Orphans of Earth

by Sean Williams

  Alander put his hands over his ears when Axford cranked up the volume. It sounded like a fight between two giant parrots, dropped in pitch.

  ‘Two sets of vocal cords that operate simultaneously,” Axford explained, reducing the volume again. “It’s not so strange when you think about it. There were species of birds back home that sang this way. You can cram a lot of information into the combined sounds, using not just pitch and timbre but interference and counterpoint as well. I’m sure under other circumstances, it could be quite beautiful, but at this point, Charlie wasn’t trying to endear himself to me, I’m afraid. He wanted out. That much was obvious.”

  “Did you communicate with it at all?” Hatzis asked. Her expression was one of cautious fascination as she watched the alien pounding on the walls of his cell, shrieking in harshly dissonant tones that echoed through Pearl. She flinched every time its double voice reached a new peak of intensity.

  Axford shook his head. “The language is simply too complicated,” he said with obvious disappointment. “Besides which, I didn’t get enough of it to make a detailed study. I’ve had a dozen of me working full time on it, but so far we haven’t had any breakthroughs.”

  Alander looked at Axford in mild surprise. He kept forgetting that there were hundreds of the man scattered across Vega, and yet most of the time he spoke as if there was only one of him. But then, as the original Hatzis had said, that was the problem with engrams: it didn’t matter that they were simulations run on software, they were all essentially locked to their original state and could not change. Even if there were a million Axfords, they would all still behave like the original. Deviation would simply not be tolerated.

  If only his engram had been so robust, Alander thought. Just two out of all the systems they had surveyed wasn’t very good odds at finding someone else he could trust.

  The symmetry of the alien continued to bother him. “Could it be an artificial body,” he suggested, “like ours?”

  “Possibly,” Axford replied, nodding. “But then, I’d have to see an original before I could tell the difference.”

  “And that’s where we come in?” Hatzis asked. “You want us to go looking for you? To find out where they come from, perhaps?”

  He shook his head again. “Frankly, where he comes from doesn’t particularly interest me,” he said. “It’s what he’s doing now that matters.”

  A star map appeared, showing Vega and its near neighbors. Some were UNESSPRO targets—including Altair, Kruger 60, and Gamma Serpens—but there were others Alander wasn’t familiar with.

  “Your clone on Sothis,” Axford went on, “she said in her last broadcast that the Roaches had bothered a system not far from here.” The map moved to show Groombridge 1830.

  “Perendi,” said Hatzis, automatically naming the colony. She didn’t seem to take offense at her original being referred to as a clone.

  “Whatever. You also spotted a number of kills, through here.” Axford indicated an area between Vega Mid Groombridge 1830. “Now, there have been two unsuccessful Roach attacks in the last week, but the bait signals I picked up suggest they must have been successful elsewhere. And given that it’s all happening in roughly the same spot—cosmologically speaking, that is—I can’t help but wonder if they have a base somewhere nearby.”

  “But we haven’t seen evidence of any alien installation around here,” said Hatzis.

  “Nor would you if you were looking in the wrong spot,” said Axford. “But maybe the aliens don’t like G- type stars. They could like M- or K- or F-types instead. For all we know, they might even go for brown dwarfs, drifting through interstellar space.”

  “Surely they wouldn’t be able to support life?” said Hatzis.

  “They can support life if their cores are still active,” offered Alander.

  “Maybe,” said Hatzis. “But they’d still be damn near impossible to find.”

  Axford shrugged. “I’m just thinking out loud here,” he said. “I’m not really suggesting we go on a Roach hunt just yet. I have another idea.”

  Alander had thought ahead. “61 Ursa Major,” he said.

  Instead of looking annoyed that Alander had stolen his thunder, Axford seemed delighted. “I’m impressed, Doctor.”

  “Please don’t call me that.”

  Axford frowned. “But that’s your title, isn’t it?”

  “Just Peter will be fine,” he said.

