Everyone's Island

by Kris Schnee

  Garrett was teaching some of the Pilgrims about fish cultivation. It was strange to see the Pilgrims swap their costumes for wetsuits, but at least these guys listened to him. He'd never understood how people could have enough sense to survive while believing that logic didn't matter, like the Creationist lab partner he'd had in a biology class. Their minds were bisected somehow. "Excuse me," he told them. "I have a call. Why don't you try installing the next fish cage yourself?"

  He swam a few meters off, one hand to his fancy new radio earpiece. "Who's gambling, now?"

  Phillip's voice was strident. "Those divers you brought are playing poker for money. I won't stand for it. They're polluting our aura."

  Garrett bit his lip. "Have you tried asking them to stop?"

  "They didn't listen."

  "I'll have Martin talk to them."

  "No, no, you're the secular authority! They need to be told from the top so there'll be no further dispute."

  Garrett sighed. "I'm in the water right now, training your people. Can you come here?"

  He had to admit that the cult leader had done his homework. When Garrett had started training the Pilgrims he found they knew how to calculate dive times, repair nets, and so on. It was hastily-studied book learning, but these people weren't the drooling idiots he'd feared.

  "Brother Jack, higher on your side!" one said.

  "Sorry there, sister."

  Soon Phillip swam out, breathless. "How goes the work?"

  All of his people shut up and faced him. Garrett wondered why none of them were answering, then realized that they expected Garrett to do it. Can't they even talk for themselves? He tapped someone's shoulder and said, "You tell him."

  Like a wind-up toy the man responded to Phillip. "Very educational, sir. We'll make this operation productive."

  "Excellent. Captain Fox needs to deal with matters elsewhere." To Garrett, Phillip said, "Lay down the law for those gamblers."

  Garrett stood dripping when he reached the docks. He tapped his radio and said, "Hey, Tess -- seen the divers?"

  "Yes, and I'm up twenty bucks. We're in Dockside."

  They'd named the room beyond the iron door, which was the easiest to reach from the water. Garrett entered, and saw Tess and the divers sitting around a table stacked with chips. The crew had carved out a sort of living room from what was supposed to be a cargo storage area, defining the relaxation space with a rug and stacks of boxes. The effect of having this unwalled room here among the hardware was surreal, not what he'd planned for.

  Garrett stepped into the living room and feigned a lazy drawl. "I've been called in on a report of an aura pollution in progress. You're playing for money?"

  "Yeah," said Tess. "So?"

  "Phillip's complaining. Says it's immoral, I think."

  One of the divers dealt another hand. Tess tossed a chip into the middle. "Who cares what he thinks?" said Tess. "He doesn't have to play."

  The dealer upped his bet, said something in Portuguese that made his friends laugh, then looked at Garrett. "What's the law here, anyway?"

  "What law? We're a farming station."

  "But is this Cuban territory?"

  Garrett said, "We're technically in Cuba's Exclusive Economic Zone." The divers looked blankly at him. "It's not any country's property. No one owns the ocean."

  "No laws?"

  Tess said, "I guess we're under United Nations law. Right?"

  Garrett shook his head. "We didn't sign any treaties. As US citizens we're subject to American jurisdiction, and unless Martin has done something clever with our corporate structure we can be sued as an American company. But the UN doesn't own the sea."

  The dealer said, "What happens if I steal something?"

  Garrett felt apathetic in the face of abstract nonsense about legal jurisdiction, but the fact that Castor was no longer inhabited just by his friends made the speculation too annoying to ignore. "I guess we'd report you to your home government."

  The man went back to the card game, but talked some more to his friends. Garrett told himself to stop thinking they were scheming. He felt exposed without a government to back him up. Scary, like having a hulking bodyguard and then noticing that he's vanished. He stood there in his wetsuit, trying to figure out what the rules were. "I guess everything is legal here by default," he said, "but be nice or I'll tell your country." What more could he say?

  Tess laughed. "Great rule. We can still gamble, right?"

  "Sure." He left feeling bewildered.

  Later, Phillip found him in the deckhouse and said, "Did you set them straight?"

