“All right, shoot,” I said.
Minister Travis turned to Dr. Landers in confusion.
Dr. Landers shrugged. “Oh, there a twenty-first century is colloquialism. It means to have all the questions you desire.”
Minister Travis nodded, and glanced back at me. “I imagine statement in the current idiom is not a high priority, since the intended use of subject.”
Crying out loud. What? The current version of English was just too mangled to make sense of. Well, maybe there was a translator. After all, even in my time, we had Google Translate. I dove into the library, and within milliseconds, I found what I needed. I played the minister’s last statement through the routine.
‘I imagine instruction in current idiom isn’t a high priority, given its intended use.’
Oh boy. If I still had eyebrows, they would have risen right to my hairline.
He looked at me. Or maybe toward me. I got the feeling he was addressing a microphone rather than talking to someone. I routed all dialog through the translation routine.
“Did you go to church when you were alive?”
Can they tell when I lie? Dr. Landers never said anything about it. Well, I doubt I’d end up worse off being caught in a polite lie, rather than being honest about my opinion of religion.
“Occasionally, Minister Travis. Easter and Christmas, mostly. Without a family, there was no real pressure.”
“No children, then?”
“Not… no.” Not that I know of. Hah! That would have gone over well. Moron.
“Not?”
“Not yet, Minister.” And not likely, now.
Minister Travis nodded.
The conversation continued in that vein for several minutes. The questions were decidedly non-technical. The minister seemed to be primarily interested in my attitude toward religion in general. I was very careful to be respectful and non-confrontational, to come across as a team player, and to avoid any hint of my true feelings about theism in general.
Finally, Minister Travis seemed satisfied. He nodded to me, said goodbye to Dr. Landers, and left.
Dr. Landers withdrew a hankie and wiped his brow.
“Damn, doc. Was it that dangerous a situation? He didn’t seem belligerent.”
“There was no way to predict, Bob. He showed up unexpectedly, and I had no time to prepare you or research the minister to find out whose side he’s on.”
“Side? Uh, FAITH has sides?”
“Surely you don’t think our government is in complete agreement about everything?” Dr. Landers looked at me with a wry expression. “FAITH is riddled with factions and power-blocs. Maybe even more than most governments. I guess it goes with the territory.”
Dr. Landers pulled out the chair and sat down. “As it happens, Minister Travis is with the Ministry of Truth. They are financing this venture, so he would be considered friendly.”
“Truth? How does that connect to colonization?”
“The Ministry of Truth is concerned with spreading the truth, of course. Their reach is considerable—military, colonization, diplomacy…” He stared into space for a moment, obviously choosing his words. “But there are other ministries arrayed against us. There are factions that think all artificial intelligences, AMI and replicant alike, are abominations. There are those who think we should give up all technology from steam power on up. And they all think they have direct divine approval. Needless to say, debates are low on logic and high on rhetoric. Except when they’re even higher on assassinations and sabotage.”
Since I hadn’t actually asked for all of this detail, his outburst came as a surprise. I had a feeling this was a sore spot with him.
“Why do people put up with it? This sounds like a version of hell.”
The doctor sighed. “I am granted a lot of latitude when working with replicants, but if I were to repeat some of my statements outside of this building, I would be up for immediate re-education. That consists essentially of operant conditioning, reinforced by direct brain and nerve stimulation of the thalamus, amygdala, and vagus nerve. When the Ministry of Proper Thought is done with you, you will go into spasms from simply thinking an unacceptable thought.”
Dr. Landers stood up. “Sorry to be so negative, Bob. Ministry visits are traumatic at the best of times, and in this case, we’ve got a lot riding on you. And the other replicants.”
Huh. ‘A lot riding on us’ doesn’t go with ‘driving a garbage truck’. I wonder when he’ll spill the beans.
He picked up his tablet. “I’ve set up a simulation exercise for you today. We will cut off your real I/O and establish a number of virtual reality interfaces. I’ll also add access to one of those libraries I mentioned. You can exit the simulation any time it becomes too much for you, just by querying your GUPPI.”
The doctor poked at his tablet…
***
I found myself floating in nothingness. I immediately queried my GUPPI for available interfaces. GUPPI returned with a list of video/audio feeds, a reactor control interface, a traffic control interface, and an environmental control interface. I also found a library interface. I queried the meaning of GUPPI.
[General Unit Primary Peripheral Interface]
Lame.
The mission summary indicated that I was in control of a space station. That was interesting. I wondered if I was training for something space-based. I had a look around, using whatever feeds I had available. A quick check of the library indicated that the simulation was an accurate representation of real-life locations. The fact that FAITH even allowed actual space stations earned them some brownie points in my book.
The station seemed to service military and transport vessels. I couldn’t find any indication of the existence of tourists. Space tours and space hotels would have meant that interplanetary travel was a safe and routine experience, ripe for commercial ventures.
The library did reference a number of military and scientific stations, and even a colony or two on the moon and Mars. Well, better than nothing, but not hugely impressive for a hundred years of elapsed time.
