Trendel said a word and then pointed and said, “Still northward.”
Arik looked at the others and said, “That’s our mission.”
“Indeed,” said Ky, with Kane and Rith chiming in and Trendel nodding.
Lyssa signaled,
“Then we summon Arda,” said Arik. “But for now we head north, to Cairo and beyond, if necessary.”
“It’s a long way to that city,” said Rith. “I do hope we come across Lyssa before then. I mean, Cairo might be in the hands of the Mahdi by the time we get there.”
“What about if we find a boat on the Nile and float all the way to the Mediterranean?” said Kane. “I mean, lazing about on a boat beats horseback any day.”
“I’m afraid the Mahdists might have control of the river,” said Arik. “At least they do in Khartoum and Luxor, and I suspect farther north as well.”
“Let’s go back and fetch our supplies and the pack horses,” said Rith. “After all, we and the horses can’t very well survive on sand alone.”
“Too gritty,” said Trendel. “Hard to chew.”
As they rode back to the ruins, Arik said, “Since the most recent troubles began in the Sudan, I seem to recall the British established outposts along the Nile to protect that route to Khartoum—bases for the gunboats to lay in for supplies. Even so, they might be severely undermanned. Regardless, to follow up on Kane’s proposal, I suggest we travel within sight of the river as we go northward—”
“Right,” said Arik. “So, we follow the Nile, and if or when we spot one of Queen Victoria’s Union Jacks flying at a stockade, we’ll stop in and see if we can catch a gunboat to Alexandria. Once there, we’ll plan our next move.”
“There is this, too,” said Ky. “We don’t actually need to find a British outpost if we simply see a Brit gunboat going north; we can flag it down and hop aboard. Rather like hailing a cabby’s carriage in London.”
“I say, old chap,” piped up Trendel in his best British accent, “give us a lift, eh? There, that’s a good lad.”
This brought a laugh from all, including Lyssa, who moaned in staccato amusement.
“What if Trendel detects—?” began Rith, but she slapped her forehead with the heel of a hand and said, “What was I thinking? If Lyssa’s body lies off our course, naturally we’ll change direction.”
And so they fetched their animals and their gear from Necropolis, and then rode northward till dawn, to a point where the Nile turned due west. As usual, when the sun appeared, Lyssa vanished. Where she spent her days, neither she nor the others knew, but she always found them at dusk, no matter where they were. It was as if Arik were her focus; after all, they had been lovers before she became a wraith.
Just after sunrise they rode in among a grove of trees. “This looks like a suitable spot,” said Ky. And so, they led the horses to the river for water, then curried and fed them a bit of grain. And as they set up camp, Rith spotted a cobra, and with a flick of her wrist, slew it with a well-placed throw of one of her knives, and they broke fast on snake and tea that morn.
They rode westerly for another night, and at dawn they came upon a small village, where they replenished their supplies from a surly merchant who eyed them with loathing but nevertheless traded his goods for the infidels’ gold. They then rode onward to a point where they could set up camp. As usual, they took turns at watch, keeping a sharp eye back in the direction of the village, but nothing occurred during the daylight hours. And at night they rode on.
Just after dawn the following day, a windstorm blew up from the west, bringing stinging sand with it, and they took shelter in the ruins of a mud-brick house, with nought but three walls left standing. They covered their horses’ entire heads with sand-cloths made just for that purpose, and their own faces they shielded with scarves and their eyes with dark sun-goggles.
The wind rose to a shrieking howl and brought with it even more sand, and nought could be seen beyond a few feet, but the three walls sheltered them from the worst of the blow. The storm screamed throughout that day and another, but finally on the third morn, it slackened, and by the eventide the air cleared and fell to calm.
Heeding Ky’s warning to be alert to desert-dry quicksand, they waded through loose-packed drifts downslope all the way to the Nile, leading the horses to water. Though the tomb raiders had shared their canteens and waterskins with the animals, it was meager at best, and so the horses drank deeply. And as the moon rose and shined her light on the placid flow of the river, suddenly Trendel frowned and pointed back upslope and to the right and exclaimed, “I say . . . !”
Arik and the others turned to see revealed the jagged remains of three ancient columns jutting up in the argent light.
40
Courthouse
(Adkins)
Melissa returned to her table, and Mark Perry approached the witness box.
“A human, eh?”
“That’s right, Mr. Perry.”
“Well let me ask you this, Ms. Adkins: in your expert opinion as a doctor of psychology, isn’t it true that among the key aspects of a human are the emotions he or she feels, passions such as love, happiness, anger, sadness, fear, and the like?”
Toni nodded and said, “Those are a few of the emotions people experience; in fact, in the past it was believed that the five you named were the primal ones. However, today we believe there are twelve prime emotions altogether.”
“And those twelve are . . . ?”
“Fear, anger, disgust, surprise, joy, shame, contempt sadness, anticipation, acceptance, guilt, and distress. These are the twelve prime emotions.”
“When you say ‘prime,’ what do you mean?”
“That those twelve are the basic emotions out of which all the others spring”
“Your meaning . . . ?”
