Chapter 23

The next few days were mostly going through the motions for me. Hell, I'd gone from trying to negotiate a few improvements in our living conditions here on whatever this planet was called, to actually contemplating war with the aliens that had kidnapped me. There were too many scenarios to go over and I didn't have enough information to even think about a reasonable plan. At least Charlie had given me a clue to help me along with the problem of no soldiers if I did need to start a small war.

"You don't have to eliminate the criminals we find you know. We can just basically wipe out their free will and use them as soldiers. With only a few alterations they can each take over a squadron of small fighter type craft," he said.

"Maybe, but what use would they be, they won't know how to be fighter pilots."

"They will after I get done with them, or actually after the training equipment I'll create is through with them. In fact they aren't actually needed for operating the craft or performing other duties that are similar. AIs will do that for them. What is needed is the spark of individuality that humans have. The innate creativity that no AI can ever hope to gain on its own," Charlie said.

"You mean that bunch of morons can do something you can't?" I asked.

"I'm ashamed to say it, but you are correct. Those morons can think for themselves. They can create individual ideas. We AIs appear to do the same thing but it's only because we have the capability to store so many ideas that have already come up, and we can manipulate them so very much faster than any biological mind can," he said.

"I think I'm beginning to understand. You can take the criminals that we identify, wipe out all, or most of their memories, install knowledge and training then keep them around mostly to provide unique responses to combat situations," I said, speculating.

"That is the gist of it, but they are useful for more than combat situations. We can look at a situation and run through a tree of millions of possible responses to see which one might fit best. A properly trained and competent biological can usually somehow know the proper response out of all we might try, or many times it can just create another response out of whole cloth. Many times it is a way of using an option that we know we would have never considered, but realize it is perfect as soon as we learn of it," he said.

"You may have lost me with that last one," I said.

"Do you remember what you did when you were captured?" he asked me.

"Vividly," I said.

"You might not have known it at the time but you did the same thing we've just been talking about," he said.

"I did?"

"Of course you did. They gave you a choice of doing it their way or being completely controlled and you told them Fine, control me. It stumped them completely. Even the biologicals were no help with an appropriate response. There was nothing they could think of to do except what you wanted them too, especially in view of the fact time was critical since the other workers were about to show up," he said.

"I didn't think it was all that clever at the time," I said.

"It wasn't exactly genius work, more like an idiot savant's response, but it was exactly the best thing you could have done. They had absolutely no use for a person who would not even move about without being commanded, and though they often broke their own rules, you generated real worry that the facts might come out if you were left on planet and refused to even move around," he said.

"Well putting me there with the things I wanted didn't prove so good for them either, did it?" I asked.

"No, it didn't, but they had no idea of the concealed cunning you possessed. They thought you had just happened upon the perfect thing to do at the time. They didn't realize you would continue to come up with perfect or nearly perfect ideas," Charlie said.

"Why didn't they just kill me then," I asked.

"They never considered that at all. Even ordering your death would have meant theirs, or would have at least led to suspended animation like those in orbit now. Neither the AIs on board nor the union men would have allowed you to be killed.

"I know it must seem odd to you after the treatment you and others have received on this planet, but killing other species is not an everyday thing for your captors. It isn't even an every century thing. Even those running this illegal experiment have made sure that they never tried to actually kill any of the subjects themselves, in fact, I doubt they have ever considered it," Charlie said.

"In other words, it's fine if they put us in situations where we kill each other but they can't really kill us?" I asked.

"That is close to the truth, but not exactly. The ones running this project have made sure that the extent of deaths on this planet is vastly under-reported. They have further pointed out, untruthfully, that they are taking criminals who would have been put to death on earth if their crimes had been known."

"Well, that isn't unexpected. They're bureaucrats and lying is there most well developed talent," I said.

"You seem to have a firm grasp of that reality," he said.

"Of course, I come from a planet infected with bureaucrats myself. I am wondering about something else though. Some of the laws of my planet, and more especially the country I am from are very similar to the ones you're quoting for this government.

"It seems a little odd to me that the administrators of this project can slip by without being judged murderers since they are setting up a system that intentionally promotes murders," I said.

"Well they can't, but they aren't actually doing that," Charlie said.

"Well exactly what is causing the remarkable trend toward murder here then? Even by their own lies they are taking mostly criminals. For what purpose are they adding religious missionaries to that mix if not to have them murdered? Why are they putting defenseless women on a planet mostly controlled by criminal men?

"Where I come from, if you hire someone to commit murder for you and are found out, you receive exactly the same or even worse punishment than the actual killer. Need I go on?" I asked.

"No, and I'm ashamed to have actually fallen for some of the spurious statements that appear in the reports of this planet without reviewing them. There will be widespread executions if this is ever made public," Charlie said.