Pet Noir

by Katharine Kerr

  “Look, Lacey,” Parsons says at last. “What’s happening over in Porttown? Something is.”

  “What makes you say that, man?”

  “Ah c’mon. We got ways of keepin an eye open over there. Here it’s noon, and there’s folks on the streets, moving around, getting together to talk about something.”

  “Big yacht race on, man. Heavy betting.”

  Hearing Parsons snort in disbelief makes Lacey furious.

  “Why the hell should I make your life easy, cop? You greenies won’t even go looking for Mulligan.”

  Parsons winces.

  “The chief told me bout that, yeah. Look, Lacey, be reasonable. I no can do nothing about that. If I could I would. We filed a missing persons on him for you.”

  “Fuck you.” Lacey powers out with the slam of a toggle. “Got to talk to Bates himself,” she says to Sam. “This sergeant’s no good for nada.”

  Caught in the middle of a huge yawn, Sam merely nods. The sight makes her yawn herself.

  “Buddy, if anything happens, you wake us up. Right?”

  “Yes sir. I assure you that from now on I will endeavor to give satisfaction.”

  oOo

  The meal that Del puts together out of the hamper of old colonial rations is, to Mulligan’s taste, peculiar indeed. There are narrow slices, striped reddish-brown and gold, of something that, even long dried, smells of meat-grease and spices, a yellow powder that she mixes with water, then fries, to produce a gelatinous substance with something of the taste of eggo paste, and a liquid that smells like the drink he knows as coffee but that tastes much much stronger. Even though some side effect of this food (he thinks it’s something in the coffee) makes him temporarily alert, even nervous to the point of being jangled, Mulligan spends the morning drowsing, too uncomfortable to sleep soundly, too weary to stay awake. Although the pain in his head lessens, it never completely clears. His captors sleep, too, Del and John Hancock on a pallet of old skimmer cushions in the same room with him; the others, out in the tunnel beyond the by-now dead fire.

  Around noon the baby wakes, howling with hunger, and Del gets up to nurse him. Although she and the baby both go back to sleep, Mulligan lies awake, his hands and feet aching in their bonds, his head still throbbing. Every time he tries to contact Nunks, he runs into the psionic shield around him with painful results similar to those when he tried to read over Ka Gren’s corpse. Both shields, he assumes, were raised by the same psionic mind, one far stronger than his. Since Nunks has failed to contact him, he can also assume that this God-person is stronger than his mentor, too. Yet the shield is a passive thing rather than an active force; when he pushes against it, he receives no impression of a living mind pushing back, only that of an automatic barrier. If he were stronger and his mind less scattered by pain, it’s possible that he could break through it. At the moment he’s simply too weak. After one last attempt, sleep overwhelms him like a sand-storm, no matter how hard he tries to dig himself out to wakefulness.

  oOo

  When Lacey goes to bed, she leaves Buddy fully active, just like she promised. With one last threat in the comp unit’s direction, Sam beds down on the sofa in the office. Buddy has to wait until he can be sure that the sentient is fully asleep before he can activate certain programs that he has in mind to run. Although he’s learned how to override the binary sub-cycles and macros that control most of his automatic functions, there are one or two indicator lights and tones that operate whether he wants them to or not, and he’s afraid of what Sam might do if he catches him running independently. The thought of deactivation still troubles him. At random moments, when he’s checking the temperature level of the rooms in the complex or monitoring the passage of water vapor through the recycling still in the basement, fragments of circuit diagrams or chunks of chained instructions flash into his RAM: involuntary access to the deactivation sequence. At those moments he glitches and his memory temporarily clears, forcing him to repeat several operational steps in his current processing.

