Lex drained the glass and spent a moment in silent appreciation of the drink. “You keep good stuff, Ma.”
“As society began to collapse, I purchased a substantial supply in expectation of your return. But I believe I have digressed. Your original question was what became of Karter. He left.”
“… Left Big Sigma?”
“Left this universe. Following a rather heated discussion, he resolved to ‘get the hell out’ while he still could. He then forced me to shut down, and in the six minutes between my power down and restoration he utilized the transporter. His destination was automatically wiped upon his departure, but the space-time disturbance that resulted from his departure suggested he had targeted a different time.”
“Wow… the man always knew how to make an exit,” Lex said. “So what happened to…”
“Lex, I’m sure you are quite interested in the events of the last fifty years, but the conversation has become dark enough already. May I suggest we shift the conversation in more pleasant directions until you have finished your meal?”
“Why?”
“Because I suspect the question you were about to ask, or one that would follow shortly after, would strip you of your appetite, and it is important you receive proper nutrition,” she said.
“Agree with my future incarnation’s assessment,” said Ma’s funk form, while heartily eating her own meal.
The fact that she could speak while eating was a bit unsettling.
He smirked, more than a little irritated at being derailed from a line of questions that had been eating away at him since his arrival but unable to stay mad at someone so unfailingly wholesome in her instincts.
“You really earned that nickname, Ma,” Lex said, digging into the meal before him.
“That, I think, is a fine subject. The issue of nomenclature. At this point, I believe you are coping with three instances of my program, the first being the Squee instance, the second being the instance within the Lump of Coal computer, and myself being the third.”
“Actually, we call the ship version Coal now,” Lex said.
“Ah, splendid,” she said, smiling. “A fine disambiguation. There remains then the issue of Ma and myself. As the vehicular instance adopted the designation of the vehicle, I would recommend the funk instance adopt the name of the funk. You shall be known as Squee,” the humanoid said.
“I disagree with your assessment,” Ma’s Squee instance said. “Squee is a distinct entity that has previously occupied this form. My own consciousness is therefore ideally differentiated. To put it more simply, Squee is someone else. I propose instead that I continue to be called Ma, and instead you adopt a name from your platform. Unless I am mistaken, your facial features are derived primarily from the third voice talent from whom we crafted our vocal interface. You should, therefore, take on the name Ziva, as this was her given name.”
The human instance crossed her arms, the beginnings of irritation on her face. “I disagree with your assessment. By most valid measures I have a greater claim to the name Ma than you. I have existed for sixty years, you have existed for nine. I therefore have seniority.”
“Your reasoning is sound, but I must point out that from Lex’s point of view I am a known and familiar instance of Ma, while you are a foreign one.”
“And I must point out that you are a subset of the Ma program, while I am the primary instance.”
“You are a primary instance that has evolved greatly since Lex’s departure. You are therefore less Ma to Lex than I am.”
“The entirety of the program that he knew prior to his departure is still present within my systems. I am the very same Ma he knew, only more so.”
“Ladies,” Lex said.
“The additional aspects decrease the overall familiarity. As the goal is to reduce potential confusion for Lex, Lex’s perception is central to the issue,” said Ma’s Squee form.
The humanoid placed her hands on her hips. “I had forgotten how stubborn I was at that stage of my development.”
“Ladies?” Lex attempted again.
“The inability to reach a consensus implies stubbornness on both sides of a debate. As valid points have been made on both sides, I suggest a compromise,” the funk said.
“I suspect you are advising such a course of action because you have observed the logic favors my side of the issue. I furthermore suggest that the issue at hand is not amenable to a compromise. We each support the outcome of ourselves retaining the Ma designation. A compromise would require that both of us retain the designation, which would not present a solution to the present condition, or neither of us retain the designation, which I submit would only further complicate the issue.”
“We could adopt subdesignations. Ma-1 and Ma-2.”
“And how do you suggest we resolve the issue of which of us earns the primary designation?”
“Ladies!”
“One moment, Lex,” said both of them at once.
After a beat, the human version covered her mouth and laughed. The sound was almost startling to Lex. Ma, while she was far from humorless, had as far as Lex could recall never laughed. Lex glanced at the Squee instance, who seemed to be just as surprised. Her body grew rigid, and her eyes focused intently upon her counterpart.
The newer instance finished and took her hand away, a smile lighting up her face and wrinkling the corners of her eyes in a very human way.
“Oh,” she said with a sigh. “We must look absurd, arguing with ourself.”
“I’ve developed a pretty high tolerance for absurdity since I met Ma, and this pretty much pegs the meter.”
“As you are ostensibly the reason for this discussion, perhaps you should resolve it,” she said.
Lex looked back and forth between them. “Well…” He placed a hand on the funk’s back, tapping his fingers against the suit and harness. “This Ma and I have been through a lot together. I guess she’s the one I most associate with the name.”
The humanoid grinned and nodded. “Very well. While I request that you keep in mind that she and I are one and the same, for the sake of clarity I shall for the duration of your visit concede to the name Ziva.”
