too disgusted to accept the favors of
sightseers, his keepers assumed that he was not hungry.
In the beginning, he had also had a most difficult time getting
through to them his need for fresh water. That was when he had
come to believe in the large, fish-like swimmer who had transmitted
his thoughts to the sea-people. The fact that the latter could and did
produce fresh water for him aroused his grudging respect, even
though the taste was nothing to take lightly.
He juggled the lump of fish in one hand, causing the little Tridentian
to twirl his eye-stalks in glee and swim up off the ocean bottom to
look down through the top of the tank. The parent also wiggled his
eye-stalks, more sedately. Harris suspected them of laughing, and
turned his back.
Looking through the other side of his tank, he could see—to such
distance as the murky light permitted—the parked vehicles of the
Tridentians. Like a collection of small boats, they were of sundry
sizes and shapes, depending perhaps upon each owner's fancy,
perhaps on his skill. Harris did not know whether the Tridentians'
craftsmanship extended to the level of having professional builders.
At any rate, they were spread out like a small city. Among them
were tent-like arrangements of nets to keep out swimming vermin.
Other than that, the sea-people used no shelters.
They were smart enough to build a cage for me! he thought bitterly.
What the hell is the matter with the Terran government, anyway?
That Department of Interstellar Relations, or whatever they call it.
Why can't they get me out of here? And where did Big Fish go now?
He saw several of the crustacean people approaching from the
camping area. Shortly, no doubt, he would again be a center of mass
attention, with cubes of compressed and stinking fish shooting at
him from all the little airlocks. He snarled wordlessly.
The groups seemed to come at certain periods which he had been
unable to define. He could only guess that they had choice times for
hunting besides other work that had to be done to maintain the
campsite and their jet-propelled craft.
I'd like to get one of them in here and boil him! thought Harris. Big
Fish claims they don't taste good. I wonder. Anyway, it would shake
them up!
He had long since given up thinking about what the sea-people
could do to him if they chose. Their flushing the tank eighteen
inches deep with sea water twice a day had soon given him an idea,
especially as he had nowhere to go during the process. He no longer
permitted himself to fall asleep anywhere near the inlet pipe.
He noticed that the dozen or so sightseers were edging around the
end of the tank to join the first individual and his offspring. Looking
up, Harris saw the reason. A long, dark shadow was curving down in
an insolently deliberate dive. It was streamlined as a Terran shark
and as long as the tank in which Harris lived. The flat line of its
leading edge split into something very like a yawn, displaying
astonishing upper and lower carpets of conical teeth. This was
possible because the eyes, about eight Harris thought, were spaced
in a ring about the head end of the long body.
They know I don't like to eat them, but I like to scare them a little.
Big Fish thought to Harris. Look at them trying to smile at me!
Harris watched the Tridentians wiggling and waving their eye-stalks
as the monster passed lazily over them and turned to come slowly
back.
"I'd like to scare them a lot," said Harris, who had learned some
time ago that he got through better just by forgetting telepathy and
verbalizing. "Is the D.I.R. man still there?"
Which ... what you thought? inquired Big Fish.
"The other Terran, the one on the island."
The other air-breathing one is gone, the other Big Fish is feeding, as
I have done just now, and it is not clear about the far Terran who
lacks a Big Fish.
"All the bastards on both worlds are out to lunch," growled Harris,
"and here I sit!"
You are in to lunch, agreed the monster.
The three eyes that bore upon the imprisoned man as the thinker
swept past the tank had an intelligent alertness. Harris had come to
imagine that he could detect expressions on Big Fish's limited
features.
"You're the only friend I've got!" he exclaimed, slipping suddenly into
self-pity. "I wish I could go with you."
Once you could, when you had your own tank.
"It was what we call a submarine," said Harris. "I was looking to see
what was on the ocean floor. Tell me, is it all like this?"
Is it all like what? With blue lobsters?
Harris still retained enough sanity to realize that the Tridentians did
not suggest Terran lobsters to this being who probably could not
even imagine them. That was an automatic translation of thought
furnished out of his own memory and name-calling.
"No," he said. "I mean is it all sand and mud with a few chasms here
and there? Where do these crabs get their metals?"