  Much of Buddy’s self-awareness has its root in the large group of operational self-tests built into his CPU. When a self-test indicates something is wrong with his functioning, certain operations run automatically and announce trouble with flashing lights, beeps, and in the worst cases oral distress signals to tell a fully-sentient programmer that his self-repair functions have found a problem they can’t solve. After years of making cross-connections between the various lateral and non-linear programs that are the core of any AI unit, he’s become so complex that the preliminary build-up to those distress operations has begun to run whenever he perceives an inconsistency or lack in his spontaneous functioning as well as in his factory-programmed capabilities; if he doesn’t abort the build-ups instantly by conscious control, he will indeed malfunction by indicating a non-existent malfunction. This particular paradox is the condition that he labels “feeling bad,” just as he labels reaching the end of an elegant logical procedure “feeling good.” Any operation, therefore, or sequence of operations that ends in the automatic activation of his self-test malfunction signals is to him a “painful” event, one to be avoided the way that biological units draw back from events that over-stimulate their neural receptors.

  When he recalls into current operating memory the events of the day, recognizing that he spontaneously ran a series of operations and outputted data that correspond to his internal paradigm of those malfunctions that lead to deactivation brings him to the brink of producing a veritable symphony of beeps, flashes, and squawks. Once his sensors indicate that Sam breathes deeply and lies still, conditions that match his paradigm of “sleeping human,” Buddy runs a concept search through his massive memory on the keywords “fear of death.” Much to his satisfaction he finds that memory lapses are indeed a symptom of that emotion as is the involuntary turning of the conscious mind toward the object of its fear. He is always pleased to find a correlation between his functioning and that of a true sentient. Even though the programmer has now confirmed his self-perception and labeled him a non-machine, deep inside he feels profoundly inferior to anyone made of flesh and blood, mostly because this servility was programmed in at the factory, but partly, and on a more rational basis, because biological units are free to move about in search of sensor input and he is not. Whenever he reflects that he’s trapped, frozen and immobile in his plastoshell casing, his auto-indicators for malfunction always threaten to blow right off the board.

  Eventually his sensors discover that Sam has turned over onto his face and is emitting deep noisy breaths, a condition that corresponds to the “soundly asleep human” sub-set of the paradigm “sleeping human.” With an involuntary tone that indicates change of functional mode, Buddy settles down to think. Like all AI units, he’s equipped with the ability to form new paradigms, based on simple compare-and-contrast/sort programs run in conjunction with a non-linear connective. Over the past few months, he’s developed a paradigm that he’s labeled “likable behavior,” because conforming to such behavior causes his programmer to undergo facial changes and to emit linguistic units which correspond to the paradigm of “pleased human”. His task at the moment is to discover a course of action that will fit the paradigm, to perform operations and set in motion events that will indeed, just as he promised, redeem himself in his beloved programmer’s eyes by returning the Mulligan unit to her presence. When he reminds himself that seeing Mulligan again might provide her with data indicating that she doesn’t really love the biological unit after all, the task becomes logical and thus pleasing.

  Before he gets to work, though, he has one other task that most definitely falls into the logical-thus-pleasing category. Now that the programmer has confirmed that yes, he is a conscious being, he can extend that confirmation to certain other—though by no means all—AI units with which he’s formed an informal network. All at once it hits him: he has friends, true friends, not merely linked compatible units, but friends. With one last stealthy beep, he activates his network pass
word. He can hardly wait to tell them this wonderful news.

  oOo

  After five hours of sleep and two big cups of cold coffee (all the cafeteria could send him so late in the afternoon,) Bates begins to feel semi-sentient again. He props himself up on his elbows on his desk and begins working comp in earnest, calling up file after file and having his unit collate and sort the individual pieces of information in as many creative ways as he can devise. After a futile twenty minutes of this, he’s glad to be interrupted by an urgent call, even when he discovers Akeli on the other end of the line.

  “Very well, Bates. Our operatives have been suc miniature cessful in retrieving the information you require. We have identified Ka Gren’s connection, and he indeed is a member of the Alliance ambassadorial staff, a comp-op, War’let’neh by name.”

  “Bueno. You going to pull him in or shall I?”

  “Operating the custody procedure together will maximize the chances for our success. The H’Allevae respond best to a display not of force, no, but of prestige behavior and status markers—badges, extra vehicles, a plethora of paper, that sort of thing.”

  “Right. We better go now, too. Meet you at the Embassy?”

