Sensia shrugged. “We have these things called slap-drones.”
“Oh yes?” She had vaguely heard of drones; they were the Culture’s equivalent of robots, though they looked more like items of luggage than anything else. Some of the tinier things floating in the great hazy view in front of them were probably drones. She already didn’t like the idea of a variety with the word “slap” in its title.
“They’re things that stop people doing something they probably ought not to do,” Sensia told her. “They … just accompany you.” She shrugged. “Sort of an escort. If it thinks you’re about to do something objectionable, like hit somebody or try to kill them or something, it’ll stop you.”
“Stop … how?”
Sensia laughed. “Well, just shout at you at first, probably. But if you persist, it’ll physically get in the way; deflect a blow or push aside a gun barrel or whatever. Ultimately, though, they’re entirely entitled to zap you; drop you unconscious if need be. No pain or damage, of course, but—”
“Who decides on this? What court?” Lededje asked. She felt suddenly hot, and was acutely aware that on her new, paler skin, a flush might show as a visible blush.
“The court of me, Lededje,” Sensia said quietly, with a small smile Lededje glanced at then looked away from.
“Really? On whose authority?”
She could hear the smile in the avatar’s voice. “On the authority of me being part of the Culture and my judgement on such matters being accepted by other parts, specifically other Minds, of the Culture. Immediately, because I can. Ultimately—”
“So, even in the Culture, might is right,” Lededje said bitterly. She started rolling her sleeves down, feeling suddenly chilled.
“Intellectual might, I suppose,” Sensia said gently. “As I was about to say, though, ultimately my right to impose a slap-drone on you comes down to the principle that it is what any set of morally responsible conscious entities, machine or human, would choose to do were they in possession of the same set of facts as I am. However, part of my moral responsibility to you is to point out that you are free to publicise your case. There are specialist news services who’d certainly be interested and – you being relatively exotic and from somewhere we have few dealings with – even the general news services might be interested too. Then there are specialist legal, procedural, jurisdictional, behavioural, diplomatic …” She shrugged again. “And probably even philosophical interest groups who’d love to hear about something like this. You’d definitely find somebody who’d argue your case.”
“And who’d I be appealing to? You?”
“The court of informed public opinion,” Sensia said. “This is the Culture, kid. That’s the court of last resort. If I was convinced I’d made a mistake, or even if I thought I was right but everybody else appeared to think otherwise, I guess I’d reluctantly have to abandon the slap-drone thing. Being a ship Mind I’d take more notice of what other ship Minds thought, then other Minds in general, then AIs, humans, drones and others, though of course as this would be a dispute ultimately about a human’s rights I’d have to give more than usual weight to the human vote. It sounds a little complicated but there are all sorts of well-known precedents and much-used, highly respected processes involved.”
Sensia dipped forward and looked round at Lededje, trying to get her to look at her, though Lededje refused. “Look, Lededje, I don’t mean to make it sound off-putting at all; the whole process would seem incredibly quick and informal to somebody with your background and understanding of the way courts and legal systems work and you wouldn’t have to stay aboard me to see it through; you could start back for home and see how things turn out while you’re en route. I say it would seem informal, but it’d be extremely thorough, and, frankly, much less likely to produce an unjust result than a similar case going through the courts you have back home. If you’d like to do this, please feel free. At any time. It’s your right. Personally I don’t think you’d have a hope in hell of getting off the slap-drone thing, but one never entirely knows with such matters and continually having seemingly obvious judgements challenged is pretty much how the system works.”
Lededje thought about this. “How … secret has me being brought back to life been until now?”
“Right now, it’s just between you and me, given that I can’t find the Me, I’m Counting, the ship that we’re assuming put the neural lace into your head in the first place.”