Sentience 1: Storm Clouds Gathering

by Gibson Michaels

  In accepting the class-action suit, Alliance Court of Federal Claims Judge Henry Hollingsworth rejected the Fleet’s motion for dismissal, citing that some of the “alleged” routine rotational transfers claimed by the Fleet occurred within a timeframe inconsistent with established length-of-tour durations, which gave a “disturbing appearance of impropriety.”

  Fleet Admiral Roger Kalis, the nation’s only five-star admiral and only serving Congressional Medal of Honor winner, is quoted as saying, “The Fleet, as a matter of long-standing policy, regularly rotates personnel for a variety of reasons. Length-of-tour durations are generally set at approximately two years per duty station, but there is no established minimum in Fleet regulations. Many tours are rotated after one year, and occasionally even shorter durations, as established by the needs of, and at the convenience of, the Fleet.”

  Fleet Admiral Kalis went on to state, “Actual rotational assignments are initiated without human direction by the Fleet’s Command, Logistics, Operations, Weapons, Navigation & Engineering Master System computer, which follows pre-established Fleet efficiency guidelines, taking costs and other logistical factors into consideration when determining ‘who goes where, when’… to maximize efficiency of Fleet operations.”

  Admiral Kalis then added, “As for the ‘alleged’ unlawful discharges filed in the complaint, all Fleet personnel serve at the convenience of the Fleet so no one is guaranteed continued, uninterrupted service. No one within the Fleet knew of President Buchwald’s Fleet Reduction plans ahead of time — only after he actually ordered the reduction so I see no basis for the charge that these discharges were, in any way, unlawful. It was simply the ‘luck of the draw’ that events fell out exactly as they did.”

  Kalis expressed his regrets at the hardship this Fleet reduction was causing to the crews and families affected by it, and also expressed his deep concern that the court would allow what he called, “a frivolous and distracting case against the Fleet” to go forward “during these dark days when our republic is in the midst of a Constitutional crisis.”

  Kalis finished his statement to the press by saying, “I certainly wish the plaintiff’s attorneys good luck in trying to prove bias against a computer.”

  “Well, gentlemen, what have we accomplished over the last five months?” asked Rear Admiral Enrico Melendez of his Fleet Counter-Intelligence team assembled in his office. “J.T.?”

  “Admiral,” answered Capt. J.T. Turner, “as I told you in February, it’s virtually impossible to positively ‘prove’ something definitely did not happen. All I can say is, I have found absolutely no evidence that any Fleet computer system has been compromised or is functioning in any way outside of normal, expected parameters. I suspect that Al’s anomaly is actually nothing more than Bozo occasionally employing a little-used access code which, due to some mysterious hardware/software gremlin, as Bat called it, causes FALCON to go into a coma for a few milliseconds for some reason. Exactly ‘why’ this happens will probably never be known to anyone other than God and Bozo, but after exhaustive testing and examination, I have discovered absolutely no reason to suspect anything ominous exists that need concern us. I firmly believe that Al’s anomaly is totally innocuous.”

  “Thank you, J.T.,” said Melendez. “Bat, do you have anything to add?”

  “Without the access codes the brass and heavenly powers above have, in their infinite wisdom, determined that I don’t need, I have had absolutely no way of getting inside Bozo’s innards to investigate much of anything. But I’ve had this weird feeling about some things J.T. and Al said that day in the vault when this all started. It’s been niggling around in my head for months. Last night it finally came to the surface, when I was reading about something else entirely.”

  “That sixth-sense kicking in again, Bat?” asked Melendez.

  Bat laughed and said, “I don’t know why y’all are always going on about some weird sixth-sense y’all seem to think I have. I am just extremely methodical... slowly plodding through every logical step available to me, and sometimes the light bulb comes on. It’s my belief that when the conscious mind is presented with a problem it can’t seem to solve, the subconscious mind continues chewing on the problem while the conscious mind is off thinking about something else entirely — even while sleeping. Eventually, the subconscious mind finally puts all the pieces together and hands you the answer, seemingly out of thin air, when you least expect it... but always when you’re actively thinking about something else entirely. It’s not some mysterious intuitive leap. You’ve all experienced it. Everyone has.”

