None of which had offered her the least protection against her Company CO’s critique.
Actually, she thought, I almost wish the Major had ripped a strip off my hide. That “I have to be patient with the squeaky-new kid on the block” tone is even more devastating.
She watched Benjy’s tactical plot as he and the other three Bolos of Third Company rumbled majestically back from the training ground. Bolos left big footprints, and the several thousand square kilometers of the Fort Merrit reservation which had been set aside for training maneuvers had been hammered into a fairly close approximation of hell. Not that Bolos particularly minded grinding through mud a couple of meters thick or over the stubble of what had once been jungle trees forty or fifty meters in height. And Maneka had already discovered that her Academy instructors had been completely correct when they assured her that even the best straight simulation wasn’t quite the same thing as a live-fire exercise.
She closed her eyes, savoring the memory despite her embarrassment at the way she’d flubbed the final part of the maneuver exercise. Moving Benjy to the firing range, and feeling that fifteen-thousand-ton hull buck as she watched the incredible, flashing speed and precision with which his thundering weapons had ripped apart the ground targets and wildly evading aerial target drones had been… incredible. It irritated her to realize she was reusing the same adverb, but she literally couldn’t think of a better one than just that-”incredible.”
In that moment, she had truly realized for the very first time on an emotional level, not just an intellectual one, that she was literally in command of more firepower than any pre-space army of Old Earth had ever deployed in a single battle. Probably more than any pre-space nation had ever deployed in an entire war. And Benjy was only one of twelve Mark XXVIIIs in the Thirty-Ninth Battalion.
“Sorry I screwed up, Benjy,” she said after a moment.
“As Major Fredericks said, it is difficult even for experienced Bolo commanders to avoid occasional such errors, Maneka,” Benjy replied through the bulkhead speaker. “It is unfortunately true that human perceptions and chemical-based thought processes find it impossible to process information as rapidly as a Bolo is capable of processing it.”
“I know,” she sighed. “And I also know we can’t multitask the way you can. But it’s so hard to just sit here while you do all the work.”
The speaker rumbled with Benjy’s electronic chuckle, and she cocked a questioning eyebrow at the visual pickup centered above the tactical plot-by long tradition, the equivalent of looking the Bolo in the “eye.”
“Maneka,” the huge Bolo said with a certain gentle amusement, “you are the twenty-seventh commander who has been assigned to me in my career. And every one of you has found it difficult ‘to just sit here.’ The Brigade does not choose its commanders casually, and it is the very command mentality for which it selects which makes it difficult for you to refrain from exercising command.”
Maneka considered that for a moment. It made sense, she supposed, given the qualities the Brigade wanted in its commanders. And yet it reemphasized a question which had always bothered her.
“You know, Benjy,” she said slowly, “I’ve wondered for a long time why we continue to assign commanders to each Bolo at all. I mean, the Major is right-and so are you. No human can possibly think and react as quickly as you can, so why put a human into the loop at this level at all?”
The Bolo did not reply for a second or two. That was an incredibly long time for any Bolo to ponder a question or problem, and Maneka wondered for a moment if he was going to respond at all.
“That question is properly one you ought to ask of the Battalion’s human command personnel,” Benjy said finally.
“I know. And I asked it several times at the Academy, but I was never really satisfied with the responses I got. That’s why I’m asking you. I want… I guess what I want is a Bolo’s perspective on it.”
“When you asked at the Academy, what did your instructors tell you?” Benjy countered, and Maneka smiled.
She’d been officially in command of Benjy for barely a month, yet she’d already come to feel more comfortable with him than she ever had with anyone else in her entire life. Partly, she supposed, that was because she was aware of how old he was, how many years of experience lay behind him. In many ways, he was like a trusted elder, a grizzled old sergeant, or perhaps even a grandfatherly presence. She felt she could ask him anything, expose any uncertainty, in the knowledge that he would regard her youthful ignorance with compassionate tolerance rather than ridicule.
And she’d also already discovered his fondness for the Socratic method.
“They told me that there were three main reasons,” she replied obediently. “First, the necessity of inserting a human presence into the command and control loop at the most basic level. Second, the necessity of providing a Bolo-and the Brigade-with a ‘human face’ to interact with the human communities Bolos are assigned to protect. And, third, to be sure that in the event of crippling damage to your psychotronics, there’s someone with at least a chance of preventing rogue behavior.”
“And you did not feel this was sufficient explanation for the policy?”
“I didn’t think it was the complete explanation.”
“Ah, a subtle but meaningful distinction,” Benjy observed, and Maneka felt a flush of pleasure at the hint of approval in his tone.
They rumbled along for a few more seconds, and then Benjy made the electronic sound he used as the Bolo equivalent of a human’s clearing his throat.
“I believe you are correct that there are additional reasons, Maneka,” he said. “And I believe there are also reasons why your Academy instructors did not explain those other reasons to you. One reason for their failure to fully explicate, I suspect, is that I have observed that humans are sometimes uncomfortable exposing deep-seated emotions to one another.”
Both of Maneka’s eyebrows rose at the Bolo’s last sentence, but she simply lay back in the couch, waiting.
“Despite Major Fredericks’ comments to you,” Benjy continued seriously, “there is a slight but significant statistical enhancement in the combat effectiveness of Bolos operating with human commanders on board as compared to Bolos operating purely autonomously in Battle Reflex Mode.”
“Is there really?” Maneka couldn’t keep the doubt out of her voice. “I mean, they told us that in third-year Tactics, but I never really believed it. Or that it was still true, at any rate. To be honest, I thought they were telling us that so we wouldn’t feel as useless as a screen door on an airlock. You’re telling me they really meant it?”
“Indeed. Reflect that the Major did not tell you to resign command to me. She told you not to ‘second-guess’ me. If you consider that carefully, I think you will recognize that it is no more than the advice she would have given you if you had been dealing with a human subordinate who was simply more experienced, knowledgeable, and informed at that moment than you were. In essence, she was advising you, as a new junior officer, not to ‘joggle the elbow’ of an experienced noncommissioned officer at a moment when decisions have become time-critical.”
“Well, I suppose so,” Maneka said slowly. “But that still doesn’t change the fact that you both think and react faster than any human possibly could. So how can the presence of a human commander enhance your performance in combat? Surely it constitutes an additional layer of ‘grit,’ doesn’t it?”
“In the heat of a complicated tactical situation, it undoubtedly does-or would, if the commander in question has not learned when to intervene and when to allow the Bolo full autonomy. But humans, whatever the limitation of their perceptions, retain even today a better intuitive information processing capability than Bolos have ever possessed. Bolos think linearly, Maneka—we simply think very, very quickly by human standards. We process information, calculate probabilities, and select actions and responses on the basis of those calculations. But humans, and especially those passed by the screening processes the Brigade utilizes, have a superior ability to discount portions of the probability matrix at a glance. Bolos, even in hyper-heuristic mode, cannot do that. We must consider all probabilities and examine all logic trees in order to determine which may be safely discounted or ignored. A human may be wrong when he ‘instinctively’ isolates the appropriate probabilities upon which to concentrate, but he often makes the decision-right or wrong-more rapidly than even a Bolo can do the same thing.