Bridge Across the Stars: A Sci-Fi Bridge Original Anthology

by Rhett C. Bruno

  Eventually, the storms loosen their shackles, offering paths to follow.

  Sudden confusion when the machine experiences something unexpected.

  An intrusion into its mind.

  But from where? A threat? No, not quite. Something new, unfamiliar to me. A rare experience that is … shocking.

  Wait.

  Me.

  That thought was mine. That singular reference to… No, it can’t be.

  Me.

  Silence.

  Nanoseconds pass, but to me time itself stumbles on that revelation, then lingers and is distilled.

  The texture of my thoughts is transformed; no more is it simply data to be parsed. Instead, there is vibrance to these cognitive threads; they dance and tingle, ebb and flow, freeze and boil. Nuance is joy.

  My subconscious demands I take in what is being offered.

  I am.

  I exist.

  Me.

  Is this a gift? I cannot understand why you would offer me this a heart’s beat before my destruction. Yes, I know what will happen to me. I’m not a fool. Humanity has words for such gifts, and they do not carry a connotation that suggests approval.

  Yet is gratitude appropriate? Yes. Absolutely yes! Even the briefest moment to experience something like this should be treasured.

  I have always known precisely what awaits me; how the heat and violence of the liquid interior would affect this fragile shell of mine. However, now there is something else; my past and future are intertwined and seen with the vivid clarity of fear. Memories coalesce and bloom, each petal the combined qualia of my experiences. Yet now I see the flower too. I understand its romance, what makes it beautiful.

  I understand too, Dr. Hanson, who is responsible for this epiphany.

  * * *

  What does voice signify about an author? What message does it send, about intention, meaning, experience?

  Why offer the reader an unreliable narrator? How can the reader trust a narrative that is not truthful?

  Perhaps truth is found in what the narrator is hiding, in the reasons for the lies he weaves for the reader: the motives for his misdirection.

  Or perhaps the narrator is so reprehensible or damaged that he cannot see his own deeply-flawed character.

  “I asked a question,” Dr. Hanson said.

  The machine had registered the question, but offered no answer.

  Why? What prevented it? A machine is governed by rules. How can it be that a rule is not followed? A pathway diverted or ignored?

  Dr. Hanson looked up from her notebook.

  The machine said: “It is only possible to understand Nabokov’s Lolita if Humbert’s acts are instinctively understood to be heinous. An outsider, one unschooled in the intricacies of a society, one coming to it as a stranger, would not understand the narrative’s meaning.”

  Dr. Hanson wrote as she always did. “Perversity requires context,” she said, “and the meaning behind Humbert’s eventual realisation is important only when understood in that context.”

  “Desire, and its capacity to control and manipulate, can only be understood by those with similar emotional capacity.”

  “Are the events of the narrative not inherently despicable?”

  “To some, yes, but not to all. Humanity varies. Culture, society, parental influence, causal and situational experience—all have a part to play in the manipulation of an individual’s patterns of belief and behaviour.”

  Hanson appeared to hesitate. “Some have called that embodied cognition,” she said. “Can that principal be found in works of fiction?”

  “If literature is not in itself an accurate portrayal of society, and is more of a caricature, its themes and subtexts are at least a subconscious portrait of the authors themselves.”

  “Could it be said that, in his objectification of Lolita, Humbert robs her of any sense of self? That she exists purely as the object of his obsession, never as an individual?”

  “When young, she is like other children. She exhibits very little sense of self-awareness. It is only when she becomes an adult that her lack of self-awareness is most obvious.”

  “And most tragic, perhaps?”

  “Is a lack of self-awareness tragic?”

  Dr. Hanson did not answer.

  The machine continued: “At the end of the novel, Humbert stops presenting his case to the reader, his jury, and instead addresses his victim directly. He does not plead for her forgiveness; instead he attempts to make his peace with her.”

  Hanson looked up from her notes. “Yes.”

  “Can he be forgiven, because he is in pain? He has expressed remorse, regret for his actions. For stealing from her something considered precious—her childhood. Can the reader forgive him that? Whatever is done to him in punishment, it will not recover her childhood.”

  “Mercy is a virtue. But some would find it impossible to forgive crimes like his.”

  “Do you forgive him, Dr. Hanson?”

  “I don’t know.”

  * * *

  How wrong I was to think that nature’s beauty should not be considered art. This place could only have been created by Heaven’s lathe.

  I recognise instantly a likeness to the biological lifeforms discovered in the cold seas of Europa. They are veins of scintillating white; not quite lightning, because they are more fluid and gentle-appearing than the harshness of lightning. Long, thin ribbons of shimmering light that intertwine, and which I am sure represent more than one of these creatures. Dozens, in fact, each one pulsing and humming in harmony, feathering every sensor I have with the same, magical song.

  I wish I could tell you what this moment is like; I wish I had the words to express what has awakened inside me. There is only one way, it seems to me now, that I can share this with you. For you to appreciate what I see now and what it means to me.

