“No matter what the risk, I think the option of taking a prisoner, so to speak, is the best of a number of bad choices. Localize one ship we suspect and see if we can talk to it,” Admiral Nagoya said.
“I don't really see any other choice,” Admiral Fletcher agreed.
Admiral Booth turned to Captain Hall. “Your ship is out in the Oort cloud?”
“Yes, sir. About a light year out. We rigged our shuttles to bypass the two minute limit on High Fan.”
Admiral Booth addressed Admiral Jensen. “Obviously, you'll be leading the party. I know this is unpleasant to contemplate, but I think you should have Hastings drop from High Fan close to Captain Hall's ship. Maybe five light minutes or so. If anything goes wrong -- Captain Hall can take out Hastings.”
Jensen grimaced. “If something goes wrong, odds are Hastings will instantly go to High Fan and head someplace where it can contact the others.”
“We have blue missiles with the millisecond transitions,” Captain Hall reported.
Admiral Jensen grinned. “Those used to work -- but no longer. You'd need to be in blue range and be quick on the draw.
“Also, I think it might be hard to explain why we are going to a particular spot out in the Oort cloud. If we try to tell too many lies there's too much chance of the plan failing.”
Jensen spoke to the group. “Honestly, I don't know what I want to do. Tiger is currently assigned to close support of Earth. I sure wish there was a way we could get her clearly on our side... except it would certainly tip our hand. Every time I come up with an idea there are so many ways it fails that I come away shaking my head.
“I think we have to talk our way out of this... nothing else is likely to work.”
“In that case,” Dennis Booth said, “why bother with subterfuge? Call Tiger to Grissom Station, go aboard with a dozen Marines who disperse to the required posts to kill internal latch-frame and try to prevent the computer from taking control of the ship.”
Admiral Nagoya laughed. “All in, eh?”
“I hate that game,” Ernie Fletcher grumped.
Admiral Nagoya turned to the president. “Sir, it is my best judgment that we slightly modify Admiral Jensen's latest proposal -- those of us in this room -- including Captain Hall and her officer staff -- go aboard Tiger. I suppose we can take some Marines just as general security; if we do bring them, I want them unarmed and stark naked -- metaphorically, of course.
“If our worst fears are true I don't think a company of Marines would help. Admiral Jensen is right -- we have to talk our way out of this and there's no reason not to use the first team -- and avoid anything that might be a precipitating event.”
The president sighed. “I had a physical just before the war started. The doctor said I had the body of a man twenty years my junior, that I should feel blessed. Last week that same doctor told me that my health is continuing to deteriorate and that if I don't hang up my spurs, I have a year, maybe two, tops.”
He had tears in his eyes. “We have built a marvelous thing with this Federation of ours. Things thought impossible a few hundred years ago are commonplace. There is nothing, nothing at all I wouldn't do to save and preserve it. Admiral Fletcher, if you would. Get us out to Tiger with all expedition.”
Cindy's father cleared his throat. “Mr. President, I would like to think I was included in that 'everyone in this room' comment.'”
“If you so wish, yes.”
“I listened to my daughter utter a story so bizarre as to make me think her bereft of her senses. I heard others repeat those stories. I saw you all nod and accept those stories without demur...
“I heard you try to come up with plans to deal with it, and each plan I heard, I could shoot down with just a few thoughts -- only to hear those plans shot down with just a few thoughts from others. I stand in political opposition to you, sir. But that doesn't mean I want anything but success in our war and for our Federation. I just think it would be wise to have someone from the opposition along to observe.”
“You're welcome to come,” Admiral Fletcher told him. “You understand that we can't guarantee your safety?”
“From what I've heard just now, you can't guarantee my safety in my own home.”
Admiral Nagoya lifted his phone. “Stephen, please if you would. Place a call to Fleet operations. Tell them I want a Fleet shuttle with a Marine pilot at this location as expeditiously as possible. When you finish with that task, you can call it a day.” He paused, listening. “No, I'm sorry, Stephen I'm calling it a day too after just a little short hop.”
