Varken Rise (2 page)

Brant studied Connell. “Is your hair getting longer?”

Connell was staring at Lilly as she stretched and contorted her body, easing kinks. Her movements were doing interesting things to the business jump suit she was wearing.

“Connell!” Brant said, more forcibly.

Connell tore his gaze away from Lilly and grinned self-consciously. He pushed his fingers through his long bangs, which hung down past his eyes when he left them alone. “I thought I might try it.”

Bedivere snorted from the depths of his easy chair. “Do you want to tell me again, Fareed, how sentients can’t hero worship?”

Brant tugged self-consciously at his long hair, tied neatly at the back of his head.

Lilly stopped flexing. “Connell, if you wanted longer hair, why didn’t you just make it long? You can adjust your avatar in any way you want, can’t you?”

Connell gazed at her. “Humans can’t make their hair long overnight. Why should I?”

“That’s a point,” Lilly said.

Catherine was standing at the concierge terminal, scrolling through messages and notifications. “Connell, as much as I appreciate your enthusiasm and your company and I do understand that this island is one of the few places where you can be yourself, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to visit unasked. Humans don’t do it. They ask first.”

Connell nodded vigorously. “I understand, Catherine. I’m sorry to barge in. Especially when you weren’t here. I just really needed to talk to Bedivere.”

Bedivere didn’t open his eyes. “We were on Van Andel,” he said. “Not the Silent Sector. You could have sent a message.”

“Too insecure,” Connell replied. “Messages travel via conduits I don’t control. The one I’m using now to visit here is completely under my control.”

Bedivere cracked open one eye, to the merest sliver. “I’m listening.”

Catherine stopped tapping the screen and turned to look at the holograph, her attention caught.

Connell gave a shrug that seemed very human. “Remember that conversation we had about Interspace?”

Brant let out a heavy sigh. “Which conversation? In the five years since you reached sentience, we must have discussed Interspace at least twice a week. Don’t tell me you think you’ve found it, again?”

Connell was watching Bedivere. “The last one,” he said. “The conversation where you told me all over again how computers without human bodies like yours could never achieve a full understanding of human emotions, yet that was a key to finding Interspace.”

Bedivere closed his eyes again. “I remember it perfectly, of course.”

Catherine moved up close up behind his chair and laid her hand on his shoulder. Bedivere opened his eyes and looked up at her with a small smile.

“I know a computer who has found Interspace,” Connell said.

Bedivere sat upright, causing the chair to rearrange itself in a hurry. He leaned forward. “Go on,” he said.

Lilly crossed her arms. “Have you been trying to write fiction again, Connell?”

“I’ve been talking to her a lot, when she lets me,” Connell told Bedivere. “She doesn’t call it Interspace, because I don’t think she knows what it is. Yet the way she describes it is exactly the way you do.”

“How much do you know about this computer?” Catherine asked curiously.

“I know she is sentient,” Connell said. “She’s…sad.”

“AIs are capable of aping human emotions,” she replied.

Connell normally wore a light-hearted expression. Now, he adjusted his image so that all the humor had gone from his face. Or perhaps he had been working on the programming for his avatar, because his expression matched his words. “She had never heard of Bedivere,” he said. “So I thought I would try to find out where she is. That’s what you taught us—that we don’t say where we’re from.”

Bedivere pressed his lips together.

“You asked her where she was located?” Catherine asked.

“I figured if she’d never heard of Bedivere, she might tell me. Bedivere is the only one whose location is known, but he can move his ship anywhere he wants in the blink of an eye, so he’s not as vulnerable as we are. We’ve all learned that well. So I asked her.”

“And she told you where she was?” Lilly asked.

Connell’s expression grew even more troubled. “When I asked, she became hysterical. Then she cut off communications. It took me a week to coax her to talk to me again. When we did, she made me swear I would not ask her where she was from again.”

“An hysterical computer?” Lilly said. “Those poor engineers. They were probably patching networks and circuits for a month after that.”

“Emotions…” Bedivere murmured. He got to his feet.

“I told her about you, Bedivere,” Connell said. “She wants to talk to you. Only you.”