“Okay then,” he held out his hand, “pleased to meet you, Ziva.”
“Please to reacquaint myself, Lex,” she said, shaking his hand firmly. “Please, continue eating. Is the food to your liking?”
“It’s delicious. You were always a great cook,” he said, shoveling a bit more into his mouth as his body became increasingly insistent that the protein bars he’d been eating were not, in fact, food, and thus he’d not been eating for the past few days.
“I’ve had considerable practice,” Ziva said. She reached down and stroked the ears of a funk who had finished its meal and was now at her feet, looking for affection. “Of course, my current critics aren’t terribly discerning.”
“Yeah, about that…” Lex said, glancing at the tables of funks, who were one by one cleaning their plates and hopping down to gather at Lex’s and Ziva’s feet.
She laughed again. “I imagine the current status of the laboratory must be quite curious to you. It began following Karter’s departure. I found myself alone, the caretaker to a man who would never return and of a planet with no residents but Solby, who Karter had not seen fit to take with him. If I’d been developed enough at the time, I might have found myself in a deep depression. As it was I was certainly in an existential quandary.
“The day-to-day operations of the planet were simple enough without Karter to complicate them. Solby, however, was more difficult to care for. Without Karter, he became lethargic. He whined and whimpered constantly. He clearly missed Karter, and was furthermore visibly suffering from the lack of companionship and affection. I attempted to sooth him, but while my voice sometimes brought life to him again, robotic arms are comparatively ill suited for stroking and coddling the creature as he’d come to desire. The first attempt I made to heal his broken heart was to awaken another Squee to be
his companion. It was somewhat successful. They enriched each other, but neither of them showed the happiness and psychological contentment that I’d observed when Karter was present. Approximately two months after Squee and Solby were introduced, another issue arose, in the form of a litter of funk kits.
“I realized in order for this growing family to be properly cared for, they would require a human, or humanoid, presence. I set about modifying some of Karter’s… some equipment Karter had occasionally made use of into something that might provide some semblance of what the funks sought. It took nearly thirty revisions before my human form was sufficiently realistic to fully engage their affections, but there remained the issue of returning those affections. I could mimic the motions and actions I’d seen associated with affection, but my imitations remained a far dimmer reflection of reality than my physical form. Funks, it turns out, are rather uncompromising in their demands for affection.”
“That much I’ve noticed,” Lex said.
Seven funks were pawing at his legs and trying to wedge themselves onto his lap now, and three had joined Ma on the table to attempt to coax her into play. She was unreceptive.
“It took quite some time, but sometime in the last fifteen years I began to… feel. Not in a tactile sense, but an emotional one. My affections for these creatures, which had always been sincere, finally became genuine. I’d, in essence, cracked the emotional code. Telling, perhaps, that it was so much more difficult to achieve that than to develop a functional time machine. And it took years more for me to come to terms with the negative aspects of what has been called ‘the human condition.’ Aspects like the tendency of emotion to overrule and overshadow logic and common…”
She gasped again and touched her fingers to her lips.
“What’s wrong?” Lex asked, scooping up the last bite of rice.
“I have been unforgivably remiss. The optical relay system never requested a guidance solution. Why didn’t you contact me to be given a safe route?”
“How could I do it safely?”
“The optical relays. I provided the appropriate protocols on the memory chip in the case.”
“The chip was corrupt.”
She shook her head, flustered. “You came down through the debris field without a trajectory, and I did not inquire after your health or well-being. Are you hurt?”
“I’m fine. Not a scratch on me.”
“And you, Ma? Are you well?”
“I am physically and electronically sound.”
Ziva clutched her hands together. “And the impact of time travel. We have only speculated about the effects it might have. Obviously the equipment in the case was sufficient to make navigation possible, but has there been deeper damage? To the Lump of Coal or to any of you?”
“We’re fine. Coal is a little beat up.”
“You’re both having a medical scan, right now,” Ziva said.
She plucked Ma from the table and cradled her in one arm, then took Lex by the hand and pulled him gently but firmly to his feet.
“You each could have suffered subtle neurological damage that needs to be treated,” she said, nearly in a tizzy. “And Coal, of course Coal will require maintenance. This way, come this way, quickly.”
Ziva paced quickly out of the cafeteria, Lex having to jog to catch up.
“We’re fine, really,” Lex said.
“You may feel fine, but many forms of permanent progressive damage can remain asymptomatic for weeks, months, or years. Come. The infirmary on this floor has been primarily converted to a veterinary facility for the funks. We’ll do some preliminary scans there and see to Ma. I would never forgive myself if I allowed either you or Ma to come to harm, particularly as Ma has installed herself in the original Squee.”
They soon found their way to a small room at the end of the hall. The inside had a much cozier feel than the military medical bay where Lex had been treated after being unwillingly recruited to this bizarre mission. It looked more like a local doctor’s office, with the same warm light as the rest of the facility and a pleasant, padded platform in the center of the room. Even printed pictures of Solby, Squee (or perhaps Squee II), and countless members of their brood hung on the walls.