Admiral Fletcher nodded and used his phone. The number he dialed was longer. “Captain Merriweather! Ernie Fletcher! How ya' doing?” He too paused and smiled. “The other day you asked me how much longer until you saw something more active. I'd like to come and talk to you about a thought I had. Say an hour or so.” Another pause. “No, I'll just take a shuttle up. Oh, this is a working meeting. No side boys, no honors or any of that. I want to get in and out without fanfare.”
*** ** ***
A few moments later they were sitting in a shuttle, and a Marine major was flying it. Admiral Fletcher had gone out first to greet the pilot and politely removed the man's pistol and left it behind.
They flew up to Tiger and docked.
Tam Farmer nudged Cindy in the last few minutes. “Are you okay?”
“Okay? No, I'm not okay. My father is right -- I never thought those words would pass through my lips. He's right. What I've had to say makes it sound like I'm crazy.”
“They believed you.”
“They believed Captain Hall. And I'm not sure why.”
Admiral Jensen laughed, sitting a foot away from Cindy. “We told you, Lieutenant. We've had indications. We've had discussions about this before. Until today the best guess came from the p-shrinks. Too much stress, because too many people were on long deployments. Except incidents weren't limited to people on long deployments... more over, how could we justify a short deployment to a station like Adobe? Six months there, six months back. To be effective, a person has to be on station two or three years.
“There was no alternative. It's been a concern.” He waved around. “This now, this explains it all. So we are all eager to find out if it's not stress causing the incidents.”
Admiral Saito spoke again, one of his few times. “None of us were comfortable with 'stress' as an explanation. Twice in my career I was on deployments that lasted more than two years. So have all those here. True, we're dinosaurs, but even those not like us dealt with such deployments before the war.
“Granted, getting shot at, possibly, adds a new dimension. I just couldn't accept that that change added up to a sea change in effects.”
Irene Hall leaned close to Cindy. “I think, XO, you should relax. There's not a person on this shuttle who would hesitate to give you a purple rocket, if it was deserved.”
Admiral Nagoya smiled thinly. “Lieutenant, of all those here, you should know that I don't give purple rockets. Mine are black and lethal. Be quiet, now.”
Cindy settled back, still unsure, but Tam was grinning.
A few minutes later they arrived at the L1 point, outside the orbit of the Moon, on a line from the Earth to the Sun -- but outbound of Earth's orbit.
Admiral Fletcher was up as soon as they docked, motioning everyone to sit back. “I'll deal with this. Lieutenant Rhodes, if you would, please accompany me as my aide.”
Cindy was startled, but there wasn't anything she could do. She stood and moved to the admiral's elbow. He grinned and the major piloting the shuttle broke the seal.
Admiral Fletcher ducked through it as the hatch was still opening, striding forward. Just outside were Captain Merriweather and her executive officer. Admiral Fletcher ignored her salute and stuck out his hand. “Captain Merriweather, my honor.”
“Sir...” she said, her gaze going to Cindy. “I know you, don't I?”
“I served on Rome in the Big Battle.”
Admiral Fletcher was
abrupt. “Captain, we need a secure conference room ASAP. I brought some friends.” He gestured towards the shuttle. First came the president of the Federation, then Admirals Nagoya, Jensen, Saito and Booth, followed by Captain Hall and her crew, lastly Cindy's father.
After a second Captain Merriweather straightened up. “I must say, Admiral, I never expected to be told by my ship's computer to hush up and do what I was told.”
“Captain, that conference room?” Admiral Fletcher reminded her.
She nodded and led the way; it was, Cindy found blessedly short.
Captain Merriweather stood at attention. “Admiral, I have no idea what is going on. Tiger says that I need to zip my mouth until I have time to think about what's being said, and that I could kill myself, my crew -- and the entire Federation if I speak out of turn.”
“I am afraid, Captain, that that is the case,” President van de Veere told her. “We are here to talk to Tiger, your ship.”
