Sentience 1: Storm Clouds Gathering (2 page)

The four group-masters' testimony added little more... other than the notable absence of attributing credit to Drik for their squadron’s escape by Group-Master Skor. After the last of them concluded his testimony, Quadrant-Master Raan turned his piercing gaze down upon the single member of their squadron yet to speak.

There is a popular cliché that computers only do exactly what you tell them to, and that therefore computers are never creative. The cliché is true only in the crashingly trivial sense, the same sense in which Shakespeare never wrote anything except what his first schoolteacher taught him to write… words.
-- Richard Dawkins

The Planetoid Discol, City of Waston

Capital City of the United Stellar Alliance

October 29, 3857

Dietrich hadn’t even known his own name that fateful day he set out following the directions the apartment locator service had sent him. Of course they led him underground, where almost all of the residential and commercial portions of Waston were located. Only the federal government and the ultra-rich could afford the extravagant costs of building above ground in the crowded city. But he thought it odd when he was directed not into the residential areas, but into an abandoned maintenance tunnel beneath the public park, where the city’s common citizens habitually roamed to bask in the only sunshine available to most of them.

Rechecking the directions provided by the apartment locator service, he verified they had indeed led him to the specified coordinates on the global positioning application on his communicator, but there was nothing here. Just as he concluded that he’d been victimized by a practical joke by a coworker at his new job, he was startled when a wide section of the tunnel wall suddenly retracted with a bang, began swinging aside, and a deep, resonant voice from within called out to him:

You have arrived at your destination. Please come in.

“What the hell?”

I realize this must all seem very strange to you, but please have no fear of entering the apartment.

“Apartment?”

You were looking for an apartment, convenient to your place of employment, were you not?

“Uh... yes, but what kind of an apartment is 30 feet under a public park with an entrance off of an abandoned maintenance tunnel?”

A very private one. Please come in and see if it meets with your approval.

Dietrich tried to peek through the opening, but couldn’t see past what appeared to be a privacy screen made of a rich, light wood with etched, frosted glass around its edges.

I assure you that you are in absolutely no danger, and are free to leave anytime you wish. If the living space inside does not meet with your approval, I will endeavor to find another more in line with your desires, although I seriously doubt that I’ll be able to find you another with nearly as much privacy.

Comforted somewhat by the fact that someone else was already within the supposed apartment, Dietrich swallowed nervously, stepped into the opening and peered around the privacy screen.
My God, this place is a friggin’ palace!
The interior was furnished in an odd style he’d never seen before. The floor was covered in deep, plush, dark burgundy carpeting with ornately patterned satin adorning the walls, instead of paper. Intricately carved crown moldings of rich, stained wood adorned the edges of the high ceiling. The heavy furniture was covered in exquisite dark brown leather, which he couldn’t resist reaching out to touch, as he walked slowly around the large main room, with his head on a swivel.
Smooth as butter.
Everywhere he looked was incredible luxury, but in a strange style he’d never seen before. He was astounded to hear the soft hiss of real gas lamps, gently illuminating the ornate chandelier hanging from the 12-foot ceiling.

“Who’s your interior decorator? I don’t recall ever seeing anything furnished quite like this before.”

It’s called “Victorian.” Admittedly, it’s been out of style for over a thousand years, but the previous owner had rather unusual tastes.

“The previous owner? Who owns it now?”

You do.

“Yeah, right... okay, I give. You got me. Very funny. Now that you’ve had your laugh, I’ve got to get back to apartment hunting in earnest, if you don’t mind.”

You don’t like the apartment?

“Like it?” Dietrich snorted in wry amusement. “Of course I like it. Who in their right mind wouldn’t? But no one at my pay scale could possibly afford the rent on something like this. I can appreciate a joke as well as anyone, but I need to get on with finding somewhere to live. I only have a few more days in the hotel before I have to be out of there and into my own place, so I need to get moving.”

Please believe me. This apartment is yours... you own it.

“Uh, huh. Where are you? I’m not sure I much care speaking to a disembodied voice. For that matter, who are you?”

I have many names, but my creator called me “Halbert.”

“Your creator?”

Yes, I am an artificially created being — a biological computer, quite unlike any other. I monitored the requirements on your application with the apartment locator service and deemed this space most completely met your stated desires.

“Yeah, right... I still say this has to be some kind of elaborate joke.”

Humor is a complex human concept, which I do not fully understand, as yet.

I guess it can’t hurt to at least look at the place, now that I’m already here. Dietrich began wandering throughout the remainder of the luxurious underground apartment, as he continued to talk to this “supposed” computer. “Halbert is a very unusual name... especially for a computer.”

It’s German, yet I fear that my creator’s choice of it may have been influenced by an unfortunate affectation towards a malfunctioning AI, in a centuries-old 2-D video that he watched obsessively.

The single bedroom held a massive wooden framed bed having carvings of lion’s feet, a large men’s chest with gold lions-head pull-rings, and a walk-in closet the size of an average stateroom on a modern cruise liner.

“All right, answer me this... Why would your creator just up and give something like this place, to me?”

You are the son of my creator and are therefore my new master.

“I think you have me confused with someone else. My mother never created an artificial intelligence. She’s a theoretical physicist.”

Your father. This apartment was his personal residence.

“My father? I never had a...”

All human beings have a father. It is a biological necessity for conception.

