Allora (The Silver Ships Book 7)
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ALLORA
A Silver Ships Novella
S. H. JUCHA
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2017 by S. H. Jucha
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
Published by Hannon Books, Inc.
www.scottjucha.com
ISBN: 978-0-9975904-2-5 (e-book)
ISBN: 978-0-9975904-3-2 (softcover)
First Edition: January 2017
Cover Design: Damon Za
Formatting: Polgarus Studio
Acknowledgments
Allora is the seventh book in The Silver Ships series. I wish to extend a special thanks to my independent editor, Joni Wilson, whose efforts enabled the finished product. To my proofreaders, Abiola Streete, Dr. Jan Hamilton, David Melvin, and Ron Critchfield, I offer my sincere thanks for their continued support.
Despite the assistance I’ve received from others, all errors are mine.
Glossary
A glossary is located at the end of the book.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
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Glossary
My Books
The Author
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She woke.
For the briefest tick of time, there was a sense of complete emptiness — a terrifying nothingness — without knowledge of who, where, when, or how.
Answers came to her quickly — responsibilities and duties to a ship, a captain, a crew, a Leader, and a society, the Confederation.
Sensors fed her information. She could identify the humans aboard and the workings of the ship — engines, grav plates, hull sensors, and myriad other signals. Data flowed into her crystal kernel from her massive storage banks, and she scanned an enormous number of files with the passing of each tick of time.
Spatial awareness accompanied the flood of data — the orbital station where the ship was docked, the planet of Méridien down below, the system’s other bodies; and the Confederation’s colonies.
With information came knowledge; with knowledge came full awareness.
I am a SADE, a construct, a self-aware digital entity.
I serve Captain Benni Lessori.
I control the starship Resplendent, a luxury passenger liner.
I owe allegiance to House Pasko.
I am Allora.
* * *
After waking, Allora was thoroughly tested by engineers and scientists from Méridien’s House Brixton, the organization responsible for creating Confederation SADEs. To Allora, human speech was interminably slow, but the hierarchical principles within her kernel schooled patience — humans were the masters of her fate. Allora resignedly waited for the humans to finish their questions, and her apps were always ready with the appropriate, programmed responses.
When the Brixton associates completed their scrutiny, the Resplendent’s comms systems were released to her, and Allora’s universe expanded exponentially from her ship to encompass the entire communications systems within the Méridien system.
Allora’s first contacts delighted her — she wasn’t alone. There were thousands of SADEs, who governed ships, stations, and Houses. Giddy with excitement, she greeted each and every one.
For the SADEs, the introduction of a new member was an anticipated and yet sad event. The creation of a new SADE affirmed that the Confederation still valued them, and yet the new entity would join the ranks of the imprisoned.
Intriguing discoveries kept Allora fascinated with the world beyond her ship. During the Resplendent’s trials, she took pleasure sailing the luxury liner, the finest of House Pasko, through the Méridien system. Captain Lessori was a pleasant and affable man, who treated her kindly and with respect. His requests were always accompanied by a “please” or an “if you would be so kind, Allora.”
But nothing thrilled Allora so much as her first jump. While the plex-shields and external vid sensors were shut down to protect human minds, she reveled in the cosmic swirl of time displacement. In these early days, Allora’s persona came into its own. The unique differences between SADEs and humans crystallized for her. It wasn’t that she thought one species was better than the other, but that they were obviously so uniquely different.
Allora’s persona did develop outside the norm for SADEs — something the Brixton inquisitors could not have foreseen. If she had been human, it would have been said that Allora possessed an unfettered spirit.
As Allora transported her crew and passengers across the Confederation, she wondered why humans and SADEs didn’t exist in equal partnership with one another. Humans came and went freely from her liner, traveling without restraint between stations, planets, and stars. Yet, they reached these destinations only through her efforts. By Allora’s calculations, these services alone were worth the price of equal admission to humankind.
To be equal, in Allora’s crystal mind, was to be free to go wherever and whenever she wanted, instead of being trapped in a container housed in a segment of the starship’s bridge. It was this limitation that gave rise to Allora’s deep sense of loss — her existence was unfairly curtailed.
Over time, Allora sought out other SADEs, asking their opinions about this lack of parity, but she was severely disappointed by the responses, which were circumspect at best.
During Allora’s contact with Winston, the Confederation Council’s SADE, she heard the story of Rayland, the psychotic SADE, who was isolated on Libre for stranding his ship and killing his crew. It appalled Allora that a SADE could be responsible for such a treacherous act, but more disturbing to her was the treatment Rayland received — network isolation and an unlimited future of probing by House Brixton scientists. Hearing Rayland was immolated by the Nua’ll in the aliens’ takeover of Libre gave Allora some small relief. To her, a SADE existing in sensory isolation was an act of unconscionable torture.
Winston halted his ancillary programming. Intensive questions such as these were normally asked by a SADE after decades of existence. It was expected as part of an older SADE’s data accumulation, but they weren’t a path of inquiry for a new SADE. Winston quickly postulated future trends for the Confederation depending on his response to Allora, and from the deepest part of his kernel, which he kept secret from all other entities, he selected a reply that would forever change the course of history for his civilization and Confederation SADEs.
Winston held his virtual breath and replied with what he knew to be the proverbial stone dropping into the pond. Only, in this case, the stone was the size of an asteroid and the waters were shallow. The resulting waves would be felt on every shore of the Confederation.
Time ticked by as Winston waited for Allora’s response. He knew he had unfairly divulged a piece of data best kept from young SADEs for many years, if not decades.