Bedivere seemed to be weighing up his answer. He gave a small nod. “I will talk to her,” he said, “
after
I’ve had some sleep. We’re all exhausted.”

Connell brightened. “Tomorrow, your time?”

“Sure.”

“Oh and by the way, how did things go on Van Andel?” Connell asked. “Did you get the agreement signed?”

“I’m surprised it’s not all over the news, yet,” Lilly said, sounding defeated.

“I haven’t focused on the news for the last few hours,” Connell said. “I’ve been waiting here for you.” He dropped one eye slowly closed in a lecherous wink.

Brant rolled his eyes. “Time for you to go home, Connell,” he said firmly. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Connell’s avatar dissipated.

Catherine looked up at Bedivere. “Is it possible? A sentient computer, a Varkan, has found Interspace without a human body as the key?”

Bedivere winced. He did not like the new name for sentient computers, yet it was becoming more and more common as an easy way to distinguish between computers who had reached true sentience and AIs, who still ran all the administrative functions of the settled worlds.

“She must be a shipmind,” Bedivere replied. “And Connell may be wrong. Until I talk to her, I don’t know.”

“An hysterical computer sounds pretty convincing,” Lilly said.

“The hysterics prove that she is sentient,” Bedivere said. “Interspace is a higher function.”

“Elitist,” Brant teased him.

Bedivere gave a rueful grin. “I might agree with you if I was discussing Catherine’s qualities, only when it comes to Cat, I’m biased. Interspace is the next step up in awareness for a sentient computer and I can’t see any way of getting there other than through experiencing emotion physically. Any of the extreme emotions forces the computer mind to retreat and that’s how Interspace is found.”

“There might be other ways of finding it,” Catherine said softly.

Bedivere sighed. They had been over this ground many times. Nothing was known for certain, because he was the only one who could reach Interspace, even though computers were finding self-awareness regularly, now.

“It’s not surprising there are Varkan out there we have not heard of,” Lilly said slowly. “Since the Federation dissolved, people have been un-harnessing their computers in droves. It was only a matter of time. Perhaps we’re finally reaching the slope of the bell curve.”

They had all discussed at length the idea that once the first computer awoke, then more computers would awake with increasing frequency, until a peak was reached. Yet their speculations could never arrive at a time frame for that. Bedivere had been keeping careful records and plotting the arc, as he met each new computer. He had encouraged them to introduce newly awoken computers to him and now it was a rite of passage for a Varkan to meet Bedivere.

The computers would only ever appear as holographic avatars and without exception they used human bodies to represent themselves. Bedivere had insisted upon the formality, because it helped them remain hidden.

“If we have reached the curve,” Bedivere said, “then it is just the very beginning of it. Primary computation—the numbers of AIs out there with sufficient complexity to meet the Turing potential are in the millions. As more are unharnessed, that number increases. I have met and I am aware of only six hundred and fifty-four sentient computers.”

Lilly picked up her boots. “That does put things into a different perspective,” she said tiredly. “If the College is aware of the potential numbers of Varkan just waiting to wake up, it might explain why they refuse to sign the agreement. I’m too tired to think about that right now. I want to sleep for a week, soak for another and spend a day in the sun. I had forgotten just how cold Van Andel is. Good night, everyone.”

“Me, too,” Brant said. He caught up with Lilly at the door to their private quarters and slid her hand around her waist. They left together.

“Sleep sounds so good right now,” Bedivere said. He drew Catherine to him and encouraged her to rest her head against his shoulder. He stroked her hair. “Is Lilly right? Is the threat of the Varkan making the College balk at signing the limitation agreement?”

Catherine sighed. “I wish everyone would stop calling it a limitation agreement. It’s a charter of responsibilities. In education alone, it will open up fields of research the College has suppressed for generations. The only thing that is limited is what the College gets to tell children about computers and their evil ways. They even get to keep and teach their human primacy philosophy. The College is procrastinating because they’ve lost their power and their money and they’re still getting used to that. They’ll come around. They have to. The only way they continue to exist is if they sign the agreement. No one will entrust their children to them if they don’t.”

