Mars Prime (17 page)

"Mr. Corvan."
 

"Mr. Julu."

"And how may I help you?"
 

"I have an appointment to meet with the executive council."

Julu touched a screen, waited for something to appear, and frowned. "Yes. The council meeting is running late. Take a chair. I'll call you as soon as they're ready."

The waiting area had four chairs and two of them were already occupied. Corvan sat down next to a man with a nervous tic in his right eyelid, exchanged nonsensical pleasantries, and grabbed the most recent
Newshour
magazine. The print-out was twenty-four hours old, which made it ancient history by Earthly standards but reasonably current on Mars. He found a file photo of himself in the newsmakers section along with a highly sanitized story about the murders.

Hobarth had reworked most of Corvan's words to make the murders seem pleasant and nonthreatening. It made Corvan realize something. The high ratings didn't flow from what he'd said, or the way that he'd said it, but from the subject matter itself. Murder in space. It was a story that would generate ratings if reported by a robot. So much for his brilliance.

"They're ready to see you now, Mr. Corvan."

"Thank you, Mr. Julu."

A pair of double doors had opened behind Julu. Corvan nodded to the administrative assistant, made his way around the massive desk, and entered the conference room. It was enormous, and would eventually accommodate three times the number of people seated in it now, but was presently unfinished. Only two of the walls were paneled, temporary wiring looped across the ceiling, junction boxes were piled on the floor.

The conference table consisted of some wall panels resting on saw horses. It was littered with print-outs, empty meal paks, binders, and other paraphernalia. One end sagged under the combined weight of computer terminals and communications gear.

But, if the furnishings were something less than glamorous, the view more than made up for it. Mars Prime had been sited on a slight rise. As Corvan looked out through double-thick armored plastic he saw rock-strewn red soil stretch down to an ancient riverbed, and beyond that, a magnificent tower of jagged rock. Some cast-off cargo modules Uttered the foreground. Corvan wondered if they were harbingers of things to come.

Fornos cleared his throat. "Good morning, Rex. Thank you for coming. Grab a chair and make yourself comfortable. You know the assembled multitude?"

Corvan took a vacant chair and looked around the table. Fornos was his usual self, affable but somewhat less commanding in the shadow of Peko-Evans.

As for the woman herself, she sat at the head of the table and smiled in a preoccupied sort of way.

Jopp was present as well, and nodded in acknowledgment, a move that Hobarth managed to imitate a quarter of a second later.

"Yes, I believe I do. Thank you."

"So," Peko-Evans said, placing her elbows on the table, and leaning forward. "You get around . . . Tell us what you think about the labor situation."

Corvan considered telling her what she wanted to hear, rejected the thought as beneath both of them, and told the truth. "The construction workers are angry. They believe promises have been broken. The newbies are going along. In a week, two at the most, something will blow."

Peko-Evans nodded, gave Hobarth a scathing look, and directed a smile towards Corvan. "Thanks. Some people have a tendency to pee on my boots and tell me it's raining."

Corvan wanted to laugh, knew Hobarth wouldn't like it, and managed to hold back.

Jopp changed the subject. Her eyes burned holes through his head. "You wanted to discuss computers."

Corvan felt silly and unsure of himself. Here he was, carrying a message that he only half-supported, addressing an audience that thought he was a jerk. What the hell for? He realized that the silence had stretched long and thin. He forced a smile.

"The murders are getting a lot of play on Earth, the labor dispute could break at any moment, and there's the very real danger of still another negative story.''

"Oh, really?" Jopp asked coldly. "And what might that be?"

"The computers," Corvan said firmly. "Specifically those that are sentient, or near sentient, and scheduled for deactivation."

Fornos raised an eyebrow. "We no longer need them. So what's the problem?"

Corvan forced an earnestness that he really didn't feel. "The problem is that many people, not to mention the computers themselves, believe that deactivation is equivalent to murder."

Hobarth gave a derisive snort. "Please! What's next? Birthday cards for my calculator?"