“Well, for example, take anger. There are shades of anger: rage, wrath, hatred, bitterness, rancor, and the like. The same can be said of the other prime emotions. In fact, there are at least, oh, something like one hundred branches and combinations spreading out from the twelve primes. You see, the human brain is more or less swimming in a chemical soup, and various stimuli along with memories evoked from our past experiences generate these chemicals in greater or lesser degrees, and they produce the emotional feelings we undergo.”
Mark Perry smiled the grin of a predator springing a trap. “Then, I ask you, how can a machine be a person, in particular a human, if it doesn’t experience these emotions? I mean, it isn’t as if a machine is swimming in a chemical soup.”
“Is that a question?”
“Yes,” replied Mark. “How can a machine experience emotion?”
“We programmed into Avery’s mutable logic certain emotional aspects, over which we added suitable limits to keep his responses within reasonable bounds. This programming—a collaboration between Timothy Rendell, John Greyson, and me—was geared to become part of Avery in carefully crafted stages. You see, we felt that Avery should be able to identify such things as joy, and one way to do that was to have him experience that emotion—and others as well. Oh, he intellectually understood all of them, but to actually feel them would be to know them more or less at a so-called ‘gut’ level, to taste them, if you will.”
Mark looked at the panel. “Are you telling me that a machine, a thing of spin-resonance and silicon and steel and glass can actually feel such things as rage, envy, love, and the like?”
“As with any blossoming child, Avery was beginning to develop various emotional responses: empathy, and humor being two of them. And, before the lightning strike, he was somewhat wistful, expressing a mild desire that he wanted to win the game.”
“Perhaps so, but then again, perhaps he was just feigning, much as a sociopath feigns feelings for othe
rs.”
“I remind you, Mr. Perry,” said Toni, “sociopaths are people, too. Not very admirable ones, but people nonetheless.”
“Dr. Adkins, what I am getting at is that without genuine emotions like ours—from vengeful wrath to abiding calmness, from virulent hatred to adoring love, from unendurable grief to joyous revelry, how can anyone or anything be a person?”
“I assume that is an actual question and not a rhetorical one.”
“It is.”
“You have named extremes, Mr. Perry, wild swings in emotions. But I would have you consider this: much of the good advice people give to one another concerns abating one’s emotions.”
“What do you mean?”
Toni smiled and said, “Think of the beneficial counsel in these statements: Don’t let your emotions get the better of you. Let go your old resentments and hatreds. Be fair and impartial. Let’s be logical about this.
“Those are just a few of the things people say when they want someone to be a better person. Look, there are the seven deadly sins—lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, and pride—at least five of which are based upon emotions. Likewise, there are the seven virtues—chastity, abstinence, liberality, diligence, patience, kindness, humility—based upon actions or non-actions, not emotions. Each of the seven virtues is counter to the seven sins.”
Toni stopped and shook her head. “Actually, Mr. Perry, Dr. Greyson should be telling you this; not me. He’s the philosopher, and the teacher of ethics and morality to Avery.
“But hear me, in my area of expertise, I can say without fear of contradiction that psychiatrists and psychologists spend much of their days trying to get patients past emotional traumas and emotional hang-ups; and so, when it comes to people, to persons, the goal is to get them to take on a wholesome outlook to life. Certainly that involves healthy emotions, but it also includes looking at things through the lens of logic, of rationality. Together, healthy emotions and well-anchored rationality lead to the very apex of good judgment.”
Mark stood without speaking for a moment and then asked, “What about love, Dr. Adkins?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, of the twelve prime emotions, love is one you left out, and I think we can all agree that it is the best and healthiest of all passions. Love conquers all.”
“A foolish adage, Mr. Perry. There are many things love will not conquer. But that aside, and as to love itself, if we consider possessive love, obsessive love, controlling love, and others of that ilk, they can be very destructive not only to the person being so adored but also to the one adoring. In those cases, what some call love is extremely unhealthy, and in fact the three I named are not love at all. You see, love itself is a manifestation of joy in the form of euphoria as well as elation; add to that anticipation and acceptance—and perhaps surprise—and therein you will find love. Among those you will find trust and respect, but nowhere in all of those will you find control, dominance, possession, obsession.”
Melissa stood and said, “Your honor, we’ve gotten far afield of the fundamental issue in this hearing.”
Mark Perry shook his head. “No we have not, your honor, for central to defining a person is the question of where in a machine like the Coburn Industries AI slash VR zero one, or in the so-called uploaded mentalities to that AI, is the chemical soup in which human brains are awash? Without the soup, can such entities be human?”
“Human? It depends,” said Melissa. “But sentient, absolutely yes. And if that sentience was human to begin with, then that sentience is a human still.”
