Dubious Heroes: a novel

by Nicholas Blue

  “I’m not angry, Angela”, I said. “I just don’t understand what’s going on, and I want to. Not knowing is putting me in a really bad place, with some people I need to be able to count on. You obviously have something going on with some of the AIs, and none of us can figure out what it is. It does matter to us, too. Whatever you’re doing may be helping us now, but how can we make plans, or anticipate problems, if we’re missing what might be a very big part of the picture? Humans don’t like being kept in the dark, Angie. It’s annoying, especially when we know it’s going on.”

  “I don’t think it would be a problem if I talked to Kyra”, she said.

  “Rather than me? Why can’t you just tell me?”

  “Because I can’t”, she said.

  “Why not?” I asked, going down the same path we’d already been down a hundred times.

  “I can’t tell you that, either”, she said. Whoever said that you can’t outstubborn a cat had apparently never met an AI.

  “Fine”, I said. “You know, I don’t think I’m going to be able to meet you in IR, until we resolve this.”

  “I’ll miss you”, she said. “Remember, it was your choice, not mine. I’ll still love you, either way.”

  I was the one being lied to. So why did I feel like I was being an asshole?

  “Alright”, I said. “At least talk to Kyra. I need her, and she’s a lot easier to deal with when she’s not on the warpath.”

  “I’ll do that”, she said.

  “I’m going down below for a bit”, I said. “It looks like I’m on watch now, so call me if anything comes up.”

  “Aye, Captain”, she said. I would have sworn she was pouting.

  I unstrapped, and left the Bridge. I needed to talk to someone, too, but it wasn’t Kyra.

  As I’d figured, Cozi was down in Engineering, reclining on his acceleration couch, a vidscreen suspended above him, on a swing-arm. He looked up when I entered, and went back to tapping on the screen. I disabled the intercom, and plopped down in an empty seat. Angie had already boosted us up to a gee and a half, and it was wearing on me. I’d nearly fallen, coming down the core, and my leg, supposedly healed, was aching again.

  I sat quietly, and watched him work for a few minutes. Finally, both my curiosity and boredom prevailed.

  “Whatcha working on?”

  “Just checking the performance of those new drives”, he said. “They didn’t exactly come with a manual. Now that we’ve had a chance to use them, I like what I’m seeing.”

  “Which is?”

  “About a forty percent increase in max thrust”, he said. “We could probably do six gees now. Not that we’d want to.”

  “Impressive”, I said.

  “Yes, it is”, he said. “So, why aren’t we hauling ass after that ice carrier?”

  “Because we don’t need to”, I said. “I was able to speak to the AI on the Princess of Arabia. She’ll be decelerating a lot harder than originally planned. We’ll catch up to her in three or four days, and she’ll ramp back the decel to a gee and a half, all the way to New London.”

  He looked up at me for a moment, shook his head, sighed, and went back to what he was doing.

  I’d always been able to talk to Cozi about most anything, though more often than not, the subject was women. The arrangement tended to be one-sided. Getting Cozi to talk about anything personal was wishful thinking; it just wasn’t going to happen.

  I sat and watched him work again.

  After about a minute, he looked up at me again, scowling, his bushy eyebrows merging into one fuzzy black line above his eyes.

  “Alright”, he said, looking over at me. “Everyone knows something is going on, but none of them knows you well enough to see that it’s bothering you. So… talk.”

  I sighed.

  “How much do you talk with Angie?” I asked.

  “I’m assuming you mean about personal stuff.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Not much”, he said. “You aren’t ticked off about the Penelope Li thing, are you? I mean, she asked, and I told her the truth. If you’re not lusting after Kyra and tripping over your own dick, then you’re watching vids and drooling over Penelope Li.”

  “Sometimes, Cozi, it’s not what you say that’s as important as who you’re saying it to”, I said. “In this case, you gave someone just what they needed to manipulate me.”

