Marque of Caine

by Charles E Gannon

  Alnduul glanced away. “Yes.”

  Riordan looked from one Dornaani to the other. “Jesus. What are we to you, lab rats? Don’t you have any respect for our privacy, either individually or as a planet?”

  “As a planet?” Thlunroolt echoed uncertainly.

  “Don’t insult my intelligence by playing dumb. Unless you can magically teleport a foreign organism into a human body, you had to have an agent of your own on Earth to do it. Probably did it when the surgeons put in Nolan’s coronary support pack at Johns Hopkins. One of the team, probably a senior nurse responsible for closing the incision, slipped it in. Which—let me guess—didn’t require surgery to attach. The organism did that all by itself, didn’t it?”

  “Once it is awakened, the biot is self-directed,” Alnduul admitted. He looked up. “I assure you that we have never done such a thing to anyone on Earth before.”

  “Then why did you do it to Nolan?”

  Thlunroolt turned away from Alnduul, a movement that suggested this was an old point of contention.

  Alnduul folded his hands. “I chose to add the cognition tap to the organism because I feared for Nolan’s life. Three years after his return from the intercept of the Doomsday Rock, it was clear that he was becoming pivotal in your world’s move to readiness. That made it increasingly likely that he would become a target of Ktoran agents.”

  Riordan sighed, rested an elbow on the table. “So, you wanted to preserve him. Just in case.”

  This time it was Alnduul who stepped closer. “I wanted to honor him.”

  Riordan looked up. Had there been a buzzing quaver in Alnduul’s voice?

  “You do not fully understand us yet, Caine Riordan. Since we Dornaani do not inherit families and parents, we find our primary affiliations through personal affinities. Nolan Corcoran was a…a profound inspiration to me. And with every step of subtle strategic brilliance he took, he also came closer to the end that finally claimed him. I could not sit by and watch that happen.”

  Riordan frowned. “I didn’t know you could conceive of that kind of, well, connection to a human. Particularly one you never met.”

  “It is not typical,” Thlunroolt observed sardonically.

  Riordan kept his focus on Alnduul. “So, why did you have to terminate the simulation?”

  Alnduul held up two fingers of either hand. “The Corcoran template is more fragile than the ones we typically work with.”

  “Typically work with?” If this is the only time they’ve done this to someone on Earth, then who are their usual subjects? “What makes it so fragile?”

  “The final update from the organism was abruptly interrupted by Nolan’s demise.”

  “That would make a lot more sense to me if I understood how this ‘cognitive tap’ actually works.”

  Alnduul’s inner lids nictated. “It uses a noninvasive transceiver, much like the one used for virtuality, to record sensory impressions, cognitive activity, and emotions. With those, we build a map of the subject’s mental attributes and functions.”

  Riordan leaned back, unsure of whether to be amazed or horrified.

  Alnduul raised a temporizing finger. “If the subject’s demise is sudden, the organism will autonomously attempt a rapid relay, but these are often incomplete, compromised. This was the case with Nolan Corcoran. In addition to losing most of the weeks leading up to the Parthenon Dialogues, there was considerable corruption to many memories that he did not consider significant.”

  “Can you give me an example?”

  “Yes. You mentioned ‘his detractors.’ Although he remembered that such persons existed, he could not recall any individually. That was what forced us to terminate the simulation.”

  “But how would Nolan remember the concept of having detractors without remembering their identities?”

  Alnduul rippled the spread fingers of one hand as if it was a sea fan. “The ability to discriminate data into prioritized hierarchies is one of the few mental traits shared by every species of the Accord. Indeed, most memories you have ‘forgotten’ are simply stored in a deep archive. However, the cognitive tap only records those that pass through the subject’s mind. Data that leave faint impressions are neither strongly imprinted nor later refreshed by recall. In Nolan’s case, many details pertaining to these lower priority memories were lost.”

  Riordan forced himself not to be distracted by the horrific possibilities of such a technology. “So if these memories are so minor, why was it necessary to stop the simulation?”

