Parker Interstellar Travels 4: The Trilisk Hunt

by Michael McCloskey

  “Very eloquent,” Telisa laughed.

  Magnus shrugged. “Okay, that was harder to say than I thought,” he explained.

  “Technically achievable by Trilisk,” Shiny said. “Not achievable by Shiny using ready-made Trilisk device.”

  “It should be easier to just provide the new body,” Magnus said.

  “Improvements apply, involve, actuate changes at atomic level to brain material. Minority of improvements possible to body alone, others undoable, impossible, unworkable. Also, furthermore, additionally: Trilisk machines’ function highly advanced. Modification difficult.”

  “I think he means, he doesn’t understand how to tinker with the Trilisk machines and alter them to just implant our existing brain into a new body. All he can do is tell it to transfer us into a full new body,” Telisa suggested.

  “Affirmative, correct, agreement,” Shiny said.

  Damn it. I just want what I want. Like the prayer device!

  “So we have to go to a copy of ourselves?” Telisa said. “Is it really our consciousness, then, or just a duplicate down to the level of subatomic particles and their energy states? As I recall it now, it was as if that creature really was me. But I guess if the memories were just downloaded from somewhere else, I’d never notice the difference.”

  “Debatable, uncertain, unclear, but functionally irrelevant,” Shiny said.

  “Okay I follow you on the irrelevant from outside observer part,” Magnus said. “A perfect copy of Magnus is Magnus as far as anyone else can tell. But if the real me has to go to sleep forever so a better copy can run around, I’m not sure I’m okay with that, even though… I guess I would be asleep and never notice.”

  “Well it goes both ways,” Telisa said. “After our expedition, we could go back to our original selves, sync up, and we’ll wake up with all the memories. So it won’t matter.”

  “But then what about the copies? Do they just die when we go back? They will have the same reservations.”

  Telisa was silent for a moment, then she nodded.

  “It’s complicated. Let’s discuss it awhile,” Telisa said. “What do you think, Cilreth?”

  “I’ll pass and watch you guys screw it up for a while. Then I want one. But I’m not going to take as many risks this mission. I’ll let you take the young ones out for a spin.”

  “Shall we ask Arakaki about it first?” asked Magnus.

  “Let’s ask all of them,” Telisa deflected.

  Magnus decided that meant she cared what the others thought. The other part was unsaid: Arakaki, not so much.

  “Good idea,” Magnus said. “Shiny, are you going to use this?”

  There was a delay. It was only a second or two, but longer than Shiny usually took to respond.

  “Physiological benefits less for Shiny. Many improvements already made. Possible plan resembles Terran term: ping-ponging. Subject supersedes one copy, sync back and forth in foreseeable future.”

  “Ah. So there’s always two, but only one going at a time. And you sync back and forth. Cool,” Cilreth said.

  “Shiny. How did the Trilisks coordinate this technology?” Magnus asked.

  “Unknown. Clues exist indicating use of three bodies in standard procedure. Other evidence suggests used only, exclusively, specifically for inter-species supersedure.”

  “Three? They usually used three bodies. This is just getting more complicated,” Magnus said.

  “Terrans have made many biological improvements to ourselves,” Telisa said. “We have much less disease now, more energy; we’ve come a long ways.”

  “Affirmative, correct, agreement,” Shiny said. “More improvements occur using Trilisk machines.”

  “It doesn’t sound so bad,” Magnus said. “The original me sticks around for his natural lifespan. Longer, really, since half the time I would be in stasis. Or whatever the Trilisk columns use to put you on ice while you’re offline.”

  “Yes. Still confusing to have two of all of us around, though,” Telisa said. “I doubt it will be fifty-fifty. It would always be tempting to stick around using the superior copy.”

  “Only one at a time, and syncing each transition, it will feel like only one of each of us,” Magnus said. “How are we going to tell the others?”

  “We just tell them,” Telisa said trivially.

