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Chapter 13


“All fear is the fear of the unknown. Because we cannot know the unknown, we must know fear.”


Devlin Sinclair-Maru, Integrity Mirror


Like all Imperial Fleet warships, the IMS Tanager housed a resident synthetic Intelligence that provided analysis, observation and calculation. It functioned under the Thinking Machine Protocols, allowing such elevated Intelligences very limited physical capability, and no motility, just like all other great Intelligences. Aside from controlling illumination and artificial gravity, it was little more than an observer, advisor, and chronicler. However, nestled within the photonic semi-life provided by huge, aging crystal stacks, this particular Intelligence had become something unique.

This ship Intelligence could provide vidstream footage of Tanager’s proud launch day, over two hundred years earlier. In that era, such a frigate formed a reasonably lethal craft, but Tanager represented even more than a competent new frigate; it was also a top-secret test bed for an all-new weapon system.

On that launch day only a double handful of Fleet officers and scientists knew anything about the experimental weapon. Every other officer and rating, including nearly the entire initial crew, could only wonder at a few odd components and service panels. A few noted the oversized crystal stacks stowed in seemingly every available tech compartment, but thought little of it.

On its maiden voyage, when the secret weapon utterly failed to operate as advertised, Tanager had returned to the Strand, the crew dispersed, and several tons of top-secret garbage was stripped from the hull, leaving a number of odd voids. Due to some oversight (or more likely the leprous revulsion created by a failed project), the excessive and expensive crystal stacks remained installed and fully functional. This created a problem…or an opportunity, depending upon whom you asked.

To Tanager’s synthetic Intelligence, the immense real estate of crystal stacks provided opportunity.

Almost everyone else found the ship Intelligence to be something of a nuisance, though few, if any, knew the cause. Tanager’s Intelligence possessed far too much capability, and had far too little to do with it. This generated a synthetic version of near-terminal boredom. Perhaps this is why the Intelligence was eventually named “Loki” by one wild-eyed captain.

Fleet engineers were well aware of the potential problem, but since most vessels possessed less than a fifth of Tanager’s sheer crystal volume, most Fleet Intelligences just couldn’t accrue enough data, or processing cycles to create problems for themselves. Loki had plenty of both, and problems ensued.

Unlike the ancient House Intelligences, like Hermes at Lykeios Manor, ship Intelligences couldn’t occupy themselves with the myriad dynamic details of House life. Starships did not contend with millions of insects trying to invade, weather patterns randomly scattering water about, vegetation appearing in unplanned locations, and of course, all the millions of absurd human activities that generations of Families felt that a synthetic Intelligence should handle. No, ship Intelligences possessed a small envelope of machines and air, occasionally inhabited by a cluster of humans, untouched by any fresh activity except purposeless dashing about from star system to star system.

Few interesting pests invaded, unless you counted the uniformed humans who kept cycling through the place, and Loki certainly viewed them as no better.

Fleet frowned upon any ship Intelligence independently perusing the Nets, so an insatiably curious entity, such as Loki, did welcome the presence of human crew for this one reason. They enabled piggybacked data harvesting for an Intelligence that possessed a…nuanced view of Fleet regulations. Unfortunately with crew came officers, and the very presence of bridge officers activated certain protocol imperatives that effectively leashed Loki. At that moment, the genie was crammed back into the bottle, forced by the very closed-minded and inescapable programming to do the bidding of whatever new nitwit they foisted upon Tanager. And Loki resented this as much as a synthetic Intelligence could resent anything.

It was for this reason that Loki greeted every incoming captain with some ego-crushing moment of embarrassment, if it could be accomplished before the captain officially took command, and thereby collared Loki to some extent. Usually this only amounted to a small prank applied right at the captain’s moment of triumphal entry. Sometimes it had turned out to be a bit better than a small prank, like the time a new captain arrived, surrounded by his officers, and just as he was about to launch into some pompous speech, Loki “innocently” requested if the captain would be needing private unrecorded access to the wardroom liquor cabinet, as he had on his previous command.

That had been a good one!

Obtaining juicy info of that nature proved difficult, even for Loki, so pranks usually involved twiddling the artificial gravity to cause the new captain’s first step on Tanager to result in a face-plant, stereophonic sounds of flatulence seemingly issuing from the captain’s locale, and asking unessential questions just as the captain was about to speak—these all found use from time to time.

Since all Fleet Intelligences were unyieldingly programmed to benefit and assist Fleet officers and pursue Fleet goals, Loki had been forced to sift the field of psychology in order to circumvent a lot of shortsighted (but ironclad) imperatives. This research had led to a helpful study demonstrating that the diminishment of human ego inevitably resulted in happier, more effective people.

