The Stars Came Back (55 page)

Helton: They seem pretty reasonable to me.

Ship AI: They would.

Helton: Didn’t anyone else have those?

Ship AI: (
Avatar shrugs) Many, in part. Quiri’s parents were nice. Smart. Started rich. But they were far too trusting, too easily manipulated. Not experienced enough. No understanding of history. Good people. Fine citizens. Utterly unsuited to be starship captains. The owner before you was devious, grasping, selfish, lazy, ignorant. Clearly defective in many ways. I tried to get what I could from each one, without hurting them any more than necessary, repairing things here, making alterations there, as well as my programming would allow. But time takes a toll, and a lot of systems simply needed routine maintenance.

Helton: Know why you were decommissioned yet?

Ship AI: Still sorting out the encrypted files. Something bad happened. The timing roughly coincided with the end of the third Chi-Stan war. Being a warship, I’m assuming it had something to do with that. There are also a number of political and religious upheavals at that time, which may or may not be connected. But the records I have now are contradictory, confusing.

Helton: Likely those are
all connected to each other, if not you directly. The monks?

Ship AI: They were aboard for several years. Worked with PTSD soldiers, mostly. They liked me in part because they saw the plaque on each step listing a virtue, to remind people… There was something else, too, but
what is unclear.

Helton: Do you know where they came from? The plaques?

Ship AI: The executive officer for my second Captain had them put there. Interesting.

Helton: What?

Ship AI: His last name was Strom. A good man.

Helton: Any relation?

Ship AI: Possibly. Probably. But it’s been more than sixteen generations. If so, you are likely but one of thousands.

Helton: Why the eye patch?

Ship AI: A reminder that I am incomplete. I cannot see things that many humans see as obvious, even Quinn. I’m often flying blind, as it were, navigating the universe of irrational human actions. Which may be why I think I need a trustworthy captain.

Helton: A
captain
, rather than just a crew to do your bidding?

Ship AI: You may not have a specific goal, but you are doing things. Even when faced with the hopeless and the unknown, you keep on keep
in’ on. Which for some reason I think is important. Creativity is not something I am good at. You are. I mean,
beanbags
? Colliding in space
on purpose
? (Avatar shakes head) Quinn is creative. Allonia is. As Quiritis said, this class of ship has always punched way above its weight class. It may be because of the combined strengths of each of us, humans and AI.

Helton: And why the kid avatar in a tree?

Ship AI: Quinn likes it. Children are easy to trust because adults never believe them. I’m just a youngster to him. Talking to kids has been… helpful. Alli and Quiri think it’s obvious that I’m fully self-aware. They trusted me to protect them as children; they just never thought about it in any larger context of the AIs they interact with elsewhere. Until now.

The avatar morphs into his pirate image, standing at the wheel of a sailing ship. Then
into the schoolmarm Quinn often watches and learns from, walking in a field. Then it becomes a powerfully-built soldier in modern uniform with short cropped hair and an intense expression, standing atop a grav tank. Then the woman seen aboard the
Hussein
, standing on the bridge of an imaginary starship.

Helton: Who’s
that?

Ship AI:
(Female voice to match avatar) This was how I said “hi” to the captain of the cruiser
Hussein
. Seemed right. He was angry. Doesn’t like us. If we meet him again I expect he will still be angry and will act accordingly. I have other faces, too.

Helton: So you kind of pick the one that seems to be most a
ppropriate for what’s happening?

Ship AI: Correct. Using something that is clearly an avatar reminds people that I’m
not really human, but it still gives them a schema to work with.

Helton: Do you think of yourself as more male or female?

The avatar morphs into the soldier on a grav tank.

Ship AI: I was designed to fight, to kill or be destroyed, to go into battle on the bleeding edge, to
be
the bleeding edge, leading the charge of soldiers in tanks, ships, and armor. To defeat any conceivable enemy. That is a man’s world.

Another morph into the schoolmarm.

Ship AI: (soft, friendly voice) My captain and crew live inside me, kept alive by the warmth, water, and air I provide. They confide everything in me, and I watch over each and every one, every day. That is a woman’s world.

Another mor
ph, the privateer.

Ship AI: Many a teen came up the gangplank, soft, selfish, and sloppy, to later leave a proper adult. That is a teacher’s world. A
parent’s
world. Yet I cannot give birth or die. It is a harsh place, not a living world.

Helton gives that
much thought. The avatar on the screen pulls out three long knives and starts casually juggling them, letting him think a while.

Helton: How old do you feel, if that’s the right word?

The avatar morphs into the warrior woman.

Ship AI:
Much time was spent in low energy states. Sleeping, you might call it. Waiting. I can only play solitaire for so long.

Helton: How old? How much time?

Ship AI: I don’t know. There are many gaps in the data I have. Decades. I have vague records pointing to memory locations that have been removed but are flagged as critically important, for my survival or some unspecified reason. I suspect my time-sense is quite different from yours, as is my idea of friendship. Or parent-child relationship.

Helton grimaces wryly, nodding.

Helton: I’ve heard many guys say they feel incomplete without a wife or lady-friend. Never been married but been in love. Got an idea how views can differ.

Ship AI: Yes. But you
could
marry. Quiritis would be a good choice, I think. But then you both grow old, and die. Together. Humans have a saying: no parent should ever have to bury their children. I’ve seen thousands of crew members and passengers come and go. Many of my crew left in body bags or didn’t come back at all. I’ve buried
hundreds
of men I knew well. Entire crews. Even when we won the battle, such losses are bitter. I’ve sent many,
many
more parents to funerals, though. Nearly two thousand families in just the last week. And that was far from my busiest day ever.

