by David Weber
"If you really are Maneka, then 'unexplored territory' doesn't even begin to cover it!"
"I guess not," the soprano agreed. "Well, as simply as I can explain it, it all starts with the fact that Lazarus and I were still linked when I got shot. If we hadn't been—"
Hawthorne had the distinct mental impression of a shrug in that slight pause, and then the voice continued.
"Mary Lou's medics did all they could, you know. But the damage was just too severe. My heart stopped within two minutes, and even with CPR, I'd lost so much blood that brain function ceased three minutes after that."
Hawthorne was distantly astonished, somehow, that he was able to suppress the shiver which ran through him at that matter-of-fact description of the death of the woman he had loved.
"Five minutes doesn't sound like very much, I know," her voice went on, "but for a Bolo, it's a long, long time, Ed. I knew at the time that Lazarus had thrown us both into hyper-heuristic mode, but I didn't know why. And he didn't tell me, either—because he wasn't at all sure it was going to work, I think. But what he did was to ... well, to download me."
"Download you?" Hawthorne got out in a half-strangled voice.
"That's the best way I can describe it to you," Maneka's voice said calmly. "And while The Book doesn't exactly cover what he did, it violated at least the spirit of twenty or thirty Brigade regulations. In fact, I'm pretty sure the only reason there isn't a Reg specifically against it is that it never occurred to anyone that anything like this could be done in the first place."
"I wouldn't doubt it," he said, and shook his head. "In fact, I think I agree with them."
"And you'd probably be right, under most circumstances. But Lazarus isn't exactly a standard Bolo anymore, either. You know that when they repaired and refitted him after Chartres they upgraded his psychotronics. That included hauling out almost all of his old mollycircs and replacing them with the new, improved version, all of which took up a lot less volume than the older hardware had required. Since they had all that volume, they went ahead and installed a second complete survival center at the far end of the core hull. They intended it for redundancy, since Lazarus had managed to get himself brain-killed twice already in his career. But when he knew I was dying, he used that space to store me."
"You mean to store Maneka's memories," Hawthorne said hoarsely.
"No. Or, at least," Maneka's voice said in a tone he recognized well, the tone she used when she was being painstakingly honest, "I don't think that's what I mean. I'm not really positive. I'm here, and as far as I can tell, I'm ... me. The same memories, same thoughts. The same emotions," her voice softened.
"I'm a fully integrated personality, separate from Lazarus, that remembers being Maneka Trevor, Ed. I don't know whether or not I have Maneka's soul, assuming souls really exist, but I truly believe I'm the same person I've always been."
"And where have you been for the last seven and a half weeks?" he demanded, fighting against a sudden surge of mingled hope and shocked almost-horror.
"Trying to get out," she said simply. "Human minds and personalities aren't wired the same way as Bolo AIs. I always knew that, but I never realized just how different we were until I found myself trying to adapt to such a radically different environment. It wasn't Lazarus' fault. He didn't have any more to go on than I did. The only technique he had was the one Bolos use for downloading the memories of other Bolos under emergency field conditions, so that was the one he used. And it took me a long time—longer than you can imagine, probably—to 'wake up' in here. Remember what I said about hyper-heuristic mode. The differential between the speed of human thought processes and Bolo thought processes is literally millions to one, Ed. I've spent the equivalent of more than a complete human lifetime reintegrating my personality over the past seven weeks. I was getting close before this evening, but when you started talking to Lazarus, he tried to access me again. He hadn't done that in a long time, for the same reason he'd never mentioned what he'd tried to do to anyone who'd cared about me—because he'd decided his effort must have failed. That humans and Bolos were too different for it to work. But we aren't—quite.
Just ... almost. And when he tried to access me again, it finally let me out."
