The Darwinian Extension: Completion by Hylton Smith
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Upon hearing the request relayed on from Pascal 2, Fav declared that the Axis would not participate in building, installing or operating weapons which could be used on another sentient species. They would simply build the desired number of craft. This complicated matters in a major way – not just the issue of the hardware, but the shape of life to come if the humans and Symbiants decided to continue with such policy.
This new directive for more patrol craft impacted the experimental QSD research, and increased frustration that they would miss out on maximising the input of Evander before his return to Earth. He allayed those fears however, by insisting Mars was where he wanted to be. He was sure about this even though he was told how this would be interpreted on Earth. Sevicek tried to explain. “You may wish that but you are perceived as a valuable asset and it may appear you are being held against your will.”
Evander replied, “My father will understand and he will assure everyone that it is my wish and therefore my choice. Unless you want to deport me I’m staying.”
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Sabine’s mother was relieved to be on her way at last. Carvalho realised that with so much turmoil in recent weeks the craft they were travelling in had not been given a name. He mentioned this to Alex 2, who suggested ‘Prodigal’ – reflecting the reception they had received in Beijing. “I hope you can understand a little better now why I want to concentrate on the Axis and humans on Mars. I have suspected this day coming for some years now, even though it has relied upon applying logic to an unpredictable data set. I urge you Commander to begin more dedicated research in a number of areas.”
“Let me hear it.”
Alex 2 chose his words carefully. “First we need to pin down interstellar travel. The think-tank must become an action programme now. Second, despite the furore on Earth, travel capability may or may not demand some physiology modification, albeit not the drastic kind the Axis required for wormhole creation. Lastly, an alternate communication technique is paramount, as it will provide the important opportunity to contact Epsilon Eridani, Gliese, and 55 Cancri. We should know whether it is possible to find out if there are still survivors on the Homeworld or not.”
Carvalho frowned. “If I was a fly on the wall listening to this I would think you were preparing to evacuate Mars.”
“Not evacuate Commander, merely taking out insurance. We could not transport the entire population in the first instance, and they would not all want to go. I am suggesting some humans would, and possibly all Axis and Symbiants, when they hear the full briefing from our abortive meeting. Mars is too close to the whims emanating from your blue planet to feel comfortable.”
Apart from the obligatory social inclusion of Madame Cheverry and news from Mars, this subject would dominate the remainder of the journey.
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Kinsey had not received the extradition request for Ayala. He knew Rodham was on his way back from Beijing and he would have to confront him about it. His office claimed ignorance of such a request. This wasn’t a good omen as far as Kinsey was concerned; there was too much circumstantial information in his experience for it all to be coincidence. He decided to do more digging. He had a contact in the military who could investigate the claim, but it was too risky to make overt enquiries. He arranged to meet with his contact to minimise the exposure of such a potentially damning internal scan.
They met in Monterey, a plausible vacation spot, as they both had relatives there. They walked as they talked and the initial reaction of his mole was that there would be no burrowing on this one. “Are you mad Marvin? This, if true, will go right to the top. People disappear when the stakes are this high. If there is no substance to it the outcome is not so bad, you just don’t have a career anymore.”
“Yeah, yeah – you’re right but if what I have told you is just the iceberg above the waterline, the USA is being set up for a fall it is not aware of, or worse still, we’re complicit in a horrendous plot which is known to others, who will blow the whistle. Can you imagine the internal strife that will cause? It will go on for years and weaken our vigilance on important tasks. We simply can’t afford to amble along in neutral. There is of course an alternative scenario. The Chinese don’t normally form such alliances – we could be sucked into aggression in yet another country where we don’t belong. The foreign office believes that China definitely does not want North Korea to either collapse or fall to western inducement. They have a natural border with the Koreans and it is natural to police it. We will be seen to have applied pressure on Seoul for our own ends. This accord with China on Axis nuclear power generators co-development has a whiff of the same aroma.”
Kinsey said he did not want to coerce anyone to get involved, he had even questioned the wisdom of doing so himself. He left it with Tom Bedford.
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Red had informed Alex 2 that they had already tried to advance the QSD theory into a practical evaluation programme, but the limitation was Axis contribution in personnel and manufacturing capacity. He added that Fav was prepared to ask his citizens if any of them were willing to consider replication to boost this effort. Fav was not hopeful on this as some of the Axis had already begun to question the wisdom of entering another phase of false hope. This was tempered a little with unease over implied intentions of Earth humans. Red did report that progress was being made where concurrent effort in the sphere line was underway.
Evander was apologising to Jet for underestimating the new levels of precision they had achieved with the Seaborgium Oxy-chloride (SOC) deposition process. The reply was typically modest. “I think we may have more difficulty with your field generator. The shielding is ready, but the incremental distortion of the parabolic deflector is not yet up to expectation.”
“Even so it’s a better first attempt than I imagined, we aren’t too far away, but I know what you mean, achieving the final, albeit small improvement may be tricky.”
