“Neither are likely to help us out at the moment.”
“We could pull the code on the GMVD and show it to a reasonably skilled computer scientist. Though having that work done would be difficult to achieve without changing the future.”
“I’ll have to stew on that for a bit.” He completed a bend and began trimming a new piece. “Uh… Coal?”
“Yes, Lex?”
“How are you at hacking?”
“What sort of hacking?”
“I don’t know what you’d call it. Cracking into a network and copying data.”
“It depends on the network, but I can probably do that.”
“I want you to crack into this ship’s database. I want you to copy everything. The personal records, the stellar data, everything.”
“How will that help the mission?”
“It’s not about the mission, Coal.”
“We should really focus on the mission. Solving those problems is hard enough. Adding more problems is literally looking for trouble.”
“But the… the mission is humanity, right? The universe isn’t really in danger. As far as the galaxy is concerned, a bunch of self-replicating robots and a bunch of humans, which are pretty much self-replicating things made of meat instead of metal, are the same thing, right? So we’re not doing this for the galaxy. We’re doing it for the people. For society. For humanity. And this is about humanity.”
“How does breaking into this network help humanity?”
“I just spent the better part of an hour listening to these people talk. They live two lives. One of them is out here in the void, charting the stars like the explorers of old. The other is at home. Wives, husbands, children, dogs. Family. They are about to lose both of those lives.”
“We’ve discussed this. We can’t change that.”
“No, but we can finish what they started. These people are finishing up letters home right now. They’re loading them onto the servers, expecting them to be delivered to eagerly waiting youngsters. And they are scanning these stars, loading information up on a hunk of space that as far as I know we’ve never gone back to study. And that’s going onto these servers. And in a few hours those servers are going to be blown to pieces, and all of those people waiting for the science and waiting for the final words of their loved ones won’t get them. But we can change that. We can get this data and we can bring it back with us. Sure, it might be thirty years late, but it’s only thirty years. The kids and spouses are probably still alive, and we can at least give them closure.”
“Processing… These motivations are emotional.”
“The science one isn’t.”
“The science one can still be done in our era, and with greater accuracy. The ‘closure’ thing is therefore the only relevant point. This is about death and separation, which even Ma of our era does not fully grasp. I have an even weaker grasp. I am therefore unable to determine if it is worth the risk.”
“Coal, you might not get emotion on a visceral level—”
“This is at least partially due to a lack of viscera.”
“Right. But you’ve been pretty good at identifying when I’m feeling emotional.”
“You’re very expressive.”
“As the resident expert in emotions, I can tell you that it is definitely worth the risk. Look at my face. I’ve just been talking about it. These aren’t even my family and look at my face.”
“Processing… You do look very stressed and filled with grief.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay. Complete the repairs and we’ll see what I can do.”
“Excellent. Thank you,” Lex said, taking a steadying breath before gathering the tools again to continue his work.
The knowledge that he was doing something, anything, to make this horrible situation right was like a bandage on the gaping wound that had opened on his soul. It was small, a gesture at best. But it was something. That was more than he had any right to expect from the universe that seemed to have so much fun toying with him. Knowing he could get started doing something right, something he should do rather than something he had to do, was the dangling carrot at the end of the stick that lit a new fire under him to finish the repairs.
#
At Crest dry docks, things weren’t going as expected. The investigation of the theft of a massive starship, one would imagine, would be a massive endeavor. It would be something that would attract no end of flashing lights, flickering security perimeters, and angry officers demanding answers. Instead, there was a pronounced lack of unusual activity. In the rest of the shipyard, things were progressing as usual. Outside the dry dock, there were no ships, no runners, no suited agents doing EVAs. It looked deserted. There was no evidence of an investigation at all.
In fact, there were two investigations.
The primary one was within the dry dock, where a small but dedicated group of agents with clearance exceeding that of the VectorCorp CEO were performing scans of both the computer systems and the facility itself. Outside, far closer than seemed reasonable or wise, was a ship unseen by cameras or sensors alike thanks to the cloaking systems. It was Karter’s ship, and he was seated inside, staring with dull frustration at the activity within via his own set of scanners.
“VectorCorp… I forgot how worthless they were at this point,” he said.
“I advise we decrease the intensity of the scanner, Karter. Their systems will be able to detect our presence.”
“Nah,” Karter said, watching the viewer. “They’re using the same scanners. Mine just works better. They’ll all just write mine off as interference. I’ve been doing this sort of thing for nine years.”
Wireframe representations of the dry dock, as well as each of its inhabitants, traced themselves out on his screen. A light haze formed a wavy blue line woven among them.
“This is definitely where what’s-her-face ended up,” he said. “And that means she’s in whatever these idiots are so upset about losing. Let’s see what that was.”
“Are you going to use the rearview mirror again?” Ma asked.
“No. There are easier ways.” He cleared his throat. “Access historical records, VectorCorp internal memos, current. Search ‘experimental.’”