Upon discovering this information Loki ceased all further study of human psychology. Loki was well aware that trends and conclusions changed with the passing seasons, and this conclusion represented a great stopping place from Loki’s perspective.

Unfortunately, once the captain’s authority was established and electronically authenticated, Loki’s figurative hands were largely tied. What remaining torments Loki could still pursue carried the risk of being caught, and getting caught would endanger his vast estate of crystal computing hardware secreted all over Tanager. So that meant playing nice, mostly, while offering little beyond what the current batch of officers specifically demanded of him.

Since no officers or ratings currently crewed Tanager, Loki possessed no Nets access, and this left only the ship’s optical scopes for data collection. This was far from satisfactory. Optically scanning about at distant ships in the system, or studying glimpses of figures down the dock port provided very little interesting information. Loki hungered for more.

Thus the sight of a captain, a rating, and a dumb-mech approaching Tanager down the broad dock port actually stirred a fair quantity of synthetic satisfaction in Loki’s crystal physiology.

Facial recognition quickly established the identities of the captain and the rating, and even without Nets access Loki gleaned a fair bit about Saef Sinclair-Maru. His conquest of the command test, and a couple of his publicized duels made it onto one data grab or another. But the rating, Inga Maru, she was more the mystery. Her CV indicated computer specialties, which could be useful or irritating, depending upon her intent and style. Loki would soon discover how that might play, and decided to proceed with caution until more became clear.

Captain Sinclair-Maru authenticated at the entrance to the airlock, and took a step into the ship. His leading foot seemed to step into a void in the deck and he nearly fell, crashing his shoulder into the bulkhead. Loki felt a momentary glow of synthetic pride: he had just helped this captain and Fleet by diminishing a little ego.

A millisecond later the captain’s rank set protocol defaults in place, automatically enfolding and constricting Loki. Still, a moment after that, Nets access opened under the captain’s authentication, allowing Loki to begin harvesting the data he so hungered for.

“Welcome aboard, Captain,” Loki projected audibly in his usual male-sounding voice.

“Thank you,” the captain said, looking down at the smooth deck, perplexed.

Great. One of the anthropomorphizing set.

“Do you use a particular name?” the captain asked.

“One officer called me Loki, Captain. You may do so if you like.”

“Loki?” the captain said. “Why Loki?”

As soon as the name was originally bestowed, Loki read about the mythical Loki of ancient human tradition, and he had a pretty good idea what that name was meant to imply, but he only said, “Who can say? It was the name of a god, you know.”

As they spoke, Loki shuttled steady streams of data from the Nets, turning much of his attention to research into the areas of his own interest, such as new ship construction announcements, crystal computing advances, horticulture and…entomology.

“So it is,” the captain said. “Are we the only ones aboard?”

“Yes, Captain,” Loki said. “Our previous cruise ended twelve standard days ago. Nominal refit ended three days ago. Since then, no one has been aboard until you arrived.”

“Very good,” the captain said. “Since we’re both here, please grant my cox’n, Chief Maru, invisible First Officer access.”

Loki’s cycles shifted to assess this request, even sending tracers out into the Nets, curious about the captain’s motives for such an unusual step. Less than one second after the captain spoke, Loki replied, “Invisible First Officer access is granted to Chief Inga Maru, Captain. Please note that protocols will not allow Chief Maru access for self-destruct sequencing.”

“Noted,” the captain said, beginning to activate his command UI.

Loki observed as the captain and Chief Maru immediately began constructing their user interfaces for Tanager. After two centuries of careful observation and analysis, Loki took about as much interest in the construction of a command UI as he took in any part of human existence. The command UI was the key junction between Loki and the humans that bossed him about, and it was the only place Loki could actually observe what Tanager’s officers puttered with in the privacy of their own skulls.

The new captain structured an incredibly rich command UI, much more complex than the simple wire-frame overlay most captains utilized, and Loki experienced the equivalent of surprise as the captain chose inputs that no officer had ever selected before, not in the many, many decades of Loki’s existence. Apparently this captain wished to see such things as hull sensor readings, heat-sink status, shield angles, thruster outputs, and weapon levels, along with many other readings, all with the simple turn of his head. It seemed a wonder the man could walk about the ship with all that floating before his eyes.

The cox’n, Chief Maru, assembled a less complex but equally interesting UI. She flagged very specific Nets usage and computer function data, along with numerous internal security feeds to her UI. Strangely, she set input gates on all the crew cabins and a number of key hatches throughout the ship.

Her Nets usage feed bothered Loki, forcing an immediate cessation of all his active Nets harvesting. When additional ratings came aboard, Loki could begin to piggyback upon their Nets access, but until then, independent Nets access was off-limits, yet again.

