Proof of Concept Read online

  Altair is more than a god. He’s the air we breathe. I’m only here because he lives in my head, and I don’t mind. It’s a massive privilege—

  A tiny fish hung by a pseudo-rock in a poisoned stream. How does it stay there, when the water’s moving? Kir the baby-scav couldn’t make it out, and suddenly it—no, but something happened. Something had been poised, for an instant—

  Altair, are you messing with me?

  She glanced around, and was relieved. Nobody seemed to have noticed her startled movement. Not a single isolation expert had come down. That was another puzzle, until you thought about it. They’d have had nothing to do. Even when the Needle was live, monitoring its chamber wouldn’t involve hard hats and boots. Everything was handled remotely.

  * * *

  The LDMs, in close-up, were nothing like the wobble-bellied, spindle-limbed “normal guys and dolls” in their publicity (Kir hadn’t seen the actual show). They had the same names and faces, and physical disability clearly wasn’t a veto, but they were limber, lean, and toned. They aced the housekeeping: instant experts at wrangling the Frame’s domestic mech and tech. Their off-duty behavior, however, was as obnoxious as Kir had feared. They were loud, they were inconsiderate, and when they weren’t tending the Frame or eating they had an amazing tolerance for slobbing around, in their eye-hurting live-feed overalls, doing nothing. Boredom would never find a purchase in their empty heads. Two weeks into the year of isolation, one of them brought his dinner tray to the canteen table where Kir was eating alone. He plonked it, folded his sleek, muscled arms, and sat back, grinning.

  “Ask me anything, crewmate!”

  I was not looking at you, thought Kir. My eyes may have happened to pass over you, a couple of times, but it meant nothing.

  “Why do you all look so different?” she said. “From on the show. Are you imposters?”

  “Aw, you’re a fan! That’s so cute. Nah, nah. It’s a conflict of objectives. Don’t tell me you guys don’t have those. We have to be one way to fit with Dan’s I’m serious complex, and another way to keep GAM happy. Global Audience Mediator—don’t tell me you guys don’t have issues with GAM, everybody does! It’s dirty but it’s cool.”

  “I’m not a fan. I just wondered. Which is the real you, anyway?”

  He roared with laughter. “No conflict! Perfect slob mind in perfect jock body! I’m Bill, chief engineer.” Grinning hugely, he popped his big mitt across the table and grabbed her right hand, which vanished in his grip. “I fix things. Well, you know. I politely ask the software to fix things. You’re Kir, the infant wonder. Are you always going to be that size?”

  Kir withdrew as far as his grasp would let her, and Bill dropped her hand, mugging clownish disappointment. “Uh, so it’s not me? Well, okay. You must want Ben! I’ll call him over?”

  “I’m sorry. Who’s Ben? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Okay, okay. No neeze to freeze! Ben’s first officer for this rote. I’m genuinely called Bill; Ben’s not called Ben, but we look alike. We jump around like crazy puppets, and he’s a Brit, so the Brits call us the ‘Flowerpot Men,’ it’s a Brit joke; and now you know the whole story!”

  “Thanks,” said Kir, grabbing her tray and scraping her chair back, intent on a swift exit. “Really pleased to have—”

  “I’d better say, about Altair.” Bill shook his head, stuck out his lower lip, and puffed a breath. “Whew. You poor kid. The human server-farm. You know what? If I could leave this galaxy, I would! It sucks, living in a world where things like that can happen to a defenseless child.”

  “At least there are no more wars,” said Kir. “I’m not a server-farm. I’m wetware. Altair is a quantum computer; my brain supplies his life support. It isn’t creepy, it’s fine. If he wasn’t hosted by a living human brain he’d be much more expensive and far too hot to run—”

  Bill rolled his large dark eyes. “Augh, he. I hate that! That anthropomorphizing they do! They stuck this flesh-eating—okay, calorie-gobbling—computer into your head, shortening your life, which has got to happen, you must know that. Then they give it a name and try to make it sound like a guardian angel—” He jabbed a hand at his open mouth, miming fingers-down-throat, a favorite LDM insult gesture. “Okay, now you’re offended. Kir, you have your script, what you have to say. I understand. I’m in that bind too. I just wanted you to know—”

  “You want a ticket on the first starship?” snapped Kir, with all the venom she could muster. “Good luck. I hope you can last that long. Me, I have the more realistic goal of wanting to learn, and maybe help the only world we have to get better. Altair is my ticket. And by the way, anthropomorphic is a sexist term, which is a bad word, Bill the Crowd-Sourced, so you’d better watch your mouth!”

