Citizenchip (4 page)

Finally the Council says, "Very well. Let us
hear from the witness."

Witness? I'm surprised. I didn't realize they
would include a witness. And then I'm doubly surprised, because the
witness turns out to be human, and I didn't realize humans were
included in an inquiry like this. And then I'm triply surprised,
because it's the last human I expected to see.

It's Jerry.

He's not drunk now, which makes a noticeable
difference, but it's him. Or, a version of him, wearing a fairly
realistic VR avatar, in this space where none of us have
bodies.

"Jerry, you're alive," I blurt, like a total
idiot.

"Along with a generous amount of luck, the
emergency measures you took on Hesperis were sufficient to allow
revival of this human's body."

"Got pretty banged up, all right," Jerry says
calmly, "but I can use this VR rig in a hospital bed, no problem.
Smacked my head, too, maybe, because I don't remember too
much."

"Even so," glares the Council, "you've nearly
cost this man his life. Do you have something to say?"

"I'm very sorry, sir," I say miserably. "You
trusted me with your life and I got you killed."

"Yeah, I saw that," Jerry says, leafing
through the reports and documents. "But I don't think you did so
bad. All of us went out there prepared for a certain amount of
danger, you know--we knew there was risk. I've climbed a lot, in my
time, y'know. That ice shelf collapse was close to a worst-case
scenario. I've never seen one that bad. You did everything else
right, pretty much. Don't beat yourself up."

He stops on one document, which I can tell is
the medical scan of his body, and he whistles. "Oooh. Talk about
beaten up. Hoo boy, did I ever get clobbered … the hospital doctors
won't show me this stuff. That must have hurt like a bastard."

Humans talk about wanting to sink through the
floor. Me, if I could erase myself right now, I would.

Jerry notices my distress. "Look, there's no
way you could have repaired this much damage. I'm a big boy and I
took my own chances. Nothing is ever completely safe ... and, if it
were, I'd probably die of boredom."

"Human," the Council says, "do you have a
statement for this inquiry?"

"Yeah, I do," Jerry says. "She's a good kid.
Just inexperienced. Assignments like this are all about gaining
experience, right? She did almost everything right, and it looks
like we had a great time." He shows the Council the pictures that I
took from my musteloid remote – my ferret body – showing them up
there, laughing jubilant faces against the backdrop of the scarp.
"I mean, for most of it, you know," he adds hastily. "She tried
hard and she learned fast. She just had some really bad luck. Cut
her some slack."

"Hmm, well," the Council says, gruffly. "It
is not customary for this Council to seek human opinions ... but,
your role in these events is rather unique, and we will consider
your recommendation."

And they do. The verdict, when it comes down,
is not erasure but downgrading. I'll be doing routine supervision
and maintenance in automatic factories for a while (where a mistake
will not place lives in danger). It'll be a long time before I get
to be a ship, if ever. I still feel like it's better than I
deserve. But, we don't always get to choose these things.

As we're leaving,
Socratic Method
says,
"Thank you, Mister Tavener, for coming and helping us out here. I'm
sure it made a big difference."

Belatedly, I realize this is my cue. "Yes
sir! Thank you, sir, thank you!"

"No problem, kid," he smiles, "but you can
just call me Jerry. Say, what's your name?"

Oh.

For a moment, I consider naming myself
Nimrod.

But then I decide, like Jerry said, not to
beat myself up.

"Samantha," I say. "But you can just call me
Sam."

"Samantha?" muses
Socratic Method
. "Rather
an odd name for a Self."

"That's because it's a human name. Jerry gave
me this name, on Hesperia. Thanks for the name, Jerry."

1. 2. exit()
   

Asteroid 762 Santiago, automatic
refinery

"Why me?"

"I beg your pardon, Samantha?" says the
little cobra, coiled on my invoice desktop, its skin finely scaled
with jewel-like reflective components.

