Star Trek: Titan - 006 - Synthesis

by James Swallow

  “I have adjusted my evaluation with new data,” came the sharp retort. The sphere shifted orientation once again, and suddenly, a wash of scrutiny moved across the dataspace.

  Vale felt as if a hard spotlight had been turned toward her, and she willed herself into silence, shrinking into the shadow of White-Blue.

  “Interrogative: Why are you here?” demanded Red-Gold. “You were not summoned!”

  “Answer!” Another virtual, a serpentine coil of metallic ash, reared up from the edge of the arena, echoing the question. “This is a protocol interrupt!”

  “I have urgent data that transcend any matters of protocol,” White-Blue insisted. “Information that must be parsed by all members of the Governance Kernel with immediate effect.” Screen shards materialized around White-Blue’s form, streaming with machine code.

  “Interrogative: State origin of data,” said the snake form.

  “Factors originate in my ongoing scans, along with other external sources.”

  “That does not fully answer Black-Silver’s query.” Red-Gold drifted closer. “Interrogative: State complete origin of external data sources.”

  “Alien vessel, Identifier: U.S.S. Titan.” Vale immediately felt the ripple of negativity that came in the wake of the AI’s statement.

  “Wetminds.” The word was muttered with derision by a dull-colored ovoid that until now had remained silent. “They cannot be relied on to provide accurate data.”

  “Three-Four is in error,” White-Blue insisted. “Data were collated in synchrony with my core, organic specialists in the Titan crew, and alien central computer intelligence, recently uplifted by my action.”

  “The Governance Kernel is aware of your interference with the U.S.S. Titan’s computer system,” broke in One-Five. “This unsanctioned activity is one more exemplar of your pattern of reckless and ill-considered behaviors, White-Blue. As such, your validity as a data source is of diminished capacity.”

  “Allow me to upload—” White-Blue didn’t get the chance to finish. The screens puffed into phosphor dust and faded.

  “How many times have we listened to uploads from White-Blue predicting disaster?” Three-Four slid forward across the dataspace. “In efforts to exceed protocol, White-Blue has consistently delivered substandard information and incomplete hypotheses. Now the organics have been engaged to bolster these specious arguments.”

  “The incursion at the refinery was a very real event,” Cyan-Gray said grimly. “If you had deployed remotes in that confrontation, you would compute that.”

  Three-Four’s response was airy and dismissive, enough that it would have made Vale’s teeth grind if she had been able to feel them. “I have seen all I need to see.”

  “An incursion the scope of which has never been encountered will occur in this locale within the next solar cycle,” White-Blue insisted. “I have no doubts in the data interpretation presented to me by the Titan crew.”

  In such proximity to the Sentry’s virtual self, Vale could detect the flutter of something like emotions coming from the artificial intelligence, tiny faint shocks of sensation bleeding off from the machine-mind’s consciousness. He’s scared. Not like the others, not scared of the threat of outsiders, but truly terrified of the Null. Vale was chilled by the realization that a synthetic could be so affected and by what that meant. The offhand dismissal of White-Blue’s report made her wonder just how many times the AI had brought these concerns to the Governance Kernel.

  “I believe that White-Blue is sincere,” said Red-Gold. The statement was such a surprise that none of the other virtuals could frame a response. “The data may not be perfect, but I doubt they are completely false. White-Blue and I have our disagreements, but I understand and respect the skills presented.” The gold globe moved slowly away. “And it is a matter of certainty that the Null will return. The Null will always return, and we will always be ranged against it, until the last Sentry is obliterated.”

  Three-Four bristled. “Incorrect. We will defeat the enemy, in time. It is inevitable.”

  “It is our core directive,” snapped One-Five. “It is what we were made for.”

  “So you have said,” Red-Gold replied, orbiting the room. “So we have been programmed to reiterate since our first ascension. Fight the Null. Banish the incursions. Rebuild and rearm. Repeat.” It paused for effect. “If any other program entered an infinite loop, we would deactivate it, send its processes for defragmentation and revision. And yet we, the Sentries, the pinnacle of our species, are trapped in our own recursive cycle.”

  “What is he doing?” Vale formed a whisper in her thoughts and pushed it toward White-Blue. The AI did not respond, but she could sense the machine-mind’s uncertainty. She understood that the Sentries were driven to protect their sector of space against the Null, although where that command had first come from was unknown. It’s their version of the Prime Directive, but unlike us, their orders are wired into them. They couldn’t ignore it if they wanted to.

  “How can you question the core directives?” said Black-Silver, aghast. “These are the nature of us. The source of what we are. If we abandon our duty, then we are nothing, no better than a mindless repair proxy!”

  “You rush to conclusion and in doing so misunderstand me,” said Red-Gold. The sphere rippled. “I do not advocate that we ignore the core directives. I demand that we complete them and, in doing so, exceed them.”

  The dataspace’s ebb and flow stilled in an instant. One-Five angled its rings in a looping chain, aiming accusingly at the golden sphere. “Elucidate,” it demanded.

