“Not so,” Ellis replied. “If you’ll allow me to explain, there is a way to accomplish this and still keep Astralis safe.”
Romark sat back and spread his hands in invitation. “By all means, tell us what you’ve come up with.”
Ellis smiled. “Transferring consciousness from one body to another is child’s play to us. We were doing it for ages on Avilon, and then again on New Earth when we left our galaxy. The technology is well understood, but perhaps not fully utilized.”
Tyra leaned forward. “What else could we do with it?”
“Funny that you should ask, Councilor Ortane, since we’ve just resurrected an identical clone of you, giving her equal rights as a citizen of Astralis. This sets a legal precedent for something we could do to conduct safe exploration of civilized alien worlds.”
Councilor Romark snorted. “I don’t see how simultaneous copies of people can help us.”
“You will, Councilor,” Ellis replied, flicking him a smug look. Turning away to address the others, he went on, “We could send out the galleons again, but this time with no bots on board, since we now know that’s how we were compromised the last time. But this time,” Ellis raised a finger to indicate an important point, “the human crews will all be duplicates, identical copies of people already living on Astralis, whom we’ve determined to have the necessary skills and experience.”
Ellis went on, “These clones will explore as safely as they possibly can, and then fall back to pre-determined safe systems where we will have disposable probes waiting to receive a data-only transfer of the memories and consciousness of the crews. The probes will then return to Astralis with the data, and their copies living on Astralis will integrate the new memories with their own, so that we can learn what they learned. Once they’ve been debriefed, we’ll send their consciousness back out there to the galleons they left waiting, and their memories will be re-integrated with their bodies aboard the galleons. They will then continue exploring, with updated instructions and mandates from Astralis, and new pre-determined safe rendezvous with the disposable probes further along Astralis’s path.
“Like that, the Galleons need never physically return to Astralis. They don’t even need to know where Astralis is—only where the disposable transfer probes are waiting for them, and those probes will self-destruct at the first sign of trouble, so they can’t possibly be hijacked. If that should happen, the galleons will be on their own until we can re-establish contact and set up a new rendezvous with another disposable probe. In the very worst case, we’ll lose contact with a few galleons and their crews, but life will go on as usual for their clones living on Astralis, so there’s technically no risk to them or their families.”
Silence reigned in the council chamber as everyone processed the implications of that plan. Unlike the Etherian Empire, they had no religious or moral compunctions about creating simultaneous copies of people, so it was really just a matter of over-turning old laws, and placing limits on new ones to prevent people from copying themselves for unethical or criminal purposes.
“What if one of the galleons is captured and the Faros hijack the system to transmit themselves to Astralis?” The woman who’d asked was the councilor from Sub-District Three, Jilian Kia.
Ellis answered her, “It wouldn’t do them any good. As soon as we receive the data from one of the returning crews, we’ll compare it to their last backups in the Resurrection Center, look for differences, and then analyze those differences to make sure that we aren’t integrating an alien consciousness with one of our citizens. It’s exactly the same system we just used to clear myself, Admiral Stavos, and General Graves for duty after our contact with the Faros.”
Tyra nodded and added, “They performed the same procedure with my daughter, too.”
A few of the councilors glanced her way before returning their attention to Ellis.
“When did you come up with this plan?” Corvin Romark asked.
“As I said, I’ve been working on this idea for years already, but the pieces all finally snapped into place with recent events.”
“It sounds fool-proof,” Tyra said. “I can’t think of a way that this would place us at any additional risk. It’s really just an extension of the safety protocols we’ve observed over the past eight years. Our only point of contact is still with disposable probes.”
“Probes that could be hacked to give us away,” Romark said.
“How?” Tyra demanded.
“A virus could piggyback in on one of the data transfers from the crews, masquerading as a memory.”
Ellis shook his head. “That’s not so easy, but we can make sure that all of data goes to isolated storage inside the probes and that it remains in isolated storage when it reaches Astralis. We’ll submit the data to rigorous checks before we integrate it with anyone. We could even devise a system whereby the explorers don’t need to be integrated or resurrected on this end for us to be able to debrief them—some kind of virtual brain, perhaps.”
“You mean an AI,” Tyra said.
“More like a VI—a virtual intelligence,” Ellis replied. “But another possibility is to keep cloned bodies waiting in stasis on this end and use them to resurrect the crews so that we can debrief them. Then when they leave, those bodies go back into stasis.”
Several councilors nodded and voiced their agreement. They already had the mechanism in place for that system, so it would be the easiest and fastest to implement.
Tyra thought to add, “That way their copies living here on Astralis won’t be affected by their experiences, and we’ll also be able to physically isolate them, just in case something goes wrong.”
“What kind of life is that?” Romark demanded. “Who would ever agree to become such an explorer? They’ll effectively be exiled from their own homes. We’ll be using them like bots.”