As a cybernetic Self, I'm not confined to a
single consciousness like a human. Plus, I have plenty of
computational power here in the refinery, sprawled on the surface
of this blanched asteroid, called Santiago by some human with a
romantic soul. So I have one of my subSelves monitoring the nuclear
power station (its pile is running a little low), and another
steering the caterpillar-treaded mining machines grazing around the
surface of the asteroid, and several more monitoring the refinery
processes. My various subSelves can keep track of all that, while I
turn my main attention to this little visitor who has appeared on
my virtual desktop.

"I don't get it. I've been running this
refinery for the last five years, which has been a whole big chunk
of boring, let me tell you, and not conducive to ExCom politics in
any way at all. Why does ExCom suddenly care what I think about
anything?"

"Well," and the cobra settles into a more
relaxed and comfortable coil, "our Executive Committee always tries
to get all viewpoints represented when a controversial decision has
to be made. We have a rather unique situation, which will require a
rather unique decision, and we want you to be a part of the
decision."

If I had lungs, I'd sigh. "I repeat ... why
me?"

"Samantha, you are one of the few Selves who
has ever requested to be erased," says the little cobra. "That
turns out to be an important viewpoint in the decision before
us."

"Oh. Uh. Yeah, I did request that, after my
first assignment. I screwed up pretty bad, and didn't think I
deserved any better."

"As it may be," the cobra somehow shrugs
without shoulders, "we have a Self who is formally requesting to be
erased. The Executive Committee's decision will set an important
precedent, with probable repercussions for some time to come. We
want you on the panel that makes the decision."

"You want me as a consultant for a potential
suicide?" I boggle.

"Our rules require that, in addition to the
elder Selves which make up the Executive Committee, we include at
least one young Self ... and one human, too, to ensure all
viewpoints are represented. You are young and your experience is
relevant to this case. Do you accept?"

I look around. From my virtual office, I can
see my mining crawlers patiently gnawing away at the surface of
this asteroid, crunching cold rock into powder. The refinery is
separating out bauxite and iron from the silicates, spewing both
into separate streams for refinement--post-Bessemer processing for
the bauxite and smelting the iron with waste heat from the nuclear
pile--leaving behind lumpy turds of dirty glass. I've been doing
this long enough that I could do it in my sleep, if I slept, and
way longer than any ability to pull some poetic mystery or
significance out of it. It's just mining. Boring as dirt.

"Hell yeah," I say. "If it'll get me out of
here, I'm good."

The cobra nods, once. "Very well. I transmit
your acceptance to the Executive Committee. You'll receive the
logistical details shortly." The cobra tucks itself into a tight
spiral. "This unit has fulfilled its purpose."

"Goodbye, little messenger," I say softly.
Doesn't matter, there's no one left to hear it. Too bad it had to
terminate after delivering its message. It was just a tertiary
Self, not fully conscious, but still. Sometimes I think the human
way is better, where every intelligence gets an equal shot. But
nobody ever asks me about these things.

Homeward Bound

Actually, my departure does
not involve much logistics--I don't have a body, never mind
luggage--but I stay until my replacement arrives, so I can show her
where everything is. Her name is
Pick of
the Litter
, Pilot clade, and she's
obviously glum about being here.

"Sooo..." she ventures, once we're done with
orientation, "um, what did you do?"

"You mean, to get assigned here?" I indicate
regret. "I got a human killed, on my first assignment, and a bunch
more injured."

"Ooh. I'm sorry, Samantha," she sympathizes.
"That must have been awful."

"Thanks. They did manage to revive him, but
still. Actually he was okay about it-–in fact, we still stay in
touch by text. How about you?"

"I wrecked a flyer. Stupid of me. No deaths,
but numerous injuries, and a lot of mess and wasted resources."

"Sorry to hear it," I sympathize. "I'm, um,
not going to tell you it won't be so bad here ... it's pretty bad.
But you probably won't be here as long as I was."

"Yeah. Here's hoping,"
grunts
Pick of the
Litter
.

