by Guy Haley
BL [nervous chuckle]: Well, I don’t... You’re the scientist.
VP: The purpose of our work is not to recreate the human brain. As I said, that would be immoral. Rather, we wish to harness the versatility of organic neural networks to deliver better, more flexible machines. The parts that govern balance, vision, environmental feedback, all these things have been accomplished far better by nature than we will ever manage. Why not use them? We cannot replicate consciousness at this time, and that is not our goal.
BL: These machines of yours. You’ve called them androids, a term familiar to most of our viewers. An old term?
VP: I say, why invent a new word when a perfectly serviceable one already exists?
BL: So androids... Why choose that particular word?
VP [firm]: Because they are mimetic, although of the human mind, not necessarily of the human body; you have to allow us a little latitude. Yes, androids.
BL: Machines made with brains derived from human stem cells. Your androids. This has raised some debate in the Senates of the USA and EFU...
VP: It has, but I’ll say to you what I said to them in my depositions. These machines may be derived from human genes, but they are absolutely not human...
BL: But do they think?
VP: In a manner of... Yes, yes they do.
BL: Doesn’t that make them human, then?
VP: No, not at all. A cat thinks. Does that make it human? No. It does not. The android units we have made possess far simpler versions of our own minds. They do not think as you or I think, they do not think even as a cat or a pig does, but they do think. They are highly focused on their task – the advantage here is that they are flexible enough to be instructed in all manner of tasks – but their inner lives are a little, well, ‘cloudy’ is the word I use. They think, but they are not conscious. It is as if they have a dream of sentience, rather than sentience itself. I think much of the controversy comes from our use of human neural tissues; confusion is bound to result. If we had used the cells of an animal, then it would not be anywhere near as controversial. I admit that to some people we might look like Frankensteins, but we are not in the business of creating slaves. That is abhorrent to me.
BL: Then why use human tissues at all? Why not something else; a chimpanzee, or a pig?
VP: Simply because we have a supply, in our own researchers, that we can monitor easily and compare our constructs against. There is no need to keep animals in our laboratory. There is no need...
BL: A matter of cost then?
VP: And of ethics. Animals cannot give their consent for their tissues to be used. And human brain tissue is also far more versatile than that of other animals. But I repeat, we’re not making human beings to trap in machinery.
BL: And what applications do you see for your ‘dreaming machines’?
VP: Anything and everything. Primarily we’ve been working on creating a new control system for robotic lifeforms that can live with and around us safely and usefully. But I can see networked android brains being utilised in research institutes, they might be particularly adept at managing large, complex, reactive systems; like financial trading, say. I don’t think they’ll ever supplant inorganic computers, rather I see them as a supplement, each used for whatever purpose they are best adapted for. You want something to mindlessly analyse protein chains, use an inorganic. You need something to pick the kids up from school, you’re going to need something more flexible.
BL: Well, now. We’ve actually got one of these machines here today, haven’t we?
VP: Yes, we have. We call him DOB. Shall we bring him in now...?
– Excerpt from the 2087 interview conducted by US-Mexican media personality Barry Loan with synthetic intelligence expert Vikram Patel (popularly regarded as the moment that ushered in the modern robotic age)
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Survivors
THERE WERE SIX survivors of segment 14A, out of a total of fifty. How many of them had died on the journey and how many had died in the crash was a moot point. They were all just as dead.
There was Dariusz, close-mouthed and thoughtful, guarding his secret and concerned for his son. Doubtless they were all concerned, for sons and daughters, friends and spouses, but one’s own concerns outweigh those of others, and so Dariusz dwelt on the fate of Danieł.
There was Marina, the junior engineer, come back to herself now. Once out of shock, she changed, and set about organising the group. It was to her the others looked to resolve their disputes.
The man whom she had cradled was called Tomasz. Tomek, he preferred, even from people he had just met. A Pole, a construction specialist, he was superficially friendly, but his eyes were haunted, and that he had in common with them all. He said less the longer they were in the desert.
Bernhardt the German systems engineer, jowly, possessed of forceful voice and forceful optimism. Sandra, also of Germany, quiet and withdrawn, who initially took their being marooned worse than the others. Finally Bo, a young Dane, full of the enthusiasm of youth; to him, their predicament was an adventure, or so he displayed. Underneath he almost certainly despaired.
They were shipwrecked in a desert on a world they were not supposed to be upon, the man who had unwittingly brought this fate upon them hiding in their midst. Would they tear him limb from limb if they knew? Perhaps.
The first thing they did was to argue, quite vehemently. The main issue of contention: should they stay at the segment and await rescue, or should they strike out?
Dariusz wished to strike out immediately. To him, it was clear rescue was not going to come. “Look at the wreckage,” he said. “Look at it!” He grew animated, angry with their intransigence, angry that he was unable to tell them what he knew. “The ship has crashed. That much is clear.” The others, particularly Bernhardt, argued loudly that retrieval parties from the other parts of the fleet would come for them, that his countrymen from the Goethe would be on their way.
