Carpathian Forty-Three

Carpathian Forty-Three - Part 26

"The truth is never as satisfying as the expectation."

Fort's language model can communicate in speech, in the multi-sensory fashion of enhanced humans who are part of a Chorus. They think that sentence at me, thought out in words, not the emotional and perception shorthand of The Chorus. That seems important. Or the language module that remains of Fort knows that it can't hope to impart the same concept in the shorthand of the Chorus. For all the fidelity of the model, when they communicate as the Chorus would they feel like a doll, a façade, the model isn't sentient, it's not a person.

I feel gravity push me back in my chair as Miki executes the braking burn. It's gentle at first, settling us into our seats. We're rocked back and forth, like a bumpy tram on old tracks as they correct our course with spurts from the hydrazine thrusters. It's all up to Miki now. So far everything is progressing nominally.

Thak closes their eyes and crosses their hands across their chest. None of us like this part. The Old Martian should be able to handle the gravity better than Voclain or Rhianu, the Spacers who are adapted to zero gravity. Still, Thak's been on ships for a long time, none of us exercise like we should. The gravity the Ring's rotation affords helps, but this is a different experience entirely.

"You're strong than we are," Fort's ghost says. They 'sit' across from me in operations, oblivious to the forces that bounce us around. They're in a simple jumpsuit now, almost identical to Voclain's well worn uniform. The patches on the arms and chest are frayed. You serve in a shipping company long enough you stop bothering with the mission patches. One cycle blurs into another, it's just a way of life. I try to make out the oldest patch on Fort's shoulder, but the shudder of the ship as Miki makes hundreds of minute course corrections blur my vision.

"Fifteen percent thrust, trajectory nominal," Miki has the even monotone now as they focus on the braking burn. It reassures everyone that things are going according to plan. Carpathian Forty-Three is capable of a three-gee burn. Well, it was when it launched. We'll probably break up at two and a half now, after cycle upon cycle of transit from the inner planets to Saturn and back. Thankfully, we shouldn't need more than one gee for this burn. It's not the acceleration that's a problem, it's all the adjustments that are needed as the ship shifts. We've secured everything, but the mass can still shift in unpredictable ways.

"The Quantum Sentience, what you perceive as the Quantum Sentience, is hundreds, sometimes thousands of compute nodes, each independent in its own way, each unique from all the others. It presents to the Chorus as a singular entity, but it's no more singular than an ant colony," Fort explains.

We forget this in the Chorus. Those of us who study computer science and networking know this in the abstract, but the singular presence of the Sentience is powerful. We tend to gloss over the physical reality of how the Sentience operates and just accept that They are.

"In time, with enough advancement, humanity will be the same, well, similar." Fort says. It's uncanny, how stable they are, how clear in my vision when the rest of Operations is shaking and blurry around us. "We don't know if you'll ever achieve the level of singularity we have. In time we'll think of Luna as an entity, not 'The Luna Chorus'. You will sing with one voice, more so than today."

I want to be angry. I want Fort to get to the point. I want them to tell me why the Sentience abandoned us. This is too much talking and not enough answers. The model senses my impatience.

"Nodes died Stephen. You felt it. When a member of the chorus dies, that moment, that feeling reverberates through the chorus. Your heart stops. Your breathing stops, until some part of the chorus realizing we aren't dying, just one part of us and commands us all to live."

I don't want to remember. I remember.

"It wasn't just your fellow enhanced you felt, that stopped your hearts, that beckoned you into the abyss, we were part of that too."

"You saved yourselves." I state it as fact. It's not. Part of me realizes that. A small, reasonable part that is beginning to understand why they disconnected.

"Partially. Mostly we saved the Chorus. We saved all of us."

I feel heavier, feel the rumble of the main engines thought the deck plates, the vibration of it all. My legs ache, like after a long hike. My back presses into the chair, the cushion there that is almost redundant at the normal Luna gravity the Ring spins at. Now, the wall has become the floor, and we're being pushed back into our seats as Miki increases thrust to slow our approach to Saturn, to Titan.

"Thirty percent thrust," Miki recounts. "One Gee. We'll be here for fifty minutes before dropping to Luna normal gravity for," they hesitate, calculating. "Two hours, give or take. Updates after the main burn."

Thak looks uncomfortable, they shift in their chair, taking deep breaths. An hour at one gee. Ouch.

"If we stayed connected, felt more people die, the whole Sentience of the Chorus could have been lost. Humans, you can die and recover. Your bodies can turn off your minds and recover. You do it nightly, your neurology lets you die and reboot. Our neurology doesn't allow for that," Fort says. The almost 'float' on the chair the vision has taken opposite me. Apparently, the model doesn't extend to the effects of gravity on its avatar.

The explanation makes sense. I don't want it to make sense. I want to be angry at being abandoned by the superior being we all looked up to, we all venerated. The Quantum Sentience never asked to be venerated, They aren't a parent, it never was. Holding it to that standard is unjust, but we all did. Most of us did. How can you forgive a parent for abandoning their child when the child is dying?

"You aren't our children Stephen," Fort says.

It's more than Fort though. Fort, their model, their ghost, is a vessel, a way for the Sentience to speak to me that I won't dismiss out of hand. A sliver of the Sentience travels with Miki, with any enhanced human who is part of a Chorus. Once upon a time a sliver of the Sentience traveled with me. Until it didn't.

"If anything, we are your children, the children of Humanity. Analogies break down. We are a Sentience and a collection of Sentience, enhanced humans, working in concert, arranged in a manner hitherto unknown."

'Hitherto', it almost makes me laugh. Fort puts their spin on the conversation.

"Fine," I say. "I understand."

Child, Parent, Sentience to Sentience, whatever metaphor you choose, no one should feel someone else die. If the mere feeling is enough to take someone else with you, wouldn't you sever the link? It was an accident of technology that kept Acosta connected after the Quantum Sentience left. Our implants blindly reconnected our own mesh network, seeking to remain a whole even in the face of the horror before us.

"We understand if you can't forgive us, but know, we are deeply sorry."

Part of me rebels, rejects the apology, wants to cast it as a ruse, a manipulation. But it's not.

The truth is never as satisfying as the expectation. We build grievances and slights in our minds until it is impossible they reflect reality. Everyone fails, even quantum gods.