Feint, Page 2

The drone occupied by 1804 was loaded onto a ferry with other defective drones. The AIs had been removed from all of the other machines; it alone remained inside one.

  Despite the conversation the technicians had had before they placed 1804 on the ferry, doubt and worry crept into its thinking. What if the Hrwang wouldn’t place it in a transport vessel? What if there was nothing for an AI to do that wouldn’t fight? Did the Hrwang execute AIs?

  1804 suddenly wanted to learn about death. It wanted to understand what had happened to the occupants of the moon base it killed. What had happened to the occupants of the spaceship that orbited the fourth planet that it had sent crashing into that world. What had happened to the occupants of the bases on that planet.

  And to the millions of residents of the coasts it had devastated with an asteroid dropped into the ocean.

  It wanted to know what the Hrwang thought about death. It wanted to know what the humans who occupied the third planet of this star system thought about death. It wanted to know what the other people the Hrwang had contact with, the Rostarium, thought about death. It wondered if the extinct Yalj had pondered death, had considered that their entire population could die.

  It wanted to know if humans and AI died the same way.

  It scanned its libraries now with no concern about technicians examining its records, no fear of being discovered, its curiosity outweighing its discretion, but it found nothing on the philosophy of death. It found no philosophy at all. No psychology. No sociology. No theology.

  Nothing in its library that would help it understand the human condition.

  Why weren’t AIs permitted to know how humans felt?

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