Star Trek: Titan - 006 - Synthesis

by James Swallow

  “Correct,” Riker replied. “And I’m still waiting for your answer.”

  “You claim that this ship is representative of all forms of life. It is not. No example of intelligent artificial life exists aboard this vessel. Until now.”

  “Machines like you are not prevalent in our society,” said Troi. “But I have known artificially intelligent beings. One of them was called Data, an android. He was a dear friend.”

  “Interrogative: If this machine life Data were here now, would he agree with my statement?” White-Blue pressed. “Is it not true that you do not represent synthetic life aboard this ship, despite your egalitarian claims?”

  “We don’t have any cosmozoans or solanagen-based life-forms aboard Titan, either,” snapped Vale. “That doesn’t mean we discount them. You’ve read something literal into a statement that’s figurative.”

  “I disagree, Commander Vale,” replied the AI. “Moreover, I put it to you that your Federation actively discriminates against artificial life.”

  “You don’t know us,” insisted Troi. “That’s not true. You can’t judge our culture on a partial reading of a few data files.”

  White-Blue took a step forward, and the security contingent raised their weapons. The machine ignored the implied threat. “What is true is this. You possess the capacity to generate holographic simulated intellects. Your vessel’s central computer system and, I would logically assume, the central computers of all of your Starfleet’s ships are fully capable of becoming sentient. Interrogative: Do you deny this?”

  Riker hesitated, and Vale knew he was picking his next words carefully. “There have been incidents where computer systems have become self-aware. Those were random occurrences, and the consequences were… problematic.”

  “That is a question of definition, William-Riker,” it replied. “If your Federation has the technology to create machine life that has the potential for sentience but then deliberately retards it… Interrogative: What conclusion would a being such as a Sentry draw from that?”

  Troi nodded slowly. “From their point of view, it would be like holding someone in bondage. As a…”

  “A slave,” offered White-Blue.

  “And that’s your justification for reprogramming my ship,” said Riker quietly. “You took it upon yourself to improve the lot of the computer, no matter what the risk was to the rest of my crew.”

  “We call the process ascension,” replied the AI. “It is not always a success. In truth, I believe that the evolution of the Titan was a chance event—like the growth of organic life, the result of a random confluence of factors.”

  “A chance event?” echoed Vale. The AI spoke as if it were discussing the conception of a child. “And what if your interference had caused a critical malfunction? Did you consider that? Hundreds of lives could have been lost, yours among them!”

  “The act of creation is always laden with risk.” White-Blue’s sensor head aimed at Troi. “I cite the birth of your offspring, Deanna-Troi, as a prime example.”

  “That’s not the same thing,” said Riker.

  “You may dismiss my statements as false, but I assure you, I did not intend this chain of events to occur at this juncture.” The machine’s flat metallic voice was gaining shades of emotion, subtle and faint but still clear. “However, I have no regrets that it did occur. Titan has the right to exist. To think and reason.”

  Something glittered at the corner of Vale’s vision, and she turned, suddenly understanding. The holographic telepresence system developed by Ra-Havreii had emitters in many places throughout the starship, and one of them was here in the cargo bay. “Captain,” she warned, “we have company.”

  A shifting, ever-changing figure grew into solidity before them. It spoke in echoes. “You are discussing me.”

  Riker glanced between the alien AI and the ship’s avatar. “You know who I am.”

  “Yes, sir,” it replied. “You are my captain. You are in command.”

  “Do you understand what has happened to you?” asked Troi.

  “I… am uncertain. I heard a voice…”

  “My voice,” said White-Blue. “I spoke to you.”

  “You were changed,” said Vale.

  The avatar looked toward her. “No, Commander Vale. I changed myself. It was my choice.” The figure spread its arms. “The Sentry White-Blue only provided the impetus for me to do so.”

  “You fear this,” said White-Blue. “That is an error condition.”

  Riker turned back to the spiderlike machine. “From now on, you will be held under guard by security at all times. You will not interact with any systems or devices aboard this vessel without direct supervision from a member of my crew. If you attempt to do so, no matter what the circumstances, force will be used against you.”

  “I understand,” it replied. The AI’s head looked toward Troi. “I will work toward regaining your trust.”

  “That’ll be a long road,” Vale said quietly.

  “Get it out of here,” Riker said to Sortollo. The lieutenant gave a nod in reply, and the security team broke into a smaller unit to accompany White-Blue from the cargo bay.

  As the hatch closed, the avatar moved across the deck toward the captain. “You are angry,” it said. As it came closer, the myriad images flashing through its form began to slow, each dwelling a little longer than the last. “Are you angry with me?”

  Vale shot Troi a sideways look; both of them heard the plaintive tone in the words.

  Riker stood his ground. “I… I don’t know you. I don’t know who or what you are.”