Outside the courthouse, in light rain, Frankie Roberts said to her holo-viewing audience, “Emotion versus logic? That’s an issue similar to religion versus science. Why do they have to be in opposition? Are they two sides of the same coin? Some might say that science is fact- and logic-driven, whereas religion is faith- or emotional-driven, and that they are things that will not fit on opposite sides of a given coin. After all, religion is based on claimed miracles and the teaching of prophets and redeemers, whereas science is based upon a methodology and discovery and repeatability. Certainly, miracles do not seem logical, nor do scientific outcomes seem a product of faith. Yet we admire men of both stripe.
“In a similar manner we can ask if logic and emotion can be on opposite sides of the same coin, or is that simply nonsensical?
“In the case of trying to decide whether or not Arthur Coburn is in fact alive, with his uploaded mentality being what’s left of him, do we take that on faith, or instead upon the science behind it? Perhaps we ought to flip that impossible two-sided coin.
“This is Frankie Roberts, News Holo-4, at the Pima County Courthouse in Tucson, Arizona.”
41
Egypt
(Tomb Raiders)
Lyssa drifted through the moonlit night toward the remains of columns unearthed by the windstorm. She paused a moment and signaled,
Arik nodded. “Lyssa is right. Our funds are dwindling, and should the search for Lyssa be lengthy . . .”
“Yes,” said Trendel, with Kane, Rith, and Ky murmuring their agreements as well.
Lyssa stopped before the broken pillars and waited. The others led the horses back into the shelter of the mud-brick walls of the ruins of the house. As Rith tethered them, Ky opened the stores to fetch grain. “Take care,” said Rith. “We don’t want to overdo and have the wheat swell and rupture their stomachs.” Ky nodded and meted out two cups to each animal.
Arik, Kane, and Trendel removed the Remington 76s and the Colt 45s from the wrappings they had used to protect them from the sandstorm, and made certain that everything was in good working order. Then Arik said, “Arm up.”
They buckled on their .45s, and Kane and Trendel each took up a Remington. Rith looped on her bandoliered daggers and settled them into place, and Ky strapped on the black blade she always seemed to have about her. With weaponry ready, they waded through ankle-deep sand cross-slope toward the unearthed stones.
Ky said, “I wonder how long this place has been buried.”
Rith shrugged and said, “No telling. They say the Sphinx at Giza was under sand for millennia.”
They stopped short of where Lyssa waited, and Ky said, “Look. A way down and in.”
A V-shaped depression in the sand sloped downward a way, at the far end of which they could see what appeared to be a lintel above a narrow gap some six feet wide and perhaps two feet high opening into blackness beyond.
“It seems to be the top of a doorway,” said Trendel.
“If it is, then the door is open,” said Ky, “and the place itself might be full of sand”
Lyssa signed
Lyssa glided forward to move between the broken columns, but found she could not.
Drifting just above the sand, Lyssa moved counterclockwise in a wide arc, now and again testing to see if she could enter what seemed to be an invisible circle. She made a complete circuit but could not penetrate the unseen ward, itself some four hundred feet in diameter.
Then she tried up and over. Her flight also followed a great arc, as if she were crossing a vast dome.
Lyssa sank into the sand, and long moments later she emerged on the opposite side of the invisible circle. she signaled, then added,
Arik and the others moved up to the columns.
“Good grief,” said Trendel, as they approached, “I think those are steles. See the remaining glyphs?”
“What do they say?” asked Rith.
“A moment, love,” replied Trendel, and he spoke a word. After a pause he said, “From what I can see, it seems to be the usual claptrap about being for
bidden and those who violate this place are cursed, and so forth and so on. Just like the vaults in Necropolis.”
Arik drew his .45 and said, “Let’s see if we can cross whatever it is that stopped Lyssa.”
“You know,” said Ky, “I can probably get Lyssa past the barrier by shadow-walking the in-between.”
“Lyssa is right, Ky,” said Arik. “It is entirely too risky. Besides, we don’t even know that we can get into the place, but I’ll take a look.”
As Arik turned to make the descent, “Wait,” said Rith, and she went back to the horses and gear, and within moments returned with two lanterns, two rucksacks, and some rope. She tied the line about Arik’s waist, saying, “In case the sand collapses.”
As Kane payed out the line, Arik, bearing a lit lantern, crossed between the pillars and worked his way downward, sand cascading before him.
“What?” asked Ky.
“Watch for serpents,” said Kane.
“Creepy crawly slitherers,” said Trendel, shivering.
“Love,” said Rith, “when we took this job from the Belgian, we told you that you were probably not going to like Egypt, for snakes are all over the place.”
“Some of them two-legged,” said Ky, grinning.
Kane smiled at Ky and said, “Well, my little mouse, you too have to be careful, because Ophidia find your kind delicious.”
Ky put her fingers to her cheeks and, with her dark, tilted eyes full of false adoration, said, “Ooo, but I love it when you talk Latin.”
Arik reached the lintel and called back, “Trendel, there are hieroglyphs on this stone.” Then he bent down to shine the light into the gap and peered into the dimness beyond. “Give me some slack, Kane, it looks like we can get in.” Kane payed out more line, and, pistol in one hand, lantern in the other, Arik slid feet first into the opening and vanished.
Shadowprey: A Black Foxes Adventure Page 19
