by Peter Wood
Akama and Gulara almost disappeared under the amounts of water Sonic sent up but, for the last word, Thom copped the same treatment.
‘What did you mean by status before Thom misinterpreted it?’
‘Thom didn’t really misinterpret, Calen. The status is real and almost unique. The AIs have proclaimed Wirrin a “Friend” and that is a legacy from the very beginning of the relationship between artificial intelligence and humanity. Only twice before have “Friends” been proclaimed.’ Akama ended a protracted moment of introspection with a nod and a curious smile.
‘Wirrin will be recognised as special by every AI he comes in contact with.’
‘Wow! Do you think they’ll call him Great One?’
‘They very well might, Thom. Who knows what an AI will do in any given situation, and he’ll certainly be meeting quite a few in the near future.’
Wondering if this was a reference to something specific, the trio exchanged glances.
‘Yes, Wirrin, there is another reason we’re here today. Gulara is present as your mentor and I will bow to the wisdom of her advocacy. I represent the Council and have a request for you to consider. After last night’s events there was a great deal of discussion about what to do about the rogue scientist, as Thom so aptly refers to him, and it’s very clear that we need to know more about him, particularly the direction he’s taking against non-human intelligence. The AIs from Earth and Mars have made a joint effort to provide us with every piece of information they’ve been able to find so we have an extensive background of his life prior to the move to K74. Our concerns are with his current activities, however, and five of our top information scientists will be examining every facet of his work and research.’ Akama paused. ‘They will be a valuable assistance but the biggest imperative is to be forewarned and prepared should the Cadre direct him to extend his aggression.
‘We need someone to study his background and become expert in all his fields of work, expert enough to guide us in countering anything he might try. Pirramar insists that it should be you, and we quite agree except for the fact that it would be a major intrusion on your life.’
Wirrin agreed about the need for knowledge and his interest flared at the prospect of involvement, then stalled. A major intrusion? He was making it sound so negative. ‘I don’t see why. It’s directly related to my main area of study and I already have a good background in what’s going on. I like working with Pirramar, too, and I think it’s exactly what I should be doing.’
Akama exchanged a look with Gulara. ‘Wirrin, we agree with Pirramar that you’re right for this task. The problem is the degree and length of commitment at this stage of your life. It would involve yet another postponement of your plans to finish Basic Level and immediately shouldering a seriously heavy workload. You would have to fight your way through accelerated EdCom courses in every area the rogue has studied and at the same time work with Pirramar in accessing the K74 Intelligence Systems. I can see you’re eager and feeling obliged to go ahead but we must talk this through thoroughly before you decide.’
Talk they did for over an hour till Wirrin understood, with a mixture of alarm and excitement, exactly how much was involved.
Gulara almost vetoed the proposal at one stage, insisting that Wirrin wasn’t a machine and that at least half his EdCom time should involve classes shared with other students. She very clearly understood, much better than Akama, the ins and outs of EdCom and the difficulties and needs of such a crowded course.
Akama asked Wirrin about his best learning times, and when Wirrin explained about working through the challenges on the Titania trip, he called for Turaku and on the spot asked for his involvement. Turaku agreed, but straightaway said that Pirramar was better suited and offering to take his place.
Gulara called for Pirramar then, and told him she would link him to the sections of EdCom overseeing Wirrin’s courses.
Sonic complicated everything by informing Akama that he wanted to be involved with Wirrin’s learning and research as well.
Throughout all this Wirrin had no doubts at all about his decision, but as the range of things he’d have to do clarified in his mind he wondered more and more if he’d be able to manage. Finally he said, ‘I don’t think I could do all that. There’s too much.’
Gulara allayed his worries by taking every aspect and showing Wirrin how it could be organised into a workable timetable. Another complication was the move to the new living space on Warrakan, which was only two weeks away, and Calen suggested starting the full program when that was settled. Pirramar, surprisingly, supported that, saying concentrated work with Wirrin for the next three or four weeks was actually a priority.
