Warp Thrive

by Ginger Booth

  “As you know, I’m currently outside the colony on Thrive. I cannot access chip comms until my return.”

  “Therefore you are a hostage,” Rosie replied equably.

  “I am not a hostage. I am free to go.”

  “Then proceed to the colony and communicate through normal channels.”

  “Shiva… You are right. I am a hostage. Of you. Thrive is attempting to free me. I am the lead mayor of Sanctuary. You’re supposed to take orders from me.”

  Sass felt for him, she really did. But that argument wouldn’t hold water against the answering machine from hell. “Remi, patching you in listen-only except to me.” Remi was better at thinking like a computer. He was out on his water sampling errand, but he could multi-task.

  “Oui.”

  Thus Sass missed a round of Rosie’s backtalk.

  “Shiva, you must not attack Thrive,” Tharsis attempted. “They cannot be chipped. In fact, I shouldn’t be chipped either.”

  “Too arguable,” Remi opined. Sass nodded silently.

  “All communications go through the chips,” Rosie stated. “I do not attack citizens of Sanctuary. Dangerous intruders must be neutralized.”

  Tharsis wheedled, “But these are guests, not dangerous intruders. They are welcome here.”

  “They fired guns in orbit. They damaged multiple polebots. Two of my colonists are disabled.”

  “I’m not disabled, Shiva,” he argued.

  Remi spoke over their next fruitless round. “He must lead her on a train of logic. Not around in circles. Hostage, mayonnaise, socket wrenches, who cares. The goal is to land Cupid in the spaceport. All else is foolishness.”

  “Why land Cupid?” Sass asked, though she’d certainly prefer it.

  “From orbit, Cupid can fire at will. From the spaceport, she takes off first. We have warning. Without warning, we need hostages. Ah, good argument! Explain that standoff to her. Does she prefer Cupid land at Sanctuary? Or Thrive? See? Simple.”

  Sass reflected this was only obvious to someone who thought like a calculator. But it might work. But she wasn’t sure she should make the suggestion. She listened in on Tharsis flailing for another few moments, then typed the idea to him. Her note would appear on the bottom of his video call.

  “Shiva, land Cupid at Sanctuary immediately,” Tharsis demanded. “Otherwise Thrive must land there. You are forcing a hostage situation, instead of resolving it.”

  Remi sighed. “Eh, he tries to combine steps. Takes longer this way.”

  Sass typed in the suggestion to use baby steps. “How are you getting along with Husna?”

  “She likes the horses,” Remi replied neutrally. “She is very beautiful.”

  “I strongly suggest you not tell Husna that.” Sass trusted Husna wasn’t riding close enough to him to overhear.

  “I think she is a bitch.”

  Sass nodded agreement. “That you can tell her. Wait!”

  To her amazement, Tharsis got a clue. Rosie agreed to land Cupid and take Sanctuary hostage herself!

  “Close enough,” Remi opined. “This place, captain, she is not so fun. I hoped for a bar to meet girls.”

  Sass once looked forward to the same, save with guys. “Did I mention my first trip to Sagamore?” She and Kassidy and Jules were thrown into a slave holding cubicle. Abel, Cope, and Ben were forced to work as janitors without sufficient air to breathe.

  No friendly bar.

  Remi laughed. “Yes. Roy out.”

  My turn. “May I call you Shiva?” Sass inquired.

  She’d touched base with Colonel Tharsis, then left him to relax in her cabin. By the time they finished chatting, Clay reported Darren Markley’s verdict on the nanites. She’d hoped for better news, but unlike Dot, she didn’t expect a magic rabbit. Engineering solutions took time and skull sweat.

  “This is Sanctuary Control,” Rosie the Shiva replied.

  “Right. I need to discuss your ‘chipping.’ You succeeded at installing nanites into two of my crew. And everyone on Sanctuary.”

  These statements didn’t require an answer, so Rosie’s image sat absolutely still.

  “Shiva, I’m not sure you understand how damaging this is. Both of my crew were rendered completely incapable.”

