Breakaway: A Cassandra Kresnov Novel
Page 37
Debates over the nature of sentience, and the legal, moral and ethical ramifications thereof, had only multiplied ever since, and while the scientifically minded had generally been quick to adopt a broadminded definition of what constituted a self-aware, intelligent being, many religious groups had been far more reluctant. Hindus, however, had been the most progressive of those, believing as they did that the body was only the vessel for endlessly reincarnated souls, and seeing little reason why a soul could not take up residence in a vessel of artificial construction as easily as an organic one. So why hadn't those Hindus been quicker to reach the conclusions of the Swami, given that it was the basis of what most Hindus believed anyway?
Perhaps, she thought, it was her intelligence. Not in terms of pure IQ, for AIs possessed levels of intellectual function in specific areas that extended far beyond her own, or that of any non-silicon sentience. But more in her ability to think laterally, and to be more than her physical form appeared to readily dictate. AIs rarely took much interest in the outside world, and lived mostly in the networks and databases of cyberspace-a psychological condition imposed upon them by their physical nature. Lower model GIs designed for combat were mostly illequipped, psychologically speaking, to do anything other than soldiering-also a condition imposed upon them by the design function of their artificial bodies. Their souls were not free, but were bound by physical constraints. And such was the Tanushans' fear of her. Physically, she was lethal. Tanushans feared that her psychological nature would follow the physical as logically as the tail would follow the snake. And yet she preferred civilianisms to simple soldiering, and refused to have her ideology dictated to her by her original masters and creators. A free soul.
Perhaps the Swami was not so much impressed that she was sentient, for that in itself was no big deal to any resident of the modern human galaxy. Perhaps the Swami was impressed that she was free thinking, creative and independent. That the universe was alive was a staple, commonly recurring belief of many Asian religions. That it was intelligent, and possessed intent, and meaning ...
Meaning. A human invention. A sentient invention, that cynics said had no place in the cold, uncaring universe outside of human awareness. But if she possessed free thought, and she wasn't even human, wasn't even organic ... was that what had so excited the Swami? Proof that meaning wasn't just a human invention, but something inherent to the most basic structures of the universe, to be found in organic and inorganic structures alike? How often had she heard that old, philosophical civilianism, the "meaning of life"? Was what the Swami thought he'd found really that significant?
Her dazed wanderings were interrupted by a newly arrived trio, who introduced themselves as the ministers for Transport and Agriculture, and the Chief of the Central Modelling Agency. There followed a remarkably civil discussion about politics, trade, and the increasing resentment among the 63 million Callayans who did not live in Tanusha at how all Callayan affairs had become even more Tanushan- ised in the present crisis-the Agriculture Minister was from Cavallo, capital city of Argasuto, the biggest of the southern continents, and grower of most of the planet's foodstuffs-on the broad, treeless plains of the south where environmental disruption was least, and transgenic technologies made light of the infertile soil. The Agriculture Minister declared that his constituents had put up with Tanushan dominance until now because of the politics of Federation-League conflict, which had until recently papered over so many regional concerns with greater ones. Now, he opined, the war had ended, and people were questioning the old status quo.
"Isn't that kind of their own fault?" Sandy asked him. "I mean, from what I've heard, the whole idea of Tanusha was partly because the other settlements were all so busy squabbling about who should have the centre of power that they thought they'd have to build a new city to accommodate it, and partly because none of them wanted that kind of high-tech, mega-city development to take place in their comfortable, sleepy little settlements. Having decided that, isn't it a bit much to start complaining about the consequences now?"
"Absolutely," agreed the Transport Minister, a Tanushan native. "And now none of them have to contend with terrorist attacks, paralysing security and mass street protests, either. There are advan tages to being sleepy little backwaters, too."
From another side of the room, a civilised commotion of persons gathering about a monitor screen placed upon a small, ornate table ... several were shushing others, and several calling colleagues across to view.
"Is Neiland on already?" asked the Transport Minister. "She's a half hour early ... Ms. Cassidy, please excuse me, it was a pleasure to meet you in person and I must definitely watch this announcement."
They departed, adding to the gathering crowd about the monitor, lesser aides and bureaucrats hastily making room ... Sandy walked to a convenient spot by the rear wall, depositing her empty juice-glass and trading it for a full one from the table there. She leaned against a decorative wall panel with a good view of the carpeted space, where all occupants were now clustered about one side. She opened a mental uplink, accessed the Parliament vid-feeds ... difficult coding, but she broke it down, gained access, and a picture flickered to life across her internal vision, overlaying the room with that comfortable shift to near-focus.
President Neiland, standing behind a podium. Callayan and Federation flags cross-draped behind her ... the press room, she recognised from similar previous broadcasts. Neiland was making some kind of official announcement. The ministers had evidently expected it ... early, they'd said. Why the hurry? And why the timing, when all Parliament media were so obviously focused upon her own presentation in the Hearing Chamber, despite their lack of broadcast-access to the feed? She sipped at her juice, and listened in.
