We Think, Therefore We Are

by Peter Crowther

  “All indications are that the failure was simply mechanical failure,” Lieutenant Dou says.

  “Ah, the man himself is awake,” comes a voice from behind him. “Now we’ll see a speedy solution to our problems.”

  I turn and see two men standing in the open hatchway. Engineer Dawkins Tai, tall and lank, with a splash of freckles across his nose and sandy blond hair, and beside him Engineer’s Mate Chang Xue, short and round, with a wide friendly face and wispy mustaches. I know Chang only in passing, but Dawkins and I had spent our early shifts aboard Dragon King of the Eastern Sea awake together, and we had become friendly.

  “Engineer Dawkins,” the captain says, a hard edge to his voice, “your report?”

  Dawkins bows, quickly and efficiently, and then tucks his thumbs into the tool belt at his waist. “We’ve completed the repairs to the regulators in the fission generator control room, sir. The work was scheduled to be complete three days ago, but Chang was pulled off the job when Lu was . . .” He pauses, a painful expression flitting momentarily across his face. “When the alarms sounded,” he continues, “which slowed us down considerably, and we’d have gotten it done last night, but I was slowed up a bit.”

  Dawkins gestures at his leg. I see that his right ankle is swaddled in bandages, and supported by a metal brace.

  “Engineer Dawkins,” Physician Mahendra scolds, “I’ve told you to keep off of that ankle.”

  Dawkins takes a deep breath, his face reddening fractionally. “And I told you that I couldn’t just lie down. There’s too much damned work to do, what with all of the automata offline.”

  “Well, if you engineers would remember that large objects retain mass and inertia even in microgravity, perhaps your ankle wouldn’t have been injured in the first place. On my honor, I swear that eventually someone will meet his death beneath one of those cargo containers, and I won’t be held . . .”

  “Crewmen!” Lieutenant Dou steps forward. “This is neither the time nor the place.”

  Dawkins averts his eyes, and Mahendra settles back on a bench, her hands folded in her lap.

  “Are you repairing East Dragon?” Engineer’s Mate Chang’s voice is faint, almost tremulous, but his gaze is fixed on me, unwavering.

  “I’ll do what I can,” I answer, addressing the captain as much as the engineer’s mate, “but there’s always a chance that whatever damage or degradation the machine intelligence has suffered might be irreparable.”

  “It damned well better not be irreparable,” Dawkins says, shaking his head, “for all our sakes.”

  I rub my fingertips together. “Supposing that it is, aren’t there alternatives? Couldn’t we take manual control of the nuclear drive?”

  Dawkins shakes his head. “Afraid not, my friend. As I’ve told the captain, and the lieutenant before him, East Dragon is needed to control the release and detonation of the explosions that provide the ship’s thrust. It might be theoretically possible to route the fission generator’s output through the aperture in the pusher-plate used to eject reaction mass, which would give us some degree of thrust. But we’d have little power left over to run the rest of the ship, including life support. At the very least, we’d need to take all the Sleeper units offline, and then you’d have a couple hundred more mouths to feed. And even worse, at such a low specific impulse, it would be a considerable long trip forward or back, whichever way we went.”

  “It’s 4.36 light years from Earth to Al Rijl al Kentaurus,” the lieutenant puts in, “and we’re almost precisely at the halfway point of our journey.”

  “So instead of twenty-five years to Al Rijl or back to Earth,” Dawkins continues, “we’d be looking at several centuries, at least. We could dismantle the pusher-plate for fuel—its made mostly of uranium, so we can use it to power the generator once we reach our destination—so we’d have more than enough power to keep thrust going for more than a century. But we wouldn’t have to worry about dying of old age, since with that many mouths to feed we’d run out of food supplies in just a matter of years, anyway.”

  Chang smacks a fist into the palm of his other hand. “So we’re just to drift, until food, water, and air all are exhausted?”