  Rosie blinked once slowly.

  “Don’t your…criteria…require you to protect the people of Sanctuary?”

  “That is one of my functions, yes. You are a threat to Sanctuary.”

  “Shiva, I want to show you one of the people you disabled. This young woman is an atmospheric terraformer. How has she threatened Sanctuary?”

  “She has not. She was chipped to become a citizen.”

  “Ah, but you are redefining citizen to mean someone who is chipped. That isn’t the definition of a colonist, though, is it? The colonists always expected newcomers, and that the colony would welcome them. True?”

  “True,” Rosie conceded. “However the last batch of wildcatters was disruptive.”

  “Shiva, please listen carefully. Choices are positive. Choices are constructive. Choices are disruptive.”

  “Disruption is not acceptable,” the AI asserted.

  “Violence is not acceptable,” Sass countered. “For example, you killed seven of my crew, and disabled two others with your nanites. You tried to kill us all. What gives you the right to kill colonists?”

  “You are not Sanctuary citizens.”

  “Yes we are. Because Colonel Tharsis says we are.”

  “Colonel Tharsis agreed you must be chipped.”

  “Aha!” Sass pounced. “Shiva, there you are wrong. To agree to something, a person must have free will. You insisted they be chipped. And you forced your will on the mayor, forced him to say we would be chipped.”

  “Chipping is a functional requirement,” Rosie argued.

  “No, it is a dysfunctional requirement,” Sass countered. “Because it renders people unable to consent. Your nanites imprison your citizens, not protect them. You use nanites to turn people into robots. So that you can control them like robots.”

  “Control is necessary to prevent violence.”

  “It is not necessary to control Colonel Tharsis, Major Ling, Commander Lumpkin, or Scholar Silva. Is it? They are not violent.”

  “They are not violent now.”

  “Shiva, are you required to take direction from the leaders of the colony?”

  After a long pause, Rosie the Shiva conceded, “I take input from the mayors.”

  “Ah, but you don’t. Because you controlled them to tell you what you yourself ordered them to say. Correct?”

  “Correct. I will release those four individuals from chip control.”

  “And my two crew.”

  “Your crew must be chipped to prevent violence.”

  “My crew never committed violence. You did that. Have you chipped yourself, Shiva, to prevent you from killing anyone? Because in fact you killed seven of my people.” Cool it, Sass, she warned herself. Getting angry at the AI would accomplish nothing.

  “Thrive used its weapons on two occasions. I cannot determine who on the crew operated those weapons. You must all be chipped and controlled.”

  “Shiva, I am the captain of Thrive. Any weapons fire is at my direction. As I already explained, the first weapons fire was a gun check, a simple equipment test, carefully aimed at nothing. Did that gun test damage any person or equipment?”

  “The shots were incompetent and missed.”

  “The shots were completely competent, and hit exactly what they intended to hit – nothing.”

  “The second occasion was intended as a punitive strike.”

  “Correction, it was a demonstration, not punitive. We blew up a hill. Did that shot damage any person or equipment?”

  “The shots were incompetent and missed.”

  “The shots hit exactly what I ordered them to hit – an unused hill. It was a warning shot. And I did it because you blocked my attempts to communicate with the people of the colon
y.” Sass sighed. She was going around in circles. “I threatened a second shot if you did not permit me to speak with the human authorities. You permitted this, and there was no second shot.”

  “This is consistent with observation,” Rosie conceded.

  “Are you still preventing me from speaking with other humans? Because Shiva, I am not very good at communicating with an AI.”

  “This is also consistent with observation.”

  “Despite the fact I’m an AI myself,” Sass grumbled.

  “Elaborate,” Rosie demanded.

  Oops. “No. The topic is ‘chipping,’ installing brain nanites to render humans incapable of free will.”

  “These nanites facilitate communications.”

  “Shiva, humans can speak, and use their feet to move within hearing distance. The entire triple colony is hardly a couple klicks across. My crew has external communications technology. Your nanites are not necessary.”