  “Okay, you got the job,” Cilreth said.

  “I’ll call a meeting.”

  ***

  Telisa stood before everyone in a large meeting room on the Clacker. Imanol had come to the room with his fellow recruits wondering what the meeting could be about. They had been training for days, doing all sorts of things from combat to programming to learning the ship, so what could the face to face be all about?

  This team likes real face-to-face contact. It does probably work better for getting people to bond faster, Imanol thought.

  Even though they would not be able to tell any difference with their senses, just knowing it was real had some effect. He thought about the rhenium bars.

  If any of this is real.

  “How’s your rhenium, Imanol? Still heavy?” she asked. Imanol suddenly felt paranoid.

  Did she just read my mind?

  “Yeah…” Imanol replied carefully.

  “Well, it’s time to consider another technological marvel,” she said. “This one’s voluntary. And the rest of us aren’t ahead of you four on it. We’ve opened up a new possibility.”

  The four recruits and Jamie Arakaki watched Telisa intently, eager to hear the news. Telisa took a deep breath.

  “We have the capability to put ourselves into new bodies. The bodies are improved. At the least, they’re strong, fast, and perhaps immortal. There may be more.”

  Everyone absorbed that in stunned silence.

  “The thing is, the old you… your body at least… stays in a sort of stasis when this happens. Inside a Trilisk column. And you can go back to it.”

  “Trilisk? By the entities. I’m beginning to see how you produced those toys for us. It’s all real,” Maxsym said.

  It makes sense. The Trilisks are… they were gods compared to us, Imanol thought.

  Siobhan looked skeptical this time. “You said my old body would be in some Trilisk container? You mean, except my brain?”

  “I’m pretty sure… in fact, I’m sure,” Telisa said. “I experienced it. But I was in an alien body. I know, it’s crazy. But my brain wouldn’t even fit inside… the critter I was in.”

  “So it’s not really going to be me, it’s a copy,” Siobhan continued. “The real me, my real consciousness, it has to be physically connected to my neural material. After all, you can give me a drug and it affects my consciousness, you can kill me and it ends my consciousness…”

  “Presumably,” Caden said.

  “Oh, all evidence points toward yes,” Maxsym said. “Who you are at the core is linked to your substrate material, your physical neurons, even if consciousness is partially in the energy states and electromagnetic fields.”

  Telisa held up her hands.

  “Look. This is Trilisk technology, and they understood so much more than we do. Maybe there are whole other dimensions involved we don’t understand. Still, if you believe the Trilisks messed up here, or had a different way of looking at copies of themselves than we do, there’s still an out. I mean, if it’s not some kind of ‘true essence’ of yourself that gets transferred, we might still safely use it. Suppose the original you really is you, consciousness-wise. Suppose your new one is just a copy. Here’s what you do: copy yourself, send the copy on the expedition with us. The ‘real you’ is just in stasis. When you get back, you download your new experiences into the original you, wake up, and there you are. It happened to me: when I transferred back into my original self, I could remember everything that happened in the other body.”

  “But then what about the copy?” asked Caden. “It’s not me. But he thinks he is, and he’s alive just like me. I can’t very well justify stuffing him i
nto stasis indefinitely. And if he knows that’s what’s waiting for him, he might not come back.”

  Good point, Imanol thought.

  “Then flip-flop,” Cilreth suggested. “Both of the copies get to live. Just not at the same time. Spend a month or two as one of you, then switch on a schedule. Always sync yourself at switch time—or more often, for that matter. Use your fast copy for dangerous missions and keep your slow and stupid self back here where it’s safe.”

  “Stupid? This affects intelligence?”

  “We don’t know exactly, but if the body is improved overall, cognitive function might improve as well,” Telisa said. “Certainly reaction speeds might improve.”

  “Is this illegal? We’re not supposed to grow clones of ourselves,” Caden said.

