trying to get Linter to come back if I am positive
that my own behaviour - as the most sophisticated
entity involved - is beyond reproach, and in as
close accord with the basic principles of our
society as it is within my power to make it.'
I looked at the drone's sensing band.I'd stood stock
still during all this, unreacting.I sighed.
'Well,' I said, 'I don't know; that sounds almost
noble.' I folded my arms. 'Only trouble is, ship, that
I can never tell when you're on the level and when
you're talking just for the sake of it.'
The unit stayed where it was for a couple of
seconds, then turned and glided off, without saying
another word.
4.5:Credibility Problem
The next time I saw Li, he was wearing a uniform
just like Captain Kirk's in Star Trek.
'Well, what on earth,' I laughed.
'Don't mock, alien,' Li scowled.
I was reading Faust in German and watching two
of my friends playing snooker.The gravity in the
snooker room was a little less than standard, to
make the balls roll right.I'd asked the ship (when it
was still talking to me) why it hadn't reduced its
internal G to Earth's average, as it had done with
its day-night cycle. 'Oh, it would have meant too
much recalibration,' the ship had said. 'I couldn't
be bothered.' How's that for Godlike omnipotence?
'You won't have heard,' Li said, sitting beside me,
'having been on EVA, but I'm intending to become
captain of this tub.'
'Are you really?Well that's fascinating.' I didn't ask
him what or where the hell EVA was. 'And how
exactly do you propose attaining this elevated, not
to say unlikely position?'
'I'm not sure yet,' Li admitted, 'but I think I have all
the qualifications for the post.'
'Consider the liminal cue given; I know you're
going to -'
'Bravery, resourcefulness, intelligence, the ability
to handle men - women -; a razor sharp wit and
lightning fast reactions.Also loyalty and the ability
to be ruthlessly objective when the safety of my
ship and crew are at stake.Except, of course, when
the safety of the Universe as we know it is at stake,
in which case I would reluctantly have to consider
making a brave and noble sacrifice.Naturally,
should such a situation ever arise, I'd try to save
the officers and crew who serve beneath me.I'd go
down with the ship, of course.'
'Of course.Well, that's-'
'Wait; there's another quality I haven't mentioned
yet.'
'Are there any left?'
'Certainly.Ambition.'
'Silly of me.Of course.'
'It will not have escaped your attention that until
now nobody ever thought of wanting to become
captain of the Arb .'
'A perhaps understandable lapse.' Jhavins, one of
my friends, brought off a fine cut on the black ball,
and I applauded. 'Good shot.'
Li prodded my shoulder. 'Listen properly.'
'I'm listening, I'm listening.'
'The point is that my wanting to become captain, I
mean even thinking of the idea, means that I should
be the captain, understand?'
'Hmm.' Jhavins was lining up an unlikely cannon
on a distant red.
Li made an exasperated noise. 'You're humouring
me; I thought you at least would argue.You're just like everybody else.'
'Ah,' I said.Jhavins hit the red, but just left it
hanging over the pocket.I looked at Li. 'An
argument?All right; you - anybody - taking
command of the ship is like a flea taking over
control of a human maybe even like a bacteria in
their saliva taking them over.'
'But why should it command itself?We made it; it
didn't make us.'
'So?And anyway we didn't make it; other machines
made it and even they only started it off; it mostly
made itself.But anyway, you'd have to go back I
don't know how many thousand generations of its
ancestors before you found the last computer or
spaceship built directly by any of our
ancestors.Even if this mythical we had built it, it's
still zillions of times smarter than we are.Would
you let an ant tell you what to do?'
'Bacterium?Flea?Ant?Make up your mind.'
'Oh go away and de-scale a mountain or something,
you silly man.'
'But we started all this; if it hadn't been for us -'
'And who started us?Some glop of goo on another
rockball?A super-nova?The big bang?What's
starting something got to do with it?'
'You don't think I'm serious, do you?'
'More terminal than serious.'
'You wait,' Li said, standing up and wagging a
finger at me. 'I'll be captain one day.And you'll be
sorry; I had you down tentatively as science
officer, but now you'll be lucky to make nurse in
the sickbay.'
'Ah, away and piss on your dilithium crystals.'
5: You Would If You Really
Loved Me
5.7: Sacrificial Victim
I stayed on the ship for a few weeks after that.It
started talking to me again after a couple of days.I
forgot about Linter for a while; everybody on the