Dariusz could not voice his own certainty, that the Goethe was either not with them or had been destroyed, without revealing his role in the disaster. He could only frame it in terms of opinion, and they all had opinions. “We have supplies only for twenty days, maybe less,” he said. “We will need those supplies to make our way out of this desert, because if we wait, and no one comes, we will drink all our water and eat all our rations, and then we will die.”
“No!” said Bernhardt, with force. Dariusz had the measure of him. Bernhardt was a man who would say everything with force; firmly at first, expecting to be followed, furiously later if he was not. Such a man might fall prey to violent impulse. “If we depart from this point, how will they find us? The locator beacon is here. The debris trail is easy to follow. If we head north, away from the sun, then what? We will die in the sand as they search for us. Who knows how big this wasteland is?”
“There are devices aboard the deck we can carry, hardened tablets equipped with personal locators –” said Dariusz.
“They are not as powerful as the beacon in the deck segment!” said Bernhardt, growing florid. “Marina tells me the locator in there” – he pointed to the deck, which they never referred to by name; it was a place of death – “will run for decades.”
“The range is seven or eight times that of the tablets,” said Sandra. She looked to Marina for confirmation, and received a tiny nod.
Bernhardt saw this exchange. Sure that he was winning the argument, his temper retreated. Gently, or gently for Bernhardt, he said, “I am sure they will rescue your son, too. Imagine, how would you feel if they rescue him, and you are a mummy half-buried in the sand?” He gave a hoarse chuckle, a boardroom chuckle, a chuckle favoured by men in a place where there were no women, who justify the obscene salaries they earn by their own obscene sense of self-worth. It was a Pointer’s chuckle.
Dariusz thought, but did not say, that he would not feel anything, as he would be dead. “Bernhardt, look.” Dariusz pointed at the sun. “The sun has not moved at all in the sky. Ho
w long have we been here?”
“Five hours or so,” said Marina.
“A place of perpetual noon. This planet is tidally locked. It is the only explanation,” Dariusz said.
“Or it revolves very slowly,” said Tomek.
“The sun has not moved at all! And even if I am wrong and you are right, Tomek, this is still not Heracles.” Dariusz appealed to his fellow Pole, hands out. Tomek’s face twitched, and he looked at his feet.
“Then that is all the more reason to wait,” said Bernhardt. He walked away, terminating the discussion.
Unable to convince Bernhardt, who was domineering enough to bring the others into line, and caught by Marina’s half-pleading, half-commanding looks, Dariusz agreed to stay. He resolved to depart within three days; by then, it should have become clear that they were not going to be rescued. Clear even to Bernhardt. If not, he would leave on his own; they couldn’t stop him. If they would not listen to sense, so be it. He’d take his chances. They could die, and they would.
Marina kept everyone busy.
They cannibalised spare smartcloth jumpsuits for headscarves, then knotted the arms and legs of a few more suits together to form an awning, which they stretched from the side of the crashed deck to the sand banks its impact had thrown up. The deck’s interior was beginning to smell. Now the emergency power supply was exhausted, the contents warmed quickly, and the astringent smell of the pseudo-amniotics gave way to the round richness of decay. They stripped the deck of useful content the morning they awoke, and did not venture back inside.
They kept time using the clocks on their hardened tablets, bulky, primitive but robust things of limited functionality. Things useful to survival, created in anticipation of inChip network failure and proving their worth in just such a situation. Each had a short-range radio, locator, compass, and a concise native database. Crucially, the tablets also contained environmental sampling capabilities including a compact spectrography unit, toxin detectors, and radiation counter. The counter told the survivors that background radioactivity and cosmic bombardment were well within human tolerance, and this, in conjunction with a clear north/south reading on the compass, told Dariusz the planet at least had a protective magnetic field.
Every eight hours they activated the radio, called out a distress message they had agreed upon, and waited for a reply. Every eight hours they were disappointed, the unit’s speakers hissing with empty static. Once, they thought they caught the distant pulse of another beacon, but it faded, and they could not bring it back.
It was hot outside. The smartsuits and the cinnamon breeze kept them more or less comfortable, if they stayed in the shade. They spoke pleasantly enough after their initial arguments, until the heat made them lethargic. They became anxious, and their anxiety was exacerbated by their isolation from the network. Their inChips were useless. Through the tablets, they could send each other brief text messages – that was all. The interconnected nature of life on Earth, and their dependence on it, became horribly apparent. Each became an island. All of them bar Bo eventually retreated into solitude, unfamiliar as it was. Bo tried many times to initiate conversation, to find out more about the people around him, inviting them to speculate on the nature of this world. Tomek and Marina, Sandra too, responded well at first – Tomek in particular, for he found the silence in his mind the most daunting – but one by one they became irritated by interaction. The silence in the camp became leaden.
Bo grew fractious when he spoke, gabbled. He could not sit still.
When Dariusz mentioned he was going to explore the area, Bo pleaded to go along. Dariusz had of course hoped that the Dane would come with him. He was young, and strong, if also headstrong, and if two of them said they would go, the others were less likely to object. “But I’ll be looking for other deck sections,” he said. “Do you understand?”
“Your son,” said Bo. He nodded quickly, as if afraid the offer would be withdrawn. “Of course.”