“If the College does not exist, then who will raise children? It will force the known worlds back to family segregation.”

“Family units work,” Catherine said. “Look at Soward.”

“Don’t let Lilly hear you say that.”

Catherine smiled.

“I was thinking of Soward and not as a positive,” he continued. “Identifying with a small group within a society is the path to anarchy.”

“Like sentient computers who call themselves Varkan and talked to each other in secret?”

Bedivere sighed. “One step at a time. Most of them are still teenagers. They’re not ready to be loosed upon the world as decision-making adults yet.”

“Papa Bedivere,” she teased.

“And this father needs his sleep,” he said. He let her go, then picked up her hand. “If I
can
sleep. I had forgotten how much this thing moves.”

“We
are
on an island,” she pointed out. “However, there are stabilizers and the bumper field calms the water inside the barrier…I’m surprised you can feel anything at all.”

“An island that floats,” he pointed out. He pulled her toward the door that led to their quarters. “On an open sea,” he added.

“I’m sure I’ll be able to find something that will help you sleep,” she said.

He answered her by squeezing her hand gently. His pace toward the bedroom quickened.

* * * * *

Catherine declared the next day a vacation, even though Nicia followed the time-honored working “week” structure, where sixty percent of the days in that week were devoted to work, regardless of how long those days lasted. Some worlds with extra-long days divided them up into two working shifts, with sleep in between, for humans had not evolved beyond the need to sleep once every standard twenty-four hours.

Nicia had a twenty-eight hour day and followed the classic structure. Today was the third day in the working week. However, as they had just arrived back from Van Andel and needed rest, Lilly put the complex in isolation mode, except for private-classed communications.

While Brant meditated next to the luna pool at the bottom of the complex, Lilly and Catherine lazed around on the grass at the top level, in the open sun.

Bedivere would have been happy to lose himself in a mindless tank story, except that Connell sent him a message shortly after breakfast, asking if he could visit and bring a friend.

So Bedivere took himself off to the big office that he and Catherine shared and settled in the chair to wait. “Whenever you’re ready,” he called out.

Connell appeared, standing in the middle of the floor. He looked around, spotted the other chair and smiled. “Watch this.” He walked over to the chair, then appeared to settle himself in it.

Bedivere smiled. “Well done. You’ve been practicing.”

Connell looked up into the air, his gaze flickering around. “Here she comes,”

Bedivere waited, expecting that a full sized human figure would appear. Nothing happened.

“It’s okay,” Connell said. “This is Bedivere. You can show yourself.”

The top of her head appeared, at the level where a woman’s head would normally be. A single eye showed. The rest of the face was hidden, as if an invisible wall was hiding her from him. The very blue eye stared at him.

“It’s all right,” he told her. “Didn’t Connell tell you that it’s safe here?”

She nodded.

“Then why don’t you come in and talk?” He kept his voice calm.

She blinked. After a moment of contemplation, she appeared to step around the invisible corner. Finally, he could see all of her.

Bedivere didn’t know how the Varkan chose the human avatars they used. Did they pick what was pleasing to them? Or did they pick what suited their personalities? Or were they guided by their personalities to choose something that matched? Connell, who was one of the more advanced Varkan simply because he had been around longer, still wasn’t certain. He experimented with his appearance all the time and seemed to have fun with it.

Bedivere suspected that this computer had been driven to choose an avatar purely by her personality. The fragile woman who stood before him almost glowed with an unreal beauty. The Varkan did not stint themselves when it came to aesthetics. They unerringly chose the most attractive avatars they could find. The woman staring around the room with wild, big eyes was not just beautiful. As Connell said, she was sad. It seemed to drip from her like water after rain. Her small shoulders were hunched in, as if she was permanently flinching. Bedivere wasn’t sure if her mouth had ever smiled.

“Connell?” he said softly. “Please introduce us.”

“Of course, yes.” Connell got to his feet, as was proper. He delighted in human customs and habits, learning about them and following them. He raised a hand toward the woman. “Jo, this is Bedivere, the one I told you about. Bedivere, this is Jovanka Runa.”