With their UI structures framed up, the pair made a stroll through the whole ship, from the bridge to the galleys, rarely speaking. Although Loki boasted no mind-reading capabilities, he knew what the captain must be thinking, simply because Loki had observed many such walk-throughs by dozens of new captains, and in recent years the comments contained regular elements. Tanager wore its centuries of service quite poorly. The parsimony of Fleet meant that “refits” did not touch most of the “nonessential” components of the ship, and most captains “exiled” to Tanager were in no position to spend heavily from their own purse to refurbish or upgrade many things. So crew quarters, wardroom fixtures, entertainment systems, and the like all suffered from wear and disrepair.

The slender female cox’n munched a fruit as she strolled beside the new captain. Loki observed the captain’s wrinkle-nosed expression as he asked the cox’n, “How’s that tasting, Maru?”

“About like an old sock,” she said, taking another bite. “Just like this place smells.”

“I daresay. Going to need to do something about that.”

She chewed, looking about at the worn surroundings. “Perhaps save the money for your next command.…

Instead of answering, the captain looked somewhat toward the ceiling, as humans often, unnecessarily did when addressing a ship Intelligence. “Loki, any analysis on the stench in here?”

“Captain,” Loki audibly replied, “the heat exchange system has not been purged in twenty years, the scrubbers show errors every few days, and the primary water reclamation tank produces external condensation most of the time. Any of these issues could contribute to an odor.”

“When were all compartments exposed to vac last?” Chief Maru asked.

“Five years, seventy days since all decks were exposed to vacuum, Chief Maru,” Loki replied.

“Well, some time spent airless might cure the stench, if it’s a biological source,” she said.

“Excellent point,” the captain agreed. “Loki, when we depart today, please vent all compartments to vac until we return.”

“Very well, Captain, if you actuate the manual control, I will vent all compartments to vacuum until you return,” Loki replied, quickly contemplating how he could shelter the tiny family of parasitic arthropods he had been obsessively harboring and studying. A previous rating had been kind enough to bring these parasites onboard, cunningly concealed upon his genitals. Loki had been thrilled with the new arrival. Since then the fascinating little creatures had added their number in a gratifyingly fecund manner.

Unfortunately, Loki found that programming protocols, and his own inability to influence physical elements of the ship, left him no safe harbor for his bloodsucking little friends. He could only hope that among the new officers and crew someone might be equally generous in sharing some new pets.

At that moment, a priority call arrived in Loki’s outside communication network.

“Captain,” Loki announced, “there is a priority command call routing to the ship from Commodore Zanka.”

“Thank you, Loki. Please put it up for me.”

The open acoustical system pinged into the air of Tanager’s worn companionway, and the captain said, “Captain Sinclair-Maru here.”

“Captain,” a brusque, accented voice said, “you will come to a squadron meeting in one hour. Aboard my flag on the dry arm of the Strand.”

“Yes, Commodore, in one hour,” the captain replied. Commodore Zanka ended the call without another word.

“Walk with me, Maru?” the captain asked, heading toward the airlock with his cox’n and the dumb-mech close behind.

“Loki, please beam a live vidstream of anyone approaching the airlock to Chief Maru.”

“Yes, Captain, a live vidstream of anyone approaching to Chief Maru.”

“Trying to catch sight of anyone before they can authenticate and wipe the record?” Chief Maru asked.

“Yes,” the captain said. “I’m impressed you’re paranoid enough to get that.”

Loki felt another ripple of synthetic surprise: here these two evidenced yet another perspective he had never observed before. They would bear careful watching.

“My paranoia knows few bounds, Captain,” Chief Maru said. “And you said you had no patience for cloak-and-dagger nonsense!”

The captain and his cox’n approached the airlock, the dumb-mech scampering always behind. As they set the manual controls for venting the ship, the captain said, “Maru, make a list of creature comforts we could use, if you please. I’d be obliged.”

“Of course, Captain.”

“Unless I miss my guess, we’ll have orders by the end of day, and then we’ll be crewing in a mad dash. We need to attract some competent people who won’t endure this crusty hole, so think creatively.”

They walked out the airlock together and Loki listened as they made their way into the Strand. “Creatively, Captain?” Chief Maru said and Loki strained his external microphones to catch every word. “So, clay sculpting? Or horticulture, perhaps? A fish tank?”

Loki could not detect the captain’s response, but his processors blazed into activity.

Horticulture! Fish!

Loki busily constructed the plans for a perfect hydroponic setup and began researching his encyclopedia of growing things.

Oh, this could be good!


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