  Both Hatzis and Axford stared at him for a moment, Hatzis with curiosity, Axford in puzzlement. The protest sounded childish and irrelevant even to his own ears, but each time he heard the title, he felt as if everything he had done to make his new self stable was being undone again. “Dr. Alander” had died on Earth in the Spike; he wasn’t entirely sure who he was, yet, but it felt inappropriate to be addressed by someone else’s title. He didn’t think he had earned that right.

  If not for us, then for whom?

  He had rarely thought of his last conversation with Lucia Benck since the destruction of the post-Spike civilization in Sol system. It didn’t have the same resonance as it used to, in the context of the new, hostile universe he’d been thrown into. What did it matter who you were, he thought, when you were only one of a bare handful of humans left anyway?

  Axford shrugged. “Okay,” he said. “If that’s what makes you happy, then Peter it is.” He turned to Hatzis. “And what about you, Caryl? Anything in particular you like to be addressed as? Madam President, perhaps? Or maybe I should be swearing allegiance to your Congress of Orphans?”

  “How did you—?” Hatzis stopped with a furious flush on her face.

  Axford’s laugh echoed through Pearl. “You really should tell your mother superior to find a better way of broadcasting her secrets,” he said. “I’m sure she doesn’t want just anyone listening in, does she?”

  Hatzis’s gazed flicked to Alander, then back. “I’ve no idea what you’re talking about,” she said.

  Alander observed the exchange with fascination. What had Axford caught Hatzis doing? And not just this Hatzis, but all of them. Whatever the Congress of Orphans was, and however the information was being disseminated, he obviously wasn’t supposed to know about it. He would have to take a closer look at the broadcasts from Sothis in the future.

  “When you two have finished,” Alander said, deliberately playing down the matter, “do you think we could get back to the business of 61 Ursa Major?”

  “Right.” Hatzis was obviously relieved that he was changing the subject.

  “If the Spinners are progressing the way we think they are,” Alander went on, “then they’ll be arriving there any time—with the Roaches not far behind them. So, my guess, General, is that you want to set an ambush, right?”

  “Of sorts.” Axford brought the image of the alien back into the foreground. “We have here an important piece of intelligence, but he’s no use unless we can figure out how to talk to him. The Gifts have no record of this species and therefore no record of their language, oral or written. We could try digging magnetic electrodes into its brain—the regions that were most active when it was shouting before might tell us something—but that’s a desperate measure, and a short-term one at best. If Charlie dies, for whatever reason, then we’re right back where we started.”

  “Then what are you proposing?” asked Hatzis.

  “Well, I’m presuming that their hole ships speak to them in their own language and know something about their physical needs,” said Axford. “If we can get close enough to one, I can merge the nodes of the AIs and get my hands on that information. Once we’ve got that, I can use it on Charlie here to make him useful.”

  “You mean torture him?” she asked with distaste.

  “If reviving him, feeding him, and asking him a few questions about where he comes from counts as torture, then, yes, I guess we’ll be torturing him.” Axford’s eyes flashed dangerously. “What do you take me for? I’m not in the CIA anymore, you know.”

  “Yet you deliberately
wiped out your crewmates and—”

  “Okay, okay,” Alander cut in. “Once we talk to it, what then?”

  “Then we see what it has to say, I guess.” Axford leaned back into his chair with a sigh. “Who knows who these people are? Or what they want? That information is our priority, not what we do with it once we’ve got it.”

  “But they haven’t tried to communicate with us before now,” said Hatzis. “Who’s to say they’ll want to communicate with us at all?”

  “I’m aware of that,” he said. “But I don’t see that we have much choice right now.” His gaze studied both of them in turn. “So what do you say? Are you in, or not?”

  “What exactly is it you want us to do?” Hatzis asked after a moment’s consideration.

  “Well, for a start, surveillance will be a whole lot easier with two hole ships rather than one,” he said. “We’ll need to keep a low profile, otherwise they’ll think the gifts have already been opened and move on. Once they are there, then you can distract them while I move in. I don’t know how long it’ll take, so I don’t know how long we have to pin them down for—”

  “Do you even know whether it’s going to work?”