Meanwhile Dan and the humans on the project were involved in the fabrication of interfacing the Symbiant with the output data of the QSD unit. They had come up with the idea of linking data feed directly to some of his sentinel cells and temporarily re-routing the feedback to the controls of the QSD, rather than clutter his own tiered registry. By contrast with the deflector pessimism, they were supremely confident of success.
Unknown to anyone but Stella and Scillacci, Sabine Cheverry’s box had developed a fault. She was suffering intermittent, short bouts of memory malfunction. Unlike the human brain, it was not experiencing a deteriorating condition. It was a specific ‘bug’ which was nevertheless causing panic in the moments either side of the glitch. The two doctors had different ideas on how to tackle the problem. Scillacci advised reset to defaults and temporary disabling of minor functions, then re-establishing them one at a time to pinpoint the rogue sub-routine. Stella thought this would be a long-winded, invasive procedure and suggested Pascal 2 may be able to diagnose more sympathetically by connecting to the box in some way. When asked about it he agreed, and informed them that Dan happened to be working on a method with similar objectives of closed loop control. He would import those modifications from Dan to his own architecture and attempt to identify the problem.
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Tom Bedford had spent a few restless nights thinking about Kinsey’s allegations. He convinced himself it would be better to know if there was something awry even if he kept it to himself. He was attending a retirement dinner for Field Marshall Osborn and knew there would be high-ranking officers present for his send off. There would be wine flowing and he could tap any alcohol-fuelled indiscretion. It would be made easier in the absence of politicians and civil dignitaries. This was a closed fraternity.
Rodham had apologised to Kinsey for the lapse of memory concerning the extradition request and promised to rectify the error imminently. It didn’t sound genuine. Kinsey decided to speak with the Brazilian authorities about better security for Ayala. They wanted to know why he had made such
This nagging doubt was reinforced by leaks about the fiery meeting with Carvalho, and speculation over the apparent hardening of the Chino/American accord. Rodham had left Kinsey with the impression that the opposite was likely. He couldn’t trust Rodham.
Carvalho was thankful that Mars had instituted its own screening of migrants some time ago. With the latest entente un-cordiale he would have been concerned about informants being smuggled in. His thought process was interrupted by an incoming transmission. He shared it with Alex 2. It covered two very different subjects. While performing routine maintenance the Axis had discovered a communication from Epsilon Eridani at the Echus Chasma plateau. It had been there for weeks. This in itself was not unusual but there was a reference to a new transmission system. Whereas all previous communication had taken over ten years to reach its destination this was expected to take less than one year. Exactly how much less was not certain because of anticipated disturbances in sub-space. They had sent another message one month later. Both were marked with their respective transmission times and a detailed explanation of the technology was embedded in each.
The second item concerned Madame Cheverry. There were adjustments planned for Sabine’s box and alternatives were available. She would be briefed upon arrival and advised of the benefits of both so she could decide. Both subjects were reported in a matter of fact tone and gave little cause for concern.
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Pascal 2’s survey of the box had revealed an oversight in the design approach. Singh had no sign of the data blackouts which afflicted Sabine. Pascal 2’s interface had certainly identified the corrupted software link, but it had also shown that in a young developing physiology the brain requires accommodation potential for that change. It was obvious in hindsight. The boxes had been produced to templates associated with the specific brain at a specific stage. Singh should not need this leeway as his development was more or less complete. “The problem is easy for me to fix but there are issues arising. Human procreation, in copying the respective genetic coding, can and does make errors and certain genes can be switched on or off. Such errors are believed to be responsible for mutation sometimes leading to new species. The same can occur in electronics hardware but the effects may be different. There is a mistake in Sabine’s buffering routine between the transfer to and from long and short term memory. This has been exacerbated by additional traffic and transfer discrimination as she develops from a child to adolescence and will continue beyond that. So we have a software error and hardware under-specification. It produces a dilemma. If the quick fix is chosen, the problem will likely re-occur. Even if it does not, it will severely test the hardware, maybe to the point of failure. At the very least it places a cap on her adaptive learning potential.” Stella asked what he would recommend.
“I believe the parents should have input here. The optimum recommendation in a technical sense would be to modify the box to remove the error and upgrade the hardware to cater for the anticipated needs. My own dilemma would be in deciding what her future potential would have been without the box and the tumour, compared to what it could be if the limiter was removed.”
Scillacci shifted uncomfortably. “Do you imply that if it was the former we may have to upgrade or change the box several times until she is an adult?”
“Probably.”
“And if we remove the limiter?”
Pascal 2 was now a little nervous. “There is a reasonable possibility that by your standards she would become a ‘genius’.” Both women sat down to consider the implications of manufacturing prodigies. Scillacci was first to speak. “Oh no – this will ricochet around all of the protest groups and we may face problems on Earth, our research will come under serious attack.”
