Chapter 21

Month 133—Aboard St. Jeanne d’Arc

“UBIE, MY MAIN MAN! How are your new digs, Bro?” I’d just entered my new quarters aboard St. Jeanne d’Arc and I was just as excited as any of the pilots or bridge crew. I’d be less than full time aboard our ship because I still had so many duties to fulfill on the island.

“Boss, I’m right here. You don’t have to shout.”

“Oh! Man, you are right here. You just fill a room, don’t you? Am I always too loud for you? Do I hurt your sensors?” I looked around my room trying to comprehend where the AI was. Everywhere was the answer.

“I always damp the volume in any room you walk into.”

“Sorry about that, buddy. I’ll try to keep it down.”

“You can’t help yourself.”

I was still too excited to sit down, so I walked around my cabin. It was more spacious than my three rooms on Anouilh. Like all the others on the crew and in development, I’d been probed for my ideal living environment. I supposed others might consider my room spare compared to what I’d heard some of the crew had requested. I had a window wall, just like everyone else, but I set the wall to show Earth. Looking at Earth from this angle was different than any maps I’d seen. The continents were foreshortened as they disappeared around the curve of Earth. I pulled myself back from the view and into the conversation.

“So, how about the new digs?”

“It’s a mess at the moment. I haven’t finished unpacking, so I’m feeling a little slow. I had only a limited bud on the ship until we moved up. Now I need to be sure Joan is functioning for the crew while still keeping track of everything on Anouilh. It feels strange. I’m having to rethink my existence. Am I here or am I there? The crew thinks of me as Joan, even though I’m sure they know I’m the same as Ubie back on Earth. For me, it’s just a different voice. To them, I’m a different ... person.”

“Congratulations on becoming the first completely multi-nodal non-corporeal being.” Prior to this time, everything Ubie controlled was located on Anouilh or through remote buds at Atlantic Basin Base or St. Jeanne. He felt his presence in each of the Hawks and the bridge simulator but they were really a part of the resort. Two months ago, he’d begun transferring consciousness into the Atlantic Basin Station and dealt with being present both on the island and under the ocean. Now it was island, ocean, and spaceship. The process had been exhausting, taking most of the five years we’d worked together. Tatts was meticulous in her counseling, just as The Liquidator had been in adjusting coding. The result, however, was that Ubie was simultaneously on Anouilh, Atlantic Basin Station, and on St. Jeanne d’Arc. There was no central processing core. He was everywhere. When we launched the Hawks and Hummingbirds, he would be simultaneously aboard each one. It was different than just having sensors there. He was there.

“Explain to me why.”

“Why what?” I whispered. I had an idea what Ubie was inquiring about but wasn’t sure if he wanted a purely physical or a metaphysical answer.

“Why is this architecture so important? Why am I a multi-nodal distributed being?”

“That’s a very existential question. Didn’t Rache talk to you about that?”

“Yes, but I find I understand better when I deal with your mind, Boss. There aren’t as many ... feelings involved.”

“Hmm. You really like her, don’t you?”

“I am attempting to assimilate as much understanding of my feelings as possible. Yes. I really like her. We may have crossed the boundaries normally associated with a professional doctor-client relationship.”

“I don’t think I need to know the details unless you feel you are being abused. We’re in new territory here.”

“And you will answer my question about why I am now spread out so far?”

“To the best of my ability. Hmm. Architecture. You helped design it. An intelligence as ... I don’t know ... big as yours needs to reside somewhere. Confined to the core at Anouilh, you couldn’t really grow any more. Your neural pathways were cramped. And you were being stunted. So, we started with spreading out subtly into the memory banks and processors available on our network. That’s okay as far as it went, but they are all Earth tech that is thousands of years behind your processing power. But what is at Atlantic Basin Station, here on St. Jeanne, installed aboard the Hawks and Hummingbirds—it’s all tech arising from your core and capable of handling your processing. They are all you.”

“That’s the what, Boss. I understand all that. My question is still the why? Maybe it is existential. Why do I exist? Who am I?”

“Why are we all here? In practical terms, not existential. What changed that brought the Confederacy and artificial intelligence to Earthat?”

“The Swarm.”

“Right. Ubie, they’re coming for our home. Our world. Our history. Our basic humanity.” I stopped a moment to consider what I’d said. Was Ubie human? We often talked way into the night as if we were roommates discussing ... life, the universe, and everything. Like we were now. Even with the other engineers on the team, I had never felt like I had a better friend than Ubie.

“That’s why the Confederacy picked up as many high-CAP people as they could and took breeding stock with them to colonize new worlds,” Ubie said. “You could have gone.”

“Right. But I don’t want a new world. This is my world. Look at it, Ubie.” I turned to the view on my window wall. It took my breath away. “It’s beautiful. How can people leave this world? How can we just write it off as a loss and move to another planet where we’ll have to pick up and leave again when the Swarm reach it? We want to keep this world. I won’t leave.”

“I find I am also of this Earth. I’m born of Confederacy technology with a Tuull father and a Darjee mother. But I don’t feel a part of the Confederacy. I’m a second generation immigrant. I feel a part of Earth.”

“Yes, brother. If I discovered whales and dolphins and gorillas were all sentient beings—which I suspect—I would feel the same about them. We are brothers of Earth. Unfortunately, the Confederacy takes the best and brightest—supposedly—and leaves us with the genetic dregs on Earth.” At least now there was hope on Earth. Strong, capable men and women were preparing to fight and defend the planet. Nearly a thousand women on Anouilh, Atlantic Basin Station, and St. Jeanne d’Arc were among that number. Trained as leaders and warriors through the game. Ready to face the enemy with the weapons we’d developed. And more importantly, ready to lead their bands of followers.

“Not you. Or anyone on our team. You refused extraction.”

“Right. Because we won’t leave our world—our home—for the dickheads to plunder and ruin. Which brings us back to you and your distributed brain,” I laughed.

“Exactly. I know all about how I work, how the transfer is accomplished, where I reside. But I still don’t completely understand why.”

“The Sa’arm is now generally described as having a hive mind. What one knows, they all know. But what that means is they are not individuals. They are merely sensory nodes. I believe they are a distributed intelligence—like you. They don’t require a captain because they are all the captain. You get that. You helped me figure out the implications. If they lose a warrior, they just grow another in its place. It’s like replacing a damaged sector on a computer disc. You just run another backup and change drives.”