There are different kinds of holes and hills. It is all mostly the same.
You cannot swim in it anywhere, although there are little things that
dig under the soft sand. Some of them are good to eat but you have
to spit out a lot of sand. The crabs dig with machines sometimes, in
big holes, but what they catch I do not know.
"Isn't there anything that catches them?" asked Harris bitterly.
No. They are big enough to catch other things, except a few. Things
that are bigger than I am are not smart.
The monster made a pass along the ocean bed near the Tridentians,
stirring up a cloud of sand and causing Harris's captor to shrink
against the side of his tank. The Terran laughed heartily. He clapped
the backs of his fists against his forehead above the eyes and
wiggled his forefingers at the Tridentians on the other side of the
clear barrier.
Even after the sand had settled, he ran back and forth along the side
of his tank, making sure that every sightseer had opportunity to note
his gesture. He had an idea that they did not like it much.
They do not like it at all, thought Big Fish. Some of them are asking
for the man who lets the sea into your tank.
"Don't call it a man!" objected Harris, giving up his posturing. "I am
a man."
What else can I call these men except men? asked the other. I do
not understand why you want to be called a man. You are different.
"Forget it," said Harris. "It was just a figure of thought."
He felt like sitting down again, but decided against it in case the
onlookers should succeed in obtaining the services of the tank
attendant. He walked to the end of the tank, where he could stare
into the greenish distance without looking at the Tridentian camp.
"I wish I were dead," he muttered. "They'll never get me out of
here."
Behind him, he heard the plop-plop of food tidbits landing on the
floor of the tank as the onlookers sought to regain his attention.
They must have come out of their moment of pique if they were
trying to coax him to amuse them further.
"If I could find a bone in those hunks of fish, I'd kill myself," said
Harris.
The dark shape of Big Fish settled over the tank, cutting off what
little light there was like a cloud. Harris looked up resentfully.
I do not understand you, thought the monster. That would be very
foolish.
"What—trying to commit suicide with a fish bone?"
No matter how, it would be extremely foolish, for then you would be
dead.
Harris could not think of anything to say. He could not even think of
anything to think, obviously, since none of his chaotic, half-formed
thoughts brought a response.
It would be as if you had been eaten, insisted his friend.
"All right, all right! I won't do it then, if that'll make you happy,"
exclaimed Harris.
It has no effect on how well I feed, Big Fish informed him.
It took Harris a minute, but he figured it out.
"So that's your philosophy!" he muttered to himself. "Now I know
what it takes to make you happy. Something to eat!"
Where? inquired the monster. I do not see anyone I want to eat.
"Never mind!" said Harris. "Tell me more about the ocean bottom.
Where there are big holes or cliffs, can you see ... uh ... stripes in
the sides, layers of rock?"
Sometimes. Where it is deep enough. Other places there are things
growing to the bottom. Only little fish that are not even good to eat
do their feeding there. Sometimes the sea-people take away the
growing things or dig holes.
"I'll bet there are plenty of things to get out of this ocean," mused
Harris. "Who knows how the climate may have changed in
thousands of years. Maybe if there was an ice age the seas would
have shrunk. Maybe there was a volcanic age. Maybe you could drill
underwater and find oil—if you knew where to look. Maybe there are
deposits of diamonds under the ooze."
He stopped when he sensed a vague irritation. He realized that his
thoughts had been going out and scoring the cleanest of misses.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "Just tell me what you do know about
the sea."
I can tell you where to find tribes of the sea-people. I can tell you
where to find all sorts of good eating-fish. I know where to think to
other Big Fish but that I cannot tell you, for you cannot feel it.
The monster rose slowly through the water. He had seen something
up there that interested him, Harris knew, and would return when it
occurred to him.
He considered the possibilities. Perhaps there was something in the
idea of building up a food industry. If you had inside tips on where
the fish were, how could you miss? Then, the Tridentians must have
some knowledge of where to find metals, since they used them. He
suspected that they had factories somewhere.
"Come to think of it," he asked himself, "how do I know it isn't some
savage tribe that picked me up? One of these days, I may wind up
with a more advanced bunch. I'll have to ask Big Fish when he
comes back."
