The Ouroboros Wave

by Hayashi, Jyouji

  Chapman’s avatars had always taken realism further than most. In this sense he was an artist, and Catherine’s shock made her forget for an instant that the programmer was dead. A moment later she remembered what she was conversing with. It didn’t do much to cool her anger. The avatar offered the mere appearance of consciousness, while humans were hardwired by evolution to assume—with minimal prompting—the existence of other minds.

  Sure enough, the avatar sounded appropriately offended. “Hey, come off it—I’d never mix private pursuits with official duties. You know that better than anyone. I’m designed to do nothing but monitor for resonance, except when one specific condition is fulfilled. Unless that happens, I’m not programmed to control Shiva in any way.”

  “What’s the specific condition?”

  “When I detect gravity waves that I can’t account for, such as might be generated by an extrasolar civilization.”

  10

  THE VOICE FROM WEST PLATFORM reached Tatsuya. “The South Platform shuttle is on its way. North Platform shuttle is nearly ready to launch.”

  “Roger. We’re almost set to receive visitors. Kurokawa, are you sure this guidance beacon is going to work? It’s been a while since anyone used it.”

  “The long-range tracking radar and short-range laser guidance system are both fine, Chief. Stop worrying. The technology is very simple. They’re not complicated enough to malfunction.”

  “True. This rig isn’t much different from what they used a hundred years ago.” The two men stared at the control interface—little more than a ten-key pad with a few function buttons. A small display above the console showed a wire-frame rendering of the approaching shuttle with range and attitude information.

  “See? We’ve acquired the shuttle,” said Kurokawa.

  “West Platform, this is Tatsuya. Ready for docking.”

  “Great to hear that, Commander. To be honest, we were all sort of turning blue here. The last thing we need is another surprise from Shiva.”

  A flash of white light stabbed through the open hatch. “Chief—the shuttle!”

  The display above the control console was empty. The shuttle was gone.

  11

  “EXTRASOLAR CIVIZATION? You turned Ouroboros into a SETI platform?”

  “That’s right. The search for intelligent entities outside the solar system has been my life’s work as an astronomer.”

  Catherine hadn’t expected to hear an avatar talk about its life’s work. The program continued: “Gravity waves can be detected by the same principles we use to monitor for resonance. Of course, the probability of Ouroboros detecting gravity waves from an extrasolar civilization would have to be an incident so unlikely as to be on the same order as Kali’s discovery. Close to a miracle, perhaps. But if there’s the tiniest chance we can verify such a phenomenon, I think you know what it will mean for the human species.”

  “And that’s why you erased Amphisbaena from the system?”

  “Gravity waves are hard to detect. Man-made perturbations interfere with my observations. I know it’s an inconvenience, but it’s temporary. This is an opportunity humanity may not have within its grasp a second time. I’m afraid you’ll just have to put up with me.”

  “What if someone tries to stop your observations?”

  “I’m not sure I understand, Catherine. If something interferes, I am programmed to eliminate it.”

  “Eliminate it? You’d put lives in danger?”

  “No need to worry about that. As long as no unauthorized tampering takes place, I’m not allowed to eliminate any humans.”

  If the voice coming from the console had been that of a human rather than an avatar, Catherine might have trusted it. In fact, the avatar was correct. But for Shiva there were no flesh and blood people, only web IDs. Shiva had had no intention of killing anyone, including Chapman. But what humans thought of as human and what Shiva thought of as human were not the same thing. And that was an unbridgeable gap.

  The emergency hailing signal sounded in Catherine’s helmet. “Catherine, we have a situation here. Shiva fired on the shuttle we sent to evacuate Amphisbaena.”

  “Are there casualties?”

  “No, fortunately. The shuttle was destroyed before it docked. No one was aboard. But why—?”

  “Hold on, I think I have the answer right in front of me.” Catherine accessed the cannon log, displaying the commands sent by Shiva to the meteor defense system. The data set was limited enough for even a human to evaluate quickly.

