Variations on Humanity

by Paul Eslinger

  An elusive thought Rhona had been mentally chasing for a week finally came into focus. She swung around and looked at Laura. “A lot of our activities are on hold until the new processor comes online in a couple of weeks. Could your son loan us one for a few weeks? We could send it back when we finish building the new one.”

  Laura looked startled and then she gently slapped her own cheek. “That’s so simple I never considered it. They built extra ones on Ceres in preparation for colonizing a new planet. I’ll go ask him–immediately.”

  Dulcis spoke into the sudden quiet. “There is an incoming call from David Beganovic.”

  “Put it on the speakers,” Rhona responded.

  Moments later, she responded to David’s initial comment. “This is Rhona, and several other people are with me.”

  “Is Laura there?” David asked.

  “Yes,” Laura responded.

  “I saw the information about Polaris going nova. I want to extend my deepest sympathies and the president also sends his condolences. It’s a terrible tragedy to have your home planet destroyed.”

  “It is a time of great sorrow,” Laura replied. “Fortunately, we left there in time.”

  “Just barely,” David answered. “Did you predict a nova?”

  “We did, but we missed the timing by a few years.”

  “Oh. Possibly we could have a technical discussion sometime about your prediction.”

  Rhona read Laura’s slight nod as agreement when she jumped into the conversation. “That might be possible. However, have you been watching the news tonight?”

  David chuckled. “If you mean the media complaining they couldn’t play in your sandbox, yes.”

  “They seem quite riled up. Reporting the truth doesn’t seem to be part of the equation. Can you do anything about that?”

  “Not really. The constitution guarantees freedom of speech.” David growled. “I can hear your reply already–but not slander.”

  “Yes.”

  “There is one other thing,” David continued. “China, France and the Russian Federation are calling a meeting of the U.N. Security Council.”

  “To discuss the media complaints?” Rhona asked. “That doesn’t seem like their style.” Even while she spoke, she could see Keene and Sam posing queries to Dulcis about the Security Council.

  “No. They all want to discuss the Abantu. There are several pretty ticked off people.”

  Rhona smiled. “Because the Abantu chose to put their embassy in the United States? The United States has embassies in dozens of countries, why not do the same?”

  “That’s the gist of the matter.” David chuckled. “I expect the meeting will be acrimonious, as usual. They are feeling left out.”

  Insight guided Rhona’s next words. “You can’t give them anything, can you?”

  “No, but you can.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Would you, or Laura, consider making a speech to the Security Council? It would be a closed session without any media present.”

  Shivers of excitement and concern ran up and down Rhona’s back. She glanced at Laura and received a blank look in return. Rhona took a deep breath. “Would we be talking to ambassadors or heads of state if we came?”

  “Typically, only ambassadors are there. However, if Laura comes, then the president intends to attend. He will send invitations to the other heads of state.”

  Rhona turned and looked at Laura. “What do you think?”

  Laura’s eyes flashed white for a few moments as she stepped beside Rhona and laid her hand on Rhona’s arm. “I will come speak if the president comes, but I will not answer questions. I will allow Rhona to answer one question from each country.”

  David sounded satisfied. “That’s stupendous. I will consult with the president and get back to you on the timing and protocols.”

  After the call finished, Rhona turned to Laura. She thought back at the times Laura had displayed indecision. “You made a quick decision. Is it getting easier?”

  “No.” Laura shook her head. “We’ve been planning this speech for nearly fifty years.”

  Chapter 21 – New Processors

  Rhona and Keene went for a long run through the tunnels before breakfast the next morning. She missed the scenery that went with outside runs, but the memory of the pain from being shot made it easy to forgo the scenery. Instead, Rhona reveled in the feeling of well-being that went with her effortless strides. She enjoyed running, but it had never been this easy in the past.

  After a couple of miles, an itch started on one arm and then spread over her body. It persisted for a quarter mile before it faded. She glanced over at Keene. “I woke up with an itch last night and it just reoccurred.”

  Keene nodded in response. “I experienced the same thing last night.”

  Rhona rubbed her arm. “Nanda warned us we might feel an itch while the subdermal armor grew in place.”

  “I just hope it isn’t a two-year-long itch.”

  “That’s better than the alternative,” Rhona responded.

  Keene shook his head. “You’re right, but that doesn’t make it feel better.”

  They lost track of time and the breakfast surge was almost finished when they finally reached the cafeteria. Rhona pushed back her damp hair with one hand as she headed for the coffee with Keene at her side. She slipped a cup into the dispenser and said, “I wonder if Laura talked Orin into loaning us some AIs.”

  Keene tapped Rhona on the arm and gestured across the room. “There’s your answer. He’s eating breakfast with Laura.”

  Rhona spun around so fast she dislodged the cup and slopped coffee on the floor. She looked down. “Oops.” She hadn’t asked about the cleaning functions in the cafeteria, but the room and furniture were always spotless. She wasn’t too surprised when the floor absorbed the coffee. Moments later, all evidence of the spill was gone.