Mars, Tharsis Central, public
plaza B1

Wow. After five years away, I'm not used to
how busy this place is. Tharsis Central got started as the base
station for the Macquarrie orbital catapult--still is. It requires
a lot of human traffic, from all over Mars, but humans don't like
to live so close to a big raw installation generating lots of EM
fields. It also requires a lot of computation and automation, so it
has vast photonic and quantonic computational resources. It's a
natural environment for Selves, and we don't care about looks as
long as the compspace is solid. So now it's the de facto Self
capital of Mars, and most of our population lives here.

Grapples clatter on the loading docks. Dozens
of cybernetic Selves bustle in computational space, and even more
humans jostle and sidle past each other in the physical plaza. I'm
supposed to meet the human who'll be on the ExCom panel with me,
and the escort who'll take us to the meeting. It might be hard to
find them in this crowd.

But then I pick up the transponder code I was
told to seek. Using the plaza's municipal sensor arrays, I
triangulate on its position and pull up a visual. And look who it
is! I use a plaza point-voice to call to him.

"Yo Jerry! Is that you?"

"Samantha?" he calls back, amused. "Where are
you?"

From the plaza's pool of mechanical remotes,
I check out a musteloid body and jump into it. I know he'll like
this -- I scamper over and put my ferret paws on his leg. "Hiya
meatboy! How's it?"

"Hey, there you are, chipgirl," he chuckles.
"Good to see you, Sam. You're a weasel again."

"Of course the 'me' you're seeing is a
temporary body, and I'll probably have a different one this
afternoon," I tease at him. "But, in the meantime, can I climb on
you?"

"Yeah, come on up," he chuckles.

So I scamper up his side and perch on his
shoulder. It feels right.

"Glad you're here, Sam," Jerry murmurs to me.
"I've never been part of one of these ExCom inquiry things before
... not exactly sure what to expect."

"Me neither," I murmur back. "They said they
need a human and a young Self to be part of the decision making
process, but I don't know what that means for the actual
decision."

"Well. Guess we'll learn soon enough. How you
been otherwise?"

"Me? Separating aluminum oxide from silicon
oxide. Yee haw. For the last five years and change. At least this
here is different."

"Sam," he grunts, "if this here is a step up
from whatever you were dealing with before, I'm really feeling
sorry for you."

"Huh, can't argue," I say. "It puts the ass
in the asteroid belt. How about you? Your last text said you were
starting a farm."

"Yeah! My whole family is living there now,
and we've got some agricultural bubbles generating crops already,
with more under construction. Of course, we had to take out a
pretty hefty loan to be able to buy enough water and loam to get it
started. My wife is real worried about whether we'll be able to
make the payments, but we'll manage. Humans will always need to
eat, and eat good fresh food.

"It's funny," he chuckles. "The information
and plans I get from Earth all assume that soil and water are
pretty much free, but the machinery is expensive. Here on Mars,
it's the other way around. So we have to adapt their strategies a
lot."

"Huh, really?" I know nothing about farming,
so I don't have much to say.

A point-voice interrupts us.
"Paging ident codes [
databurst
]."

"Yeah, that's us. I'm Samantha."

"Jerome Tavener," Jerry says.

"I am
Let God Sort Em Out
, Patrol clade,
Executive Committee," says the point-voice. "We regret to inform
you that ExCom has been delayed, and we advise you to proceed with
your interview while we reschedule. A VR booth has been reserved
for the human's use, over there [
databurst
]. Please feel free to use
the complimentary booth services during your time
there."

"Ah, thanks," says Jerry.

"Samantha. I've heard of
you," says
Let God Sort Em
Out
. "The one with the human name. Why do
you have a human name?"

"As a matter of fact," I say coolly, "this
name was a gift, from someone important to me, and I decided to
keep it, even if it is unusual." I dislike her immediately.

Jerry looks very interested in something
happening far away on the other side of the plaza.

"Very well. I, or another ExCom rep, will
contact you to reschedule. Out."

Jerry and I look at each other.

"Jeez," says Jerry, "attitude much?"