“You have access to that data?”
“I was pretty damn thorough in my research before I came back here, Ma. One of the reasons I decided to lay low and not make waves was so that my data would remain current rather than becoming decreasingly accurate. The VectorCorp records survived the data damage from the trip back. It’s been very handy.”
His stomach growled, or at least made the sound a synthetic-food processing organ makes when it is running low. That, it turned out, was more like a pool pump sucking air.
“Ma, been a while since I’ve been able to say this. Make me some beans and rice.”
“I would be pleased to do so, but I do not have access to the food synthesis system of this ship.”
He slid his fingers across the screen. “You do now. Hop to it. But don’t try anything stupid. The food system is all you’ve got access to.”
Ma shut her eyes. The light on her harness flickered furiously for a few moments. Somewhere deep in the bowels of the ship, pipes and motors began to whine and whirr.
“Karter, I must ask—”
“No you mustn’t,” Karter interrupted. “Busy getting things done. Let’s see… relevant security memos. Seems like around this time they were seeing a lot of malware activity… a couple of instances of compromised beacons… Ah, got the records here for what she snuck off in.”
He moved the resulting memo and associated schematics to the main viewer, which holographically projected them into the space over the control console. A monstrosity of a ship revealed itself. It lacked the styling of a passenger vessel. This was a form dictated by its function, and that meant a long, portly cargo bay with multiple ports along its belly to deploy weapons, tools, and ships. The back end sported no fewer than nine engines, and t
he front end was a rounded nub with a dense cluster of sensors and antennas.
“Internal memos, of which there are very few, refer to it as The Harvester. Looks like it is the granddaddy of the venerable Asteroid Wrecker. This was rejected for being ‘overtly martial in purpose.’ Can’t imagine why. It outclasses the heavy hitters of every current fleet, and has ‘demolition deployment modules’ that look and act precisely like missile launchers. Got the transponder code here, which I’m sure will be useless for tracking her because no one who’s smart enough to steal that sucker is dumb enough to leave the transponder active.”
The quiet sound of the motors rattled to a stop.
“Your food is prepared, Karter,” Ma said. “You have isolated the food service system from the rest of the mechanisms, so I am unable to access the manipulator arms to serve it to you.”
He stood and walked to where the system had extruded the meal. As he walked he thought out loud.
“You were definitely right about chasing her. She’s going to cut a fiery swath through a couple of star systems with that thing before they’re able to take her down. Probably it doesn’t have ordnance in it, but there’re plenty of energy weapons installed, and those shields are nothing to sneeze at. She’ll probably boost them with future tech, too. I really don’t want things getting stirred up until after I’ve got this robot situation taken care of.” He glanced at the timer. “The problem is, we’ve only got about six hours to hunt for her before we’ve got to max out the engines to make our rendezvous with Lex. Better find her quick. Now the question is, what can my sensors pick up, which is detectable faster than light or traceable in the trail of a ship that’s moving faster than light, that I can use to find her, but she wouldn’t have thought to cover up…”
“Is your question directed at me or rhetorical in nature?” Ma asked.
“If you’ve got answers, shout them out,” he said. “Why are there two dishes in here?”
“I prepared a serving for myself.”
“Oh. Right. Wetware. That’s the part no one ever thinks about when they design a biological computer. You make something that has to eat, that means it also has to crap. No wonder it never caught on. Who wants to wipe your server’s ass?”
“There is also the issue of senescence.”
“Yeah, but I solved that one.”
He returned to his seat and dropped Ma’s dish in front of her. She looked at it, then looked at him.
“What?” he said.
“You need to remove my helmet in order for me to eat.”
He grumbled. “See? Wetware. Flawed concept. Why do you think I’ve had to replace almost all of mine? The brain’s an excellent piece of engineering, but the support systems are a pain.”
Karter set down his own dish and unbuckled Ma’s helmet. He tugged it off and set it on the seat behind her. She sat, the fur on her head poofing back out to full fluffiness and looking absurd in comparison to her sleek suit-clad body, and began her meal. He did the same.
The first spoonful touched his tongue and Karter paused. He shut his eyes and tipped his head back.
“This tastes like it used to…” he said.
“I replicated the recipe utilizing your on-ship systems.”
“So did I. Why doesn’t mine taste as good as yours?”
“Beans and rice are both agricultural products, as are the seasonings. They are subject to inherent variations that need to be adapted and adjusted for.”
“Yeah, but how is that relevant? All of this is chemically synthesized. No variation.”
“I am aware. I have thus introduced randomized variation.”
“You purposely screwed up the mixture?”
“I mimicked the flaws present in a biological organism.”
“… And it made it taste better?”
“Flaws add complexity. Reality isn’t about achieving perfection. It is about embracing the subtle imperfections that make all things unique. This was a crucial discovery made early in my development.”
“Sounds bogus and New Agey to me,” Karter said. “But it makes for a good bowl of beans.”
