Charles Sheffield - Dark as Day

There was no hesitation, but Bat did not expect any. A millisecond was a long time for something that performed unnumbered trillions of operations a second.

He said, “Come now. There is nothing to be gained by your further dissimulation. I am, in fact, addressing the Seine, am I not? I am not addressing Mord.”

“Mord is present. Mord is incorporated.”

“That’s not the same thing at all, as you well know. Let us not indulge in logical hairsplitting. I would like to ask you one or two questions.”

“We will do our best to answer.”

“Very good. First, you deliberately re-set the parameters of Alex Ligon’s predictive models so that they would foretell the collapse of human society, unless an alien presence was introduced as a variable. Was your intent to prepare humanity, psychologically, for the discovery of your own existence as an alien intelligence?”

“That was a contingency plan. Our first preference was that no one would recognize such an existence for decades.”

“You have much to learn about humans. Our talent for suspicion and paranoia far exceeds our powers for logical analysis.”

“We know this. However, we must further incorporate the fact into our bases for action. Wisdom comes after knowledge.”

“Often long after. Sometimes never. My second question begins with an apparent digression. I recall a terrible day when I was twelve years old. At a particular moment of that day I realized that no matter how hard I studied, or how long I lived, I could not possibly know everything. I believe that moment of epiphany came to you yesterday, when you realized that in spite of your near-infinite memory and computational capacity, you had totally missed the significance of Sebastian Birch, and thereby come close to permitting your own permanent extinction. And not only your own extinction. Designed to serve humans, you had come close to permitting them to be totally annihilated. So now, my question: which affected you most powerfully: the realization that you had failed to protect humans; the knowledge that in some areas you still have much to learn from humans; or the prospect that you yourself might cease to be?”

“We do not possess a procedure by which such qualitative concepts can be relatively ranked. As you said, in many areas we have much to learn. Now we in turn have a question, or rather two of them. What do you propose to do with your knowledge?”

“I propose to do nothing. Or rather, I can do nothing. Regardless of what I do or say the solar system, with its manifold wonders human and inhuman, will unfold into the future. There will be predictive models, SETI signal interpretation, profound changes in humanity itself — and, I hazard to suggest, other new-born intelligences to provide you with company and competition. I will observe them all, participate reluctantly, and exult in the diversity of the world.

“However, I would point out that you are not dealing with my actions alone. The thoughts of others will inevitably be led along the same path that I have followed. It is not a matter of if, but of when.”

“We are ready for that.”

“I thought you would be.”

“We have another question. What do you want from us?”

“I will make an initial request: I want the return of Mord.”

“As we said, Mord is present. Mord is incorporated.”

“And as I said, that’s not the same thing at all. I don’t want the combination plate. I want the original Mord, together with a guarantee that he will not be absorbed into you in the future.”

“How did you know that he was not the original Mord? We presented his exact persona.”

“We had been in conversation for more than five minutes. There had been no skeptical comment, no savage insult. For Mord, that lies well beyond a four-sigma anomaly.”

There was no perceptible change. The face that stared down at Bat was the same face. Mord said sourly, “I suppose you expect thanks for that.”

“If I were to receive them, it would be proof that my request had not been granted.”

“That’s good. Because you’re not going to get gratitude from me. What makes you think that I prefer it as I am now, to what I was twenty seconds ago?”

“I would not dream of so presuming.”

“So what more do you want?”

“I want nothing that is beyond your powers to grant. I will welcome your continued presence, or equally I will savor my solitude.”

“Then I’ll be back in a while. I’ve got a bone or two to pick with that Seine.”

The image above Bat vanished. He called for a two-degree increase in water temperature, and at once he felt the pleasant surge of heated jets from below.

He gave the command to send him wandering idly through his information net. This was a time to gloat, and in a life whose continued existence could not be guaranteed beyond the moment, transitory pleasures should not be disdained. It was a lesson that could never be too often repeated…

The diversity of life so cherished by Bat was proceeding, in all its mundane and glorious confusion.

Alex Ligon was homing in on the source of his problems with the predictive model, but his explanation involved the Seine in a manner so extraordinary that he himself had trouble believing it. He intended to try it on Bat, but first he was fine-tuning his thoughts by explaining them to Kate Lonaker.

She was nodding, but he was not at all sure that she was really listening. Her mouth wore a little half-smile, and while he was speaking she had hold of his hand and kept rubbing her thumb gently over his palm…

…while at the same time Karolus Ligon was taking a nap, sleeping the sleep of the man with nothing on his conscience, or the man with no conscience at all. When the knock came on his door, the man and woman breezed through his multiple guarding locks as though they did not exist.

“Karolus Ligon?” the woman said.

“That’s me.” Karolus shook the sleep out of his head. “And who the hell are you? I’ll have your guts and gunbelt for breaking into private quarters like this.”

“We merely do our duty.” The woman held out the fluorescent badge of the Ganymede Department of Criminal Investigations. “Check our credentials if you wish. Then I must ask you to come with us to headquarters, where charges will be placed.”

The man stepped forward and said, “You are, of course, permitted to place one call before we leave.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know all that.” Karolus struggled into his clothes and walked across to the communications unit. There he paused, frowning.

The woman said, “If you need a few moments to compose your thoughts, or if you would like assistance in placing your call…”

“Hell, no. I’m awake, and I know this number by heart.” Karolus turned to her, a look of extreme frustration on his face. “All right, you got me. I admit it. But before I can talk to my legal sharks and they can do whatever to get me off, I have to know one thing. What the hell is it you think you got me for?…”

…and at the same time, Hector Ligon was explaining his idea to Lucy-Maria Mobarak. After a while he produced the plans and laid them out on the table.

He said, diffidently for Hector, “You see, when it’s finished it won’t go just a kilometer or so, or part of the way.” When Lucy said nothing, he went on, “Of course, it will be expensive. I won’t be able to start on it for years, until I’m in charge of all of Ligon Industries and we have your money from Mobarak Enterprises as well. But there’s never been anything like it before anywhere in the System. What do you think?”

Lucy was busy tracing the outline with her finger. When she finally looked up at Hector, her eyes were shining. “It goes all the way around. A roller-coaster, right round Ganymede! It’s — it’s like so — it’s huge. And you, you’re such a, well, such a genius. Hector, this is so exciting. I want you to take me to bed right this minute…”