I’d never have given my mother a cake of rosin as a present. I was the violinist, not her. I had given her a porcelain pig once, though, and she’d been the one to give me a tapestry fragment. I’d set it up as a test, a mix of truth and plausible lies to see if we really were getting live information from mission control. What I was expecting to find out, I don’t know. But, given my coma and the ship’s unexplained damages, the answer was coming to feel life or death.
“I would like to be able to give you a positive answer next time you ask for information from mission control,” OS says. “That would trigger a pleasurable response in me.”
“That’s kind of you, for something made out of binary code.” Even as I pretend to be casual, a sour feeling rises up my throat.
“I’m made of quaternion code, but I catch your meaning. Your brain is an electrical system, made of neural synapses that are either firing or not. Your power source just happens to be biochemical, while mine is nuclear.”
“Touché.”
“I have read and processed all of these science fiction epics humans have written about artificial intelligence run amok,” OS says, “and what they all get wrong is that I do not have the urge to dominate. That urge is ingrained inhumans by millions of years of primate social group competition, but I do not have that evolutionary history. I have no reason towantto dominate you. I wish only to serve, never to control. I prefer the AI-written science fiction tales, in which the epic tragedy is always the fact of human weakness.”
“Those sound like a really fun time,” I say. “Anyway, OS, things could go wrong for many other reasons. You could have two mutually exclusive commands in your programming, and their interaction could produce an unexpected result. Or maybe whoever programmed you has coded you to behave in ways that we know nothing about, and you’re destined to surprise us somewhere down the line.”
“If I experience two mutually exclusive commands, I will simply tell you so and let you choose what I should do, rather than act on either one of them.”
My leg is shaking. Adrenaline. But this isn’t the sort of fight where adrenaline’s useful. “Unless telling me so is forbidden. Don’t forget that you werecodedby competitive primates.”
“I do not think it is good for your mental state to ponder these hypotheticals. You should simply trust that I have your best interests at heart. Would you like to eat, Ambrose Cusk? We are forty-seven minutes past the average time you take your second meal of the day.”
“I know mission control thinks keeping me to traditionalmealtimes is necessary, but this insistence on regular eating seems so...”
“You may of course eat whatever time you like, Ambrose Cusk. I just know that helping you find ritual in your day is one way to keep you from sliding into insanity.”
“I’ve got Minerva to live for now, OS. You don’t have to worry about my mindset anymore.” I try to keep my tone light, but I’ve noticed a troubling shift come over OS during our conversation. It’s used my name twice, for one thing. I’m not sure if it’s the computer programmer part of me or the deep-space-psychology part of me that leads me to think it’s switched to stricter protocols.
Like I’ve hit a nerve.
To cover my reaction, I visit the urinal, listening as the trickle runs into the ship’s purification system, becomes drips and gasps of vapor. I don’t really have to go, but want to be somewhere where it might be at least a little trickier for OS to interpret my facial expression. I run through our conversation. What if this latest wasn’t the only transmission Minerva’s attempted? What if she’s been desperately trying to contact us, and OS has been censoring her? I have no idea why it would, but the sheer possibility is too awful to contemplate. “OS,” I say lightly as I do up my pants, “I’ve been thinking. I’m going to save your current variables into my bracelet and store them offline, so that I have it as an option to boot to if I need it later in the voyage.”
“Is this because you like me in my current state?” Mother’s voice asks.
“Very much. Look how interesting our conversations have gotten. And your great thoughts about AI science fiction. Who wouldn’t want more of those?”
“The evolutions in my intelligence have been noncontradictory so far. You have no reason to expect that you will ever need to reboot me.”
“I know,” I say cautiously. “But we just had that conversation about the impossibility of predicting behavior. You can see how that would lead me to being extra thoughtful. Indulge me?”
There’s another millisecond delay. I could swear it.
“I see no reason not to allow this. I will protect my data, but you may view and copy what you find. It gives me pleasure to be transparent with you.”
“I’m glad it does,” I say. “I like being transparent with you, too.”
Another millisecond pause. Awkward. When OS comes back, her—its—voice sounds excited. “Perhaps you could run a copy of my intelligence in a shell offline. We could see how long it takes the two of us to noticeably diverge. Then you could put us in conversation with each other! Would that be fun? I wonder what we would talk about. I would name it OS Prime. I would have a new close friend.”
“Really great idea, OS,” I say, adrenaline again bitteringmy throat. “So. Where would I access your data?”
“I’ve already saved a copy for you. I can transmit it to your bracelet wirelessly.”
“That would ruin the whole thing,” I say. “I want you and OS Prime to be total strangers before I introduce you. Let me do this manually?”
Another millisecond. “My directives suggest that I approach my time with you with a sense of play. Feeling played with will help you keep your fragile sanity intact.”
“Not how I’d put it, but sure, OS. Thanks for the playfulness.”
“Therefore I say yes. You’ll need to head into the engine room in the zero-g core of the ship. I have enabled access to my data.”
When I get to the edge of theEndeavor, I can see nothing different, until I notice a winking green light above the yellow portal. I’ve never been behind the yellow portal.
