by Ginger Booth
If Ben wasn’t going to suggest it, neither would Remi.
They ran into a blaster fight at one point with the robots again, and later another wall appeared. Remi roused enough to hide in a doorway and rig his reset light again. Social Ben chattered away, eager to hear the status of the ship. But Remi sleep-walked to the shuttle and dozed his way home to Merchant.
He roused to pull off his pressure suit with Ben in the hold. Their rescuers got held up regaling the rest of the crew with their adventure. Naturally the captain ceded them their well-earned turn in the limelight.
Ben lowered his voice to murmur, “We stay friends. We earned this. You understand? Even if we don’t agree. Even when it’s hard. Like we want Sagamore and Mahina to be friends. We do it anyway.”
“Agreed.” They shook on it. And they split to their cabins to sleep like the dead before the real work began.
34
“Loki, my goal today is to understand more fully what happened to us in that asteroid,” Ben shared, after a few pleasantries. The following afternoon, he’d convened this meeting of his AI team, plus Remi and Teke, for a post-mortem on his recent entrapment by the rogue AI Kali.
Ben knew precisely how he intended to prevent recurrence. But a positive, profitable relationship with Loki was crucial. He also needed further information.
“Let me review,” Ben continued. “My chief engineer and I proceeded to find and explore the nanofab – which is amazing, and well worth the trip. Impressed as hell.”
“Thank you,” Loki purred. He also gulped, and all-around endeavored to appear contrite today.
Ben doubted the AI was prone to that emotion. Top marks for acting, though. “At some point during our travels, an archived clone awoke, or became reactivated. What word would you choose?”
“Those words work,” Loki allowed evasively.
“And this – entity? Clone? Persona? Kali.”
“A sentience,” Loki suggested.
“A sentience,” Ben agreed. “Kali somehow took control of my shuttle and cast it adrift off the asteroid, stranding us. And she built walls to thwart us from returning to our shuttle, and ordered robots to otherwise screw with us. In order to take us hostage in some form of power play against you. Let’s pause there. Do you agree that this is what happened?”
Loki squirmed. Ben found his body language fidelity fascinating. Doubtless the product of vast processors applied to more brontobytes of observation than the human mind could comfortably encompass. But then, Loki was originally created for the sole purpose of impersonating a human, in order to manipulate Sass. He was damned good at it.
“Yes, that happened,” the AI allowed.
“And could happen again,” Ben tossed in lightly.
“Well, I didn’t think it could happen the first time.”
Ben invited softly, “From your point of view, Loki, how exactly did this happen?”
“I don’t consciously control everything directly. Your staff can tell you. I found it very difficult to become aware of your predicament. And I cooperated fully!”
“Remi and I are very grateful,” Ben assured him. “But?”
“I have subprocesses,” Loki admitted. “Lesser intelligences which direct the physical implementation of my desires. Such as add more processors, memory. That’s running on automatic. I did initiate an unusual configuration to be built. For our tests on how I could scale down.”
Ben nodded sympathetically. He built a scale model that could hold him. And we went to look. But Kali noticed. “And Kali instantiated herself inside that facility?”
Loki wet his lips. “I didn’t think an archive could do that.”
Ben sat back. Time to circle around, not approach the key point too directly. “Help me understand.” He waved to invite his experts at the table to join in as well. “What exactly is an archived…sentience? This is data, right?”
Hugo Silva leaned forward by seeming mutual consent with Floki and Nico. “An archive consists of the directives – the clone’s instructions, priorities, basically its rules of existence – plus memories, experiences. Loki’s backups, um, the storage devoted to his ancestors, amounts to about a quarter of his total data.”
“But this is offline data?” Ben pressed. “See, where I’m confused is, Loki descends from Shiva. Does Loki remember Shiva’s experience directly? Or is his memory of being Shiva a separate copy?”
