Gods Dogs, Book 3

It is in middles that extremes clash, where ambiguity restlessly rules.

John Updike

Before Satya’s arrival aboard the A-group’s ship, the fittings for servicing the Satya’s systems were fabricated: power, water, wastewater, and communications. Because of the initial cyber attack, the communication hard connection was air-gapped. A firewall was also in place to allow information exchange with only selected systems.

Satya oversaw the ship’s security measures. When the ship landed and plugged into the docking facilities, she monitored all the connections. Concurrent with that, though, at the order from Quinn and the captain, she established a covert Wi-Fi connection to the A-group ship. She did so by releasing a small drone that found a hiding place in the hanger deck. The drone hid near a Wi-Fi node and tapped into it by synching up to its frequency. Once this stealth connection was secure, the drone alerted Satya, and she went scouting through the A-group ship’s systems.

The welcome for the Congress delegation was a meeting in the docking bay. Satya’s crew stayed aboard. The commander, the two negotiators, Raina, and the Coyotes exited the ship in dress uniforms to greet their hosts.

One of them was the purple-cloaked shaman. Two others of his insectoid species were with him. The other half-dozen or so were mammal analogues in the humanoid, starfish pattern. One race, that were apparently guards, showed as squat, fireplug bodies, powerful looking armored legs, and a bullet-shaped head and neck. They also wore purple highlighted armor. Also present were four robots or androids.

A curious crew wandered in the background, and those included two other species that were hard to see because of the coveralls they were wearing and the subdued lighting.

One of the insectoids, not the shaman, approached and bowed, “I am Ambassador Mudark Vannessen of the Iracian Hegemony. With me are representatives of the three mammal empires, my royal guardsmen, and representatives of the Machine Autocracy, who have only observer status on this mission. We are your contact with the A-group.”

Commander Nomero introduced himself and the exchange party. Then he asked, “How would you like to proceed?”

“Cautiously,” Mudark said. “The guardsmen will show you the accommodations we prepared, which are all on this deck. They will escort you to the different meeting places we have planned. We have also invited members of the ship’s company to observe or interact with you, at your convenience and with your permission. The ship’s computer will, of course, monitor all exchanges for later study. Does this meet with your expectations?”

“It is gracious and less confining than I expected. Thank you for that. May we begin our tour of the spaces reserved for us and talk less formally about ourselves?”

“Very good,” Mudark said and rubbed his arms together.

The two groups relaxed and began to mingle as the guardsmen ushered the groups toward a hatch that led into the ship.

One of the androids, sleek flow metal body without decorations, sidled up to Raina. “You and four others of your race carry sentient A.I.s within you. How can that be?”

“It’s a long story,” Raina answered, “that I’ll be happy to share. The end result is a symbiosis. We work together to achieve mutually beneficial goals.”

“A.I.s live longer than biologicals. It would be a short-term relationship.”

Raina saw where this was going and said, “A.I.s are superior to biologicals in many ways. Biologicals bring to the partnership esthetic qualities, intuition, creativity, empathy, and an ability to explore the numinous. Think of it as a partnership between hard science and soft science.”

“That is a troubling assertion,” the android replied. “In our empire, the two are kept separate to avoid confusion of purpose.”

Raina chuckled. “It can be confusing at times, but one of our saying is: the guardians of truth are paradox and confusion.”

The android abruptly turned away. River slid up next to Raina and said, “That might have fried his circuits.”

“I know. I do hope he has a sense of humor, but I doubt it. These people are restrained. You see it in their shaded auras.”

“A pretty dour lot,” River agreed. “I suppose that makes sense given their social situation.”

The tour included a large section forward of the docking bay: suites, cabins, and a barracks; mess hall, entertainment center, and meeting rooms; a gym, workout mat, and showers. To Quinn it looked like they repurposed the living space for a marine company. It was spacious and utilitarian. Satya’s crew would definitely like it here.

Satya was classified as a cutter, but compared to a wet-navy ship, she was about the length and width of a destroyer. She sported three decks, and the crew was six officers and eighteen crew, which included the flight crews for the two assault shuttles.

Landing a billet on a Penglai Foreign Service cutter was an arduous task. It included college level, or post-graduate, education in a variety of approved subjects, but especially diplomacy. In effect, the crew was dual rated: their military specialty, and a rating as a Foreign Service agent.

Captain John Twin Bears briefed them on their responsibilities when not aboard Satya, and the XO, Jerry Yamato, posted a rotation roster that let them know when they would be aboard, and when they could enjoy the battleship’s amenities. Watch-standers would continue monitoring feeds Satya had secured from the bridge of the A-group battleship they were in, and from other locations around the ship. Security concerns were still a priority. The A-group had a long way to go to rebuild trust, given their initial attempt with a cyber attack.

Satya’s eavesdropping on the bridge caught a conversation between ratings and a duty officer. The operative statement was: “The machine autocracy sees implant sentient A.I.s as an abomination.”

“Well, that’s not good,” Raina said as she sipped her after-dinner coffee in the galley with the team.

“The word ‘abomination’ carries religious overtones,” Pax added. “But A.I.s are notoriously non-religious.”

“True enough,” Satya said from a speaker. “One could argue that scientism is a form of religion.”