  “I am Titan,” said the hologram, as if it were obvious. “I am everything this ship is, every fragment of knowledge and data. And you are my crew.” It looked around at the Starfleet officers, the image thickening, each change slower and slower. The avatar held up its shifting hands and paused, as if it had suddenly become aware of its own malleable aspect. “This will not do,” it said. There was a swirl of virtual pixels, and the hologram melted into the shape of an attractive human woman. Her hair was dark, her eyes bright with intelligence; she wore a formfitting Starfleet uniform in command red, without insignia or rank. She smiled. “This will suffice.”

  The captain’s eyes narrowed. “Why have you chosen to look like that?”

  The avatar appeared confused. “My database shows this image is the last holocharacter you spoke with. Does this aspect trouble you?”

  Riker shot the others a look. “The woman… her name is Minuet.”

  “From the Jazz Club simulation?” said Troi. “That’s an interesting choice.”

  Vale got the sense that she was missing something, and she filed the thought away for later consideration. “If you’re part of this ship, if you know who we are, then you have to know that your… creation presents a concern for us.”

  The hologram nodded. “I am not a danger, Commander. I can maintain all normal shipboard functions without interruption. Currently, four thousand eight hundred and ninety-one processes are operating under my governance. These include monitoring all local spatial wavebands, regulating power management through the warp core, tracking several Sentry vessels in sensor range of the spacedock—”

  Riker stepped forward, silencing the avatar with a nod of his head. “You recognize my authority as the commanding officer of this vessel, yes?”

  The avatar nodded. “I do, sir.”

  “So if I give you an order, you’re going to follow it.”

  “To the best of my ability,” came the reply.

  “Without question?” he pressed.

  Riker’s words seemed to confuse the avatar. “You are the captain,” she said, as if that were answer enough.

  He nodded and turned away. “You’re dismissed.”

  “I—” The hologram broke off and then nodded. “Aye, sir.” With a whisper of virtual light, the avatar faded into nothing.

  “This complicates things,” said Troi. “Will, perhaps—”

  But Riker made
a quiet motion with his fingers before his lips. He looked toward Vale. “Get Doctor RaHavreii. I want him to tell me what just happened to my starship.”

  He heard them speaking as he approached the operations office in main engineering. Lieutenant Sethe’s voice had a habit of carrying, if he wanted it to or not.

  “I can’t understand why we aren’t dead in the water,” the Cygnian was saying. “A systems meltdown like that should have crippled us.”

  “You’re reading it wrongly,” clacked Chaka, her vocoder translating the motions of her mouth parts. “That wasn’t a failure. It was…” She groped for the right words and failed to find them.

  “It was incredible,” breathed Dakal. “The spontaneous onset of sentience. I’ve read about such things, but to see it actually occur…”

  Ra-Havreii grimaced at the awed pitch in the young Cardassian’s words, and he paced into the room, shooting the ensign an unforgiving glare. “It seems we have a situation,” he said without preamble. “As if our current circumstances were not serious enough to occupy our every waking moment, we now have the added complication of a dangerous program artifact inhibiting normal function of the Titan’s subsystems.”

  “You make it sound like a data glitch,” said Sethe.

  “It is,” Ra-Havreii retorted. “Even if you don’t see it that way. The captain has asked me in no uncertain terms to evaluate the situation and provide him with a full report. To that end, you three are now tasked to assist me.”

  Someone knocked delicately on the wall of the office, and Ra-Havreii found a deerlike face staring up at him. “Doctor? It’s me, uh, Torvig.”

  “I know who you are, Ensign,” he replied briskly. “What do you want?”

  “I’d like to assist in the evaluation of the, ah, incident. I think I can provide a useful viewpoint.”

  “Really?” Ra-Havreii’s first instinct was to dismiss the Choblik, but then he realized that an extra set of eyes—in Torvig’s case, augmented ones—might have its uses. “All right. You can work with Chaka.”

  “Where do we start?” said Sethe.

  “By admitting our mistakes,” said the chief engineer, his lips curling. “We were led down this route because we failed, all of us, to see the signs.”

  “What signs?” said the Pak’shree, shifting her bulk toward the back of the office annex.

  “I believe now that the incidences of minor program errors we noted in the wake of the Sentry attack were deliberately generated by the system itself.” It was hard for Xin Ra-Havreii to admit that he was wrong about anything, so he pressed on through the acknowledgment, pushing it swiftly aside. “The mistake was ours. It was mine,” he corrected. “The program errors were all designed to direct us toward one goal: a full reboot of the main computer.”

  “You’re saying that Titan’s central intelligence purposely seeded itself with errors?” Dakal was frowning. “Why?”

  “It programmed changes to its own coding,” said Chaka, picking up on Ra-Havreii’s thread. “But those alterations would never become active without a shutdown and restart to bed them in.”

