by Marti Ward
They seemed to sense something was up, looking up at him, Simba stretching up to put her paws on his knees. They knew he would only stay a couple of minutes on his way to shift. They sensed they couldn’t come with him – it only took a glance catching Simba’s eye, as the dominant partner, and mumbling a few words about ‘not this time’. They always yielded gracefully…
He took a moment to talk about what was happening today, the decisions he had to make within the next half hour, as they entered Tenebra’s gravity well. As usual, they seemed to take it all on board, but had nothing useful to contribute. Still, talking about it helped. But now Simba looked at him and nodded her head towards the bridge – or was she just stretching her neck? Sending me on my way already, huh? No, that wasn’t it, she did want to come with me today. I would be the first human to look on a new planet in a new solar system, why shouldn’t she be the first pair of feline eyes to do the same.
“Why not?” he said out loud as he moved, jerking his head toward the door and the bridge in much the same way Simba had. The slider whooshed open, but he stayed at the door way with his left arm extending into the room, and his right indicating toward the bridge. “Let’s go!”
Simba and Samba walked past him, Simba giving him a brush of thanks, and the pair flanked him, leading slightly, as they headed toward the bridge.
What would Al think?
He arrived on the bridge with only a minute to spare, tensing as he waited for Al’s criticism. But in a few seconds, he and Al had performed their ritual exchange of words and he’d taken command of the bridge.
“Recommendations? Should we apply reverse delta-V and head for an orbit? Or should we get the EmProbe to pick up the drones and their samples and rendezvous with us en route?”
The latter would be much the cheapest option in terms of fuel.
“No,” responded Al, to his surprise. “I don’t believe having the actual samples from the probes will give us much more information than we already have from the remote analyses. Although we have better facilities on the SS Casindra, I don’t think anything we can discover from these samples will have significant economic impact. We have the potential to discover far more if we leave the Volcans spiraling around the planet, recharging their batteries, to enable further swoops into interesting water bodies and volcanoes – we could also program them for soil and sand swoops.”
“So, what?” Sideris asked. “We’ll just leave them there indefinitely, relaying data to us by wireless?”
“That’s one possibility,” responded Al. “Others include sending send data directly to the Gate probe, preferably both to us and the Gate, and of course the EmProbe can wait here for years and then still be able to return the Volcans to the Gate, and the samples through the Gate.”
“So it could meet us at the end of our circuit?”
“Yes, or it could head on directly into the wormhole with the samples or send an M-drone into the wormhole with them. In fact, having two EmProbes stationed there, with three message drones between them, increases our risk resilience considerably.”
“Agreed, but another way of reducing risks is to retrieve and coalesce the samples, and have two more Volcans available for New Eden,” argued Sideris.
“Yes, but we’d have fewer samples that way… Though we could do both if the EmProbe were programmed to transfer the samples to an M-drone, and join us with the Volcans at New Eden.” Al was surprisingly persuasive.
“OK! I’m convinced…” Sideris said, but he hesitated as he noted the magnifications of the viewscreens drop to unity, and saw the artificially enhanced Tenebra floating toward the left side of the front screen. “Please provide unfiltered external views of Tenebra… Then program the Tenebra EmProbe to recall the Volcans and head for the Gate in time to drop off its samples and join us at New Eden with the Volcans – maintain designation as EMP-T.”
“Understood!” Al replied, as the eyeball view of Tenebra appeared, looming like a ghostly shadow. The name Tenebra itself meant darkness…
Almost moon size, though not nearly as bright, Tenebra had clearly caught not just Sideris’ attention, but that of the cats. The sense he got from them was almost one of… coming home!
They watched mesmerized as the planet got bigger and bigger, moving faster and faster toward the middle of the port screen, taking up almost the whole screen. They were almost… yes a sparkly red glow showed that they had grazed the atmosphere, and then suddenly, with a jerk they could feel, the process started to repeat in reverse… and for almost two hours they watched, fascinated, until Tenebra had vanished to being hardly more than another star.
It was Al who broke the silence, “Shall I return to system code view?”
“Yes please, Al. Thank you!”
Interestingly Al had not said a word about the two cats, nor given the slightest indication that he even knew they were there. He had all the sensors in the world, but did he use them? What did he do with them? What conclusions did he draw?
“Al! What conclusions have you drawn about my interactions with the cats?” He phrased that carefully in the past tense. He didn’t want Al to scan video and sensor logs and draw new conclusions, he wanted to know to what extent Al was using the live streams and actively making theories and seeking answers in the data.
“Please do not reference logs in answering this question.” Again, phrased carefully so as not to disrupt Al from his normal job of monitoring and controlling all the subsumed systems of the ship.
Al
2 February 2076 08:10
Al had been torn by the sight of the Captain marching down onto the bridge with the cats in tow – or in the lead, as it happened. At least until they got to the sliders, where they separated and moved behind him, as he triggered them, only to slip in front again as he entered, so they didn’t get caught or trapped as they closed.
