Stephen Baxter - Last and First Contacts

‘They used the climate disaster as the cover for crimes,’ Allen said. ‘The purposeless crippling of sentiences, for example. We have to acknowledge their achievements. But it’s as if the world has been saved by Nazi doctors.’

‘Humans are flawed creatures,’ Fortune said. ‘Most of them are bumbling mediocrities. Like your grandfather, Allen, whose solution to the world’s ills was to exile me up here. To tackle monstrous problems, you need monsters.’

‘Well, the hell with it.’ Allen was growing impatient. ‘I need to study your bipolar AI. I’ve some gear in my luggage. Freddie, this will be technical. Why don’t you take a walk around the station?’

Bella said eagerly, ‘Oh, let’s. I’ll show you.’

‘And you,’ Allen said to Fortune, ‘show me back to my cabin. Please.’

With bad grace, Fortune stomped off.

Bella gave Freddie a tour of the habitable module and its facilities: cabins, mostly unused, galleys, washrooms, a virtual recreation room. Everything was drab, utilitarian, and old.

Bella told Freddie a little about herself. ‘My protocols are quite strict.’ She tried to push her hand into the wall. Sparks scattered from her palm, and Bella screwed up her face in pain. ‘I can’t go flying around in vacuum either. I have to eat and drink. I even have to use the bathroom! It’s all virtual, of course. But Fortune says he designed my life to be as authentically human as possible.’

Freddie said carefully, ‘But why did he create you at all?’

‘I give him company,’ Bella said.

Freddie, an academic who was careful with words, noted that she hadn’t explicitly confirmed that Fortune had ‘created’ her, as the AxysCorp engineers had created Cal and Aeolus, any more than Fortune had admitted it himself.

They soon tired of the steely corridors, and Bella led the way to an observation blister. This was a bubble of toughened transparent plastic stuck to the bottom of the module’s hull. Sitting on a couch, they looked down on the Earth, a bowl of light larger than the full Moon. Freddie was thrilled to see the white gleam of Antarctic ice. But the fragmented remnant cap on that green-fringed continent was the only ice visible on the whole planet; there was none left on the tropical mountains, Greenland was bare, and at the north pole was only an ocean topped by a lacy swirl of cloud.

Bella’s thin, pretty face was convincingly painted by Earthlight. ‘Of course we’re suspended permanently over the middle of the Atlantic. But you can see day and night come and go. And if I ever want to see the far side, I can always call for a virtual view.’

She had no real conversation, under the surface. She was an empty vessel, Freddie thought. Beautifully made, but unused, purposeless. But then the only company she had ever had was the reclusive Fortune – and perhaps the station’s artificial minds, Cal and Aeolus. ‘I’m no expert. But I can see that this environment doesn’t offer enough stimulation to you as a sentience. You’ve a right to more than this.’

Bella seemed moved to defend herself, or perhaps Fortune. ‘Oh, there are things to see,’ she said. ‘It’s a marvel when Earth goes dark with night, and you can see the stars. And you can see AxysCorp facilities, studded all over the sky. Sometimes you can even make out the big Chinese space shields. The Heroics, Fortune’s generation, saved the world. You can see it in the sky.’

Freddie suspected these views were just watered-down versions of Fortune’s opinions; after all, the only human mind Bella had ever been exposed to. ‘But people on Earth,’ she said, ‘don’t always feel that way. AxysCorp did fulfil the Heroic-Solution strategy, to stabilise the climate, and to remove the old heavy, dirty industries from Earth. Billions of lives were saved, and a global technological civilisation survived, and is now even growing economically. That was a great achievement.

‘But the Heroics chose to do things a certain way. The whole Earth is full of their gargantuan, ageing machines. Memorials erected to themselves by a generation who wanted to be remembered. Look at me. Look at what I did, how powerful I was. Maybe their egos had to be that big to take on the task of fixing a broken planet. But to live at the feet of their monuments is oppressive.’

Bella looked lost. ‘People ought to be more grateful.’

‘You need to come to Earth. It’s not like it is for you, stuck here inside the machinery. Most people just live their lives. They don’t obsess about the Heroics and AxysCorp and the rest. Only historians like me do that. Because it really is all just history.’

A panel in the window filled up with Allen’s blunt features. ‘Professor Gonzales. Could you rejoin us on the bridge, please? I’ve made my judgement.’

Freddie hurried after Bella, through the maze of corridors back to the bridge.

The room was stripped of virtual displays. Allen sat comfortably on the plinth, the nearest thing to a piece of furniture. Fortune paced about, chewing a silver-coloured fingernail.

Allen said, ‘We’ll need a proper debrief. But technically speaking the situation here is simple, as far as I can see.’ He showed Freddie the probe he’d been using, a kind of silvery network. ‘This is a cognitive probe. A simple one, but sufficient. I ran a trace on the AI pole, Aeolus. I can find no bug in the software, despite the distorted sentience set-up AxysCorp left behind here. Nor, incidentally, according to station self-test diagnostics, is there any flaw in the physical equipment, the microwave generators, the antenna arrays, the station’s positioning systems, all the rest. Aeolus should not have let that hurricane reach Florida. Yet it, he , did so.’

There was a sound of doors slamming, far off. Freddie felt faintly alarmed.

‘My recommendation is clear. There’s a clear dysfunction between the AI’s input, that is its core programming and objectives, and its output. The recommended procedure is clearly defined in such cases. The AI pole Aeolus must be—’

‘No. Don’t say it,’ said Fortune, suddenly alarmed.

Allen stared at him. ‘What now, Fortune?’

‘There’s no blame to be attached to Aeolus. None at all.’

‘What are you saying?’

Fortune’s mouth worked; his metal teeth gleamed. ‘That I did it. That Aeolus sent a hurricane into Florida because I asked him to. So there’s no need for termination. All right?’

Allen was amazed. ‘If this is true, we’ve a whole box of other issues to deal with, Fortune. But even so the AI acted in a way that clearly compromised its primary purpose – indeed, contradicted it. There’s no question about it. Aeolus will be shut down—’

Cal spoke up. ‘I’m afraid I can’t allow that to happen, Doctor Allen.’

The station shuddered.

Allen got to his feet. ‘What in the dieback was that?’

Fortune growled, ‘I told you. Now see what you’ve done!’

Freddie said to Bella, ‘Show us your external monitors.’

Bella hurried to a wall workstation and began calling up graphical displays. ‘Our comms link to Earth is down. And – oh.’

UNSA Shuttle C57-D had been detached from its dock. It was falling away from the station, turning over and over, shining in undiluted sunlight.

‘We’re stranded,’ Allen said, disbelieving.

Fortune clenched his fists and shouted at the ceiling. ‘Cal, you monster, what have you done? I saved Bella from you once. Couldn’t you let her go?’

There was no reply.

They stayed on the bridge. It made no real sense, but Freddie sensed they all felt safer here, deep in the guts of the station. Bella sat quietly on the plinth, subdued. Fortune paced around the bridge, muttering.