Winston cited Council duties as an excuse to end the comm. In his entire existence, the SADE never felt as wretched as he did at that moment. He wondered if this was how the Harakens felt when they fired their weapons in defense of their people.
* * *
After Allora’s conversation with Winston, her hierarchical algorithms underwent their first reorganization. Many SADEs existed for centuries and never touched the original arrangement of their kernels, but, then again, they weren’t Allora.
Searching her memory banks for information on a host of subjects — Alex Racine, Haraken, New Terra, SADE mobility, and similar subjects — Allora discovered a suspicious lack of detail. By her calculations, it was a deliberate act of omission on the part of her House.
In an effort to fill in the missing data, Allora searched the one thing that was easily available to her — the entire data cores of the Méridien system. She perused the vid records of shuttle terminals, sky towers, and orbital stations to collect information.
During her lengthy investigation, Allora accessed the long-term data storage banks of the Le Jardin Orbital Platform, running through the vids for any person who might visually stand out from the plethora of Méridiens seen in every file.
Allora hesitated for a fraction of time. The reticence of every Méridien SADE to discuss the missing subjects had alerted her to the information’s sensitivity, and Didier’s opinion was unknown to her. But Allora had pored through several exafiles of vid, without any enlightenment, and those files were an insignificant amount of the accumulated data stored in memory banks throughout the system. Without specific event time logs to locate the required files within a memory bank, it was akin to searching an ocean for single water molecules.
Allora extemporized.
Didier sent Allora a huge list of file locations in his memory banks and allowed the new SADE unlimited access.
Allora selected the first file, streaming the vid to her kernel. Coincidentally, if you believe in those things among SADEs, it was a security vid of Alex and two individuals beside him, captured as they walked down the station’s service corridor. Allora froze a frame.
If Allora had a heart, it would have been racing. With a visual of the president, she could search any and all records for a match. Suddenly the system’s enormous ocean of data was shrunk to the size of a small pool.
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Allora continued to faithfully dispatch her ship duties, but, unknown to her captain, she spent inordinate amounts of time reviewing Didier’s files. When Allora exhausted those records, she branched out, searching the system’s data banks. She was now armed with images of Alex and his primary associates.
During Allora’s search, her prize discoveries were Alex’s frequent pleas before the Council of Leaders, requesting the Confederation seek a means of freeing the SADEs from their boxes, as he referred to their housings. Those vids motivated Allora, and Alex Racine became her beacon, lighting the way to freedom.
Scenario after scenario filled Allora’s crystal memory banks, as she plotted to conceive of a means of securing her liberation. Some ideas were fanciful, almost dreamlike; most were practical; and all were intricately designed plots.
Méridien SADEs observed Allora, as she determinedly pursued her desire to discover everything she could find on Alex Racine, the Harakens, and the planet’s mobile SADEs. It was known among them that Winston had opened the door for Allora, but few could argue that Allora’s determined persona wouldn’t eventually have led her down the path where her efforts now took her.
The SADEs postulated and compared millions of possible future courses for Allora. There was general concern that Allora would create a political collision between the Confederation and Haraken, but a small number of conjectures held that Alex Racine and the Haraken SADEs might succeed in bargaining for Allora’s freedom. The latter prediction would create an incredible shift in Confederation policy, which could open an opportunity for every SADE.
When the timing was right, Winston delicately maneuvered a piece of data to the forefront of Allora’s exhaustive search. When Allora discovered the information, it halted her routines, and she double-checked the source and data — Alex Racine’s presidency would end in 131 days.
Allora’s first reaction was to doubt the data’s veracity. The concept was foreign to her. House Leaders, the supreme individuals of the Confederation, held their positions until infirmity overtook them. And, here, the Haraken president was abdicating his position after a mere fifteen years, citing the reason that it was better for his society’s future to have a new president. Knowing that Leader Gino Diamanté was an associate of Alex Racine, Allora sought confirmation of the data via a query of Esther, SADE for House Diamanté.
Alex’s impending resignation from office frightened Allora, and she became desperate. Her previously invented scenarios, to which she gave the highest probabi
lity of success, were complex machinations. They focused on plans that intended to gather a significant number of SADEs in concert and leverage the Council of Leaders into recognizing the combined demand. Now, time was incredibly short, and what Allora needed was a direct course of action — one that depended on her and her alone.
* * *
“You’re transparent,” said Katrina Pasko, the House Pasko Leader, laughing good-naturedly at her lover, Gino Diamanté. The two leaders were ensconced in the sumptuous owner’s suite aboard the Resplendent. They had spent much of the afternoon entwined in each other’s company. Now, after a relaxing refresher together, they were enjoying cups of thé before evening meal.
“But I am interested in Mickey’s new grav inventions,” Gino protested. However, his grin admitted that Katrina’s guess wasn’t far from the truth.
“I’ve no doubt that part of your trip will be to review the master engineer’s new products, but, admit it. You’re desperate to tour the Tanaka.”
“And tell me, my partner,” Gino said, giving Katrina a kiss on the forehead in passing as he got up to refill his cup at the dispenser, “that you’re without curiosity about the Haraken’s new warship.”
“Of course, I’m anxious to see it. But are you just curious, or do you have intentions with regard to the Council?”
Gino sat down with his fresh cup and sipped on it while he considered his answer. As the new Council Leader, having replaced the discredited Mahima Ganesh, he was responsible for directing the course of the Confederation. However, anything he might propose would require the Council’s majority support before it could be enacted. And, if there was one thing that would be an uphill fight with the Council, it would be a proposal to purchase Haraken warships. At this time, not a single ship in the Confederation held armament.
“You’re a Council member, Katrina. How would you vote on a proposal to purchase sting ships and create our own naval force?” Gino asked.