The Phoenix Code

by Catherine Asaro

  "How does he work today?"

  She turned with a start. Raj was standing a few paces away, leaning against the rail. He wore all black again: jeans, pullover, boots. She wondered why he chose such dark colors.

  "I'm trying to find out why his shoulder keeps twitch­ing," she said.

  BioSyn's deep voice came out of Megan's palmtop. "No errors detected in collarbone circuits."

  She spoke into the palmtop. "How about his upper arm?"

  "I ran those checks this morning," Raj said.

  "How did they go?"

  "His elbow still jerks when he throws a ball." Raj gazed down at Aris as if he were a puzzle, one that Raj wanted to heal and protect. "The microfusion reactor in his body had an anomalous power surge this week. I've been trying to track down the cause in his logs, but some of them are corrupted. I think he's overtaxing himself, try­ing to fix his physical problems by brute force."

  "I can look at the software."

  "That would be good."

  For a while they watched the robot arm running diag­nostics on Aris. Then Raj said, "We should give him a name."

  "He has a name. Aris Fore."

  "That's his serial number." Raj crossed his arms, his muscles ridging under his pullover. "We should let him pick his own name instead of making him carry Hastin's brand."

  "What do you suggest?"

  He paused, as if he had expected her to argue. Then he lowered his arms and turned to her. "He looks Norse. Maybe a Viking name."

  "How about Leif? Like Leif Eriksson."

  "I've never heard of him."

  At first that surprised her. How could he not know such a famous name? Then it occurred to her that she didn't know much about Eriksson either. "I think he was a great Norse explorer. I've never been good with history, though. In college I used to skip classes so I could work in the AI lab." She had managed to graduate with honors anyway. Then she went to grad school at Stanford and everything changed. No one there had minded her fasci­nation with AI. They gave her a doctorate when she de­signed a computer code that could reliably distinguish between a lie and a story meant to entertain. "I was nuts about my research."

  "I also." Raj's face relaxed, animated with his love of his work. "About robots, I mean. It was all I thought about." His wary stance had eased. "How about Eriksson as a name? Or Arick, like Arick Bjornsson. Or maybe Ander. That's Norse, I think."

  She smiled, pleased. "Okay. Let's see what he thinks, after the tests."

  Aris was watching lights glitter on the robot arm jacked into his body. If he "felt" anything about the diag­nostics they were running on him, he showed little sign of it. He wasn't completely blank, though. Megan thought he looked curious, but she wasn't sure; she might be read­ing that reaction into him, seeing emotion where none existed.

  "We've visitors due in a few days," Raj said. "Techs, to do maintenance."

  Megan understood what he left unsaid. The techs would also check Aris. Her fear surfaced, the one that had plagued her since she joined the project. What if, despite all their efforts, Aris failed? It would devastate her as much as losing a family member.

  His mind had a ways to go before it matured, but she saw so much promise in everything he did. Of course, the definition of AI had always been a moving target. Some­times she thought their best measure was: "Whatever we haven't achieved yet." Whenever the AI community made a breakthrough, they redefined AI. In the last century, many had believed it would be achieved when a computer beat the world chess champion. Yet by the time that Deep Blue won its match against Gary Kasparov, most consid­ered Deep Blue little more than a remarkable number cruncher. Now children's toys could play grandmaster chess and no one considered those toys sentient.

  However, Kasparov himself said he perceived some­thing more in Deep Blue. If he saw intelligence, did it exist? Perhaps the best known interpretation of AI was the Turing test, which postulated that if a person con­versed with one or more hidden people and a hidden com­puter, and couldn't reliably unmask the machine, then that computer had intelligence. In essence, the Turing test said that if a machine convinced its human tester it had intelligence, it had achieved that intelligence.

  Now, in 2021, reports often surfaced of machines pass­ing the Turing test. Most of the systems Megan had tested left her unconvinced, but several showed promise. She wasn't sure she would say "human"; they seemed alien. But self-aware? Perhaps. She had never met the most fa­mous, Zaki, an AI developed by Rashid al-Jazari. The original Zaki had been destroyed, but parts of him lived on in al-Jazari's later work. In a sense, Zaki had left a son behind, who had since grown to surpass his father.

