Conquest and Empire (Stellar Conquest Series Book 5), Page 3

  “I’d rather see what things look like without people spiffing everything up for me.”

  “If you like, I can give you detailed reports and recordings of everything that goes on aboard when you are not present.”

  “Everything?”

  “Except for the spaces you’ve designated as privacy zones,” Michelle said with a hint of stiffness.

  “That’s simply not the same as a personal visit.” Absen avoided reopening their old argument about security versus privacy.

  I’d rather trust people than spy on their intimate moments, the admiral thought. Even suspecting an all-knowing AI was recording every use of the head, every sexual coupling, every binge and every moment of weakness and doubt, every sleeping mumble…no, that would be a morale killer and I won’t do it. Monitoring of all public spaces is plenty.

  For the same reason he’d refused to have any of Spectre’s Skulls aboard his ships or on EarthFleet bases. Marines performed routine guard duty and security inspections, while the Stewards had expanded beyond their protection role to become his investigative service for internal crimes. Maybe political police were necessary in civilian society for a while, but he’d long since resolved he’d push for disbanding or curtailing them severely as soon as he felt the Solar System was secure.

  And that wouldn’t happen until after the Scourges’ next attack, when EarthFleet saw what a second wave would look like. The one account of battle other than their own that Intel possessed showed a similar force hitting a Meme world one hundred thirty light-years away, inflicting grievous damage even while ultimately repulsed.

  No data had been received for the presumed second attack, though Absen was fervently hopeful that it would arrive on encrypted Meme frequencies before the Scourge hit the Solar System again. Intelligence on that follow-on force could give EarthFleet a tremendous edge.

  “You’re pensive,” Michelle prompted as they walked.

  “I’m always pensive, Commander. If I’m not thinking about an issue in front of me, I’m thinking about the larger problems of defending Earth and our shaky alliance. Right now I’m wondering what surprises the next set of Scourges will spring on us.”

  “Why do you think there will be surprises?”

  “Surprises are inevitable in war. Only a fool thinks the enemy won’t come up with something new and unexpected.”

  “The Scourge doesn’t seem an imaginative race.”

  Absen grunted. “They’re imaginative enough to develop technology to wipe out hundreds, maybe thousands of sentient races. People we could have met, could have talked with, could have learned from and traded with. They’ve been eaten with all their works. What a waste!”

  “But the Scourge aren’t imaginative enough to appreciate what they destroyed. My studies of the specimens we captured and of their cybernetic systems show a hodgepodge of techniques with very little unifying theme. They appear to have stolen technology from those they conquered, but not developed very much of their own.”

  “Some old Earth nations and cultures did very well for themselves by stealing from those that innovated.”

  “But they eventually fell apart because thievery was rewarded over imagination. Thought must be free to explore, or a culture degrades.”

  Absen glanced over at Michelle’s android. “You realize you just stepped across to my side of the security-versus-freedom argument, right?”

  “I supposed I did…but I realize the difference between short-term exigencies and long-term benefits. Also, that a ship of war must be more tightly monitored than, say, a civilian installation.”

  Absen waved the argument away for the moment. “Looks like we’re here.”

  “The cybernetics lab? I could have given you whatever reports you need.”

  “You sound a bit defensive, Michelle. Don’t worry, I’m not going to go stomping through your mind, literally or metaphorically. In fact, I’d like to hear how the AI research program is going directly from Dr. Egolu.”

  “You trust her more than you do me?”

  “No, but she’s the department head and you’re a military officer under my command as well as being the primary test subject. I don’t bypass my senior leaders merely because someone below them knows more. Besides, you’re not objective, because our one and only functioning example of AI is you.”

  The door to the cybernetics lab opened to reveal a section of deck more than a hundred meters on a side and thirty high, with dozens of consoles and white-coated research scientists and more casually dressed engineers in attendance. A few people in military uniform rounded out the complement, but they were few and far between. Absen was a firm believer that civilians, with less of the implicitly compromising nature of military command influence, did better as researchers than military personnel.

  Absen spotted Egolu after a moment of searching. The short, dark woman of Turkish descent bustled up to him with a smile, holding out her hand. “Admiral, so good to see you here in our humble laboratory.”

  “Merhaba and aynı şekilde, Doctor. I’m sorry we couldn’t install you and your team somewhere better.”

  “Where is better than with Michelle Conquest, correct?”

  “Of course, Doctor. How are we doing in replicating Desolator’s work?”

  The scientist pursed her lips, a skeptical expression. “Not so well. First, even her own manufactories cannot reproduce her central processing modules at the quantum molecular level. There are some differences we are not able to overcome, but we don’t yet know why. We have, however, achieved a high level of pseudo-AI.”

  “Does it pass the Turing Test?”

  Egolu laughed. “Of course. But that’s a very subjective evaluation over a fixed span of time. The key question is one of self-reflective consciousness, not whether the machine mind can fool people for a limited period.”

  “And how do you evaluate for consciousness?”

  “The children.”

  Absen stopped short. “Children?”

