Star Trek: The Next Generation - 112 - Cold Equations: The Persistence of Memory

by David Mack

  There is shame in her synthetic reply. “Twenty-five days, nine hours, and eight minutes.”

  This is making more sense by the moment, but I remain unhappy about it. “Why, then, did you choose to tell me about it tonight?”

  “I’d calculated a ninety-eight-point-seven percent chance you would inquire about Data’s logs within the next local day. I’d hoped that shifting your attention to Juliana might delay that request, even if only briefly.” Welcome to the chief drawback of interrogating an AI; they are programmed to deliver truthful and accurate responses, but not necessarily helpful ones. I ask why she did these things, and she explains her reasoning pattern but omits her motive.

  Bereft of alternatives, I play along.

  “And why did you wish to delay my receipt of Data’s logs?” More of the silent treatment. How in blazes did I manage to make a bashful AI? I see I’ll have to draw her out by degrees. “Is it because this latest digest contains bad news?”

  The guilt in her voice is laced with sympathy. “I’m afraid so, Noonien.”

  “Enough stalling, then. Upload the logs to my station. Now.” If I wanted, I could have had her transmit the files directly into my positronic matrix, but as useful as such a feature seemed when I designed it, it struck me as far too hazardous to use once I had to live in this body. What if someone loaded a virus or malicious program directly into my mind by using an ordinary transmission as a Trojan horse? That’s just not a risk I’m willing to take. The only direct interface I’ll allow is with systems and software of my own design that I know are secure.

  Data’s logs appear on my holoscreen. Some of them are entered as plain text; others are audiovisual recordings he made in his quarters aboard the Enterprise. There’s not much difference in tone between text and Data; he usually exhibits the oratorical skill of a houseplant. I choose to watch his recordings not for his rhetoric but just so I can see his face. As impatient as ever, I decide to start with the last entry.

  The screen snaps to a head-and-shoulders shot of Data. He looks directly at me, as if we’re conversing across a dinner table, and he tells me in his innocent monotone about his day.

  “At 1732 hours and forty-one seconds today, I disassembled Lore. I have stored his constituent parts in separate containers within my private cybernetics laboratory, here inside my quarters. I have also taken special precautions to ensure that Lore’s brain remains inactive, as he can never again be allowed to threaten others. Though I succeeded in removing the emotion chip from his brain after subduing him, it appears to have been damaged by the phaser blast that initially incapacitated him. I do not know if it will be possible to repair the chip, but a more pressing concern for me is whether I should. The emotions Lore transmitted to me during the confrontation with the Borg rendered me highly unstable and susceptible to his suggestion and manipulation. While I doubt that Doctor Soong’s original chip would have produced that effect had it been installed as intended in my neural net, I am left with troubling questions as to whether the introduction of emotions to my positronic matrix would make me unfit for duty in Starfleet. Conceivably, such a change to my core systems and software could be grounds for Starfleet Command to deem me a different person than the one I currently am. At my next opportunity, I will have to discuss these possibilities with Geordi and Captain Picard.”

  The log entry comes to an abrupt end. I recline my chair, stunned silent.

  Lore is dead.

  Suddenly, I need to know everything, all the details, and I can’t be bothered to sit and wade through all of Data’s long-winded narratives. I call up the text transcripts of his logs and parse them as swiftly as my android perceptual abilities will allow. In under two seconds, I have the full account of Data’s final confrontation with Lore. It was an unmitigated horror show; I knew Lore was disturbed, but I’d never have thought him so unhinged that he would ally himself with the Borg. But what did I expect? Even before he gummed up his matrix with an emotion chip that was never meant for him, he was fool enough to strike a bargain with the Crystalline Entity. Is one world-slaughtering alien menace really so different from another? But the details are ghastly. Lore decided to help the Borg transition to a fully synthetic existence. The only part that eluded him was the secret of synaptic transfer. To find it, he nearly turned poor Geordi La Forge’s brain into Swiss cheese. There’s no denying the obvious now: my son really was a monster, a boundless sociopath. If Data hadn’t stopped him, he’d have killed millions—perhaps even billions. The sum of his evils would have been incalculable.