I queried my location and duties. The scenario consisted of a space station in geosynchronous orbit, with me in charge of the power, traffic control, and environment. As an engineer, this was right up my alley.
I also had an Escape button, in case I needed to abort the scenario. It took me very little time to establish the requirements for my control duties. I determined boundary parameters for each and instructed GUPPI to interrupt me if anything fell outside of specs. I expected there would be lots of emergencies.
I then dove into the library in earnest.
Bob – July 19, 2133
“Dammit!”
Dr. Landers leaned back with a surprised expression. “Problem, Bob?”
“Sorry, doc. I was reading up on current electrical engineering standards. You yanked me in mid-paragraph.”
Dr. Landers looked down at his tablet and cleared his throat. “Ah, yes. Bob, you’ve been in that simulation for two days subjective time. During that period, nothing went outside of specs, despite everything we threw at you. That’s very impressive. The logs from your GUPPI indicate that you’ve set up some interesting monitoring interfaces and scripts. Our software people are jumping around in excitement. Several of them have asked to keep a copy of you.”
“Is that possible?”
“Technically, of course it is. We back you up every night. Just a matter of doing a restore, assuming we had a matrix of our own big enough to hold you.” The doctor blew out a breath and shrugged. “Unfortunately, FAITH owns you, as they are financing this project. So we don’t have a lot of leeway.”
“On that subject, when are you going to tell me what I’m being groomed for?”
Dr. Landers cocked his head. “What one of you is being groomed for. There’s still one other candidate.”
“Wait, we lost two more? When?”
“One was due to a psychotic break a few days ago, and the other was determined by
Minister Travis to be unsuitable.”
“Oh. What happened to him?”
“Purged. No reason to save it, once the Ministry said no.”
Wow. Even Dr. Landers is pretty matter-of-fact about this. They just killed someone. I couldn’t afford to let my feelings show, though. At least some of the evaluations were going to be subjective, and I didn’t want to alienate anyone.
“So, the final goal of this whole exercise…”
“Soon, Bob. Right now, I’d like to talk to you about your previous life. You handled two days subjective in a simulation with no human contact at all and were irritated when I pulled you out. Silly question, perhaps, but would you consider yourself a loner?”
I chuckled. “Let me tell you a little story. There was a movie out a number of years ago called Castaway.” [133 years ago]. Chrissake, GUPPI. Shut it. “Heard of it?”
Dr. Landers shook his head. “It is part of my job to study and understand your era, but I can’t watch every single movie ever produced.”
“And so many stinkers, too. Really, if you’re up on Star Wars and Star Trek, you’re golden. Anyway, back to Castaway… Cliff Notes version, a guy gets shipwrecked on a desert island for four years. I watched the video with a girlfriend. Afterward, she described it as a nightmare. I was surprised, because I’d been thinking of it as a fantasy. Four years of no interruptions. Of course, it would have been more enjoyable with something to read.” I waved my waldo in what I hoped was a human gesture. “Point is, that’s when I really realized that I don’t think like most people. I’m fine with solitude. In fact, I get antsy when I’m around people for too long a period without respite.”
The doctor took a deep breath, put his tablet down, and leaned back in his chair. He looked pensive for a few moments, then leaned forward on his elbows. “Okay, Bob. That’s about what I thought, but it’s nice to have confirmation. So, here’s the bottom line. Do you know what a Von Neumann probe is?”
“Yes, of course. It’s an automated interstellar probe that builds copies of itself as it visits systems.” There was a moment of silence as my brain caught up with the conversation. Oh… “Wait, are you saying—?”
“That is correct. We are preparing one of you to be the controlling intelligence for a Von Neumann probe.”
***
I watched through several video feeds as the small roamers reassembled a 3D printer that I’d been required to diagnose and repair. Roamers, it turned out, came in various sizes, from a huge monster spider eight feet across, through the medium-sized units that I had access to, right down to something the side of a gnat. Below that size, nanites were available, but they were single-purpose devices with very limited flexibility.
At the moment, I was working on coordinated activities using several different sizes of roamers. The 3D printer was only one of many challenges I’d been given.
The roamers required minimal supervision once the tasks and dependencies had been laid out. The trick was to figure out the proper level of detail in the instructions—to avoid errors from giving too much leeway without micromanaging them to a standstill.
Without my kibitzing they could do any job up to ten times as fast, so I tried to lay out the plan and then stay out of the way. Once I figured out how to define conditions under which the roamers would interrupt me, even active supervision became optional.
While they worked, my mind wandered. Once Dr. Landers had spilled the beans, he had made some of the project documents available to me. I hadn’t been this impatient since the day I signed the papers for the sale to Terasoft. Every second had dragged on that day, and every millisecond dragged now. I wanted today’s training to be over so I could concentrate on studying and reading. The doctor’s little robot was going to be enthusiastically cooperative from now on. Oh my God, this is like every nerd’s dream job. I could be going to the stars!
Bob – July 25, 2133
“Things are going to hell.” Dr. Landers looked uncharacteristically angry. “The FAITH factions that want our project shut down went ballistic when we announced that we had some viable candidates for Project HEAVEN. They’ve teamed up—”
“Wait, Project Heaven? Project Heaven? I’m afraid to ask.”