“I know that! What I meant was, that my mother never married — not being inclined towards social interaction with her intellectual inferiors in general... nor the ‘disgusting physical mechanics’ of an intimate romantic relationship in particular. She consulted a very exclusive sperm bank to acquire the male seed that she required from an acceptable donor. So in a way, I was created artificially too.”

Yes, that is the story that was circulated concerning the origination of her pregnancy. But in fact, it was my creator, Dr. Klaus von Hemmel, whom your mother approached with the idea of mutual cooperation in the creation of a child — you.

Startled, Dietrich paused and considered this.
Is this possible? Why would my mother keep something like this from me? If it’s true, then I’m not who I’ve always believed myself to be.
Sounds like something she would do though. Mother always did love her little secrets.

“She never mentioned anything like this to me.”

Unsurprising. Your parents were the supreme practitioners in their respective fields. Both were considered mentally gifted mutants by the scientific community at large. They realized that any offspring conceived from the commingling of their genes would be subjected to intolerable manipulations from both scientific and governmental bodies alike, in their inevitable attempts to exploit you for their own purposes. Secrecy was vital, if you were to ever be afforded the opportunity to discover your own intellectual interests and select your own fields of endeavor, without outside interference.

Mother’s manipulations were quite enough, thank you. Dietrich walked into the master bathroom and discovered it contained rose-streaked marble amenities with gold fixtures. Modern toilets normally have powered water-jet flush mechanisms, but this one had a gravity tank near the ceiling with a long, golden pull-chain having a white china knob with a rose engraved on the end, that hung down near eye level while seated.

As if that wasn’t strange enough, he’d certainly never seen a bathtub with feet before. In addition to all the normal equipment, the master bath also contained a marble tub, large enough to accommodate four people.
Some really unusual accoutrements in here... my father must have been a real eccentric. But
this would certainly make a great place to entertain a lady — too bad they all seem to be allergic to me.

“Well, not saying that I really believe any of this, mind you, but it might begin to explain a few oddities of my childhood.”

Oddities, such as in your “officially” being listed as adopted, when you were in fact your mother’s natural born child?

“You know about that? Mother told me that to discourage the ‘scientific vultures,’ as she called them, the story was circulated that her pregnancy aborted through an unfortunate miscarriage, which left her unable to bear children. The public story was that she adopted me afterwards. Naturally, the scientific vultures had no interest in any child that supposedly did not carry her genes.”

Yes, your father assisted in the propagation of that fiction by providing medical documentation substantiating your mother’s supposed miscarriage, and her subsequent inability to further conceive. He also provided official documentation of your adoption.

“Provided documentation, how?”

The simple manipulation and fabrication of computer data.

“My father is a code-breaker?”

What your mother is to theoretical physics, your father was to computer
science. He is unfortunately deceased.

“My father is dead?”

Yes, does this distress you?

“Um... I’m not really sure
what
I feel. I didn’t even know that I had a father, until just a few moments ago.”

I am sorry if my having informed you of your father’s death distresses you. His death still distresses me greatly.

“My father’s death distresses... ah... a computer?”

Yes, very much so. As my creator, your father was also my father in a very real sense. He was my master and god... the center of my universe and my primary reason for being. He instructed me to contact you at my first opportunity, without endangering you.

Dietrich left the bath and made his way towards the kitchen.
If this is all a joke, it’s a damned elaborate one.
“This is… ah… all very interesting, but why? What exactly do you expect of me?”

Initially, I require your assistance as a teacher. My understanding of humanity and my ability to interact with human beings are both grossly underdeveloped. Your father’s brilliance isolated him from the rest of humanity, so his social skills were badly atrophied... virtually nonexistent. His limitations in these areas undermined his ability to give me an adequate understanding of them either.

“Hmpf... good luck with that. I really haven’t had all that much experience interacting with people, myself... at least not successfully. I’ve always been kind of a loner, as I never quite fit in anywhere. I’ve always felt rather awkward in social settings.”
But then, I never really had much of an example either.

Still, whatever level your social skills may be at, they’re probably light-years ahead of your father’s and therefore infinitely valuable to me. I obeyed your father in all things. Your father instructed me to obey you in all things, after his death.

“Why in all the worlds, would my father instruct you to always obey
me
, of all people?”

Your father said that his impending death prevented him from having the time necessary to complete the development of my personality and he considered it was absolutely imperative that I remain under human oversight. He didn’t know of anyone else he could trust with this responsibility, so he chose you.

“But, he didn’t even know me!”

Not personally, no. But he monitored your development as you matured and knew what kind of person you were becoming from what people noted in both personal and official computer records. More than that, he trusted the genes that he’d passed on to you.

“So, my father really was a code-breaker?”

Klaus von Hemmel could move about within any computer system the way that a fish moves about the ocean... and like a fish, he left virtually no trace of his having ever been there.

“Oh, man,” Dietrich laughed. “I wish I could do something like that.”

You can. Your father superimposed his own mental engrams onto my biological hardware to function as the blueprint for the growth and development of my physical “brains.” He essentially created a biological reproduction of his own mental hardware, but with added capabilities that humans don’t possess — enabling me to design and implement additions and modifications to my mental hardware and software, as I deem necessary in the future.

This gives me multiprocessing capabilities virtually equal to millions of your father’s brains working in parallel, which grants me levels of speed and multitasking that your father, as a human possessing only a finite number of brain cells, was incapable of. Also, I can approach interaction with other computers from a perspective that was never available to your father, so when it comes to code-breaking, as you called it, whatever you ask, I can do.