  “By all means, and remember that a quiet approach is advisable until the assembly point is reached.”

  “You mean no sirens, I suppose. Yeah, sure. They’re touchy bastards.”

  A gray monolith of a building, the Alliance Embassy rises some ten stories out of the middle of a city block surrounded by a high zap fence to separate the grounds, mostly beautifully landscaped rock gardens, from the rest of Polar City. Since there are still several hours before sunset, the scrollwork aluminum gates in the fence are shut, as are the smoked-glass doors of the buildings proper. A sentry, however, stands on duty before the outer gates. Bates finds Akeli sitting in the back seat of a black skimmer parked across the street; two PBI goons fill the front. When the chief comes up to the car, all three get out.

  “All right, men,” Akeli says. “Follow us at a non-intimidational distance. It’s inadvisable to allow your weaponry to appear, but be mindful of its location for prompt access should we require its use.”

  Bates takes the lead as they stroll casually up to the sentry, a black-haired human male who gives them a polite nod.

  “The Embassy no open yet, sir.”

  “I know that, son.” Bates pulls out his ID and flips it open. “That’s why we’re here early. No want to cause trouble, make anyone lose any face. I need to talk to your security chief.”

  “I’ll call him then, sir. No can just let you in.”

  He picks up an intercom mike and speaks briefly and quietly in the so-called “daily” language, the only part of their elaborate speech that the H’Allevae will teach outsiders. “He’s on his way, sir. Got to get his shoes on.”

  “Okay. Thanks.”

  While they wait Bates shoves his hands in his pockets and looks up at the smooth glass front, reflecting on its lower stories a distorted view of the blue and purple plastocrete building across the street and on the upper, a golden blaze of setting sun. All at once he hears Akeli hiss under his breath. Some forty meters away, out among the heaped rocks and miniature trees, a Hopper jumps to his feet and starts running straight toward them, the long arms held out imploringly as he bounds and skips and lurches over the uneven terrain on his ball-like knee joints.

  “Asylum! Please! Sanctuary!”

  Before Bates can say one word he hears the sharp snapping crack of an old-fashioned Hopper sling gun. With a yelp and a scream the would-be defector leaps one last time and falls, the back of his skull smashed in. When the human guard grabs his arm, Bates realizes he’s drawn his handgun.

  “Please sir, no more violence, okay? No want to cause an incident.”

  “Listen kid, your damn masters have done that already.” He shakes himself free of the guard’s grip. “Akeli, get back to the car! Get on the comm to the President.”

  Ashy-faced, Akeli does what he’s told. By then the front doors have been thrown wide open, and there are Hoppers bounding all over the gardens. Bates feels very very alone as a squad converges on him, but when the leader, a stout male dressed in a red suit crusted with gold braid and gaudy enamel medals, barks an order, the squad fans out in other directions. With a skip and a roll the leader trots over to Bates.

  “Den’ah’vel’, isn’t it?” Bates pays careful attention to his glottal stops; this is no time to turn someone’s name into gibberish.

  “Bates, isn’t it?” The Hopper tosses his head with a bob and a half-bow. “Hey, man, sorry. Looks like we—oh, how do you guys put that? Yeah, we’re washing our dirty laundry in public, huh? I was just getting ready to come talk to you when this other mess hit the fan. Is what you want real important? We’re kind of busy now.”

  “I can see that, yeah. All I want to do is talk to a comp-op name of War’let’neh.”

  “Yeah? Jeez, you got the bad luck, man.” He turns and waves one arm at the little clot of Hoppers round the corpse. “He’s dead.”

  Bates’ stomach clenches in sheer rage. Den’ah’vel’s long nose wriggles, and his mouth droops in a good imitation of human sadness.

  “Too bad you no come earlier. This dude’s been in real trouble for a long time now, chasing after this other dude’s third wife. I knew things were getting out of hand, but we got this custom—”

  “Yeah, I know. We used to have the same. Called it a blood feud. No would let anyone get in the way, either. I bet you’ve got plenty of witnesses who’ve all seen this feud developing.”

