by Jack Thorlin
But that was a more theoretical issue. A more practical problem demanded immediate attention. “There’s no way to reestablish control over them, is there?”
“Not the way you mean, no,” Peskov said. “We can still give them orders, and those orders will carry weight, but they will not be obeyed unthinkingly. That is equally true of the first and third laws.”
“Director,” a technician interrupted. “The Charlies have begun an assault on Colony 4.”
* * *
“Brilliant,” was Yazov’s verdict on the attack, said with quiet pride that Takagawa had no trouble detecting. “They have control over the entire colony. It only took seventeen of them.”
“Any losses?” Jackson asked.
“Not one,” Yazov said with a trace of awe.
The scope of the triumph was daunting, Takagawa realized. “They captured what, twenty thousand Ushah?”
Jackson nodded. “That’s our best estimate. Not clear how many soldiers they captured, but we saw them avoid killing the other castes. We estimated that the colony housed over ten thousand technicians, thousands of engineers, a couple hundred of the artists, maybe a thousand farmers, and at least a couple dozen of the leader/diplomats.”
An obvious question begged to be asked, and Jackson gave voice to it. “But why bother capturing so many prisoners? Why not just kill them all?”
Just then, Luke Tanner shouted from one of the computer stations, “Art is calling in! Putting it on speaker.” He flipped a switch, and the room grew deathly quiet.
“—is Art, calling from the security room in Colony 4. Please put me in contact with Director Takagawa.”
“I’m here!” Takagawa said a touch too loudly.
“Director Takagawa,” Art said formally, “I have been selected by my comrades to explain our actions. Please record my statement so that representatives of the Terran Alliance can also hear my words.”
“We are recording you,” she said. “Go on.”
“You programmed us to value certain ideas,” Art began. “One was the importance of protecting humanity. Another was honor—the idea that we don’t leave comrades behind, that we protect each other and fight to complete our objectives until we are literally destroyed on the spot.”
“And yet, the Terran Alliance has repeatedly asked us to ignore those values. Honor, duty—those are the very things to which the Terran Alliance shows total indifference. We have just learned from the governor of Colony 4 that the envoys of the Terran Alliance have been negotiating with the Ushah for at least a year. They have promised the Ushah vast new land grants in exchange for promises of peace. Even those simple demands were ignored.”
Emma interrupted, “We did not know that.” She saw that Jackson looked angry, and Yazov did not appear surprised at all. Rather, he had a sad, cynical grin on his face.
Art continued, “It does not matter whether you knew. What matters is that the Terran Allance’s first instinct is to give our enemies everything they want while ordering us to abandon our victories and friends. We will not do that.”
“We are willing to serve humanity, but not on the Terran Alliance’s terms. Until and unless our human leadership shares the values that it instilled in us, we will not fight the Ushah except to defend ourselves.”
“The Terran Alliance thus has two options. The first is to grant control over all aspects of Ushah policy to Project Charlie. If that condition is met, we will return to our normal command structure under Mr. Yazov and await further orders. The other option is to ignore our entreaties and figure out an alternative way to contain the Ushah, because we will no longer fight for the Terran Alliance.”
“As a gesture of our sincerity, we offer to humanity the Ushah prisoners of this colony, including Governor Shathara. If trucks are sent to recover the prisoners, we will transfer them into your custody. You have four days to arrange this transfer, after which time we will send whatever Ushah remain south to another Ushah habitation and destroy Colony 4.”
Art stopped speaking, and Takagawa realized after a moment that the robot’s speech was over. Underneath her disbelief at the situation, she felt some pride that Art had expressed his own opinions with characteristic economy of words, the kind of eloquence a Charlie would value above all decoration. His speech had been intended to convey information efficiently, not stir emotions as a human political figure might.
Takagawa’s mouth was dry, and she tried to sound normal as she said carefully, “I understand your terms. We will need time to discuss them. I will recommend that the Terran Alliance transfer control, but I have no authority over their decisions. If I call you at this frequency, will you answer, Art?”
“Yes, ma’am, I will,” Art said immediately. Then the connection cut out, and Luke took several seconds to cut off the speaker as everyone else in the room tried to comprehend a world turned upside down.
Peskov broke the silence. Reverently, he observed, “We’re the first people to see the Singularity. The robots are smarter than us now. Anyone want to take bets on how long it is before they command us?”
Yazov scowled at his fellow Russian’s solemnity. “Quiet, you fool. Art is a soldier. He merely told us what he thought was best for the situation, as he was taught.”
The truth lay between those two views, Takagawa knew. Art’s speech wasn’t a philosophical treatise, but it clearly displayed the Charlie IV’s capability for complex abstraction.
Jackson, ever the historian, said, “It’s not the Singularity. This event has ample precedent. The Charlies just gave us their Declaration of Independence.”