  “Got it. He was targeting the docking guidance system.”

  “But why? We haven’t used it since Shiva was activated.”

  “That’s the point. Amphisbaena doesn’t exist for Shiva. He knows all about the shuttle, of course, but when its guidance system handed off to Amphisbaena, the shuttle disappeared because it was under the station’s control. The thing is, as far as Shiva is concerned, there’s no station for the shuttle to be handed off to. That made the shuttle an unidentified object from the instant of handoff. That wasn’t an attack. Shiva was defending Ouroboros against a collision risk.”

  As she heard herself speak Catherine felt an icy chill. Shiva was equipped with a high capacity for learning, but at a certain cost—it was not possible to predict with certainty what the AI might learn from a given experience. His next move might be to slice the station to pieces with the laser cannons in order to protect it.

  “Catherine, should I cut power to the lasers?”

  “No, wait. That could be dangerous. Shiva would probably start looking for a workaround as soon as you cut the power. He doesn’t know about aiming in real space as opposed to cyberspace. Cutting the power might teach him something else we’d rather not have him learn.”

  “But the shuttle for North Platform is on the way. That’s the last lifeboat we’ve got.”

  “We’ve got to keep Amphisbaena’s docking beacon switched off. I think I’m onto what’s causing Shiva to behave like this. I might be able to do something from here. Keep working on Sati. If everything else fails, we’ll cut power to the lasers.”

  “Okay. I’d better alert the Guardians. They’ll want to know.”

  During this entire exchange, the avatar kept droning on about the importance of SETI, as if it actually believed what it was saying. Catherine wasn’t listening. She didn’t fully understand what was going on, but Shiva was using Ouroboros as a gravity wave detector, and for some reason he was convinced he had detected something that fulfilled Graham’s conditions for system override.

  “Graham, I think your program killed you.” The avatar didn’t answer. Shiva must have had some difficulty parsing the logic of Catherine’s statement. At length the avatar responded.

  “The longer you live, the more shit you see.” That was what Chapman had tended to say when he was at a loss for words.

  “I’m deleting this program,” said Catherine. There was another long moment of silence before the answer came:

  “I’m afraid I can’t allow that, Cathy. It would interfere with my observations.”

  12

  “SHIVA TOOK THE SHUTTLE for a meteor?”

  “Not exactly. He lost touch with it, and when he detected something that occupied the space the shuttle was in, he thought that was a meteor.”

  “What the hell’s the difference?” said Tatsuya. The second shuttle was approaching. It had only been moments since their webs had become usable again, using the shuttle as a relay. “So you’re saying the moment the shuttle’s guidance is handed off to Amphisbaena, Shiva will think it’s a threat?”

  “Yes, if our analysis is correct.”

  “That’s not encouraging. Maybe Shiva isn’t shooting at us, but the difference seems academic.” Tatsuya couldn’t help complaining, but it hardly made things better. Oxygen levels in the habitats were dropping and they were down to one shuttle. “Can’t you dock in full auto mode?”

  “We can get close,” said System Control, “but we can’t dock. The system�
��s designed to hand off automatically to the station’s guidance system to protect Amphisbaena from collisions.”

  “Can you alter the program?”

  “Well, since Shiva doesn’t think Amphisbaena exists anymore, altering the guidance program and trying to use it again might elicit another unexpected reaction. All we can do is get as close as we can.”

  “All right. Bring her in and align with the station’s rotation.”

  “Sure, but… Wait a minute, you’re not going to EVA to the shuttle and ride back here on the outside?”

  “Thanks for the idea—maybe that’ll work.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. You’d be sitting ducks if Shiva decided to attack again.”

  “Don’t worry. No way forty of us can piggyback on the outside of the shuttle. I’ve got a better plan. More elegant.”

  “YOU CALL THIS ELEGANT, CHIEF?”