Ellis shifted in his chair. “Wouldn’t you agree to allow a copy of yourself to be created for the purposes of exploring the universe, if you knew that doing so would never affect you personally?”
“No,” Romark replied. “Because someday that copy will have to come home, and then it might think it has some legal claim to my life.”
Tyra nodded along with that. “That’s exactly what the judicial department ruled in my case. I’m going to have to share my assets from eight years ago with my clone.”
Ellis waved a hand at her. “That’s different. She left Astralis with legal ownership of your assets, and when she returned, one could make the case that you are the clone who stole her life.”
“Except that she wasn’t meant to live. She should have died when her timer implant ran down,” Tyra said.
“Obviously your case is more complicated than what I am proposing,” Ellis said. “These clones would be created with the express purpose of exploring the universe safely, and we can have them sign away any legal claims they may think they have to their other halves’ possessions and lives. That way, when the time does someday come to integrate them with the population, there won’t be any problems.”
“What about their freedoms?” Corvin Romark asked. “We can’t force them to explore until we decide they should stop.”
“That’s the beauty of it,” Ellis said. “We won’t have to. All you need to do is ask the originals if they want to go, and then get them to sign on for a specific period of time with the Navy or the Marines. Because they and their clones will be one and the same—one mind in two bodies—they’ll make all of the same choices, so no one should have a change of heart. And besides, anyone who wants out of the Navy early would be guilty of desertion. If they want out after their commission or term of enlistment is up, well, then they should be allowed to leave and re-join the population—after appropriate security checks, of course.”
“That won’t fly with the judiciary,” Romark replied, shaking his head. “It’s still a violation of rights. You can’t ask the original to sign up on behalf of his clone and then still treat them as individuals. And yes, lots
of people will have a change of heart. The originals will know that they won’t actually be the ones going, so of course they’ll say yes—what’s it to them? But when you resurrect them as copies, the copies will know that they are actually the ones leaving. They’ll think about their wives and children, their homes and jobs, and all of the other roots that tie them down, and they’ll decide not to go.”
Ellis just smiled. “Ah, but that’s the beauty of it: they’ll wake up, and they’ll think they have families and homes and jobs, but then they’ll find out that they’re clones, and they don’t actually have anything. They were created for one purpose: to explore.”
Rumblings of discontent spread through the room.
“That’s all highly unethical!” Aria Calias, the councilor of Springside said.
Ellis shook his head. “It will all be voluntary, so there’s nothing unethical about it. We’ll ask the originals if they want to go, as a matter of screening. Then if we must, we’ll ask them a second time after they wake up as copies. As Councilor Romark says, we can’t dismiss the possibility that some of the clones will have a change of heart. So if that happens, we’ll ask them to re-integrate with their originals immediately—with the understanding that each of them will have to pay for his or her clone, which was created for use with the program. It won’t be a total loss for them, however, since they can always put those clones in stasis in the Resurrection Center to use as spares.”
Tyra nodded along with that. She couldn’t see any human rights violations anymore.
“But I assure you,” Ellis began, “if you woke up tomorrow to learn that you’d been created with the express purpose of exploring the universe, and you suddenly had nothing to physically or emotionally tie you down to Astralis—you’d go in a heartbeat!”
Several councilors bobbed their heads in agreement with that.
“Well?” Ellis prompted. “Are there any other reasonable objections?”
The councilors conferred amongst themselves, while Ellis sat back and smiled. Admiral Stavos and General Graves conferred with him quietly, making it look disturbingly like this was a plan they had come up with together.
And maybe they had, Tyra decided. But what did it matter who’d come up with it? It was a brilliant plan.
Tyra raised her voice, “In light of this proposal, we should take a vote on Astralis’s course of action going forward.”
“That would be premature,” Corvin Romark said, shaking his head. “We’ll need a ruling from the judiciary to decide if we’re allowed to use clones like Ellis is saying, and even if they rule in favor, we’ll still need a whole new set of laws to govern cloning and the transfer of consciousness. We can’t allow people to clone and copy themselves for just any reason. The consequences would be dire. Imagine what you could get away with? Commit a crime and blame it on your clone!”
“Mind probes would reveal the truth,” Ellis replied, “But I agree. Reasonable limits must be set, and particularly for ordinary citizens.”
“Then before we decide anything, we should wait for the judiciary to make a ruling,” Romark insisted.
Ellis shook his head, “And do what in the meantime? Send Astralis home? Press on? Or wait here? If everyone is in favor of returning home, there’s no sense in asking the judiciary for a ruling, or even in writing new laws. What would be the point?”
“We could also explore on our way home,” Romark pointed out.
“True,” Ellis said. “But that only confirms that these are separate issues.”
Tyra spoke next. “I move that we stay where we are until we can get a ruling from the judiciary. At that point we can vote to decide where we should go next.”
“I second the motion,” Aria Calias from Springside said.
“Third,” Jilian Kia of Sub-District Three added.
The other councilors murmured their agreement.