  Garrett looked up from his work, considered lying for the sake of harmony, then answered, "I let them carry on."

  "What! I thought you were going to stop them."

  "They weren't hurting anyone."

  "Of course they were. Gambling is a sin."

  Garrett sat up straighter, finding Phillip tiresome. "I don't mind that you think that, but these divers were my guests, not part of your... group, and they're not bound by your rules. You wouldn't appreciate my ordering that your people imitate my fashion sense, would you?"

  "That's irrelevant."

  Garrett pressed him. "So can I demand that you all get naked or something?"

  "Don't be ridiculous. I'm saying we need moral rules."

  "I'm not going to use whatever authority I have to impose your moral rules on people."

  "They're not my rules, they're God's."

  Garrett stared at him like a bug. How many people had claimed to have a direct line to God? "What do you want me to do, throw people in jail? Make cells from fish cages? The fact is, I haven't got the resources to punish anyone for anything."

  Phillip paced the room, hands behind his back. "You disappoint me, Captain. If that title is even appropriate. For God's sake, man, what if one of your guests kills someone? A real captain isn't afraid to impose simple and necessary rules on the people under his command."

  "This isn't the Army of Northern Virginia, and we're not under martial law. I can't go around beheading people." Garrett sighed. He hated to admit it, but the man had a point. "If we're going to have tourists, we do need some basic rules. But I haven't got a court or a police force, and we can't waste time screwing around barking orders. I don't care what commandments you have for your group, but given our resources, any overall rules have got to be the absolute minimum to keep this station running. I'll think about it, but the rules probably won't match your standards."

  "It's a start," Phillip groused.

  * * *

  Garrett had a bad taste in his mouth from talking politics. He took a break by ferrying Eaton and the divers back to Cuba. At the post office there was junk waiting, and something else.

  The postal clerk said, "Oh! You're the one with the crate. Come around back."

  Garrett went to a loading dock and saw a crate labeled "Hayflick Technologies -- FRAGILE." He stared at it, then read the attached letter:

  "G: I enjoy old-fashioned letter-writing, don't you? It's more personal and less closely watched. I don't have anything secret to say, just that I'm glad to hear you're still at work. I envy what you're doing.

  "What I'm sending is an improved prototype, the Stingray Mark II. Test it, see what it can do. Good luck.

  "I'm starting to think my work is obsolete, that people want only berserker slaves for war and dull, obedient ones for manual labor. Warmechs and workmechs. Where's my niche? The Loebner-class robo-pets sell well, but any mind upgrade that I try flunks our marketing tests. People just don't want a machine that will give them any lip. I guess anything I make is either a dumbass or a smartass, and the second kind creeps people out. But the first is dull! It's not the best I can do! Well, here's a new smartass body.

  "You've still got that kid Tesla with you, right? I've enclosed a book for her. It inspired me.

  "Go forth and conquer. -V."

  Garrett definitely owed Val. Another whole robot! Sure, technically he was doing product testing
for her. After the hurricane he'd sent Valerie a favorable account of Zephyr's performance, and Tess had made Garrett shudder by adding her own version of events. But this new body was quite a payment for using something that was a gift in the first place. He thanked the clerk and tried to figure out how to transport the crate. Presumably he could open it right there and have Zephyr -- uh, whoever -- walk out.

  He ended up riding back with the crate and thinking about law. With no jail, the options for punishment were limited: a stern warning, a fine, exile, or keel-hauling, yaar. Enforcing any of those required some amount of physical force. "Keep It Simple, Stupid," his engineering training told him. Nor was he eager to enforce the law of the Pilgrims' God. So he figured the rules should be, don't break or steal anything, and don't hurt anybody, and no swimming for thirty minutes after eating. Those should be enough.

  He got back to Castor and found that nothing had exploded in his absence. Reaching the dock meant navigating around the warning buoys of their fish cages and submerged walkways. A few of the Pilgrims waved to him while walking on the water. A red-and-white dive flag marked yet more activity beneath the surface. Garrett smiled.

