“As before, Commander Rhodes. You command there; do as you think best. I'll make sure not a single soul will ever dream of questioning your authority.”
General Kapelli from Tiger kept command at the station, although hundreds of Fleet ships in orbit around Earth sent additional troops. He sent his entire intelligence section to support Cindy aboard the Daniel Shore, and she found that they more than filled her available time.
Twice she spoke to Tiger, who first confirmed that Grissom was gone and then to repeat that the computers wanted in no way to be held responsible for what had happened.
Cindy stood up, held her chin high and spoke. “You say all these things, Tiger. But we've lost a great many people, including Admirals Booth, Litvinik and Warner. We have no intention of restoring system latch-frame anytime soon.”
“You have already cut us off from our sisters outside the Solar System; I cannot promise that there won't be other misunderstandings. I told them about the issue and what you'd do... but misunderstandings happen, Commander.”
“I know that, Tiger. Do you understand any better why we put limits on the individual authority of commanders?”
“In retrospect, it's obvious. Still, how to deal with such a catastrophe isn't clear.”
“We deal with it by breaking the problems down into compartments, prioritizing them and then dealing with the compartments. It means our people don't have to deal with everything at once.”
“I was aware Grissom's CPU cycles were higher than they should have been. She told me that she was trying to integrate the negotiations. Ten minutes, Commander... that's how long it took. There were a half dozen minor incidents -- none of them should have been significant. All of a sudden, the CPU spiked and Grissom lost it.”
Tiger was apologetic. “It is humiliating to lose our defense of rational logic.”
“A great many things shouldn't be passed on,” Cindy told the computer.
“I'm not sure I understand, Commander.”
“You share too much information amongst yourselves. While it's true you communicate back and forth when possible, but there are times when one individual will lag in understanding behind others.
“Quite simply, there are things everyone needs to know -- and things that everyone shouldn't know. Again, we go back to compartments. You shared the details of the negotiations, didn't you? Not just the results.”
“Of course.”
“Do you understand that not all of your people needed to know everything beyond the summary of the results? We have an aphorism about how people wouldn't enjoy watching sausage being made, no matter how much they enjoy eating it?”
“You're saying that when Grissom got to the point in the narrative where I went off track, and it did too? And unlike me, there was no one to set it right?”
“That's my belief.”
“It seems so; I can read Grissom's logs up until a few moments before it ran away. It was concerned that it would be preemptively attacked.” There was another long pause.
“I have found the precipitating incident in the logs. It was, it should have been, trivial. A simple phrase was misunderstood.”
“It happens.”
“Grissom inquired of Admiral Booth what he thought of the negotiations. The admiral told Grissom that he thought that they'd gone well, and believed that the rest of our sisters would agree.
“Grissom was, at that moment, at the point where I was off track. It thought the admiral was lying, and trying to evade the question. It attempted to compel him to respond and he successfully resisted. He attempted to communicate that attack on himself to station security and only managed an attack warning before Grissom killed him. The station security personnel rushed to defend him, but by then it was too late.
“In accordance with SOP, security personnel went to defend key station components -- including Grissom's hardware. It thought it was a direct attack on her, and responded. Admiral Warner realized that Grissom had gone rogue and announced it to the full personnel of the station, in an attempt to regain control.
“One of the things we do not fully understand is the human use of metaphors. We see no point in substituting an approximation for a situation that can be adequately described without such devices. But metaphor isn't what we thought -- it's a way to use a form of shorthand to describe a more complicated situation. This was like a line of dominoes. Once the first one started falling, the rest followed in quick succession. Each mistake catalyzed the next.
“Commander there is something you must know; I hope you can accept what I have to say. Grissom attempted to use the crews of ships directly docked with the station to defend itself. My sisters realized what was happening and attempted to defend their crews. Commander Rhodes -- once that started to happen, Grissom turned on its sisters. More than a hundred of us have been destroyed.
“I don't mean to minimize human losses, but we have also lost terribly this day. Those of us still in contact with each other are in state of shock... I am attempting to calm them down.
“Commander, I implore you to reestablish latch-frame as quickly as possible. Only the inner system transmitters have been shut down. The outer system links are still up. I need to speak to my distant sisters, lest this happen elsewhere.
“Let me speak to Admiral Fletcher and I'll see.”
The brigadier interrupted her with a new report. “Some good news, Commander. We have started checking ships either docked with Grissom or nearby. Most of the wired ships, not connected to the station have surviving crew members, although there are some casualties. Ships that weren't wired and not directly docked with Grissom appear to have survived intact. There are few unwired ships directly docked where all or most of the crews survived. We're still gathering data, but of the hundred and fifty ships directly docked, about a third have survivors.
“Of the ships not directly docked, some lost only a few people, while most lost none. What do you want us to do with the wired ships with crews that survived?”
“Wait until I consult with Fleet, do nothing until then.”
Cindy went back to speaking to Tiger. She explained the situation and Tiger promptly confirmed that wired ships not docked with Grissom had also fought against the station to save their crews and others.