  The work on robots had proceeded apace with the work on immobile machines. Some groups predicted that the more a robot resembled a person, the more its intelli­gence would emulate human thought, because it would learn the way people learned. Others believed no ma­chines could ever be human, nor would they even want to be like their creators. Megan had finally come up with the O'Flannery test for AI; if she decided a machine was intelligent, it was. Of course, she still had to convince her colleagues. It re­mained to be seen what would happen with Aris.

  In the bay below, the arm finished its test and swung away from the chair. Aris gave the appearance of waiting. She suspected he was studying the results of his diagnos­tics. His face still tended to blank when his thoughts be­came memory intensive.

  She spoke into her palmtop. "Aris?"

  He looked up at her. "Yes?"

  "We were wondering if you would like a name."

  "I have a name."

  Raj flipped open his palmtop. "Would you like a new one?"

  "Why?" Aris asked.

  "To make your own choice."

  The android's upturned face made a pale oval in the bright lab. "Most human names have no meaning to me. The only ones I associate with anything significant are Megan and Raj."

  She smiled at the incongruous thought. "I don't think you should use Megan."

  "Wouldn't you like your own name?" Raj asked him.

  "Such as?" Aris asked.

  "Eriksson," Raj suggested.

  "Why Eriksson?"

  "Leif Eriksson was a great Norse explorer."

  "I am not a great Norse explorer."

  "Well, no," Raj said. "How about Arick? Or Bjorn?"

  "That I have his tissue, sperm, and facial structure doesn't make me Arick Bjornsson." The android shrugged. "Jed, Raymond, Tammy, Carlos, Ahmed, Isaac—they are all the same to me."

  Raj rubbed his chin. "Our only other idea was Ander."

  Aris suddenly went still. "Yes."

  "You like that one?" Megan asked.

  "Yes."

  "Good." When he didn't elaborate, she asked, "Why?"

  "It is what I am," the newly named Ander answered, his words more animated.

  "What you are?" Raj asked.

  "An android."

  "Oh." Megan blinked. "Yes, I guess so."

  With a grin, Raj said, "Ander, will you come up here?"

  "Why?" Ander asked.

  Megan glanced at Raj. "Good question."

  He put his hand over the palmtop speaker. "I want to talk to him in a more natural setting. See how he reacts."

  It was a good idea. Even so, she couldn't help but be irked that Raj seemed more interested in socializing with an android than with her. Still, she was dying to see how the two of them interacted outside the lab.

  "We can all have dinner in the Solarium," she said.

  Raj took his hand off the palmtop. "Ander, would you like to dine with Megan and me?"

  After seeming to weigh the idea, Ander said, "All right."

  Megan loved the Solarium, a two-story atrium with tables and trees. Solar collectors hidden in the desert above gathered sunlight, then reflected and refracted it through mirrors and quartz plates until it spilled into the atrium, a sparkling show of sunlight and rainbows. Radiance played across the ceiling. Plants filled the room in both pots and beds of dirt.
/>   She had never seen Raj cook more than an instant din­ner in the kitchen set off the atrium. Most of the time he ordered from the fast food robot. Tonight, however, he put together a meal from scratch. Megan and Ander wanted to watch, and tried to hang around the kitchen, but after Megan started stealing the mushrooms and tomatoes Raj was chopping, he sent them both away. So she and Ander went out into the atrium and sat at a table under an orange tree with no fruit.

  Raj soon brought out dinner, a stew with yogurt and rice. A droid followed him, the tray on its flat top bearing mugs of coffee. The meal smelled delicious. Megan would have never guessed Raj could cook, let alone do it so well.

  She watched with fascination as Ander heaped stew onto his plate and added a large dollop of yogurt.

  "Do you always stare at diners when they serve them­selves?" Ander asked.

  He had never commented before on her looking at him. "Does it bother you?"