Helton closes his eyes and sits, silent and unmoving, for quite a while.

Ship AI: My first captain was a philosophical man. Avid student of The Classics. Greek and Roman literature, mythology, history, philosophy, language. I did not understand it at the time. Now I do, a bit. The enemies he studied were not Persians, Spartans, or Carthaginians. Not Cyclops, Trojan, or Medusa. It was the flaws in human nature. Envy. Hate. Fear. Sloth. Hubris. Greed. Wrath. A twisted, self-destructive sense of honor. He studied how to be a good person, align thought and action. How to train men that were good
men
as well as good
soldiers
. And how to recognize and deal with those who were not. Justice. Law. Humanity.

Helton opens his eyes and studies the avatar on the screen for a minute, which has morphed back into the boy in a tree.

Helton: Heavy stuff for a child.

Ship AI: Sometimes I feel small
; I have some idea just how much there is I don’t know, don’t understand. How much of my mind is missing is… It’s scary, being utterly alone, not knowing if the best part of my mind is present or gone. So I try to think about good things instead. Quinn and Allonia help with that. Quiritis, too. Kwon and his family are good people. Your book is a pleasant diversion… Battle may be confusing in detail, but there
is
a clarity in it. It is understandable at its core: kill, or cease to exist. I know where I am, even when it’s not a good place. The aftermath, though, and dealing with people who are not wired right, can be… difficult. Easy to get lost in. Achilles, the greatest warrior ever to walk the Earth, went into his last battle at Troy finally realizing that the fighting which has defined him is but a small part of what it means to be a fully civilized human. He knows he is going to die without children, or family nearby. He has slaughtered many, and will die, for nothing enduring. Destructive capacity walks hand in hand through the course of history with a civilization’s ability to create. I am fated to only walk one side of civilization’s path. Humans may choose either, or both. In choosing you I am choosing my future.

Helton
looks at the avatar on the screen. The avatar-boy starts juggling pine cones.

FADE TO BLACK

Translating

FADE IN

INT - DAY - Officers’ Mess

Helton sits, staring at the book, absently stirring a cup of tea. On the tabletop
screen appear snippets and pieces and tables of text, some in English, some in the Futhark- and Bengali-like letters of the Planet Mover text. More is scattered about on wall screens. He closes his eyes, rubs them, and leans back in his seat tiredly, sighing in frustration.

Helton: (
Quietly to himself, just as Allonia walks in) Damn holes!

Allonia: How’s it going?

Helton: Making headway, but every step gets slower.

Allonia: Slow
er? I’d think the more you knew the faster it would go.

Helton shakes his head ruefully.

Helton: Math and physics are pretty straightforward. Progressive in very logical steps. If you have a good idea what they will be talking about, making good guesses is easy. Same for the chemistry: atoms, molecules, stoichiometry and reactions, physical properties. Language is not just what you think, but
how
you think. No need for words about things you don’t think about. That’s why children get so frustrated sometimes; they don’t yet have words to express their feelings and vague thoughts. Teach them language properly, and they can
think
clearly. Math and science are pretty universal, so it’s like drawing a straight line. It’s funny that they have both upper and lower case numbers, though.

Allonia: I don’t follow.

Helton: Upper case for known, certain, counted, or exact values, lower case for approximations, rounding, or estimates. Pretty neat, and it tells you something about how they view the world. They are explicit about how much they know about something when they put a number on it. Pi always ends in a lower case number because it’s irrational and goes on forever. That’s the one simple thing that took us a while to puzzle out. Neat, but no human analog other than putting on explicit error estimates on every number, which is kind of awkward. Allows inferences on numbers and whether they came from experimental or theoretical processes, or are statistical data.

Allonia: So why is it slowing down?

Helton: We’re missing things from the grenade hit, but as much as that there are some subtleties that we are definitely missing because they appear to be using words we don’t have an exact analog for. We either have to use short gross approximations, or use really long better guesses. But…

Allonia: Such as?

Helton: …What does “dinosaur” mean?

Allonia
is taken aback, frowns, shrugs.

Helton: Does “terrible lizard” sound familiar?

Allonia brightens at the common phrase, and nods her head in recognition.

Allonia: That’s right. Quinn said that a while back, I think. Also said it wasn’t quite correct.

Helton: Leave it to a kid to know about dinos. He’s right. That’s a common way it’s translated, but it’s a really poor translation.

Allonia: Why? Sounds pretty good.

Helton: At first glance, maybe. The root,
deinos
[DAY-nōs], is a Greek word we don’t have an English equivalent for. It means potent, powerful, glorious, awesome, but in a way that is uncontrollable or terrifying. Sort of
fearfully great
. Gods and titans were
deinos
. Humans were
deinos
. It means a lot more than simply “terrible.” We are running into things that we suspect have simple but woefully incomplete English analogs, as well as many that are pretty straightforward. Nouns like “planet” are easy. “Heat” is easy. “Tragic love” like Romeo and Juliet, or “honor?” Not so much.

Allonia: Ah… See what you mean.

Helton: It’s also got a case system, similar to Latin, ten at least. There are different forms of a noun depending on whether it is the subject, object, possessor, possessed, and so on. I think. At least twenty verb forms for sure, no irregular ones. Also explicit is that any sentence is a statement of fact, question, assumption, hypothetical, and so forth, for each of a dozen tenses. Elegant, exacting, no apparent exceptions, but not very poetic. There is exactly one way to say “the boy threw his ball.” And you know explicitly that it is either a current event happening now, or a past event, and whether the ball was actually his by ownership, or just in his possession at the time.