She was silent for almost a minute. “Thank you,” she said finally. “I know the argument that we were designed from the beginning to behave as sentient beings. However that might seem to you, I feel grateful that I’ve been here, on this vehicle, with you and Gabe and Alex. But if I may . . . ?”
“Sure. Go ahead. What is it?”
“I spend the majority of my time docked on Skydeck. You’ve never asked how I feel about that kind of life. You came close to it recently when we were out in the Dyson world. But the truth is I live a life principally of darkness, inactivity, and inertia.”
I sat for a long moment, feeling stupid. How had I not noticed? We always said good-bye to Belle when we left her and went down to Rimway. And there was always the ecstatic greeting when we arrived back. I’m not suggesting we didn’t accept her as a living being. But during all these years, we’d just made assumptions. She was an AI. Part of the ship. See you in two months. “I’m sorry, Belle,” I said at last. “I think we had all assumed that you were programmed to accept this kind of existence.”
“Chase,” she said, “I don’t mean to complain. The conversation just seemed to be going in that direction.”
• • •
That occurred on our fourth or fifth day out. I reported the conversation to Alex that evening. That was an uncomfortable experience as well. I didn’t want Belle to overhear us. But to ensure that didn’t happen, I’d have had to shut down the comm system in whichever portion of the ship we were talking. And I couldn’t bring myself to do that. So I’d sat down with him in the passenger cabin and watched him, while I talked, trying to warn me that Belle was probably listening.
He didn’t look surprised. “I guess,” he said, “I always took it for granted she was an extra person on board. But I don’t think it ever occurred to me how she was reacting to being left at the dock. What do you suggest?”
“If she’d prefer, we can disconnect her when we leave and take her down with us. It wouldn’t be a big deal.”
He looked down at the array of lamps on the panel that marked Belle’s location. “You listening?” he asked.
Theoretically, Belle was not supposed to listen unless she picked up her name. Or caught high emotion in the conversation. So she did not respond.
“Belle,” I said, “are you there?”
“I’m here, Chase.”
“You heard the suggestion?”
“I did not hear any suggestion.” She was playing it by the book.
Alex described it for her.
“Oh yes,” she said. “That would be delightful. You’ll be able to insert me into the system at home?”
“Of course,” he said.
“Thank you both. I appreciate what you’re doing.” Her voice was slightly off key. That would have been a deliberate signal.
• • •
I spent most of the next few days reading Arcadian philosophy tracts so I could discuss life, death, and consciousness with Belle. The issue that plagued us both was immortality. AIs, of course, don’t die in the manner that biological life-forms do. But like us, the physical parts that contain data storage will, over time, wear down. Belle, however, is a 7K Bantam model, of which there are thousands. They are identical. So what happens if her data is released in bulk form to another of the Bantams? Does her consciousness transfer with it? Does life go on? Or do we simply create another AI with her implanted memories?
It was easier for most people to think of AIs as simply data-processing systems that pretended to be alive.
We were going back and forth on the bridge one morning shortly after breakfast when Belle changed the subject. “Do you know what date this is?” Belle asked.
“February second,” I said.
“I didn’t mean on Earth, Chase. I was talking about Rimway.” I had no idea.
“It’s Baila seventh.”
“Oh. That’s my birthday.”
“Please stand by. I have an insert for you.”
Gabe blinked on. He was standing beside the right-hand seat, smiling at me. Behind him one of the windows at the country house was visible in a rising sun. “Happy birthday, Chase,” he said. “I’m sorry I can’t be there with you to help you celebrate. Do you remember the onboard parties? With your mom?”
I didn’t respond because he was only a recording. But I remembered. I’d been out with him a number of times when my mom was his pilot. They’d surprised me a couple of times with birthday presents. But what I really remembered was riding down to the ruins of Boclava on Dellaconda. Ruins three thousand years old, the remains of an early human civilization whose collapse Gabe had hoped to explain but, as far as I knew, never had.
“I’d been hoping,” Gabe was saying, “we could get your mom in to the country house and celebrate again. Like old times. That’s of course not going to work. But she asked me to say hello and to let you know she misses you. Maybe we can do it next year. Anyhow, enjoy your day, and good luck with the project.”
• • •
“I got one too,” said Alex.
“From Gabe?”
“Yes.”
We went into the passenger cabin, and Gabe appeared again. He was in the same space in his office, but it was daylight and he was wearing different clothes. “Alex,” he said, “I’ve already told you that your historical work has made me proud. Something else I should have mentioned: You did the right thing by keeping Chase on. I wouldn’t have wanted to lose her. You guys are probably not going to find anything out there. If you don’t, I hope you’ll just let it go. If you hadn’t tried to track it down, it would have hung over you forever. However this turns out, when you get home, let’s have a party.”
“Great idea,” I said.
“There’s more,” said Belle.
