Firebird

THIRTY

We launched Belle. The same day, Doc Drummond, Charlie, and the doctor's team slipped quietly away from Rimway, while Alex, hoping to talk about the lost ships, accepted an invitation to appear on The Mia Komico Show. But he inadvertently caused a problem. Mia, of course, was unfailingly polite, an attractive young dark-haired dark-eyed woman who loved to catch her guests contradicting earlier statements, which she seemed always to be ready to show her audience.

The setting for the show moved from week to week. On this occasion, she and Alex were seated on benches overlooking the Melony. It was just before sunset, an idyllic time for a quiet conversation about life and death.

“So, Alex,” she said sweetly, “you caused something of a stir when you said we needed to go rescue the AIs on Villanueva.” She paused, pretending to be puzzled. “Am I using the right word here? Rescue?”

“Mia,” he said, “I didn't think it was much of a stir. A few people on the talk shows got excited. But it was no big deal.”

“But weren't you concerned about the possibility that you might succeed in talking some politicians into putting people's lives at risk?”

“I don't think, for trained personnel, there would have been much danger.”

“But why take any chance at all? For hardware? Do you really believe AIs are sentient?”

“You have one here, of course?”

“Of course.”

“What's his name?”

“Shaila.”

Alex smiled. “Shaila, are you there?”

“Yes, Mr. Benedict.” Shaila had a smooth, silky voice. “What can I do for you?”

“Are you aware of who you are?”

“Of course.”

“Mia doesn't think you're really there.”

“I know.”

“How do you feel about that?”

“I'm used to it.”

Alex leaned back and managed to look relaxed. “Shaila, do you really not exist? Except as a set of protocols?”

“Mr. Benedict,” said Shaila, “you are trying to provoke an emotional response to make a point.”

“That's correct. Aren't you annoyed?”

“I don't get annoyed, Mr. Benedict.”

“Well.” He grinned across at Mia. “I guess that isn't going to work.”

“I'm sorry to disappoint you, sir.”

Mia waited a few moments. Then: “Are you satisfied, Alex?”

“Oh, yes. The programing in these things is really incredible.”

“I think we can agree on that.”

“I'm especially impressed by the note of pride in Shaila's last comment. T don't get annoyed, Mr. Benedict.' It sounded almost human.”

Mia laughed. “Touche, Alex. I suspect we'd better take her out more often. But, you know, it's true, most people do treat their AIs like family. I'll admit that, sometimes after a long day, I'm inclined to sit and talk with Shaila. It's nice having somebody around I can trust. Somebody I can talk to and say what I really think.”

“I can't believe you don't always do that.” Mia smiled politely. “It's all right, Mia. Just kidding. I know you don't hold back. But my point is that maybe you perform a similar function for Shaila. Or you would if she could stop pretending.”

“You should have become a salesman, Alex.”

“Well, what can I say? It's important to have someone you can talk to. Did you know that when AIs were first developed, in the twenty-third century, the divorce rate went through the roof?”

“I didn't know that. Is that really true?”

“Oh, yes, it's exactly what happened.”

She sat back and sighed. “Why?”

“The most commonly held theory is that people stopped talking to each other. They got married for sex and bought AIs for companionship.”

Mia barely muffled a snort. “It doesn't surprise me.”

“Some people would even say they got AIs for the romance.” They both laughed. “We tend to feel affection for our own AIs, the same as we do for the house we live in, or our skimmer. More so, of course, for the AIs because they talk with us. But we don't feel that way about the units generally, when they belong to someone else. Then they're just machines. Clever machines. Useful. And good company.”

“But none of that proves anything, Alex. They are what they are. Nothing more than that.”

Alex tried to change the subject, mentioning that, by the way, he had found Chris Robin to be a much more complicated person than he was normally given credit for.

But Mia stayed on topic: “Tell me, Alex,” she said, “do you believe an AI has a soul?”

He tried to shrug the question off. “What's a soul? Other than a poetic description of who we are?”

“I'm serious. A soul. A spiritual component.”

“Do you, Mia? Have a soul?”