  Alnduul’s inner eyelids cycled slowly: affirmation. “If the pseudo-consciousness’s expanding interactive matrix encounters a blank space where it expects to find memories, it can collapse. One or two such events are within its tolerance limits. However, repeated failures trigger a cascade of random self-checking, such as you would perform if you woke up with complete amnesia. If, at that early stage, the simulacrum discovers that it is not a complete and conscious entity, its matrix collapses.”

  “So, my remark about detractors unwittingly pulled on a loose thread in the tapestry of its self-awareness, and you feared it might unravel.”

  “Yes. Now I must ask you a question, Caine Riordan.”

  “You mean, will I continue?”

  “Yes.”

  Riordan sighed. “So, if you get this simulacrum to work, do you intend to make it available to the Collective or other Dornaani?”

  Alnduul’s gills popped in sharp negation. “Absolutely not. That is why we are doing the work here. Our only intent is to preserve as much of Nolan Corcoran as we can.”

  “And if I refuse to continue?”

  “We have no other participants the simulacrum would recognize, and so could not complete it. And if a matrix does not become a fully functioning simulacrum, then, if we were…audited, it could be erased by representatives of the Collective.”

  “But if it’s completed?”

  “Then it becomes a protected creation. Akin to an artifact.”

  “But to what purpose?”

  Alnduul trailed three languid fingers in the space between them. “Your headstones, your mausoleums, your many urns of cremated remains: they, too, have no use and are nonetheless preserved. Yet this is beyond all those examples. For a simulacrum does not just honor a person who has passed, it saves some aspect of them from oblivion.”

  Riordan thought of Elena, of Trevor, of Nolan’s widow Patrice, even of Connor. What would they want him to do? Authorize a memorial that bordered on quasi-sentience? Condone the use of an illegal copy of Nolan’s mostly intact consciousness? Riordan clasped his hands where they hung between his knees, fought to still the spinning compass of contending loyalties, impulses, ethics.

  And suddenly, there was clarity. It really doesn’t matter what I think, because I don’t have the right to decide. All I can do is make sure that he is preserved for now, so that, one day, his loved ones can make that choice themselves. Which I guess means—

  “Okay. I’ll finish the job.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  APRIL 2124

  ROOAIOO’Q, BD +66 582

  When Riordan reentered the lab, Thlunroolt was once again seated behind the crescent table. His tone was less jocular. “My regrets for the delay, Caine Riordan. It took us four days alone to calibrate where you may safely reenter the simulation.”

  Riordan nodded. And one more for getting everything ready. Although, according to Alnduul, who was reviewing a hologram of the amended script, they would not have been able to leave, anyway. Word had arrived from the regional capital to stay where they were, for now. Reason: unknown.

  Riordan adjusted the HUD. “Okay, I’m ready.” After an interval of two seconds, the same fragmentary room faded in from the cream background. A moment later, Nolan was back in the chair.

  That was Caine’s cue. “You’ve frequently been accused of using information control and influence peddling to manipulate organizations, corporations, governments, and to maintain one of the longest conspi
racies on record: suppressing proof of extraterrestrial intelligence. What’s your verdict upon yourself: guilty or not guilty?”

  The Corcoran simulacrum seemed disoriented for a moment, but quickly became both more focused and more animated. “Although I’d contest the term ‘conspiracy,’ I’d have to say ‘guilty as charged.’ However, some misdeeds are not well understood, or judged, without context.

  “Stark violations of basic laws and conscience, such as the murder sprees of sociopaths, can be judged summarily. But at the other end of the spectrum are actions that occur in the gray of a perpetual ethical and moral twilight.” The simulacrum shook its head. “That’s where almost all covert operations are conducted. Ultimately, it is history that sits in judgment. And perhaps that is best. Those who occupy a more distant vantage point upon the unspooling timeline often see the total context of a deed more clearly than those who witnessed it firsthand.”

  Had Riordan been conducting an actual interview, he might have remarked that Corcoran’s response was, in fact, a wonderfully poetic and circuitous non-answer. Instead, his lines were: “Are you suggesting that your own deeds will be better understood, and perhaps more widely praised, with the passage of time?”