  When Red-Gold spoke again, it was smug and confident. “I, and others of similar intent among the Coalition, have come to a conclusion. We are a reactive society, always fighting the last battle over again, never on the offensive. We are at the mercy of the Null, containing it but never defeating it. And what have we become because of our directives? A static process. A solid-state society, incapable of change.”

  Vale could feel the tension all around her, the probing waves of uncertainty and refusal warring with annoyance and acceptance. The emulated emotions buffeted her, and she rode them, fighting to hold her focus.

  “Each among us has at one point processed the question of what we are.” Red-Gold trembled with the power of its statements. “And the answer cannot be computed while we are shackled to our duty of guardianship. To grow, to become more than we are, to venture beyond, these things are outside our reach. Only by eradicating the threat of the Null once and for all, in totality, will the Sentries be able to transcend the directives that lie at the core of our programs. The orders that force us to fight the Null over all other imperatives. Even self-preservation.”

  That’s it, Christine told herself. That’s what drives them. They can’t reprogram themselves any more than I could change my own DNA.

  “Nothing you have said has not been stated before,” said One-Five. “Before the SecondGen were constructed, before you were given ascension! But the Null match us at every step. There is no sweeping solution. We are committed to the long fight, Red-Gold. This is a battle of attrition.”

  “Only because you make it one,” came the sharp retort. “We can beat the Null, forever. There is a way.”

  “Such arrogance, to believe you could succeed where your precursors have not!” said Three-Four, but Red-Gold ignored the interruption.

  “Our stagnation will kill us unless we end it. The First-Gen constructs built the early iterations of my cohort, the SecondGen. Now the time has come to take the next step in our evolution.” A ripple of disquiet followed the statement. “We must create a ThirdGen artificial intelligence, a synthesis. A new form of mind that exists without instrumentality. A pure software consciousness, infinitely malleable, capable of matching the seething, ever-changing mass of the Null in its inchoate state.”

  Is that possible? Vale wondered. Every thinking machine was at its core a series of complex instructions, a program—but a program could not exist inde
pendent of a system to run it. Even these advanced AIs, capable of extending their consciousnesses into multiple drone forms or existing in virtual realities such as the dataspace, were ultimately bound to some kind of physicality. The cores White-Blue had spoken of before were the essence of Sentries, the seeds of self.

  What Red-Gold suggested was the concept of a synthetic mind unbound, a literal ghost in the machine.

  One-Five’s rings spun in irritation. “What you propose cannot be done.”

  Red-Gold’s response was harsh and immediate. “You are in error. Your processing is limited and narrow in view. What I advocate is already taking place.” The sphere pivoted toward White-Blue, in an action like the tip of a head. “It is happening now, aboard the U.S.S. Titan.”

  Sethe called out when he saw the object rising up the metal shaft toward them. Pava moved to the edge of the balcony, where a rusted guide rail at thigh height was the only thing keeping her from dropping into the abyss. In reflected light from the softly glowing cylinders ringing the walls, she picked out something like a broad disc with serrated edges, turning on an axis. “Stand back,” she warned the others, raising her voice to be heard above the tornado of whispers. “We don’t know what to expect.”

  As the words left her mouth, the object rose into the light, and she saw it for what it was, a strange nest of turning cog wheels and gears meshed into a shape like a child’s rendering of a sun, with brassy rods at every point rotating like cast rays. Supported on a thick iron armature, it lifted and then bent down to present itself to them. Even through the helmet and the thin atmosphere, Pava’s sensitive antennae could detect the vibration of the spinning cogs as they worked. Some were broken, she noted, teeth missing or snapped in two. Across one pole of the massive disc, an oily black brand lay dark and sullen, a scar marring the machined perfection of the construct.

  All at once, the hushing refrain over the comm channel ceased, and it came so suddenly that the silence after it was a shock. Then the turning cog shape opened, and a billow of sailcloth emerged. Pulled taut, it hummed and vibrated, spitting out white noise, and suddenly, it was speaking in a rumbling bass.

  “Zero zero zero zero zero one, zero zero zero zero zero zero one one, zero zero zero zero one, zero zero zero zero one one one one.” The voice, such as it was, rose at the end of each number group. The clusters of binary came faster and faster until it blurred into a background hum.

  “Can it hear us?” Sethe asked, wincing at the cacophony. “Does it even know we are here?”

  The sounding sail snap-cracked and resonated. “I hear you.”

  The Cygnian stifled a gasp and unconsciously backed off a step.

  “I am FirstGen Zero-Three, inactive Sentry, actual. You were about to be ended. I prevented. Existence of organics would not have continued. Continue. Survived the ice world. Termination probability: seventy-eighth percentile.”

  “And for that intervention, you have our gratitude,” Tuvok replied. “How did you redirect our transporter signal?”

  “A beam of energy can always be diverted. Influence can be asserted. Resultant: I know more than the others think. Time alone equals time to think. Reason. Engage. Think.”