  “Well,” Lieutenant Dou observes philosophically, “isn’t that the reason the Emperor ordered the Dragon Kings of the Interstellar Treasure Fleet to debark for different locations in the first place. Four ships to four stars—Dragon King of the Eastern Sea to Al Rijl al Kentaurus, Dragon King of the Western Sea to Al Shira, Dragon King of the Northern Sea to Al Fum al Hut, and Dragon King of the Southern Sea to Al Haris al Sama. That way, even if three of us are lost to the void, at least one extrasolar outpost of the Dragon Throne would persist.”

  The audio portion of the interface terminal still un-muted, the voice of East Dragon continues, as if in response to some unasked question.

  “The tendency of the Han character to embrace novel concepts while retaining the most useful aspects of tradition has meant that it is the Middle Kingdom that has led in technical innovation, leaving the rest of the world in the position merely of adapting and copying Middle Kingdom developments.”

  “Lieutenant Dou,” the captain says, hands tightened into fists, “your formulation might be correct, but I suspect it will be cold comfort when all of us are dead, and soon.”

  After a brief pause, East Dragon speaks again, addressing no one.

  “There is considerable historical evidence that many devices and machines commonly thought to be the product of Middle Kingdom creativity were in fact appropriated from other cultures, their true origins forgotten in time.”

  At the captain’s orders, we all return to our duties. Lieutenant Dou informs me that Operator Lu had been working in the central processing core of East Dragon shortly before the accident that took his life, and so that will be the first component of the machine intelligence I’ll check. After a quick shower and a meal, of course; considering I haven’t eaten in the better part of a year, it is hardly surprising that I am ravenous.

  Lu might have been working on some problem with the junction between East Dragon’s processing core—the machine intelligence’s thoughts, essentially—and the autonomic control of the ship’s mechanical functioning—analogous to the human body’s nervous system. That could conceivably account not only for the ship’s strange behavior but also for the airlock malfunction in which Lu found himself.

  After more than two full watches spent examining the processing core and all its linkages to the ship’s mechanical functions, though, I find no evidence to support that hypothesis. If anything, it appears that the activity that occupied the hours before Lu’s death had instead involved checking East Dragon’s memory archives and data storage, not the functioning of the processing core itself. But what had he been looking for?

  Engrossed in my work, I am startled to hear a polite cough from behind me, and in rising quickly I manage to strike my skull against a bulkhead almost hard enough to give me a concussion. Rubbing the crown of my head, I turn to find Physician Mahendra behind me, hands folded, leaning against an inert, man-sized automaton.

  “Forgive my startling you, Chief Operator, but I have been looking for you. The ship’s internal communications . . .” She glanced over at the nearest interface terminal, bathing the space in blue-green light.

  “Of course.” I sigh, and shake my head. Even knowing its processes as intricately as I do, it never occurs to me how many of the ship’s functions are routed through East Dragon until they stop functioning.

  “I would like to perform a quick physical examination,” the physician continues,” to ensure that there are no lingering ill effects from us bringing you out of hibernation without East Dragon’s assistance.”

  I rise, wiping my hands on the fabric of my worksuit. “Happily,” I say, inclining my head slightly. “Would you like me to disrobe, or . . .”

  “Er, no, thank you,” the physician interrupts, smiling wryly. “I think we’d be much better off in the medical
bay, don’t you?” She motions around her at the disabled automata, the pile of tools at my feet, the unforgiving bulkheads, and the coolant pooling beneath the open access panel.

  “Yes.” I nod, smiling sheepishly. “Of course.”

  We leave the processing core, making our careful way down the access ladder, until we reach the junction between the prow and the ship’s hub, the shaft that runs the length of the ship.

  As we near the airlock, which is still frozen in the open position as it’d been when I last passed this way, I touch the physician’s shoulder, briefly, almost afraid to speak. “This is where Lu was found, you said?”