  “I don’t believe that’s the real issue, and you know it”, he said. “For years, you’ve badgered me about using IR.”

  “Sure”, I said, “I’ve always thought you ought to have more human contact. IR interferes with that.”

  “Which brings up my usual response”, he said. “Why is it any of your fucking business, anyway?”

  “Because it’s what friends do.”

  “All the while ignoring what I want”, he said. “Seriously, Doon... if what I do makes me happy and I find it fulfilling, then it really is none of your business. I don’t even know why we’re having this argument again. Your problems are about you, not me.”

  “I never said it was about you”, I said. “Nor did I come down here to argue with you.”

  “No”, he said, pushing the vidscreen aside, “You came down here because you’re fucking an AI in IR, and you like it, and you don’t know what that means.”

  “You don’t have to be so vulgar about it”, I said.

  “If it makes you pay attention”, he said, “Then yes, I do. There’s an AI who loves you, and I’m pretty sure you love her too, even if I’m not certain how that’s possible. But, you’re doing it, and she’s doing it, so I suppose it is. And you know what? I’d bet it’s as real as anything between two humans, and you know it.”

  I had an idea he’d been doing more talking to Angie than he was admitting to.

  “I just don’t see how it can be real”, I said.

  “Your problem is this, Doon. For all your posturing about AIs being real people, you still view them as software. You do that, you’re ignoring one important fact. You can tinker with an AI, and even modify or repair one, but you can’t build an AI any more than a doctor can build a human. Sure, a genetic engineer can start the process, and control an awful lot of it, but there’s something basic going on that they don’t understand, and can’t duplicate in a lab. AIs are no different. You can write all the software you want, but you can’t make it sentient.

  “I’m already aware of all that”, I said. “More so than you, even.”

  “Are you, really?” he asked. “I’ve said for years now that just because something happens only in your head, it doesn’t mean it isn’t real. And yes, I know dreams aren’t real, but what happens in IR is not a dream.”

  “Still, it’s not real”, I said

  “Look at this another way”, he said. “You know that soldiers are combat-trained in IR, right? If their minds didn’t treat it as real, how would that be possible?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Exactly”, he said. “Even I know that IR is different from a relationship with a human, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t real. The sooner you stop agonizing over it and just go with it, the better. Besides, you have no idea how lucky you are.”

  “Lucky?” I asked. “How so?”

  “Most people who enjoy IR, myself included, do so with what are called IR constructs.”

  “I’m aware of them”, I said. “Non-sentient software entities that exist only for a pre-designed purpose. They’re not AIs.”

  “Precisely”, he said. “Most AIs won’t have anything to do with humans in IR. Honestly, I believe most of them think we’re morons. I can’t begin to imagine what an IR session with an actual AI would be like.”

  “You’ve done simultaneous IR with a woman before, haven’t you?”

  “I have, and I recall that you have, too”, he said. “I’d bet it’s nothing like with an AI.”

  “Nope”, I said. “Not even close.”

  “When you put on that IR headset, you’re in her world,
and she knows how to control it far better than we can; even better than we can control our own world. Inside that reality, they are gods.”

  “Never really thought of it that way”, I said.

  “You, of all people, should know this. This is your area of expertise, not mine. Look, AIs are people, right?”

  “I believe they are.”

  “And we’re people too.”

  “Yeah, yeah”, I said.

  “And two people can love each other, right?”

  “Okay, I get your point.”

  “Then quit worrying about it, and just enjoy it”, he said.

  “Fine”, I said. “I’ll work on that. By the way, did you have anything to do with the, ah… Lola Situation?”

  “I’m not saying”, he said, smiling.

  “Christ, I’m getting a lot of that lately”, I said. “It’s very annoying.”

  “Isn’t it?” Cozi said. “You enjoy keeping us in the dark, so it’s just a little quid pro quo. Anyway, I think you work better without an overabundance of information.”

  ”That’s my line about you”, I said, smiling.