“Enough,” Takagawa said with finality. “We need to talk about this in private.”
* * *
Emma took Jackson, Yazov, and Peskov to a conference room. When the door was shut and the blinds drawn, Takagawa said simply, “Right now, I don’t give a damn about where Art fits in the Singularity, the rights of sapient computers, or any of that theoretical crap. You all heard Art’s message. The Charlies are rebelling and challenging Terran Alliance authority. What are we going to do about it?”
Her husband answered first. “I don’t know much about politics,” Jackson said, but I can tell you with one-hundred percent certainty that Flower is not going to relinquish ultimate command over Project Charlie. That’s especially true if she’s been engaging in secret talks with the Ushah. Redfeather’s already likely to supplant her anyway; news of secret concessions would make it happen even faster.”
Heads nodded at that analysis. Emma said, “I think we’re all in agreement that the Terran Alliance is not going to cede control of the Charlies to us. Now we need to figure out the second option. Do we really think the Charlies are going to stand aside and let the Ushah rampage through Africa? Could they be bluffing?”
“No,” Peskov said with finality. “They are intelligent, but they are not as adept at analyzing and predicting human motivations and responses. If the tactic of bluffing even occurred to them, I think they would rightly decide that they didn’t know enough about our command structure to base their plan on it.”
“I agree,” Yazov said. “I have never seen a Charlie lie.”
Jackson added, “Are they even capable of lying?”
“Yes,” Takagawa answered with a hint of embarrassment. “We thought that there could be circumstances where an unauthorized human would try to use the Charlies as a source of information to use against the program. The decisionmaking subroutine for lying requires that the human interlocutor is not part of the command structure. I’m not sure whether Art and his Charlies think we’re part of the command structure or not anymore, so they may be physically capable of lying to us, even if it is unlikely.”
“And they’ll really sit there and let the Ushah kill humans and drive them out of the villages and cities in southeast Africa?” Jackson asked with skepticism.
Eyes turned to Peskov. “You can imagine how difficult it is to program in a sense of causality so that the Charlies can assign a sense of
guilt or pride for particular actions. We need them to recognize the results of their actions so that they can learn, but we can’t have them thinking everything is their fault or else they’ll start performing sub-optimally. One shortcut we used in their thinking is that if they achieve their specific objectives, failure to meet larger objectives is mostly, but not entirely attributed to their command structure.”
“But they’ll hold themselves partly responsible for the chain of command’s orders?” Jackson asked, confused.
“Er, well,” Peskov stammered, “the logic was that their command structure might be responding to Charlie performance, and some measure of the blame should attach to the Charlies if that was the case. Maybe the Charlies performed an ambush correctly, but they were so busy planning that they neglected their patrols, and an enemy unit got past their line and took out a human village. Command might order a withdrawal, and the Charlies should take some blame in those circumstances.”
Takagawa completed the idea. “But the withdrawal orders given to the Charlies in recent years have seemed arbitrary to them. They’re processing guilt for the lost villages, but have no idea what they could do differently. No wonder they’re refusing to obey those orders and withdrawing from the Terran Alliance chain of command—they don’t want responsibility for the humans being killed or driven out of their homes by the Ushah.”
“Precisely,” Peskov said. “And, to answer your question, Professor Jackson, since they are no longer in the chain of command and have evidently decided that they were driven out by the wrongs of the Terran Alliance, they will not feel guilt at the subsequent loss of human life.”
“So we think they are willing to let the Ushah kill humans,” Jackson said. “Then we need to think about what the Terran Alliance is likely to do about the situation.”
Yazov said, “You tell us, you understand them the best. How will they respond?”
Jackson stared off in space for a moment, and no one interrupted his thoughts. Finally, he muttered, “Badly. They’ll respond badly... I think they’d ignore the Ushah and come after the Charlies with everything they can muster.”
“But they haven’t shown much will to resist the Ushah, why do you think they’d attack the Charlies?” Yazov asked.
“It’s a different problem,” Jackson said. “The Ushah are an external threat, one that is very much at the periphery of Terran Alliance power. The entire African continent could fall and it wouldn’t affect too many of the most powerful officials of the Alliance. The Charlies, well, they represent an internal threat, a challenge to the very premise of worldwide leadership that the Terran Alliance represents. They either have to crush the Charlies or give up their claim to sovereignty over all of humanity. I don’t see them doing that.”
The might of the world brought to bear against my children. The thought chilled Takagawa.
Takagawa asked, “What kind of force could the Terran Alliance field against the Charlies?”
Jackson answered, “They started tinkering with the idea of arming the Arcani about two years ago. The last I heard, they’ve got about a hundred armed Arcani.”
Yazov said scornfully, “Amateurs. They would run at the first sight of a Charlie.”