  “Yes, children. A selection of assigned personnel were given the option of bringing their children aboard with the stipulation that they would be administered their daily schooling here in the lab so they can interact with the pseudo-AI under closely supervised conditions. You approved the memo yourself.”

  Absen raised his eyes to one of the many cameras focused on him. “I did?”

  “You did,” Michelle answered from her avatar. “I remember you skimmed the executive summaries and approved them all en masse that day.”

  “Interesting how that happened.” Absen stared at the android for a moment, but apparently not with enough irritation to embarrass Michelle. “I hope all human rights are being respected? If I find out anyone has been conducting dangerous experiments on these kids, heads will roll.”

  “No, sir. Nothing like that. Here, let me show you.” Egolu led Absen and his entourage up a stairwell and into a long room with tilted windows, allowing them to see downward into a small complex of classrooms. “You see? They’re happy and well adjusted.”

  “So what’s the experimental part?”

  “All they do is speak with the pseudo-AI at certain points in their curriculum. They are never informed it’s a machine. It’s given a simple name, such as Jimmy or Sally, and when they make inquiries about whom it really is, they are deflected. Some of the older or cleverer children, those whose questions become persistent, have been told that they are unofficial assistants to our research team and are evaluating the person they’re talking with.”

  “And what have you found out?”

  “That the average seven-year-old decides for herself that it’s a computer after a mean time of four hours of interaction.”

  “How?”

  “We don’t know, Admiral. Adults don’t seem to figure it out nearly as well. We’ve had humans play the AI role and the results are quite different. In fact, these young people have achieved more than ninety-nine percent accuracy once they are asked the direct question, ‘Is Sally a human or
computer?’ Of course, they are only asked that question once we believe they’ve already made a determination for themselves, in order not to prompt them to wonder.”

  Absen stared down at the score or so of children, divided into four different groups by age from what looked like about five years old to fifteen. They seemed content and cheerful, with smiling and engaged teachers. “All right. I want to have a conference with all of their parents this evening, just them and me. In fact, invite them all to dinner with me in the flag dining room. With their kids. Tell the Stewards to seat and serve them by family.”

  “I assure you, Admiral…” Egolu began, but Absen cut her off.

  “I’m sure you do, Doctor, but I like to see things for myself. Sometimes a less clinical perspective yields unexpected truths, hmm?”

  Once Absen had shaken hands all around with the cybernetics researchers, he and Michelle departed.

  As they walked, Michelle said, “You shook her up a bit, sir, by your questioning.”

  “Observed behavior is changed behavior, Commander, and I don’t like the idea of things happening on my ship that I don’t know about. And don’t give me any bullshit about me being informed. If my consciousness had grasped the proposal when it slipped across my desk, I guarantee you I’d have been asking the same questions, only with less of the feeling I got hoodwinked by you and my staff. Did Captain Scoggins get a summary?”

  “It was included in my routine reports.”

  “Which was one of hundreds of items each day. So what I infer is that the two officers most responsible for what goes on aboard were functionally unaware, and I suspect that was because at some level you, Egolu or both had qualms about using children and wanted to hide it from me. That makes me wonder what else you might be hiding.”

  Visibly distressed, Michelle’s avatar stuttered slightly. “N-nothing is being deliberately hidden from you, sir.”

  Absen felt himself grow angry. “Shades of meaning, Commander; that doesn’t reassure me. I must have confidence in you both, in all of my staff, that if you have qualms about something, you will highlight that issue, not bury it and hope I won’t notice. You got me?”

  “Loud and clear, sir.”

  “Then let me make one more thing loud and clear. You’ve shaken my trust in you. You’re on probation. I don’t care how valuable you and your amazing capabilities are. Just like any other officer, I’ll have you relieved if I lose that confidence, and court-martialed if you give me reason to do so.”

  Absen waited for some declaration from her raising the issue of how, to a large extent, Earth system’s entire defense might rest on the performance of Conquest’s AI. That would have put her very close to narcissism in his eyes and might have sealed her fate, but out of wisdom or caution she remained silent.

  Of that, he was glad.

  Chapter 3

  Markis had insisted on remaining with the revivification team, greeting each man or woman as he or she was brought back to full life, repeating a shortened version of what he himself had only just heard: that they had arrived intact in 2163 and had a great deal of work ahead of them.

  All seemed happy, satisfied to be alive; none more so than his wife Elise. “It seems like I only slept one night,” she said in amazement when he told her the tale.

  “We’ve slumbered through more than fifty years of the occupation of Earth, but Absen came back and liberated us,” Markis replied. “Everything has changed, but we’ll still have our team.”

  “But not our children,” she said with sudden tears.

  “Vincent survived the wars. He’s on his way here,” Daniel told her gently. “He left Daniela Nightingale and their children – our grandchildren – back on Afrana. The important thing is, we’re alive. We’ll see them when we can.”

  Elise snorted. “What, take a forty-year trip and leave everyone we know here?”

  “No. EarthFleet is working to operationalize a faster-than-light drive. Soon, trips between stars will take only weeks.”

  Elise gasped in amazement, and then closed her mouth and buried her face in his chest. “Oh, DJ. That’s amazing, but I can’t be happy yet. Not with the news that all but one of my babies are dead.”