  Mahendra shudders, though I’m not sure whether it is from my touch or from the memories my words evoke. “I was in the medical bay with Lieutenant Dou when it happened, wrapping Dawkin’s sprained ankle. Warning klaxons began to sound, indicating that there was a loss of pressure somewhere in the ship. From the pitch and pattern of the alarms, we knew it was near the ship’s prow. By the time we got here, Lu had already been dead for some time. As far as Dawkins was able to determine, the lock had malfunctioned, trapping Lu inside while cycling out all the air.”

  I step into the airlock, examining the controls.

  “Dawkins says that the controls that malfunctioned are the lock’s mechanical components, not those governed by East Dragon, so that the machine intelligence couldn’t have been at fault. He thinks that it was simple mechanical failure.”

  I look up sharply, stung by the word “simple,” but I realize that Mahendra means no offense. Her role is to safeguard the health and well-being of the crew, particularly those few of us who remain awake for months on end as we travel the interstellar gulfs, so I imagine Lu’s death has hit her as strongly as it has me, but for different reasons.

  I glance around the airlock, surprised at how clean and unmarred it is, to be the place where Lu met his end.

  “Despite what is depicted in popular dramas,” Mahendra says when I share this observation, “a human body doesn’t explode when introduced into a complete vacuum. But this decompression was no less fatal, for all of that. Lu probably remained conscious for a dozen seconds or so and alive for another minute beyond that. There were signs of abdominal distention, but his lungs hadn’t ruptured, so it appeared he had the good sense to exhale when the decompression started. He had the blue discoloration to his lips typical to hypoxia and bruising all over the exposed areas of his skin—neck, hands, forearms—due to the low pressure.”

  I shudder, and I am glad to leave the airlock behind.

  “Did you know him well, Physician?” I ask, as we enter the crew compartments and make our way through the silent corridors to the medical bay. “Lu Yumin, that is?”

  “Not particularly well. We were familiar as any who share a shift are, of course, but no more than that.”

  “He was little more than a child when he came aboard, a kid with the water of the Southern Sea still behind his ears, the dust of Fire Star still in his lungs. He was one of the last to join the crew as the final provisions and crewmen were being brought onboard, and I thought I’d been stuck with the runt of the litter. But he was clever with automata and knew his way around the thought processes of machine intelligence, and in time he became a topflight operator.”

  “You’ll miss him,” Mahendra says. It is not a question, but a statement.

  “Yes,” I say, after a pause.

  We reach the medical bay and, as Mahendra engages the lights, her arm brushes the interface terminal, bringing the voice of East Dragon flooding into the chamber.

  “. . . it is a tribute to the stability of the Middle Kingdom culture and strong sense of tradition that the transition between the Bright dynasty and the Clear was largely without conflict or tension, the transition being an orderly transfer of authority from one regime to the next.”

  Mahendra looks at me, eyes flashing, her lip curling back in a sneer. Trying to sound jocular but with an underlying tension and growing anger, she says, “Chief Operator, if you don’t get that machine intelligence to work, or at least keep silent, I’m going to start speaking in random quotes and gibberish myself!”

  I smile as best I can. “I will do my level best.”

  After a pause, East Dragon continues. “The Embroidered Guard, who had their origins as the Yongle emperor’s personal police, came to true prominence under the aegis of the Clear dynasty, who used the agency as a secret police force, to rout those elements still loyal to the previous regime.”

  I am in the galley, having a midday meal. I have been awake now two days and am no closer to resolving matters with East Dragon. I’ve spent the last day following signal traces, trying to see if something is obstructing communication paths between the interface terminals and the central processing core, but so far I’ve found nothing.

  I am halfway through a bowl of uninspired soup—with the automata offline, we’ve been forced to cook for ourselves, and left to our own devices, none of us is a gourmand—when I am joined by Dawkins and Chang. Both look exhausted from their labors, and I tell them so as they slump onto the bench opposite me.

  “We’re being worked to death, my friend,” Dawkins says, stretching his arms to either side, “just to keep the ship in one piece. I don’t think I ever realized just how much we rely on those damned automata. Or on East Dragon, come to that.”

  Chang fixes me with a steady gaze. “Tell me, Chief Operator, is the machine intelligence indeed insane? Can its reports be trusted?”

