by Gary Starta
“I love those messages from home,” Mario commented to Marisa. Marisa responded by placing her hands on Mario’s shoulders and acknowledged her husband’s love with a kiss. “Soon we will have a new place to call home, Mario. We will experience what it must have been like for the first colonists of Earth who left their families to pursue a new continent or frontier. “Let’s look to our futures with the hope for happiness and minimize the feelings of sorrow we may have attached to our pasts.”
“That is easier said than done for me as you quite know,” Mario responded taking his wife’s hand into his. “However, I do look forward to many happy years with our new family. Please allow me some regret that our children will never get to see their grandparents or other relatives in the flesh. I must live with the knowledge that they never had a choice in this matter; it is we who chose to sacrifice their normal childhood for the sake of mankind’s advancement.”
“I know I can come to terms with this easier than you, Mario. In fact, the decision to have them experience a childhood on a new planet probably would have been an easier one for my own parents to make. But I did not choose for us to go on this mission or to have our children raised on foreign soil because of emotional indifference; I believe my character makeup allowed me the strength to take on this challenge for the good of mankind. Someday it will be necessary for the people of Earth to settle on planets like when the Terran sun goes supernova.”
“Well, for one thing I am certain. People born with courage like you are solely responsible for supporting the space mission to take us into a galaxy that was once beyond man’s wildest dreams,” Mario stated in praise of his wife. “Despite the numerous tragic occurrences that threatened to scrap the space program centuries ago, the will of humans to succeed has always defied our inner logic that cautions us to give up on our dream of reaching the next star. Thanks to you, that spirit carries us into the future our children will inherit. For that alone, I am proud to call you my wife.”
“I am also proud that your loving spirit accompanies me and supports my sometimes risky propositions,” Marisa said with a smile.
Chapter 17: Hate Crime
Phil Jackson pondered the next chess move in his vindictive game to repay the World Aeronautics Association for replacing him with automatons. At the research and development division of ship design, his IT job allowed him programming access to the robots and an opportunity to make them malfunction. All he needed was a way to pin the sabotage on someone else—preferably his former colleague— Mikola Petrovsky. As Jackson sipped his morning coffee, his mind went to work on how he could requisition a sample of Petrovsky’s DNA to frame him for the crime.
However, intermittent thoughts of the night before also haunted Jackson. The technician did not want to admit that his colleague Chuck Paterson managed to appeal to a small part of his conscious between sips of alcohol. “What if the plan results in fatalities?”Jackson pondered. He surmised the probability was very high that innocent people would be hurt. However, the taste of revenge was too sweet for Jackson to pass up. Jackson reasoned the association had made technical errors before that cost lives and they didn’t close up shop. He also tried to convince himself that the automatons were still capable of error so maybe he would actually be saving the lives of astronauts and civilians in the long run. However, deep down Jackson knew his motives had nothing to do with anybody else’s life but his own. He hated to admit that he was becoming just as self serving as Petrovsky.
Jackson’s plan would involve obtaining Petrovsky’s DNA sample from the lab that performed the physical examinations on the scientists. His requisition would state that he was testing the robot’s recognition program and needed DNA from someone who was not assigned to work on them as part of the identification test. Jackson knew he could get the requisition authorized by a friend who had also suffered job reassignment from the deployment of robots. Jackson thought to himself that the association created this chain of dissension and now the cogs in that link would exact their revenge.
The next part of the plan would result in altering the calibration software of the robots responsible for the design of hyper drive and engine specifications. Once this was done, Jackson was sure one or possibly many errors could occur before the programming error was detected. He hoped the resulting damage would provide enough evidence for an arbitration committee to approve the reassignment of humans to these jobs. Although humans had made errors in the past, none were publicly acknowledged as sabotage. Jackson convinced himself that his act of subversion would pale in comparison to the public outrage once the robots were discovered to be infallible. This act will label me aspatriot, not a terrorist,” Jackson told himself.
The next morning Phil signed himself out for break at IT and quickly hurried over to the medical lab with his phony requisition request. Jackson, who had forged an electronic signature from his boss on the form, tried to calm the heavy beating of his heart which was fueled not only by his quickened gate but his guilt-ridden conscious. In what seemed like five of the longest minutes of his life, Phil finally reached his destination.
Jackson heaved a sigh of relief as he saw his friend Sam Evans was on duty at the lab. “What’s up, Phil?” asked Sam while instantly detecting a sense of panic from his friend.
Jackson forced himself to make eye contact with Sam to dispel any suspicions. “Oh, just conducting routine ID tests with the robots. IT needs to use a previously unrecognized DNA sample to check the work authorization coding system. I thought what better foreign sample to use than our old friend, Petrovsky,” Phil joked nervously.
Sam squinted his eyes while looking at the form. In the back of his mind, he asked himself if it was just his imagination that Phil’s answer sounded too much like a rehearsed speech.
“I’d be happy to help you,” Sam said while placing the form in his scanner. “Just put your hand print on this pad and I’ll ready the sample for transport.”