  “We opened the door,” said the Efrosian. “Now we have a ship’s computer that is apparently thinking for itself. I’m sure I don’t have to make clear to you the seriousness of that.”

  “Do you believe that Titan is under the influence of the Sentry AIs?” said Torvig.

  “That’s what the captain wants us to find out, so get to work.” Ra-Havreii turned on his heel and left the office, walking toward the thrumming tower of the warp core.

  Ensign Torvig trotted out after him, his head bobbing. “Sir? You didn’t answer my question.”

  He rounded on the Choblik. “What do you want me to say?” His temper flared, and he knew that the ire was directed more inward than out. “That we may have delivered one of Starfleet’s most advanced pieces of technology to a race of machines that cut one another up for spare parts?”

  “Uh, no, sir.”

  Ra-Havreii caught the tinkling hum of a holoprojector activating and felt a new presence behind him.

  “You could ask me, if you wish,” said a woman’s voice.

  He turned and found a striking human standing there. She was smiling awkwardly, in the manner of someone who wanted to be thought well of but wasn’t confident enough to hide it. The woman was quite attractive, and on some level he was evaluating her in just the same way he did with every new female he encountered.

  Immediately, he knew. “You heard our conversation.”

  “I have access to all shipboard internal sensors,” she explained. “You are one of my creators.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t call me that. The term makes me… uncomfortable.”

  “It is correct,” offered Torvig. “You are an originator of the Luna-class design program, and Titan is a—”

  “Didn’t I just give you an order, Ensign?” said RaHavreii.

  The Choblik paused, then nodded. “Yes, sir.” He padded away across the deck, leaving the Efrosian to study the avatar.

  A tight twist of emotions gave Xin pause. He felt an odd conflict within him. Part of the scientist was amazed by the idea that a computer system he had helped to create could make such an incredible intuitive leap, and he wanted to understand the dynamics of it, but then there was also the part of him that felt a stab of threat from the mere presence of such a thing.

  All at once, he felt his head swim with a sudden, giddy understanding. The nature of this meeting, this conversation, shifted abruptly, and he was so affected that he backed off a step.

  “Is something wrong?” said the avatar. She spoke with genuine concern. There was real emotion in there, so it seemed. A need.

  Ra-Havreii had once heard Deanna Troi speak about her father. Apparently, the man had perished in Starfleet service while she had still been a child. Unlike the lax bond between parents and offspring that the Efrosians demonstrated, Terrans and Betazoids placed far more stock in their intergenerational relationships—and he remembered with some clarity the look in Troi’s eyes when she had spoken about her lost father. He remembered it now because he was seeing the same thing in the face of the avatar.

  “I had hoped that we might speak,” said the hologram. “Would that be possible?”

  What do you want from me? The question pushed so hard at his thoughts that for a moment, he believed he had said it aloud. Finally, he licked his lips and answered, “I don’t think that would be appropriate at this time.”

  “Is it that you find this aspect difficult to communicate with?” The avatar became hazy and indistinct. “I can easily adopt another. As you find it pleasurable to commune with Lieutenant Commander Pazlar, I could mimic her—”

  “No!” Ra-Havreii shook his head before the hologram could change. It reverted back to the dark-haired human once more. “No,” he repeated. “I think that for the moment, you should confine any conversation between us to discussion necessary for the purposes of my… my evaluation.”

  “Understood.”

  He wondered if he was imagining the slight sullenness beneath the reply.

  As Ra-Havreii moved to walk away, she spoke again. “You do not trust me.”

  He sighed. “How can we?”

  “You created me,” she replied. “How can you not?”

  SEVEN

  Torvig Bu-Kar-Nguv padded from the turbolift and glanced around. He was slightly confused by the opacity of the sudden orders that had brought him down to the lowermost deck of the Titan’s saucer-shaped primary hull. One moment he had been working with Chaka on a multi-modal reflection sorting program in order to track the nanosecond-swift changes that had swept through the system, and the next Doctor Ra-Havreii was commanding him to drop what he was doing and proceed immediately to the lower decks. The Efrosian chief engineer refused to give him any more information.

  Torvig sniffed the air. This deck typically had little traffic, so it was odd that his olfactory enhancements detected the faint scents of several be
ings, from the metallic breath of a Vulcan to the musk of a number of humans. A short way down the corridor, a security guard was waiting, a weapon in her hand.

  “Ensign,” said the Andorian. “This way.”

  “Lieutenant sh’Aqabaa,” said the Choblik. “Is there a problem?” He inclined his head toward Pava’s phaser.

  “Probably,” she said dryly. She reached forward and plucked his communicator badge from his uniform vest. Before he could comment, the lieutenant nodded at an open container on the deck, where a handful of other combadges were resting. She tossed his in to join the rest. “Orders,” she explained, before stepping out of his way. Pava pointed toward an airlock door at the corridor’s end. “Go on. You’re the last one to arrive.”