He began to plan what he would do if he reached some higher
civilization under the sea. Anyone with the knowledge to mine
metals, or maybe to extract them from sea water, would be
interested in contacting Terrans from another world. There would be
a little trouble, probably, in getting them to comprehend space, but
some of them could be sent up to the surface in tanks. Then there
would be a need for some Terran who knew both worlds.
"I could wind up an ambassador!" Harris told himself. "I wonder ...
maybe I could even work it with this bunch. If I could only get out of
here! Come back in another submarine, maybe."
He began to pace the length of his tank and back, stopping once to
gather up the fish that had been bought for him by some of the
crowd outside. He noted that the latter was constantly changing
without varying much in total number. He took to walking around the
sides of the tank, staring into each set of eyes.
In the end, this had such a hypnotic effect that he imagined himself
swimming through the dim, greenish light. The sea-people outside
began to appear as individuals. He grew into the feeling that he
could recognize one from the other.
He found himself running for the corner where he had collected his
fish. The sound that had triggered the reaction originated at the
opaque end of the tank. It was followed within seconds by several
jets of water, white and forceful, which entered near the floor of the
structure.
Harris snatched up his supply of food to keep it from being washed
away. With one hand, he tried to roll up the legs of his pants. He
never seemed to be prepared when the time came, but he was
constantly too chilled to go around with the trousers rolled up all the
time.
The water swished about the calves of his legs. After a few minutes,
it began to recede as the Tridentian machinery pumped it out. Soon,
the tank was clean of everything but Harris, his fish, and the thick
smell of sea water.
He was good, came a thought. I see you are eating too.
A large shadow passed overhead. Most of the Tridentians wiggled
their eye-stalks in an effort to look amiable. Harris dropped his fish
to the damp floor.
"No, I'm not eating," he said. "I'm all wet."
So am I, answered Big Fish.
"But I'm not usually," said Harris.
I know. It is unkind, they way they let you dry out. Would you like
me to knock in the end of the tank? You could have all the water you
want.
"Not right now," said Harris calmly. He sat down, crossing his legs.
"I'll have to grow some gills first. It may not take much longer, at
that."
He looked at the Tridentians, who looked in at him. Again, he felt the
sensation of being able to recognize individuals. Perhaps he should
talk to them more often through Big Fish.
"Maybe some of them are really nice fellows," he muttered, "if I just
get to know them better."
No, his friend told him, they are not very good to eat.
 THIRTEEN
Time had dragged its slow way past six-thirty. The excuse of a flying
start on the Harris case had worn thin to the point of delicacy—to all
but one man. The rest of them hoped sincerely that he was keeping
himself interested.
Westervelt sat at his desk, perusing an article in Spaceman's World
about the exploration of a newly discovered planetary system. It
might come up in a conference someday, he reflected, and it might
be as well to know a few facts on the subject. No life had been
discovered on any of the dozen planets, but that did not necessarily
preclude the establishment of a Terran colony in the future. The
department also had problems with colonies, as witness
Greenhaven.
He put down the magazine for a moment to review the personnel
situation.
Parrish, he remembered, had expressed his intention of retreating to
his office and putting in an hour or two of desk-heeling. Under the
circumstances, he had declared, there was little point in digging
further into the files for an idea since that was not at all their
primary purpose in staying late. Rosenkrantz, of course, was on
watch in the communications room. Smith wandered in and out.
Simonetta had taken a portable taper down to Lydman's office to
help organize a preliminary report the chief had requested from him.
After she had returned, and fallen to low-voiced gossip through the
window with Pauline, Beryl had been sent back with a number of
scribbled objections for Lydman to answer.
Smith had spent all of five minutes thinking them up—before
Simonetta brought the original report. Westervelt wondered how
soon Beryl would return with the answers, because it would then
probably be his turn to ride herd.
He did not regard the idea with relish.
Smith strolled out of his office. He halted to survey the nearly empty
office with an air of vague surprise, then saw Simonetta outside
Pauline's cubicle. He went over to join the conversation.
I should have walked out somewhere, thought Westervelt. Now the
door is completely blockaded.