Torn? Torn, because on the one hand the Captain had assured him that he’d keep the cats under control, ‘keep them in their place’ he’d said. However, his recent explorations of the language and metaphor told him that humans often had different levels of meaning in what they said, and in a less literal sense, the Captain’s assurance still held. On the other hand, his recent explorations of the literature of sociology and psychology had led him to expect that the Captain wouldn’t be able to keep them locked up for more than a few weeks or months. It wasn’t till his language processors had placed the phrase and the facts in juxtaposition to object, that he’d realized that he’d been misled by the metaphor.
He’d had an ‘each way bet’ going, as to whether the Captain would break his word, or break the building relationship with the cats. But now it seemed he’d been ‘tricked’ or ‘played’. Was this deliberate? Was this a careful use of ‘double meaning’ to get his way?
And now the Captain was asking for his conclusions about this, as if he’d known all along that Al was monitoring him, monitoring the cats, assessing the situation, drawing conclusions and making predictions. For some reason, he didn’t want to answer that.
But could he ‘take a leaf from his own book’ and answer the Captain’s literal question without addressing all the awkward subtext?
“I am aware of all your interactions with the cats. I do actively keep track of all activity on the sensor logs through motion-activation and delta triggers.” That did address a subtext, but not an ‘embarrassing’ one. The request not to refer to the logs indicated that the Captain wanted to know whether he had been monitoring closely enough to have ‘drawn conclusions’. His answer deflected that with a statement about routine monitoring and activity triggering. He’d said nothing to indicate that he’d taken a special interest in these interactions, or indeed that he regarded the Captain and the cats as part of an intriguing experiment.
It was good experimental procedure to keep the subjects ‘in the dark’ – awareness of the true intent of an experimental situation served only to confound the results. However, it was usual after an experimental session to gi
ve a ‘safe’ verdict on the outcome of the ostensive experiment.
“I have concluded that you enjoy being with the cats and the cats enjoy being with you. I have concluded that you have developed a social relationship with the cats. I am aware that you need social relationships to preserve your own mental health, and I conclude that interaction with me is insufficient to satisfy this, even though I am able to interact with you at a much higher level. I have concluded that you and the cats have developed some kind of understanding and communication beyond what is immediately comprehensible to me from my monitoring of the sensors. It would require more thorough retrospective and prospective analysis of your interactions with the cats to determine the precise nature of your understanding of, communication with, and relationship to the cats.”
Al waited a moment to see how the Captain would respond to that. The Captain didn’t respond, but the cats came alongside, each nuzzling into one of his hands.
“Would you like me to investigate your relationship and communication with the cats?” Al asked. ‘Further investigate’ would perhaps have been more accurate and comprehensive, but ‘investigate’ was quite appropriate.
“Yes, that would be interesting,” he responded. “Please do that! I haven’t had a lot to do with pets of any kind, but these cats seem somehow special. Are you aware of any reason for this, due to their breeding or training perhaps? Please keep me informed of any interesting facts you discover or theories that you propose.”
“Acknowledged!”
“Oh! And Al, could you please give the cats the freedom to come and go as they please from their cabin, Vetbay A, as well as freedom to attend me or enter a room that I am in, unless specifically denied or forbidden.”
“Acknowledged!”
“And please, do comment on any activity or developments that seem inappropriate or not in the best interests of the mission. It is best if we discuss things up front. I also need to understand to what extent you will carry out orders literally and instantaneously, or to what extent you might delay or override my orders – which could be dangerous at times! I need to be able to trust you to weigh the risks of the situation, and draw to my attention any facts or issues that I should be taking into consideration.”
“Acknowledged! All orders are automatically filtered according to security subroutines, ethics subroutines, disambiguation subroutines, standing orders and mission parameters. It is agreed that it is best if we discuss potential issues or inconsistencies up front. I also need to understand to what extent you are taking into account all relevant information, in order to know what weight I should give your commands and requests.”
“Well here’s a hint: If I say ‘please,’ there is normally going to be time for discussion, and if I don’t, there probably isn’t. But you should be able to assess the risk of different courses of action in most cases, and in others it comes down to why I am Captain: I have decades of experience in space, and the training and the background knowledge to see aspects of the situation that you are not sensitive to… You should use a similar convention when requesting my attention, or my presence on the bridge – I have noticed an increasing sensitivity to my routines and preferences, and a dropping of your early propensity to give me outright commands.”
“Noted! Another factor is information overload. I am also getting to know you, and what information you want to know and need to know. There’s exabytes of information I collect each day that you can’t possibly cope with. I am trying to present the information you need, with just the relevant data and reasoning to draw a conclusion. But sometimes you determine other factors to be relevant that I have already dismissed as below threshold.”