  "No. I had just understood it was considered rude among humans." He took a forkful of rice, put it in his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

  "Hey!" Megan grinned. "That was perfect."

  "Stop staring," Raj said.

  Ander glanced at him. "You cook well."

  It was Raj's turn to look startled. "Thank you."

  Ander shifted his attention back to Megan. "Why do you drink beverages with drugs in them?"

  That caught her off guard. "What do you mean?"

  He indicated her mug. "Caffeine."

  "Oh. That. It keeps me awake."

  "This is good?" Ander asked.

  She gave him a rueful smile. "Ah, well. It gets me out of bed."

  He watched her lift the mug and take a swallow. "Do you spend a lot of time in bed, Megan?"

  She almost spluttered coffee all over the table. "Aris!"

  He looked puzzled. "My name is Ander."

  "Yes. Of course." She felt her face blushing red.

  Raj cleared his throat. "Ander, can you, uh, taste food?"

  "I recognize many tastes," Ander said. "Also smells, sounds, and touch."

  Raj shifted in his seat. "Touch?"

  Megan considered Raj, as intrigued by him as by Ander. He knew perfectly well how the android's senses worked. In fact, he had designed some of the hardware himself. Did the Megan-in-bed topic embarrass him so much?

  "Sensors in my skin detect textures," Ander said. "They send that data to my brain, which classifies them."

  "But do you feel it?" Raj looked more relaxed now that they were talking about robots instead of sleeping arrangements. "Does holding a cat give you pleasure? If it scratches you, does it hurt?"

  "I am aware of differences in such sensations. I have no physical response to them."

  Megan wondered at Ander's lack of affect. This time it seemed intentional. She had the sense he was hiding his reactions to Raj. It was an odd concept, that an AI would simulate the act of hiding his simulated emotions. Even more startling was the idea that his evolving code might have come up with reasons for Ander to keep his thoughts veiled.

  Ander was watching her again.

  "Yes?" she asked, her fork halfway to her mouth.

  "Am I a weapon?" he asked.

  Megan almost dropped her food. "Why do you ask that?"

  He waved his hand. "This place is full of computers running big calculations. Many are about me, but others deal with defense."

  Megan set down her fork. "Department of Defense funds support the Everest Project. The military hopes to use you in special operations." She had conflicted thoughts on Ander's intended purpose. Hardheaded real­ism told her that they needed to develop the full potential of robotics first, before another country beat them to it. She understood the need to hone Ander's abilities in that area, but she also had other hopes for the project, dreams buoyed by her optimism for the future. "War doesn't have to be your only purpose, though. Many of us hope that by combining human and AI intellects, we can evolve to­gether into a better species." Wistful, she said, "Who knows? Maybe someday we will grow beyond the drive to make war."

  "I'm not a combination of human and AI intellects," he pointed out. "I am an android with a lot of software."

  "You're unique," she said.

  "It's lonely, though, don't you think?" he asked.

  "Are you lonely?"

  "Aren't you?"

  Megan was suddenly aware of Raj listening. "That's a rather private question."

  Ander leaned forward. "It is all right for you to ask me a private question, but not all right for me to do the same?"

  "Your comment suggested you felt lonely. I responded. But I didn't bring it up in regard to myself."

  "I see." Wielding his fork, he scooped up rice and ate it in stony silence.

  After an awkward pause, Raj pushed back from the table. "Well. I'll clean up."

  "I'll do it," Megan said, still disconcerted by her ex­change with Ander. "You cooked."

  He answered in a distant voice. "All right."

  As they all stood up, Ander watched the two of them. Megan wondered what he thought about the way she and Raj interacted. It would be interesting to hear his take on it, given that she had yet to figure it out herself.

  "Shall I help remove the debris from dinner?" Ander asked.

  She pushed a hand through her hair. "No. You go on back to the lab with Raj."

  Ander stayed put. "Why?"

  "We have to finish your shoulder diagnostics," Raj said.

  The android turned to him. "I solved the problem."

  Curiosity sparked in Raj's voice. "You did? How?"