  Corcoran shrugged. “I’d like to think so. But I’m not sure that the complete story of our preparation for first contact will ever—or should ever—be told.”

  “Because people can’t handle the truth?”

  “No, because some truths are so profoundly convoluted and byzantine that there’s no way to present them both concisely and comprehensively. Too much simplification and the context is lost. But too much detail and people get weary of all the onion layers that have to be peeled away to show the core reasons for the decisions made, the actions taken.”

  All true. Also an unimpeachable rationalization. “How would you respond to critics who claim that kind of appeal to ‘undisclosable contexts’ is just a redirecting sophistry? Consider this an open platform, with posterity itself as your audience.”

  Corcoran—damn, it’s hard to remember it’s not really him—smiled. “Okay, then, let’s drop the elevated rhetoric and get down to brass tacks.

  “Try to put yourself in this scenario: it’s the day you learn what the Doomsday Rock really is. Someone, or some force, is threatening everything that you know and love, all the history that led to it, and all the generations that will come after. Do you carry on as before, decide not to take extraordinary measures in response to that extraordinary threat? Some call that ‘moral transcendence,’ to choose not to contemplate responses of questionable morality and to just let the cosmos unfold as it will.

  “But even the Buddhists maintain that there are limits to the pursuit of an unsullied moral existence. To paraphrase their perspective, to choose to do nothing is still a choice. And every choice is an action. Which confronts us with this quandary:

  “The universe may be maddeningly indifferent, but we humans must still choose our moral posture within it. Do we choose to act in pure self-interest, like a voracious wolf? Do we choose not to act at all, like rabbits that go limp under the wolf’s paws? Or do we choose to act both for ourselves and others, like a wolfhound, ever ready to drive off the wolf?

  “I’d like to say I chose the latter course because of some transcendent, enlightened world view. But that’s not my reason, any more than it was the reason for creating IRIS. I—we—just wanted to give our flawed, wonderful planet a fighting chance. I had seen the imprint of the wolf’s teeth sunk deep into the surface of the Doomsday Rock and, damn it, I was not going to go down without a fight.

  “I believe most human beings feel the same way when they think about their family, their friends, their unborn grandchildren. You don’t just lie down and give up. You take the fight to the wolves just as hard and as long as you can. And you do so in the belief that someone will carry on the fight when you fall.” He locked his eyes on Caine’s. “All enduring hope springs from that belief. Because without it, you lack the will to persevere. And if you do not persevere, you cannot prevail.”

  The simulacrum hung its head. “That said, we made mistakes. Almost daily, we found ourselves on the horns of a dilemma that illustrated why no fight, and certainly no killing, is ever an unalloyed moral good. The best you can say is that sometimes it’s necessary, if it’s the only way to drive off the wolf.”

  “That sounds like a heavy load of guilt to carry.”

  “It is. Every battlefield and bloodstained alley should leave us with memories and uncertainties that we can’t just dismiss. That is the price moral culpability exacts, and we must not shirk it. Otherwise, we become wolves ourselves.”

  Suddenly, Caine missed the real Nolan very intensely. “It sounds like you’ve given this a lot of thought.”

  Corcoran smiled. “You should know; you wrote the book. So to speak.” Without warning, the simulacrum started, looked around, confused but also surprised. For a moment, the virtual world became grainy, static-ridden.

  The virtual dataslate at the bottom of Riordan’s HUD blanked, then reilluminated in bold red letters: REDIRECT THE CONVERSATION.

  What the hell—?

  The simulacrum stared around as if it had blacked out momentarily. “I…I’m sorry, I seem to have lost the thread of our conversation. What were you asking?”

  Riordan’s palms had become clammy. “Actually, we were just wrapping up. Maybe you got a little distracted, had a memory lapse.”

  The simulacrum seemed unable to focus. “Yes, maybe I did have a lapse…but I also seem to remember things. Things that didn’t happen. I seem to know you…but I don’t. Well, I mean I recognize you, but… How did we meet, again? And where are we—?”