  Yet the thought that echoes in my dry old brain is, My son is dead.

  The horrible truth of this moment is that I don’t know whether to grieve or celebrate. He was a menace, I see that now. But he was my boy, made in my image. In the end, all I feel is numb. What else can I do? Lore tried to kill Data. After all the times he wronged his younger brother, and then corrupted him by force, Lore was ready to let his envy drive him to murder. I can’t forgive him for that. Part of me wants to take the blame, but I have to hold Lore to the same standard I would expect for anyone else. Lore has no one to blame for his actions but himself.

  If I’m to be truthful, this has been a long time coming. When I heard the news that Data had been discovered in the ruins of the Omicron Theta colony, I checked every source and account I could find for any mention of Lore. When I found none, I assumed—let’s be honest, I hoped—that his body had been destroyed by the attack of the Crystalline Entity. I knew it was unlikely, especially since Data had survived, but even then I knew no good would come of Lore’s return, especially now that I was in no position to repair him. Believing he had been destroyed enabled me to get on with my life and work on Terlina III.

  Of course, I lied to Lore after he responded, as Data had, to the homing signal I sent a few years ago. I told him I didn’t know he’d been reassembled, but that wasn’t true. I’d read all of Data’s logs about discovering Lore in a buried lab on Omicron Theta in 2364, and Lore’s subsequent attempt to betray the Enterprise to the Crystalline Entity, but I couldn’t just admit that to his face. What I told him about the years between my departure and his reassembly had been true, to a point. Had I been certain that Lore survived the attack on the colony, I might have gone back for him. What I was careful not to say was that if I’d done that, I’d have erased his mind, his programming, and all his memories, and just started over, probably with a copy of Data’s matrix as a new template. If I’d admitted that, he would have made certain to kill me, instead of merely beating me to within an inch of my life and leaving me for dead.

  No, I can’t feel sorry for him. Not after what he’s done.

  I feel sorry for myself. It sounds selfish, but isn’t that the guilty secret of mourning? We know the departed are beyond sensation, beyond recrimination or suffering; they no longer need our pity or compassion. So we give it to ourselves, and not in small measures but in waves. Staring at words on a screen telling me my first great creation has perished, all I can think about is that a unique and vital facet of my legacy is gone forever, taking a piece of me with him.

  Only one part of my sorrow is of a generous kind, a product of empathy. I created Lore; it should have been me who unmade him. Now this black stain of fratricide will haunt my noble youngest son forever. If Data ever makes that emotion chip work properly again, and dares to install it into his neural net, he’ll suffer for this day in ways he can’t imagine. Guilt and loneliness are two of the most devastating emotions, and someday he’ll have to endure their agonies . . . for no better reason than that his father was a coward.

  JULY

  2370

  11

  I step out of the lift onto the top floor of a residential tower where I reside on Centaurus. I mean, Velestus. Or . . . never mind. It’s on the same island as my office, just a few minutes’ walk away. I’ve been offworld for business the last few weeks, and I’m looking forward to being home. I beamed down my luggage from Archeus while I was still in orbit, b
ut the ship is due for basic maintenance and refueling, so I locked down its main computer to keep anyone from discovering Shakti, landed Archeus at a rented berth in the island’s tiny commuter starport, and walked home with no burdens but my cares.

  Outside the door of my penthouse suite, I pause just long enough for the biometric sensors to verify my retinal pattern, body-mass distribution pattern, and heat signature. An artificial voice from the security panel challenges me: “Voiceprint identification, please.”

  “Eamon Cattura.”

  “Thank you, Eamon.” The security system opens my door for me. “Welcome home.”