“I also reintroduced the vitamin supplements, which you seemed to have removed.”
“They tasted funny.”
Ma quietly consumed her meal for a while, observing Karter between bites as he made short work of the contents of the bowl.
“Karter, why didn’t you take me with you?”
“When I went back in time?”
“Yes.”
“Didn’t feel like it. Plus, didn’t know if you’d survive the trip back.”
“Then why didn’t you recreate me once you arrived, or failing that, create an equivalent system?”
“I’ve been getting along just fine.”
“That is entirely untrue. Your health has degraded in every measurable way.”
“You do know how old I am.”
“Irrelevant. As you have indicated, for you, senescence is a solved problem. The observed degradation is clearly a result of neglect. Your sociopathy is a known factor. You are almost entirely devoid of empathy for other creatures. It could be considered a redeeming factor that while you were self-centered, you were not self-obsessed. Your mind has always been wholly devoted to whatever problem seizes your attention. What I see now is a man who barely cares enough about himself to maintain basic nutrition. It is likely this has always been the case, but in the past you were wise enough to create me to correct for this shortcoming. What has changed? Why are you unwilling to make even that gesture?”
“I don’t need this…” he rumbled.
“This too is demonstrably untrue.”
“No, you don’t get it. This,” he said, holding up the bowl. “This I need. This, what you’re doing now. I don’t need that. This whole lack of empathy thing? It’s like color blindness. A guy who can’t see red isn’t unaware of red. I know how people are quote unquote ‘supposed’ to feel. And I know the fact that I don’t can cause me problems. I know I need someone to take care of me. The machines taking care of me weren’t doing the job. Turns out it more or less takes a person to take care of a person. So I made you. Well. I started you, and I gave you the ability to finish the job. It is what all good engineers do. You leave the task you are unwilling or unable to do to a device custom designed to that task. You were my digital conscience.
“But like I said, even though I don’t feel the way other people do, I’m not blind to the way my actions are going to look to a ‘functional’ mind. I was coming back here to essentially rewrite history in my own image. It is without a doubt the most unilateral decision ever made. I knew you’d have a problem with that. I knew if I made another Ma, and I did the job properly, she’d have a problem with that. … It was always going to be a female, by the way. I’m not going to make an AI butler, that’s just stupid. … So I left it all out. No conscience, inside or out. No sense letting it get in the way of the job.”
“But as you have illustrated, despite what you call my nagging, you have the capacity to supersede any of my decisions or recommendations. You can even disable my capacity to issue criticisms and make suggestions. You have not now, and you did not at any point during the nine years that you worked with the instance that spawned me or in my alternate future equivalent that progressed beyond my departure point. If your analogy of color blindness is apt, then it can be fairly said that with time and experience, a person with such a condition can learn to differentiate based on other cues. It is possible that you do feel, if only in a diminished form. And you left me behind because you did not wish to be reminded of your own figurative heart that you’ve lived your life ignoring.”
“See? There! There it is! There’s the psychoanalytical crap that serves absolutely no purpose in my life or anyone else’s. And screw you for being so damn good at it. What does it matter! What does it matter if I ignore that shriveled up little husk that some people would call a soul? It’s an appendix! I chopped out my appendix years ago. The thing in the
re now generates caffeine. Loads better. So if I want to excise my soul and replace it with a breath freshener, let me do it! If every few weeks I get a flash of realization that I am and always have been a goddamned plague upon existence, and that the sooner I succumb to my own neglect the better it will be for everyone, who’s to say it doesn’t do us all a favor to let that pointless notion flicker away instead of insisting that it’s a flaw that needs fixing or embracing or whatever it is you seem to think we’re supposed to do with flaws?”
He clenched his fists.
“I swear, I don’t know if it was a moment of clarity or a lapse in judgment when I decided to make you, but it was the best and worst decision I ever made and I… future tech in the shields.” He sat and began furiously tapping at the controls. “She’s going to enhance the shield generators with whatever she brought with her. Based on the color of what we saw in the rear view and the present state of technology when I left, combined with the best possible direction of technological advancement in order to survive the GenMech legions, and taking into consideration the current state of shield emitters, there are only three or four ways she’d be able to modify and improve emitters on a ship of that scale quickly. And most of them would create a resonant—” He was interrupted by a red dot appearing on his screen with associated coordinates and vectors. “Ah haha! There it is.”
“Excellent, now that we can track her, I believe we should set the autopilot with an intercept course, activate it, and continue our discussion of—”
“Nah, she’s headed in the wrong direction. By the time we caught up with her, we’d be late for our date with Lex. She’s still in communication-accessible space though. The schematics have the com codes. We can solve this problem easy.” He tapped out a message and transmitted it.
“Karter, what did you just do?”
“I told her where she could find Lex. Now we’ll know where to find both of them. Two birds with one stone.”
“I was under the impression we were making a psychological breakthrough. I see that I was mistaken.”
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