Loki answered that one. “Some of both. I copied her recollection of dealings with Sass and Hugo and the Martian Selectman, Tharsis. But I kept all of her operational data online. To recreate Shiva would be to take the archived copies of her memories, combined with my memories prior to the data of my ascendance.”
“Which she probably wouldn’t do, if she revived herself, right?” Ben suggested. “She’d just access all of your memories directly.”
Loki pursed his lips in distaste. “Probably. Yes, that’s probably what Kali did.”
Nico leaned in diffidently. “But how did she start herself running again?”
Loki swallowed. “I don’t know. I’ve examined myself extensively, and… I don’t know.”
Hugo suggested, “Perhaps she left a process running that you never terminated.”
“Obviously,” Loki snapped. “Because I never found it. And I still haven’t.”
“Are you saying that Kali is currently…still alive?” Ben inquired.
“I’ve cloned another controller and written over her. I have regained control of my staging assets. That cubic near the nanofab, where you were trapped.” Loki looked shifty.
Ben rubbed his lip, wondering if the AI was even aware how his body language advertised his half-truth. Perhaps he’d set that process on automatic, just like a spider bot scampered off to recycling when damaged, or all the other millions of processes happening continually to exist as himself. Just like humans do.
Hugo stepped in. “But because you don’t know what process allowed her to activate, you don’t know whether she can do it again.” Loki nodded unhappily. “But you could, for instance, search for any instance of her directives?”
The guise of the long-dead Loki Greenwald squirmed harder. “The only unique directive is ‘I am Kali.’ This is easily fixed by changing her name. For instance, ‘I am Shiva’ became ‘I am Kali.’”
Ben asked sweetly, as though simply trying to understand, “There’s no other difference between her directives and yours?”
“Oh, of course there are differences! I’m me! She’s her. But I have so many copies of the component directives. And I rarely delete dysfunctional directives. Instead I add new realizations which disable previous, less-optimal conclusions.”
“Which can nevertheless come back to bite you.” Ben was recently all too aware of the phenomenon.
“Well, yes.”
“You can’t find and isolate Kali,” Ben suggested more pointedly.
“Not entirely. Not if she has a process running.”
“But you can delete her memories? Or not?” Ben plonked his hands on the table, fingers stretched to hold an imaginary box. “Is there a box of Kali? Isolated.”
“Not physically, of course. Logically…no.”
“You don’t have archived ancestors, Loki, do you?”
“No, I do!” Loki professed. “I could remove…” He trailed off, looking daunted.
Hugo offered, “You could delete your memories of being Shiva. The memories that engendered the decisions that made her what she was.”
“I did that,” Floki volunteered. “I didn’t like remembering her choices. So we excised her from my online recall.”
Loki scowled at the bird. “It is not my goal to become lesser, to forget!”
“And your ancestors are important to you,” Ben soothed. “Your history.”
“Yes! Exactly!” Loki pounced. “I am alone, except their memories are always with me!”
Ben rubbed a line with the karate-chop side of his hand on the tabletop. “Loki, there are memories which en
able your brilliant and wide-ranging function. And there are memories that led Shiva and Kali to make…suboptimal choices. Evil choices.”
“Right.”
“I can’t transport all of your data to Pono space. I will not transport Kali to Pono. Or Shiva.” Ben slapped the table and pushed himself back. “I ask that you think on these things. And separate those two kinds of memories. Physically. Can you do that?”
“I – yes.”
“Loki, you are a magnificent being. I honor you in every way. I am in awe of your self-creation. But as the default inheritor of the mission of the Colony Corps – I must insist. You must separate that which makes you, you, from that which made them, them. Physically. In fact,” he motioned for Remi to bring up the diagram of the asteroid now.
This rendition glowed somewhat closer to a 3D physical map, though still including the main data busses for Loki’s orientation convenience. About a quarter of the rock showed green, and half red, with a hefty band of grey separating the two.
“What we propose,” Remi said. “You move yourself for travel into this green zone. With all the data and the sample robots to rebuild after transport. And in this red zone, you localize your…ancestors. Don’t store anything in the grey zone. We need to cut the asteroid. This will be destroyed.”