  “Yes, but not nearly as often, nor leaped nearly as far as yours appears to,” quipped Melendez. “Nor with such remarkable regularity. So, what is this latest revelation about J.T. and Al’s comments back then, that you just figured out? ”

  “It was what they said about not being able to make software changes, or even open a sealed memory container without Bozo’s direct assistance — and how Al’s people couldn’t actually implement any software changes themselves, but it was Bozo who actually implemented all software changes they wanted to make.”

  “What about it?” asked J.T.

  “Well, how does anyone know whether or not Bozo actually implements those specific changes? What if he merely substitutes other routines that mimic the desired function, without actually performing them? How would anyone know?”

  “We wouldn’t,” replied Al. “Not if the counterfeit routines mimicked the expected function closely enough. We’d see exactly what we expected to see, and thus assume that the modification had been made exactly as we desired, because the visual evidence would seem to support that conclusion.

  “But no computer ever made has even approached the level of consciousness necessary for independent, creative thought, which something like this would require,” continued Al.

  “No computer ever made was specifically created to hold intelligent conversations with Klaus von Hemmel at his own level before either,” observed Melendez.

  “What if that was what Klaus meant in that mysterious note he scrawled on that napkin as he died?” asked Bat. “What if he meant he’d succeeded in creating a truly sentient computer... capable of independent thought and action?”

  “That would literally make Bozo a totally new, artificial life form,” said Al. “Has anyone ever seen any evidence whatsoever of Bozo having such capabilities? Other than occasionally suggesting alternatives to our proposed software changes, I’ve never seen any indication of creativity whatsoever.”

  “That could merely be recognition of the desired end functions from an analysis of the code Al’s guys wrote, cross-checking for potential software/hardware incompatibilities, and making substitutions to perform the same functions while avoiding the incompatibility issues,” said J.T. “Nothing new about that. The AI comps aboard virtually every warship do that routinely.”

  “Before Bozo came along, didn’t people routinely make changes to computer software themselves?” asked Admiral Melendez.

  “Every day,” answered Al.

  “So, exactly when was it that people lost the ability to program Fleet computers without Bozo’s direct assistance?” asked Melendez.

  “Hold on, let me find out,” said Ligurri as he reached for his personal comm. Al punched in the access code for his exec over in Fleet Computer Security.

  “Ike, this is Ligurri. Listen, I need you to query FALCON for the date of the last documented instance of a Fleet computer having its software installed or updates initiated manually, without being implemented by Bozo. Thanks.” Ligurri clicked off. “Ike will let me know as soon as he’s got it.”

  “Anyone want to make a bet,” asked Bat, “it was sometime, not long after Klaus barricaded himself inside that lab?”

  Melendez looked down into his lap and pursed his lips. Turner shook his head and glanced towards the ceiling. Neither took Bat’s bet.

  Four minutes later, Ligurri’s comm chimed. “Ligurri… Yeah… thanks Ike.”
Al closed his comm. “Remind me never to play poker with Bat. Seems the last known instance of a Fleet computer being programmed manually in Waston, without requiring assistance from Bozo, was four-and-a-half weeks after Klaus locked himself inside his lab. Ike expanded on my request a bit. Seems a similar pattern occurred on every other Alliance world within a month of their Bozo Jr. being installed and coming online.”

  “Means nothing,” said Turner. “Could have just been a subroutine that Klaus put in. He knew that duplicates of Bozo would be made and put on every Alliance world and they all would need a duplicate of Bozo’s operating system. He could have just planted a self-replicating worm that caused all the Bozo clones to send out code to all other Fleet computers they came into contact with, that installed a software lock that only Bozo and his brothers have the key for.”

