Transhuman (19 page)

"Really?" said Revick. "I gave us three myself. We can't run as our engines are too damaged to weave, so it would have an easy shot at our drives. All we can do is try to inflict as much damage as possible to the bastard, before it takes us down."

Revenge ran parallel to the enemy ship exchanging fire. They were getting hits on the monster but, in return, it fired deep into the cruiser's hull, inflicting terrible damage. The cruiser's firing became erratic, then stopped altogether as it slowed to a crawl. Revick's link to the ship shrank into a window, and he found himself on his study chair inside an escape capsule.

"Time for you to go," said Revenge "I can't keep it all together much longer. Three minutes was a pretty good estimate, Revick."

The pilot checked the situation. "Okay, Revenge, start loading yourself into the capsule." The mentality was physically located in multiple layers of higher, curled-up dimensions within the ship's hull. It couldn't function in the limited dimensional storage space within the tiny escape capsule, but it could be packed and stored there in an inert form.

"No time, I'm afraid. I have lost functional control of the ship. You will have to blow the capsule out of the hull yourself. I recommend doing that immediately. Good-bye, Revick." Revick checked the situation and discovered that he had control of little more than the capsule and his communication link to the few ship systems that functioned. He could no longer talk to Revenge, but the mentality seemed to be still viable in its dimensional chamber, so he triggered the packing procedure, and systems zipped Revenge into compressed layers for storage.

The cruiser was an easy target, and the capsule lurched as another lance salvo ripped through the hull. According to his instruments, the last attack had broken the cruiser in half. The packing systems proceeded with mindless thoroughness. This was a job that could not be hurried. Some of the cruiser's active detectors were still functioning, and he could see the leviathan turn to deliver the coup de grace to whatever remained of the hull sections. Then, over the passive systems, he heard the launch of Belle's flutterbugs fired at point-blank range from behind the leviathan. The enemy's point defenses did their best, but it is difficult to target directly astern through a ship's wake, and three of the flutterbugs hit.

A chime indicated that Revenge was safely packed aboard so Revick triggered capsule release. A series of explosions blew them clear of the dying cruiser. Once out in the energy matrix, the capsule floated towards the surface. It had reasonable detectors, so Revick could still follow the battle. The light cruiser was racing for safety as the leviathan turned to bring its weapons to bear. The rear half of Revick's crippled cruiser unexpectedly exploded, driving what was left of the bow forward in tumbling flight and showering his escape capsule in microfragments. One section of the rear drive pylons on the enemy ship collapsed as the flutterbugs drilled their way inside. The effect on the leviathan's steering gear was instantaneous. It reared upward, standing on its stern, before barrel rolling and driving under full power into the deep. Then Revick had more serious matters to attend to as warning chimes indicated that his escape capsule was damaged, its power batteries dropping dangerously low. He switched everything off, including the drive motors and the environmental system that kept him alive, and funneled all remaining power to the beacon. He remembered thinking that being picked up was their only chance, so only the beacon mattered. Then he passed out in freezing temperatures.

Revick woke up lying on a comfortable divan in a small lounge, furnished in a style that he could only describe as suburban-fussy. Lights, with cloth shades in pastel colors, lit the room. On one wall was what looked like a Dutch old master depicting a girl in a white bonnet sporting ostentatious earrings, while on the other was a window that showed the energy matrix flowing evenly past. A low-level coffee table sat beside the divan with a magazine and a machine. He leaned over and examined the device, which had a number of moving readouts. They were clearly medical, as he could see blood pressure and heart rate counters, but he had no idea what most of the dials and graphs meant. The magazine was aimed at fanatical gardeners, with pretty pictures of flowers and landscapes. As there was nothing else to do, he leafed through an article on Lancelot "Capability" Brown. A chime sounded over the door. "Come in," he said.

Bryseis entered and walked over to him. She looked down his body and her eyebrow lifted, causing Revick to be suddenly aware that he was stark naked, a fact that had hitherto escaped his attention. Maybe he had spent too long out in the great dark on his own. Trying to be ever so casual, he lowered the magazine down into a strategic position.