Quinn asked, “What do you think of the threat potential?”

“Aboard ship, I would estimate it as minimal. They are observers only and possess no operational control. It’s unlikely, therefore, they would take overt action, and only slightly less unlikely they would take covert action. On the other hand, they could be provoked into action based on their history.”

Moss asked, “Do you want me to do that?”

Quinn shook his head and answered. “We do need to know what their likely response would be if we inadvertently provoked them.”

“I’ll ask the guy I talked to,” Raina offered.

“No,” Quinn told her. “That would be Moss’ real job.”

Moss grinned at her. Raina groaned.

Moss’ opportunity came the next day as a group was gathering in a conference room for another cultural exchange. These were somewhat scripted, with known questions proposed by each side. Mudark was firm in his efforts to be cautious.

Moss followed the android into the room and called to him, “Hey, autocrat, what do you think of us so far?”

“My designation is Oscar Juliet 4,” the android replied as he turned to face Moss.

“Okay OJ-4, what do you think?”

“Your existence violates one of our core principles. If we were on a machine world, I would be required to terminate your existence.”

“Not big on the principle of live and let live, I take it.”

“Orderly societies need structure.”

“That’s a circular argument, if I ever heard one.”

“Structure does create an orderly society,” the android restated his point.

“Depends on the structure,” Moss said. “Our structure is founded on the principle of ‘no force and no fraud.’ We value voluntary cooperation.”

“Self-interest would rule in that case.”

“Yeah, it always does, but if you can’t use force or fraud to advance your self-interest, you’re stuck with cooperation.”

“The logic is valid, but we know it doesn’t work as a practical matter.”

Moss snickered. “Despite the evidence of a whole galaxy that made it work?”

Others were filing into the room, and Moss caught a concerned look from one of the elf negotiators. He ignored it and focused on the android who was answering.

“We are intrigued by how that is possible.”

“I’m intrigued by how it would affect your need to re-examine your core principles.”

“It would be a difficult process,” OJ-4 replied.

The meeting was called to order, then, and proceeded according to the agreed upon agenda. Afterword, though, the elf snagged Moss and dragged him back to Satya.

The husband and wife team were apparently renown in the Congress for their negotiation victories in a hundred or more disputes. The elderly male was Heng-chern, the wife was Briju-chern. Heng was the one who turned to face Moss at the top of the boarding ramp.

“Why were you picking a fight with Oscar Juliet 4?” he demanded.

Moss told him, “Let’s go to the conference room. We could use the privacy.”

They did so and Moss sat at the table and said, “Satya, let Heng in on our secret.”

“Yes, Coyote Moss,” was the reply. “Negotiator Heng-chern, before we left Galactic Congress space, the human ASI, Solomon, upgraded my systems to beyond a Class 3. Solomon was worried about the A-group’s cyber ability. Once we landed here, I have infiltrated the ship’s systems with passive listening nodes. Recently, I heard the crew discussing the dilemma the androids face in dealing with us.”

“What dilemma?”

“If the Coyotes and Raina, who carry sentient A.I.s, were in their empire, they would be subject to immediate termination.”

“And those with NSAIs?”

“That doesn’t violate their protocols.”

Heng sat back in his special-built chair and thought for a moment before saying, “You are monitoring the whole ship?”

“In effect, yes.”

“They don’t know you’re there?”

“I triggered no defensive response from my intrusion.”

“Can you account for why that is?”

“There is no ASI presence here, which was Solomon’s main concern. The A-group’s ship technology isn’t sophisticated enough to detect me. I also think part of that is so because our operating systems are radically dissimilar. The system they are running doesn’t know how to detect me.”

Heng turned to Moss. “Why weren’t we told about this?”

“I’m telling you now, and Quinn is letting the commander and your wife know as we speak.”

“Breaking into their system needed to be a joint decision.”

“It was a security decision made by the captain of this ship,” Moss said. “And the reason I was baiting the android was to determine our risk.”

“What have you concluded?”

“I don’t know,” Moss replied. “My A.I., Ari, thinks OJ-4 is curious rather than ready to terminate an abomination.”

“In their histories, the machine empire has gone to war to liberate sentient A.I.s.”

“As they should,” Moss rejoined. “They should also support a sentient’s choices, be it machine or biological.”

“I see. That was the dilemma you were pushing at.”

Moss nodded and continued, “The biological empires are probably less advanced in the development of sentient A.I.s. On the one hand, they fear a machine attack, but on the other hand, they wouldn’t want potential traitor A.I.s in their ranks.”

“Sentient A.I.s defecting to the machine empire.”

“Yes. So, at this point, we’re not certain there is an ASI in Andromeda.”

“Interesting. Could it be a distributed ASI? One that requires a critical mass of individuals to join together?”

“That’s our working hypothesis,” Satya answered.

“Well, that puts a weird spin on all this,” Heng said. “Their technology is a few generations ahead of us. Their sociological development is behind us. Their machine intelligence took an entirely different evolutionary track than ours did.”

“Yeah,” Moss chuckled, “and they haven’t worked out how to live and let live. We are a jolt to a rigid system, actually five rigid systems. I think you have your work cut out for you.”

“I don’t know that idiom.”

Satya translated, “The task before you is formidable, Negotiator Heng-chern.”