***
‘Wirrin, I hope this doesn’t mean you’ll be working twelve hours a day for the next few years. We’ll never see you, and when we do you’ll be too tired. I don’t think it’s fair.’
‘It won’t be that bad, Calen. We’ll have our activity days together. Gulara made certain of that.’
‘As if! Look how much they already get messed up when Thom’s doing something with the Comet or I’m involved with extra things for Sonic.’
‘We’ll work around it. Gulara and Akama both said they’d help us as much as they could and they really meant it. It’s scary, but it’s like you working extra hard with Sonic for the Meeting Day.’
‘That was four or five weeks. Not forever.’
‘Well, I hope you don’t drop dead from brain exhaustion,’ Thom added. ‘A quarter of what you’re doing would be enough for me. I’m going to see if there’s a protein structure that stops brains wearing out.’
Trust Thom to make them all smile. Secretly, Wirrin wished him success. A protein structure like that sounded perfect.
Chapter 23
‘Wirrin! Wake up!’
Wirrin rolled away in protest. Just a little more sleep, perhaps a few hours, would be heaven.
‘He’s getting worse than you, Calen.’
What? … What were they talking about? Wirrin cracked one eyelid and peered at Thom kneeling beside him on the grav-bed.
‘Go away, Thom. It’s too early.’
‘No it’s not. It’s half an hour after you told us to wake you up.’
‘And Sonic’s in the pool waiting for us.’
Wirrin rolled over and saw Calen watching from the other side of his grav-bed. Half an hour? Sonic? What were they talking about? Oh! Wirrin sat up abruptly and was immediately pushed and pulled to the floor. How could he possibly have slept in on moving day?
‘Get something on and grab your breakfast. Thom’s got it ready and waiting for you, oh Great One’
Wirrin glanced at the time, grabbed his clothes and rushed to the living area where a delicious smell filled the air.
‘Lazybones! We nearly left you behind and be careful or you’ll eat that shirt.’
Sonic’s dolphin version of laughter woke Wirrin fully and he couldn’t help smiling. He probably did look funny, grabbing a great mouthful of food then donning another article of clothing.
Following Calen’s look, Wirrin glanced at the wall display and saw dolphins everywhere in the reach close by – Puck and Flute and the whole pod, waiting while he slept. They would all think it funny and he’d hear about it for the rest of the day.
‘Come on! Let’s go.’
Moments later the excitement started to build as, surrounded by Puck’s pod, the three skimmers headed for the dolphinarium. The atmosphere there would be even more intense, with every other enhanced dolphin on Attunga waiting to be transported to the Comet and then to their new home on Warrakan.
The reach there was in wonderful condition, with its whole marine ecosystem fully established after five months of dolphin-free development. Yajala had overseen all that and reported to Puck and Sonic that it was now the healthiest reach on Warrakan.
Watching the antics and listening to the excited communications made Wirrin wonder anew at their apparent lack of feeling about leaving the reache
s which had been their lifelong home. Sonic had explained that dolphins didn’t quite think that way, instead enjoying the prospect of everything new at the Warrakan reach. Well, they were different; it was as simple as that.
For himself it wasn’t the same. Their shared space on Attunga would always be in his mind as their first home. Calen felt the same. Thom said he didn’t but Wirrin wasn’t sure about that. It wasn’t as if they were completely leaving, though, because it was there for their use any time they went to Attunga. Gulara told them he’d organised that because the pool and translators made it a friendly, familiar base for Sonic if he was visiting, and because Wirrin needed a place for the two days a week of EdCom courses he’d be doing on Attunga.
‘Whoo! Look at this!’
Thom’s call snapped Wirrin out of his reverie. There was only a distance of a couple of hundred metres to the dolphinarium and directly ahead a mass of dolphins was racing straight at the skimmers and Puck’s pod. Wirrin’s heart jumped. They were being charged by an army. The two contingents collided and nearly four hundred dolphins miraculously became one unit. Sonic leapt from the water and the pulse of dolphin calls was cut off abruptly as the flying bodies disappeared beneath the surface.