  “Of course not,” he said. “But I figure it’s worth a try. I didn’t know I could merge the AI lobes, either, until I tried it with you. It was just an idea I picked up from something in the library. It paid off, and this might, too. If it doesn’t work, then what’s the worst that can happen?”

  Hatzis stared balefully at him. “They’ll know how to modify their hole ships, too,” she said. “They might also have weapons.”

  “They do, but they’re not invincible.” Axford indicated the alien with a smirk. “Charlie is proof of that,” he said. “And anyway, they’ve shown a marked tendency to run when confronted. Unless we force them into a corner, as I did here, then I doubt they’ll even want to fight. Like I said, they’re nothing but scavengers.”

  Axford glanced significantly at Alander, and Alander wondered what he was trying to tell him. There was a whole other level to the conversation, all of a sudden.

  “Excuse me,” he said. “I need a break. The disorientation...”

  Axford nodded. “Come back when you’re ready. Caryl and I will work out the finer points together.”

  Hatzis looked annoyed but didn’t say anything. “What steps do you plan to take to guarantee the safety of the colony?” she asked Axford as Alander disconnected his presence from the virtual conference. There followed a small jolt of dislocation, then he was back in the smooth emptiness of Pearl’s cockpit, alone apart from Thor’s inert body.

  “She’s a slippery character,” said a voice from behind him, startling him. “You’ll have to keep an eye on her. Or, I should say, them.”

  Alander turned on the couch to see Frank the Ax near to the exit, leaning against the wall of the cockpit.

  “Tell you the truth,” Alander said, standing, “I’m more concerned about you right now than I am about Caryl.”

  Axford’s brow creased. “What do you mean?”

  “I think you have your own long-term objectives,” said Alander. “Objectives that might not match ours.”

  “And just what are your long-term objectives, Peter?” Axford straightened and took two steps toward him. ‘‘Where do you see yourself in a year from now? Or a decade, even? A century?”

  Alander laughed dryly. “I have trouble seeing ahead a month.”

  “That’s not true,” Axford replied curtly.

  “Maybe not,” said Alander, “but it feels like it, sometimes.” He glanced at the android of Caryl Hatzis, sitting motionless on the couch. “Are you sure she’s not listening to us?”

  He nodded. “Four-oh-six is keeping her occupied.”

  “I thought his number was ten-twenty-two?”

  “It was originally,” he said. “Then eight-ninety-two took over negotiations when you arrived in Hermes. Perfectly seamless. I’m three-fifty-eight,” he said. “The numbers are chronological, so I’m one of the older iterations. I can feel my algorithms getting a little creaky. When I start making mistakes, they’ll be replaced.”

  “You mean you’ll be replaced, don’t you?”

  “Not at all,” said Axford. “I am nothing but the sum of my memories and my personality. The personality is identical in its primary form, and the memories can be copied perfectly from engram to engram. There will be no loss of identity.”

  “But it won’t be you, will it?”

  Axford laughed at his confusion. “You’re grappling with philosophical questions that were of no concern to the original Francis T. Axford. Therefore, as you are well aware, they’re of no concern to me. I’m the ideal person to found a society like this, you know, because at no point am I bothered by such meaningless concepts as the soul. I am a product of what I do and what I remember. There is nothing else.”

  Alander put aside the problem for a moment; perhaps, as Axford suggested, the distinction of who was who—

  If not us... ?—was irrelevant.

  “Anyway,” said Alander, “I’m more interested in what it is you’re doing rather than who exactly it is doing it.”

  “And so you should be.” Axford’s expression sobered as he came around the cockpit to face Alander.

  Axford was a product of conSense, but he seemed perfectly real. And surprisingly short in person, Alander thought.

  “What exactly is it that concerns you, Peter? You should tell me now, before we agree to work together, because I don’t want an ally turning on me in the middle of a tricky maneuver.”

  Ally, Alander noted. There’s that word again.

