Destiny's Choice (The Wandering Engineer) (48 page)

“My
sentiments exactly,” Irons said, smiling as well. Asia took the smile in and
then snorted softly in return. “I'm not happy about having to kill your...”

“Save
it. Leo was a piece of trash,” Asia waved. Hera hissed. She looked up to her
partner. “He was and you know it. A bully and a sadist. He killed those people
in the hallway just out of spite. You and I both know that. He was scared yes,
but he could have left it alone. He let his blood lust rule and it burned him.
He got what he deserved.”

She
shook her head, trying to get the remaining cobwebs of drugged sleep out of her
system. “It took me a while to realize that,” she admitted softly. “You cleared
the way, I was angry before, I was in free fall, afraid for myself and my clan,
but grandmother was right, your actions opened more doors than I could have
foreseen.”

“And
here we are,” Hera said with a nod. Asia nodded back.

“What
changed your mind?” the chief asked.

“The
virus like I said, weren't you listening?” she said testily. He grimaced. Irons
glanced at him and Chambers looked chagrined. He turned back to the lioness.
“What, about Leo? Oh hell, I knew he was bad news. But he was power. He had an
animal magnetism too... the whole bad boy attitude, and well.... you know the
whole dominance thing. King of the world,” she purred a chuckle.

“Many
people are attracted to people with power and a dark attitude for safety and
security,” Irons replied.

“But
rarely get either,” Asia commented. He raised an eyebrow at the simple wisdom
in that statement. “I know. I...  after the matriarch's speech in sickbay I
sulked. I admit it.” She raised her sheathed claws in supplication, and then
flexed her fingers. “I  couldn't at first. But I got bored so I did some
reading.”

“Reading?
You?” Hera asked amused. “Romance novels?”

“Actually,
psychology of romance novels. I goofed when I entered the online library's
search engine. But the book got me interested and I kept reading. I went from
there to other books and well...” She shrugged then looked at Irons again.
“Which makes me doubly indebted to you. You gave us a precious gift with the
college. Between that and saving the entire system from pirates, I'd say
killing the alpha male of my pride for going off the deep end and on a killing
spree can be glossed over.”

“Forgiven
if not forgotten,” Hera said softly. Her eyes turned to Irons who cocked his
head then nodded slowly. Right now he'd take what he could get from that
statement.

“I'll
take that in the spirit it was given I suppose,” he turned to the Security
chief. “Is there anything else?”

“Well,
if she isn't doing it...” Chambers said as he grimaced. “But she did want to.
She was paid to kill you,” he said looking at the Admiral.

“Which
she admits to but never acted upon,” Irons shrugged. “Nor had any intention to
do so. I believe her sincerity.” He didn't mention he had been monitoring her
life signs through the hospital equipment as well as his implants and therefore
knew she had been telling the truth. “I'm not going to press charges. There is
no point. We've both suffered enough. It's time to build a better future.”

“Agreed,”
Hera said looking surprised. She looked down to Asia who blinked.

“And
now I'm triply indebted to you for your third gift Admiral. I don't know what
to say,” she shrugged helplessly, claws coming out again.

He
shrugged. “No harm, no foul. I'm fine, the ship is fine, and you didn't go
through with it. You stated you have no intention of following through with it.
I think it's settled. Don't you?” he asked as he turned to the chief.

“A
man in... hell If I were in your shoes...” the chief shook his head. “But I'm
not. You're a wonder, I'll give you that.”

“Thank
you Admiral,” Asia said nodding. “I hope someday you will be able to return to
Pyrax.”

He
froze then grimaced. “I am more interested in getting the Federation back. If
my leaving helps bring that about in the long run... Then so be it,” he sighed.
“It is a small price to pay.”

“But
it hurts anyway,” she said, eyes on him. He nodded. “Good.” He grimaced. “To
live is to know pain. Deal with it in your own way,” she said softly, locking
eyes with his. He held his gaze but after a moment her eyelids fluttered. She
waved a hand in a weak dismissive motion.

“Yes,
yes, my patient needs her rest,” the medic said as he waved to them. “That's
enough for now. Go.”

“Admiral
if she didn't set the accidents up, who did?” Sprite asked as he turned away.
“Discounting the possibility that this act was deliberate in order to throw us
off her track... She couldn't have set up two of them, she wasn't in the
vicinity at the time and they were clearly incidents of opportunity over
something preplanned. Members of her own pride might have, but with her so
close would they have made her a martyr?”

He
shook his head. He'd already come to his own conclusions. “No. Highly unlikely.
I can't rule out the possibility, but I'm betting it's a remote one. Did you
see her vitals? She was telling the absolute truth.”

“We
have little to base that on Admiral.”

“Did
you compare it to her vitals taken on Anvil?”

Sprite
paused before answering. She had but hadn't been happy about the results. The
margin of error was over ten percent, not something an AI liked at all. To an
AI anything over a two percent margin of error was little more than a guess.
Guesses were for organics. “Yes. And I can see where this is going. You're
correct. But how did you know?” She checked. No, he hadn't run a comparison with
the files. He hadn't had the time to find and bring them up. Besides, she would
have noticed it and helped him if he had tried.

“I
remembered her vitals.”
“You...” Sprite was clearly taken aback by that statement.

“Not
the specific numbers, but I had a general idea. She didn't show any signs of
agitation either. I'm fairly certain her group didn't know about the deal, and
I'm betting she was telling the truth, she backed out when she did. I'd say she
didn't even put any plan in motion even if she had one. She knew better.”

“Cheating
a cheater?”

“Something
like that.”

“Thin,
but all we have to go on Admiral.”

“Can
you go through the suspects and narrow them down from that? By those who were
close by when each happened?”

