John Scalzi: A Problem of Proportion

“We’re asking the same question over here,” Schimdt said to Wilson, although he was the only one on the Urse Damay who could hear him.

“You are the ship,” Wilson repeated.

Yes.

“That’s not possible,” Werd said.

I wish you were right about that.

“Lieutenant Werd is right,” Wilson said. “None of us have been able to create truly intelligent machines.”

I never said I was a machine .

“This guy is making me irritated,” Werd said, to Wilson. “He’s speaking in riddles.”

“And he can hear you,” Wilson said, making a chopping motion: Werd, shut up. “Rayth Ablant, you’re going to need to explain yourself better for us. I don’t think any of us understand what you’re saying.”

It’s easier to show you.

“All right,” Wilson said. “Show me.”

Look behind you.

Wilson did. Behind him was a line of displays and a large, black cabinet. He turned back to the display.

Open it. Carefully.

Wilson did.

Hello .

“Oh, fuck me,” Wilson said.

“He’s a brain in a box,” Wilson said. “Literally a brain in a box. I opened up the cabinet and there’s a container in there with an Easo brain and nervous system laid out and connected to non-organic data fibers. There’s some sort of liquid surrounding the brain, which I suspect is keeping it oxygenated and fed. There’s an outtake tube that connects to what looks like a filtering mechanism, with another tube coming out the other end. It all gets recycled. It’s pretty impressive, as long as you forget that there’s an actual sentient being trapped in there.”

Wilson sat once more in the Clarke shuttle bay with Abumwe, Sorvalh, Muhtal Worl and Hart Schmidt. Captains Coloma and Fotew had returned to their posts. Abumwe and Coloma had seen Rayth Ablant from Wilson’s own point of view through his BrainPal feed, but Sorvalh wanted a report as well. Wilson offered her his BrainPal feed, but she refused, preferring, as she said, “a live recounting.”

“Who was this Ablant?” Sorvalh asked. “He had a life before…this.”

“He was a pilot on the Urse Damay, or so he says,” Wilson said. “You would be able to check that better than I would, Councillor.”

Sorvalh nodded to Worl, who made a note on his tablet computer. “He was part of a crew,” Sorvalh said. “The Urse Damay had a core crew of fifty and a diplomatic mission party of a dozen. What happened to them?”

“He says he doesn’t know,” Wilson said. “He says he had been asleep when the Urse Damay was first boarded and that he was knocked unconscious during the invasion. When he woke up he was like this. The people who did this to him didn’t tell him anything about the rest of his crew.”

“And who are they, the people who did this to him?” Sorvalh asked.

“He says he doesn’t know that, either,” Wilson said. “He says he’s never even technically spoken with them. They communicate with him through text. When he came to, they explained to him his job was to learn how to operate and navigate the Urse Damay on his own and that when he became proficient enough, he would be given a mission. This was that mission.”

“Do you believe he doesn’t know who these people are?” Sorvalh asked Wilson.

“Pardon my French, Councillor, but the guy is a fucking disembodied brain,” Wilson said. “It’s not like he has any powers of observation other than what they gave him. He says they didn’t even give him external inputs until after the ship skipped. He was flying blind for the first half of his mission. It’s entirely possible he knows nothing about these people but what they tell him, which is almost nothing.”

“You trust him,” Sorvalh said.

“I pity him,” Wilson said. “But I also think he’s credible. If he was a willing participant in this, they wouldn’t need to put his brain in a box to get him to do what they want him to do.”

“Tell the councillor what he was told his payment would be for this mission,” Abumwe said to Wilson.

“They told him that if he did this mission, they’d put his brain back into his body and send him home,” Wilson said. “His payment would be that he gets to be himself again.”

Sorvalh was silent about this for a moment, contemplating. Then she shifted her body weight and addressed Abumwe. “I would ask your indulgence for a moment while I say something terribly blunt.”

“Be my guest,” Abumwe said.

“It’s no great secret that the Colonial Union does things like this all the time,” Sorvalh said. She motioned at Wilson. “Your lieutenant here is the result of consciousness allegedly being transferred from one body to another genetically-modified one. He has a computer in his brain which connects to it using inorganic connections that are at least functionally similar to what’s connected to this poor creature. Your special forces soldiers are even more modified than he is. We know that you have some special forces soldiers who only tangentially resemble human beings. And we know that one penalty option your Colonial Defense Forces has for its malfeasant soldiers is to place their brains in a container for a period of time.”

Abumwe nodded and said, “Your point, Councillor.”

“My point, Ambassador, is that whoever did this to Rayth Ablant, their mode of operation is closer to that of the Colonial Union than it is to the Conclave,” Sorvalh said.

Abumwe nodded at Wilson again. “Tell her Rayth Ablant’s orders,” she said.

“He says his orders were to destroy any and all ships that presented themselves after he skipped,” Wilson said. “There was no discrimination on the part of his masters. They just pointed him at both of us and hoped for the best.”

“To what end?” Sorvalh said.

“Does it matter?” Abumwe said. “If we had been destroyed, the Colonial Union would have blamed you for the ambush. If you had been destroyed, the Conclave would have done the same to us. If we had both been destroyed, our two governments might already be at war. It’s as you said earlier, Councillor. At this point, the why is almost trivial, unless we know the who .”

“If your Lieutenant Wilson is correct, and this Rayth Ablant has no way of knowing for whom he works, there’s no way for us to know the who, ” Sorvalh said. “All we have to go on are methods, and these methods are closer to yours than ours.”

“Rayth Ablant doesn’t know who he’s working for, but he’s not all we have,” Wilson said.

“Explain,” Sorvalh said.

“He’s a brain in a box,” Wilson repeated. “And the box can tell us a lot of things. Like whose technology it’s made out of. If there’s anything off the shelf about the thing, then that’s a lead to follow. Even if everything is custom-made, we can reverse-engineer it and maybe find out what it’s closest to. It’s better than what we have now, which is nothing.”

“What will that require?” Sorvalh asked.

“Well, for one thing, I want to take Rayth Ablant off the Urse Damay, ” Wilson said. “The sooner the better. We have a ticking clock here.”

“I don’t understand,” Sorvalh said.

“One of the first things Rayth Ablant said to us was ‘help me,’” Wilson said. “He said that because his life support is running off the emergency power batteries. He’s got about eight hours left before he exhausts the power supply.”

“And you want to bring him here,” Sorvalh said, indicating the Clarke .

Wilson shook his head. “He’s on a Conclave ship,” he said. “Wherever the box comes from, it’s interfaced with a Conclave power network. Your power systems on the Nurimal more closely match those of the Urse Damay than ours do.” Wilson smiled. “And besides, you have the guns.”