Ian Douglas - Singularity

Star Carrier: Book Three

Ian Douglas

v1.0 (2013.05)

5 April 2405

Ad Astra Confederation Government Complex
Geneva, European Union
1450 hours, local time

Its not possible to torture a piece of software. Not even an intelligent one.

Not that artificial intelligences possess anything like the civil rights of humans. With no rights to violate, the Internal Affairs interrogators could take the AI apart almost literally line by coded line, searching for hidden files or withheld memories.

The software avatars prototype, as its human object was known in the electronic intelligence business, had recorded a sizable amount of his own character, thoughts, and motivation within his AI counterparts. It was always possible that thoughts, memorieseven entire historieshad slipped through from the fuzzy logic and holographic analog perceptions of the organic brain to a far simpler silicon-based digital format. This particular prototype was Admiral Alexander Koenig, and he worked closely with his AI personal assistant.

He had, in fact, developed what amounted to an emotional relationship with it, deliberately programming it with the personal characteristicsvoice, thought patterns, judgment, the simulacra appearance, and so onof his lover, Karyn Mendelson, killed during the battle to save Earths solar system just over six months earlier.

The primary software resided inside Koenigs head, within the nanochelated implants in the twisting folds and furrows of the sulci of his brain. It served as his PA, or personal assistant, a kind of electronic secretary that could handle routine calls and virtual meetings, could so perfectly mimic Koenigs appearance, voice, and mannerisms that callers could not tell whether they were speaking to the human or to the human-mimicking software. However, more than a month before, shortly after the Battle of Alphekka, Rear Admiral Koenig had copied his PA software, uploading it into one of the HAMP-20 Sleipnir-class mail packets carried as auxiliaries on board most of the ships of the fleet. Almost three times faster than the best possible speed for a capital ship under Alcubierre FTL Drive, they were used to carry high-velocity express communications across interstellar distances.

It had been this copied software that had piloted the most recent mail packet from Alphekka back to Earth.

And multiple copies of this copy were running inside the computers of the Naval Department of Internal Affairs, completely isolated from the outside world, electronic iterations that could be taken apart, tested to destruction, electronically shredded and pulled through a metaphorical sieve, in search of possible traces of Koenigs thoughts.

Karyn Mendelson possessed within her coded matrix a very great deal of both the original Mendelson and of Koenig himself. And it was the Koenig analog in which the Internal Affairs officers were most interested.

Anything? one shadowy figure asked the other. They were deep in the nuke-shielded lower levels beneath the ConGov pyramid, perhaps three kilometers down and well out under the placid-mirrored waters of Lake Geneva itself.

No, the other said. He gestured vaguely at a wallscreen, which showed a graphic representing progress so far. Thered been very little. This is going to take a while.

What are you trying?

Incoming call iterations. Its cycling through at almost a million per second now.

The first IA programmer gave a low whistle. Hes got the top-of-the-line model, huh?

Hes a freakin rear admiral, fer Chrissakes. What did you expect?

Within the computer in the console in front of them, a subroutine was emulating real life for the admiralbut at a vastly accelerated rate. A copy of his PA software was fielding incoming vid calls as Koenig, very quickly indeed. Eventually, the orderly presentation of the program would begin to break down, and other watchdog routines would snatch at what amounted to electronic shrapnel, saving it for later analyses.

Theyd already destroyed a dozen copies of the PA software but there were plenty more, and more could be created easily enough if these ran out.

And abruptly, the emulation stopped.

What the hell happened?

Dunno. And whats that?

On the large screen, a woman in a black Confederation naval uniform looked down at them. Who are you? she demanded. What are you doing to me?

One of the interrogators gave her a cool appraisal. Youre Mendelson? he asked.

The screen image morphed into Koenig, also in naval uniform, and looking angry. This is the personal assistant of Rear Admiral Alexander Koenig, it said. And attempting to hack private PA software is illegal.

Department of Internal Affairs, the interrogator replied. We have authorization.

To do what? And by whose authority?

The interrogator showed the AI behind the screen image his security code level. Possibly they could get what they needed by asking directly, if they could enlist the AIs cooperation.

We are trying to get a lead on where Admiral Koenig is taking CBG-18, he said. It is vital that we get in touch with him, and wed hoped you might be able to help.

I was he was at Alphekka when I was downloaded into a Sleipnir-class packet, Koenigs face said. I have no idea what has happened with the fleet since I left it for Earth.

A copy of a copy, its memories had been copied as well. It would think that it was the original electronic duplicate placed in the mail packet.

You brought with you a list of over two hundred possible targets, the interrogator said. We think he must be headed for one of those. Can you tell us which one that might be?

No, the electronic image on the screen said. If Admiral Koenig had wanted you to know, I feel sure he would have told you in his final report.

And as suddenly as Koenigs image had appeared, it was gone, dissolving into a shrill hiss of white noise.

Damn.

What happened?

The software killed itself, the interrogator said. Electronic suicide.

It cant kill itself if its not alive to begin with.

But the interrogator wasnt certain of that. Other iterations of Koenigs software had switched themselves off when theyd discovered that he was tampering with them.

He loaded another copy.

Well try again, he said. But I have a feeling its going to be a long night .

Koenigs electronic persona seemed determined not to cooperate, and he could not figure out how to get past the programs guardian aspect.

The interrogator was very good at what he did.

There had to be a way to break the thing .

10 April 2405

In Alcubierre Space
Approaching HD 157950
98 light years from Earth
0840 hours, TFT

The star carrier America fell through darkness absolute.

Intense, artificially generated gravitational fields warped space tightly around the America, and no light could enter from the universe outside. While material objects like a spacecraft could not travel faster than light, there was no such prohibition about space. Indeed, in the earliest moments of the big bang, over 13 billion years before, newly born space had expanded with that initial burst of energy from two colliding branes considerably in excess of c.

And a ship embedded within that swiftly moving space could be carried along inside the gravitationally closed bubble at a pseudovelocity of nearly two light years per day.

America and her battlegroup had been traveling through the darkness within their separate bubbles for sixty-three days, now. And they were very nearly at the end of the first leg of their voyage.