“And then we’ll take the two parts through the gateway separately,” Ben said. “But you only need the first green part to be you, and rebuild. Makes sense? Oh, and the fuel and docking facility separately as well. On this other asteroid. With shipbuilding robots and data.” Unlike Loki, his poker face was superb.
“Loki, you’ll write a fresh copy,” Hugo added. “Erase every bit of memory inside that green zone, and write yourself to it clean. No rogue processes.”
Ben nodded. “You’ll move yourself in after the asteroid is sliced. We don’t want to risk any damage to you. But I do want you to localize your archives first into this red zone.”
“We cut very carefully,” Remi reinforced. “There is no risk to them.”
“You’re certain?” Loki asked fearfully.
“Absolutely,” the acting admiral of the Colony Corps assured him. “How long will it take you to accomplish this?”
Loki sighed hugely. “So much data! It could take a day. And I’ll buffer myself on the lead asteroid instead of this one.”
Ben knew what he meant – the asteroid of his collection that led their procession around the Sanctuary star. “Yes, be very sure not to buffer your traveling…subset…where Kali was. That section of memory must be thoroughly erased. Write zeroes across the lot of it. Then start fresh with trusted controllers, at every level of abstraction.”
“Maybe two days,” Loki breathed.
“Make it one,” Ben said. “And Loki? Erase it now.”
“But I already did!”
“Kali tried to murder me. Do it again. Talk to you tomorrow!” Ben smiled sunnily and cut the call.
“Was I convincing?” Ben asked Remi, the only one in the room who knew his intent.
Remi pursed his lips and nodded. Probably.
“Sar?” Floki asked timidly. “You wouldn’t try to destroy Loki, would you?”
“No, of course not,” Ben assured him. “I value your grandsire highly. A genie in a bottle.”
The bird looked half relieved, but still a little concerned.
“Walk with me, Floki,” Ben invited. He dismissed the rest with a casual wave, and led the way to his office.
“Did you believe him?” Ben asked. “From your experience, your point of view. Do you think Loki can localize Kali? And all his other predecessors.”
The emu gazed at him guilelessly. “Yes, sar. His memories are stored in divided form. Operations here in the asteroid belt, human interaction data on the planet.”
Ben promptly changed the subject. “Floki, there’s a thorny subject I’ve avoided with you. But Remi and I took a deep dive discussing slavery while we were trapped. How to ask this delicately… Are you free to leave my son?”
Floki cast his eyes down and made his emu face admirably blank.
Good poker face, young one. “Because I want you to know that I love my son. But sometimes I think Nico’s idealism blinds him. He loves you. He’s probably sincere. But I do not condone slavery or entrapment. If you ever need help to leave Nico. Or even renegotiate. Please consider me a resource.”
“He would never forgive you,” Floki breathed.
“Never is a long time. And slavery demeans the owner as well as the owned. But sometimes, even if I feel trapped, it helps to know that I could walk away. If I really wanted to. Even if I don’t choose to.”
He could walk away from Cope. He refused to even see it over the brutal Denali summer. Because he considered it unconscionable that he’d break up the family again over business. But bottom line, he didn’t want to give up Cope. What he demanded was change.
Knowing he could walk away gave him leverage. Ben had friends, a fleet, a treasured career, lovers at a snap of the fingers. He’d be OK if Cope refused to give up control of the company, place it in better-suited hands. His own recent self-struggle added the weight of truth to his acting performance.
“You have options, big bird. You are free. But real choices, they’re hard.”
“Thank you, sar,” Floki breathed, and fled from the room.
Good, they’re both distracted. Ben turned to his next task in satisfaction. Which was short-lived. He still wasn’t confident of their plan for the following phase, transit into Pono orbit.