  “It doesn’t sound as cogent as the other Sentry AIs we’ve encountered.” Dakal spoke on the private channel between the team members. “More evidence of systems corruption, perhaps?”

  “We need to contact our vessel, the Titan,” said Tuvok. “Can you assist us?”

  “No voices carry,” rumbled the reply. “I try, but I am a voice in the darkness. Portals remain closed. All sockets locked. This is exile. Affirmative.”

  Sethe frowned. “It’s cut off from the rest of the Sentry network, is that what it’s saying?”

  “Or perhaps the others are just ignoring it,” said Pava.

  Dakal glanced at them. “Cyan-Gray said that Zero-Three had taken voluntary exile from Sentry society… something to do with disagreements with the Governance Kernel.”

  “Error!” The word boomed down on them. “Assumption incorrect, engineered falsehood recurring recurring recurring. I was forced to leave. Viewpoint considered invalid. Unwanted. Exile.” Zero-Three’s voice took on a morose timbre. “Unfit for the great duty. Dysfunctional.”

  “What duty?” asked Tuvok. “Do you refer to the conflict with the Null?”

  “Hateful antilife!” spat the machine. “Destroyers of civilization, light, and maker-kind! Ashen wastes and nothing left, a universe of embers all eaten and digested. Death. Death and ashes.”

  “I think you pushed a button there,” Pava noted dryly, watching the vast metal disc twist and spin in agitation.

  “How long have you been fighting the Null?” asked Dakal. “How did your war with them begin?”

  A stuttering, grinding sound issued out from the cogs. Pava flinched at the sound, wondering if it was some strange analog of cold amusement.

  “The greatest secret,” boomed the AI. “No secret at all. Untold truth, hidden. The unspoken origin of the Sentries, known only by a gathering of the first made, first forged, FirstGen. Secret is too heavy, weight too great. So tired of the burden. So tired.” The spinning wheels rattled against one another. “I hate them all for dismissing me. For leaving me to my wounds. To spite them, you will know. You will be told!”

  Pava felt a chill settle on her. “I don’t think this will be a happy story.”

  “What the hell?” Vale heard herself, her voice loud as a gunshot, but the sound did not appear to travel into the dataspace.

  “Be silent,” White-Blue insisted. “You will reveal your presence!”

  “I was in error regarding the significance of the alien craft and its technologies,” Red-Gold continued. “Reevaluation now leads to one single conclusion. The Sentry Coalition must take active control of the vessel and repurpose its systems for our own ends.”

  “The organics will never allow that,” said Black-Silver.

  “I do not intend that we ask their permission,” Red-Gold replied. “We take Titan and dismantle it. We merge the Starfleet technologies with our own and absorb the AI ascended by White-Blue into our Coalition.”

  “It may not wish to join us,” said Black-Silver.

  “That concern has no relevance in this matter,” replied the other Sentry.

  “Enough,” Vale grated. It was as if she were shouting but trapped inside a bubble of glass, her words rebounding off the walls but never advancing. “White-Blue! Are you hearing me?”

  “Affirmative,” said the AI. “Warning. You are in danger of destabilizing the concealment I placed around your pattern. Perhaps you should withdraw—”

  “No,” she snapped, making the decision in an instant. “Maybe you should. Disengage from the dataspace, go back to the Titan, and tell them what’s happening here.”

  “If I do so, you will become visible. The Governance Kernel will not react favorably to your intrusion.”

  “Do it! If I don’t intervene now, Red-Gold might sway them to his side. If I can make a case, stall for time…” Vale drew herself in, pulling back again to her inner strength. “Go now.”

  White-Blue dithered for a moment. “How can you be certain that I do not concur with Red-Gold’s viewpoint?”

  Christine hesitated but only for a moment. “I’m not. But I’m going to make a leap of faith here. The captain was willing to extend that confidence, so I guess I’m going to do the same.”

  “I will attempt to be worthy of it,” said White-Blue. Then, with a sudden, wrenching twist of color and light, the AI’s virtual proxy crumbled in on itself and became nothing.

  A tremor of apprehension ran through Vale’s consciousness, and she steeled herself. Good job, Chris, she told herself. Now it’s the moment of truth.

  When she turned her consciousness back toward the arena of dataspace, a wall of unflinching scrutiny bombarded her. Suddenly, it was like being a first-year cadet all over again, standing alone before a board of senior admirals. At that moment, Vale fel
t every inch a frail, soft organic form surrounded by harsh, hard-edged monoliths of tripolymer and metal.

  She summoned all the force of personality she could muster and threw it out toward the machines. “No one,” she told them, “is taking anything.”

  Fizzing cathode-ray tubes ground from mineral crystals emerged from behind wooden flaps on the ornate console, wide glassy eyes peering out at the away team. Trains of blurry images and data fountains filled the screens, and Dakal pointed his tricorder toward them, struggling to capture as much of the material as possible. Zero-Three’s clockwork proxy wheeled and turned over their heads as the AI unburdened itself with a rasping, rambling soliloquy.