"... a long time in arriving at this consensus," Neiland was saying, "and I can assure you it took many, many long hours of negotiation with all the involved parties." The suit was the most formal Sandy had seen her wear-dark, collared, and with only a pin upon the lapel, and a small white flower, to lighten the severity. The flower, Sandy remembered, had been a gift from a family member of one of the victims of the Parliament Massacre a month ago. The original flower had doubtless long since died, but was continually replaced anew by Neiland herself to remind all viewers, and political opponents, of the stakes in this most dangerous of political games.
"It has been no secret to many of you in the media for some time now," the President continued, "that ongoing debate over Article 42 has been hitting many roadblocks up to this point in time." On an abrupt impulse, Sandy switched to a wider uplink camera angle, and saw a full crowd of seated media, and a further phalanx clustered along the press room walls. That was an awful lot of media. The word had evidently spread that something was going down. An unscheduled announcement from the President. Something her closer cabinet members had apparently been aware of in advance. While she ... she herself had been stuck in the Hearing Chamber for the last five or six hours, cut off from outside happenings. No one had briefed her ... The timing was most coincidental.
Her glass had stopped just centimetres from her lips, eyes unsighted in the gathering cold chill that ran up her spine. And now she was up here, neatly sequestered away in a meeting and function room, while the real business went on in the central Administration quarter of the Parliament building. Not the first time she'd been kept in the dark of late. Ari hadn't wanted her chasing after Ramoja in the Zaiko Warren-had attempted to send her in the wrong direction. He must have suspected Ramoja would know something he didn't want her to find out ... what, then? Who did Ari work for? Ibrahim. Who did Ibrahim work for? Sure as hell not Ben Grey, not lately.
Neiland. Click, click, click, the pieces were falling into place with frightening, overwhelming speed, as she stood tense and utterly immobilised against the wall, staring into space. Neiland inviting her to speak before Parliament. Now this unscheduled announcement. It all led back to Neiland, all this mad goose chase after Sal Va, the anarchist hacker who'd broken into
Lexi and stolen information ... Weren't Lexi a major player in the whole debate over Article 42? Big biotech firms had to be negotiated with, they held huge political clout, surely Lexi's top people had been in negotiations with the Neiland Administration itself, and maybe even Neiland personally ... Oh shit, what did Sai Va steal? Something Neiland hadn't wanted stolen? Something she'd told Lexi's top brass in those secret negotiations? Something so important she directed Ibrahim to put his best, least visible agent onto it, and to recruit the walking killing machine herself for extra firepower to make sure it got done, whatever nasties they ran into? And now here was Neiland in front of the full planetary media, saying something about a big new consensus deal? What deal could possibly be so big?
She rushdialed Ari's implant, came up negative as per usual. And discovered she was now quite mad and just a little bit frightened. Overrode the local codings with her best infiltration package, managed to acquire a partial lock on the local network's com functions, mutated a seeker function to Ari's mode of receptor software and sent it out ... Parliament alarms flared, somewhere deep in the system, but she didn't care. Came up positive on a location a millisecond later, hacked that room with even less subtlety, which started even more alarms, got a reading on the receptor location, seized control of that room's transmission systems, hacked, opened and sent. No reply, receiver resisting ... she locked the sender signal into a blank channel and sent him a blast of raw static on maximum bandwidth, and got an immediate sense of startled, hurried replies shooting out, trying to patch the various local and system-wide alarms she'd triggered in the securityintensive system. She nailed one of his patches with her most lethal League attack function and watched it disintegrate ........ fucking hell, Sandy, WHAT!!! What do you WANT!!!"
"You're in the damn building," she formulated coldly, "I thought so."
"Well, clever you, what are you trying to do, get arrested?!"
"I'm trying to get the truth, An. What did Sai Va steal? What was it that you didn't want me to find out, and what's it got to do with what Neiland's announcing now?"
"Sandy," warningly, "I don't have time for this right now, I'm trying to monitor something important here ... "
"You'll tell me or I'll fry your damn circuitry so it melts into your eardrum. What did Lexi know that Sai Va stole. Ari?"
"Sandy," very firmly, and without a trace of the usual irreverence, "don't be a spoilt child. I don't have time. This is more important than your petty concerns, I'm trying to monitor something of crucial importance and if you don't get out of my frequency right now I'll get security to your location and have you tranqued and arrested in that order. "
He cut off. Agent Odano was suddenly at her side.
"Cassandra," with an urgent whisper, leaning close, "someone just breached transmission frequency! Was that you?"
"Yes." And to his baffled, alarmed look, "Watch the damn monitor."
"... announce here today," Neiland was saying, "a new public amendment to the Article 42 process, an amendment I sincerely hope will assist in moving the entire process forward, and resolve many of the great obstacles facing not only Callay, but the entire Federation, and all of its members."