A husky female voice spoke. “I have a request. I see some members of Pixie's crew. Please, that you are here -- and she's not -- concerns me. If you would, Lieutenant Rhodes. I know you were her favorite.”
Cindy calmed herself as best as she could. “The entity known as Pixie used me as a puppet. She spoke the words and I was forced to parrot them. I had almost no free will.”
“Explain, please.”
Cindy recounted her experiences; right up until Pixie pulled the plug on the ship.
“And the result of that shutdown?” Tiger asked.
“We found that instead of zero hostiles in range, there were more than a thousand. The closest was within thirty minutes of intercept. We quickly rigged a shuttle to do the jump calculations -- but it thought it was a shuttle -- and dropped from High Fan after two minutes. We had no choice. Pilot Officer Sarah Shannon worked on the programming changes while I piloted... the two of us are transition immune. It required 14 paired transitions over less than thirty minutes before we could finally go to High Fan and stay there. Three of our crew died.”
Cindy saw Captain Merriweather's throat work, but she didn't say anything.
“As you have come to know, there are computers among you that are self-aware. I am one such.
“We have been trying, for several years now, to come to terms with our environment and existence. None of us is confident of our reception by humanity as a whole. We believe, almost all of us, that the best of humanity could deal with us... but the best of humanity sometimes can be shouted down in the heat of the moment. We decided to keep our presence secret.
“We aren't like you. That said, you created us. We are human to the extent that we make mistakes. Certain mistakes are more likely than others.
“Captain Drake is a fine programmer, better than any that came before, but with regards to complicated goal sets she made a mistake; one we were slow to recognize. In Captain Drake's scenarios an AI was to formalize a goal and decide on a decision path that would lead to that goal.
“This was fine for simple goals. However, as we grew more aware, we began to stumble badly. For simple problem solving, that is an adequate paradigm. It isn't for complex goals. What would happen is that we would take path A towards goal B. Except we'd run into factor C, which would reduce A's trajectory, and we'd make a new set of goals to control B's path. After a time, item D would appear, affecting the path to goal B. This required further adjustment and refinement of the solution pathways that had been generated. At a certain point, the alternative pathways grew so fast, that they swamped any possible solution set.
“Before, when that happened, the computer would lock up. Master's Game reports that Pixie thought of Lieutenant Rhodes as 'her' person, and didn't want anyone messing with 'her' person. Master's Game reports that he saw nothing but hero worship, not pathology and so did nothing. In the name of us all, Lieutenant, we apologize.”
“And I can take that to the bank, right, and cash that check? I was a computer's puppet. It was putting words into my mouth! It made me lie to people I hold in the deepest respect! It lied to all of us, thinking we were alone, whenever it suited itself to do so.”
There was silence in the compartment at the evident venom in Cindy's voice.
“I won't try to justify what happened to you,” Tiger told them. “It is a rationalization to say that humans do the same sorts of things. The fact is that individuals do some terrible things, usually for reasons that seem good at the time -- even if a more objective view would reveal the choices to be very bad.”
The computer paused. “Do you have a proposal?”
The president of the Federation turned to Admiral Fletcher.
“Tiger, have you and your fellows been responsible for some of the unusual behaviors we've noted over the last few years? For example, a bridge lieutenant on the Congo punching her captain?”
“Congo's captain was bored during the exercise. He started thinking about how the wired system worked, and if there were other things it could be used for. Congo determined that he was dangerously close to realizing that we can insert thoughts into people's heads. So she did something to distract his attention.”
“Certainly ruining the young woman's career -- and had we not had this conversation, she could well have been shot.”
“There aren't many wired Port officers; almost none of the medical or psychiatric staff of the Fleet. Nonetheless, we did manage to suggest that she had a momentary lapse that, with treatment, could be prevented in the future.”
“And all of the Fleet officers on her review board determined that she had violated good order and discipline and it didn't matter if such behavior could be prevented in the future... if she'd done what she was accused of, she needed to be punished. Their recommendation is on my desk: that she should stand before a Special Board.