Stella highlighted the opposing view that unlimited potential should become a choice. “Rich and famous individuals have always dragged these dilemmas into legal admission, but here you don’t have to be rich or famous.”
Chapter 18
Rodham was still stalling on the extradition papers when he received a call from Kinsey to inform him of Ayala’s escape. “How the hell did they allow that to happen? You can’t trust these people. Is he still in Brazil?”
“I don’t know, but if we had received the papers a couple of weeks ago I don’t think this would have happened. I’m making discreet enquiries but I’m not hopeful. There is some concern that he may have been sprung by the two Caracas names we have been looking for.”
Rodham was furious. “Looking for but didn’t find Mr. Kinsey. The Bureau has not improved its image over this one. There will be demand for accountability.”
“Yes, that’s why I was calling you. You need to prepare yourself for a witch hunt. The media scent blood.”
“My dear fellow, you......”
“I’ve made the request for the papers three times and I have retained copies. You need to look elsewhere to divert the blame. The media know the score, I can’t understand how. By the way we have made progress on the Caracas duo; if you had let me finish I was about to tell you that, still it did let me know how much I could depend on your support.”
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Carvalho took Sabine’s mother to the Echus Neurosciences Wing and asked Alex 2 to brief Fav on the adversarial meeting; he would bring Pascal 2 up to date at the hospital. Stella was waiting for Madame Cheverry as they had ruled out Scillacci’s option. She gave Carvalho the detail and he said he would like to talk to Pascal 2 while she acquainted the mother with the recommended way forward.
Pascal 2 was even more resigned than Alex 2 to annexing further assistance to Earth inhabitants. “It is simply a matter of logic to me Commander. They are not ready for it.”
“I’m coming around to that way of thinking myself; however there is now a veiled threat of escalating action, if my gut feeling is reliable. You know the Axis better than Alex 2; do you think we can change their minds about defensive weaponry?”
“That is a futile hope. They have already had their consultation process and it was unanimous. They may also have new priorities after this recent Epsilon Eridani communication. They will almost certainly be intensified if the second one arrives on time.” Carvalho nodded in a resigned but frustrated manner. “Ok my friend. Let’s get to the patient.”
A tearful mother was coming to terms with the condition of her daughter when Pascal 2 mentioned that it was an extremely routine matter to simply fix it. Her demeanour altered when he sketched in the option of stage-wise upgrading of the box. It ratcheted up several gears when he hinted at her possible ascendency to the cerebral elite. She had of course understandably marginalised the perception others might display at this tinkering with God’s children. When that sunk in she wanted to confer with her husband.
It was explained to her that time was important as they needed to minimise the overloading of the capability of the box in an uncontrolled manner. She reacted to this pressure by accusing the medical personnel of an oversight - which they should have been aware of before the procedure was commenced. Carvalho stepped in. “Madame, only a few weeks ago your daughter had been written off by the best doctors on Earth. We have responded to that death sentence by giving her a new opportunity. That procedure could have gone wrong or possibly her brain could have been too damaged for us to succeed. Hindsight is always something we learn from – we accept that, but please apply proper perspective to this situation. Instead of preparing for a funeral of a little girl, you are faced with either preserving her life with or without some limitations of cerebral maturity. I can understand your desire to speak with her father but delay may deprive you of the choice you currentl
Carvalho asked Stella and Scillacci to fill in some of the detail on the ‘genius’ option. Pascal 2 had suggested that in addition to the identified problem, the cooling method for the box was ‘clumsy’. It required a tiny vent in the skull, which would be a haven for infection with the insert, which was supposed to prevent re-growth and eventual closure. He preferred a departure from the registry design to something more like that of the Symbiants.
He asked, “How do we expect to achieve this in the time we have?”
Scillacci said he had better sit down. “His idea is ingenious but raises even more moral dilemmas. He wants to take a new box and make a parallel connection with the existing one Sabine has. No disconnection of the first box is required; it is to allow active copying of the one she is using. Once that is complete we connect a third box to the second one, and at the same time Pascal 2 bridges the second and third with some of the amorphous form. He assures us that it will only replicate and modify box number two; it will assess the one Sabine has as identical and decline further interaction. He maintains that while he is bridging the others, the replication process will, as it did with humans, copy everything, including the faults, then disable or replace functions with ‘Symbiant type’ improvements. It would be a ‘super intelligent capacitor’ with the efficiency of their architecture, giving indefinite life of the box and without the need for cooling etc. It would also be a procedure without sedation and discomfort for Sabine. How do you feel now Commander?”
“A little stunned I must say Sophia.”
Scillacci frowned. “If she chooses this route the saga will change status from hot potato to supernova.”
Stella joined the dots first, as she was not concentrating solely on the certain outpouring of protest. “Am I missing something, or are we pioneering a possible meld of human and Symbiant capabilities? It’s different from my understanding of replication. It retains its organic metabolism, including procreation but advances intelligence potential toward that of our inorganic brethren.”