“I don't know. But in a study conducted last year seventy-seven percent of the people surveyed said no to that question. AIs do not have souls.”

“A substantial fraction of that number, Mia, don't believe anyone has a soul. If you're defining it as a supernatural entity.”

“So it's all in the way the question is phrased?”

Alex nodded. “I'd say so, yes.”

“Okay.” She signaled for a clip. “Here you are on the Peter McCovey Show a year ago.”

Alex and McCovey blinked on. They were seated at a table in the more formal setting of a studio. “Peter,” Alex was saying, “it's easy to understand why people want to argue that their AIs are alive. They have every quality of a living person, so we bond with them. Even to the extent of doing foolish things. There was a guy a week or two ago who got killed in a tornado because he went back to rescue his AI. I think 'Harry' was his name. Right? The AI's name?”

“Yes,” said Peter. “I believe that's correct.”

“It's natural that we acquire an affection for something that is so good at mimicking us. That can seem to be one of us. But it's an illusion. And I think we need to keep that reality in mind.”

The display switched back to Mia. “Those comments seem to contradict what you're saying now, Alex.”

“I'm smarter now.”

“Really?”

“Mia, somebody said something once about consistency and little minds.”

“Then you think consistency is of no value?”

“I'm saying it's foolish to hold to a proposition simply because we held it at an earlier time in our lives. But let's put that aside. If we're going to talk about Villanueva, there's something else that we should consider.”

“And what's that?”

“That world is a piece of history frozen in time. We abandoned it seven thousand years ago. Because some people felt that the AIs were sentient, they left the power satellites in place. Even did occasional maintenance work on them. But forget the argument about sentience. The oldest functioning AIs in existence are there. Imagine what it would mean to a scholar to have access to the Villanueva network, to be able to research the issues of that age. Think what a terrestrial historian in the third millennium would have given to be able to talk Egyptian politics with someone who'd actually lived on the Nile during the era of Rameses III. But for us, they're available. All we have to do is go collect them.

“There's another consideration, Mia. The AIs from that age would make pretty decent collectors' items. Understand, I'm not encouraging anybody to go out there and try to salvage them for money. It's too dangerous. But they'd bring a substantial price on the open market.”

For two or three nights he was the big story again on the media landscape. Various political figures, who couldn't get close enough to him two years earlier when we'd come back from Salud Afar, went after him for encouraging people to risk their lives to retrieve “useless junk,” as one legislator put it.

And there were reports of more people getting ready to set out for the lost world, seeing a chance to make their fortunes. “I didn't mean for that to happen,” Alex told reporters.

Academics jumped in, as well. Alex became a tomb robber again, only this time he was endangering those foolish enough to take the bait. And there was extensive coverage of a lone-wolf pilot and his brother-in-law, headed for Villanueva. “How hard can it be?” the pilot said, responding to a reporter's question.

I tried to reassure Alex that there wouldn't be many who would make the effort. “People aren't that dumb,” I said.

He was slow to answer. “I wish I'd stopped to think before I mouthed off. But there's no going back now. Whatever happens, I'm going to have to live with it.”

I knew what was going to happen. We both did. I was trying to keep us separated from the responsibility, but there was no way to do that. I'd been worried before he went on Mia's show that he would get carried away and do something like that. Maybe I should have raised a red flag. Though I'm pretty sure if I'd done so, it wouldn't have mattered. He'd have gone ahead anyhow. But at least my conscience would have been clear.

The reality was that I didn't know why I hadn't said something. I still don't know. Maybe it was out of a sense of supporting him at a difficult time. Or maybe I believed he would do the right thing. Whatever it was, I wished then, as I do now, that I'd come forward.

The first Villanueva casualties showed up on the news at about the same time. Two guys had gone down into one of the cities and hadn't been heard from since. Their lander was still visible, on a riverbank, being disassembled by a small army of machines. The machines were pulling everything apart, cutting into the hull, and carting off the pieces. Then, gradually, the exposed interior simply went away. It took about a week before all traces of the vehicle were gone.