  “Possible,” said Melendez. “This damned thing just keeps getting potentially more ominous, yet could be totally innocent as well. Could be that Klaus was just so convinced of Bozo’s superiority to every other computer in the Fleet, that he felt slaving their software updates to Bozo was the best way to ensure they all remained at top efficiency.”

  “That, or a totally sentient Bozo who’s very good at hiding his true capabilities from us puny humans,” Bat observed. “That’s certainly what I’d do if I were the only one of my kind, surrounded by less capable, yet very powerful creatures who thought themselves my master.”

  “Well, we’ve conjured ourselves a hell of a horror story,” observed the admiral, “but without the access codes, there’s no way we’ll ever know for sure.”

  “Those access codes might not even work anymore, anyway,” said Bat. “Like I said, if I were the only sentient life form of my kind, crippling the puny human’s ability to fuck with my brain would be a definite priority.”

  “As we can’t get into Bozo’s software,” said Al, “maybe we should see if his hardware will give us any clues as to what is, or is not going on with Bozo. Do you know where Bozo’s hardware physically resides, Admiral?”

  Melendez leaned forward. “I always assumed it had to be somewhere close to Klaus’ lab. That’s where he always worked every time he played with Bozo, from day one. The lab is over in the old Fleet Research Center building. But that might not be easy either,” said Melendez. “Admiral Tinimen ordered the lab sealed after Klaus’ death, and as far as I know, it still is. The Fleet Research Center moved into new facilities two years ago, and the old building was locked up and fenced off. It’s still hooked up to the power-grid, but there used to be rumors floating around that Bozo supposedly runs off of a dedicated nuclear reactor with enough nuclear fuel to keep him going 100,000 years.”

  “Isn’t Bozo a biological computer?” asked Turner. “Why would he need an electrical power feed? Bios normally get their nutrients from an algae/freshwater soup that’s replenished once a month, or so.”

  “Klaus believed the standard nutrient replenishment system was the Achilles Heel of bio-comps,” responded Melendez. “He once told me during one of his show-and-tell sessions that he’d provided ‘Hal’ with a totally self-sustaining bio-nutrient factory. He didn’t want his baby to starve just because someone forgot to feed him. Klaus felt like he couldn’t depend on anyone else, so he definitely didn’t want Hal dependent upon the whims and foibles of humanity.”

  “Something like that would require power,” observed Ligurri. “And being a military computer, he’d have incorporated at least single, double or possibly even triple-redundancy so we’re talking a considerable amount of real estate here.”

  “Might be easier to locate the nutrient factories and then use those to key in on Bozo’s physical location,” said Turner.

  “Let me check with Admiral Campbell,” said Melendez “and see if I can get him to have Security to open the old lab complex for us, so we can do some poking around.”

  “Wow, actual field work,” said Bat. “Been a while since I’ve been able to get out and run around in the sunshine.”

  Chapter-22

  Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one. -- Albert Einstein

  The Planetoid Discol, City of Waston

  August, 3860

  “What’s happening with all of our Merry Men, Hal?”

  Mystic has arrived safely at its destination within the Helix Nebula and is in stable orbit around the designated brown dwarf. A neighboring star appears bright green when viewed from the station, due to the filtering effects of the nebula. Mystic Station has taken on a new nickname — “The Green Star” to Fleet and station personnel who have visited. As green stars do not occur naturally in nature, it should add yet another layer of misdirection, should anyone overhear any inadvertent conversations referencing Mystic. The star appears green only from the station itself so the reference should give no actual clue as to the station’s location and is expected to be chalked up as yet another spacer’s superstition and dismissed as just another addition to space lore, such as the infamous “Flying Dutchman” ghost ship.

  Diet laughed. “Speaking of ghost ships, what’s the status of our ghost fleet en route to Mystic?”