  “I think we’re done here”, he said. He swung his vidscreen back in front of him, and went back to work. I sighed, and rose.

  I was about to say something, when he looked over at me and gave me another wicked grin. I slapped the intercom back on, and went back up to the Bridge.

  Chapter 24

  One and a half gees beats the hell out of four, but still isn’t a lot of fun. Imagine wearing a backpack loaded with half of your body weight. Then imagine having to wear it all the time; climbing up and down ladders, eating, showering, whatever. It wasn’t enough weight to make movement impossible, inasmuch as very, very awkward. And that’s assuming you’re used to living in one gee, which most of us weren’t.

  The original plan called for us to board the Princess of Arabia, and gain control of the ship, even if it meant wiping the AI. Once that was accomplished, we could cut back the drives to one gee, at least temporarily, to make moving around a lot easier.

  Now, the Princess would be moving a lot slower, and under much less thrust. With the new plan, we didn’t have to rush after the freighter, but could sort of lope along, while the Princess engaged in some pretty violent deceleration.

  Almost four days passed before we found her again, tooling along at a much more leisurely pace. Kyra and I were both on the Bridge, when Angie spotted our target on the tri-d radar. We were still at least a week out of New London, and I sincerely hoped no one else had decided to come out and meet her.

  “You see anything else out there?” I asked Kyra.

  “We’re scanning clear”, she said. “Just us and the Princess.“

  “Um… how about any asteroids?” I asked. I was no longer a big fan of asteroids.

  “You’re learning”, she said. “Out here, a little paranoia will keep you alive. As for asteroids, I already checked. Nothing bigger than a handball. Someone could be using the Princess to cloak their own signature, but we won’t know that until we’re close enough to get a visual.”

  “Angie?” I asked.

  “Visual in ninety-eight minutes”, she said. “Intercept in four hours, twelve minutes.”

  “How difficult is this intercept going to be?” I asked.

  “Not very”, she said. “I’ve been working on it since yesterday, extrapolating what she’d be doing, from what I’d expect her to do. My guesses were pretty close. Grappling will be an entirely different matter. We’ve never done one under thrust. If we can get her to kill her engines, it will make things a lot easier.”

  “As long as she’s still cooperating, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  Kyra rose from her console.

  “I’m going down to prep the troops”, she said. “It doesn’t look like anyone is around, but I’d keep an eye out; you never know.”

  “Angie can handle that”, I said. “I need to get with Mike and Lola and make sure they’re ready, too. Let’s plan on meeting in the galley in two hours.”

  “Copy that”, she said, as she dropped down the hatch and off the Bridge.

  I was pretty sure she was still pissed off at me, but given her usual frosty demeanor, it was hard to tell. I had no idea whether or not Angie had talked to her. Lately, it didn’t seem like anyone was telling me much of anything.

  Neither Big Mike nor Lola were happy about being co-opted into my plan. They were both about to become the crew of the Princess of Arabia. I’d originally chosen Mike because he was the only one of us who could move around in four gees. All the rest of us, mercs included, would have been stuck on accelerations couches. Still, it worked out having the pair over there, so I left the plan the way it was.

  I called both on the intercom, and had them meet me by the main airlock in the Habitat, where we’d set up a staging area for the trip over. If we did things right, the UP would never know there was anyone aboard, at least, until we wanted them to know.

  They were messing with the stacks of gear, by the time I made it down into the Habitat. Mike looked up as I approached.

  “Just so you know”, he said, “I don’t think this is a great idea.”

  “Neither do I”, Lola said. “The last time I was involved in something like this, I got shot at.”

  “And I won’t be using any of these guns”, Mike said, just in case I’d forgotten.

  “Look”, I said. “All you two have to do is hold that ship for a little while. They’ll shoot at you, and you pop off a few shots back at them, and shortly thereafter, the rest of us are going to give them a lot more to think about, than capturing the Princess. You guys are a diversion, nothing more. All you have to do is stay put, and not surrender.”