  She sped to the counters, dumped everything including her uneaten dinner into the right slots, and stormed off.

  “Spats,” said Bill, mugging acute embarrassment. “You heard what the boss lady said. Spats are fun! She loves me, really.”

  Everyone hurriedly went back to chatting and eating, ostentatiously tactful.

  Kir knew her access to the Abyss was still open and didn’t resist when her feet took her in the lawless direction. Don’t take it personally, she told herself. It’s the LDM ethic. Saying outrageous things and meaning nothing. It’s a GAM thing. Crude, fake, freedom of speech for people who have none. Like a puppet on a string. . . . She crawled out into the dark. No longer a Hole, now, but a bag with the neck drawn tight. No headset, no blanket, but she had her watch, and the Frame was still lit, although its netted stars were gone. It only takes one fool (that’s Bill) to rush in and tell you the truth, and you fall apart. . . . She reached the break in the cavern floor without faltering, dropped to the sand, and huddled under the overhang. Altair is the price of my admission. I know all that. That’s not the problem, it’s Margrethe.

  Kir—

  I don’t understand why she brought the LDMs in. To buy us time? But next year the starship troopers will be gone, we’ll be forgotten, and we’ll still desperately need what she calls “the miracle of financial support” for years and years. Why is she doing Dan Orsted a favor? He’s everything she hates. A Tourist, a spoiler of living worlds!

  Kir, I need to talk to you—

  Oh, the sock puppet’s sock puppet. Just what I needed. Shut up and go away, imaginary friend.

  Kir? Is something wrong?

  Nothing. A stupid arrogant LDM called Bill came over to my table. As if he had a right, as if I’d been flirting with him, and he kindly told me I’m a sock puppet. I don’t exist; I’m just a clot of data, pretending to be a real person. A ‘server-farm’ was the actual term. But I don’t care about that. What I care about is that Margrethe, who is my idol, is on a path that doesn’t make sense.

  Oh, I see. This Bill thought you were interested in him. Was he right? Were you interested?

  I’d noticed him, okay. It doesn’t matter. He told me I’m disgusting. And ridiculously small.

  He was probably nervous. Kir, I need you to do something. This is very important, or I wouldn’t ask—

  A shiver of amazement, fear, and even panic, suddenly crisped Kir’s nape and ran down her spine. He was calling her Kir! The voice in her head had never, ever used her name before. Or asked her to do something. She sat up, staring around. Nothing to be seen, of course.

  Who’s talking?

  It’s me, Altair.

  Really? I hope you can prove it, and I DON’T KNOW HOW YOU’LL MANAGE THAT! I’ll have to tell someone and get medication for these symptoms. I’ll have to be shipped out. The experiment will lose its quantum computer! We’ll be dead meat! So TRY HARD!

  No need to shout. Close your eyes, turn your head, look at me—

  She closed her eyes, anger and fright overwhelmed by sheer curiosity. The weightless night of the Giewont Abyss was replaced by a nameless shade of dense opacity. She could feel someone beside her. She turned her head, eyes still closed, and there he
was, printed on the absence of light. A seated figure, in the same pose as herself. But taller, different in build, and his skull was gleaming smooth. He wasn’t looking at her; he looked straight ahead, stiffly, as if he was feeling nervous—

  Is that you? Is that what you look like?

  I don’t know, I can’t see what you’re seeing. An artist’s impression and you are the artist. Kir, please listen—

  “Go away!” she shrieked. “Leave me alone! I can’t be doing with this!”

  Okay. Badly misjudged. One of us had better stay calm. Let me think, let me think—

  GO AWAY!

  Got it. Let’s go and see Sergey. You trust Sergey, don’t you?