  She picked up a tray, grabbed a banana, some yogurt and granola, and headed across the room with Keene following in her wake. She stopped by Laura’s table. “Can we sit with you?”

  “Of course.” Laura gestured at several empty chairs.

  “Good morning, Orin,” Keene said as he set his tray on the table.

  “Same to you,” Orin replied. His high tenor voice contrasted with Keene’s bass. Although Orin spoke English fluently, the Abantu language had hissing sounds that surfaced in his pronunciation.

  Rhona picked up her coffee cup and held it in both hands without taking a sip. “I have to ask. Did you find an AI we could borrow?”

  “Yes.” Orin grinned. “I brought three with me. I’ll install them when we finish breakfast.”

  “Three?” Rhona raised her eyebrows in surprise. “That’s great.”

  Orin laughed. The sound was just guttural enough a perceptive human would have looked around to determine the source. “We like to plan, and Mother is one of the consummate planners. However, we are not quite as spontaneous as humans. Your suggestion was an obvious solution, but not one we had considered. Thank you.”

  “Sure.” Rhona took a sip of coffee to hide her flush of pleasure from the praise.

  “Do you want to watch me install them?”

  “Of course,” Keene replied. “But, Sam has more interest in hardware than Rhona and I. Can we include him?”

  “Bring him along. I’ll start in … in half an hour.”

  “Does it take very long?”

  “No.” Orin shook his head. “Only a few minutes.”

  Rhona thought back over her use of computers. “Do we have to take Dulcis offline to integrate the new hardware?”

  Orin laughed again. “No. The operating system, for lack of a better word, adapts to changing levels of hardware.”

  The installation was anticlimactic. Orin removed a wall panel by twisting several slightly
protruding studs and pointed at the revealed space. There were eleven small slots surrounding a slightly larger slot. “This design uses twelve molecular-level processors and a quantum-level AI.”

  Sam had stepped forward when Trixie, Laura, Keene, and Rhona held back slightly. He nodded. “Yeah. Trixie told us that much.”

  Orin reached in a bag he had brought along and pulled out a small box. He touched a recessed switch that opened the box and extracted a small cube about the size of the end of his thumb. He held it up. “This is a molecular-level processor.”

  “Not very big to be more powerful than any human computer,” Sam commented.

  Rhona watched with interest while Orin reached out, aligned the cube with a small slot, and pushed the cube into the slot. The material around the slot flowed over the processor, completely obscuring it. She could see that two slots were now filled in.

  “That’s all we have to do,” Orin said while he reached into his bag again. He pulled out another box. “The existing processor runs integrity tests and then integrates the new hardware into the operating matrix.”

  Orin replaced the wall panel after he plugged in the third processor. “That’s it.” He looked up as he spoke again. “Dulcis, do the three new processors pass the integrity tests?”

  “Yes, Orin. All three processors passed the integrity checks and they are completely functional.”

  Rhona rubbed her hands together. “When can we start using the new hardware?”

  Orin laughed. “You heard Dulcis. They are completely functional. That means they are fully integrated.”

  Sam cut in when Rhona opened her mouth to ask another question. “How often do these processors fail?”

  “These?” Orin gestured at the wall panel. “None of them have failed in production since I was born. Some of the materials may start to degrade in two or three lifetimes. We’re not too sure because we only developed this design about a lifetime ago.”

  “What about the quantum level AIs?” Rhona asked.

  “They are more difficult to produce,” Orin admitted. “It takes about six Earth months to make one of them. One of my jobs is to improve the manufacturing process. Over the last 100 years, we’ve improved the pass rate by 20 percent. It’s beastly difficult to control the proper placement of individual atoms, and we build the internal circuits one atom at a time.”

  Laura issued a command and all of the displays in the room came to life. She clapped her hands in a human-like gesture of satisfaction. “What do we do first?”

  “Keep a better watch on Diana and her family while they get ready to move,” Rhona said.

  “Improve the surveillance around the Abantu in Europe,” Sam said at the same time.

  “Start watching every military unit on the planet,” Keene added when Sam finished.

  Laura chuckled. “I expected you all to be frothing at the mouth. Keene, I want you to work with Amanda. Make sure Diana and her family are safe and then map out a strategy to start watching human military contingents. Sam, work with Trixie to re-engage our hunt for covert teams. Pay a lot of attention to Europe, but I also want to know who sent the nurse to kill Helen Pratt.”

  Both men nodded and turned away, already immersed in the new tasks. Laura looked at Rhona. “I want you to help me. Brian Rodabaugh should be here in half an hour. I think Helen Pratt has the skills to be his assistant. He needs to set up an office here in Jetmore.”

  * * *

  The pilentum stopped on a street about halfway between the courthouse and the school. “Why are we stopping here?” Rhona asked.

  “I own the entire block. I’m going to try to talk Brian into setting up a law office here.”

  “Hmm.” Rhona exited the pilentum and pulled a windbreaker over her protective suit. She didn’t need the windbreaker for protection against the cool wind of a typical January day, but it was good camouflage for the real protection provided by the ordinary looking outfit. She viewed the ramshackle houses and overgrown shrubbery around them and turned to Laura. “Do you intend to remodel one of the houses?”