"No, Lieutenant," the Bolo said in the familiar tenor, which sounded almost shocking after Maneka's soprano. "My personality and gestalt remain intact and unimpaired. I must concede that there was a certain period of ... uncertainty when Captain Trevor's—Maneka's—personality first fully expressed itself once more. As she has just explained to you, however, Bolos in hyper-heuristic mode have extremely high processing rates, by Human standards. We have evolved a suitable joint interface which leaves Lazarus—'me,' for a practical referent—in direct control of this unit's weapons systems. Access to sensor systems, data storage, central processing, and communication interfaces is shared."
"So you've got a split personality."
"No." Hawthorne's head tried to spin rather more energetically than his alcohol intake could explain as the Bolo spoke again in its Maneka voice. "We're not a split personality any more than two AIs assigned to different functions in the same building would be, Ed. We're two distinct personalities who just happen to live inside the same Bolo. Lazarus is still in control of his weapons because my personality is so far outside the parameters the Brigade considers acceptable that his inhibitory programming would never permit me to control them. And, frankly, I'm in agreement with the inhibitions. I don't want anyone, including me, in charge of that kind of firepower without all of the precautionary elements the Brigade's spent the last millennium or so working out."
"Yet an interesting situation now arises," the Bolo observed in its Lazarus voice. "Since Captain Trevor is, by every standard I can apply, still alive, she remains my legal Commander, even though she has no direct access to my weaponry. I do not believe Brigade Regulations ever contemplated a situation in which the Human command element of a Bolo detachment was directly integrated into one of the Bolos of that detachment."
"Yep," the Maneka voice said, and chuckled again. "I guess I've become an 'old soldier' after all, Lazarus."
"I do not believe this is precisely the situation MacArthur envisioned at the time of his remark," the Bolo replied to itself in its Lazarus voice. "Nonetheless, it does seem possible that your tenure of command will be ... somewhat longer than originally envisioned."
"Oh, Lord!" Hawthorne bent forward, clutching his head in both hands and shaking it from side to side. "Agnelli's going to have a litter of kittens when he finds out about this!"
"So you're beginning to accept I might really still be me?" the Maneka voice said.
"I ... really think I am," Hawthorne replied after several seconds. "Of course, even if you aren't, Lazarus thinks you are, which is the reason I expect Agnelli to have a fit when Lazarus announces that his Commander isn't really gone and the statue on top of the Cenotaph might be just a bit premature. As Governor, Agnelli isn't likely to be too delighted by the notion that he'll never be able to assign a new commander to Lazarus. And to be honest ... Maneka, right this moment I can't say whether I'm happier to realize you aren't really gone or more horrified at the notion of your being stuck inside a Bolo."
"The idea took some getting used to for me, too," she said dryly. "As I've already pointed out, though, I've had quite some time to think about it and consider the alternatives. And, frankly, Ed, I'd rather be here, talking to you, even if I am 'stuck inside a Bolo,' than to be dead."
"Put that way, I guess I'd feel the same. But it's going to take me a while longer, I expect. I don't come equipped with hyper-heuristic capability!"
"Of course you don't," the Maneka voice said with a warm ripple of loving amusement. "But that's okay. As it happens, it seems I have plenty of time for you to adjust to it, after all."
"Of course you don't," the Maneka voice said with a warm ripple of loving amusement. "But that's okay. As it happens, it seems I have plenty of time for you to adjust to it,
after all."
1
Fleet Admiral Edmund Hawthorne (retired), Indrani Navy, sat in his medical float chair, silver hair gleaming in the brilliant sunlight of Lakshmaniah as the real, live human band played the Concordiat Anthem the Indrani Republic had retained as its own. He had an excellent view of the main reviewing stand, although his place was no longer atop that stand, taking the salute with the rest of the Joint Chiefs as the standards passed in review on Founders' Day.
Of course, this Founders' Day was somewhat more significant than most, he reflected.
