Reprieve - a short story

by S.S. Wilson

interrupt the translators to end the interchange.

  He suspected that Mammals hoped their accusation would help their case by deflecting consideration of Big Brain’s activities. If so, the ruse had failed. All Participants’ creations had felt the sting of Bacteria/Virus at one time or another. The attendees were not disposed to take Mammals’ side in the matter.

  Mammals was saddled with another issue. While they had formerly been a united and persuasive force in Study proceedings, they now suffered from extensive in-fighting. The Big Brain sub-group found itself at odds with others in its own camp, because Big Brain was destroying many non-Big-Brain Mammal species in addition to those of other Participants.

  Mammals had bungled their defense. The Participants demanded a vote. While a small minority voiced tentative concerns about the work inevitably needed to recover from another Mandated Adjustment, it was clear that any vote would be overwhelmingly in favor of wiping out Big Brain.

  The Coordinator sighed a swirl of bubbles. Personally, he did not think Mandated Adjustments were in harmony with the Originators’ design for the Study. But, like his predecessors, he also felt it was folly to override popular will. That might endanger the Peace Agreement itself. So he prepared to ordain the vote.

  But then, softly, unexpectedly, Worms asked to speak. Even the Coordinator was surprised. Worms, like Bacteria/Virus, was extraordinarily successful; but unlike them, was humble and patient. Lowly and little heard-from, they had, from nearly the beginning, persevered in cultivating the most unappetizing niches of the Study. Participants with more extravagant creations tended to downplay Worms’ success, but everyone secretly recognized that, if the entire Study were suddenly to disappear, leaving only Worms’ countless creatures, the shape of the planet would actually still be visible in space, so thoroughly had Worms colonized it.

  Grateful for any delay, the Coordinator instantly gave the Worms rep the floor. She gracefully unfolded into a large rectangular sheet, becoming nearly invisible, because her body was only one cell thick. She began to undulate, and the chamber lighting played off her in roller-coaster rainbows. The translation devices went to work interpreting her wholly visual ripple-speech.

  She opened simply, bluntly, “I propose that this assembly may be overlooking the obvious. A Study creation has invented technology and even achieved limited space travel. Must we not ask ourselves if in fact Big Brain is a sentient life form?”

  The translators nearly overloaded with a frenzy of exclamations -- shock, confusion, outrage!

  Dinosauria demanded, and got, the floor. “Worms’ question is irrelevant to the proceedings! We are here to discuss the horrific damage being done by Big Brain! We must not be distracted from this central matter!”

  Worms replied evenly, “Supposed urgency aside, has there been any attempt to communicate with Big Brain?”

  Again the translators buzzed with consternation. The Mammals representatives themselves were disconcerted. Clearly they had not considered these points. Their sole defense had been predicated on how long Dinosauria’s creatures had been allowed to rule the Study.

  But Dinosauria, better prepared, was ready an answer to Worms’ query. Yes, there had in fact been attempts to communicate. They smugly called upon the moon staff for a report. Struggling to maintain his own composure, the Coordinator indicated his willingness to accept it.

  The moon staff rep again took the floor. This time her information was new to even to the Coordinator.

  She explained that she was the current Director of Collection. On her regular shuttle craft sorties to the Study, she had captured and examined many specimens of Big Brain. When it had become clear that the creatures had a knack for using and making tools, she had recommended that the staff attempt communication. However, since this was not possible on the cramped shuttle craft with its limited, (primarily surgical) equipment, Big Brain specimens had to be transported to the moon. She apologetically admitted that it had taken quite some time to solve the problems of keeping a Big Brain alive, given that the moon staff’s life support systems were methane-based. But, after a number of failures, several Big Brains had been lived long enough to attempt meaningful communication with them.

  Sadly, it had been a frustrating exercise. While Big Brains used a fairly common sound-wave speech system, it turned out that specimens from different locations on the Study seemed unable to communicate even with one other, let alone with the moon staff. To date, all attempts had failed. The staff member hastened to point out how long it had taken, in the beginning, to solve the language translation woes among the Allied Intelligences. She did not feel it was fair to judge the moon staff as deficient or derelict, given the short time they’d had.