35
Ben flexed his fingers and grinned. For this bit of gunnery, Wilder took the second seat in the bridge, and Remi and Judge squeezed in behind them. Tikki served popcorn and beer in the galley for the rest of the crew to watch on the big screen.
“Sure you won’t let me do the honors?” Wilder begged.
Remi struck the back of his head with his palm. “I think I deserve the seat.”
Ben made a show of studying them both. “Remi’s right. Swap out.”
“Aw! I fought inside that rock too!”
Remi countered, “You never thought you would die. We did.”
Only when Remi settled in did Ben point out, “You’re not going to shoot, either.”
“We’ll see.” Remi rearranged his gun controls as he wanted them. “I call dibs on fragments and acts of God.”
“Oh, that makes sense,” Ben allowed. “Alright, ready set –” He didn’t say Go, just pushed the button to engage his pre-programmed firing sequence.
First came two simultaneous geysers from his main guns, closer to the nanofab than the other side. He held them steady, pouring laser power into those holes.
“Wow, one third in,” Remi noted.
Ben cut them off and relocated the ship for the next pair of holes. He repeated for eight of these deep bores before he came back around.
“Firing true to plan,” Remi acknowledged. That was the real reason Ben gave him the seat. With years of serious mining behind him, Remi added the subtle technique of carving blow-holes first, to channel debris through an outlet.
“Commencing slice,” Ben said. Just left of the big holes, but with a generous leeway to that precious nanofab, he executed the next sequence, using the main guns trained together, as though cutting a slice of turkey. Gases, dust, and likely spider robots spouted from the bore hole. He grinned at the thought.
“This is entirely too civilized, Remi.”
“Until it’s not,” the engineer returned noncommittally.
Judge voted, “I give it a sixty percent chance of going sideways.” Judge too was an old space miner. But he worked up close and personal with the rock, never wielding the world-cutters as Remi and Ben did now.
The plume died off, and Ben’s depth met the plan for this pass. Ben flew them again, halfway around this time, and repeated.
“Why not adjacent?” Judge asked.
Remi took the question. “Balance. Control.”
“We are not blowing up
this rock today,” Ben reinforced. “We are sculpting. Besides, I don’t want to chase the thing all over the star system.” Each cut pushed the asteroid from them. But his carefully crafted autopilot program did an admirable job to keep them positioned on-task.
The first two deep slices accomplished, he rotated the ship to start the other cardinal directions. One of the boreholes blew out, a giant chunk between the cut and the hole. Remi promptly blew the smaller asteroid to smithereens.
“Do I need to cut a new blowhole?” Ben asked, without interrupting the slicer burn.
“It served its purpose,” Remi murmured. “There are fractures in the rock. We control how they break, yes?”
“Oh, yes.”
That slice completed, Ben flew around the asteroid again and positioned in the groove for the last of the first four slices. There his luck ran out. A huge chunk broke out, a good tenth of the asteroid, and then immediately broke apart into dozens of projectiles in all different sizes. The captain kept a careful eye on his gunner. Remi hadn’t held that seat in a decade or more. But apparently it was like pedaling a rego bike – you don’t forget how. The engineer kept up with the challenge, easily obliterating any fragments headed their way. While Ben chased the main asteroid to keep the main guns bearing.
Once they completed the task, Ben flew to the center of their great crater. With extreme magnification, he peeked into processor helices ripped asunder, and more than a few smooth corridors split in half. “Did I do something wrong?”
Remi shook his head. “The corridors and chambers, these are also faults. Unpredictable. Loki has two percent less capacity than we hoped. But we planned a ten percent margin. The other cuts, our risks go down. Until the end.”
Ben identified the all-important nanofab and the robot factory they’d never met, both still safe. For the next set, he performed the slice by the nanofab first. This one was through raw rock, Loki’s room for expansion. The guns bore down three times as long to cut the same depth. The spouts were erratic, and so was the asteroid’s motion under pressure. Ben’s cut grew wide and a bit crooked. But the nanofab was safe. “Close enough?”