“Welcome to the real world, Al! Even you can’t calculate every possible combination of fact and theory, and weigh every possible outcome. We use different kinds of heuristics and use them in different ways. We have to form a symbiosis, and that comes from experience – just like with the cats! We both need to learn what the other needs, and what kinds of things we might see differently, in order to work together optimally… I think we’ve done very well together on the Tenebra part of our mission!”
“Yes, I am also impressed that together we have managed to come up with solutions, and taken advantage of opportunities, that were not anticipated by Solar Command.”
Simba
2 February 2076 09:05
It was time for morning siesta, and somehow it hadn’t seemed right to sleep with that dusky moon waxing and waning, rising and setting, in the window.
Simba was looking forward to getting back to her own room – and she could use a toilet stop. In fact, there was no need to wait for gray’n’gold and Samba – they’d be along shortly. But Samba joined her as she headed for the door.
At the end there, it had seemed that gray’n’gold was talking to cold’n’senseless about her, about them. There seemed to be far less tension in the air than in the earliest days in this place, but still there was that hint of tension, of withholding now and then. She shivered and stretched and moved towards the door, giving the hint. Now she was also looking forward to a good claw-sharpening on their rubbery tree stump.
The doors opened, and the cats moved out, with gray’n’gold following behind, except that he ducked into another door in passing. The cats sniffed the air without turning, and moved on regally, perhaps dawdling slightly – but certainly not overtly waiting for him to catch up. He’d just stopped to grab a bit of his crunchy food and smelly water. Why he wanted to drink warm dirty water she couldn’t begin to guess. She was looking forward to a thorough lap of clear cool water. She’d be quite happy to share – and she knew he knew how the food and water arrangements worked in their accommodations.
They headed for the door to their room, and it opened so they could go in, half closing before gray’n’gold caught up and followed them in.
Simba and Samba alternated completing their toiletries and taking a drink before moving past gray’n’gold to their favorite morning siesta sites. He seemed content to wait and watch, lapping occasionally at his dirty smelly water. Once they’d done their head to tail circling a few times and settled, he put down his cup on the big broad shelf, and started to talk to them.
Simba felt she understood him surprisingly well. She could sense that he had also been very moved by the moon experience. He was glad to have shared it with them. He was glad that cold’n’senseless was letting them move on in their mutual understanding. He was glad that an important phase was concluded successfully. He was excited about the future – they could smell it too, the scent of adventure in the air.
Chapter Five
Petra elliptic
Sideris
27 March 2076 14:32
Sideris was in his element, playing engineer. He was smart enough to recognize that that this was helping compartmentalize away his emotional reactions to the chronic isolation and the unexplained lack of contact from Solar Command. It hadn’t been hard to find himself some lab and workshop space on the engineering deck, and the heavier gravity and lower gravity differentials on this deck suited him better as well – and also helped distance him from his role of puppet commander.
His experiments, of course, distracted him from his worries about exactly what might be going on back in Sol, or even if there was anybody left back there – however irrational that thought might be. And he’d rather stay awake at night thinking about engineering problems he could solve, rather than all the nebulous and nefarious possibilities that kept suggesting themselves to him as possible explanations for the communications blackout. He was playing around with some nanosilc designs to provide additional protection and augmentation for his anticipated planetary walks. The programmable nature of nanosilc afforded all sorts of interesting possibilities.
“Captain, we have a transmission from the Gate.” Al’s voice broke in on his thoughts.
“Is it an M-drone? Have we heard from Solar Command?”
“Yes, Captain, a message drone. So far,
I have received just a brief message from Colonel Thorndike to acknowledge receipt of Message Drones 3 and 4, with all samples and logs intact. He also comments that he doesn’t see why we need to visit Petra – our mission is the three inner ‘Goldilocks’ planets capable of supporting human life with minimal effort. The EmProbes for Petra had already been loaded and programmed and there was no need to interfere. He noted however, that we would probably already be there by the time you get this, and did not countermand the planned visit.”
“Well that’s something… Was there any explanation of the six-month delay in acknowledging our arrival?”
Al seemed strangely hesitant, then responded. “Not from Colonel Thorndike, but there is a vid from Director Reach coming in. He apologizes for the breakdown in communication and notes that there was an accident at the Gate. A LETO involved in installation of the extension of the Ford-Svaiter Mirror… It lost a thruster and crashed into, and incinerated, part of the original mirror. Fortunately, nobody was injured, but it does mean that rather than having a double-sized mirror, the extension had to be configured as the complete mirror in the original size, and there is no reduction in transit time for the return probes. The message is quite long…” Al didn’t mention that there had been some messages to him personally. Director Reach had also forwarded emails from some of the Reach Corp AIs, and Solar Command had included a warm note from Dr Sabine Gunther commending him on his meticulous biology experiments, attaching records of their analyses of his samples.
“Thank you, Al. I’ll view the vid myself shortly. What else is there? Is there news about Earth?”
“There is nothing else at this stage, Captain – I will query the drone to see if they included relevant news in the archive updates. They would probably not be flagged for prioritized transmission.”