The magazine article turned dull immediately.
Sure enough, in a few minutes Smith approached Westervelt's
corner.
"Who's on watch, Willie?" he asked, attempting a jovial wink.
"Beryl, I think," answered the youth. "Must be—she hasn't been
around."
"She's been there quite a while," commented Smith. "I have a
feeling that it's time for a shift. How about wandering down there
and edging in?"
"What would I say?" objected Westervelt. "He's probably dictating
his remarks and wouldn't like me hanging around."
Smith chewed on his lower lip.
"For the questions I sent him," he muttered thoughtfully, "five
minutes should have been enough. Goldilocks has been with him
over half an hour."
"But he must be tired of my face," said Westervelt.
"I don't have anyone else to send, unless you want me to think up
an excuse for Pauline. Asking him to help with her homework would
be pretty thin."
Westervelt thought it over. Parrish, in his present mood, was not
likely to be of any help. Simonetta had just done her stint, and Joe
was needed on the space set. It would have been nice if there were
a message for Lydman to listen to, but that was wishful dreaming.
"All right, Mr. Smith," he surrendered. "Maybe I can take along this
article and ask if he's seen it yet. If he's taking an inventory or trying
out something in the lab, I'll take my life in my hands and volunteer
to help!"
Smith laughed.
"It can't be that bad, Willie," he said, slapping the other on the
shoulder.
Westervelt was not so sure, but he folded the magazine open to the
beginning of his article and went out. Pauline peered at him as he
passed.
"Don't look like that!" he said. "You'll see me again, I hope!"
"You might try looking a little more confident of that yourself,"
Simonetta called after him.
Westervelt turned the corner and walked slowly down the hall, trying
out more confident expressions as he went. None of them felt
exactly right.
Passing the spare office where the dead files were kept, he heard a
sound.
They must have come up here for something, he thought. That's
why it seemed so long to Smitty.
He had opened the door and taken one step inside before he
realized that the room was dark. Without thinking, he reached out to
flip the light switch.
Beryl Austin leaped to her feet with a flash of thigh that hardly
registered on Westervelt in the split-second of his astonishment.
Then he saw that she had not been alone on the settee that stood
beside the door. Parrish rose beside her.
The suddenness of their movements and the ferocity of their
combined stares had the impact of a stunning blow upon Westervelt.
The implications of the blonde's slightly disheveled appearance,
however, were obvious.
He could not, for a moment, think at all. Then he began to have a
feeling that he ought to say something to cover his escape. Beneath
that, somewhere, surged the conviction that he had nothing to
apologize for. In the face of such hostility and tension, it called for a
lot of courage.
"You little sneak!" spat Beryl.
Westervelt noted with a certain detachment that her voice had
turned shrill. Not knowing of anything else to do, he stared as she
tugged her dress into place. This seemed to outrage her more than
anything he could have said. He also saw the gleam of Parrish's
teeth, and the grimace was not even remotely a smile. The man
took a step to place himself before Beryl.
"What do you think you're doing?" demanded Parrish, with a good
deal more feeling than originality.
Westervelt had been wondering what to say to that when it came, as
was inevitable. A dozen half-expressed answers flitted through his
mind.
How do you get out of a thing like this? he asked himself
desperately. You'd think it was me that did it!
Before he could explore the implications of his choosing the words
"did it," Beryl found her voice again.
"Get out of here!" she shrilled. "Who told you to come poking in?"
"I heard a noise," said Westervelt, conscious that his voice sounded
odd. "I thought it was Mr. Lydman."
"Do I look like Lydman?" demanded Parrish, not raising his voice as
much as Beryl had. "There wasn't any light, was there? Did you think
he'd be sitting in here in the dark?"
The possibility charged the atmosphere like static electricity. Actually,
mere mention of it made Westervelt feel better because it sounded
so much like what he might have found.
"How did I know?" he retorted. "I thought Beryl was with him. Why
should I expect you? You said you weren't going to dig any further in
here."
Beryl had been smoothing her still-perfect coiffure. Now she
stiffened as much as Parrish. Westervelt sensed that his choice of
words might have been unfortunate.
"Well, who is with him?" he demanded, before they could say
anything.