As Sam went to retrieve a vial, Jackson paced the floor for what seemed like a solid five minutes while constantly checking his data-net unit for the time.
Once Jackson received the vial, he started to walk out of the office as if in a dream. He now had the weapon in his possession to bring the association to their knees. In ten minutes, Jackson arrived back at IT and stored the sample in his locker.
Jackson knew he would have to act on his plan within the next day now that a copy of the requisition was on file. Jackson then started to fight feelings of paranoia with that knowledge. Eventually, he calmed his nerves by telling himself that the association’s penchant for requiring red tape would make it unlikely that time would be made to analyze one document out of thousands for its authenticity.
At the end of the day, Jackson poured himself three shots of whiskey to make sure no other voices would be able to disturb his sleep. Before retiring, Phil e-mailed Bob Schmitt with a secret code that signified the plan was going into effect. The e-mail simply read: cold dish. Jackson readied the same signal for Chuck,. but hesitated. He decided against sending the message based upon his friend’s alarmed behavior the night before.
Back in Chuck Paterson’s apartment unit, the single technician tossed and turned on his bed pondering if he should warn someone of the plan. “What if Phil was only bluffing?”He had let off steam before and never did anything rash. If I warn the authorities of the threat and Phil doesn’t take any action, I will have ended his career for nothing. If I do nothing, innocent people may get hurt.”
After warming a glass of milk to aid his sleep, Chuck let out a long yawn and decided it would be best to make his decision tomorrow.
Chapter 18: Networking
Adrian McElroy worked late into the night after the fact finding meeting adjourned. His first task would be to access all biological and physiological records pertaining to the individual scientists so he could begin casting molds and ordering cybernetic equipment from the ship’s replication unit.
The doctor felt a surge of enthusia
sm now that his life ambition was coming to fruition—the creation of the first race of android units. McElroy knew he would not get to see his ultimate creation—an automaton entirely independent of human sustenance. However, he would be building prototypes for the new sentient race he dreamed would one day populate Earth.
Fueled by the release of adrenaline from his excitement, the doctor pondered how he would manufacture the neural nets for each unit. Adrian felt a fervor that rivaled any of his relationships with the female race. Perhaps that was why he was the lone unmarried scientist on the planet. McElroy chose not to enter into any union that did not possess a passion equal to his work. He realized his mother, and perhaps several of the scientists, had married for less emotional reasons.
Adrian knew he would have to create beings that could network socially. He feared that anti-social automatons would never band together to become a race. Over the last three years, McElroy often empathized of how it would feel like to be the only unattached being in the universe. The doctor didn’t have to push his imagination too far as he was reminded of his solitude every time he caught himself speaking his thoughts aloud. He related this isolationist principle to how androids would feel facing the fears and prejudices of humans. The doctor surmised that if he could capture the essence of these emotions, he would be able to sufficiently program them into an android’s neural network to foster human-like interaction. McElroy wanted the androids to feel a need to be with other beings—both automaton and humanoid. The androids should be social, creative and have a will to live in order to successfully survive and perhaps engage in artificial procreation, the doctor theorized. The androids should also be equipped with reasoning skills to choose whether they wanted to produce offspring with specific programming types, for example. The ultimate android relationship—according to McElroy—would incorporate feelings of love and result in the production of children.
McElroy knew it could take another lifetime of work to create these kinds of complex life skills. However, he reasoned that two centuries ago no one believed a robot would ever be anything but an indentured servant. The very idea of servitude bothered McElroy as he feared that any race or gender subject to it would never be treated like anything other than an object. Since automatons were literally objects to begin with, the doctor knew sophisticated programming capabilities were needed to overcome the barriers of prejudice.
“Many humans disliked the early robot prototypes because they lacked emotion. This gave them the ammunition needed to feel superior to automatons even though they probably spent more than half their lives regretting their own emotionally-influenced behavior,” McElroy noted with irony in one of his early thesis papers. Adrian recalled that his father always maintained that superior interaction skills would cure this problem.
McElroy also knew he would have to instill a type of value system in the androids.
“We willie asked to walk a fine line between morality and free will once they are integrated into society,” Adrian wrote in his final college essay. “Androids should not bear the ball and chain of a fail safe system each time they make choices that are not necessarily in accordance with the wishes of their human counterparts. AI units will never be accepted as equals unless they are trusted to decide what is right and wrong based upon their own programming. Although early science fiction writings proposed that robots should be hard wired with ethical codes of conduct, I believe this restriction would relate to the same type of censorship once practiced in some old Earth cultures. The androids would essentially be encumbered by this programming just like women were prohibited from free speech and voting rights in some societies. Any installation of an off switch effectively negates free speech and any claim to the kind of rights our forefathers gave their lives for.”
McElroy’s professor reluctantly graded young Adrian’s paper with an A as all his ideas were considered aberrations of federation law.