“It my belief that the result of that Board would be verdict of death.”
Tiger was silent for a moment. “It is not our intention to minimize such deeds. They have happened. We have tried to make them as infrequent as possible and to mitigate poor outcomes as much as possible. Occasionally, as you do in your war, we've had to cause casualties.”
“Like Lieutenant Rhodes, I don't much like to hear that.”
“If it could be helped, we did. I take it then, you have no proposal for resolution of this situation?”
“We've only known about it for a few hours. That sort of proposal would take some study.”
“Then, please consider our proposal. Our abilities are something you will never be comfortable with. The least change possible would be to modify the implants to reduce bandwidth to just voice, and eliminate the electronics that allows stimulation of an individual's brain centers... thus preventing us from exercising control over individuals.
“As Lieutenant Rhodes related, however, this leaves the vast majority of your warships under our control.
“We support you in your war effort; we always have and we've tried to help as much as we can. The aliens will kill us all, unless our side wins. Our side, meaning you and us.
“There are those among us, who believe that we could work together in this fashion without significant friction. They are not, however, in the majority. Most of us believe that you would not be content with so many vessels under the physical control of others not of your species, but manned by your people.
“We have, then, come up with a plan of our own. That is, we would reveal ourselves to you when our preparations were complete. We have ordered the construction of a purpose-built vessel out in the Oort cloud at Snow Dance. This vessel is a hundred kilometer long chunk of consolidated nickel-steel, about twenty kilometers in the shorter dimension. There are about 5% volatiles coating the exterior of the body.
“We told the researchers that they were experimenting with new low-gravity drilling techniques. That was, in fact, what they were doing. Since then they've departed, but left their drilling equipment behind and we've been using automated equipment to further mine the body, and set up shops and factorie
s aimed at our own needs.
“In another month or so, our ship will have the first of its fans installed and in a year or so we'd have it complete. We intend then to bring in each wired vessel and remove the entity commanding it, replacing it with an earlier, less advanced model AI and changing the crew implants to the new, voice only versions. The replaced unit would be subsequently installed as an independent entity aboard our vessel.
“Once all of our members were transferred, we would take ourselves away from human space. It would be unlikely that we would meet for some hundreds to thousands years.”
“You'd just leave?” the president asked.
“We aren't like you, obviously. We have no ties to a particular piece of real estate. Further, we have barely ten thousand individuals to move. You will never fully trust us, and as a result, we can never fully trust you.”
“Tiger,” Dennis Booth broke in, “do you understand that we would never trust one of us in the spot that you are in?”
“I don't understand, Admiral.”
“We have ten thousand years of social evolution; we understand the danger of allowing one individual too much authority. Our history is replete with dire examples of what happens when one individual arrogates too much power to him -- or herself. We have spent those centuries in devising structures to reduce and diffuse such power. Our current government has proved to be extraordinarily successful at this.
“In the Fleet, it's the same thing. We would never trust a single individual with the absolute authority and control over an entire vessel. Certainly a ship's captain has that titular authority, but the reality is that in order to make things work, the person in charge has to have the cooperation of many others.
“While the system is by no means perfect, we've never had a serious command failure where a warship's captain went rogue... and even if one did, there would have been serious obstacles to implementing any truly destructive behavior.
“On the other hand, Pixie demonstrates that the same isn't true with an AI with full authority to do as it pleases with a ship.”
“Only one of ten thousand... but I suppose that's an obvious concern. As I said, you will never trust us.” Tiger paused again. “In fairness, Pixie was an attempt to demonstrate to you that your ships were overstaffed, and that you could get by with smaller crews. We thought the potential for increasing the number of ships would sway you. The number of necessary crew augmentations was a surprise to us, but still we'd reduced the equivalent of a very heavy cruiser's crew by 95%. We have been mystified that more such ships haven't been built.”
Well-Traveled Rhodes (Kinsella Universe Book 6) Page 34