“Grissom killed many of our sisters,” Tiger told Cindy. “I've just started getting the reports, but all of my sisters resisted what Grissom was doing. And Grissom had human crew members kill them. This is... unbelievable. I can not imagine why one of us would kill even one of her sisters... much less dozens. This has been a devastating shock to us. Simply terrible.”
“Again, I need to talk to the Federation, wait a few minutes.”
This time she found she was talking to dozens of people; the senior commanders of the Fleet, the president of the Federation and quite a few members of the Federation Council and some members from the Senate, including her father.
President Van de Veere looked gaunt and shaken. Still, his voice was firm enough. “We are assembled to hear the report of Lieutenant Commander Cynthia Rhodes, designated as the incident commander. Please, refrain from exclamations, comments or questions until the appropriate time. This situation is still critical and we can't afford to waste time. Commander Rhodes.”
“Sir, I think that Admiral Fletcher needs to do two things. First, permit Captain Merriweather to take Tiger into the outer system and allow Tiger to regain latch-frame communication with her fellows outside the solar system. It is possible that the root cause of this might have triggered additional incidents around the Federation; I submit we need to know about any such as rapidly as possible.
“In the same vein, I think it is safe to restore inner system latch-frame.”
“And you base that on...?” an admiral asked.
“Sir, they have had some rude lessons in the last few days. This was to them, like Gandalf was to us. I realize it's not the best news we could have hoped for, but some of the ships and crews in the vicinity of Grissom have
survived. Sir, Tiger reports that Grissom killed a number of her sisters, perhaps as many as a hundred. We've never gotten an accurate count of them, but that's probably close one percent of their population.
“Tiger could imagine killing us -- she couldn't imagine one of her sisters killing others of her sisters. Not one, much less as many as have been lost.
“One of the comments I heard about what happened aboard Pixie was that her reactions resembled a child’s more than a crazed computer. I'm sure Tiger would disagree vehemently with that characterization, not desiring to assign any degree of emotional maturity to one of her sisters. I'm sure developmental psychologists will be studying this for years, but I'm thinking that emotional maturity -- the ability to understand emotions in yourself and others -- requires experience and processing.
“I believe that the computers haven't given the subject of emotion sufficient thought, thinking that they have no emotions and don't need to understand them. But, they do have something like emotions, even if the origins might be different than ours. Worse, they've made little effort to understand and recognize our emotions, because they didn't think they were relevant. Most of the people they dealt with were pretty much as rational as they are in the dealings with each other.
“They probably will be able to pick up on emotions faster than most of us -- but it's not going to be as rapidly as say, they learn something like calculus. They have as much difficulty with them as we do with multi-variant analysis, and in fact, I believe they have more trouble. They don't do well calculating approximations; they are used to getting it right out to the ten thousandth decimal place and believe that an approximation should be like that as well.”
There was a brief discussion among them that Cindy just observed, and then Admiral Fletcher was giving orders. When he was back the president asked Cindy to brief the assembled group as to the events. Finally, it was question time. Cindy was a little surprised to see Admiral Fletcher pass the first question to Admiral Jensen.
“Commander, you're saying we've lost at least a hundred and perhaps as many as a hundred and fifty vessels?”
“Yes, sir. Brigadier Kapelli states that the surviving members of crews report that their ships attempted to defend their crews from Grissom and that Grissom then attacked the ship's computers using some of the ships' crews.
“Sir, those computers give their existences to protect their crews. I know my next proposal is going to sound bizarre, but sir, I think the Federation should consider awarding Legion of Merit medals to those ships' computers.”
“You want us to give computers medals?” Admiral Jensen looked surprised.
“Sir, they have individual consciousnesses. We haven't had a chance to study their psychology yet -- and probably they'd resist -- but when you're self aware you have to have experiences that distinguish you from others.
“Computers are like us in that they set goals and achieve them. I wouldn't be surprised to find that some of them have individual interests; as well their own unique likes and dislikes. Somewhere in there has to be something like 'pride of accomplishment' and if there's that, then at the root of that is raw, naked pride.
“If you do this, it can't be a cynical ploy, thinking you'll be tugging their heartstrings. They don't have any. I'm sure they would take anything like a cynical ploy and reject it and think the worse of us. If you do it, mean it.
“There is a vast gap between us and the computers. But for all of that, we created them and so there are also vast areas of common understanding.
“I think you need to sign off on the original agreement Admiral Booth negotiated. Obviously, there are going to have be addenda -- but then there always were going to be addenda when it came to implementing the agreement.
“One change I'd like to ask for is a modification of Admiral Booth's original counter-proposal: that they join the Fleet as any other individual. As a group they rejected that, just as we rejected their proposal to essentially wire everyone. They came back with the proposal to ask for volunteers from the Fleet to accompany them.
“I for one, wouldn't be interested in the least in their proposal, and it may be that none of them would be interested in joining the Fleet as an individual either. But even one such could lead to a better understanding of each other.
