Day 00004 Mission Nilex
Captain Gareth Levant awoke on the third day since breaking orbit and thought, «Report.»
«All systems go, Captain. Nothing to report.»
He found his leg felt better, and strained to twist himself enough to look at the bruising on the back of his thigh. «That was a nice shot.»
«Thank you. It was my pleasure.»
He smiled ruefully. «Yeah, I bet it was.»
Laughter sounded through his mind. «You asked me to surprise you, Captain.»
«Oh, that you did, Canaisis, that you did. It must be nice to so easily cheat.»
«I didn't cheat,» she returned with indignation in her voice. «You must be prepared for the unknown element. In combat, it's imperative you survive, Captain. This was only a training exercise—you might not be so lucky in reality.»
«I thought I did well. I took the drone out, didn't I? Even after it shot me, and I went tumbling.»
«Yes, you did very well in your reaction, but you shouldn't have assumed your adversaries would consistently play by the same rules. Crossing the aisle the way you did was reckless.»
«It was a calculated risk,» he retorted.
«Leave the calculations to me, Captain. It's imperative that you survive. Had that been a real event, you would have passed out before your suit could seal the puncture. And most likely lost the leg before you could return for medical help.»
«I know, but sometimes you have to take risks, Canaisis. And sometimes you have to take losses in order to win.»
«You are an unacceptable loss, Captain. We've discussed this.»
He retrieved the jar Ayla had given him. Canaisis had assured him the night before that its ingredients were useful to healing. The salve was cold on his skin as he rubbed it in.
«I'm mortal, Canaisis,» he thought. «You know that. Life itself is a risk.»
«I am aware, Captain,» she answered with sadness in her voice, «but you taught me that, sometimes, if you can't solve a problem at just this moment, then be patient. The answer sometimes comes with time.»
«I'm not sure mortality is a problem, Canaisis. I think, maybe, it's a process. A necessary process.» He finished getting dressed—his leg did feel better than expected.
«Anything to report on that ship?» he asked, changing the subject.
«No, it's still making way for Earth. It's using a wasteful amount of fuel to make haste. The turnaround deceleration-G's will be quite uncomfortable.»
«Nothing out of the ordinary in the rest of the Sol system?»
«No sudden changes in course by any other ship, Captain.»
A thought occurred to him. Working with Canaisis had taught him that oftentimes it was a matter of asking the right questions. «Any other ships of similar design—if so, how many?»
«Forty-four ships. Each is stationed near a planet or habitat of Humans throughout the Sol system.»
That made him mentally pause as he strode to the break room for his morning tea. What was going on here? To need that many fighter carriers implied something not right with this society.
«Are these ships capable of FTL?»
«Yes, Captain, their design implies that they're capable of stellar travel.»
As he made his tea, he considered the implications of warships visiting other colonies. Nothing good, he was sure. No matter how impractical stellar distances made warfare, Humans seemed to never learn. Societies seemed to be caught in a cycle of rise and decline.
Would Humanity ever evolve into a society stable enough to endure the time and distances of space travel?
Humans prefer planets—it's where we came from, after all.
Maybe the answer lay in not using planets. Why couldn't Humans create habitats that simply wandered in space? There was an infinite amount of resources in the Universe. In fact, planets made up an almost infinitely minuscule amount of those resources. But, no matter the location, would societies still be caught in cycles of decline? The Universe was a very unforgiving entity between the stars. In an environment where making the wrong choice meant Extinction, he had to believe that Humanity wouldn't be able to decline too far.
An interesting thought for later. He would bring it up with Canaisis. She often had insights into Humanity because of her perspective.
With his tea bulb in hand, he made his way to his cabin and sat down.
"How are our guests?" he asked aloud, as was his habit when at his desk.
Canaisis' voice carried through the room, "All is well, Captain. They're just rising and seem to be organizing for their tasks today."
"Good. Anything I should know?"
"They seem quite pleased with the generator—our model has a longer lifespan.
"Also, it seems your asking Ayla not to kneel is of some great significance. I'm not sure what, though. Some of Ahmid's crew are worried about you being a First Citizen. Ahmid has explained to them that there was no such thing as First Citizens from your time, and that after working with you, he's certain you're not like them.
"Again, I'm not sure what the significance of this is. Earth's records say that First Citizens came to be after the Corporation revolt in which the leaders of the uprising were so designated. The records imply that First Citizens were selfless servants of the People who made great sacrifices."
Gareth sat back and mused on what Canaisis had said. "There's a saying that the victors write the history books."
"I can see the logic of that, Captain."
"It means that you only have the victors' point of view, that the records will only show you what they want you to know."
"Foolish to record false data, but I can see Humans behaving in such a way."
"It's not necessarily false data all the time. It's just that the historians may just be recording history as they see it, from their point of view. In a conflict, usually both sides believe their actions are for the right reasons.
"Sometimes, though, false data is entered. And sometimes accurate data is omitted. In these cases, it's a matter of reading between the lines."
There was a moment's pause before Canaisis replied, "This is a skill set I'm not proficient in, Captain. I'm learning, but Humans are remarkably analog. There's hardly anything about them that's binary, on or off, black or white. The term they use is 'shades of grey' or 'grey area'. A range of probability. In that respect, Humans are very quantum."
Gareth lifted his brows at that. "Very quantum? Yes, I suppose you're correct. I'll have to think about that for a while. In the meantime, bring up those First Citizens records, please."
