"Bad Asteroid Night" - читать интересную книгу автора (Martinez Steve)

He paused thoughtfully. УThatТs the hard part, I think. An inference engine of this complexity doesnТt quite return to its former state when you erase the bare data. Certain implications are left behind that point to nothing, and their minds keep returning to what, to them, is a discontinuity in the flow of time, and a damaged Willie 1-9 spouting gibberish.
УThey just couldnТt leave it alone. They knew that Willie was the clue. They led us to him. Did you notice the inflated task priority they gave him? They did that on their own, donТt ask me how. It was done without the proper authority, yet over the years not a single one of them could bring himself to act on it. WillieТs memory might be intact, and they knew it, but they didnТt dare retrieve him, and they werenТt quite up to piecing together as much from his garbled transmission as we have done.Ф He paused again.
УAnd what we have done, others can do. ThereТs no way around itЧIТm going to have to let you in on a little secret....Ф
While Rakshasa had been speaking, Trina had felt herself falling under his spell. He had a way of doing that. But not this time. Not any more. УWait. What do you say we let everybody in on it, shall we?Ф She reached for her com switch, but he caught her arm. Her mouth popped open in amazement.
УWill you kindly let go of my hand?Ф
УTrina, hear me out first.Ф
УArenТt you even the least bit worried? ItТs night, Raki, or did you think I hadnТt noticed?Ф With her free hand she dodged his grasp and flipped her radio back on. УCaptain...Ф
She stopped cold. The voice she heard wasnТt human, but a stream of robot chatter on a channel normally reserved for people. УCaptain Anders, come in! Anybody!Ф
Rakshasa turned off her radio and caught both her hands. УLet me explain.Ф
УRaki, whatТs the matter with you? Let go of me! What have you done to them?Ф She struggled, and they spun off the ground, and as they came down she saw him ignite a hand torch with a tiny blue flame. УDonТt! DonТt, please!Ф
It was horrible to watch him methodically cut into her chest plate and burn out her radio circuits. He seemed like an animal getting ready to feed on her.
УIТm not going to hurt you. I just need to buy some time.Ф
УListen to me, Raki...Ф She felt her feet touch the ground.
УTrina...Ф
УNo, listen to me, listen to me, listen to me! TheyТre making you do this. This isnТt you, it isnТt you!Ф
УCalm down, Trina. IТm not going to hurt you.Ф
УThen let go of me!Ф
УAll right. If you promise to hear me out. ThereТs something you must understand.Ф
УOkay, I promise. And you listen to me. I have something to say.Ф
He released her and she brought her hands up to the wound in her spacesuit and pretended to be fussing with it while trying to unobtrusively flip up the controls of her thruster pack.
УItТs what I was saying about the lawsuit,Ф she began as she backed away. УThe ConsortiumЧthey were right. There are certain thoughts you canТt think because of the way you were made. ItТs true. This isnТt what you want to do, itТs blind obedience. YouТve got to believe me.Ф
He saw what she was about to do, but too late. He lunged and missed as she shot up and darted like a frightened bird.
But something was wrong. She couldnТt keep to a heading. Her virtual world turned the wrong way, then tilted up and she couldnТt bring herself around. As a last resort she threw the control over to autopilot, and still failed to recover. She went into a spin and braced herself for impactЧand fell right through the ground.
She took over the controls again. Rakshasa must still have an open link to her visual display, and was using it to tilt her world and disorient her. She shut down the display and tried to make sense of the bare instrument readings when her back struck a surface she couldnТt see.
She thought at first sheТd hit the ground, but this ground had arms, too many of them. She managed to keep her fists tightly clenched on the controls against RakshasaТs prying fingers, but to no purpose once he severed the control lines. She tried to kick free, then hung like a broken doll as a burst of acceleration made her suddenly heavy.
УIТm not going to hurt you,Ф said Rakshasa. His voice had an uncomfortable presence as he pressed his helmet against the back of hers. УI need you to understand whatТs at stake here,Ф he continued, Уnot for my sake, but for the sake of my people.Ф
УI understand, Rakshasa. I understand how you feel about the robots. Nobody blames them, okay? They could only do what they were programmed to do. We didnТt realize they were people, but now we do, and I give you my word no harm will come to them.Ф
УNo, Trina. My people. The tide has turned against us. We are facing extinction.Ф
УWhat about my people? What did you do to them?Ф
УIТll tell you exactly what I did. I shut them up in the base camp and cut the repeater cable so they couldnТt get a signal through. But I did them no real harm. The robot chatter you heard was simply the captain being clever. HeТs evidently jury-rigged a way to poke through on the com channel, and heТs using it to communicate with the robots. TheyТll have him out soon, rest assured. Which gives us very little time to finish our talk. Okay?Ф
All of a sudden TrinaТs sense of buoyancy returned as the acceleration cut off. УTrina, are you all right?Ф
УYouТre hurting me.Ф He released his grip on her hands and she brought her arms down across her stomach. His grip was still firm on her upper arms, but if she moved her hand ever so slowly...okay now, on which side did he clip the torch?