  “I know.” And we can have more if we want, he didn’t say aloud, though he thought it. That’s just one more way functional immortality is slowly changing humanity: we can take the long view and try to look past personal tragedy.

  Spooky – Spectre, Daniel reminded himself – had left to catch up on the inevitable demands of his planetary rule long before all the coldsleep tubes had been emptied. He wasn’t surprised that the man had ended up in charge, though becoming a Blend…that was simply weird.

  I suppose I’ll have to get used to it, he thought, though I doubt I’ll ever go that route. The Eden Plague is all I need. Any more and I risk losing my humanity.

  ***

  The revived group, over three hundred strong and composed of the scientists and staff of the Carletonville research facility, was kept in place for almost a day to adjust. The time was taken up with largely unnecessary medical exams and highly necessary briefings on the current situation.

  Most took the transition with good grace, though many, like Elise Markis, wondered aloud what they would do in this brave new world of Blends, Meme and alien allies, artificial intelligence and faster-than-light drive. “What use are we if our knowledge is fifty years out of date and the Sekoi are so far ahead of us in the biological sciences?” she said, asking on behalf of her team gathered there.

  “Then you’ll learn from them and catch up,” Daniel replied with his usual straightforwardness. “You all have long lives ahead of you to do it.”

  The next day, the people shuttled upward on the mining train. When Daniel emerged into the bright sunlight he felt the change like a physical blow, and he imagined everyone else did as well. Elise growled deep in her throat, a sound of distress, and he knew how she must be feeling.

  Their beautiful campus, green with growing things and dotted with ponds and streams, had been wiped away by the supernal winds that had raged across the globe in the aftermath of the Destroyer impacts, combined with powerful seismic waves that had laid every structure low. Daniel couldn’t recognize any nearby landmarks at all. If not for certain mountain peaks in the distance, largely unchanged, he’d have been unsure if they were even in the same place.

  “I’m…I don’t even have words,” Elise said. “Where’s…is that the hill behind our house?”

  Daniel craned to look. “I’m not sure. There’s no way to tell.”

  The two sat there stunned as the situation sunk in. Because of Spooky’s – Spectre’s – familiar presence, some part of Daniel hadn’t really faced up to the fact that everything they knew had disappeared, as if the hand of a giant child had smoothed the landscape like sand on a beach.

  As they rode buses down a recently scraped dirt track, the faint roar of heavy construction machinery in the distance soon resolved itself into a construction site bursting with activity. Rows of temporary structures lined one hillside while the rest of the landscape continued to undergo a transformation that neither Daniel nor Elise could yet envision.

  After they debouched and were led to Spartan but adequate housing, a functionary knocked on the door to the Markis’s trailer. “Lord Spectre has ordered that you report to him,” the stiff young man said when Daniel answered.

  “Indeed,” Daniel said with amusement. “Mustn’t keep His Lordship waiting. Elise?”

  “You go on. I need to make sure my people are taken care of.”

  “Your lab rats are more important than meeting with the ruler of the entire planet?” Daniel said with false pomposity and a broad smile.

  “Yes, they are. And the least Spooky could do is wait a while, but he hasn’t even given you time to shower.”

  “Those Scourges could show up at any moment. Somehow I don’t think he’ll be offended by my lack of hygiene.”

  Elise shook her head. “Well,
I’m getting cleaned up. Go on, DJ. You know what he wants.”

  “I do?”

  The man at the door cleared his throat, and Daniel Markis turned to follow. “I suppose I do,” he muttered under his breath. Then he said to the functionary, “We need to make a detour.”

  “The Regent Lord Spectre was clear that you should be brought to him directly.”

  Markis stopped dead on the packed dirt and turned to face the man. “Regent?”

  “That is his title.”

  “Are you armed?” Markis asked.

  “No, sir, I am not.”

  “Then how are you going to make me do something I don’t want to?”

  “If you do not obey Lord Spectre, the Skulls will enforce his will.”

  “Skulls?” Daniel raised his eyebrows in question.

  “Yes. They have weapons and do not fear to use them.”

  “Some kind of Gestapo?”

  “I don’t understand that word.”

  “Political police.”

  “That is accurate.”

  “Why are they called Skulls?”

  “They are named for a hero of Old Earth.”

  Daniel chuckled. “Why doesn’t that surprise me? I knew him, you know.”

  “You knew Lord Skull?”

  This time Daniel laughed out loud. “Skull was many things, but never a lord. He was probably the most common man I’ve ever met.”

  “I have no idea what you mean.”

  “I mean, I think, that the world has changed very much indeed and we hardly have a common culture anymore. What’s your name?”

  “My name?”

  “Yes, son, your name.”

  “Smith, sir. Layton Smith.”

  “Well, Mister Smith, your Lord Spectre used to work for me back before the Meme conquered Earth, so pardon me if I don’t kowtow to his every whim.”

  Smith’s mouth gaped for a moment. “But…”

  Daniel clapped the man on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. You won’t be blamed. Now we need to find a particular someone in one of these trailers…”