  “Rebuild is a better term.” Laura gestured around. “There are renters in two of the houses. I offered them free rent if they would move to houses I own on the other side of town.”

  “How much free rent?”

  “A month for every day they vacate before the first of the month. I even offered to pick up rental truck costs.”

  “Is it working?”

  “Yep,” Laura said with satisfaction. “I still don’t understand very much about the human psyche, but I know financial incentives work for most people. Both families have already scheduled a truck for tomorrow.”

  Orin had called his mother a consummate planner, and Rhona was struggling to understand the breadth of those plans. She still didn’t understand the Abantu psyche. “When did you start letting the other houses remain empty when the renters moved?”

  “We started that about a decade ago.” Laura waved her hands to indicate the town. “Our prediction on the downturn of the oil industry missed the little hiccup when investors ran up the price.”

  “That wasn’t you?”

  “No,” Laura shook her head. “We don’t intentionally try to make money on the shoulders of the working poor.”

  Rhona looked around. “Is Brian meeting us here?”

  “Yes. We’re early by a few minutes. We’ll talk with him here and then go back to the house. Helen will join us there.”

  Although Laura routinely dodged some of Rhona’s questions, Rhona couldn’t resist probing. “Are there any working poor among the Abantu?”

  Laura shook her head. “No. Although we don’t have a socialist society, there is enough income from investments that everyone can live comfortably.”

  “Some humans are that way because they are physically or mentally handicapped.” Rhona turned and looked at Laura with raised eyebrows.

  “We can repair physical defects, even serious DNA defects, in vitro.” Laura gazed up the road rather than looking at Rhona. “No Abantu is hampered by physical defects.”

  “What about mental defects?”

  “Most mental defects have a basis in physical defects. You repair the one and the other doesn’t occur.”

  Rhona nodded, sensing discomfort on Laura’s part, but she couldn’t resist asking questions while Laura continued to talk. “Most, but not all?”

  Laura sighed. “We are able to repair physical defects that impair the speed and breadth of cognitive thought–what you would call IQ. Mental defects, if you will, take other forms.”

  “What kind of forms?”

  “What would you call a mental defect in a society of people who pursue cooperation more aggressively than humans pursue competition?”

  Understanding blossomed in Rhona’s mind. “A competitive person wouldn’t fit in well.”

  Laura nodded. “People with a competitive nature learn to blend in. Some of them even led our people in preparing for our migration from Polaris.”

  Rhona stepped closer and laid her hand on Laura’s arm. “You’re one of them,” she said with a rush of empathy.

  “Yeah.” Laura didn’t pull away from Rhona’s touch. “Everyone here on Earth, except Maria to some extent, is much more competitive than the norm in our society. She came to be with Ivette.”

  Insight caused Rhona to continue talking. “You serve an interface role between two vastly different societies. That role has become very important for your people.”

  “Humans will eventually develop or steal our Star Portal technology.” Laura gestured at the sky. “My people are already building spaceships on Ceres to travel to every other Abantu colony system. They will take Star Portals with them, warn the others about the rate of innovation of human science, and help them prepare.”

  Rhona dropped her hand and muttered. “Humans are like locusts at t
imes.”

  Both women stood silent for a time. Rhona thought about the things she had heard about the Star Portals. “It sounds like it is difficult to keep the portals calibrated. You talked about preparing for humans. Could you develop a disrupter field that keeps a Star Portal from working?”

  A car turned the corner a block from them and moved in their direction before Laura responded. It slowed when it neared them. Rhona knew the unusual period of revelations was finished when she saw the lawyer’s face through the car window.

  Chapter 22 – Long-Term Lawyer

  Brian had a cheerful look on his face when he exited from his car. “Good morning,” he said.

  “Good morning.” Rhona and Laura spoke in unison.

  “Thank you for coming,” Laura said as she took a step closer to Brian.

  Rhona watched the other two. The lawyer was about four inches shorter than Laura and he weighed twenty pounds less than her. His black hair held a few strands of grey. His close-shaven face didn’t have a dark tint, so Rhona guessed his whickers must mostly be grey or white. He looked old next to Laura.

  “As we have talked before,” Laura continued, “I would like to engage your services long-term. If you are willing, I would like you to set up a law office here in Jetmore.”

  Brian looked around and then swept his arm out in an expansive gesture. “Here?”

  “That’s right. I own the entire block and the last two houses will be empty in a few days.”

  A chuckle interfered with Brian’s words for a few moments. “How big of law office are you thinking?”

  “Just you and a clerk or two for now,” Laura said smoothly. “But, there should be room to expand if necessary in the future.”

  “An entire block will hold a lot of lawyers. You must have a lot of long-term plans.”

  Rhona watched a smile move over Laura’s face while she responded. “I have a few plans already in action. Actually, I hope in time that your profession would no longer be needed.”

  The lawyer’s mouth twitched, but he didn’t laugh. “That’s a long way off.”