He turned his head, gazing out over the gaily colored crowds of people thronging Agnelli Field. The band and Marine honor guard around the review platform had arrived from Fort Atwater, the Indrani Marine Corps' main training facility on the Jeffords Plateau in Indrani's northern hemisphere, well before dawn. The rest of the crowd had gathered more gradually, walking through Agnelli Field's gates in groups of no more than a few dozen at a time. Most of them had come from Landing itself, whose majestic towers rose like enormous needles of glittering glasteel, marble, and pastel ceramacrete beyond Agnelli's southern perimeter. The first of them had appeared almost as soon as the honor guard, eager to get the best seats, not minding the dew which soaked their shoes as they walked across the immaculate lawns from which all pedestrian traffic was normally barred. The gleaming gems of orbital power collectors, industrial facilities, and the massively armed and armored orbital fortresses of the Navy—so familiar they normally drew scarcely a glance these days—had glittered above them like a diadem, and Hawthorne suspected that many an eye had looked at them rather differently today.
He himself had had no need to hurry, of course. Even without his imposing (if long since retired) rank, he and his family would have been assured of the perfect vantage point. He chuckled at the thought, reclining comfortably in the chair which monitored his increasingly decrepit physical processes and basking in the warmth of Lakshmaniah as it crept gradually higher in the east. He looked at the people seated in the chairs clustered immediately around him, and a feeling of immense joy and satisfaction flowed through him. He would not see many more Founders' Days. In fact, he rather suspected that this might be his last. But although he'd never really expected that he might, during the dark days when he was first assigned to Operation Seed Corn, he looked back upon his long life with the absolute certainty that what he'd done with it had made a difference. It was not given to many, he thought, to know beyond any shadow of a doubt that his life had truly mattered, and that when it ended, he would leave the universe a better place for his efforts.
And the personal accomplishments and rewards were at least as great. His surviving sons and daughters—all fifteen of them—most with hair as silver as his own, surrounded his life support chair in a solid block. Beyond them were their sons and daughters, his and Maneka's grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and great-great-grandchildren. And, seated in his lap, was the youngest of their great-great-great-grandchildren. The crowd of them was enormous, but there was plenty of space for them atop their own special fifteen-thousand-ton reviewing stand, he thought with a mental chuckle.
He remembered the days of his own youth, back in the Concordiat, when population pressure had enforced low birth rates on the crowded inner worlds and people who wanted large families had competed for passage to the colony worlds, where large families were the norm. Even those people who'd thought in terms of "large families" would have been dazed by the average size of an Indrani family, but then, their families hadn't been routinely composed of children born both through natural childbirth and the artificial wombs which had been so much a part of Indrani from the very beginning.
He worried just a bit, sometimes, about the militancy, the sense of unwavering purpose, which filled the people of his planet and star system. The focus on military preparedness and research and development that routinely subordinated the sort of unruly, restless, all-directions-at-once, civilian-driven ferment which had been the hallmark of the pre-Melconian Concordiat. Not that it was surprising the Republic had been shaped in that fashion, of course.
The scars left by the Melconian attack which had come so close to wiping out all human life in this system had been carefully preserved by the Republic's government. That chain of mountain battlegrounds was the most hallowed monument—after the Cenotaph itself—of Indrani. And it insured that however peaceful the life experience of Indrani's population might have been since those battles, the Indranians would never—could never—forget the merciless, genocidal war which was the entire reason this system had been settled.
Hawthorne could scarcely object to that, yet there was a hardness, or perhaps a readiness, that bothered him just a little. A sense of their own accomplishments, their own prowess. For the most part, he vastly preferred that attitude to one of timidity, of hiding breathlessly in their mouse hole while the cat prowled hungrily outside it. But it also carried with it an edge of ... cockiness, perhaps. At its worst, almost an eagerness to confront humanity's mortal enemies and show the Melconians that Indranians were their masters at the art of war.
Which, he conceded, they might very well be. Certainly they had applied themselves for better than five generations now to the study of war, to preparations for it, and to the research and development to support it. They had begun with full technical specifications for the Concordiat's current-generation weapons technology at the time of the colony expedition's departure, and they'd spent the better part of a century—once the immediate needs of survival and providing for their expanding population had been met—refining that technology. It was amazing what a population rising steadily from millions into billions could accomplish when it set its collective mind to it.