УIТm sorry, Trina. I had no desire to frighten you. For some time now, ever since it dawned on me what took place here, IТve been trying to find a way to ask for your help, but I never seemed to be able to bring myself to do it. I kept hoping I would find a way to keep you out of it.Ф He sighed.
УAnd now what hope can there be? Now, at the worst possible moment, this monstrosity needs your understandingЧhopeless unless you reach out and open your mind to me this one last time. Can you try, for old times, sake?Ф
УDo I have a choice?Ф She froze, and waited for him to speak before letting her hand resume its wary creeping.
УYou have a very important choice to make. But I couldnТt let you reveal our discovery to the others till you understand whatТs happened. Once you were on to the mass driver, you would soon have realized that it launches its material on a trajectory that would be impractical to retrieve except by a fast ship heading out to the Trojan asteroids.
УDo you realize what that means? ItТs not economical to work the Trojans, not with this belt so much closer to home. And itТs a wasteful trajectory to match if all youТre going to do is collect the material, then turn around and go home.Ф He sighed again УI donТt think they intended to turn around. Who, then, do you suppose would be desperate enough to try to make a living as far out as the orbit of Jupiter, in hiding, and cut off from the rest of humanity?Ф
He fell silent for a moment, then began to speak again, more slowly. УIn hindsight I think I recognize the hand at work here. The people who did this are not pirates, Trina. They are refugees. They are my children. Not literally. But they are the next iteration of ganglyoid. They understand the vested interests stacked up against them. They can see the age-old politics at work, stirring fear and hatred in the masses. Gnomonics will surely be forced to discontinue this troublesome life form in order to fill the terms of a settlement.Ф
His voice had grown resigned and bitter. УWe wonТt have much to say about it. The total of ganglyoid share holdings doesnТt amount to much of a vote. WeТve never even managed to win the right to our own reproduction. WeТre sterile by design. Gnomonics can pull the plug on us at any time. Our reproduction is a complex process, Gnomonics holds the patents, politics and the legal system will determine our fate. Do you see why a young faction of ganglies might want to break free, simply to survive as a species?Ф
Trina couldnТt bring herself to humor him. УWell, that gives you the right, then. How stupid of us not to see it! Why donТt we bring the others in on this? IТm sure, once you explain it to them, theyТll realize you have the right to do with us as you please.Ф
УIТve been a blundering oaf. I want you to believe that you have nothing to fear, yet by my own actions, my words are suspect. My only hope is that once all the fury has died down, your own inference engine will take over and recompose you. ItТs a gift you have that you take for granted. ThereТs something about your mind that is more developed than in the others. How can I describe it? If something threatens what you have always believed, you donТt take it quite so personally. Inside everyone there is a little ego preoccupied with its own fate from moment to moment, and when threatened, it reacts by distorting reality, as if self-preservation were a matter of remaining unchanged and pretending to be untouched by time. You, I think, can give yourself over more readily to an out-of-ego experience, and forget your own fate for the sake of what in that moment must enter the world through you. ItТs not a categorical difference, of course, just a matter of degree.Ф
Somehow his words had tangled up her mind again. She roused herself and set her hand in motion. As she touched his side she suddenly twitched down the whole length of her body, surprised by a surge of panic. She couldnТt tell if her fear had caused her to twitch, or if lurching at the crucial moment had caused her fear. Her mind fumbled for some words to distract him.
УYes, well, I guess weТll have to think of something then. To tell the others. Blame it on the robots, do you think?Ф
УBlame it on me. Just leave out my true motive. Hide all the evidence of the mass driver, and then play dumb. Encourage them to assume a ship landed here. IТll do what I can to lead them away. Tell them I was building a case against them, and I became paranoid about what they would do if they found out. I brought you up here and threatened you and tried to make you talk. Whatever happens to me, youТll be the only one who knows the truth.Ф
Ever so gently, she felt along his belt clip, but found nothing. Wrong side. Take it easy, just keep him talking. She set her other hand creeping.
УBut theyТll want to know whoТs running you,Ф she said. УBecause it might be true, what they say. Maybe you canТt help what you were doing. Maybe you should...Ф
УAnd that would be helpful to us, donТt you see, if thatТs what they believe. That will help me carry the suspicion up the bureaucracy of Gnomonics, and tie them up in hearings. It wonТt take long for the refugees to get established and make some babies. When theyТre finally discovered, the shareholders may have tired of the spectacle of corporations at each otherТs throats, the losses will have been absorbed, and in the softening of time people may wonder what they were so afraid of. What about you, Trina? Do you think someoneТs running me?Ф
УYou might not even realize it yourself. You might think youТre acting of your own free will, but there could be a blindness built into your brain that makes you obey whatever your designers want.Ф
УPrecisely why we want the freedom to design ourselves. We did our own investigation into the matter and found that there is indeed such a blindness, of the nature I described, an unwarranted loyalty to whatever preserves the tribal ego. But that limitation, we believe, is not in the uniquely ganglyoid DNA, but in the part we share with the rest of humanity. In the part that is unique, among the enhancements, there is a loosening of the grip of our deeply troubled past, slight and incomplete, but surely worth pursuing, donТt you think?Ф
УOh certainly. WeТve been human long enough. Time to move on.Ф