The Cold Steel Mind (21 page)

There was still no dust. The fourteen bodies were sealed in what looked like vacuum packed plastic, each of them perfectly preserved in whatever state they had been in when they had become useless to the owners. Scanners were produced quickly to go over them and two things became apparent very quickly: all of the corpses had suffered head trauma and they were all the smaller body type the Xinti used. The skin was grey and mottled, the bodies slight and a little short compared to a Jenlay. They had a ridged skull, swept back into points. The sight of them still made Aneka’s fake blood run cold.

‘No combat forms,’ Aneka said as she went over another of the body bags with a scanner.

‘By the end of the war they weren’t using organic bodies for combat,’ Bashford said. ‘The cybernetic chassis were damn near indestructible from what I heard.’

‘We have a couple of examples in the University Museum,’ Ella added. ‘The one you won’t go in because of the Xinti exhibits?’

‘I do not avoid the museum because of the Xinti exhibits,’ Aneka replied, still mostly concentrating on the scanner.

‘Then why do you avoid it? I keep suggesting we go.’

‘Yeah… and then you decide to stay in bed instead of going because you’ve seen it all.’

‘Oh… Not every… Well, maybe.’

‘So,’ Gillian said as the final readings were passed through to her suit computer and the AI collated them, ‘fourteen bodies, all with some form of damage to the skull which penetrated or impacted the brain.’

‘And if the brain was damaged,’ Aneka added, nodding slowly, ‘that would actually kill the Xinti within. But why bring the bodies back here and then just leave them on the ship like this?’

‘The Xinti had no culture of funerary rites,’ Ella said. ‘I asked Speaker about it. Given that they were all dead I thought there might have been graves, or a memorial wall, or… something.’

‘I know the ones who decided to end themselves were kind of stored as databases of memories,’ Aneka put in. ‘So I guess that’s a bit like a memorial. Anyone else can always access the raw memories of the dead Xinti. They have mine in storage too.’

‘Remember that the Xinti had long ago given up the concept of a permanent body,’ Gillian said. ‘The real Xinti was the mind, these were nothing more than shells. They probably brought these back in the hope that their minds could be recovered.’

Ella nodded. ‘Either way, there was no need for the bodies afterwards. The physical bodies, in some ways the physical world, was of no interest to the Xinti.’

‘Huh,’ Aneka grunted. ‘You know, I kind of wondered why the AIs didn’t put up objections to us coming here. I mean, this is sort of a war grave. I know they aren’t actually Xinti, but I thought they might think it a bit like desecration. But if the Xinti didn’t care about bodies and graves…’ Something caught her eye, an object sitting beside one of the bodies under a dead console.

‘Precisely,’ Gillian said. ‘To them this is more of a scrapyard than a grave site.’

The object beneath the console was a transparent cylinder of some sort about ten centimetres in height and eight in diameter. It was showing some odd refraction patterns in Aneka’s enhanced vision. She lifted it out and the light from her helmet torches fell onto it, and inside the cylinder an image formed. It showed two Xinti seated together in something a little like an ultra-modern loveseat. One of them had its arm around the other’s shoulders and they were leaning together, clearly a picture of a couple. It reminded Aneka of the kind of family photographs people had taken so that they could be put on the wall, except that this was a small hologram and seemed somehow more intimate.

Gillian gasped. ‘Oh… That is amazing. I don’t think we’ve ever found anything like it before.’

‘A couple,’ Aneka said. ‘Two Xinti in a relationship. It’s weird, but I just hadn’t thought of them like that. Somehow I figured, with the digital minds, that they were… kind of emotionless and logical.’

‘You’re not,’ Ella pointed out. ‘That said, this might be the first proof we’ve ever had that they did still have some sort of personal, romantic feelings for each other.’