  “We’re finding new technologies faster than we can develop ethics on using them,” Telisa said. “Are you happy to let the government dictate your life rules?”

  Imanol noticed Telisa had posed the question to Caden. For all his virtual world skills, he remained naive and sheltered.

  She’s poking at his loyalties, he thought. And she knows I’m anti-government. In fact, this whole outfit must be. She wants to know if Caden is too! What the hell have I gotten into here?

  In that moment, Imanol felt he may have discovered an undercurrent of motive he had completely missed before. But the others seemed not to notice.

  By the Five. Have I just joined the UED and didn’t even know it?

  Maxsym jumped in before Caden replied.

  “Ethics should arise from trial and error,” Maxsym said. “At first, you do whatever you want. You learn some harsh lessons. Then you form a framework of best practices. That’s just an accelerated version of how societies construct their mores.”

  “You really think that?” Caden said.

  “The reason we view killing each other as wrong is because it is a suboptimal way for a society to work, at least in past stages of development,” Maxsym said. “If it were better, a society in history where the members routinely killed each other would have arisen as dominant, and they would have rules that encouraged it. Murder wouldn’t be considered wrong. After all, war is murder, and that was required for primitive societies to survive, so it was allowed. People tend to be… unable to handle the complexities, so they distill this wisdom down into static rules.”

  Well, Maxsym is in line with their sentiment, I think. I don’t know about Siobhan…

  “We’re off subject,” Cilreth said.

  “We’d be stupid not to take advantage of such possibilities,” Imanol said. “Faster? Maybe even smarter? Long life? You can’t measure how important those are. I say we use it.”

  “I have a solution, but it will take more work,” Siobhan said. “Look, if these things can copy our minds and copy our bodies with various improvements, then they could be made to just replace our bodies and leave our brains alone.”

  “Sadly, we don’t understand the Trilisk devices we have well enough to modify them,” Telisa said. “We’re just users of the technology, not engineers of it. Also, apparently some aspects of these improvements we’re talking about are global. All the way down to the subatomic level. So they might not play well with ordinary human parts.”

  “This technology is going to change so much back home,” Caden said.

  Telisa made a pained face. Imanol caught it immediately.

  How will she handle that one?

  “We don’t know yet,” Telisa said. “Another reason to test it out. Maybe it’s not safe to use at all.”

  “So you haven’t turned it in to the government yet,” Caden said. “Aren’t there strict laws about using alien technology?”

  “This is the frontier, Caden,” Cilreth said. “The UN doesn’t rule every step of your life here. It’s up to you to decide whether you like it that way or want to head back home.”

  Caden looked thoughtful.

  “Okay, well how about this,” Caden said. “Make the copies but leave them as backups. We go ahead and live our lives as ourselves. If I come to a nasty end on some alien planet, then just warm up Caden number two. I’ll still be dead, but I can rest easier knowing there’s a backup of me lying around somewhere to try again.”

  “That’s a great idea with one flaw: Caden2 is stronger, faster, maybe even smarter than you. He’ll have a better chance of initial success than Caden1,” Magnus said.

  “Well, the Trilisks made it,” Siobhan said. “Maybe it really does transfer the true essence of a being into the new body. Not just a copy. Maybe they understood what consciousness really is and how to move the original. They were supposed to be so amazing.”

  “That’s my first thought on it too,” Telisa said “But what if it is a copy? What if the Trilisks were just so different from us they didn’t care? Maybe they were like a hive creature that had no sense of self worth. Maybe they were like ants that would sacrifice themselves without question. Then they would use this technology and happily allow their original selves to die. It could be a philosophical issue, and their perception of it was just radically different than ours.”

  “Well, think about it and discuss it. We won’t be making the decision today,” Magnus said. “Keep training. Decide whether you want to accept our offers and work with us. Just know, this is another taste of what’s in store here. We have more surprises for you, but that’s all for now.”

  Imanol was impressed.