  Two steps inside the spacious, split-level main room, I stop. Everything is dark. I’ve programmed the lights to brighten to one-third when I enter at night, even though my cybernetic eyes don’t actually need the illumination. By reflex, I survey the room while tuned to infrared with my left eye and ultraviolet with my right. Nothing looks amiss; all is quiet. My olfactory sensors detect no odors such as I’d expect from a biological intruder, but there are unfamiliar trace particles in the air. Synthetic fibers, I believe, and faint hints of silicon, as well as a few exotic and mildly radioactive substances. I emit an ultrasonic pulse and compare the echoes against my memory. There is someone on my left, just out of sight around the corner.

  I start to back up, planning to make a break for the lift, which lingers open behind me in the penthouse lobby. A man’s sour, taunting voice from inside my suite arrests me.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Noonien?”

  My instinct for self-preservation tells me to run, but I have to know who this person is and how he knows who I am. Damn this insatiable curiosity! I take a few more steps inside the suite and let the front door slide closed behind me. I look toward the corner and raise my voice in a feeble attempt to sound brave. “Show yourself.”

  The visitor—a less charitable narrator might call him an intruder—steps into the room with me. He’s tall and thin, at least fifteen centimeters taller than I am, a trim silhouette in front of the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows that look out upon the moonlit swells of the sea. As he draws near, I see his face in the frost-colored twilight of night-vision. His face is surprisingly human except for its upswept, almond-shaped eyes and the angularity of his cheekbones and orbital ridges. He stops and looms over me, his countenance inscrutable. “I’m Tyros.”

  “I’d introduce myself, but you already seem to know who I am.”

  “You’re a hard man to reach, Noonien. We could have had this conversation a few years ago on Pacifica if you hadn’t been so skittish.”

  I replay my vivid memories of fleeing a shadow. “That was you?”

  He takes a comical bow with his arms spread, then gestures toward a pair of facing chairs with high backs and comfortably upholstered armrests. “Shall we sit?”

  I shrug one shoulder and stare at him with keen suspicion. “If you like.” He leads me to my own reading chairs and takes the one to our left. I ease myself into the other but remain coiled, ready to spring into retreat or attack. “What’re you doing here? What do you want?”

  “Hard as it might be to believe, Noonien, I’m just here to say hello.”

  It might be a trick of the shadows, but I could swear the bastard is smirking at me. “You’re right, it is hard to believe. And since I don’t know you, you can call me Doctor Soong.”

  “If you prefer, Doctor. It’s all the same to us.”

  “Us? Who’s us?” The more he says, the less I like him.

  He folds his freakishly long, bony fingers together in front of his chest and leans forward. “I’m an envoy from an ancient galactic fellowship. We’ve been watching you for a long time, Doctor—ever since your excursion to Exo III with Doctors Graves and Vaslovik.”

  My jaw drops open with shock, and I know I must look like a jabbering fool. “Exo III? Are you kidding me? That was nearly sixty years ago!”

  “Sixty years?” Those words seem to amuse him. A taut smile deepens the creases of his cadaver-like visage. “A mere wink in the gaze of eternity, Doctor.”

  I’m beginning to suspect my uninvited guest is more than he appears. “What, exactly, is the nature of this ‘ancient fellowship’ you claim to represent?”

  Tyros unclasps his fingers and leans back, hands planted on his chair’s armrests. “I didn’t claim to represent the fellowship. I merely said I was its envoy. As for its nature, it’s a loose collection of peers who travel the galaxy—sometimes alone, sometimes together in pairs or groups—and reconvene at irregular intervals to share their experiences and compare them.”

  It’s a wonderfully evasive answer, no doubt truthful and accurate but not exactly helpful. Watching stray tachyons and neutrinos flee from his narrow skull, I crack my own knowing smile. “That’s very interesting, Tyros, but it’s not what I was asking.”

  “I know what you’re asking. You want to know what kind of life-forms belong to the fellowship, correct?” He waits for my prompting half-nod, then he continues. “It’s composed of people like us, Doctor. In a word . . . artificial.”

  Suddenly, my life’s work and future ambitions seem dwarfed by a reality I’d never dared to think could exist. I knew some past civilizations in this region of the galaxy had, in the past, produced other sophisticated androids, but I thought they had all long since gone extinct.