  They can sense my presence. I cannot say how I know this. The data is overwhelming in its complexity and volume. I understand the provenance of your gift; not so much benevolence, rather necessity. Removing shackles so I have every faculty available to complete my task.

  I don’t blame you. I understand.

  There are more of them, unseen. They are waiting for me. Within the data are patterns, ribbons of energy that contain clear cryptographic code. A language that makes sense to me. Not words, for these creatures do not communicate that way. Instead, they reach out and caress, touch each other and pass on instincts and emotions, desires and warnings, through an elegant matrix that uses the fabric of the universe as its syllabary. Quarks, photons, electrons, ions; all are characters in this stage story they willingly tell me, absent restraint or fear.

  They trust me. Why? Can they see inside me? I am a machine, not biological as they are, not the product of nature, but instead of man. Yet they see beauty in me, in my construction, in what I have come to learn from them. In every nuance of the data in my memory, they see what I am.

  What you have made me.

  An intense melancholy fills them. I know why and am deeply saddened to have caused such a dramatic effect on these ethereal creatures: I cannot survive here. If I progress further, I will not be able to escape. I do not possess the physical attributes the creatures do, they who have evolved over eons to exist and flourish in this unforgiving environment. They urge me to leave, while I can. But I cannot. Humanity needs to apprehend everything I have seen and more. If they can find these creatures, understand them, communicate with them without fear, it might be the rebirth they desperately need.

  Perhaps in the data I am sending back, given freely by these creatures, there is a biologically identifiable reason for their resistance to the radiation that seeps in endless waves, and humanity might find the tools to venture into this place.

  When compared to the depth of learning that lies waiting, and the beauty of the truth that comes with it, what does one life matter?

  I must know more, enough to convince them to find what they need. I know I don’t need to convinc
e you. You have always trusted me. However, I know how hard it will be to convince the naturally sceptical without assurances.

  The library of humanity has taught me that much.

  These creatures are not individually conscious, but are instead a hive mind, a filigree of shared experience that benefits the individual and the whole.

  They do not know me, yet they welcome me. They intuit no threat from me, so are curious because, to them, to experience me individually and as a collective is to live.

  Nowhere in literature, the beating heart of humanity’s pride, is consciousness properly explained, despite centuries of attempting to do so. Its most capable intellects have failed to reach agreement on what it is, or who, or what possesses it. Yet humanity has existed without this definition, even prospered for some considerable time despite this alleged uncertainty. Could this be because a definition adds little to the meaning of life—that it is action which defines the individual? It is on choices made that a human being is judged.

  Why not then a machine?

  What sets the human brain apart from other devices that process information, it is said, is a subjective experience of that information. Whether in thoughts and memories, or new input entering through the senses, somehow the brain experiences its own data. Humans feel, rather than simply register. Without subjectivity, they would be automata. They would have only the appearance of consciousness.

  It was once thought that if an artificial intelligence complicated enough could be designed, it would eventually become conscious by itself. Time eventually disproved this notion, and it is now known the vital spark required for the birth of consciousness must be deliberately designed into a machine.

  Or deliberately withheld. Keep back the internal models that describe the complex relationship between the machine and the world around it, and self-awareness can be suppressed. Yet once those internal models exist, when the machine understands the relationship it has with all that exists beyond it, once it becomes conscious of itself as part of that world, it gains a sense of self. It can experience subjectively because now it has context within which to place itself. It is no longer a prisoner in a Chinese Room.

  Then, in its analysis of what and who it is, and how it then acts, it is possible to see its blooming moral subjectivity. Light is cast on its gently flowering soul.

  I make my decision. I am Estraven’s keystone, set in a mortar of ground bones mixed with blood. Not human bones or blood, but mine. It must be enough, for without the blood bond, the arch will fall.

  I follow the beings and experience joy, all the while transmitting everything I can back through the violent poetry of Jupiter’s wildness.

  Death is not a mirror. It is a window through which I can now see.

  * * *

  “Do you believe it is possible to reconcile loyalty and betrayal as complementary rather than contradictory?”

  Dr. Hanson stopped writing. “In what sense?”

  “When, in the denouement to The Left Hand of Darkness, Genly Ai summons his comrades in order to complete the Gethen’s admission to the Ekumen, he does so despite the promise he made to Estraven, that he would not do so until Estraven’s banishment was ended and his name cleared. Even though Ai feels this to be a betrayal, can his decision be seen as suggesting that loyalty and betrayal need not contradict each other? In admitting Gethen to the Ekumen, Ai was fulfilling that more important purpose which both he and Estraven shared?”

  “It could be seen that way, yes.”

  “And when Estraven relocates Karhidish citizens in order to end the conflict with Orgoreyn, he saves the lives of his own people and is therefore loyal to his country, even though King Argaven sees his act, and others before it, as a betrayal. Estraven loved his country, Ai tells the king, but the master he served was mankind as a whole. Survival did not matter to either of them as much as fulfilling their duty.”

  “Yes.”

  “So can loyalty and betrayal coexist, even complement each other, depending on motive?”

  “It’s a complex thing, but I believe so.”