“Good.” I sat back and got a serious shock: my mom appeared. The image didn’t move. It had been copied from a photo. She was tall, unflappable, with gray eyes and black hair, standing in a blue-and-gold uniform on the bridge of the Belle-Marie. Gabe had described her once as exactly the person you’d want on the bridge if you ran into a meteor storm. Then a teenage Alex replaced her, another photo, with his arm raised saying hello. And me, at about ten, holding my pet kitten, Ceily, in my arms.
There were other pictures, of passengers, of clients, of Alex as he grew up, and of Gabe. Of people I didn’t know. There were more photos of my mom. Of all the images, the one that got to me was Ceily. I lost her early.
• • •
Finally it was February 9 on the terrestrial calendar, two days before our scheduled arrival at the intersect point, where we hoped to pick up Charlotte Hill’s message. We surfaced midway through the afternoon, which allowed time for Belle to measure the arrangement of the stars and inform us how close we were to our target. In fact we’d done quite well. But we weren’t there yet. We accelerated and, over the next day and a half, moved into position. The black hole was twelve light-years away. Pollux was a brilliant red star in the opposite direction.
We sat back to wait.
XXXIX.
There is no more painful disruption than that which occurs between friends.
—ELIZABETH STILES, SINGING IN THE VOID, 1221
We were in the target area, in the middle of the second day, when Belle’s voice woke me. “We have a transmission.”
“Yes!” A wave of exhilaration took over my soul. I hadn’t expected that this goofy effort would actually give us anything. I was immediately wide awake, wrapped in my sheet, about to ask Belle to turn on the lamp when she continued: “It’s strictly audio. From Chad.”
Oh. I’d been expecting that, so the reader will understand the wave of disappointment, even though ordinarily I’d have loved hearing from him.
She activated it: “I hope this gets through to you, Chase. I wanted to apologize for getting annoyed. None of this is your fault. I realize that. I was just upset at losing contact with you again. Being away from you so much is painful. I hope everything’s going well.”
Belle halted the playback. “I should have mentioned,” she said, “it was a hypercomm transmission.” Not radio. As Charlotte’s would be. I wondered if she’d done that deliberately. Then she played the rest: “I wish you luck. I hope you and Alex find whatever it is you’re looking for. And when you get back, let’s get together again.”
“End of message,” said Belle.
• • •
We were well into the third day, almost at the end of our time allotment. Alex had begun suggesting it wouldn’t do any harm to remain longer since we really couldn’t be too sure about our numbers. I was ready to throw it in, but I had no inclination to debate the issue. So I was about to say sure, let’s give it some more time, when Belle informed us we had another transmission. “Radio this time,” she added.
I was on the bridge. Belle had also informed Alex, so I waited for him to appear before playing it. He’d been in his cabin but he needed only about fifteen seconds to join me.
“Okay, Belle,” I said.
A woman’s voice this time: “God help me, Karen. If anything happens, it will be my fault.”
“It’s her,” said Alex. “That’s Charlotte.”
“Rick trusted me and I betrayed him. I promised I wouldn’t say anything, but the story just blew me away. I couldn’t avoid telling Archie and Del. They both promised they would keep quiet about it. But then when I was finished they just laughed at the notion of not saying anything. Rick could have strangled me. When he calmed down a little they asked him if he was crazy. That this was something he couldn’t hide. Del asked how long ago it had happened.
“Rick told them more than ten years. They couldn’t believe it. I tried to talk Archie and Del into backing off. Just forget the whole thing. Archie said that Rick had lost his mind. Del agreed with him. And they just wouldn’t give in. I apologized to Rick, but it didn’t do any good. Everything’s been getting worse since then. And please understand why I’m not able to tell you what this is really about. I can’t do that again.
“Right now I’m terrified. The shuttle is gone. Rick has it. Nobody saw him take it out. But he’s been telling us we’d all be sorry for what we did. I can only think of one reason why he took the shuttle. He’s hardly ever been out in it before. God help me, I hope I’m wrong.”
• • •
We both sat frozen when it ended. Alex was holding his head in his hands. “I didn’t see that coming.”
“No. Neither did I.”
“So he killed them all. Rick did. Over what? What could possibly have driven him to do something like that? We never saw any indication of instability in the guy.” He waited for me to say something. When I didn’t his features hardened with an accusatory look. “So what is the big secret?” His patience had run out. “She’s talking ten years earlier. You and Gabe were trying to track down Harding’s silver trophy and you came back with something. Now we have two big secrets, both connected to Harding. You know precisely what she’s talking about, don’t you?”
I was trying to think what I could tell him. His eyes locked on me and the anger was obvious. “Chase, do you really not trust me? After all these years?”
“We’ve already had this conversation, Alex. You notice Charlotte didn’t reveal anything? What the secret is? She’s not putting it out there, even here, with a transmission she certainly understood would probably never get picked up by anyone.”
“Chase—”
“Of course I trust you. Implicitly. You know that. But this has nothing to do with trust. I gave my word I would tell no one.”
“Does Belle know what it’s about?”
“She probably does.” In fact I couldn’t see how she could have missed it.
“Chase, I have to figure out how to handle this when we get home. If I don’t know what’s going on, I might screw it up royally.”