McElroy with the aid of engrams taken from actual human implants would not have to face installing a morality program in this next group of androids. He reasoned that the memories and character of the individual scientists would act as a sufficient safeguard. However, the doctor probably gave Petrovsky more credit than he deserves regarding that theory in his following personal log:
“If Petrovsky consents to this procedure, I will grant him the same opportunity to continue his work just as I have offered my colleagues. Any refusal on my part, would be equivalent to the type of persecution I am seeking to avoid for my androids. However, I don’t know if Petrovsky is a big enough of a person to understand this line of reasoning. In the event of any tragedy resulting from the actions of the android known as Mikola Petrovsky, I bear full responsibility for any and all mishaps. I therefore leave my entire estate to the governing council of the W.A.A. to help pay for any possible litigation, deviant behavior or illegal conduct.”
After McElroy appeased his conscious with the recording, he brewed some chamomile tea to take the edge off his enthusiasm. This undertaking would be far more grueling than the creation of the android James. The doctor would be facing time restrictions and the mass production of very complex processors including neural networks designed with the capability to co-exist with the human engrams. Adrian proposed that micro-bots would perform the complex surgical procedures. The micro-bots would install much of the neuron wiring invisible to the naked eye. The engrams extracted from the humans would act as an aid to the artificial neurons. This biological enhancement would control and direct the artificial neurons to take specific courses of action in relation to certain experiences. The installation of electrodes would also be critical to allow the android to be able to envision a thought in his mind. McElroy would never have been able to undertake this hybrid procedure without his invention of a brain cell alternator. The device regulated the amount of information the neural network would extract from the human DNA at any one time. This allowed the android to derive most of its information from the engrams and use its artificial brain cells as a backup. The procedure, known only to McElroy, would teach the androids how to incorporate independent thought—a concept many detractors in the scientific community perceived as an impossibility.
“The ancestors of these skeptics probably thought inter-stellar travel was impossible as well,” Adrian joked to himself soon after his discovery. “Maybe my androids will be able to solve problems that there have been no answers for previously—including how to diffuse the human need for criticism,” Adrian thought to himself.
The doctor’s data-net device then interrupted his daydream with the announcement of a caller. McElroy looked at his screen to see that the incoming transmission was coming from Nadia Petrovsky.
Chapter 19: Supply and Demand
Commanding her electronic journal to record her latest entry, Terran Ark morale counselor Linda Dougherty leaned back in the captain’s chair of the bridge. Dougherty was in the midst of creating a book to help future civilian space travelers cope with five year journeys and the grueling examinations required by the W.A.A. Dougherty was reviewing her last entry before transmitting it to her editor back in New York City. The publishing house, Vista Enterprises, was anxiously awaiting the finished product so they could sell it to a public who was eagerly devouring any details they could get their hands on regarding the civilian couples. The publisher hoped the book deal would land in its bestseller list which mostly included self-help books and memoirs of celebrities. Her editor, Suzanne Kennedy, encouraged Linda to print as much personal information about her shipmates as possible. Linda told Suzanne she would comply with the request in cases where knowledge was gained from their experiences. However, she made no bones about the fact that exploitation was out of the question.
Linda previously obtained permission from all the ship’s couples to print the conversations she heard in the rec room. No one dared deny the enthusiastic counselor their approval because they all witnessed the tenacity she possessed when it came to winning arguments with her husband Matt
. Linda believed she had recorded at least a few colorful commentaries to spice up her entries to the chagrin of her outspoken companions. Marisa Perez had argued that conversations recorded under the influence of beverages should be omitted. However, Linda saw no such loophole in their verbal contract.
Dougherty also wrote about how she survived the bureaucratic process which involved extensive training, physical examinations and psychological testing: “Regarding colonization, one should have a strong fortitude to withstand the barrage of tests they will face. These required examinations will make you reconsider how lucky you thought you were to be chosen in the lottery. Most people think they just have to pass fertility and genetic tests, however an education in chemistry, geology, astronomy, physics, anatomy and botany is also required. And you will find that the genetic testing is no piece of cake either. A computer simulation will actually give birth to your pseudo child so association scientists can diagnose if any undesirable traits are being passed on. Those couples deemed to have undesirable coding will need to consent to therapy whereby scientists will essentially manipulate certain genes to turn off. Please be advised the gene therapy is mandatory if you still want to continue the application process. However, this process is solely used to filter out bad genes. It is against federation law to enhance or replace genes for what was once referred to as super breeding. The federation felt this super breeding would never be ethically acceptable to a public who had once lobbied to ban any AI unit from living in private domains. The public still may be dreadfully fearful of any prolonged contact with a superior being or automaton. Fortunately, this limited thinking may change once Ceres is allowed to draft its own constitution. So if you do pass all the rigorous testing be proud of the fact that you will help usher in a new era that hopefully will accept all diversified forms of life. I have lectured in the past at many colleges on the need for humans to arrive in the new colonies with a clean slate. May our creator have no mercy if we should plummet once again into the dark ages of racism that took our world centuries to cure.”