Aneka looked at the hologram, turning it from side to side in her hands. ‘Something some naval officer took to remind him of the girl he left behind.’ Her gaze shifted to the body. ‘I wonder if he made it back to her.’

~~~

‘She was called Lishanta,’ Speaker said. He was holding the hologram while seated on one of the curved seats on an island in the Forum. Aneka sat beside him, alone. She had wanted to know. ‘His name was Undrek and it was she who left him behind, not the other way around.’

‘Huh, so much for me not believing in stereotypes.’

The AI smiled at her. ‘We only know what happened from her memories, and I’m sorry to say that they are incomplete. Her mind could not be recovered in full, there was too much damage.’

‘Oh. What about him?’

Speaker looked upwards and off to the right as though thinking, or remembering. ‘They lived on Trevorsh. It was a garden world. They grew bushabli there, it’s…’

‘A type of berry,’ Aneka said. ‘Used in making duksh, yes?’

‘We gave you a good vocabulary. Lishanta was an Administrator, second rank, not a Warrior. Undrek worked on a farm. She was aboard the Bishna Hel, the battleship you found, handling crew well-being. When the war turned against the Xinti, the Bishna Hel spent years on the front lines trying to hold back the fleets of the other races. Trevorsh was attacked by a Herosian fleet during the final years of the war. It had no military value, but they burned it to the ground. There were no survivors. Lishanta heard about it just before the Bishna Hel entered its final battle of the war. During that battle a heavy fighter was badly damaged and came back on board on fire.’

‘There was evidence of a fire in the hangar bay,’ Aneka said.

Speaker nodded. ‘Lishanta should not have been helping get the crew off, but she did. Five Warriors were saved by her actions. She was helping a sixth when an explosion smashed her into a bulkhead. And that is where her memories stop.’ The AI looked down again and smiled. ‘The Warrior caste gave her honorary rank for her actions on that day.’ He held out the hologram to Aneka. ‘I think that this holds more value to you than it does to us. I’m certain that Doctor Gilroy would wish to have it if you do not.’

Aneka took the cylinder, turning it in her hands so that the image of Lishanta and Undrek faced her. ‘Thank you. You know, I got used to thinking of the Xinti the way most of the Jenlay do. They were monsters, or at least amoral scientists who took my life away from me. Most of them were… people.’

‘Even the ones who took your life away, as you put it, had planned to give it back, Aneka. You were not
supposed
to end up lost in space for centuries.’

‘No, but… When there’s a war, you get used to demonising your opponents. Killing someone is a lot easier when you don’t think they’re entirely Human. I guess that should be “entirely sentient.”’

‘People,’ Speaker suggested. ‘It’s a good term. If you think of your enemies as “not people” then you have no issue with destroying them.’

Aneka nodded. ‘But these were people. And they never got to say goodbye.’

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Aneka found Evolution in the arboretum, sitting in the clearing they had used for a camp, though the gear had been removed not long after they had left it. The AI was sitting, her legs crossed in front of her, watching the trees.

‘We don’t embody very often,’ Evolution said as Aneka approached her. ‘I think we should do so more often. The Xinti spent long periods in bodies claiming that it gave them a better sense of self. They may have been right.’

‘I’m not sure I’d even want to try being… well, without a body, living in a computer.’ Aneka sat opposite her, mimicking her posture unconsciously.

‘Another difference between us and the Xinti. They existed within a virtual environment when not in a body. We can do the same, but generally we operate fine without the need for any form of external stimuli. They retained a need to think of themselves as beings in an environment. We are software. But you did not come here to discuss our living arrangements.’

‘No, you’re right of course. My memories, the ones you have stored. I’d like a copy.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I’m not going to access it directly. Al will be my gatekeeper. He’ll have access to the database and if he sees a need for me to know something I’ve forgotten, he’ll give me access.’

‘An effective solution to the problem. I’ll make the data available and Al can download it.’ She seemed to pause, though perhaps only Aneka’s overclocked brain would have perceived it as such. ‘The new computer installation on your vessel has completed its system checks and will be activated in seventeen minutes. I believe you would find it instructive to be there.’

Raising her eyebrows, Aneka climbed to her feet and started for the lift. ‘Instructive?’

‘Interesting at the very least.’

~~~

Speaker had apparently gathered the entire team together for the initiation of the new computer. Everyone was sitting in the mess in vacuum suits, though their helmets were sitting on the table in front of them; the ship was sound enough, and powered enough through an external connection, that the atmosphere processors were working. Engineering was still in a vacuum, but the rear section of the Hyde was sealed off so that the team could operate more comfortably. There was even artificial gravity.