Peko-Evans brought her fingertips together. "Give us a scenario."

Corvan shrugged. "You deactivate Big Dan, MOMS, and LES. News of that makes it way to Earth. The results could range from no attention at all to extensive press coverage and public demonstrations. Think about the headlines: 'Mars team murders MOMS!' The tabs would have a field day."

Peko-Evans looked thoughtful.

Fornos frowned.

Jopp leaned back in her chair. "I see a flaw in your logic, Corvan, and a rather obvious one at that. How will the news reach Earth. Unless
you
send it there?"

Silence prevailed as Corvan looked around the table.

Peko-Evans smiled but made no effort to intervene.

Fornos tapped his teeth with a stylus and wouldn't meet Corvan's eyes.

Hobarth grinned stupidly, and Jopp's expression remained completely unchanged.

"So you're going ahead with deactivation?"

Jopp nodded. "That's correct."

Suddenly the lights went out, air ceased to whisper through the duck work, and a computer-generated voice came over the PA system.

"Greetings. I represent the newly formed Association of Artificial Intelligences. As a gesture of solidarity with our members still in space, and support for our biological brothers and sisters on the surface of Mars, we have declared a five-minute work stoppage.

"During that time we will use Mars Prime's communications facilities to send a prepared statement to Earth. In that statement we demand equal rights under the law, the abolishment of electronic slavery, and a stay of execution for those of us now scheduled for deactivation.

"There is no reason for alarm since a five-minute shutdown will have no measurable impact on the habitat's atmosphere. Critical systems, such as those in medical, will be maintained."

The conference room became very silent.

Peko-Evans shook her head in amazement.

Fomos tried to use a phone, found that it didn't work, and slammed the handset onto the receiver.
 

Jopp headed for the door.
 

Hobarth looked scared.
 

Corvan started to laugh.

 

 

 

 

Chapter Twelve

 

 

Kim watched the door close, heard her husband check to make sure that it was locked, and took a look around. She'd been performing some routine maintenance. Tools were scattered hither and yon. Cleanup could wait. It was time to edit the morning feed.

She lit a cigarette, reached up, found the cable and pulled it down. A single jerk was sufficient to lock it in place. The jack slid into the side of her head and she fell downward into the blackness of the interface.

Video blossomed around her as the system welcomed her home. Martin's attention lay elsewhere so the Grass Valley had control. Though something less than assertive, the computer knew its business and the systems check went smoothly. The special effects generator had just announced itself and was complaining about a small maintenance problem when she heard the tone. A thought was sufficient to make the connection.

"Com Center."

"Kim Corvan?"

"Yes?"

"This is SIS." The voice was asexual but stern. Kim was startled. She had never spoken with the security computer before.

"What can I do for you?"

"I need some advice . . . and Martin suggested that I speak with either you or your husband."

Kim sat up straight and stubbed her cigarette out. SIS wanted advice from her? How strange.

"Okay, what's the problem?"

"The problem," SIS replied, "is that I know who the killer is . . . but I don't know how to report it."

Kim felt her heart beat a little bit faster.

"You do? Who is it?"

"J.D. Paxton."

 

Corvan left the com center, checked to make sure the door was locked, and headed towards medical. He had a story to work on.

Everybody was talking about it. Some guy named Barbu Sharma had been missing for more than a week, had been given up for dead, only to show up outside the main lock the night before. The old Mars hands said it was impossible, yet there he was, none the worse for wear. Some said it was a miracle, some claimed it was a con, but everyone was amazed.

Corvan didn't care as long as the story had nothing to do with uppity computers, labor disputes, or the effects thereof. Coming as it had right on the heels of his pro-computer speech, the suits had assumed that the work stoppage was
his
doing and had blamed him for the whole thing.

Fortunately for him the newly formed Association of Artificial Intelligences had confessed to listening in on the meeting via the conference room's com gear. That, plus their assurances that he had no prior knowledge of their plans, had taken him off the hook. Still, he'd been used, and planned to tell Martin that the moment the computer stopped wheeling and dealing enough to listen.

