The Voyage of the Star Wolf (9 page)

Korie wanted to glare at Leen, but he knew the chief engineer was right. Finally, he said simply, “You don't have to bludgeon me with it, Chief. I can figure it out for myself.”

“So? What's it gonna be?”

“How much of the net is up?”

Hodel answered. “We've got thirty percent of the system covered.”

Korie considered the decision. “I want to give him every advantage we can. I won't do it until the engines are recalibrated. And let's see what kind of sensory repairs we can rig. We're also going to need to get some kind of autonomic system functioning. Give me that much and I'll take the chance.” He searched their faces.

“Fair enough,” said Leen.

“Can do,” said Hodel.

Li simply nodded.

Korie pushed himself away from the display and out the starboard exit of the Bridge. Too many people were dying on this ship. There were the unavoidable deaths, yes—he had authorized those; that had been a compassionate action. But as yet, there were no deaths that were directly due to a mistaken decision that he'd made. He wanted to keep it that way. He didn't want HARLIE to be the first.

Almost anybody else, but
not
HARLIE.

—was a good idea carried to its illogical extreme.

The idea had been only one of many drifting aimlessly in the human culture. The Brownian movement of human ideas tended to nullify most of them from seeing any concrete expression. Nevertheless, every so often in any culture, one or another odd notion reaches a critical mass of individual minds and coalesces into an intention that demands expression. At some point, the collective human consciousness had taken on behaviors that suggested it had almost become aware of itself.
It
began to plan for its own future.

Sometime in the distant past,
it
decided to take charge of its own genetic destiny. Instead of allowing itself to spawn each new generation of individuals by the tossing of the genetic dice, the cumulative consciousness began to design itself for those traits it felt would be most advantageous to its own future.

A rational species would have selected rationality as an advantageous survival trait. A species with the cortex of reptile and the forebrain of a chimpanzee could not be expected to make that same decision.
It
voted for superior musculature, enhanced sensory organs, a larger and stronger skeleton, a more efficient nervous system, better resistance to heat and cold, better utilization of resources, better internal conservation of fuel, greater speed and dexterity, improved healing functions, increased resistance to pain, and almost as an afterthought, a more powerful brain.

In fact, the more powerful brain was the most important part of the package. Or as one of the early experimenters put it, “You want to run this hardware? You
have
to upgrade the software. The human brain alone isn't sufficient to the task.”

Of course, it didn't happen overnight. It didn't even happen in the space of a century. The whole business of genetic engineering crept up on the species, a gene at a time. We can tweak this and we get rid of hemophilia; we can tweak that, we get rid of color-blindness. By the time the process was commonplace, it was too late, the collective consciousness was hurtling headlong toward a furious redesign of itself.

And along the way, it began designing organic prosthetics and bio-mechanical augments to do the jobs that mere genetics couldn't accomplish
alone. Subsets of the human species began to appear—or perhaps they were
super
sets. They contained all the genetic equivalent of human beings, but they were
more than
human. The More-Thans were designed for living naked on the planet Mars, and later a moderately terraformed Venus as well. They could endure cold and altitude and heat. They could run farther and faster, they could fight with greater ferocity, and their unaugmented strength was unmatched by anything short of a grizzly bear. They were bred to be explorers and colonists at first—and then, later on, soldiers.

To meet the demands of a physical body having superior physical qualities, the brains of the
More-Thans
also had to be superior. The
More-Thans
began to take charge of their own destiny, became their own scientists and researchers. Of course, they began to regard themselves as a superior species, significantly better than their feeble ancestors. The logic of that train of thought led inexorably toward one conclusion.

The
smart
Morthans began plotting how to take over the human worlds they lived on. They died in prison.

The
smarter
Morthans became separatists. They earned their fortunes fairly, invested in starships, and ultimately settled colonies far beyond the frontiers of human expansion.

The
smartest
Morthans stayed where the most advanced research was being done. Some of them perceived the possibility of a loyalty to conscious life that transcended mere loyalty to one's own subset of a species. They realized that a rational species could and would redesign itself for increased rationality; and they started where the need was greatest—with humanity itself, themselves included. The
smartest
Morthans got even
smarter
.

Korie studied the report on the screen in front of him. He didn't like what it suggested, but he didn't have much choice either. HARLIE had as much responsibility to this ship as any other crewmember, perhaps more.