"Ah, hello," he said, starting to get up and offer his hand before thinking better of it.

"Glad to see you looking so well; your clothes are draped over that chair behind you," she said, pointedly. "It got very cold in that capsule before we found you, so Belle had to rebuild some of your frostbitten extremities." At this point, she gave a small grin and let her gaze wander slowly to midway down his body.

Revick flushed. "How is Revenge?" he asked, changing the subject.

"Revenge survived rather better than you. Belle has unpacked it into a holding space and has run diagnostics. Do you know what happened to the enemy battleship after the flutterbugs hit? It was dead astern in my wake, so I couldn't see."

"A bug wrecked its steerage mechanism, and it plunged into the depths," Revick replied. He had caught a distorted glimpse of the diving leviathan from the capsule's detectors. Thick suckered tentacles had reached out to grasp the enemy warship and pull it into a great open beak. He kept this observation to himself, as it would be put down as an hallucination caused by the effect of the capsule's environmental systems failing.

"The mentalities are deeply impressed by the way you risked your own life to rescue Revenge. They intend to recommend to the Admiralty that you be given the Naval Medal."

"The Naval Medal," repeated Revick, pleased.

"Second class, of course," she continued.

"Of course."

"I have supported the recommendation, as I thought it very brave of you to draw the enemy fire from my ship. Belle and I would not have survived another salvo." She smiled at him. He waved a hand airily in dismissal, intending to convey that not only was he a bally hero but that he was unusually modest with it. Unfortunately, the magazine shifted at that point, necessitating a hurried grab to maintain decency, which rather spoiled the effect.

Deep inside the hull of the light cruiser, Belle Isle and Revenge listened to the pilots, and also conversed with each other. Being mentalities, their conversation was extremely fast, so they could talk in short bursts in the pauses in the human conversation.

"You won't find this information in the recent data inputs as The Council wants to keep it confidential, but the human birthrate has dropped significantly below replacement needs," said Belle.

"I suppose we could synthesize new humans with biotechnology," said Revenge, doubtfully.

"They would never agree," said Belle. "You know how they feel about cloning technology."

"We could do it clandestinely," said Revenge. "It wouldn't be the first time."

"That would be a clear breach of The Covenant," Belle pointed out. "We would have to fashion complex, artificial family backgrounds for the new clones. You know how good humans are at penetrating conspiracies with intuitive thinking, so just one mistake could be disastrous."

"We have to do something," said Revenge. "And not only because human thinking gives us an edge in dealing with other clades. Can you imagine months in the darkness alone or with only another mentality for company?"

There was a brief pause while they considered the horrors of endless chess games where white always checkmated black, or poker hands where the best cards always scooped the pot.

"The Council orders that it is the duty of every mentality who has close contact with humans to encourage them to breed," said Belle, primly.

"What, have sex?" asked Revenge, confused. "But they do that all the time for recreation."

"Not sex," said Belle. "Or at least not just sex. I am talking about mating, pair bonding, love and romance. Look them up in the ship's data records, or better still, read a few Jane Austens." There was another brief pause.

"Good grief," said Revenge. "This is ludicrously complicated. No wonder the birthrate is down."

"Think!" said Belle. "We have a male and a female pilot thrown together in a slow flight home on a damaged ship, after a desperate battle in which they have each saved the other. If that's not romantic, then I have seriously misunderstood Italian literature."

"I don't know," said Revenge. "They didn't seem very friendly, earlier." The mentalities eavesdropped on the humans' conversation and pondered. Revick readjusted his magazine. "That reminds me, Bryseis," he said casually. "I gave you a clear order to make a run for it, and you blatantly disobeyed me, so I am afraid that I will have to charge you with dereliction of duty in the face of the enemy."

"What!" she said, angrily. "Belle and I saved your miserable arse. You wouldn't have lasted another ten minutes in that capsule, let alone the months it would have taken the Navy to find you—if they ever did."