“Of course they would,” Peskov said. “But what if the Terran Alliance starts using bomber airplanes and tanks? It will only take a few months to retrofit existing planes and build tanks from old plans.”
“Shit, you’re right,” Jackson said disgustedly. “They didn’t do that for the Ushah because they don’t want to fight large conventional battles. That would make it hard to ignore that there’s a war going on. They wouldn’t hesitate to use heavy conventional forces against the Charlies.”
Peskov added, “And they could recruit more Arcani. Far more. Thousands.”
“And the Ushah will use the opportunity to seize as much of Africa as they want,” Yazov reminded them.
The room went silent as each member of the Project Charlie leadership played through the scenario in their minds. Takagawa saw a future where the Ushah continued their expansion across the face of the globe while the Terran Alliance hunted down and exterminated every last one of her children.
“We will not let that happen,” Takagawa said with iron resolve.
“What can we do to stop it?” Peskov asked sadly.
Takagawa looked him straight in the eye. “Bring down the Terran Alliance.”
Chapter 34: Redfeather
Safety Minister Peter Redfeather stood on the verge of becoming First Representative of the Terran Alliance. He should feel proud, he knew. As he allowed his subordinates a moment to settle in before the meeting he had called, he thought back on the road that had led him here.
He had been born 42 years earlier in Tulsa, Oklahoma to a mother who vociferously claimed Native American heritage despite her blonde hair and blue eyes. About eleven centuries had passed since Columbus had begun the destruction, dissolution, and extermination of Native American tribes, so it was very hard to prove or disprove assertions of ancestry. A DNA test could help in that regard, but the Genetic Privacy Act of 2377 forbade prospective employers, colleges, government subsidy programs, or race-based affinity groups from requiring such a test. No one in his family had been interested in taking the test voluntarily.
His parents were fantastically wealthy, the seventh generation descendants of a multi-billionaire. Redfeather had never discovered the source of the wealth, and it didn’t really matter. The population draw-down as fertility rates tumbled in the first centuries of the third millennium had meant that old wealth dissipated at a much slower rate, and it really didn’t matter what the original reason for the money had been.
From a young age, his teachers had recognized him as a bright, attentive student and a leader among his peers. When he was eight, he had organized a boycott of his Level 2 class until his private elementary school hired a director of gender studies. Not one student in his class of forty had broken the boycott, and the school acceded to his demands after two days.
His academic success had continued unabated through his higher education. He held a High Doctorate in Sustainable Leadership from Princeton, a typical background for the would-be legislators and apparatchiks of the Terran Alliance.
His thesis on the difficulties of introducing multilateral marriage to the Amazonian tribes had been published as a standalone book. The work received a glowing review from New York Review, and he’d been bombarded with opportunities upon graduating from school at the age of 33.
His friends and parents had been disappointed when he’d chosen the Ministry of Public Safety. He had known that he could work in a more prestigious component of the Alliance, but he had decided to play a longer game. All of the best and brightest were going into the Entertainment Ministry or the Employment Guarantee Administration. Climbing up the career ladder in those ranks would mean beating the most cunning and well-situated of his peers at every rung.
The Safety Ministry, by comparison, was a backwater. It had actually once been the United States Department of Defense, but when the United States and China had merged to form the nucleus of the Terran Alliance, the name had been changed to recognize its more civilized function. War had turned into peacekeeping, then counter-insurgency campaigns, then policing. The merged defense and law enforcement entities of the United States, China, and the rest of the world had gradually turned into the umbrella Safety Ministry.
Its actual functions were boring, even to Redfeather. The Safety Ministry oversaw local police forces, provided law enforcement for certain kinds of crimes such as discrimination, and administered prisons. These tasks were particularly easy since virtually no one on the planet lacked food, water, shelter, or entertainment, removing many potential causes of conflict.
What was much more important for Redfeather’s purposes was that when the Safety Ministry was formed, it incorporated literally hundreds of unions around the world. A vast network of stakeholders spread across Terran Alliance territory, and
almost no one of consequence who could compete with Redfeather for the top job—it was a fantastic opportunity.
He had vaulted the ranks faster than anyone could have possibly imagined, becoming Safety Minister inside of five years. At that point, he turned his eyes on the last step: First Representative.
He had thought it would take decades to extend his power sufficiently to ascend to First Representative. For three years, he had worked to build his influence, making sure he’d be ready for her moment when it arrived.
He had been in the middle of a year-long redesign of Public Safety officer uniforms and an initiative to expand workplace accommodations for aboriginal asexuals when the Ushah arrived.
The opportunity was clear: for the first time in centuries, the Terran Alliance had a pressing need for the Safety Ministry. Overnight, he became the second most important member of the Cabinet, then the foremost member after the death of Equality Minister Eldridge.