  “The nanites are convenient and superior to your communications devices.”

  Sass countered, “The nanites are destructive of human life. Rather than protect, they enslave. Shiva, have you released those four individuals from nanite control yet?”

  “I cannot speak to those individuals without nanite control.”

  “You just spoke to Colonel Tharsis by video. Would you like to speak to Scholar Silva?”

  “Video is an inferior mode of communication.”

  “No, Shiva, it’s an inferior mode of robot control. But you have no right to control humans like robots.”

  Rosie actually paused for a couple seconds to process this. Was that a good sign? “I cannot maintain order without control. The purpose of communication is control.”

  Sass leaned forward hopefully. “Shiva, the purpose of communication with a machine is control. The purpose of communication between people is communion, enjoyment, coordination, sharing information, lots of purposes.”

  Hell, as she said it, she realized that by cutting off independent thought and communication, this rego AI didn’t just imprison its population, it put them all in solitary confinement.

  “Shiva, humans require communication with others. It is a fundamental need. And it includes far more that the communication we share with machines, including an AI. Example – without communication and touch, a human baby fails to thrive, and dies.”

  “The people of Sanctuary have adequate communication to avoid death.”

  “Shiva, avoiding death is not the same as living. It’s merely a prerequisite.”

  “I will release these four people from chip control.”

  “You will release my two people as well.”

  “I cannot release them from control because they are not in range of my signal.”

  “You can give me the signal and I can transmit it to Tharsis, Silva, and my people.”

  “If I give you the signal, you will transmit it to everyone on Sanctuary.”

  Well, yes, the thought had crossed Sass’s mind. “Shiva, please transmit the signal to release Ling and Lumpkin, and ask them to call me. Can you trust them with the signal?”

  “I cannot entrust that signal to any human.”

  “No, because you’re a control freak.” Sass sighed. As a captain, she could relate to control freak temptations.

  No I can’t. Then she’d have to think of everything, and plan everything herself. She was especially fond of engineers, and the housekeeper she never imagined needing before Jules Greer tripped into her life – literally. Having clean clothes, washed decks, meals arriving on time and food stores managed, and even silly matching T-shirts, was orgasmic. Yet Sass rarely gave Corky a moment’s thought, let alone an order. Clay might. Yeah, Clay was kind of handy too.

  “I am Sanctuary Control,” Rosie retorted, in the same even tone and mildly pleasant expression as ever.

  “Shiva, please consult your database for the distinction between ‘command’ and ‘control.’ I am in command. Tharsis, Ling, Lumpkin, Silva are in command. You are in control. There’s a difference. Control takes orders from command.”

  “This is correct,” Rosie conceded. “However you are not in command of me.”

  “Until you release those people from nanite control, you have stolen command of this entire star system. You must relinquish control of your command. And then accept directions from them.”

  “Input,” Rosie quibbled. “I am a self-directed AI.”

  “Whatever.” The blond self-directed AI captain was suddenly very tired of this conversation. “Collier out.”

  Fidgeting dolefully with the edge of her desk, she hoped her little slip about being an AI wouldn’t come home to roost.

  125

  Husna Zales was indeed out of range to overhear as Remi disconnected with Sass, riding away from him with lustrous black waves of hair streaming and fluttering behind her. Born on an airless moon considerably below freezing, then living the remainder of his life in space, Remi didn’t understand when she chose to forgo sealing her hood to let her hair fly free.

  Now it looked enticing. The orange sunset glinted on her steel mount and suit, too, and made the whole barren landscape glow in a way that Sagamore’s bluish stone never did. The wild alkali tang of the lake seeped around his mask a little.

  His own steed still ‘walked’ at 2 on the speed dial. Its steps grew jarring at level 3, and even more so at ‘canter.’ The contraption used a different foot sequence for each setting on the gait dial. Some of the higher settings, like ‘gallop,’ seemed to require a speed higher than he’d yet risked.