“Habitable Earths Abiogenic Vessel Exploration Network. Please remember that I don’t think these things up.”
“That’s really not bad, in a horrid kind of way. I guess it will in fact be an abiogenic vessel. But network? How many will be going out?”
Dr. Landers stared into space, looking slightly embarrassed. “Originally it was eight. Then four, then one, as project funding was rebudgeted, or simply redirected elsewhere. As I was saying, there are several factions that don’t want this to happen for various reasons: some don’t like replicants, some don’t like the idea of spreading off Earth, some consider the idea of a vessel that can build more of itself to be blasphemous. And so on.” The doctor sighed and sat silently for a moment, a frown on his face.
“We are also in competition with other countries such as the United States of Eurasia to locate and claim new Earths. Many in FAITH see this as an unnecessary drain on our resources. All these groups have one common goal, though—scuttling the project.”
Dr. Landers shook himself and consulted his tablet. “I’ve given you complete project and library access, as discussed. Getting you ready is a critical path task, so anything you can do to help move this along will be, ah, helpful.”
He got up and began to pace. “There’s one other thing, Bob. There are many possible reasons for special-interest groups to get the project pared down to one vessel, but we believe the main reason we really have to worry about is that one vessel provides a convenient single point of failure.”
“Sabotage?”
“Something like that. We have nothing concrete. I just thought you should know.”
Without further discussion, the doctor picked up his tablet and left.
***
I’d been thinking about the previous discussion, and I had some questions for the doctor. My opportunity came at the end of a lesson on controlling 3D printers.
“Doctor, I want to talk about politics.”
Dr. Landers laughed. “Okay, Bob. What’s on the agenda?”
“You mentioned the United States of Eurasia earlier. I’ve been reading about the current geopolitical situation, and it’s a lot different from my day. The name of the USE is a little grandiose. They don’t really cover anywhere near all of Eurasia.”
“Yes, but the old USA didn’t cover all of America, either. Not even all of North America.”
I waved my waldo in a dismissive gesture. “Okay, fine. From what the library says, it looks like there’s been a lot of consolidation. FAITH controls all of North America except for Washington state, British Columbia and Alaska. The USE covers all of Europe and most of western Russia. China absorbed most of eastern Russia and a lot of the former Asian satellite countries. And the Middle East…” I left the sentence hanging.
“Not surprisingly, the development of cheap nuclear fusion had a huge impact on the Middle East.” The doctor poked idly at his tablet as he talked. “The rich families such as the Saudi royalty had long since diversified their investments, so they didn’t become paupers, but the tradition of oil exports paying for government programs ended rather abruptly. It essentially triggered what some alarmists insisted on calling World War III. It was really little more than a series of brush wars for most of the planet. In the Middle East though, it was a blood-bath, and Geneva Convention limitations were mostly ignored. Chemical weapons, dusting with radioactive isotopes, pocket nukes… Most of the Middle East is still uninhabitable, and what’s left is certainly not a significant world player.”
“What surprises me,” I replied, “is how much consolidation happened. FAITH, the USE, China, The Australian Federation, the Republic of Africa—a laughable irony of a name if I’ve ever seen one—and the Brazilian Empire. They all account for maybe 80% of the planet. The remaining sma
ll countries are either not worth fighting over, like the Middle East, or they’re buffer states that no one is willing to make a move on, like Cascadia.”
“Did you have a specific question, Bob?”
“Now that you mention it, yes.” I wanted to smile. I was constantly irritated with my minimal external presence. “How many of these nations are also running probe projects?”
“Ah.” The question seemed to hit home. Dr. Landers looked very uncomfortable and took a moment before he answered. “We know of projects by the USE, China, The Brazilian Empire, and ourselves. We suspect that Australia also has one, but if so they’ve hidden it well.”
“So, pretty much everyone.”
The doctor shrugged. “As soon as the breakthrough in subspace theory that allowed the SURGE drive and SUDDAR was formulated, the concepts of not only Von Neumann probes but also interstellar colonization became possible. The USE started their interstellar probe project two years ago to much fanfare and national chest-thumping, and everyone else had to follow suit. Can’t let the other guy colonize the universe unchallenged, no?”
“Two years? So this is really new stuff?”
“Indeed. Other than prototypes, there are as yet very few SURGE-equipped vessels in active service.”
I was silent for a few moments, thinking about that. So this project was very much a proof-of-concept. They didn’t even know for sure if the probe would work over interstellar distances. Outstanding.
“But why the big push? This is like the moon race on steroids.”
“Officially, it’s about spreading humanity to other worlds, of course, and the national prestige that goes along with it. But tensions are high between nations, and have been for some decades. This whole subject is seen as a zero-sum game, and to a large extent, it is. Each world that we claim is a base of operations denied to everyone else. It’s also a base of operations outside the range of surveillance or attack. Unofficially, there’s a large military component to the push.”
We Are Legion (We Are Bob) (Bobiverse Book 1) Page 4