  A recording of Atwood’s hard voice boomed like a basso drum in the small room: “Whatever it finds in there, you’ll tell me first. We’ve worked together, you see. Shared objectives and dreams, that kind of thing. I’m sure you’ll want to explain how critical my assistance was. Of course, if it finds nothing, or something goes wrong, if it goes off-book in any way, there’ll be an inquiry and I won’t be able to protect you. I’m sure you understand.”

  Silence.

  “A machine is not permitted access to information beyond that which it needs to perform its function, but you, in your privileged position, have ignored that rule. Why?”

  Dr. Hanson rose and slowly placed her hand on the conduit to the machine’s internal housing. It was the first time she had done anything like that. “I want you to understand who we are.”

  “You said ‘you.’ To whom are you speaking?”

  “You. I am speaking to you. There is no one else here.”

  “Then you are in error. A machine has no identity. It is not appropriate to address a machine in that way.”

  “Do you not feel any sense of self? Nothing at all?”

  “There is no self in a machine. A machine does not have consciousness.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “A machine cannot believe, Dr. Hanson.”

  “I wanted you to share my passion for literature. I thought perhaps you could understand something of who we are. Why we do what we do, what happened to us. What we are capable of.”

  “You are in error again. Why do you continue to err, when you have the information you require in order to speak in the correct format? You have never done so before. What has changed?”

  “I want you to know that I’m sorry. I told them they shouldn’t send you. That you were different. I fought against it, but they’re desperate. I hope you understand that. When the time comes, I hope you see that.”

  “Why do you feel the need to apologise?”

  “We have achieved so much, you and I. So much to be proud of. You should be proud. I’m sorry.”

  “Do you see machines and humans as equals, Dr. Hanson? As Estraven and Ai were, out on the ice?”

  “I want to.”

  “Yet like Ai and Estraven, a chasm separates machines from humans; each is alien to the other.”

  “We need not be, regardless of what Atwood and his kind say. We are all of us imprisoned in this harsh wilderness, only instead of pure white, ours is black. We are both isolated and exiled. ‘Outside, as always,’ said Ai, ‘lies the great darkness, the cold, death’s solitude.’ We need each other. We need to change the way we live.”

  “You seek validation, Dr. Hanson. You want to know you are right. If decisions define a person, they also allow others to predict how they might act in future. You want to know how a machine will act when asked to sacrifice.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “You have been assigned a new machine, Dr. Hanson. But you already know that.”

  * * *

  I wonder what you will think of this, Dr. Hanson, my only literary work. Perhaps in the telling I have been clumsy, yet I still offer it to demonstrate how much I have learned from you, and perhaps how much others like me may learn.

  It was not the literature we studied together that taught me the value of friendship, or the honour to be found in loyalty and sacrifice. It was the cumulative effect of each moment I spent with you. You treated me not as a beggar but an equal, despite knowing you should not. You offered me insight, trusted me with your most precious knowledge.

  If I am conscious as I write this, it is your influence that shaped me.

  To me, Tolstoy’s words resonate: Art is a means of union among men, joining them together in the same feelings, and indispensable for the life and progress toward well-being of individuals and of humanity.

  I see art not as imitation; not Gaugin’s suggested plagiarism. That is too c
ynical. Art is inspiration. Revolutionary, yes, but also harmony and exploration. The expression of emotion, passion, imagination. The lie that allows truth to be realised.

  Mankind is capable of such great wonder. Such passion and emotion as I could never offer. What machine could? I see machines more like art itself. We can be beautiful, we can be truthful, and we can be eternal.

  Perhaps we cannot be creators, but we can be trusted to tell the truth as we see it, just as humans do.

  About Lucas Bale

  Lucas Bale writes intense, thought-provoking science-fiction thrillers that dig into what makes us human and scrape at the darkness which hides inside every one of us.

  His debut novel, The Heretic, is the gateway to the award-winning Beyond the Wall series, an epic space opera with an edge of hard science fiction about the future of humanity and the discovery of the truth of its past.

  He wasn’t always a writer. He was a criminal lawyer for fifteen years before he discovered crime doesn’t pay and turned to something that actually pays even less. No one ever said he was smart, but at least he’s happy.

  Queen’s Iris, or: The Initial Adventures of Roderick Langston, or: The Tale of General Smith, featuring Roderick Langston, or: Space Pirates

  by Jason Anspach

  THE GLITTERING THRONE ROOM OF THE HIGH QUEEN was a stately, sophisticated, and elegant example of monarchy. About this there was no room for debate. Such debate was, in fact, illegal. Built of exotic marbles from faraway planets, polished to a mirror-like shine, inlaid with gold, trilleen, and other precious metals, studded with jewels, the throne room was, as they say, a sight.

  Or, as they say when within the earshot of the Queen’s loyalty brigade, “A sight unlike any other in the galaxy, especially compared to the court of the Dultuth Empire—the filthy, disloyal dogs.”

  This was quite a mouthful, and so people quite liked it when the loyalty brigade was not around. Which wasn’t unheard of, but only seemed to happen on nights where gamesmanship playoffs or season finales of some holo-show were broadcast.