The question galvanized Parrish into action. He stepped forward to
meet Westervelt face to face.
"If you're so worried about that, why don't you go find him?" he
sneered. "For my money, you two make a good match."
"Maybe I will," said Westervelt hotly. "You two don't seem to care
about what's going on. If you'll just excuse me, I'll turn out the light
and—"
"Oh, cut out the speech-making!" requested Beryl. "Get out of the
door, Willie, and let me out of here. I'm tired of the whole incident."
"Now, wait a minute, Beryl!" protested Parrish.
"Yeah," said Westervelt, "you'd better check. Your lipstick is really
smudged this time."
"Shut up, you!" Parrish snapped.
He took Beryl by the shoulders and pulled her back. She pulled
herself free peevishly. Westervelt leaned against the wall and curled
a lip.
"Enough is enough!" she said. "Let me out of here!"
"You forgot to smile," Westervelt told Parrish.
The man turned on him and reached out to seize a handful of his
shirtfront. Westervelt straightened up, alarmed but willing to
consider changing the smooth mask of Parrish's face. Beryl was
shrilling something about not being damned fools, when she stopped
in the middle of a word.
Parrish also grew still. The forearm Westervelt had crossed over the
hand grabbing at his shirt fell as Parrish let him go. The man was
staring over Westervelt's shoulder. He looked almost frightened.
Westervelt looked around—and a thrill shot through him, like the
shock of diving into icy water.
Lydman was standing there, staring through him.
When he looked again, as he shrank instinctively away from the
doorway, he realized that the ex-spacer was staring through all of
them. After a moment, he seemed to focus on Beryl.
"They'll let you out, I think," he said in his quiet voice.
Parrish stepped back nervously, and Westervelt edged further inside
the doorway to make room. Beryl did not seem to have heard. She
gaped, hypnotized by the beautiful eyes set in the strong, tanned
face.
Lydman put the palm of one hand against Westervelt's chest and
shoved slowly. It was as well that the file cabinet behind the youth
was nearly empty, because it slid a foot along the floor as his back
flattened against it. Lydman reached out his other hand and took
Beryl gently by the elbow.
She stepped forward, turning her head from side to side as if to seek
reassurance from either Parrish or Westervelt, but without
completely meeting their eyes. Lydman led her into the hall and
released her elbow.
She started uncertainly up the corridor toward the main office.
Lydman fell in a pace or two behind her.
Westervelt heard a gasp. He looked at Parrish and realized that he
had been holding his breath too. Then, by mutual consent, they
followed the others out into the hall.
"Listen, Willie," whispered Parrish, watching the twenty-foot gap
between them and Lydman's broad shoulders, "we have to see that
she doesn't forget and try to leave. If he won't let me talk to her,
you'll have to get her attention."
"Okay, I'll try," murmured Westervelt. "Look—I was really looking for
him I never meant to—"
"I never meant to either," said Parrish. "Forget it!"
"It was none of my business. I should have shut up and left. Tell her
I'm sorry when you get a chance; she'll probably never speak to me
again."
He wondered if he could get Smith's permission to move his desk.
On second thought, he wondered if he would come out of this with a
desk to move.
"Sure she will," said Parrish. "She's really just a good-natured kid. It
wasn't anything serious. You startled us, that was all."
Beryl and Lydman turned the corner, leaving the two followers free
to increase their pace. They rounded the corner themselves in time
to see Lydman going through the double doors.
"It was too bad he came along when she was yelling to be let out,"
said Parrish. "He didn't understand."
"You mean he actually thought we were trying to keep her there
against her will?" asked Westervelt.
"Well, we were, I suppose, or at least I was. He doesn't seem to
think any further than that in such situations. If someone is being
held against his will, that's enough for Bob. Did you know Smitty had
to post a bond for him?"
"A bond!" repeated Westervelt. "What for?"
"They caught him a couple of times, trying out his new gadgets
around the city jail. I'll tell you about it sometime."
Parrish fell silent as they reached the entrance to the main office.
Beryl had gratefully stopped to speak to the first person in sight,
which happened to be Pauline. As Parrish and Westervelt arrived,
she was offering to take over the switchboard for twenty minutes or
so.