“That
would mean accessing the ship's security net. Which I can't do. Lock out. That
was put in yesterday. I can monitor you, but I can't get anyone else unless
there is an incident...” she paused. “I've been well...” She sounded sheepish.
Irons shook his head, knowing her too well.

“You've
been hacking. I know. I approve. Go with it,” he said patiently.

She
cleared her virtual throat again and then nodded. “Okay then. Well, I suppose I
could. I did leave a back door.”

“No,
no, we're just going to have to figure this out the old fashioned way.”

“Dare
I ask how?” Sprite asked.

“By
laying a trap.”

“How...”

“If
I were to leave the ship...” he suggested.

She
caught on right away. “Then they would have to sabotage your shuttle. We've
taken steps to prevent that. But that leaves other means. If the announcement
is done at the last minute the assassin will have to act fast, possibly
exposing themselves.”

“Exactly,”
Irons said nodding. He whistled softly as he went down the corridor. “If she or
he can't take the time to see if it's a trap then they might fall right in.
We'll have to wait for the right opportunity. I can't just do this willy nilly,
Everyone knows I'm going to keep moving and not just retire on some mudball.”

“Right.”

Irons
looked at the growing class and smiled internally. The crew had stumbled onto
one of the military's favorite pastimes, classes. Training could be fun, it was
definitely interesting and sometimes lively. On a ship people became bored,
they became rusty. Military ships needed to keep their edge, so they constantly
trained. That kept the boredom down to a minimum and let them learn from their
mistakes... or make new ones.

Ships
and stations also had classes to learn new skills. This kept the crews supple
and interested in bettering themselves and others.  It also allowed them to
cross train in other posts to cover them in case of accident, being short
handed, or battle.

He
was teaching a few regular classes now, most of the students were advanced,
more of a study group than a real class sometimes. The topics rambled from one
interest to the next sometimes, not following any sort of lesson plan. Which
apparently was the way some liked it.

They
discussed AI some more. The Admiral pointed out that one of the reasons AI
hadn’t moved on or set up their own societies was because they have only a
limited ability to innovate independently. “And that's not our fault,” Irons
said giving Sprite's avatar a look.

“Old
argument?” an amused tech asked. Irons snorted as Sprite opened her mouth.

“You
could say that,” she replied turning to the blue haired tech. The tech had some
sort of circuitry tatoo on both arms wrapping around them and up under his red
shirt. Since he was off duty he didn't have to wear engineering's gray
overalls. “But he is correct. For the most part.” She shot the Admiral a look.

“For
once,” he joked, amused.

“Sure.
I'll go along with that,” Sprite smiled sweetly. He mock glowered. She shrugged
it off and then turned to the others. “You see as we learn, we build indexes.
We absorb information and creating index files with spider bots is our way of
managing it. But eventually, the information becomes too complex. The index
needs sub indexes. That slows our thought processes... which will eventually
lead to an AI going catatonic. Not a pleasant thought,” her avatar shuddered.

“Part
of the problem is that AI make too many connections. Everything. Every sense,
every millisecond cross referenced hundreds of times to dozens of sub indexes,”
Irons said. “A lot of the information is either out of date or inconsequential.
Most organics filter that out over time, but not smart AI. But back to the
innovation thing,” he shrugged. “It's hard to say why. Humans and other
organics have a... spark of genius.”

“Or
insanity,” Sprite replied dryly.

“Sometimes
that's true,” he said with a snort and then shrugged again. “But we have a way
of thinking that is hard to replicate in an AI. Believe me we tried,” he
grimaced. “We've built software models of our neural chemistry. Right down to
chemical and electrical signals..” He shook his head. “It didn't help. There
was no spark there. Nothing new, no insight. Little or no creativity.”

“Which
is a bit confusing,” Sprite replied. “There are organics who transferred their
consciousness to an electronic... in a way transcending the physical at death.
They are class 6 and 7 AI. But...” she grimaced. “They are shadows of their
former selves,” she admitted reluctantly. “Or were, I don't know if any
survived the war.”

“So
we do have a soul,” Irons replied shrugging. “Or something we just can't explain.
Something. The spark of life.” He shrugged again.

“But
some AI can create. In a limited way,” Sprite replied. “By using a design
template Proteus can design a project for the Admiral.”

“Correct,”
Irons nodded. “But that isn't innovation. I tell Proteus what I want, it
accesses the design files, opens a relevant template, then fills in the blanks
with off the shelf modules scaled to the specs I want. It then runs it through
a sim program to test it a few dozen times.”

“So
in a way, it is innovating. In a way,” Sprite said, giving him a cool look.

“Thus
the root of our argument,” Irons smiled. “Is what I have Proteus do considered
true innovation?”

“No,”
a tech said. “If you're giving it the idea then it accesses a template that's
nothing new. You are thinking of it. It's just filling in the blanks.”

Sprite
grimaced. “But...”

“But
me no buts,” Irons smiled. “Think about it logically. Lets try an example.” He
held out his right arm. “Proteus. Demo mode. Lets try a ship.”

The
silvery blob that served as Proteus' avatar formed next to Sprite. She looked
down at it.

“Lets
see. Shuttle craft.” A holo appeared of a shuttle outline, then another with a
list of subsystems in a shuttle.

“Lets
go with a basic modern Fleet launch for the frame, civilian grade systems.”
Under the hull and architecture fleet launch silhouettes appeared. Civilian
systems filled in the blanks for the sub systems. “Um.. lets see 50, no 100
person capacity, local, atmo, um, fusion drive,” he said.

The
launch changed to an extended version, elongating to almost pinnace size. Then
it morphed into an atmospheric design. Subsystems related to atmospheric flight
were listed and then minimized.