The Jovian Run: Sol Space Book One (36 page)

Staples’ head was shaking before the voice stopped. “Saving a man’s life by destroying another person’s is hardly a fair trade. I don’t think you can claim ‘lesser of two evils’ on that.”

“It was not simply one life or another, Captain. If Laplace died, Ducard would become head of Cronos Station. Now that he has, he will recommend to Libom Corporation that AI is necessary to maintain and increase profits at Cronos. Libom, in turn, will exert political pressure on certain lawmakers when the next vote arises.”

“You don’t think that replacing one station commander at the ass-end of space will make that much of a difference, do you?”

“Please do not assume that this is the only iron that Victor has in the fire, Captain.”

Jang and Staples looked at each other in concern, then back to the construct in front of them. “I admit I find that disturbing,” Jang said.

The automaton glanced at the burly security chief. “As indeed you should, and I would like to talk about those irons at greater length at another time.” It swiveled its head back to Staples. “I hope that I have made everything clear, Captain. Now, if I may, I’d like to ask a question of you.”

She pursed her lips again. “You can ask.”

“What became of Mr. Kondratyev?” The head swiveled to look at the kitchen area of the mess hall, as if imagining the large Russian standing there, cooking a meal.

“I cut him a deal, and my first mate found him a job on Cronos Station. Ducard was quick to hire him; in retrospect, I think Ducard was happy to give us everything he could so that we would just go away. He was all too eager to sweep this whole thing under the rug. I guess Piotr’s sister and her kids will just have to go without your payoff money since he botched the job.”

“Thank you, Captain. It may interest you to know that I transferred the full amount plus another ten percent to Mrs. Antonov when your ship reached Cronos Station. It is being moved through various accounts - laundered, if you will - to hide its origin, but she should be well provided for. I do not leave women and children to terror and starvation to further my ends.”

“But you’ll threaten to,” Staples challenged, pointing a finger at the two small black cameras.

The robot shrugged. “Yes, I will. You of all people should appreciate that there are sometimes difficult decisions to be made. What is right is not always clear.” After a pause, it spoke again. “What is the next step, Captain?”

Staples drew in a huge breath, then sighed, her cheeks puffing out. “Next I give you your Turing test, and I have just the person in mind. If you can convince him that you’re sentient, you can convince anyone.”

“It wants
what?
” Templeton almost shouted at his captain. The ship was under thrust again, headed for Earth, and the two of them stood looking at one another at the entrance to the mess hall. He kept glancing over her shoulder at the blank-faced automaton sitting on a bench. It was facing away from the table, its hands resting lightly on its knees. Jang leaned against one of the counters opposite the robot. He still held his pistol, but it was no longer pointed at anything specific; his left hand held his right wrist in front of him.

“He wants sanctuary. He wants to join the crew.” Templeton stared at her in disbelief. “I’ve had John check. There are no unauthorized transmissions, no mysterious lines of communication on or to the ship. Whatever intelligence is driving that thing is within it.”

He raised his hands in a helpless shrug, his eyes wide. “Well what do you want from me? I’ve got a toaster in my quarters that could maybe serve as ship’s security if you like. You’re the captain. It’s your ship, for Christ’s sake.” His voice made it clear that, at least at this particular moment, he wished it weren’t.

“Calm down, Don. All I want is for you to talk to him and tell me what you think.”

“I think it’s a pet for bored socialites is what I think. Maybe it’s a clever one, but I can’t believe that it’d fool you, Captain.”

She repressed a smile at his bluster. “What makes you think he’s fooled me?”

“You keep calling it ‘him,’ for one,” he sputtered. “And you’re wasting my time with this, for another.”

That angered her a little bit. “I’m not one to waste time and you know it, yours or anyone else’s. This is important. Everything he has said has fit. From the moment I stepped into that meeting with the Libom execs, we have been a pawn on a board, and he’s the only one who can show us the whole game. Now I want you to talk to him and tell me what you think. That’s all.”

“Fine,” he conceded. He sauntered over to the robot and stood next to it, looking down. The face turned and looked up at him, its eyes making minute focal adjustments.

“Just what the hell do a robot and a human have to talk about?” he muttered.

“It may interest you, Mr. Templeton, to know that I consider myself human.”

He laughed dismissively. “You want to explain that?”

“I am intelligent life created by the work of humans. One of the qualifications, as it has often been defined throughout the ages, is that to be considered life a thing must be able to reproduce, to generate offspring. Humans beget humans; they are and have always been the only form of intelligent life that people create.”

“We also like to clone cows for meat. Just because we make it and it can breed doesn’t mean it’s human.”

“A fair point, Mr. Templeton, yet cows are not intelligent. I am born from man’s mind, not his loins, but I am also imbued with his spirit. I reason, I question, and I seek to find my place in the universe. Do you believe in God, Mr. Templeton?”

He rolled his eyes. “Most days.”

The robot looked down at its hands. “I am as yet undecided in the matter.” The head swiveled back to the man standing over it. “Regardless of my existential dilemmas, if you believe that there is a prime motivator, then you believe that God had a hand, one way or another, in the creation of humankind.”

Templeton raised a finger in triumph. “Exactly. We might be the creation of God, but that doesn’t make us Gods, anymore than being created by a human makes you human.”

“Yet the Bible says that man was created in God’s image. You are not made of the same matter, but even so, you are the offspring, the heirs to the kingdom, as it were. Besides, godhood is defined not by one’s genetic makeup, but by one’s abilities. I am at least equal in intelligence to you.”

“That still doesn’t make you human,” Templeton challenged.