“Just leave it alone. If I’d had any idea what this was about, I wouldn’t have come out here.”
“It’s a bit late for that.” He was trying to keep his voice level, to hide growing frustration. “There’s an easy way to do this.”
“What’s that?”
“I’ll ask Belle.”
“Alex, you understand she’s subject to the captain.”
“That’s true. But I’m the owner. If I have to, I can get a new captain.”
“Would you really do that?”
“No. But I need you to trust me. I won’t give anything away.”
“Do what you want.”
• • •
He put the question to Belle. I should have intervened, told her to be quiet. But I couldn’t. Belle hesitated but finally described everything that had happened on Kaleska, the Dyson world. She described the empty cities, the Dyson Sphere, Ark’s fears about what would happen if more biological beings showed up. And finally our assurances, mine and Gabe’s, that we would not reveal their existence. When she’d finished, Alex asked me if I had anything to add.
“No,” I said. “I think she covered everything. Are we ready to leave?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not?”
“There’s a good chance Charlotte’s not finished yet.”
• • •
He was right. Twenty minutes later a second transmission came in. Charlotte again, her voice at a higher pitch: “He’s going to ram us. Del’s on the other radio promising him whatever he wants but he’s not answering. My God, I don’t believe this. The blasters that are supposed to protect us aren’t working. He probably shut them down and none of us has any idea how to reactivate the damned things. Del’s looking now, but he doesn’t know any more than I do. I thought Rick was going to pull aside but he keeps accelerating. Coming right the hell at us. Please, Rick.”
We heard another voice in the background calling her name. Probably Housman. “Get over here, Charlotte,” he said. “Try again.”
She switched off. It was the last we heard. Alex and I sat staring at each other.
XL.
What, then, is truth? Is it a perspective acquired from the consideration of philosophical positions passed down to us through the ages? Is it a conclusion arrived at through a cautious balancing of probabilities and doubt? Is it the opinion of a man or woman whose ability to touch reality necessarily demands credence? However it ripens, get out of the valley when the avalanche comes.
—HAMID BAYLA, LESSONS LEARNED, 3811 CE
“We can package the transmissions,” I said, “if you want to send them on to Gabe. Give him time to think about it before we get back.”
“No, not a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“We can’t be sure somebody won’t pick it up. Do we have an encryption capability?”
“Yes.”
He frowned. “Never mind. Let’s let it go until we get home. I think it would be best if we’re both there when Gabe hears all this. Just send him a message, tell him we’ve made some progress, and we’re on our way back.”
“He’s not going to be happy with that.”
“He’ll understand. In fact it’ll tell him we made the intercept.”
“How does it do that?”
“Because if we hadn’t we’d have told him.”
There was no reason to continue waiting. There would not be a third transmission, as much as I hoped, prayed, for one. Something that could somehow give us a happier ending. But we hung on anyway. We sat in the passenger cabin, neither of us doing anything other than looking out windows. It felt as if everything had been playing out over those last few minutes while we sat off to one side and listened, that Harding was closing in with the shuttle, and if we could have somehow been there we might have done something. At least tried. Eventually Alex got up and poured each of us a drink. “Let’s go home.”
I was ready. I told Belle to take us back.
“You okay?” asked Alex.
“I’m sorry we ever came near this place.”
Belle turned us to starboard and began to accelerate. We sat on
the bridge, looking out at a sky full of bright stars, not saying much. “I’d hoped for something better,” I said.
“Don’t know what that might have been.”
“Anything else. Aliens would have helped.”
“Do we want to make this public?”
We slipped into transdimensional space and everything outside went dark.
“I’ve no idea.”
“I don’t know what to do with it, Chase. I’d like to just leave it alone. Say nothing. But that leaves everybody hanging.” He released his restraints and got out of the seat. “And let’s not forget Reggie Greene. He must have really loved Charlotte. I mean, he went all the way out to the black hole hoping he’d get lucky. He’s paid a heavy price for it.” He was gripping the arms of his chair.
“If those two transmissions get out,” I said, “they’ll destroy the families.”
“So do we hide the truth?”
“I don’t know, Alex. I’m beginning to think our best course would be to deny that we found anything. However this goes, I don’t want to be any part of it.”
“Trying to explain that Harding killed everybody to protect a bunch of AIs isn’t going to look very good.”
“Maybe we don’t have to explain everything. Maybe we could claim that we just don’t know what it was all about. What he was trying to keep secret. Just that, whatever it was, he was desperate to keep it quiet. He told Charlotte about it, it got out, and he went crazy as a result.”
“Chase, that sounds as if we’re talking about a treasure of some kind. Something he was planning to keep for himself. And it implies he was keeping an eye on Charlotte.”
“I have an idea. Ark talked about a bioweapon that killed everybody. Maybe Harding was concerned that the place would get visitors who would eventually work out the thing’s details. He was concerned about crazy people getting access to it.”
“That still doesn’t compensate for killing his colleagues.” We sat there, staring past each other. “I have a question for you, Chase. Are you keeping notes on all this? Are you planning to write another memoir?”
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