Hawthorne remembered his last flagship, before his incredible seniority had sent him permanently dirt-side at last. The superdreadnought IRNS Guthrie Chin would have annihilated six or seven times her own mass in Concordiat capital ships, far less the best the Melconian Empire had boasted, at the time Operation Seed Corn was first mounted. And more recent ships were significantly more powerful than the Guthrie ... which, he thought with a trace of nostalgia, after over three decades in the Reserve Fleet, had finally been scrapped three years ago as hopelessly obsolescent.
No, if the Republic encountered the Empire, he did not expect the Empire to enjoy the experience.
Unfortunately, as the Concordiat had learned, quantity had a quality all its own. If the Empire had won the war against the Concordiat, then it was all too likely that it would still have the size to absorb any attack the Republic could launch and still pay the price to punch out a single star system.
"Are you keeping an eye on your blood-oxygen monitors, Ed?" a familiar soprano purred through the com implanted in his mastoid.
"No reason to bother, is there?" he subvocalized back. "Not with you and Lazarus snooping on them for me!"
"Somebody has to watch out for an old fart like you. Besides, think how the kids would react if you dropped dead on them today, of all days!"
He managed to turn his belly laugh into an almost convincing coughing fit, although he doubted it fooled any of their children. They were too accustomed to Dad's one-sided or even totally subvocal conversations with Mom ... among other things. Growing up knowing your mother lived inside a fifteen-thousand-ton Bolo was enough to give any child a ... unique perspective, he supposed.
"You should have married Lauren when you had the chance, Ed," Maneka teased gently. "Think of how rich you'd be! And running the Republic's biggest distillery would have made an amusing project for you after they finally managed to dragoon you into retiring. Always assuming," she continued thoughtfully,
"that your liver survived the experience."
"Lauren was perfectly satisfied with the two husbands she had," Hawthorne retorted. "And it's not as if I were exactly lacking—dashing officer that I was—in female companionship."
"No, you weren't," she said fondly, and he smiled slightly at the gratitude in her voic
e. He wondered, sometimes, if she regretted the loss of the physical intimacy they'd once shared. If she did, it had never shown, and she'd never resented any of the women—the many women, he corrected himself with another, deeper smile—who'd shared his life. Yet she was right. He'd never married. Which probably, he conceded, said something just a bit odd about his own psyche. Not that he particularly cared.
He was about to say something else when his oldest daughter, Maneka, touched him on the shoulder.
"I can tell from your expression that you and Mom are giving each other a hard time again, Dad," she said with a smile. "Still, I think this is the part you wanted to see."
"Humph! Giving her a 'hard time,' indeed! Woman's got an entire damned Bolo to beat up on me with!"
"You seem to have held your own fairly well over the years," she pointed out. "Now hush and listen!"
He grinned at her unrepentantly, but he also obeyed, focusing his attention on the speaker. Young Spiro Simmons it was, he saw. General Spiro Simmons, these days, the uniformed deputy commander in chief of the Republic's military.
"—and generations of dedication," Simmons was saying. "Our Founders would, I think, have much to feel proud of if they could see this day, yet all that we have accomplished we owe to them. It was their courage, their sacrifice, and their unfaltering determination and dedication which allowed us not simply to survive, but to prosper. Now it is our turn to bring that same dedication and determination to yet another star system, and—"
Hawthorne listened with an attentive expression, because his daughter was right, they were getting to the part he'd dragged himself away from his retirement villa to see. Although judging from what he'd heard so far, young Spiro still had a ways to go.
Well, that was all right. Today marked the official inauguration of the Republic's first extra-Lakshmaniah colony, and God knew everyone deserved the opportunity to pat themselves on the back. He remembered the first time the colonizing referendum had been voted upon. He'd still been Chief of Naval Operations then, and he'd been secretly relieved when the referendum failed.