  “You said these Roaches are reluctant to fight unless cornered,” he said. “I’m assuming you must have trapped them in here when they came to steal the gifts.”

  “That’s right,” Axford replied. “There are ways to impede a hole ship’s ability to relocate, you see. The exterior of this habitat bubble has been treated to prevent anyone escaping—”

  “Anyone?” Alander cut in quickly.

  Axford smiled casually. “I haven’t said that you’re prisoners, have I?”

  Alander held his gaze steadily. “So are we?”

  “Well, let’s see what happens when you try to leave,” said Axford, his smile widening. He was enjoying the game, splitting hairs with the precision of atomic force microscopy. “We have a very democratic process, here,” he continued. “We all come to the same decision because we’re all the same person; the votes are invariably unanimous. Could you say the same about your own ragtag collective?”

  ‘There’s strength in diversity,” Alander defended.

  “I know,” said Axford. “Which is why I want your cooperation.”

  “And if we don’t want yours?” asked Alander.

  Axford smiled faintly. “Unless you seriously disagree with me on matters of policy and the implementation of the same, then you’ll leave here unimpeded.”

  Alander snorted a derisive laugh. “Is that a threat? Agree or be incarcerated?”

  “Not at all. I would never waste resources keeping you prisoner for long. It’d be much more sensible to kill you and use your hole ship myself.”

  Alander could see that Axford wasn’t joking. There was no trace of humor in the man’s gray eyes.

  “But I’m not intending to threaten you, Peter. I’m simply stating a strategic reality: if we can’t agree on the basic terms, then it simply wouldn’t be safe for me to let you leave. You know things about this establishment that I can’t afford to have disseminated—that it exists at all, for a start. If the Roaches or the Starfish ever learned what I have here—”

  “They won’t even talk to us,” interrupted Alander. “How the hell are we supposed to pass on vital information about your base here?”

  “You actually have to ask that?” He shook his head as if disappointed. “The way you people spray information around, I’d say being paranoid about it would be the most prudent response. Listen, Peter, you
people give away tactical information on the location of your bases, your core population, your resources—everything! All you need is for someone with a communicator to crack your encryption, and you’re in deep shit, my friend. I have no intentions of being dragged down with you.”

  As much as he didn’t want to admit it, Alander knew Axford had a point. He had once been a staunch supporter of daily broadcasts designed to alert new colonies to the dangers of using the Spinner communicators. But they had changed in content to become something completely different from what he’d originally envisaged. They were becoming bloated tracts of policy and—as Axford had rightly pointed out—tactical information. And if his earlier comments about the Congress of Orphans weren’t simply a cheap destabilizing tactic, then maybe there was something else in them, too.

  “Why would you bring us here at all, then,” said Alander, “if you felt it could be such a risk? In fact, why are you even talking to me now?”

  Axford smiled. “Your friend here...” He nodded to Hatzis on the couch. “She thinks I want to take over the galaxy—spread through it like a plague or something. And maybe she’s right: maybe one day I would like to do just that. But I know that strength of numbers isn’t everything. There could be a billion of me, swarming over your colonies, and all you’d have to do was devise a virus that targets a chink in my personality—and bam, you’ve taken me out overnight. So when you say there is strength in diversity, you’re absolutely right. There’s a balance, somewhere, where there’s more than enough of me and just the right amount of everyone else to make us all strong. At the moment, I’m simply trying to find the balance.”

  “And who, exactly,” Alander asked, “is ‘everyone else’?”

  “That’s the billion-dollar question, isn’t it?” said Axford, although he didn’t offer to elaborate.

  Alander stared at him, furiously trying to work out what Frank the Ax could possibly want that he didn’t already have. It wouldn’t be something as general as safety or security, because Axford thought in terms of specifics. He must have some specific goal in mind, or else taking such risks as inviting Hatzis and Alander to his main base—regardless of what he said about them being unable to escape—made no sense. He needed them to help him do something. And if he was making Alander work out what it was on his own, and without Hatzis present, then the chances were it was something—