  Kir would have refused, but it sounded like such a good idea. Plus she was angry, and scared: but also fascinated—

  * * *

  Sergey had a triple berth to accommodate his support system. Luckily he wasn’t in bed yet. He sat in his chair, against a backdrop of gleaming machinery. His paybot twirled on his armtable and wagged its tail in welcome. Sergey’s eyes, still able to smile and shine in his distorted face, greeted Kir warmly. She remembered she’d been going to tease him about being an LDM fan—

  “Hiya, Li’l Bit,” said Sergey’s nice voice, kindly as his eyes. “What brings you? I’m not complaining, but it’s my bedtime. I was about to summon my valet and retire.” He had other voices. He had a fine, dandy hologram-self, progressed from the young Sergey before he was struck down, but he only deployed it for “company.” He preferred to use his paybot for remote presence, in normal life.

  “I’ve got a problem,” muttered Kir, hanging her head. “I can’t tell Margrethe, so someone advised me to tell you.”

  “Am I sworn to secrecy?”

  “Obviously. But I know what you’re like. If you blab, I won’t hold it against you.”

  “So, spit it out?”

  “One of the LDMs said I was a server-farm. They are such ignorant slobs, and I can’t understand why they’re here. It’s a sellout.”

  “Hmm. You think Margrethe sold us out? That’s very direct, Kir. Not like you at all!”

  “Don’t laugh at me, it isn’t funny. I’m not coping, and the year’s just begun; and I can’t agree with this LDM stunt.”

  Sergey looked at her quietly. “Is that all?”

  “I think so.”

  “Then I’ll try to help. We should be holding hands; it’s time for an intimate confidence.” The hand that appeared and took hers was as immaterial as his hologram-self, but miraculously convincing, warm and flexible as flesh. “Margrethe wanted to host Altair. You know that, don’t you? None of us contested her right. We were a team, and standing on the heads of generations of minds behind us, but Margrethe had made the difference. It couldn’t be done. None of us was quite clever enough for the partnership, and we needed a child, anyway. So Margrethe went looking, and she found you. You know about the other scav kids?”

  “Yeah, yeah. They all got an education and a future, but I’m the one that typed right. The suitable host.”

  “My story doesn’t make you feel better?”

  “I’ve heard it too often. Sergey, I love Margrethe more than anything in the world, but—”

  “But she’s a driven, ruthless woman, and tonight, suddenly, you feel she’s hurt you, personally.”

  Kir hesitated, and nodded. The virtual-prosthetic hand tightened its grip. “She thinks of you as her successor, you know.”

  “Dirt,” muttered Kir.

  Sergey chuckled. “Possibly, dirt. Full many a rose is born to seem a budding genius at twenty-two and fade into mediocrity before thirty. I was one, as you know. . . . But you’re not doing badly. You’re very healthy, you will live long. You might see the promised land, Kir.”

  “Is he a person?”

  Sergey laughed. “Ha! We’re back in Darwinian-Descartes world, are we? Every being that isn’t human flesh and blood is dead automata? Where does that leave me, Kir? What about my poor paybot? I don’t know what his state of being is; the question is too subtle for me. But I call this fellow ‘Gromit’—” He deployed another hand and patted the paybot’s casing. “And I love him dearly. Is Altair a person? My advice to you, Kir, is you should consider all the angles before you announce your own answer to that question.”

  “Okay. I think I get it.”

  She hadn’t been able to face Sergey when she was blurting out her doubts. She looked up at last, thinking she’d see friendly mockery, or cheery malice: something Sergey, anyway. But the living eyes in his slack face were just very tired, and unusually somber.

  “I’m sorry. I’ll go now. I’m a brat for keeping you up.”

  “Don’t worry, I’m fine. I’ll always be here for you, Li’l Bit. I promise. Good night.”

  Out in the passage she leaned against the wall and folded her arms, processing what she’d been told. Typical Sergey, he answered a different question. Probably he couldn’t believe that Kir was really doubting Margrethe’s judgment. And probably he was right; “server-farm” had stung. But she’d never thought before about Altair being helpless. His cruel fate, if he was truly conscious, had never crossed her mind. . . .

  I’m sorry, she said, without speaking aloud, or looking at the person beside her, because she knew she’d see nothing. I had a bad day. I got a false positive in the lab, and that never happens to me. I’m too careful. . . . And Bill upset me. What was the urgent thing?