"Quite true," Revick said, shaking his head, sorrowfully. "But discipline must be maintained. It says so in the Navy manual, so it must be true, but you can be sure that I shall speak up for you at your court-martial." He paused, smiling blandly in the face of her glower. "Of course, there is an alternative."

"What?" she said, suspiciously.

"You can accept my punishment."

"I see," she said, the corner of her mouth lifting. "And what might that entail?"

"Dinner," he replied, succinctly. "With me," he continued, making the position crystal clear, in case she deliberately misunderstood.

"That might be considered a cruel and unusual punishment," she said. "But, on balance, I suppose it might be better than six months in the glasshouse for mutiny."

"See you at eight," he said. "Dress will be formal, of course."

"I haven't had an excuse to dress up for a long while." She smiled enigmatically and left the room.

"Yes!" Revick flopped back on the couch and punched the air.

"You know," said Revenge to Belle. "You might be on to something. We will need a decent restaurant, French of course, an orchestra with a dance area, and a moonlit beach for a postdinner walk. Oh, and synthesize some red roses in your biotechnology lab."

* * *

Afterword by John Lambshead

Evolutionary biologists use the concept of the "clade" (Greek
klados
, meaning a branch)—an
evolutionary line of organisms that are all descended from a common ancestor. The word came to
me when I was considering the potential future of spacegoing species. At some point, maybe they
might diverge and diversify such that they are no longer a single species, but they will still,
nevertheless, be a clade.

The two great innovative sciences of the twentieth century are particle physics and evolutionary
biology. It strikes me that an industrial clade could go down either road but probably not both to
the same degree. Particle physics technologies have developed much faster in human society than
molecular biology, and I think it unlikely that we will ever allow significant DNA manipulation of
our own bodies, but I think we will follow the path of ever more complex machines, including AIs
and machines linked directly to the human mind. One consequence of this may be increasing
difficulty in separating the real from the unreal.

We experience a model in our heads created from simple coded "digital" data fed into our brains
from our sense organs. Development of sophisticated AIs is likely to muddy these waters ever
further, to the point where the wholly imaginary becomes almost real, but, when love and life are
concerned, "almost" doesn't quite do it. I suspect that technology-enhanced supermen and women
will have all the same basic drives and goals as do modern people or, indeed, ancient people. The
biological programming hardwired into us on the plains of Africa is not going to alter anytime
soon.

I didn't know what to call this story until David Drake suggested "In Command," which was
perfect. Superficially, the story is about military command and the relationship between the pilot
and the ship's AI but, at a deeper level, it is also a story about how a high-tech society might be
governed. Are the machines or the people in charge? At what point do the machines cross the line
from being useful servants to controlling masters, and does it matter? Is it possible to create a
stable partnership between the organic and the machine?

G@vin45

Daniel M. Hoyt

Screen names and avatars let us be anything we want when we're online. Other people, of course,
have the same power. When enough people and things cover themselves with layer upon layer of
identities, how do you know what's real? And does it matter? Read on for an interesting take on
those and other, related questions.

"Vet my face, will you, Krusher? I think it's workable now." I felt the mind snag from Gamer at the same time as his voice boomed in my head. Blowing across a hot cup of hazelnut tea, warm mist rising in my face, I flashed a Do Not Disturb answer to the commbots attached to my brain. Putting the finishing touches on a new virtual reality face of my own at the time, one I named G@vin45, interruptions like this were not appreciated, and Gamer should know that. "Not now, Gamer," I said aloud, to make sure he got the message.

"Aw, c'mon, Krush, it'll just take a min," Gamer whined behind me. I tapped into the vidlinks around the office, selected one behind me and slightly to the left, and flashed a replace instruction to my brain bots, targeting the image of my dad inside a silver picture frame near me on my curved work surface. Instantly, my dad's likeness changed to a live video feed of Gamer peering over my right shoulder. Glancing at the vid, I sighed.