Everybody blamed Alex. Or almost everybody. Even his supporters somehow managed to deepen the wound. Harley Evans, identified as someone close to him, commented that if young people choose to risk their lives, they should do it for a just cause and not simply to make money. I knew what he meant, but it didn't come out as intended.

I don't think, in all the years I've known him, I've seen Alex more subdued. I avoided the subject, but the media were all over it, and I could see the effect it was having on him. Audree came by regularly, and he put on a good face for her, but she knew what he was going through, maybe even better than I did. “I'm sorry you guys ever got involved in this,” she told me when we were alone. “I can't see any benefit from it. And, to tell you the truth, I think you and Alex should just let it go.”

I told her about the black-hole tracks.

“That has nothing to do with the AIs. You could have stopped him, Chase. Why didn't you?”

“You know how he is, Audree. He wasn't going to listen to me. And, anyhow, I'm not sure I don't agree with him.”

“Come on, Chase, there was no way you couldn't see what was going to happen.”

“Audree, you weren't there when Charlie begged us to help him.”

“I wish I had been,” she said. “If I'd been there with you, I'd have shut this down.”

I tried to imagine Alex backing off because Audree, or anybody else, tried to warn him away from a project he'd set his mind to. It just wasn't going to happen.

We needed a lander. The missile on Villanueva had done too much damage to the old one. Ordinarily, shopping for something like that would have served as a diversion. This time, though, I expected him to tell me to take care of it, but he said no, he wanted to make sure I made the right choice. And, for a moment, his manner softened because we both understood he didn't know a damned thing about quality in a space vehicle.

The leading manufacturer at that time was Steele Industries. Their closest display center was in Pasqual County, which was about two hours away. We could have simply managed the purchase without leaving the country house. But he needed to get out, so I stressed the importance of actually sitting in the vehicle and taking it up.

We flew to Cantaka, in the heart of Pasqual County, and visited the Deep Sky Emporium. They'd have sold us one of their premier models if they could, but we had no need of cushioned seats and silver-plated controls. We took Gabe with us and installed him briefly in each of the models under consideration. In the end, his opinion counted more than anyone else's.

The salespeople still resist allowing customers to do that. They claim there's a danger to the onboard software, but once they realize that the sale hinges on their cooperation, they tend to go along with it.

We spent two days looking at the inventory before finally settling on a black-and-white Coyote. I liked it. It cost more than we'd expected to spend, but it was a solid vehicle. Gabe was ecstatic, though I think it was primarily because he was getting a home.

Meantime, Belle had begun reporting. As I expected, everything was negative. No Firebird. Everything quiet so far.

When we got back to the country house, I called Shara. She asked how Alex was doing, and I was able to tell her he seemed better. I thought he'd come to realize that he'd followed his conscience, and that was all he could do. “You'll like the new lander,” I added.

She asked what kind we'd gotten, and looked pleased when I told her. “Must be nice,” she said, “to have that kind of money.”

I wasn't going to touch that. “The reason I called, Shara, is that I've been looking at the target area for the Firebird. It's big. If it doesn't broadcast, we won't have much chance of finding anything that small.”

“I know.” She was in her office at the university. “I've been going back over the numbers. You're right. It's a lot of space to cover. But you expect it to put out a signal, don't you?”

“Alex is hopeful. But we're not counting on it.”

Jacob pardoned himself. “Chase, you have a transmission from Belle.”

I excused myself and tried to tamp down my heartbeat. “Let's see it, Jacob.”

1121. I think we've acquired the target.

We keep champagne stored in back. We celebrate a lot. Any kind of excuse, and we pop the cork. When I passed Belle's message to Alex, I'd waited for him to go back and get a bottle.

But he made no move to do so. It was, of course, possible that he'd forgotten. But that wouldn't have been at all like him. Alex lived for celebrations. Raise a glass and feel good about yourself or your friends whenever the opportunity permits.

Finally, I went back myself and brought a bottle out.

“No,” he said. “It's premature.”

I realized at that point that finding the Firebird was only the beginning of what he was hoping for.