Elizabeth Bear - Worldwired

“I'm not fond of that word.”

“Stewardship? Do you deny that's what it is?”

“I can't guarantee I will take the commonwealth's side in any negotiations,” he said. “But you need me to assist in the operation of the Montreal, and negotiations with the Benefactors, and in going with her on her further missions of research and study. And to be perfectly frank, Captain, there are people on this ship for whom I bear a personal affection. But I'm not interested in a role in loco parentis to the human race. That sounds… extraordinarily boring.”

“It seems to me that you are going to have to evolve an entirely new ethical framework to handle this, Dick.”

“Actually,” he said, “I'm hoping for some sort of nominal world authority, or a cooperative venture between space-faring powers. Failing that…”

“Failing that”—Wainwright folded her shaking hands into her elbow joints and tried to pretend that the sinking sensation in her gut was worry about the power of the entity she confronted, and not distaste at telling off a friend—“if you cannot guarantee your loyalty to the Montreal, her crew, and Canada, I will be forced to ask you to abandon your input into her operations.”

“I have a counterproposal.”

“Let's hear it.”

“I spawn a subpersona that shares the loyalties you require, and house its processes in the Montreal rather than the worldwire. The Montreal gains an AI of its own, a discrete one.”

It had possibilities. “And the Vancouver ? And the Huang Di ?”

“Likewise. Entities of their own, in communication with the worldwire but not a part of it. Like the discrete nanonetworks inhabiting the bodies of the pilots. Those personas will be able to generate additional AIs as needed, for additional ships, and I will still be able to talk to them, and you to me.”

“And the Chinese get one, too.”

“Anybody who wants one gets one. I, however, determine and program the limits of their obedience.”

“And that doesn't place you in loco parentis, as you said? When your… spawned personas, whatever their loyalty might be, can summarily refuse to follow orders? What if they decide they want to switch sides? What if this hypothetical AI decides to stand back and let the Chinese obliterate us next time, because pacifism is programmed into it?”

“Don't think I won't fight if I have to, Captain.”

His tone drew her up, sharp. Even knowing that every emotion he betrayed was calculated and processed in advance, she hesitated. And then she swallowed and forged on. “Or we could have Elspeth and Gabe go back to producing intelligent programs.”

“You could,” he said, his voice hanging in the air.

Abruptly, she wished he had given her an image to watch while they spoke… not that a holographic icon would have given away anything he didn't choose to either.

He continued. “But that's very hit or miss. And in me, you know you have a… moral creation.”

“I sure to hell hope so,” she said. She couldn't keep the bitterness from her tone. In an attempt to chase it out of her mouth, she got up and began to pace from bulkhead to bulkhead. “You won't be able to maintain neutrality, Dick.”

“I can try.”

“If you were truly devoted to staying out of our human wrangling, you might consider the option of suicide.” She turned her head to the side, sneaking a sly look at the monitors so he would know that she was kidding.

“The genie won't go back in the bottle, no matter how hard you wish him there. But not everything has to be a weapon.”

“We're primates,” she reminded him. “Sooner or later, everything is. All right, then. We'll cross that bridge when they burn it out from under us. So let's discuss our options for this EVA to the shiptree. I want to do it Sunday.”

“I want to do it sooner than that. Saturday. Tomorrow. Game five of the World Series is tonight, and game six is Sunday.”

“And you don't want to miss the game?”

She got it deadpan enough that he snickered. “Well, there is that, of course,” he said. “But Janet Frye is scheduled to testify on Monday, and if the whole thing doesn't go to hell in a handbasket, we'll have had some good news to release on Saturday, when there's nothing else eating up bandwidth. We'll look like we're accomplishing something up here.”

“And if it does go to hell in a handbasket?”

“What does it matter?” he asked. “We'll be getting screwed on Monday anyway. Frye has to have an ace in the hole.”

6:30 AM

Saturday October 13, 2063

HMCSS Gordon Lightfoot

Earth orbit

If the birdcage looked like a fantastical Christmas ornament, the shiptree looked… well, like the whole damned tree. Shimmering gaud and tinsel, although the thing's curved, asymmetrical, organic outline reminded Charlie more of a satiny branch of driftwood wrapped in microlights than a traditional conifer. Charlie leaned forward against his five-point restraints, his helmet cradled in his lap, and gawked as shamelessly as a child. Beside him, Jeremy was doing the exact same thing, and Dick and Leslie were watching through his eyes.

They sat behind Lieutenant Peterson in the second row of crew chairs in the Gordon Lightfoot, leaving the copilot's chair beside her empty. The panoramic forward windows on the shuttle showed a broad slice of space, far more expansive than the triple-thick airplane windows with their rounded corners back in the passenger compartment.

Charlie's gauntleted hands tightened on the shatterproof crystal of his helmet. At least if the shiptree slapped the Gordon Lightfoot out of the sky, Leslie would know everything he did. There'd be no foolishness with final transmissions and telemetry and black boxes— do shuttlecraft even have black boxes?

“Yes,” Richard said in his head. “And they also have me, these days. And relax. The shiptree never did anything about the unmanned probes we sent.”

Neither did the birdcage. And the probes didn't try to find a way inside, he answered, but he forced his hands to ease around his helmet. A moment too soon, because Peterson set the autopilot and lifted her own helmet off the carrier beside the pilot's chair. “Hats on, gentlemen,” she said. “I suppose I should thank you two for getting me out of the office again, shouldn't I?”

Jeremy laughed, a hollow sound amplified by the dome he was settling over his head. The gold-impregnated glass caught the shuttle's interior lights, making him look as if he wore a Renaissance angel's halo over his faded gingery hair. Basset-hound eyes, drooping at the corners, and a long hollow-cheeked face completed the illusion of an old master's work, disconnected in time and place. Charlie seated his own helmet and checked the latches, then checked Jeremy's. Jeremy leaned forward to inspect Peterson's, and Peterson went over Charlie's seals.

“Leslie must be furious he isn't here for this,” Jeremy said, as Peterson seated her hands on the yoke again. Charlie, who had started his shuttle cert but never finished it, noticed that she engaged the dead man's switch when she did so.

“He's spitting.”

Jeremy was silent for a moment. “I'm missing Patty's testimony.”

Thanks, Charlie, Leslie said. I'm quiet and well behaved, and you're telling Jer lies about my behavior? See if I buy you a beer when we get back to Earth.

It was meant to ease the lump in Charlie's throat when he thought of Leslie out there somewhere, drifting. It didn't. What makes you think they're ever gonna let us go back to Earth, Les?