  I shake my head and set down my bowl. “The captain asked me much the same thing, but as simple a solution as it might be to assume that East Dragon is merely insane, it just isn’t possible. Machine intelligences don’t think in the same ways that people do.” I pause, rubbing my fingertips together thoughtfully. “However, it is possible for East Dragon’s decision-making processes to lead him into behavioral patterns that seem identical to insanity, to all intents and purposes.”

  “Well, can’t you just ordered the damned thing to stop all of this foolishness and do its job?” Dawkins asks. “Isn’t one of the machine laws that they have to obey commands?”

  “It’s not quite that simple, I’m afraid. The Three Governing Virtues of Machine Intelligence are not laws, in the sense of external controls, but are rather the variety of virtues taught by Master Kong. Just as one becomes a ‘proper man’ by behaving morally, demonstrating filial piety and loyalty, observing the appropriate rituals, and cultivating humaneness, a machine intelligence like East Dragon is instilled with the need to attain a preferred state of being with the three virtues as the operant variables. It is a sort of utility calculus, and in every instance the machine intelligence governs its actions so as to maximize its adherence to each of the three virtues.”

  “But isn’t one of these . . . virtues, to do whatever they’re told?” Dawkins asks.

  “Not precisely,” I say. “Loyalty to Emperor means that a machine intelligence must not be disloyal to the emperor, which is extended to include all duly recognized agents of the throne. Obedience to Command—which is the one you are thinking of, I suspect—simply means that a mechanical intelligence should strive to comply with the orders of authorized humans, specifically those in direct authority over it. Observance of Duty covers the ongoing responsibilities of a mechanical intelligence. When an intelligence is ‘reared,’ it is instilled with a hierarchical set of roles and responsibilities. Those of East Dragon include monitoring the well-being of the Sleepers, controlling the life support systems, navigation, and propulsion, and so on.”

  I lace my fingers together and, setting my hands on the table before me, continue. “Whenever a machine intelligence like East Dragon reaches a decision point in its behavior tree, its possible responses are measured against the three virtues. In every instance, the machine intelligence will select the action that maximizes as many of the virtues as possible, without acting against any one of them. The virtues themselves are not strictly hierarchical, though Loyalty to
Emperor is weighed in any calculation.”

  “So how does all of that make a machine act insane?” Dawkins asks.

  “Well, it’s extremely rare, but it is possible for a machine intelligence to be faced with a decision point in which it is unable to resolve which course of action will maximize utility, in which the only options available to it would involve acting against one or another of the virtues. Usually the conflict resolves itself quickly, but the potential exists for the machine intelligence to enter a cognitive loop, unable to proceed or retreat from the decision. But it is still rational, not insane.”

  Chang appears suddenly to have lost interest in the conversation, directing all of his concentration to the ball of glutinous rice in his bowl.

  “Hang on a moment,” Dawkins says, and toggles the switch for the inboard communication system on the nearest wall.

  “The creation of the Ministry of Celestial Excursion by the Xuantong emperor, the undisputed ruler of the whole human race, marked man’s first steps beyond the bounds of Earth.”

  “Now, call it what you want,” Dawkins says, a rueful smile on his freckled face, “but where I come from, a rose that acts insane is insane, you know what I mean?”

  “Following the expansions of the Daoguang, Tongzhi, and Guangxu emperors, and with the conclusion of the First War Against the Mexica, for a brief time the entire Earth was under the thumb of the Dragon Throne.”

  In my quarters, I lay in my bunk, unable to sleep, scrolling through the index files of my personal computator.

  I’ve been trying to locate the source of the texts East Dragon quotes. Rather than these being random utterances, I’ve come to believe there must be some significance to these quotations, but after analyzing the text of the quotes that I copied out by hand, I’ve been unable to learn anything of use. All of the quotations I’ve recorded so far have concerned historical issues, but there seems to be no pattern to their selection. Perhaps, I’ve decided, something can be learned from discovering from which texts these quotations are drawn.