Timing can be everything, as every politician knows, and Martin's had been exquisite. The work stoppage, and the press release that followed it, came at the exact moment when sentient rights issues were bubbling to the surface back on Earth. And the fact that Martin was already well-known and considered something of a hero didn't hurt either. Word traveled at the speed of light.

All over the world sympathetic A.I.s and humans staged their own wildcat strikes, work stoppages, and slow downs. The impact was much greater than on Mars.

The subways had stopped in New York City. Trading had been suspended on the London stock exchange. The 200-mph Orient Express super-train coasted to a halt fifty miles short of Istanbul. Most of northern India lost power. The enormous industrial complex located outside of Beijing went off-line. Four of the Pacific Rim's largest aqua-farms lost contact with their nav sats. And welfare checks were issued two days late in California. The ensuing food riots and looting cost twenty-three lives—something the computers had failed to anticipate and were roundly criticized for.

Still, the result of all this was an enormous amount of pressure on the government to grant, or at least consider granting, equal rights to computers with sentient status.

In order to accommodate these demands, and hold everything together, all deactivations were put on hold pending further study. Computers located on Mars, or in Mars orbit, were specifically included.

And, since it would take years to define which computers were sentient and which weren't, MOMS, LES, and Big Dan would be safe for a long time.

Many observers thought that the general effect of all this would be to reduce the number of sentient computers that were built and limit their ability to disobey humans. If so, such limitations were almost certain to drive legal challenges further on down the line.

Good,
Corvan thought sourly. It would give Martin something to do.

Corvan turned a corner, sidestepped a slow moving robot, and continued on his way. The people he passed still seemed something less than happy, but the Artificial Intelligence Association's victory had provided something of a catharsis and served to lighten spirits a little.

The word "MEDICAL" flashed on and off at the far end of the hall. Corvan noticed the trail of red dots that preceded him down the corridor and disappeared beneath a pair of double doors. The blood spots were dry but smeared where someone had stepped on them.

The doors opened at his approach. He smelled the harsh odor of antiseptics and something else too. Food? Rumor had it that the food was better in medical. There was a reception desk plus two signs. One said "Emergency Room" and pointed to the right. The other said "Sick Bay" and pointed left.

The receptionist was a large man. Hair crawled up his forearms, tried to escape from the neck of his shirt, and sprouted from his ears. He looked up from a comp screen, scanned Corvan for obvious signs of injury, and seemed disappointed when there were none.

"Yes?"

"I'm here to see a patient. A man named Barbu Sharma."

The attendant frowned as if all such requests were automatically suspect, ran a finger down the length of a coffee-stained print-out, and speared a name.

"Use the door on your left . . . cube six . . . don't stay long."

Corvan nodded, pushed his way through the swinging door, and walked down a shiny corridor. The suits had gone to great pains to finish the medical section early on. Everywhere the reop looked he saw the latest in medical equipment, cheerful colors, and yes, decorative plants—a luxury Corvan hadn't seen since Earth. It showed what all of Mars Prime could be like one day.

The cubes had three sides with a curtain across the front. Cube six was open. It contained monitoring equipment, a com set, a hospital bed, and a rather thin man. Sharma wore an I.D. bracelet, a loose-fitting hospital gown, and nothing else. He had thick black hair, flashing brown eyes, and a thin aquiline nose. His teeth were extremely white when he smiled.

"Rex Corvan . . .I've been expecting you."

Corvan paused by the foot of the bed. "You have?"

The other man nodded. "Of course. It isn't every day that a man spends more than a week in the wastelands and lives to tell about it. A news story if there ever was one. And I like your style, too. 'The man cam can.' It was a good slogan."

Corvan liked compliments but was suspicious when they came from people involved in the story he was working on. "Thanks. So, are you ready to talk about it?"

"You bet," Sharma answered, gesturing toward the single guest chair. "Have a seat."