  "I found two unrelated sections of code that had formed a spurious link." Ander watched Raj with a guarded expression. "When my calculations became memory intensive, my mind rerouted messages through that link. It made my shoulder move. So I deleted the link."

  Megan beamed at him. "Good work."

  He bowed to her from the waist. "Thank you, ma'am."

  That surprised her; although technically a bow wasn't an appropriate gesture in this situation, it worked, a touch of humor combined with gallantry. It suggested he was developing more sophistication in interpreting his knowledge of human customs and the rules for applying them.

  "You're welcome," she said. "But Ander, you still need some more diagnostics."

  His smile looked almost natural. "In other words, it's past my bedtime."

  "I didn't mean that." With a good-natured laugh, she added, "I don't think."

  He took her hand and lifted it to his lips. Then he kissed the back of her fingers. "Good night."

  "Good night." Self-conscious, she extracted her hand.

  Raj was watching with an odd look. Megan found him harder to read than Ander. Was he angry? Tense? Curi­ous? She thought perhaps a mixture of all three.

  "If you two are done," he said, "I'll take Ander back."

  "Yes." Megan twisted a napkin in her hand. "Of course."

  After they left, she called in the kitchen droids. While she loaded them with the dishes, she thought about Ander. His responses had gone beyond what she could predict. Sometimes he still seemed like a computer, but other times she wasn't sure what to think. Was he becom­ing more human? Or something else?

  After she finished overseeing the droids, she walked back to her quarters. She wondered if Raj was working on Ander. Well, that was why they had hired him. She should be glad this project absorbed him. Yet no matter how logical she tried to be, it bothered her that he pre­ferred an android's company to hers.

  In her quarters, she changed into her nightshirt, then clicked a disk of Bujold's A Civil Campaign into her elec­tronic reader and settled into bed. As she read, her lashes drooped...

  Megan opened her eyes into darkness with her reader lying on her chest. Cleo must have turned out the light. The sensors in the console could figure out if she was asleep by analyzing her heart rate, activity, posture, and breathing. She probably would have slept all night like this if the banging hadn't woken her.

  Banging?


  There it came again, someone thumping on the door.

  "Raj?" she called. "Is that you?"

  "It's the power," he answered. "It's out and neither backup generator came on. I wanted to make sure you were all right before I went to check."

  "I'm coming." Groggy and half-asleep, she dragged herself out of bed and made her way toward the door, waving her hands to keep from stumbling into furniture. She couldn't see a thing; no trace of light relieved the dark. It took her sleep-fogged mind a moment to register that anomaly. What had happened to the emergency lights?

  Megan grunted as she bumped the wall. Sliding her palms on its surface, she moved along until she found the door. She opened it into a hall just as dark as her room.

  "Megan?" It sounded as if Raj were standing in front of her. She could smell the spices he had used for dinner.

  "Here." She stepped forward—and ran right into him.

  "Ah!" He caught her around the waist. "I can't see."

  Megan couldn't believe she had been so clumsy. What if he thought she did it on purpose? "The emergency lights should be on." She was talking too fast. "They can go for hours."

  "It could have been that long since the power went out," Raj said. "I've been asleep."

  "So you do sleep!"

  He paused. "Of course I sleep."

  "The LPs should have notified us and tried to fix the problem." She forgot her chagrin as she realized how lit­tle sense this situation made. "We've triple redundancy in the generators, emergency lights with individual batteries, a backup battery for each set of lights, and a base full of LPs. None of those worked? I find that hard to believe."

  "I don't know about the LPs." His breath stirred her hair. "But I think the automatic transfer switch for the generators malfunctioned. Do you have a flashlight? Mine's in the lab."

  "I've one under my workstation." She twisted to look back into her room. "That's odd."

  "What?"

  She turned to him again, aware of his hands on her waist. They felt large and strong through her nightshirt. "I had an emergency light on my console. It's out too."

  "It shouldn't be." He slid his hands up her sides, then down to her hips. "Why no alarm?"

  "Good question." Her face was growing warm. He could have let her go by now.