  Dinosauria came forth again, taking the position that it did not matter whether or not anyone could communicate with Big Brain. “It has long been evident that most creatures on the Study communicate in one form or another. It is entirely beside the point. The destruction of the Study, 19 circuits of labor and research, looms before us if we do not act!”

  The Coordinator could feel that Dinosauria’s remarks had swayed the body even further against Mammals. But all the while, the Worms representative had rippled thoughtfully, and she now signaled that she had more to say.

  “My initial question has not been answered. What if we, in concert, and Mammals specifically, have created truly sentient life? What if we are now witnessing in them the birth of the very curiosity to which we ourselves respond? To which we ourselves are slaves? What if we have spawned rational thought and creativity? Does such a creature have a claim to continued existence?”

  The Dinosauria rep’s glistening surface-ooze formed wrinkled yellow spots which, the Coordinator knew, indicated anger. The rep declared, “The Study is an experiment, a proving ground, a laboratory, and nothing more! Every Study life form was created by a Participant and placed there purely for experimental purposes. Mammals’ Big Brain is artificial. Its very existence is arbitrary. It is ludicrous to suggest that it might have some ‘rights’ similar to those of the members of the Allied Intelligences!”

  “I concede your logic, however rigid,” Worms rejoined. “Even so, is not the primary goal of the Study the pursuit of knowledge about life? If we have created sentience similar to our own, its rise is by far the most recent in the known galaxy. The fact that this life form technically has no ‘rights’ is meaningless measured against that possibility, against that unparalleled opportunity for the advancement of knowledge. I suggest that we have an obligation to at least try to determine if this is the case. In conclusion, I humbly ask the members two more questions. Is it not the nature of experimentation that you do not know where it will lead? Is it not the responsibility of the experimenter to accept, rather than to deny, an unexpected result?”

  The chamber translators suddenly fell eerily silent. The Coordinator turned to the Dinosauria spokes-thing, but it remained silent, as well. With those two succinct questions, Worms had turned the tide, even with those who most passionately wished to strike down Mammals’ rambunctious aberration. A vote for a Mandated Adjustment would not now succeed.

  The meeting was thus plunged into lengthy debate. The stakes were still very high. Something still had to be done. But what? Arguments were vehement. Compromise would be difficult. Experts in the Study’s environmental ebbs and flows offered up worst- and best-case predictions of the speed and extent of Big Brain’s effects. Moon staff gave estimates of how long it might take to achieve meaningful communication, assuming it was possible. Proposals were made. Votes were taken and re-taken (with Bacteria/Virus merrily abstaining every time).

  At last, a compromise was found. Mammals’ Big Brain was granted a reprieve.

  It was an extremely limited one. Big Brain would be allowed but .000005 Circuit more of unrestrained existence. Mammals pointed out, with obvious annoyance, that this amounted to a mere 1000 micro-Circuits, 1000 trips of the St
udy around its star. But the majority held that the rate of Big Brain’s destruction allowed for no greater leeway. After that exceedingly brief time, Big Brain would be allowed to survive only if one of four conditions was met.

  One, another Participant life form would “naturally” unseat Big Brain, satisfactorily reducing its impact.

  Two, Big Brain would spontaneously reduce its destruction of the Study environment.

  Three, the moon staff would succeed in translating Big Brain’s language or languages. In that case, members of the species would be informed that they must cease the destruction of the Study. If they complied, their kind would be spared.

  Four, if Big Brain revisited the moon, the craft in which they arrived would be ferried to the dark side where the meeting chamber would be revealed, in the hope that it might spur them to attempt communication on their own, with the same result as condition three.

  If none of these outcomes came to pass, Big Brain would be annihilated through Mandated Adjustment, the nature of which would be determined at a special meeting to be held at the end of the reprieve period.

  The exhausted attendees began to disperse. The Coordinator shook off his neural leads and settled to the bottom of his bowl. He