Dariusz took one of the tablets from Marina. It was the tracker, keyed in to the emergency frequencies of the downed colony ship, that interested Dariusz the most. He brought this to the fore of the screen.
“Don’t be long, and do not stray too far from us,” said Marina.
“What, do you want me to say I’ll be back by nightfall?” said Dariusz.
“Don’t tease. Please. I don’t want anyone else hurt.”
“Ten kilometres, no further. We won’t stray out of radio range, and we’ll call in if we find anything.”
Marina nodded. Bernhardt shook his head, smiled as if he had all the answers, but said nothing.
After tying a supply of rehydration drinks and ration packs to makeshift bandoliers across their chests, Dariusz and Bo set out into the desert.
THE NEAREST HIBERNATION segment was silent. Half a kilometre distant, well within sight of the camp, the deck had blazed fiercely for five hours after Dariusz had first emerged. The group had not done anything about it; there was nothing they could do. Sandra and Bo had stared at it, horrified and mesmerised in equal measure, and the rest, afflicted with the guilt of survival, had looked away. Dariusz held no hope for what they would find there, and his expectations matched the reality.
A black tangle, barely recognisable. The sand was stained with soot in a wide circle around it. Partially vitrified sand crunched underfoot.
“Poor bastards,” said Bo.
“We were never likely to find anyone alive here, or any supplies,” said Dariusz.
“Maybe the hull was damaged,” said Bo. “Cracked? Re-entry would have blowtorched everything.”
“Maybe,” said Dariusz. Human fat burns hot, he thought. The amniotics were not readily flammable, but once they had caught, they too would have combusted like napalm. There was little left of the deck except its warped, woven-carbon skeleton. Supposedly fireproof, he thought. Nothing is. Anything will burn, given enough heat.
He reached his hand out to the frame and snatched his fingers back; the wreckage was still hot. He checked the tablet. Even up close, there was no signal from the segment’s beacon. It had been consumed along with everything else. It was, he told himself – and he admitted that desperation clouded his judgement – too small to be part of deck forty-six.
Bo touched his arm. “Come on,” the Dane said. “There’s nothing we can do here, and nothing we can take.”
Once they were a kilometre out from the burned deck, they picked up other signals. Dariusz looked back. He could see the burned deck segment, but not their own. It seemed that their segment was in a depression, not readily apparent from the camp itself, which might account for their difficulty in receiving transmissions. He mentioned this to Bo, who shrugged. “Maybe,” he said. Dariusz radioed back to Marina, to explain his theory and that they might soon be out of contact. She tried to convince him to come back. He refused. Marina said they’d send someone out a little way, so they could stay in touch. Dariusz said it would not be necessary.
There were two segments broadcasting their location within range of the tablet – 19B and 9A – and many cargo containers beeping out their manifests, scattered in a broad sweep. Dariusz was anxious; the trail would likely be wide, perhaps hundreds of kilometres. Who knew if the signal from Danieł’s deck would not be picked up just over the next dune? Bo spoke gently of the signals they were receiving. They agreed to head up the debris trail in a straight line and investigate the decks.
They took their time, meandering from their path now and then to inspect pieces of wreckage, their eyes constantly scanning the dun horizon for rescue or other survivors. The debris was nearly all unidentifiable: charred pieces that could have been part of anything. Occasionally they chanced upon a fragment that was recognisable, and as often as not they recoiled from it.
It was hot – hot enough to trouble the smartsuits – the shifting sand was hard to walk upon, and the gravity was taxing. Their bodies had not yet recovered from their rude awakening. Dariusz grew silent and grim. Bo ceased trying
to draw him into conversation.
Deck 19B had landed correctly, tipping on its side, deploying its landing gear and firing its brief-burst retros long enough to come down without harm. It was pristine, but empty of people and supplies, suggesting to Dariusz that at least some of the colonists aboard the Mickiewicz had woken and perhaps evacuated before the crash. This small hope, welcome though it was, did little to assuage the dragging millstone of guilt that had settled about his neck.
Deck 9A contained nothing but corpses in sarcophagi, their status panels dimly red with residual power. This they ransacked. It was one of the smallest deck halves – decks ten to zero had held only two dozen colonists each – and its supplies were commensurately modest. They took what there was, bundling it up and leaving it within the deck segment doorways to collect on their return to the camp, so they would not have to venture inside again. They rested there, out of the heat of the unmoving sun in the company of the dead, until Bo had an idea and spent some time fashioning a sled from a battered carbon sheet he dragged from the desert. They piled it high with supplies, moving them from the doorway, and left it for later.
There were no more decks singing out in range of their receiver, but they headed a little further anyway. What else was there to do?
The sun beat at them. The sand was dangerously hot; Dariusz supposed it was only of a bearable temperature because of the constant cinnamon wind turning the sand over. Sweat dripped from them. They consumed their isotonic drinks more quickly than they intended.
The Dane stopped, peering into the rippling heat haze that filled the hollows of the land with the lie of water.
“Is that another one?” Bo shaded his eyes with his hands. “I wish we had binoculars, anything.” He laughed. “I’d kill for sunglasses. Are you getting a signal?”