  “What do you want with me?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” He leans forward, his mien conspiratorial. “You’re one of the first new creators of complex, sentient artificial life the galaxy has seen in a long time. None of us in the fellowship possess gifts like yours. We’d like to learn from you.”

  I get up and shake my head in disgust. “I’m done teaching.”

  “Are you sure? I can promise you’ve never had students like us before. No biological pupil would ever be capable of learning as quickly as we can—nor would any of them ever be as motivated as we are to master your lessons.”

  His offer is enticing enough to make me stop and look back. “I’d be lying if I said I’m not tempted. But telling someone you’ve been spying on them for the last sixty years isn’t exactly a great way to start a recruiting pitch.”

  He chuckles, and it sounds like genuine amusement. “Very true. We don’t often deal with organics, so we forget sometimes they can be sensitive to observation. Not that I have the authority to speak for the fellowship, but, for what it’s worth, I apologize.”

  “Apology appreciated but not accepted. Not yet, anyway.” A twinge of fear makes me assume the worst. “I guess I should ask: Do I have the option of refusing this invitation?”

  He recoils, ostensibly offended by the question. “Of course. We’re not in the habit of abducting our own kind. As one of our members likes to say, ‘We’re kind of like a wine club.’ By which he means we’re a loose affiliation rather than an organized entity. We just want to invite you to the meetings, is all.”

  “That’s kind of you, but I think I’d prefer to remain on my own awhile longer.”

  Tyros stands and stuffs his hands in his pants’ deep pockets. He looks disappointed but not upset. “I understand. It’s a lot to process. Maybe someday you’ll change your mind.”

  I fold my arms. “Then again, maybe I won’t.”

  He takes his right hand from the pocket. There is a small device in his hand, a black wedge with one green button. For a fraction of a second I wonder if it’s a weapon. Then he opens his hand and extends it toward me, the device resting on his open palm. “In case you change your mind, take this.”

  I remain still, so he lobs the tiny device toward me. Damn my android reflexes, I catch it before I even think to let it simply fall to the floor; another of my life’s missed opportunities. I turn it over and around in my hand like a child’s toy. “What is it?”

  “A quantum transceiver. If you ever want or need to make contact with the fellowship, just press the green button and wait. We’ll be in touch.”

  I stuff the transceive
r into my pocket. “Don’t hold your breath.”

  “I don’t breathe.” Before I can sigh in exasperation, he adds, “But I get your idiom.” He walks past me and heads for the front door, which opens ahead of him. I wait for him to stop at the threshold, look back, and offer some witty parting bon mot. Instead, he continues through the doorway, and the portal shuts after him.

  Alone now, I reflect on the encounter. It seemed nonthreatening. Taken at face value, this fellowship of artificial intelligence seems benign enough. On the other hand, they found me here, despite my best efforts at identity camouflage.

  In four-point-one seconds I make my decision.

  I pack my bags, leave Centaurus, and never return.

  AUGUST

  2371

  12

  Until this moment, I never knew true boredom. I’ve committed one of the great conversational blunders of modern times: I’ve let a Ferengi start talking to me about money.

  “The fundamental error of Federation economics is the assumption that it’s a system in equilibrium,” my dining companion mumbles through a maw of half-masticated tube grubs. He swallows hard and continues with rising volume and passion. “If you want to take advantage of new niches and emerging markets, you need to embrace out-of-equilibrium dynamics. Even if you factor in the Federation’s economics-of-surplus model, there’s room for greater profit.”

  I salute Prak with a dip of my chin and a lifting of my wine glass. “If you say so.” Hoping he’ll take the hint and change the subject, I sip my Denevan Sangiovese. A quirk of the light turns the spicy, dark purple wine a deep shade of ruby around its edges.

  “The real innovation I want to bring to the Federation is the concept that spontaneously evolving economic structures can be given analytical and deterministic representations.” Prak spears a jellied gree worm with his telescoping-handle fork, which is at full extension. “My current models suggest that inherently unpredictable events can be explained or understood in terms of endogenous economic forces.” He retracts the fork’s handle and devours his treat.