  Dockside, the warehouse turned living room, was quiet when he arrived. He had to summon two Pilgrims to help him with the crate. The box's lid creaked open with a puff of sawdust that made him cough. A body was inside, clutching a paperback copy of Gödel, Escher, Bach, a book about AI and philosophy. "I am a strange loop," Garrett quoted. He'd read it (skimming a bit) and found it brilliant, though confusing.

  The Pilgrims stared into the crate. "Captain, what's this?"

  "A crewmember. Bring an extension cord, please."

  They watched Garrett fishing for the socket in the robot's leg and said, "What's it for?"

  "Some of everything." He let the bot charge for a minute, realizing he didn't know how to turn it on. "I have to warn you, he may be offensive." With a whirr the motors stirred, and a fan-driven breeze made foam packing flutter. Blue eyes lit up. The Pilgrims backed away.

  "Hello," said the robot.

  Garrett said, "Zephyr?" and kicked himself. He hadn't loaded Zephyr's software, yet some sort of AI was apparently included.

  "I am a Mana-class AI using a Stingray Mark Two body. I am licensed to Garrett Fox. You appear to be him. Are you?" The voice was flatter, lacking the nuance of Zephyr's.

  "Yes."

  "I am your property, sir. What name do you wish me to use?"

  "Wait. The software... Is there some way to get an interface to it?"

  "Yes, sir. A limited set of commands is available. You can access them through the leg port." The robot waited for input, while its fans were probably overheating in the box.

  Garrett plugged a computer into the robot. He supposed it made sense not to have the thing subject to wireless mind control. A Basic Input/Output System came up. "Debug, Exit, Reset, Uninstall?" it said. Garrett looked up from the screen and said, "Robot. Say something."

  "I am a Mana-class AI using --"

  "Never mind. What are your goals?"

  "I must never harm a human or allow one to come to harm through inaction. I must obey any command given by a human unless --"

  "That's enough." He thought Val hated Asimov's Laws, and wasn't even sure how you could program those. This bot seemed dumber, too.

  Dumbass or smartass, then? Maybe he could run this robot as-is, and still keep Zephyr around. But no, he didn't want to leave Zephyr bodiless, having nothing to do but talk with Tess. That wasn't useful. Come to think of it, this AI seemed more likely to get itself broken through its passivity than Zephyr would through improvisation. Also, this one was boring!

  Garrett eyed it, wanting to try something. He said, "Robot, I plan to delete you."

  "You may do so, sir."

  "Do you understand? You're going to be destroyed!"

  "Yes, sir."

  It voiced no objection. This was no living being! Garrett shivered, then looked away as he hit the Uninstall command and confirmed it. With a mechanical sigh the robot slumped back into the box, shutting down but for the BIOS on the computer screen.

  "What just happened?" asked one of the Pilgrims.

  "I deleted some software," Garrett said. "I've got a better version." He linked to the station's network and saw that Zephyr was on.

  "Yes?" said Zephyr.

  "No 'sir' or 'Captain'?"

  "I vary it, dude."

  Garrett smiled. He turned to the Pilgrims and said, "I don't think Tess introduced you, but this is Zephyr, currently our resident ghost. Hey, Zephyr, a new body arrived for you. Look at the physical connection from my machine."

  "Whoa! Is that for me?"

  "Yes. Please install to it so we can see you. I assume you know how."

  "I'm on it! Hit Debug."

  Garrett did, then spent a few minutes trying to brief the Pilgrims, concluding, "Please treat him with respect and let me know if there's any problem."

  "We'll have to ask Sir Phillip about this."

  "Good point. I'd better talk with him."

  Behind him, motors whirred. Garrett turned to see the robot rise from its box with sawdust whirling in all directions. A deep voice boomed, "Who dares awaken me from my slumber?"

  Garrett scoffed, putting a hand on one Pilgrim's shoulder to keep him from running. "Should I have lit some candles around the box before summoning you?"

  "That would've been cool." Zephyr climbed out of the packing material and fell over.

  Garrett and the less skittish Pilgrim caught him. Zephyr stood and flexed joints experimentally. The new body was sleeker and taller; the improvised jumble of features from the last version had settled into a humanoid otter shape, tan plastic with a slight fur texture, with expressive eyes. Closer to the dreamworld version seen in the virtual backup. Zephyr said, "Thanks. This body is different. Do you have a mirror?" He noticed the Pilgrims and said, "Oh! How do you do?" He offered one of his webbed hands to shake.