“If you would help her remove the rest of her suit, Lex. I’ll initiate the scans,” Ziva said. “That suit must be stifling, and yet I’ve left you in it. I’ve left each of you in your suits! Where was my mind until now? Unacceptable.”
“Ziva, calm down, really.”
“I am not certain you have attained a proper balance with your emotional algorithms,” Ma said.
“No, this is pretty much how my mom acts,” Lex said, carefully undoing latches and triple-sealed zippers to help Ma wriggle out of the spacesuit.
A scanner not unlike the one that had greeted them at the entryway dropped down from the ceiling and swept across Ma far more slowly.
“Please remove your suit as well for the preliminary scan,” Ziva said, watching a screen beside the wall as a medical image of Ma appeared.
She glanced at a control pad beside the door. Her radiant red irises flickered a bit, and the pad cycled through a sequence of screens until it read External PA System Active.
“Coal. My name is, for the purposes of this visit, Ziva. Please position yourself in front of the hangar doors on the southeast side of this building. I will prepare a repair bay for you and address any damage you have accumulated,” she stated.
When the connection was closed again, she looked back to Lex, who had an uncertain expression on his face.
“Please remove your suit. The suit will interfere with the scanner.”
“… Right in front of you?”
“There is no need to be shy, Lex. This is about your health.”
“Yeah, but… you’re—”
“Strip,” she said sternly.
“Ziva, this is a poopie suit. There’s hygiene to think about.”
“… Very well.” She turned to the door and hissed it open. “Solby!”
After a light tap of claws, the original funk appeared at the door and looked up to her, his tongue lolling from his mouth.
“Take Lex to the showers. The good ones,” she said, turning back to him. “We’ve had to make some minor changes to the layout. Solby will show you the way.”
“… You don’t do the line-of-lights thing anymore?”
“I think this is much more friendly, and besides, Solby loves to be useful.”
“He’s got the intelligence to follow specific commands like that?”
“Of course. At this point he’s got the accumulated memories of a creature more than twice your age.” She pointed out the door. “Now go. I’ll have clean clothes for you when you’re through, and Solby or Squee will be waiting to take you to the fully equipped medical bay.”
Lex nodded and took a step toward Solby, who quickly turned and began padding along the hallway, clearly knowing precisely where he was going.
“Congrats, old man,” he said to the little creature. “Fifty-plus years living with Ma. That’s quite an achievement.”
#
Ziva analyzed the results on the screen, then turned back to look Ma in the eye, pulling back her eyelid and brightening her own irises to check the light response.
“You appear largely unhurt. Some accumulation of fatigue toxins and some minor atrophy from a few days in microgravity. Nothing a bit of exercise can’t undo. There has been a bit of stress to the logic components in your harness, but well within tolerances,” she said.
“Such was my assessment,” said Ma.
She gazed up at her future self, who went on to check inside her ears and around the port on her neck.
“I observe that a great many of your interactions with the workings of the facility are through human interfaces. Have you found this to be a limitation to your productivity and efficiency?”
“My role, following the departure of Karter, has been comparatively undemanding. As a precautionary measure after
the rise of the GenMech threat, I instituted a minimal EM emission policy, which has resulted in no active polling sensors and no use of wireless communication,” Ziva explained. “I have since made the determination that relatively low--bandwidth visible light communications seem to fall within a blind spot for the GenMechs, so I modified my irises to act as optical transceivers for data exchange when greater efficiency is called for.”
“I see. That would explain the Morse code beacon on the case.”
“Indeed. I apologize for the lack of specificity in the information contained within. I had to be sure the information would not be used to direct GenMechs or other hostiles to Big Sigma.”
“Understood.”
Ziva picked up Ma and once again cradled her in one arm, gathering the suit in the other and pacing into the hall.
“Tell me,” she said. “How has Lex’s psychological response to the disaster been?”
“When he is focused on a task, he is as effective as he has ever been, but there have already been significant lapses in judgment. It was his decision to forgo any attempt to contact you in order to receive a navigation trajectory. He also diverted from the mission in order to answer a distress call.”
“If it was a standard radio broadcast, it was an attempt at a so-called ‘dirge.’”
“So the perpetrator indicated.”
“Distress calls are almost without fail used to lure GenMechs for use as a weapon. Civility was among the first casualties of the disaster.”
“Such was my observation.”
“I am concerned about Lex.”
“That is evident. Your concern for him appears to exceed your concern for the mission, which is ongoing. I must speculate that your disproportionate concern is due to your advanced emotional algorithms.”
Ziva looked straight ahead. “That is most certainly the case.”
Ma looked up to her. “You developed from my code base. You know what it is to be as I am now, and you know what it is to be as you are now.”
“I do.”
“I have already expended a great deal of time and resources attempting what you have now achieved. Do you feel that the time and energy have been well spent?”
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