Calen yelled, ‘They’re crazy!’
They certainly were. It was the same contagious excitement the Earth dolphins had shown, but more intense, and the trio were all laughing as the action approached the dolphinarium landing.
‘They might be too worked up to go on the transporters.’
‘With Sonic and the rangers telling them what to do? No way. They’ve got it all over ordinary dolphins. You watch.’
And of course Calen was right. The transfer to transport modules and the move to the Comet proceeded like clockwork.
The short trip from Attunga, with Thom piloting of course, was unexpectedly dramatic when all the pod leaders reacted strongly to their first sight of space and the growing image of Warrakan on the great display screen. The surge of calls for information and explanation resounding through the control centre caused the humans present to stare in wonder then take in the familiar view themselves with a reawakened sense of appreciation.
The arrival at Warrakan home reach was ordered chaos with dolphin pods joining their rangers in preparation for the move to their varied locations. Puck’s pod didn’t have far to go, being assigned to an area close to the giant dolphinarium and marine research centre, and after meeting with Burilda and Gulara they all set off through the crystal-clear water. Wirrin was struck by just how clear it was – so different without the haze caused by the huge infusion of nutrients to stimulate faster development.
According to Burilda’s reports the whole reach was teeming with life, and the dolphins were going to be amazed at the abundance and variety. Stocks of larger fish had been transferred from the surrounding reaches where there were now more than the Earth dolphins would ever need.
The dolphinarium loomed and Wirrin scanned further on, where only 500 metres away their new living space nestled at the edge of the reach. Two hours from now, after exploring with the pod, the trio would enter and officially take over.
***
‘Of course they got excited, Thom. A reach like this was completely new to them, and it was exuberance more than excitement.’
‘Sounds the same to me … When’s Sonic coming?’
‘Tonight, probably at the usual time. He’s spending the whole day with his pod while they look around.’
The trio was sitting on the new grav-sofa and looking at the view of the reach on the giant display screen, which took up most of the wall fronting the water.
‘It’s so big. I can’t get used to it.’
‘The reach? You’ve seen it so much you should be.’
‘Not the reach. The wall screen. The other one looked like a screen, but this one makes you feel like there’s not even a wall there.’
‘Wirrin, that’s the whole idea.’
‘I know, but it’s three times as wide and a bit higher.’
‘Well, I think it’s incredible and I’m glad we followed Wanna’s advice.’
The planning assistant had arranged the design and construction after hearing ideas from the trio, but he’d had his own suggestions, too.
‘Glad! Is that all, Thom? Remember when you said you wanted a maxi-screen and he suggested this instead?’
Calen laughed because Thom had carried on for days about how unreal something twice as wide as a maxi would be.
‘I know, but he was right. All his ideas were the best.’
Looking round at everything Wirrin could only agree. Despite the huge size of the pool and hence the much bigger space to contain it, their actual living area was very similar to the last one. They’d wanted to keep it that way and Wirrin liked the result.
‘What are you thinking about now, Wirrin?’
‘Nothing special but lots of things, Calen. I know I’m going to like it here when I get used to the extra space.’
‘You’d better like it. We might still be here in another hundred years.’
Thom and Wirrin both looked at Calen in surprise.
‘I suppose so. I’ve never thought like that. We’ve always had a change ahead of us,’ said Wirrin.
‘Well, I don’t want any changes for a while. We’ve dreamed about Warrakan for years and now we’re here.’
‘There are always changes, Calen. Freedom’s arriving in another four months and I know about another change right now that will affect you more than me and Thom.’
‘What?’
‘We won’t see Turaku as much because Yajala looks after dolphins here.’