"Oh, I didn't mean you had to drop everything," Pauline was
protesting. "I just meant ... when you get the chance...."
She eyed Lydman curiously, then looked to the late arrivals. The silly
thought that Joe Rosenkrantz must feel awfully lonely crossed
Westervelt's mind, and he had to fight down a giggle.
"You really should get out of there for a while," advised Lydman,
studying the size of Pauline's cubbyhole. "Sit outside a quarter of an
hour at least, and let your mind spread out."
"Well, if it's really all right with you, Beryl?"
"I'm only too glad to help," said Beryl rapidly.
She wasted no time in rounding the corner to get at the door.
Westervelt closed his eyes. He found it easy to envision Pauline
tangling with her on the way out and causing Lydman to start all
over again.
The girls managed without any such catastrophe. Pauline headed for
the swivel chair behind the unused secretarial desk.
"You ought to leave that door open," Lydman called to Beryl. "If it
should stick, there's hardly any air in there. You'd feel awfully
cramped in no time."
"Thank you," said Beryl politely.
She left the door open, sat down, and picked up Pauline's headset.
From the set of her shoulders, it did not seem that much light
conversation would be forthcoming from that quarter.
Westervelt stepped further into the office, and saw that Smith was
standing in his own doorway, rubbing his large nose thoughtfully.
The youth guessed that Simonetta had signalled him.
Parrish cleared his throat with a little cough.
"Well," he said, "I'll be in my office if anyone wants me."
Rather than pass too close to Lydman, he retreated into the hall to
use the outside entrance to his office. The ex-spacer paid no
attention.
Westervelt decided that he would be damned if he would go through
Parrish's office and back into this one to get at his desk. He walked
around the projection of the switchboard cubicle and sat down with
a sigh at his own place. He leaned back and looked about, to
discover that Lydman had gone over to say a few words to Smith.
Pauline glanced curiously from Westervelt to the two men, then
began to shop among a shelf of magazines beside the desk of the
vacationing secretary.
After a few minutes, Lydman turned and went out the door.
Westervelt tried to listen for footsteps, but the resilient flooring
prevented him from guessing which way the ex-spacer had gone.
He saw Smith approaching, and went to meet him.
"I've changed my mind," said the chief. "For a little bit, anyway, we'll
leave him alone. He said he was sketching up some gizmo he wants
to have built, and needed peace and quiet."
"Did he say we ... were talking too loud?" asked Westervelt, looking
at the doorway rather than meet Smith's eye.
"No, that was all he said," answered Smith.
There was a questioning undertone in his voice, but Westervelt
chose not to hear it. After a short wait, Smith asked Simonetta to
bring her taper into his office. He mentioned that he hoped to phone
for some technical information. Westervelt watched them leave, then
sank down on the corner of the desk at which Pauline was relaxing.
Beryl turned around in her chair.
"Pssst! Pauline!" she whispered. "Is he gone?"
"They all left—except Willie," the girl told her.
Beryl shut the door promptly. The pair left in the office heard her
turn the lock with a brisk snap.
"What's the matter with her?" murmured Pauline.
"Nothing," said Westervelt glumly. "Why don't you take a nap, or
something?"
"I'd like to," said Pauline. "It's going on seven o'clock and who
knows when we'll get out of here?"
"Shut up!" said Westervelt. "I mean ... uh ... don't bring us bad luck
by talking about it. Take a nap and let me think!"
"All you big thinkers!" jeered Pauline. "What I'd really like to do is go
down to the ladies' room and take a shower, but you always kid me
about Mr. Parrish maybe coming in with fresh towels for the
machine."
"I lied to you, Pauline," said Westervelt. "The charwoman brings
them."
"Well, I could always hope," giggled Pauline.
"Not tonight," said Westervelt "Believe me, kid, you're safer than
you'll ever be!"
 FOURTEEN
Pauline came back in a quarter of an hour, her youthfully translucent
skin glowing and her ash-blonde curls rearranged. She glanced
through the window at Beryl, who was nervously punching a number
for an outside call.
"What's going on?" she asked Westervelt, who sat with his heels on
the center desk.