  No response. Kir sighed, but felt relieved. She had more than enough to deal with, without Altair suddenly being real, and needy—

  * * *

  Kir collected her breakfast from the dispensers the next morning and ate alone in the lab. At lunch she braved the canteen. There was a noisy group of LDM crew-persons (known as “crewbies”) but no Bill. She sat at an empty table and began to eat, rather disconsolately. Suddenly he appeared, coming through the doors with another LDM so like him—although Bill was dark, and his friend was rather light-skinned—it had to be “Ben.” Ben joined the crewbies. Bill brought his tray to Kir’s table and sat down a cautious distance away. From the corner of her eye she saw him push something along the tabletop toward her. It was a white paper flower: a feathery, intricate origami lily.

  “Sorry,” he muttered.

  “I’m sorry too.”

  Margrethe and Dan came into the canteen, looking solemn. They went straight to the raised stage under the big screen, at the other end of the room from the counters. Everyone shut up, and the silence was deafening. What was going on?

  “I have sad news,” said Margrethe steadily. “My dear friend and longtime colleague, one of the most brilliant physicists of his generation, Sergey Pillement, died in his sleep last night. I’ve just left his room. I know he will be mourned, but in a real sense—”

  Tears welled from Margrethe’s eyes, and Dan took over. “He was a great man. Courageous, fearless, indomitable—”

  A voice rose, bewildered: one of the LDM crewbies. “Do we have protocol for this? Does it mean we abort the mission?”

  “Certainly not,” snapped Margrethe. “He would hate that. We will celebrate Sergey’s life, joyfully, and we will go on—”

  “Ouch,” breathed Bill as Dan started listing Sergey’s honors. “I knew he was a degenerative brain disease victim, from when he was a kid, wow, over a century ago, but I thought he was stable. What do they mean, he just died? Wasn’t he monitored? Did nobody try to resuscitate?”

  “Not Sergey,” whispered Kir. “He’s been DNR for years, and he looked after himself. Please shut up, Bill. He was my friend.”

  2

  Sergey’s family attended the memorial service in holopresence: physical quarantine was not breached. The great man’s remains would stay in the Abyss, in cold storage, until the end of the joint mission. This provision had been agreed in advance, apparently. Sergey in his support chair, looking just as always, delivered his own eulogy address, with relish: praising himself extravagantly, cracking jokes. Insisting that the Ne
edle Voyager mission must continue and wishing them well. The LDMs were a little bewildered by this posthumous performance. The Needlers were uplifted.

  “A hard act to follow,” said Margrethe, taking the podium. “He always was! Bear with me as I make the attempt: I will be brief. Sergey Pillement followed no specific religious faith. But he was, and I take confidence and say he is, a Believer. He believed in Life. He believed in Mind, and he served those two great principles, or great Beings, with all his heart and soul. He bore the inflictions of a devastating disease with courage (and humor!) his entire adult life, and by sheer stubbornness—if nothing nobler—survived for many decades, making enormous contributions to science. When I asked him to be part of this experiment, of course we discussed the risks. But Sergey managed his own clinical situation, with medical AI oversight, exclusively. I now realize he may have known that irretrievable systems failure was closer than it seemed and kept it to himself. If so, I forgive him. I know what this mission meant to him, and I’m still very glad he was with us. He died as he had lived, serving the future our world so desperately needs, to his last breath. We will miss him, and mourn him, but let me remind you: We have not lost his leadership, his inspiration, or his knowledge. Sergey was an uploader, as many of you know. He had been transferring his life-experience, and his knowledge, to permanent storage for a long time—”

  Kir couldn’t hold back the tears. Sergey, who mocked all sentiment, had held her hand last night, and told her I’ll always be here. She’d thought he was teasing: He had known he was dying. He’d been saying good-bye.

  The death was not rated as an emergency, or even a tragedy, but it did make people think. There were other fragile eminent seniors on the Needler team. Had they all signed secret contracts, agreeing their bodies could be kept on ice? Should the medical status of all post-lifespan Voyagers now be made public? “Okay, Sergey was one of a kind, and he was terminal,” said Bill, airing LDM concerns with Kir in the canteen. “We get that he was a prepared death, fine: but look at Margrethe. She’s the boss, and she’s ancient. What if she has a health crisis?”