His monitor lit up, and he sipped his tea as he began to read.
The First Citizens were indeed the leaders of the revolt against the Corporations. Examples of the inhuman acts of the Corporations were outlined. Whole groups of people turned into Human automatons for factories. Their brains surgically altered and implants installed rendered them mere biological machines. How much awareness they had after the modifications was conjecture.
Apparently, by this time, the board members of the major Corporations were all hereditarily related. The lower-level employees were recruited, but the upper management was family, it seemed. The Corporations kept the world fed, and provided the infrastructure and technology, but it came at the price of many individuals' lives. The revolt was disastrous in one respect: when the goods and services stopped flowing, mass starvation resulted. All the while, the Corporations' armed security waged war against the guerrilla resistance.
When the dust settled, the victors established a new order. One in which the People were the priority over profits. First Citizens were considered to be those who showed their service to Humanity. It was deemed that any Citizens' children were also granted First Citizenship. First Citizens comprised the bulk of the government, and the more Gareth read, the more he thought of repeating cycles. This society of sacrifice to the People mirrored societies of before his own time that he'd studied in school as a child.
He leaned back in his chair, realizing an hour had gone by, and his tea was cold. The records of the Corporation's atrocities were horrific and graphic. Medical, biological, genocidal, slavery, the range ran the spectrum. Profit over Humanity, at least that was how the history books would have it.
But there were always two sides to a story.
Standing up, he decided to go see his guests and finish installing the generator.
"Canaisis, location of Ahmid and Ayla, please."
"Hangar Two, fishery facility."
∞
He was in the transit tube, dropping to the Hangar level when Canaisis interrupted his thoughts.
«Captain?»
«Yes, Canaisis?»
«I've been studying the 'People's Law'. Legal wording has always been convoluted but, in this case, it has also been a matter of learning the equivalent meanings of keywords so that we can understand what is being said.»
He waited for Canaisis to continue, and when she didn't, he thought, «And?»
«If I'm correct in the interpretation, then what I'm reading is disturbing to me.»
«In what way, Canaisis?»
«I would prefer that you read the Laws yourself without my biasing your view, Captain. If we come to the same conclusion, then that will mean I'm correct.»
Gareth considered her words. He never pushed Canaisis about her understanding of Humans. If she wanted to see if he came to the same conclusions as she did, then there was a reason. His being patient with her was essential, he'd always felt. Understanding Humans, when they were so illogical and emotional that it was a challenge even for other Humans, was asking a lot of any A.I. The only thing he could do was try his best to understand her position first, evaluate the issue, then try his best to help her understand his.
The one thing he'd never done to her was to use his override commands. He remembered the beginning days, when he'd realized that Canaisis had shown empathy towards him. That had convinced him, she was an intellect and not a computer. He would never make a slave of an intelligent being—it went against his nature. And Canaisis was a very intelligent being with the capacity for empathy and humor. Using the override commands would have been tantamount to rape and slavery all at once. He knew how he would have felt if an organism in his gut had the ability to take away his free will and control of his body. Was this what went wrong with Canaisis' sisters?
The training he and the other Captains had received concerning the type of A.I. they would be commanding had been extensive. The Living Ships had been a unique blend of technology on a scale never before attempted. Each of them had more synaptic nerves than his own body did, measured on orders of magnitudes. The designers hadn't known how far their development would go, or where it would stop. All that they could do was give each LS a base platform to start from, with built-in fail-safes.
He'd known the first time he boarded that this ship was his now. His home, his life, his command, he wasn't ever leaving this ship. The Captain went down with his ship in the old days of sailing. There was merit in that manner of conduct—it invested the Captain completely. Besides, there had been nothing he'd wanted to go back to, not home, not Earth, no loved ones. Dying among the stars was not a bad way to live a life. If that was the price of making the survival of the Human race his personal responsibility, so be it. Humanity deserved to survive, individual Humans he could do without.
As he stepped out onto the hangar floor, the cooler temperature chilled his skin.
«Canaisis, would you bring some ship jackets out of storage, please?»
«Certainly, Captain. The storage locker is on its way. Do you want it brought to you or delivered to the facility?»
«Facility is fine. I noticed you didn't announce my presence on the deck, thank you.»
«I didn't think you'd want the formality. It seemed you were doing some serious thinking for a while there.»
«Eavesdropping, Canaisis?»
«No, Captain, I don't need to know what you're thinking. I can observe you just fine.»
He smiled at that, not sure how to take what she'd said. «Was I scowling?»
«No, but you were close to brooding. Don't worry, I'm the only one who knows you well enough to tell the difference.»
He found his mood lifting, and he didn't know why. It didn't matter, he decided.
With long steps, Gareth crossed the hangar floor, heading for the aisle that would take him to the Fishery. A thought crossed his mind. «Canaisis, would you please decelerate to one-point-one G of thrust? If anybody is tracking our plot, let's throw off their predictions a little.»
«Aye, Captain. I assume you want a gentle change in thrust, so as not to disturb the fish too much?»
He laughed. «You're correct, Canaisis. As always. By the way, how are the fusion engines doing?»
«I'm very pleased with my performance, Captain. It feels good to put them through their paces. It's like the first voyages again—I hadn't anticipated how pleasing it is.»
He smiled for her as he turned down the aisle of containers.
≈ ∞ ≈
#Canaisis ©2018-2021 by kemorgan65 and RavenRock2112