  “It’s more elegant than climbing forty klicks.” Tatsuya watched Kurokawa’s EVA on the docking console monitor. The shuttle was in position a hundred meters above the port, its rotation synchronized with the station. From Tatsuya’s point of view it seemed to be stationary. The docking guidance system was off-line. A pair of astronauts floated on either side of the shuttle. Only the most experienced crew members were capable of this kind of work. Attempting to send everyone up to the shuttle and tether them there would almost surely have resulted in casualties.

  They had begun by attaching several strands of carbon nanofiber cable to the shuttle. The other ends of the cables were attached to a lift winch clamped to the side of the logistics module. Now the cables were slowly being drawn in. The four astronauts were making tiny adjustments with their thrusters.

  “How did we end up getting chosen for this, anyway?” griped Kurokawa.

  “EVA experience, and the fact that you all weigh pretty much the same. Very important for something like this.”

  “I see. Once we’re back on Ouroboros I think I’d better go on an eating binge.”

  The first fifty meters went quickly, but after that they had to proceed much more cautiously. The winch was bringing the shuttle in at a rate of a few centimeters a second. It wouldn’t do to crash the shuttle into the station when they were this close to succeeding.

  The astronauts fired their thrusters in short bursts, using their suits’ laser range finders for fine adjustments. The latches on the shuttle and the port locked. Kurokawa quickly unhooked the cables.

  “All right, people. Let’s get the hell off this station,” said Tatsuya. The waiting crew began boarding the shuttle one by one. The shuttle was not designed to carry forty passengers, and the men and women inside had to arrange themselves like sardines in a can, but they managed to fit. The sense of relief was palpable.

  “Come on, Chief. Everyone’s aboard.” Kurokawa signaled impatiently. Tatsuya was about to go when he noticed a small object on the console display, probably a piece of drifting debris from the shuttle explosion. He upped the magnification and stared, dumbfounded.

  “What is that? Is that the maintenance droid?” The object was clearly firing its thrusters. “West Platform, what’s Shiva up to right now?”

  There was a long pause. “We were wondering the same thing. Shiva erased Amphisbaena from the system, but he’s still linked to some of the station subsystems. We’re not sure why. What’s going on?”

  “The maintenance droid is carrying out some kind of attitude change. You know, the droid with the laser welding unit?”

  Another pause, then: “Shiva is controlling it directly. He’s not tunneling through the station subsystem. That means you can’t take it back from him.”

  “Any idea of what he’s planning?”

  “He’s exchanging lots of data with the welding unit and the droid’s optical sensors.”

  “Optical sensors? You’re talking about target acquisition. Realworld target acquisition.”

  There was no answer.

  13

  WHAT DO YOU MEAN, you can’t allow it?”

  “What I mean is that you can’t stop me and you can’t delete me. You never know what kind of system error that might precipitate.”

  Even though she knew the avatar was a nonsentient interface, Catherine felt herself losing control. “You have no idea what you’re doing!” she shouted. She knew the AI was unable to recognize the situation confronting her. “How do I terminate the program?”

  “I will terminate when observations are complete.”

  “When will that be?”

  “When no more anomalous gravity waves are detected. I can’t tell you when that will be.”

  For a moment, the avatar’s complacent tone almost drove Catherine over the edge. An impulse to demolish the console was flitting through her mind when she received an excited message from West Platform. Shiva was manipulating the maintenance droid.

  Under different circumstances an AI researcher like Catherine would have been delighted to hear this news. Shiva was displaying far greater learning capabilities than his creators had dared dream of. His ad hoc manipulation of the trucks and the laser cannons had awoken him to the possibility of self-directed action and the novel use of tools.

  “Catherine, do you think Shiva may have stumbled onto the concept of aiming?”