“All in favor, raise your hand,” Ellis said, and raised his own hand.
The vote was unanimous, with the exception of Corvin Romark, who had the look of someone who had been thoroughly outmaneuvered.
“It’s settled then,” Ellis said.
They spent the next hour going through the remainder of the agenda. Tyra spent the whole time puzzling over the implications of what Ellis had proposed. She put it in a personal context, asking herself what she would do if she were asked to join the explorers. Would she consent to send a copy of herself out into the unknown? And if she did, what would she get out of it? Would she be allowed to integrate her memories with those of her clone?
If they both consented to it, probably, but would she really want to have all of her explorer-clone’s memories? The longer her copy was away, the more their lives and personalities would diverge. She might not even recognize herself when she returned.
Then there was the matter of how hard it would all be for her clone, knowing she had kids and a husband that weren’t really hers unless she decided to integrate, and even if she did, she wouldn’t even get to see them again for... what? A month? Two months? More?
Maybe they wouldn’t ask her to join the explorers, so she wouldn’t have to deal with the dilemma personally, but Tyra found herself torn, half-hoping that they would ask her and half-hoping that they wouldn’t.
Then she realized that they wouldn’t need to; they already had a copy of her that they could ask, and she had all the requisite experience. She was even already a Captain in the Navy, so there’d be no need for her to sign a commission.
It was unlikely they’d want more than one of her to go, and if they did, they’d ask the Captain to send a copy of herself. No, they wouldn’t ask her to be an explorer.
But they might ask Lucien. He had the training for it. He’d been a Paragon back in the Etherian Empire, and he’d been one of the original crew aboard Captain Tyra Forster’s ship.
What would Lucien say? she wondered. Would he consent to join the program? And if he did, how would his copy handle the knowledge that he had two daughters and a wife that he was leaving behind?
It needn’t be a permanent separation, Tyra realized. If both Lucien and his copy were willing, they could integrate at some point in the future. The problem was, then she and the girls would be at the mercy of utterly unpredictable changes in Lucien’s personality. He could wake up after integration only to tell her that he’d fallen in love with one of his fellow explorers and he wanted a divorce. She could lose him like that.
Tyra’s imagination ran away with those fears, and suddenly she saw herself and Lucien exploring the universe together—except that it wasn’t really her and it wasn’t really him. It was a copy of each of them: Captain Forster, and her XO, Lucien Ortane. He’d already been her XO aboard the Inquisitor, so Captain Forster would probably look him up and ask him to pick up wherever they’d left off.
She probably had a big fat crush on him. Forget probably. Tyra had fallen in love with Lucien eight years ago, and Captain Forster was that same exact woman, so she would have all the same feelings, and now he was older and wiser, which made him arguably even more attractive. And as for Lucien... Captain Forster was the exact same woman he’d fallen in love with: a younger, more fun-loving, and more adventurous version of her, his wife. What man could say no to that?
Tyra shivered. But there was one silver lining in all of those dark and confusing thoughts: if their clones fell in love with each other, then it almost certainly wouldn’t affect Tyra’s family. The only way it could affect them was if Lucien and his clone decided to integrate, and why would they want to do that? She nodded slowly to herself, comforted by that thought.
It was a good thing that the Lucien from the Inquisitor hadn’t survived. Dealing with the implications of two identical copies of him was bad enough—but three?
The universe couldn’t handle that much Lucien.
Chapter 23
Astralis
Chief Councilor Abaddon sat by his pool on the roof of his penthouse apartment in Summerside, sipping a cocktail and dryi
ng in the sun. The view of Archipelago Lake from the fortieth floor was startling. The golden shores and lush green foliage of dozens of islands sprawled out to meet the distant walls of Astralis. The artificial sun was about to set, casting everything in a rosy hue. Potted palm trees flanked his pool, their fronds rustling in a warm breeze.
These humans can even rival us when it comes to luxury, Abaddon thought. It was nice to stop for a moment to enjoy the spoils of victory—but only for a moment. There was still so much to do. So far things were going very well. No one seemed to suspect him, and the council had been receptive to his plan to send out manned missions. Now all he had to do was get the judiciary department on his side. Fortunately for him, he’d already done so. High Court Judge Cleever had been intercepted by one of Abaddon’s clones and had befallen the same fate as Director Helios of the Resurrection Center. With the two of them, himself, the chief councilor, as well as Admiral Stavos and General Grave under his control, there was almost no limit to what they could accomplish. It would be easy to lead these humans around by their collective noses in order to reach his goals.
Abaddon smiled and took another sip of his cocktail—a delicious fruity concoction made from tropical fruits native to galaxies within the Red Line. He had never had the pleasure of tasting such fruits before. He had to hand it to Etherus: guiding the evolutionary process did seem to yield more satisfying results. But who had the time to micro-manage the development of trillions of different ecosystems?
Let Etherus do it. Besides, if all went according to plan, it would all belong to Abaddon soon, anyway.
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