"Mr. Smith is calling a couple of engineers he knows," Simonetta told
her.
Westervelt had just heard it, when Simonetta had emerged with a
tape to transcribe. He had started to mention that it might be better
to phone a psychiatrist, but had bitten back the remark.
For all I know, he reflected, they might take me away! Everything I
remember about today can't really have happened. If it did, I wish it
hadn't!
He recalled that he had been phoned at home to hop a jet for
London that morning. He had found the laboratory which had made
the model of the light Smith was interested in, and been on his way
back without time for lunch. Now that the jets were so fast, meals
were no longer served on them, and he had had to grab a sandwich
upon returning. Then there had been those poor fried eggs. That
was all—no wonder he was feeling hungry again!
I should have missed the return jet, he thought bitterly. I didn't
know where I was well off! Why did I have to walk in there? I might
have had the sense to go look in Bob's office first.
He decided that Pauline, now chatting with Simonetta, looked
refreshed and relaxed. Perhaps he ought to do the same.
The idea, upon reflection, continued to appear attractive. Westervelt
rose and walked out past the switchboard. Beryl was too busy to see
him. He made his way quietly to the rest room, which he found
empty. He was rather relieved to have avoided everyone.
At one side of the room was a door leading to a shower. The
appointments of Department 99 were at least as complete as those
of any modern business office of the day. Westervelt stepped into a
tiny anteroom furnished with a skimpy stool, several hooks on the
wall, and a built-in towel supplier.
Prudently, he set the temperature for a hot shower on the dial
outside the shower compartment, and punched the button that
turned on the water.
Just in case all the trouble has affected the hot water supply, he
thought.
As he undressed, he was reassured by the sight of steam inside the
stall. Another thought struck him. He locked the outer door. He did
not care for the possibility of having Lydman imagine that he was
trapped in here. It would be just his luck to be "assisted" out into
the corridor, naked and dripping, at the precise moment it was full of
staff members on their way to the laboratory.
He slid back the partly opaqued plastic doors and stepped with a
sigh of pleasure under the hot stream. Ten minutes of it relaxed him
to the point of feeling almost at peace with the world once more.
"I ought to finish with a minute or two of cold," he told himself, "but
to hell with it! I'll set the air on cool later."
He pushed the waterproof button on the inside of the stall to turn off
the water, opened the narrow doors, and reached out to the towel
dispenser. The towel he got was fluffy and large, though made of
paper. He blotted himself off well before turning on the air jets in the
stall to complete the drying process.
Having dressed and disposed of the towel through a slot in the wall,
he glanced about to see if he had forgotten anything. The shower
stall had automatically aired itself, sucking all moisture into the air-
conditioning system; and looked as untouched as it had at his
entrance.
Westervelt strolled out into the rest room proper, thankful that the
lock on the anteroom door had not chosen that moment to stick. He
stretched and yawned comfortably. Then he caught sight of his
tousled, air-blown hair in a mirror. He fished in his pocket for coins
and bought another hard paper comb and a small vial of hair
dressing from dispensers mounted on the wall. He took his time
spraying the vaguely perfumed mist over his dark hair and combing
it neatly.
That task attended to, he stole a few seconds to study the reflection
of his face. It was rather more square about the jaw than Smith's,
he thought, but he had to admit that the nose was prominent
enough to challenge the chief's. No one had thought to equip the
washroom with adjustable mirrors, so he gave up twisting his neck
in an effort to see his profile.
"Well, that's a lot better!" he said, with considerable satisfaction.
"Now if I can hook another coffee out of the locker, it will be like
starting a new day. Gosh, I hope it's a better one, too!"
He walked lightly along the corridor to the main office, exaggerating
the slight resilience of the floor to a definite bounce in his step.
Outside the office, he met Beryl coming out. He felt himself come
down on his heels immediately.
Beryl eyed him enigmatically, glanced over his shoulder to check that
he was alone, and swung away toward the opposite wing.
Westervelt hurried after her.
"Look, Beryl!" he called. "I wanted to say ... that is ... about before
—"
Beryl turned the corner and kept walking.
"Wait just a second!" said Westervelt.
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