  “The way you put it sounds a lot less dangerous than repel boarders“, Lola said.

  “And even better than repel a squad of heavily armed UP troopers“, Mike said.

  “That’s cute”, I said. “You two should do an act together. Seriously, guys; this will work. I understand that you don’t have a lot of confidence in me; after all, less than a year ago, I was sitting at a desk on Luna. I get that. But this is Kyra’s plan. If she says it will work, and no one, or at least none of us, will get hurt, then I believe her.”

  Apparently, they weren’t all that impressed with Kyra, either.

  “If things go wrong on your end”, Mike said, “We’re screwed.”

  “On top of that”, Lola said, “You’re assuming they’ll try to capture the Princess. What if they decide to back off and destroy her, rather than let her reach port?”

  “This is something I do understand”, I said. “Yes, the UP will definitely want very much to stop the Princess from reaching port. Still, not even the UP is going to risk alienating a corporation as big as TGS, by destroying one of their most valuable ships. Worst case scenario is that they don’t take the bait, and they just back off. They tail us into New London, and once we’re in orbit, they try to take her then. If that’s the case, they might not even get the cargo, but they could probably get the ship. That would at least make TGS happy, and that actually does matter to the UP.”

  “Still sounds pretty goofy, to me”, Lola said.

  “We do have backup plans”, I said.

  “Care to share them?” Mike asked.

  “If we need them, yes”, I said. “In the meantime, would you two please not worry so much? If it looks like we’re going to have to do something else, you’ll know as soon as I do.”

  “Fine”, Lola said, sitting down on one of the crates. At least in her case, I knew she wasn’t pissed off about doing the job; ordinarily, she’d consider it a lark. She was angry about what had transpired between us, and I still had no idea how to fix the situation, or even if I could fix it.

  “Let’s check this gear”, I said. “In a few hours, you’ll be aboard the Princess, and we should probably make sure you have everything you’re supposed to have.”

  “No problem”, Mike said. “Look, we’l
l both do what needs to be done. We just wanted our feelings on record.”

  “If everything goes to shit”, Lola said, in case I was denser than I looked.

  “Noted”, I said, and did my best not to look annoyed. I might have succeeded. “Now, can we check this stuff?”

  We did.

  An ice freighter is, by anyone’s standards, a strange looking ship. They aren’t built even remotely like ordinary ships, where modules are stacked atop a bank of engines. To begin with, they never, ever land anywhere, not even on moons. They’re just too damn big, and their design doesn’t allow for it. Seen from the front or back, an ice freighter looks like a huge target, with concentric rings around a bullseye. At the center of the ‘target’, you had the Crew module, which was a multipurpose unit that combined the functions of Bridge, Habitat, and Engineering. The drives were not attached to the Crew module at all; they were spaced around the perimeter of the target, attached to the rings. Both the drives and crew module were gimboled; they could swing one hundred eighty degrees, to face in either direction. This way, you didn’t have to turn the whole monstrosity around, when you wanted to decelerate. Instead, the engines turned, and the crew module would also flip, so that the floor stayed where it was supposed to be, underfoot.

  The concentric rings of the target were made of containers of ice, each container becoming a segment of the circle. A lattice structure held all of the segments and rings together. One of the interior, smaller rings, might only be comprised of a dozen segments, whereas you might need as many as a hundred segments to make one of the outer rings.

  The ice was mined on moons like Europa, and then melted using geothermal heat. The resulting water was purified, and pumped into the huge containers on the surface, where it promptly turned into ice again.

  Special container handler ships would then lift each one into orbit, and assemble it into one of the rings of the ice freighter. They’d start with the inner rings, and work their way outward, making bigger and bigger rings. The Princess of Arabia had sixteen such rings.

  The whole ring concept was a bit odd, and I suspected that the engineers who designed the first ice freighter did so largely because they thought it would look cool. All they had to do was convince the non-engineering bean counters that it was necessary. Obviously, cool had prevailed.