‘Did Speaker actually give any hints about what they’ve done with the computer?’ Aneka asked as she took a seat.

‘No,’ Wallace replied.

Gillian added, ‘I think he was rather enjoying keeping it a secret.’

‘Huh.’ Aneka checked the corner of her vision. ‘Well, according to my clock it should be coming online… now.’

Nothing happened for just long enough that everyone looked at each other wondering whether something had gone wrong, then the wall screen went black and an image appeared in it. Aneka and Cassandra processed what they were seeing before the Jenlay, but it was Aneka who got the word out first.

‘Aggy?’

The golden woman’s face lit up in a perfect smile. ‘Yes, Aneka. I was a research vessel and used to operating the kind of warp drive currently being fitted to the Hyde. The Agroa Gar could never have been a functional ship again. This solution allows me to continue to be what I want to be: a ship in the service of scientific discovery.’ Her gaze swept around the room even though Aneka figured she was not actually looking out of the screen and did not need to. Her expression became uncertain. ‘I hope this will be okay with all of you?’

Drake got his brain in gear. It was his ship, in a manner of speaking. ‘It’s going to take a little getting used to. I can obviously see the advantages. It’s just…’

‘I understand, Captain. I assure you that my loyalty is to my crew. I may be a Xinti creation, but first and foremost I am a ship’s computer. I am now
your
ship’s computer and my purpose, my… being, is to ensure your safety, the smooth running of the ship, and the thrill of discovery. In that order.’

‘There’ll be some politics,’ Monkey said. Aneka looked at him, expecting to see many emotions, but mostly seeing a sort of resigned annoyance. He looked back and shrugged. ‘There will.’

‘I know. She’ll need to be psychoanalysed like Al was. She’ll need a citizen ID. I was just expecting you to be a bit more… negative about having a Xinti AI running the ship.’

He shrugged again. ‘Maybe if she was actually a Xinti. The AIs here have all been, well, friendly.’

‘I can handle the psychoanalysis immediately,’ Cassandra commented. The words, ‘Just try and stop me,’ were left unspoken.

‘There’s another benefit,’ Shannon said, ‘for Aneka anyway.’

Aneka looked around at her. ‘Oh?’

‘Once she’s declared a functional, volitional AI she can be assigned crew membership…’

‘She’ll basically have to be,’ Drake put in.

‘…and then you won’t have to have anyone else awake with you. Solves your cold-sleep problem.’

‘Well it solves the resource management problem,’ Aneka agreed. ‘How are your conversation skills, Aggy?’

‘I enjoyed having long conversations with my crew during flights,’ Aggy replied.

‘Well, that’s good.’

‘Of course, they were mostly about science. I may have to brush up on my popular music and sex references.’

‘That is not all I talk about.’

‘Oh,’ Aggy replied. ‘I was just working from your conversations with Ella. It’s all you ever seem to talk about.’

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After two days Aggy had become virtually indispensable to everyone except Cassandra and Aneka, and even they were viewing her as a very useful addition to the crew. The AI had collected the data from the individual AIs assigned as PAs to the team and then taken over the role for everyone. The immediate result had been the connection of several notes taken by Wallace, Gillian, and Ella which had confirmed or denied some of their thoughts on Xinti scientific progression. Another result had taken a little longer, and was amusing Aneka.

‘I think you look rather good in glasses,’ Aneka commented as Ella finished getting dressed for the day. ‘Makes you look more serious without taking away from your fundamental cuteness.’

Ella’s cheeks coloured and she reached up unconsciously to adjust the thin frames with their almost invisible lenses. ‘You think?’

‘I’m not qualified to comment on your “cuteness,”’ Aggy said, ‘but I believe glasses have been seen as a sign of studiousness for a long time.’ The point of the glasses was to allow Ella to see Aggy’s virtual image. The AI was incredibly good at doing the trick; where she was appearing to multiple people at the same time she generally made sure everyone saw her in the same place and heard the same voice through bone transduction speakers in the glasses. She could provide independent channels for each person, but it got confusing if everyone was replying to different conversations.

Aneka, of course, did not need the glasses. She gave the AI a grin and got one back. She had no idea how Aggy was seeing and interpreting facial expressions, but she was.