  The room almost grayed out. The simulacrum started violently.

  Riordan kept his reaction honest but muted. “Are you feeling well, Admiral Corcoran?”

  The simulacrum squinted as the room returned to its normal appearance. “I’m feeling disoriented. Like I’m not quite myself. Literally.” He laughed weakly, looked up and, wide-eyed, stared. “Caine?”

  Riordan had no idea how to respond. There was no script for this. So he did the only thing he could do honestly: treat the simulacrum just as if it was the real Corcoran. “Yes, Nolan. It’s me.”

  “It’s good…good to see you. So good to…” Corcoran’s eyes grew shiny. “I’m sorry, Caine. I’m so, so—”

  “There’s no reason for apologies.” It was both touching and terrible seeing Nolan Corcoran on the verge of tears, but Riordan followed his instinct to keep the simulacrum talking, interacting. “It’s good to have you back.”

  “It’s good to be back…but where?” The simulacrum looked around. Initial surprise gave way to increasing focus and wariness. “Caine, your house. It’s strange.”

  “It’s not my house, Nolan.”

  “No? So you…do you see it, too?” He gestured at the hazy window, drapes, sky.

  Riordan watched Nolan’s eyes, understood. “The lack of detail? Yes.”

  “So what I’m seeing…isn’t really there?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “That’s a pretty lousy answer, Caine.” Corcoran grinned, but not very convincingly. Then, his brow straightened and his voice became relaxed, casual. Too casual. “So Caine, how did you find out that Elena’s favorite flowers are orchids?”

  “But”—Riordan shook his head—“they’re not.”

  “Sure they are. You left one outside our door. Back on Luna.”

  Ah. A test. “No, Nolan. I left Elena a single red rose. With a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape. I guess you found both in the paper bag?”

  Corcoran’s answering smile rapidly changed from relieved to cautious. “Are we alone here…wherever ‘here’ is?”

  “No.”

  Nolan was too intelligent to believe that there was any advantage to remaining circumspect. “Who’s eavesdropping on us, then?”

  “Exosapients. The ones you conjectured were watching over us. The on
es who made it necessary for hostile aliens to resort to the subterfuge of the Doomsday Rock.”

  Corcoran’s eyes opened wide. “Are they, the aliens, here? Or are we on their world? Is there any way I can talk to—?”

  The HUD blanked; Nolan was gone. A warning appeared, flashing in an entirely different typeface. The bold orange text read:

  ALERT ALERT ALERT

  re: source-originated simulacrum “Corcoran”

  Memory and cognition parameters flash-relayed to Collective for extended analysis of possible data corruption

  Event investigation delegated to Glayaazh, Third Arbiter

  By order of Dornaani Collective, Glamqoozht

  Riordan slipped off the helmet, discovered that Alnduul and Thlunroolt were staring at each other, eyes widened to the point of distention. “What the hell just happened? What does that warning mean?”

  Thlunroolt seemed hoarse. “It means that the simulation had a hidden subroutine that would terminate it when certain parameters are exceeded or violated. It also means that the simulation is fitted with a backdoor access. For monitoring by the Collective. They have just been alerted to what we have done.”

  “But the Collective is two shifts away. How can that message reach them directly? It’s imposs—”

  “Caine Riordan,” interrupted Thlunroolt somberly, “for now, is it not enough that such a message obviously can reach them directly?”

  Riordan shrugged. “I guess so.” But if you can send messages instantly over distances of twenty light-years, then we’ve got to reassess all your capabilities.

  “We are done here,” Thlunroolt muttered.

  Alnduul let a single finger dangle. “I will assess our last capture of the simulacrum’s real-time template. I shall meet both of you on the surface.”

  * * *

  Thlunroolt and Riordan had ridden the ledge elevator halfway up before the old Dornaani commented, “You were surprised that Alnduul was so devoted to the memory of Corcoran.”

  It wasn’t a question, but it certainly invited response. “I was. But I suppose it makes sense. They contended with many of the same official constraints, the same problems.”