It was Brill who paid off favors to wealthy families with command ranks that drew pay in goods and gold instead of Prakith scrip.
The specialists and ratings, draftees all, owed the security of their families to Brill’s promise of the protection of the Red Police for the daughters and wives of those who protected his power with their lives.
To be drafted into the navy was a far better thing than to be drafted into the slit mines or the foundries, or to be one of the hundreds rousted nightly from the riverbanks in Prall and Skoth to dig their own graves.
Graft and fear were inferior flavors of fealty, but they were the best Foga Brill could command, and they sufficed.
“Course change maneuver complete, Captain,” the navigator reported in a clear, loud voice. “Now heading nine-zero, mark, negative four-five, mark, two-two at deep patrol standard.”
“Towmaster, report,” said Dogot.
The listening array Bloodprice towed behind it on deep patrol was a hundred times longer than the ship itself. It was a spiderweb of passive antenna cables, tiny noiseless amplifiers, steering jets, and tension vanes, with a drag gondola the size of a troop transport at the end of the antenna’s main cable. The three crew members in the gondola had the difficult job of flying the array through the turn when Bloodprice changed heading.
If there was too little tension, the elements could tangle, or the whole array could tear itself apart in what
the
manuals
called
dynamic destabilization and tow crews called tail whip. If there was too much tension through the turn, the likely result was an overstrain disconnect and a two-hour delay for the recapture procedure.
The towmaster on Bloodprice’s last patrol had allowed two disconnects.
Along with the gondola crew, he had spent the last half of the patrol in the brig, awaiting the return to Prakith and a court-martial on a charge of treasonable incompetence.
So it was with great relief that his replacement announced, “The array turned cleanly and deployment is nominal.”
“Very well,” said Dogot. “Lieutenant Sojis, you are master of the bridge. I will be in my quarters, working on crew reviews. Inform Yeoman Cligot that she is to report to me there immediately.”
“Yes, Captain.”
When the portal closed after Lando and Artoo, Lobot watched, fascinated, as the smoke thinned and disappeared, the scar faded and vanished.
Even the tiny white bits of soot smudging the outside of his faceplate seemed to evaporate. He watched on his suit monitor as the temperature plummeted thirty degrees, to the slightly chilly norm for the vagabond.
“Pardon me, Master Lobot—” “Yes, Threepio, what is it?” Lobot said automatically, still distracted.
“I was wondering, sir, if you could tell me—do droids meet the conditions of the test?”
Lobot’S head snapped around. “What did you say?”
“The test of intelligence,” Threepio repeated. “Am I sentient, like you, or simply another work of great ingenuity, like this ship?”
Taken aback, Lobot looked away from the droid’s waiting face as he groped for an answer. “Ah—Threepio, you know, most droids are built to have self-aware artificial intelligence. Especially third-degree droids like yourself.”
“But that must be something different than sentience,” Threepio said.
“Otherwise, the Senate of the New Republic would not consist solely of organics, served by droids.”
“It is different,” Lobot said, as gently as he could.
“Artificial intelligence is programming. Wipe a droid’s memory and it disappears. Replace it with different programming and a translator becomes a tutor, or a med droid becomes a chem droid.”
“I understand, sir,” said Threepio; he was quiet for a long moment.
“Then can you tell me how it feels to be sentient? How is it different from what I feel?”
“I’m not sure that I can say,” Lobot replied slowly.
“Perhaps it is a thing that you just know, because you are an organic and not a machine? Perhaps if I were sentient, I would not need to ask you these questions. I would know who I was.”
Lobot said nothing for a time. “What do you think, Threepio?” he asked at last.
“I do not know, Master Lobot,” the droid said.
“But I have noticed that when someone speaks of memory wipes, I am seized by an inexplicable panic.”
“I don’t find that inexplicable,” said Lobot.
“Really, sir?”
“Self-preservation is an elementary
part
of
self-awareness—even artificial self-awareness. It’s the part of us that feels that awareness which matters to us,” Lobot said. “I expect you would give that up”—he pointed at Threepio’s immobile arm—”to keep your programming intact. As I would surrender this”—he pointed through his faceplate at his neural interface—”to preserve my consciousness.”