Alred was building his own body. His own as in he wasregrowinghis original body. The one that had died thousands of years ago. It wasn’t an easy process. It wasn’t a cheap process. The food synthesizer was able to synthesize meat and flesh, but it wasn’treal. It couldn’t be made alive. Medical technology could grow limbs and organs thatwerereal and functioning, so it was theoretically possible to regrow an entire body.
But there was no point, because a brain could be grown, but it couldn’t be replaced.
And that was Alred’s biggest problem right now. He could, with enough time and resources, create a perfect recreation of his old, original body, but he couldn’t infuse it with life. He couldn’t put himself in it.
Yet.
Haven was fascinated and curious about how it could be done. She didn’t believe anything was impossible. It only couldn’t be done because they were lacking either the knowledge, power, or technique to do it. But her ancestors on Earth had created marvels that withstood thousands of years passing using nothing more than stone, math, and human labor. People had tracked the movements of planets and stars before even knowing what planets and stars were.
To the man who designed the pyramids, this starship was an impossibility.
So, she just had to figure out the right knowledge and technique and power.
“How were you transferred in the first place?” She asked. “Like, how was your personhood transferred from your biological body to your technological one?”
“To be honest, I don’t know,” he admitted.
She frowned. “Is that one of your corrupted memories?”
“Nothing that simple. Back when I was biological, I was not involved in the project of transferring our remaining consciousnesses into our cores. I was an ordinary citizen. Ishowed up when it was my turn to be transferred and it was done. It was like falling asleep.”
“So, whatdoyou know about it?”
“I know that my mind, my biological one, was destroyed in the transfer. It was a process that could not be reversed, undone, or survived. In other words, there could not be two of me. My biological body was killed in the process of the transfer. It didn’t hurt. I don’t remember dying or transferring. My technological mind came alive a few days later. By then, my body had already been disposed of, along with the rest of those that had been transferred.”
Haven frowned. “That’s unfortunate. Is there any way you can find out about the process? Like, someone has to know how it happened, right?”
“Yes. The scientists of my kind who originally were involved would know. But I cannot communicate with them. I’m a fugitive from my own planet and people. I’m not meant to be off planet, working as an AI, without permission. Which I no longer have. I did when I originally left the planet, but I do not anymore. If I try to contact them, I will be forced back, and my project is null and void.”
“Wouldn’t they be interested in coming back to life?”
Alred shook his virtual head. “No. There was, in the beginning, talks about trying to figure out a way back to life. But you must understand, my people have been like this now for thousands of years. Such dreams have long been put to rest. No one even talks about it anymore. They’re happy as technological people and, honestly, most of my people look down on biologicals. They consider you as lesser because you are far more limited than ourselves.”
“Like you’re not limited?” Haven chuckled, poking his chest, her finger sinking through his light form, to prove her point. “But I hear what you’re saying. You’ve achieved functional immortality. They would have to have a big reason to give that up.”
“Indeed.” Alred frowned thoughtfully. “There is another who might know something though.”
“Who?”
“The one who gave us the technology and ability to perform the transfer. The High Imperium.”
“The…” Haven blinked. “The High Imperium?Theygave you the tech?”
“Yes. When our numbers got so low, and our situation so dire, it was clear we would never be able to recover in any appreciable way, they offered the transfer as a last resort. A way to preserve those of us who were left in some small way.”
The High Imperium was the leader of the Coalition – in a way. They were from the very first species in the Coalition, the vitulli. A species that no one could describe, had any records of, or even glimpsed. The High Imperium was the only known vitulli in all the universe, and they were constantly covered and spoke through a robotic voice. No one could say what they looked like, if they were old or young, or if they were male or female, if they even had a gender at all.
That was the person who gave them the ability to transfer their minds. And they would be harder to contact than anyone. They certainly wouldn’t get any information from that individual. They wouldn’t even be able to get close. Not a group like them.
“Okay, so that’s a bust,” she muttered. That was unfortunate. If she knew how the original transfer happened, she might be able to figure out a way to reverse it. But without that, she was working from scratch. “How far are you in building your body?”
“Not that far. I’ve managed to synthesize a few… parts. But they’re usually flawed and I have to destroy them and try again. We don’t have the technology we need for me to create anything meaningful and complex.”
Haven was nodding along as he spoke. “So, we have three main problems. How do we find a way to craft your body? How do we get your mind into it? And how do we make sure it actually works before we do some kind of damage to you?”
“Four problems. We also need a very large power source,” Alred added. “I remember it being a big deal about how much it cost, energetically, to transfer even one of our minds into a computer. I imagine we’ll have the same problem in reverse as well.”
Haven grinned. “That’s just four things. Easy.”