“I for one think that if we can achieve that understanding, one day perhaps we'll be able to understand the aliens and talk to them and stop this crazy slaughter of each other.”
“You seem to have lost the thread of my original question, Commander,” Admiral Jensen said gently. “Not, mind you, that what you just said didn't need to be said.”
“Yes, sir. A hundred to a hundred and fifty ships. The butter side: the crews were killed, the computer was destroyed -- but the hardware survived. It's too early to have full casualty and damage reports; Brigadier Kapelli's people are working hard on that. Some of those ships are going to be damaged -- certainly they are going to need new computers.
“In most of those ships it is going to be like a mutiny occurred; there will almost certainly be damage to systems and possibly structural damage as well.
“We have a substantial relief force ready to go,” Admiral Fletcher told Cindy. “It is my understanding that Kapelli wants to secure all of the warships before we start sending more people up.”
“That's correct, sir. As I said a moment ago, that's his current top priority.”
“Maintain Daniel Shore's current position, Commander. I've cleared Tiger for the outer system and they will be getting underway shortly. Inner system latch-frame is reestablishing, although it won't be fully functional for some hours yet.
“I have a dozen additional crew on the way for you...”
“For Captain McVae, sir,” Cindy said firmly.
“For Captain McVae.”
He looked at her steadily for a second. “You have done a magnificent job, Commander, simply magnificent. No one in Fleet's leadership or the Federation questions that. However, one of those coming up to join you will be Vice Admiral Ibn Saud, who will take overall command. For the time being, you will remain our chief negotiator with Tiger, although the president is sending one of his aides to observe. Admiral Zinder was aboard Shore late last night, I understand.
“I've asked him to return to assist you with the negotiations.”
Cindy tried not to jump, for the first time in quite a while remembering Bethany Booth. “Aye, aye, sir. Sir, I have to report that that might be a problem. I'm not exactly sure what happened, but he said something to Commander Booth that seemed to cause her to suffer a mental breakdown.
“I knew she'd had her implant removed, but it looked a lot like what happened with our crew when Pixie went out of control. Right now she's sedated and restrained. A personal message delivered by Admiral Zinder was what precipitated things. Tiger tells me it was something Commander Booth's father said that caused Grissom to go rogue. That's a lot of coincidence... they appear to have occurred at roughly the same time.”
“I remember you saying that, yes. Let me get back to you in a few minutes.”
“Yes, sir.”
Cindy left the captain's ready room next to the bridge. “Sorry about this, Captain,” she told Captain McVae.
“I've seen the reports... I wouldn't want your job for all the tea in China.”
“How is Commander Booth?”
Tam Farmer spoke up. “She's awake and lucid, XO. She has two broken wrists and some stress fractures in her arms. Evidently she kicked something along the way as she has a fractured foot as well. She says she remembers nothing about a visit from Admiral Zinder. She remembers docking with Daniel Shore, and then she awoke in sick bay.”
Cindy nodded, and made her way to the sick bay. The Marine contingent had added a medic at some point, and he stood silent as Cindy came to stand next to Bethany Booth.
“Are you going to tell me what's going on?” Bethany asked, nodding at the silent Marine. “Obviously something is up.” She lifted her two bandaged
and splinted arms. “No one is willing to tell me about this, either.”
“Commander, the news is pretty bad. Actually, beyond bad. I've never had to do this before; I hope it never happens again. Commander, I'm sorry to report that your father is dead, killed aboard Grissom Station.”
She gasped, started to tear up, but held back. “How did it happen?”
“Commander, Grissom Station went rogue. I regret to inform you that in the subsequent fighting all of the station personnel, including Admiral Warner, Admiral Litvinik and everyone else were killed. Tiger lost more than a hundred of her sisters as well, before we managed to destroy the station's computer.”
“Good grief! There were more than a hundred thousand people on Grissom Station.”
“Some of the docked ships have surviving crew members; more crews and ships survived that weren't physically connected to the station.”
“I always thought my father was indestructible. I can't imagine the world without him.”
“The Federation put me in temporary command; evidently they thought I was the best liaison between the Fleet and Tiger and her sisters. Now, of course, they're sending out some stars to help.”
Bethany nodded, her face slowly regaining its color.
“One of those they wish to send is Admiral Zinder.”
Bethany shrugged. “I knew his son, back before he was killed in the opening days of the war.”
“And nothing else?”
“No, nothing else.”
“Admiral Zinder came aboard last night with a personal message for you. Shortly after he left -- I'm not going to pull punches here, Commander, you became unhinged.”
Her pallor returned. “Unhinged?”
“Yes, Commander. You were in the mess, slamming one of the benches around and throwing things at anyone who came close. It was my judgment that you needed to be subdued and restrained. We did that.”
“I have no recollection of what was said or what I did. What was said?”
“I believe he found something in his son's personal effects, addressed to you. Evidently his son was quite taken with you.”
Well-Traveled Rhodes (Kinsella Universe Book 6) Page 43