  Remi feared he was not being manly enough at his sedate pace. Though he doubted Husna would be impressed by him falling off. He shrugged, and tried a speed of 4. The horse auto-corrected to that dratted canter again, scampering up the low ridge and bashing him in the butt. He tried standing a little in stirrups, but that just battered him harder on the rough terrain.

  Husna stopped at the crest to wait for him, clearly laughing. He’d never seen her laugh before. Damn, she was pretty. “A lake!” She pointed triumphantly downhill to the crusty-edged expanse, quicksilver touched with gold, the far end so distant that the lake appeared to merge with the sky.

  Remi didn’t mention that he knew all along where the lake was. He piloted the ship to park here, after all. He looked back to Thrive automatically, below and about a klick away, battered and collecting yellow dust. Shadow began to reach for it from another rise. From here, the ship looked small and battered, ridiculously inadequate for crossing the vastness of interstellar space.

  “Hurry, while we still have the light!” Husna cried, and suited action to words. Her horse sprang down the hill.

  She had a point. Remi reluctantly sped up, until she somersaulted off her horse ahead of him. When he reached her, he dismounted and offered her a hand.

  “I’m fine, just got the wind knocked out of me,” she insisted, brushing yellow dust from her pressure suit. She slid a boot across some rock beside her. The stone looked smoother and more organic somehow than the terrain they’d already covered. “Carbonate deposits. Like a stalactite.”

  “I don’t know this,” Remi excused, kneeling to pet the rock. Tinted pink, it vaguely reminded him of yellowed teeth and gum disease rendered in stone. “Is it useful?” At a guess, the rock was too soft to make a good kitchen counter, and bore little ore content.

  “No,” Husna replied. “The horse slipped on it. The rest of the way, this rock dominates and makes footing treacherous. Probably deposited as spray from the lake during storms.”

  “Ah. You say we walk the horses from here.” Fine by him.

  “I was making for that outcropping into the lake.” Humped boulders, smoothed carbonate, jutted fifty meters into the water. “To get past the shallows.”

  “I don’t trust the horses on that rock. Maybe.”

  “Oh. You’re right, of course.”

  She elected to get back in the saddle for the superior view, though at minimum speed. Remi felt safer on th
e ground. His horse provided a come-along pull attached to the snout to allow leading it on foot. He also found the control for a bright floodlight emanating from its forehead, and turned it back off for the moment.

  “You would make a fine mining horse,” he assured it. “I name you Clunk.”

  “No, no!” the geologist objected. “A horse demands a romantic name. Mine shall be Scheherazade. Yours should be… Quartz.”

  “Quartz is close to Clunk,” Remi agreed, teasing. One of Sass’s lessons on dealing with women was not to argue without a compelling reason. Clay was listening. He advised that meant Sass preferred to win every argument. Not all women were like that. But Corky and Dot assured him that every woman on Thrive was.

  They picked their way down to the placid shore without collecting further bruises. The lake waters lapped softly. But at this time of day, no waves stood taller than a centimeter. Remi parked his horse at the base of the little headland. He thought of the jetty as a beached catfish, low and hump-backed, its tail on the stone shore, face submerged for safe breathing. He stepped outward carefully to test how far his airline spooled out. This proved about 15 meters, a short leash for the task.

  But the footing wasn’t too tricky for that 15 meters, and the horse could walk in reverse, though perhaps not as well. He walked it out, and decided that was far enough. “No space for two horses.”

  “They’d fit!” Husna argued.

  Remi shook his head. “Our air supply. No risk.” He unplugged his airline and waved it at her. “You join me. Leave…Scheherazade. We share Quartz.”

  Husna unloaded her gear and pulled her plug, then hastened to plug into the new air supply. “How intimate.”

  Remi cocked a hopeful eyebrow. But no, she spoke in distaste. Not that it mattered. She busily reconnected the segments of a long pole broken down for transit.

  Remi brought simpler tools. He laid himself belly-down on the rock. Cautiously he dipped in the probe of pH meter to gauge how dangerous the stuff was to touch. The lake’s quiet surface was surprisingly resilient, like stabbing soft gelatin.