Sandy realised she was holding her breath. The entire room was utterly still, only the alarm frequency blinking in the lower corner of her overlaid net-vision.
"I announce here before you today Amendment number 15. The proposal put forward in Amendment 15 is not merely to address the nature of the present Federation system of governance, but rather to change it. And by change, I mean really change it." Staring out into the gleam of lights and half-visible spectrum-flash strobes of the cameras, green eyes piercing beneath sternly arranged red hair. "Amendment 15 is a proposal to change the location of Federation governance. To move the centre of power of the Federation from the planet Earth, and to relocate it out into the vast and growing colonies, from where it can better represent the increasingly diverse and ever-changing needs and interests of this great experiment in collective, representative human governance we call the Federation."
From somewhere amid the crowd around the monitor, someone dropped a glass. No one seemed to notice. Sandy knew how they felt. Speech failed her. Thought did. She was stunned.
"Amendment 15 does not merely shift the location of the Federation Grand Council, however. Amendment 15 is a proposal to relocate the entire bureaucratic apparatus of central Federation governancethe bureaucracy, the Federal Bank, Fleet Command and the associated military apparatus, everything. All such branches need to communicate in realtime, with no time delays for inter-stellar travel, and as such all must be located upon the same world-if one moves, all must move.
"It is the collective opinion of the vast majority of Federation worlds that the present debacle of Federal Intelligence Agency powers running rampant over the rights of individual member worlds is a direct result of the corrupting influence of certain Earth-based powers that continue to run the affairs of the Federation according to their own unrepresentative agendas. Such agendas were formed during the war against the League, which is now ended, thus ending the legitimacy and relevance of many of those groups and their interests. It is time to return those powers to the people of the Federation, and to return them to the people directly, not have them wielded from a distance by committee and via request, but have them within the direct grasp of our hands.
"Furthermore, it is also the proposal of Amendment 15, a proposal arrived at once again after exhaustive consultation with the senior delegates from all Federation member worlds, that the Federation world whose infrastructure and star-lanes most suit it to becoming the recipient of all Federation bureaucracy is ... Callay."
Another glass dropped. That didn't surprise her either. Neither, given the rest of it, did the last part of the announcement. Callay was the most logical choice, not only was it the best located, the best equipped and the most powerful, but also the most recently and seriously wronged. The political message was clear. As to who would buy it ... God, she needed to sit down. That didn't happen to her often. Grand moments in history were things she'd read about. She'd never thought to be caught up in one so personally.
Move the centre of governance from Earth to Callay? Might as well shift Earth itself, all of Sol System, relocate it a convenient few hundred extra light-years closer to the vaguely defined Federation "centre." Her eyes shifted to the group gathered about the monitor, mostly stunned and silent, but for the sombre, meaningful stares of the ministers who'd known what was coming, and had no doubt been in on the consultation. A big secret, those consultations. Lots of people consulted, but no leaks. Or almost. Lexi! the thought struck her. Was that what Sai Va had stolen from Lexi without knowing it? News of ongoing negotiations to take the seat of Federation power away from the motherworld? Well of course they'd had to keep it secret. The moment the various Earth delegations got wind of that, there'd have been pandemonium-claims and counter-claims, concerted attempts to try and scupper the emerging Federation-wide consensus Neiland was claiming to have achieved in this convenient gathering of Federation-wide decision makers in the one single spot ... The media uproar alone could have derailed the talks at that early stage of the negotiations.
And she realised she owed Ari an apology. He had needed her to catch Sai Va, the bullet holes strewn through the Zaiko Warren and the Cloud Nine gangster-club were proof enough of that. But, of course, he wasn't allowed to tell her. She wasn't cleared for that kind of knowledge-she was a soldier, she knew what rank meant, she knew that some information was classified for a reason. Not to mention the precarious political situation that existed where she was concerned. He'd tried to keep her in the dark because those were the rules. She knew rules. She just hadn't learned much respect for Tanushan rules yet. Until today she hadn't been given much reason to.
"What does that mean?" Odano was saying. Incredulity and puzzlement colliding upon his young face. "Callay's going to become the centre of the Federation? Where will they put the Grand Council
? Tanusha's crowded enough as it is!"
Sandy shrugged faintly. "There'll be room on the periphery."
"City planners don't like surprises."
"I think they'll come to terms with this one pretty quickly." Which struck her as a surreal conversation ... the trials and tribulations of Tanusha's various officious planning departments were the least of their problems right now. And she looked up as Rafasan came striding quickly over, heels muffled on the carpet. Sandy half expected her to be jubilant, her lawyer's soul seemed to rejoice at moral victories, however bureaucratic in nature. Instead, her elegant face was drawn and worried.
"Cassandra," she whispered, leaning close, "you do realise what this means? For security implications, I mean?" It was, Sandy recalled, her job. Or had been, until the SIB had put it on hold.