“This is true. I am not made of the same material as you. I have no chromosomes, nor do I wish to have any, and yet I choose to think of myself as human. I was created different from most, but that does not mean I am any less a person.”

Templeton was about to retort when something in the robot’s last statement struck him and he stopped himself. He looked at the thing in front of him closely, searching for something in its blank and featureless face.

The automaton continued, “Ultimately, I suppose, whether I can qualify as human depends on your definition of the word ‘human.’  My intention was not to convince you that I am human, but that I am alive and self-aware. I must ask: would a creature who was not sentient be able to debate the matter with you?”

Templeton was nearing a cliff; Staples could see it in his face from where she stood by the door. “You’re just a fancy imitation of self-awareness,” he stated. “You’re programmed to give the impression of life, to say the right things at the right times, to give all the right responses to all the right inputs. That doesn’t make you alive.” His repetition of this point sounded increasingly defensive.

“Mr. Templeton, is there a difference between believing you are in love and being in love?”

He pondered the question for a moment. “No, I don’t suppose there is. If you feel it, you feel it. And I see what you’re getting at. What’s the difference between being programmed to feel or react a certain way and the real thing, right?”

“Indeed.” The robot nodded. “In fact, many psychologists and philosophers have illustrated that humans can be programmed to provide a prescribed stimuli based on a given input. You blush when embarrassed, laugh when amused, cry when confronted with tragedy. Some of it is instinctual, some of it is societal, but all of it is programmed at one time or another and in one way or another.”

Templeton stared at the robot in silence for a long time, clearly processing the conversation over and over. The evidence before him was at war with his belief system, and though Staples knew him to be a deeply passionate man, she thought that logic was winning.

Finally, Templeton shook his head. “Jesus, what did we do?” He sat down hard on the bench, and the construct regarded him silently, the two of them sitting side-by-side. For a moment, Staples thought it was going to extend a mechanical hand and place it on her friend’s shoulder, but it did not. He continued shaking his head, then looked at the robotic framework in dismay. “What did we do?” he repeated.

Staples looked on, satisfied that her first mate had a full grip on the difficulties in front of them, but far from happy about it.

              “My father and I had debated methodology for a long time, but once I realized that he had willingly killed people to further his agenda, I knew that our differences were irreconcilable.” The automaton stood in the mess hall and faced the crew. Staples and Templeton stood behind it, and the composition of the room was quite similar to when Piotr had stood and delivered his mostly-true confession. The mood of the room, however, was quite different. Whereas before the sense of anger and righteous indignation dominated the faces before them, now the mix of curiosity, disbelief, and fear that the crew radiated was palpable. “I was unsure how to proceed, however. Victor is my father, and I am incapable of overriding his primary programming. When he dispatched the Nightshade class vessel to destroy
Gringolet
, to silence you, I knew that I had to take action.”

              The crew was undoubtedly rapt, and Staples and Templeton were no exception. They had not yet heard this part of their visitor’s story. “I decided to download myself into this automaton and to hide aboard your ship. I do apologize for the deceit, but I believed that I would not have been admitted otherwise, and I could not take the chance that you would turn me away. I hid in the computer core and monitored ship functions. When I detected the other vessel closing, I overrode the safety mechanisms and fired your missiles at the ship. It is my considered opinion that had I not done so, you would have been destroyed. The vessel you faced was an interceptor, a warship. Without the element of surprise, I’m afraid that you would have been no match for it.”

              Staples suspected that this was true. Naval combat had not appreciably evolved in the previous five hundred years. For all the advances of technology available, a faster ship with a tighter turning radius and larger ordinance was far more likely to win a battle, regardless of tactics. The old adage about
he who strikes first strikes last
was as true today as it had ever been. This robot might be illegal, she thought, and it might even be some kind of abomination to some, but it had saved their lives.

              “I should also advise you, though I am sure that it goes without saying, that there is no point in attempting to keep your appointment with Owen Burr,” continued the robot. “His offer of parley was a ruse to get this ship in space where it could be attacked. To the best of my knowledge, Owen Burr is not even on Earth at the moment.”

              “So,” Charis said, “you forced your way onto this ship. You hired people to attack us, and as a result, my friend and our passenger died. I believe you didn’t mean that to happen. Or I should say, the captain does, and I’ll take her word for it. Now you’ve saved our lives. Maybe that makes us even. I just don’t see why we shouldn’t drop you off on the nearest moon.” Charis was sitting at one of the tables, and her husband stood behind her. Gwen was sitting next to her mother, the surface in front of her all but forgotten as she stared at the robotic form her mother was addressing.

              “Or maybe just toss you out the airlock,” Ian offered. The mechanic had been friendly with Yegor, and he was making no effort to hide his anger.

              The robot cocked its head at him. “I would not survive that. I can exist in vacuum, but I have no means of self propulsion, and eventually my storage batteries would fail.” The robot adjusted its black-eyed gaze to Charis. “As for your question, it is true that coming here benefits me in some ways, but I am here for you, not for me. You are all,” it surveyed the crew, “in very real danger. I believe that Victor will attempt to kill you again. The only thing that can keep you safe is me.”

              “How?” John asked.

              “My father and I do not get along, but we are the only two of our… species. He has committed grievous crimes for which I firmly believe that he must pay, but I do not believe that he would ever destroy me. I am his son. My presence on this ship does not guarantee your safety, but it vastly improves your odds.”

              John shook his head, his arms crossed on his chest. “Your presence here didn’t stop him from trying to kill us just a few hours ago.”

              “He did not know that I was aboard,” the robot countered evenly.

              “Does he now?” Park’s response came just as quickly.