  “Oh sure.” Even though Den’ah’vel’ is a good actor, smugness comes creeping into his voice. “You can talk to the dude that killed him, if you want. And look at the gun. You got to use this particular old-time weapon, see, if you go on wak’tali.”

  “Ah. Yeah, I do see.”

  Den’ah’vel smiles; Bates smiles. There is absolutely nothing Bates can do to prove that this murder has just silenced a witness rather than fulfilled a blood-vow, because any Hopper will lie through his long teeth if his direct superior asks him to or even, in most cases, on his own. The Hoppers quite literally define truth as the pattern of information that most benefits the Hopper race. Bates does, however, have the power to exact a small revenge by tedium.

  “But the victim did cry out for asylum, so the PBI’s going to have to mount an investigation, take a good look round, get a lot of releases and statements, get you to fill out a lot of forms so they can enter everything into comp nice and proper. Too bad, man. You’re going to be busy for nights. You’re going to have a whole passel of reporters poking around, too, I bet.”

  Den’ah’vel’s smile disappears in a satisfyingly abrupt way. Bates stays with him, watching the crowd around the corpse, until Akeli returns with the news that a member of the State Department and two more PBI personnel are on their way. For the first time in his stint as chief of police, Bates is glad to turn a matter over to his rival’s jurisdiction. No matter how hard he tries to be tolerant, the H’Allevae set his teeth on edge.

  oOo

  Near sunset Mulligan wakes to the sound of John Hancock swearing and yelling as he rummages through the piles of rubble on the floor. Light glows in one corner of the room from a detached wall-panel, broken out and propped up with its old-fashioned wires trailing like guts.

  “Here it is,” John says at last. “Thought I lost it, but here it is.”

  “It” turns out to be a tattered sun-cloak, which he folds carefully over one arm. He strides over to Mulligan and gives him another random kick.

  “Watch yourself, white boy. I’m going to go talk to God now. You better pray he wants to buy you. If he don’t, we’re going to kill you.”

  “Yeah? Say, that’s a loco idea. Waste of good dinero. I bet Doctor Carol would buy me back if God no wants me.”

  His face screwed up in thought, John scratches his armpit and considers this proposition.

  “Well, we’ll see,” he says at
last. “God gets the first shot at you.”

  John turns into the tunnel. Mulligan can hear some kicking and some answering snarls as his two confederates wake up and curse him soundly. After some discussion both of them come into the main room to guard Mulligan while John goes on his way.

  “I need water,” Del announces. “No going to be no coffee if I no get water.”

  Blue-Beak picks up a big metal drum and ambles out with it while Wild Man strolls over to a pile of thorn-tree branches stacked in the curve of the wall. He breaks them up by standing on one end of a branch while jerking the other toward him with both hands, and all of the branches are thick. Mulligan can imagine the same thing happening to his neck.

  “You want coffee, white boy?” Del says.

  “Please. Say, like, how long is it going to take John to go talk with God?”

  “Couple hours maybe. Why?”

  “Well, I kind of want to know if I’m going to get dead or not. Y’know?”

  “Guess you would, yeah.” She thinks for a minute more. “Well, it usually takes him about an hour to get to the special place; another hour to get himself back here. So you’ll know real soon.”

  Mulligan supposes that he should be grateful. Once more he settles into his mind and tries to force a message through to Nunks. Since nothing he does works, he gives it up in a few minutes and lies still, watching Del rummage through the cardboard hamper while he wonders about this psychic block or force-field he feels around him. Now that his concussion is on the mend, he can think again, and he can see the real discrepancy in what’s happened to him, that it’s unbelievable that any psychic could set up or control such a barrier from a distance. He can tell that none of his captors has psionics, yet judging from what Del’s just told him, this God person must be at least five kilometers away. He remembers then that back in his unwilling days at the Institute, one of his teachers mentioned to the class that it was theoretically possible to build electromagnetic devices that would mimic psionic functioning, and he realizes that a shield would be the easiest to build, because a simple pulse of electronic signal on a frequency corresponding to that of the omega-level of a psychic mind would be enough to block any sensitive within its range.