Wainwright pushed the thought of Leslie Tjakamarra away firmly and steepled her hands over her interface plate. No. She wouldn't recall Casey. Casey could stay safely on Earth for a while, out of the way. Patty Valens hero-worshipped Casey, whether Casey saw it or not, and could probably use the moral support — as Xie Min-Xue could use Patty's.
Wainwright grinned. And if she did say so herself, Jenny needed the vacation. Likely more so now than she had before. And it was good to have her out from underfoot for a while. “How's Miss Valens's testimony going?”
“You've been watching the news feeds, Captain.”
“Of course I have. But I prefer to hear it from the horse's mouth, so to speak.”
“Patty says she is fine,” the AI answered, a slight formality tingeing his voice as a hint of Alan's personality overlaid Richard's. “She thanks you for asking.”
And isn't it weird that Patty talks to Alan rather than Richard, when they're the same… person? Which reminded Wainwright of something else she needed to attend to. “And has the UN decided to accept your offer to testify yet?”
“They are discussing. The legal implications are daunting.”
“And if they declare you a person? What changes?” He didn't answer. She reached up manually, when she could have blinked a command or issued one verbally, and changed the image on the second largest monitor to a shot of Mars from the Arean Orbital Platform. She stared at the dusty red globe, the glitter of its icy poles, and fiddled her fingertips against her trousers.
“Richard.”
“Captain.”
“I received a communiqué from the prime minister regarding you. And your refusal of Canadian citizenship.”
“And it concerns you, with regard to my presence here.”
“Yes.” Her mouth was dry. She swallowed to wet it.
“Prime Minister Riel still plans to work toward a more effective world government, when the current issue of criminality in Chinese and Canadian actions is resolved.”
“That's not an answer, Dick.”
“I know. You understand my moral predicament.”
She changed the feed again; a filtered shot of Saturn from one of the drones surfing its rings, revealing bands of color on the vast planet's surface that were invisible to the naked eye. “You no longer feel yourself in a position where you can choose one government's interests over those of others. You feel your… stewardship has been expanded to preclude that.”
“I'm not fond of that word.”
“Stewardship? Do you deny that's what it is?”
“I can't guarantee I will take the commonwealth's side in any negotiations,” he said. “But you need me to assist in the operation of the Montreal, and negotiations with the Benefactors, and in going with her on her further missions of research and study. And to be perfectly frank, Captain, there are people on this ship for whom I bear a personal affection. But I'm not interested in a role in loco parentis to the human race. That sounds… extraordinarily boring.”
“It seems to me that you are going to have to evolve an entirely new ethical framework to handle this, Dick.”
“Actually,” he said, “I'm hoping for some sort of nominal world authority, or a cooperative venture between space-faring powers. Failing that…”
“Failing that”—Wainwright folded her shaking hands into her elbow joints and tried to pretend that the sinking sensation in her gut was worry about the power of the entity she confronted, and not distaste at telling off a friend—“if you cannot guarantee your loyalty to the Montreal, her crew, and Canada, I will be forced to ask you to abandon your input into her operations.”
“I have a counterproposal.”
“Let's hear it.”
“I spawn a subpersona that shares the loyalties you require, and house its processes in the Montreal rather than the worldwire. The Montreal gains an AI of its own, a discrete one.”
It had possibilities. “And the Vancouver? And the Huang Di?”
“Likewise. Entities of their own, in communication with the worldwire but not a part of it. Like the discrete nanonetworks inhabiting the bodies of the pilots. Those personas will be able to generate additional AIs as needed, for additional ships, and I will still be able to talk to them, and you to me.”
“And the Chinese get one, too.”
“Anybody who wants one gets one. I, however, determine and program the limits of their obedience.”
“And that doesn't place you in loco parentis, as you said? When your… spawned personas, whatever their loyalty might be, can summarily refuse to follow orders? What if they decide they want to switch sides? What if this hypothetical AI decides to stand back and let the Chinese obliterate us next time, because pacifism is programmed into it?”
“Don't think I won't fight if I have to, Captain.”
His tone drew her up, sharp. Even knowing that every emotion he betrayed was calculated and processed in advance, she hesitated. And then she swallowed and forged on. “Or we could have Elspeth and Gabe go back to producing intelligent programs.”
“You could,” he said, his voice hanging in the air.
Abruptly, she wished he had given her an image to watch while they spoke… not that a holographic icon would have given away anything he didn't choose to either.
He continued. “But that's very hit or miss. And in me, you know you have a… moral creation.”
“I sure to hell hope so,” she said. She couldn't keep the bitterness from her tone. In an attempt to chase it out of her mouth, she got up and began to pace from bulkhead to bulkhead. “You won't be able to maintain neutrality, Dick.”
“I can try.”
“If you were truly devoted to staying out of our human wrangling, you might consider the option of suicide.” She turned her head to the side, sneaking a sly look at the monitors so he would know that she was kidding.
“The genie won't go back in the bottle, no matter how hard you wish him there. But not everything has to be a weapon.”
“We're primates,” she reminded him. “Sooner or later, everything is. All right, then. We'll cross that bridge when they burn it out from under us. So let's discuss our options for this EVA to the shiptree. I want to do it Sunday.”
“I want to do it sooner than that. Saturday. Tomorrow. Game five of the World Series is tonight, and game six is Sunday.”
“And you don't want to miss the game?”
She got it deadpan enough that he snickered. “Well, there is that, of course,” he said. “But Janet Frye is scheduled to testify on Monday, and if the whole thing doesn't go to hell in a handbasket, we'll have had some good news to release on Saturday, when there's nothing else eating up bandwidth. We'll look like we're accomplishing something up here.”
“And if it does go to hell in a handbasket?”
“What does it matter?” he asked. “We'll be getting screwed on Monday anyway. Frye has to have an ace in the hole.”
6:30 AM
Saturday October 13, 2063
HMCSS Gordon Lightfoot
Earth orbit
If the birdcage looked like a fantastical Christmas ornament, the shiptree looked… well, like the whole damned tree. Shimmering gaud and tinsel, although the thing's curved, asymmetrical, organic outline reminded Charlie more of a satiny branch of driftwood wrapped in microlights than a traditional conifer. Charlie leaned forward against his five-point restraints, his helmet cradled in his lap, and gawked as shamelessly as a child. Beside him, Jeremy was doing the exact same thing, and Dick and Leslie were watching through his eyes.