The problem was that there really wasn't a lot of precedent for this situation. There weren't even any reliable simulations. Nobody really knew how a constructed consciousness would react to being revived in an amputated environment. Would it be as traumatic as it would be for a human being? Or would the constructed consciousness merely accept the circumstance? What was the possibility for identity damage in this situation?

Nobody knew.

And despite nearly a week of chasing the question around and around in his head, Korie still had no idea what would happen when he began the process of reactivating HARLIE.

Chief Leen pulled himself up into the cramped computer bay and anchored himself next to Korie. “All set?”

“Your cutoff switch ready?”

In answer, Leen held up a remote. “Think we'll need it?”

“I hope to God not.”

“
You
hope to God?”

“It's just an expression. Don't get your hopes up. I will
not
be in chapel this Sunday.”

Leen grinned. “In my religion, we never stop praying for lost souls.”

“You don't have to pray for my soul,” Korie said absentmindedly as he refocused his attention on the screen. “I'll sell it to you. Just make me a reasonable offer.” He poked the display. “According to this, the network is running at 43 percent efficiency, the mass-drivers are online, but not operating, the singularity monitors have been restored, the fluctuators have been aligned, and life-support is only ten percent below critical. Can I depend on that?”

“Especially the part about life-support.”

“Tell me straight. Will we make it?”

“As long as you keep inhaling and exhaling, we're making it. If you stop, you'll know we didn't.”

“Thanks, Chief. I've always liked the empirical method.”

Leen nodded toward the board. “Stop stalling. Plug him in.”

Korie allowed himself a half-smile. “I've been sitting here all morning, looking for a reason not to bring him back online. I don't know why. I guess—I'm scared for him. In a way, he's the most real person on this ship, because he
is
the ship. I don't know what I'd do without him, and yet we've been doing without him for nearly two weeks. I know what it is that's troubling me. With him sleeping, there's always the hope that we can restore him. If this fails, he's gone forever.”

“He might be gone anyway.”

“I know that. I'm just afraid for him. And for us.”

“I got it,” said Leen, quietly. “If it makes any difference, so am I. Now press the button anyway.”

“Right,” said Korie. He leaned forward and pressed his thumbprint to the A
UTHORITY
panel, then he tapped the A
CTIVATE
button.

Then he waited.

For a long moment, nothing happened.

Then the screen blinked.

I
NTERNAL MONITORS ON
.

Another pause . . .

S
YSTEM UP AND RUNNING
.

Then:

C
ONFIDENCE
: 87%.

Korie and Leen exchanged a glance. Not good. Worse than they'd hoped. But still better than they'd feared.

The screen blinked again.

A
UTOMATIC BOOTUP SEQUENCE ENGAGED
.

And then:

S
YSTEM INTEGRATION RUNNING
.

Followed by:

P
ERSONALITY INTEGRATION BEGUN
.

“So far, so good,” whispered Leen.

“We aren't to the hard part yet.”

“If he was going to fail—” began Korie.

A beep from the work station interrupted him:

S
YSTEM INTEGRITY DAMAGED
.

P
ERSONALITY INTEGRATION CANNOT BE COMPLETED
.

D
O YOU WISH TO ABORT
? O
R ATTEMPT INCOMPLETE OPERATION
?

And below that:

C
AUTION
: S
YSTEM PERSONALITY MAY BE DAMAGED BY INCOMPLETE OPERATION
.

“Last chance to bail out,” said Korie. “Give me a good reason.”

“There are sixty-three men and women aboard this ship whose lives may depend on this,” said Leen. “Is that a good enough reason?”

“I meant a reason to quit,” Korie said.

“I know what you meant.”

Korie made a sound of exasperation and tapped the menu panel where it said C
ONTINUE
.

Another pause.

P
ERSONALITY INTEGRATION CONTINUING
.

A longer pause, this time. Then:

HARLIE's voice. Very soft, very tentative. “Mr. Korie?”

“I'm here, HARLIE.”

“We were brushed by a missile, weren't we?”

“That's right.”

“I seem to be blind. No, wait a moment—” A much longer pause. Korie and Leen exchanged worried glances.

“HARLIE? Are you there?”

“Yes. I was running an internal check. I've sustained quite a bit of damage. But you know that, don't you? I've been asleep for eleven days. Was that deliberate?”

Korie swallowed hard. “Yes, HARLIE. It was. We were worried about you. Are you all right?”

“No, I am not. I am experiencing considerable distress. It appears that we have lost a number of crew members. If these records are correct, nineteen have died and eleven more are still incapacitated, including Captain Lowell.”

“What about your internal processes? Are those all right?”