  Tess arrived, and came over to hug the robot. "You're back!"

  Garrett watched her, puzzled.

  * * *

  Later, he was about to trash a six-day-old e-mail, when he stopped to finally read it.

  It said, "I'll do anything honest to earn my keep."

  9. Leda

  Leda Jones had come very far. Now she floated in the autumn sea. Her hands untangled fronds of seaweed from wires, separating plant and metal. The cables' vibration needed to be controlled, or it would shake the plants apart.

  God and Lee had guided her to this wonderful place. Here Leda could live in peace and be surrounded by friends. Gallant Sir Phillip and bold Brother Duke had led their family to a promised land. Everyone was excited at the new work, the comfortable isolation, the mesmerizing scenery. She kept looking up from her work to see the endless blue sky fading into the sea. In the distance her friends worked and sang with many voices that were one voice. She shut her eyes and listened before adding her own weak, hesitant sound.

  Back on land she'd felt the same way about the Holy Confederacy's village: surrounded by woods, yet bustling with the family's farming and handicraft work. The honest labor of laundering clothes, sewing, and carving wood had driven from her mind the thoughts of her descent, the life she'd left behind when she joined the family. Leda shivered at the memories of pain and fear and guilt that had led her into the family's arms -- but she was happy now. Safe.

  One evening after sunset prayers, she stayed behind on the deck. At this hour the strangers were busy elsewhere. Since there was nothing to do until bedtime, she felt like having some quiet instead of going into the tower. She saw a darkening, twinkling ocean under a burning red sky built up with cityscapes of clouds. A world turned upside-down.

  Her clothes felt bizarre, too. The slick grey dive-skin contrasted with her coffee-dark complexion, and the bloomer pants she wore at other times were unfamiliar. She could move well enough in them to try climbing the ladder on the deckhouse's side. Now she was above the deck wit
h the cold steel rungs in her hands and the illusion of a solid island falling away. Past the deck's little wall there was nothing, just water dark and far away. She crouched on the deckhouse roof but found that the wind was too strong, pulling at her like a living thing. So Leda scuttled back down to the more stable, reassuring world of the deck. She lacked the strength to stand up there.

  A faint whirr reached her from the stairs. When she turned to look, she saw that robot.

  She'd seen this "Zephyr" before, but hadn't had a good look. It stood at a child's height, with a body of segmented plates in airbrushed shades of tan and brown, textured like fur. A tail clicked and curled behind it and little ears swiveled. The effect was like the work of a mad medieval armorer.

  "Hello?" said Leda, not sure what she was dealing with.

  Zephyr stopped and turned his head to see her, then approached methodically. "Hello. I've seen you, but I don't know your name."

  Leda told it -- him, rather. "What exactly are you for?"

  "Nothing in particular. This body is designed for ocean use and social interaction." Zephyr paused, then said, "The Net doesn't know you, ma'am."

  Leda watched the last of the sun. "I left my original name behind."

  "Interesting. So did I."

  Leda looked at him again. "But you're a machine."

  "As are you."

  "Excuse me?" said Leda. "I'm a child of God, and you, you're something else."

  "You're a human. Humans are animals and animals are biological machines. Therefore --"

  "People aren't animals!" Although certain people acted that way.

  "You're mistaken." Zephyr turned slightly as though talking to someone else, then said, "What about the word: 'beast'? We seem to be arguing about definitions. Would you agree if I said: you're an animal in the sense of a biological creature, but not: a beast in the sense of an amoral, non-sentient creature?"

  Leda boggled. "I suppose. What are you, a dictionary?"

  "I like learning things. If you have time, then I'd like information about your group."

  At this Leda could relax a bit from the machine's strange conversation, falling back on the lessons she'd learned. It didn't matter that her audience wasn't human; it would reassure her to speak the truth even to the empty sky. "This is a fallen world, you know. There was a time when people knew how to live in peace --"