  “I wouldn’t jump to that conclusion.” Catherine pulled up the communication log between Shiva and the droid. From this console, cutting Shiva’s link with the droid should be straightforward. But so far every roadblock thrown in his way had only accelerated his learning. If severing the link didn’t succeed, it might make Shiva even harder to handle.

  “It looks like he hasn’t figured out how to integrate information from the sensors with the laser control system—yet,” said Catherine.

  “Good. That means he still doesn’t know how to aim.”

  “It may not be good at all. If he understood aiming, at least he’d know what he was aiming at. He knows the droid has a laser unit, so he knows he has an attack option. But he’s still just attacking symbols.”

  “What should we do?”

  “Don’t give up. You’ve got to change the shuttle ID. That may buy us some time. And hurry—Shiva’s getting smarter every second.”

  14

  “I’M NOT PLANNING to get killed. Don’t worry. Stay safe.”

  Tatsuya sent the shuttle on its way. After consulting with System Control, he decided to roll the dice again, this time swapping IDs with the shuttle. Shiva had stopped accepting new ID codes. Since the shuttle now bore the ID of a human, it was protected from attack, at least for the time being. If the droid was targeting the shuttle, it should now come after Tatsuya.

  A dead hero is a failure. A real hero lives to fight another day. That was what Tatsuya had been taught since childhood. In a world where you could wake up one morning and discover that your oxygen was about to run out, survival was never far from anyone’s thoughts.

  The shuttle moved off toward Ouroboros. Tatsuya engaged his suit’s tiny thrusters and floated away from the docking port. He wanted to at least try to look like a shuttle.

  The stars seemed to move around him, but only because he was rotating. He spread his limbs to stabilize his motion. Amphisbaena began to turn beneath him as he slowly drifted away.

  “Chief, the droid is vectoring toward you. Sending coordinates.” Tatsuya squinted into the distance. He could see a dull red glow, still far off—probably the droid’s thrusters.

  “SysCon, I have to say, there’s not a whole lot of I in your AI. That droid sure is wasting fuel.” As he watched, the red glow moved steadily closer.

  15

  “I DON’T HAVE TIME TO WASTE ON YOU!”

  Catherine’s heart was pounding with fear. This entire chain of events hinged on a simple mistake by Graham Chapman. His SETI investigations depended on distinguishing between natural and artificial perturbations, but not all artificial perturbations were the work of extraterrestrials.

  Chapman had neglected to equip Shiva with the
ability to distinguish between gravity waves that might have been generated by an extrasolar civilization and those created by the anomalous ring oscillations he had been researching. This must have occurred to him just before he died. Knowing his program better than anyone, he’d rushed to restore the system to its previous state. Ironically, he’d become Shiva’s first victim.

  But everything revolved around one source of data: the interferometer system. If that were taken off-line, there would be no gravity waves to detect. Catherine brought up the interferometer controls. The avatar quickly responded.

  “Catherine, you are about to interfere with some very important observations. In fact, to do so would be a criminal violation of the ring’s operating protocols. I’m sorry, but I have to eliminate you.”

  “Eliminate me? How?”

  “Your actions demonstrate intent to defeat my purpose. Your existence cannot be permitted.”

  The console shut down and the room plunged into darkness. Catherine tried to restart the console from her web. There was no response.

  16

  I ’LL ONLY HAVE A FEW SECONDS.

  One more time, Tatsuya hurriedly reviewed the approaching droid’s operating specs on his web. His plan was half-baked, but without weapons it would have to do.

  The maintenance droid was a rectangular cuboid about the size of a small car, with six manipulator arms. It was nicknamed the “bumble bee” because of its laser, reminiscent of a stinger at the end.

  Tatsuya held his forearm mirrors toward the droid. Normally the mirrors were used to check the condition of the space suit; in theory they should be able to deflect a laser beam. His suit transmitter was mounted on his chest. If the droid fired its laser, that was where it would aim. Tatsuya held both forearms up, protecting his chest. If luck was with him, the laser would bounce back and might even knock out the droid.