Джек Макдевитт - Cryptic - The Best Short Fiction of Jack McDevitt

“He thought,” Daddy told her, “that he could bluff them. That he was too important, had won too many awards, that they couldn’t just abandon him. I thought so too. We all did.” He shook his head at the man’s arrogance. “Didn’t happen.”

Louise Hofstatter was still in office and was immensely popular. Though not with Janie.

She had been seven years old when they’d left Europa, and she’d prayed for Barkowski, had gone to bed every night thinking how it must be for him all by himself millions of miles from anyone else. She hadn’t understood it then, hadn’t been able to grasp why he’d stayed behind. That was probably because the search hadn’t been successful, no life had been found, and it had seemed such a waste. But she knew now why he’d done it. The search was all that mattered. What you found or didn’t find was beside the point. She prided herself thinking that, if she’d been there instead of Barkowski, she’d have done the same thing.

Daddy led the way into the Martian exhibit, and they looked at the world flag and the excavation gear and Janie climbed onto the truck and sat in the front seat, pretending to drive. The sun was high overhead, pale and small, but the sky was dark anyhow, though not nearly like the sky at Pluto.

“ Hello, Janie. ” The voice startled her. It came out of the earphones,female this time. It sounded like Miss Harbison over at Roosevelt. “ Welcome to Mars. ”

“Thank you.”

“ My name is Ginger, and I’m the base AI. Is there anything you’d like to know? ”

“How fast will this go? The truck?”

“ It’s capable of speeds up to fifty-five miles per hour, although we wouldn’t run it that fast. ”

“Why not?”

“ We don’t have roads. It would be dangerous. ”

“What does it use for fuel?”

“ It uses batteries. ”

She imagined herself bouncing over the uneven terrain. Vroom. Look out for that ditch. Cut hard on the wheel.

Ginger explained how the base had functioned, showed her where the landers had been serviced, how fuel had been extracted from the ground, provided a simulated flight in an orbiting communication satellite. She’d raced above the red sands, chirping with joy, and thought how it must have been to lift away from Moonbase and ride the rockets out to Io and Titan. She laughed and begged Ginger for more.

She was accustomed to the house AI and the school AI and the AI down at Schrodinger’s. They were all wooden and formal and addressed you with tiresome formality. The one at school even yelled at you if you blocked the corridor while classes were changing. But Jerry had seemed more realistic, somehow. More like a person. And Ginger sounded vaguely as if she would have enjoyed a good party. “Were you actually there, Ginger?” she asked, pulling off the VR helmet. “Mars?”

“ No. I’ve never been out of the museum. ”

“Oh.” She shifted her position on the truck seat, which was too big for her.

“I’m the same model, though.”

“Will you have a chance to go someday?”

“ To Mars? ”

“Yes.”

“ Marsbase is shut down, Janie. ”

“Well, yes, I mean, I knew that. But I meant, will you have a chance to travel on one of the missions?”

“ No. I don’t think so. ”

“I’m sorry.”

There was a tinkling sound like water tumbling over rocks. As if Ginger was having problems with a relay. Or reacting without words. “ It’s okay. I’m only a data processing system. I don’t have emotions. No need to feel sorry for me. ”

“You seem too alive to be just software.”

“ I think that’s a compliment. Thank you. ”

“May I ask a question?”

“ Of course. ”

“How old are you, Ginger?”

“ Fifteen years, eight months, four days. Why do you ask? ”

“I was just curious.” And after a moment: “You’re older than I am.”

“ Yes. Does that matter? ”

“Are you aware that you’re an AI?”

“ Ah, a philosophical young lady, I see. Must be top of the class. ”

“I’m serious.”

“ Wouldn’t you rather just look at the rest of the base? ”

“No. Please. Are you aware who you are?”

“ Yes. Of course. ”

“But you’re not supposed to be, are you? I thought AI’s were not conscious.”

“ Well, who’s to know? My instructions call for me to give the illusion of consciousness. But whoever knows for sure what’s conscious and what isn’t? Maybe that stairway over there is watching us.”

“You’re kidding me.”

“ Not entirely. ”

It was hard to believe. But Janie thought about the AI’s going out to the Oort Cloud, and the one headed for Alpha Centauri, who wouldn’t get there for a thousand years.

Riding alone.

Like Hal Barkowski on Europa.

She climbed down, making room for a pushy ten-year-old boy. Daddy told her she looked as if she’d have made a good astronaut. He said it as if she were only ten herself but she controlled her irritation. “Daddy,” she said, “do they really not feel anything?”

“Who is that, honey?”

“The AI’s.”

“That’s correct. They’re just machines.”

“Including Jerry and Ginger.”

“Yes. Just machines.” He actually seemed to be enjoying the exhibit. He was looking around, shaking his head in awe. “Hard to believe we actually managed to send people to all those places. Quite an achievement.”

“Daddy, how do we know? That they’re just machines?”

“That’s a tough one,” he said. “We just do.”

“But how?”

“Your friend Barkowski, for one reason. He says so. And he designed the first generation of sentient systems.” He glanced at her. “In this case,” he added, “ sentient doesn’t literally mean aware.” He held up an index finger and spoke into his mike. When he’d finished he nodded. “Ginger tells me all the deep space systems were designed by him.”

“That would include her,” said Janie.

He shrugged. “I suppose so.”

They went into the dome, which was pretty primitive. Plastic tables and chairs, a bank of monitors, some obsolete computer equipment, a half-dozen cots. Windows looked out over the reddish sand. She approached one and thought how the landscape never changed. Like Pluto. No lights anywhere. No movement. No rain. No flowers. Zip.

Maybe Daddy was right. Maybe people should stay home.

“ You don’t really believe that. ” Ginger’s voice again. Different now. More intense. “ Hold onto the dream, Janie. Interplanetary vehicles should have viewports and bases should have windows. And there should be somebody to look out the window. If we don’t have that, we’ll take the temperature of Neptune and not get much else. ”

“That’s a strange way for an AI to talk.”

“ Whatever. ”

“ You can look, Ginger. You have sensors. You can probably see better than I can.”

“ No. I can look, but I can’t see . I can’t describe what’s out there. I can’t penetrate things the way you do. ”

Janie laughed, but she felt the hair rise on the back of her neck. “Are you sure you don’t have any feelings?”

“ Absolutely. ” The voice was serene again.

“And you think people should go? On the long flights?”

“ I think you should go. ”

“Me?”

“ Somebody should go who can get out of the ship and look at the peaks on the moon and know what it means. Someone should throw a party on Io. Someone should capture her feelings in a poem that people will still be reading a thousand years from now. ”