‘Yes we will. Well, I will, because he and Yajala work together, and you will, Thom, whenever you’re controlling the Comet, because Turaku’s built into it. I don’t know about you, Wirrin.’
‘Calen, I’ll probably see him more than either of you. Pirramar and I contact him all the time about the dolphin plans on K74 and what’s happening with the reaches at Freedom and Uranus.’
‘What’s been happening on K74, Wirrin? You haven’t told us.’
‘There’s nothing to tell. They’re still building the reach and they won’t finish for ages. They’re so slow at building things it might take another year.’
‘That’s good then, but what slowed them down? I remember you said five months.’
‘What do you think? They killed their AI didn’t they, without realising how much efficiency they’d lose. Everything’s taking longer.’
Calen frowned. ‘That means their dolphins will be stuck in tiny aquariums for ages. I hope they’ll be all right.’
‘Didn’t Burilda tell you? They haven’t got any. The blockade stopped that and the Earth AIs won’t let anyone else send any. They’ll have to go to Earth and collect them for themselves.’
‘No she didn’t, but then I didn’t ask. We’ve been so busy getting ready for this move.’
‘Hey, Sonic’s getting strong isn’t he? He nearly kept up with those three big males when they were racing.’
‘He’ll beat them all soon, Thom. He’s started a new growth spurt and Yajala thinks it’ll be a couple of months before it steadies. He’s already big for his age and he’s still got years and years of growing. We think he might be half a metre longer than those males eventually.’
Thom looked impressed and he called up life-size holo images of two of the racing males, then with a bit of fiddling enlarged one an extra half metre for comparison.
Wow! Wirrin was impressed now. That would be a very big dolphin.
‘He’ll make the Earth dolphins look like kids. Why are they smaller?’
‘It’s partly an effect of the enhancement process but mostly because Monkey Mia dolphins are a larger variant of bottlenose dolphin than the Earth norm.’
The original stock of Attunga dolphins all came from the Monkey Mia area.
‘Cold-water dolphins can grow up to 4 metres, which is the same size as our Attunga males, but s
ome types are fully grown at two and a half. That’s why we were surprised when we first saw the Earth dolphins.’
Thom was smiling because he’d got Calen started on talking about dolphins, but he was interested too and wanted to know why cold water would make dolphins bigger.
‘A smaller body has to use more energy to keep a proper temperature, so bigger dolphins have a survival advantage when it’s constantly cold.’
‘I’m glad our dolphins like warm water. We wouldn’t be able to swim with them without freezing. Did any of the cold-water ones come on the Comet?’
‘Yes, about seven pods. One of the reaches is set up with the right conditions for them.’
‘So how did they cope with the warm water in home reach for five months?’
‘Good question, Thom. They’re used to big variations and it was like summer for them except it went on for ages.’
‘What happens if you visit them? You’ll freeze.’
‘No I won’t. I’ll use a thermal skin if I need to go right in, but near the interconnects the water’s close to home-reach temperature.’
‘When are you going again? I want to see this,’ said Thom.
‘Not for ages. Settling in with our dolphins is the main focus for a while and we’ll mostly be out there somewhere.’ Calen gestured to the expanse of the reach and they all checked to see if any dolphins were in view.
‘It’s so big. I can’t get used to it,’ Wirrin said.
Thom and Calen exchanged a look and burst out laughing.
‘Time-warp attack!’
‘Brain malfunction!’
‘Stress relief time!’
Under joyful attack from both sides, Wirrin fleetingly wondered if the new grav-sofa would cope as well as the old one.
***
‘Wirrin, what did you do to Sonic yesterday? It seems like he’s gone crazy about InfoSystems. They installed a whole new one for him on the Comet, and Calen says they’re doing the same at the dolphinarium.’
‘They’ve put them in already? Well there’ll be one in our pool too, in a few days. He got frustrated when he saw how slow his ordinary InterWeb was compared to how I do things on my system and he asked Yajala what he could do about it.’