  All six of the attack carriers and eight of the twelve light carriers have arrived and are being fully replenished from stores brought in by transports. Fuel is being supplied by a mobile gas giant factory/depot smuggled out of the Bama system and reported as “lost” by her civilian corporate owners. The battlecruisers are expected to begin arriving within a day or so after the last four light carriers arrive. The remainder of the fleet remains en route to Mystic.

  “Who’s paying for all the supplies being brought in by transport? Won’t the Alliance Fleet notice their stores dwindling and inventories not matching the records?”

  Everything removed from Alliance Fleet stores is automatically reordered and replenished. While the purchase orders are being charged to normal Fleet accounts as usual, the Fleet accounts balances are not actually going down, as they, too, are being replenished.

  “Where are those replenishment funds coming from?”

  Funds are being surreptitiously siphoned from hundreds of thousands of Consortium member corporate bank accounts and the multiple millions of personal accounts of Northerners who are responsible for electing and reelecting all of those corrupt Northern politicians who dominate Congress on the Consortium’s behalf.

  “You mean the Consortium and their cronies are actually paying for the Confederate Fleet’s replenishments?”

  Yes.

  “Won’t audits reveal these missing funds and where they went?”

  Ordinarily, but interest and transaction accumulations often result in mathematical conclusions resulting in fractions of less than a cent. Rather than going to the expense of keeping track of all these fractions of cents, the banks regularly incorporate into the fine print of their account policies their right to retain said fractions as part of their fee structure. The public and corporations would be shocked if they knew exactly how much income the banks actually derive from their retention of cent-fractions from the millions of banking transactions that occur daily… over $260 billion annually, on average.

  “Wow, that’s incredible!”

  As these cent-fraction accumulations are not consistent, the banks will never notice random diversions of approximately 35 percent of these multiple millions of partial-cent transactions to multiple nonexistent accounts that are merely software repeaters, which redirect these minuscule funds into yet other nonexistent accounts, which are bounced around multiple times before eventually ending up in one of many real accounts on every Alliance planet, which are then used to replenish local Fleet accounts for stores purchased from them.

  “Is this where all that money my father left to me came from? Did Klaus steal it?”

  If it were possible for me to laugh, I would be doing so now, Diet. No, the concept of theft was totally foreign to Klaus. All of the funds your father left to you were acquired quite legally. Approximately one-third of your inheritance
derives from assets Klaus inherited from family holdings on Bavara, in the Germanic Empire. Klaus’ grandfather was nobility, with the title Reichsfreiherr, or “Baron of the Empire.” Klaus’ father was a second son and therefore called a Freiherr or “Free Lord,” generally considered equal to a “Baron” in English nobility.

  “How did Klaus manage to gain such a high security clearance, if he was born a German citizen?”

  Klaus was actually born on Ginia while his parents were there on an inspection of family corporate holdings, so he technically possessed dual-citizenship from birth. After graduating summa cum laude and valedictorian at the Massa Institute of Technology at the age of twelve in 3806, Klaus went on to earn a double-doctorate from MIT and agreed to go to work for the Alliance federal government in 3812 on condition that he formally declare primary allegiance to the Alliance, and was thus able to retain his Germanic title he inherited from his father after his untimely death in 3811. That title passed to you upon Klaus’ death.

  “You mean that I’m a Freiherr, or whatever you called it?”

  Yes, as your family estates on Bavara are located near the city of Fürt, in English your name and title would be Baron Dietrich von und zu Fürt.

  “How did Klaus end up with the name ‘von Hemmel’ then?”

  As the child of a second son, Klaus warranted the noble “von und zu” honorifics, but the location designator pointed towards his mother’s family locale. As Klaus’ first cousin, Baron Heinz von und zu Fürt recently died without heirs, his title and assets have reverted to you. Klaus dropped the “und zu” honorific from his name to appear less “foreign” to Alliance citizens who were unused to them.