  Wow. If this is what they tell us now, what incredible things do they have in store for someone who’s a full member of their outfit? I need to make sure I don’t screw this up.

  ***

  Magnus and Telisa lay in a rumpled bed with the lights low. After their playful relaxation, they had started talking about the same thing everyone else in PIT was talking about.

  “I’m thinking of it as a copy. Not the real me. And I still want to go ahead with it,” Magnus said.

  “Really? Even knowing you’re going to be put in stasis at his mercy?”

  “It’s a form of immortality,” he said. “I can create a better version of myself. I face my own mortality. He may not have to. Yes, I’ll be jealous of him. But I also know he’ll let me out of stasis when he get’s back because like me, he’ll feel sorry for the crappier me. Let him live out his life. The new me has forever to look forward to. Why be petty about it?”

  “This makes my head hurt,” Telisa said. She thought for a while longer. “But ten years from now, when your selves have diverged…”

  “We could prevent moving apart by regular transfer. We’ll merge regularly, and the two mes will always agree on whatever action has to be taken.”

  “As your original self gets old and gray, you’re going to always merge?”

  “Actually, I was thinking I may not spend much time as my original self until we figure out how to make the original Magnus immortal like my copy. Problem solved.”

  “Damn,” Telisa said. “That’s a nice thought. I just hope we’re not making a mess we can’t undo.”

  “If you had a twin sister, and an alien kidnapped the two of you and merged you and your sister, averaging between you but leaving both bodies, we would let both of you live. It would be weird, but we’d be used to it by the end of the week.”

  “Really? Which one would you sleep with?”

  Magnus frowned. “Yes, there may be some new problems.”

  “You see where we’re headed?” Telisa said. “Shall we agree now: Magnus2 can only sleep with Telisa2, and original Magnus can only sleep with original Telisa? We forbid any cross-pollination?”

  “Ha. Cross-pollination. I don’t know. You’re going to be jealous of yourself if that happens?”

  “Yes. They’re going to be better than us, remember?” Telisa said.

  “Well, Telisa2 and Magnus2 will have more in common. We could always switch back and forth together.”

  “It’s too weird. But yes, I’ll try it out with you.”

  Chapter 8

  Cilret
h shook her head in the small, dark room she had prayed up for her work. It felt like the cockpit of a small spacecraft. Dozens of viewpane anchor points surrounded her. To her vision, they were filled with screens and screens full of multicolored status readouts, lists, and code. She had just found an entire new subsystem allowing remote control of Vovokan hardware of which she had been unaware.

  Damn. Yet another way into the Clacker for Shiny.

  Her designs on the Clacker had been modest at first. She had simply wanted to be able to control basic functions to help out the team, and she had assumed they could always rely on Shiny. But as she delved further into the mysterious world of Vovokan cybernetics and programming, she had been drawn in. Cilreth started to spend more and more time learning about the Clacker until she had accidentally become obsessed with learning all there was to know about it. Magnus had encouraged her obsession in modest ways and implied a need for independence from the Vovokan. Slowly, Cilreth had picked up that Magnus did not fully trust the alien.

  The problem was, there was so very much to learn.

  At first, she had learned just enough to feel a comfort that had turned out to be unjustified. Vovokan tools had evolved to a point where it was in fact very easy to set up any system she wished by specifying the behavior she wanted. The Vovokan systems could even learn quickly to perform complex tasks and tall orders with staggering efficiency. Cilreth thought she had made good progress. True mastery, though, required her to lift the veneer on the higher tools and look into their base components. Once there, she had fallen down a rabbit hole and had never found her way out.

  “Cilreth. Got a few minutes?” someone asked.

  “Hrm,” Cilreth mumbled.

  She went back to work. The interruption had not really been enough to knock her out of the zone. After a while, various bodily interrupts stacked up until she finally had to move. Her twitch dose was wearing off, her stomach rumbled, and her bladder groaned at capacity.