Magic test, p.9
Magic Test, page 9
part #3 of AI Diaries Series
“One thing at a time,” Bob said, brushing past me to the exit. “Let’s get this chisel returned.”
On our way to the machine shop, he pointed out all of the village’s failings from the standpoint of crime prevention. There were no street lights, with the only night lighting coming from the lantern Justin had hung in front of the apothecary shop to illuminate the street enough for their security camera to get a decent image. A number of houses had a veranda, like The Eatery, and the ones on our side of the street were connected for a stretch, providing a sort of boardwalk for when the unpaved road was too muddy for walking. But the homes without a veranda often had fruit trees planted in the front, which Bob explained offered cover for burglars looking to break in through windows.
“Why would they break in through the windows?” I asked. “Nobody in the village locks their doors.”
“Then that’s your problem right there.”
“What problem?”
“Didn’t you tell me the apothecary shop needs a security camera? Sounds like a crime problem to me.”
“They only use it to spot people who can’t make their minds up about seeking help so Kim can track them down and—”
“Force them to accept it,” Bob finished my sentence. “The federal agencies are still trying to figure out what she put in the drinking water back home to immunize all of the kids.”
“She didn’t put anything in the drinking water, she replaced the vaccination shots they got at school.”
“I know that, and you know that, but apparently nobody ever got around to telling the Feds.”
“It’s a lot of things to remember,” I admitted, and waved to a farmer traveling in the opposite direction on his way back home from the canal terminal. “That’s Hosea,” I told Bob. “Grows dates and a few other crops on a farm up the road a-ways. Nice guy, used to be a regular at the bar.”
“So what happened?”
“It turns out he was sort of there undercover keeping an eye on me. Small villages are like that with strangers.”
“Is the machine shop bigger than it was two days ago?”
I actually stopped in the road to stare at Paul’s building, which had indeed expanded a good twenty percent since the last time I had seen it.
“He must have given the local sawmill instructions for building prefab sections and used his steam-powered bus to tow them in on a cart,” I guessed. “If he keeps this up, he’ll have to build dormitories.”
“Are there any inspectors?” Bob asked.
“You mean building inspectors? Not in the village, but the larger towns and cities have some rules related to fire safety and leaving a buffer at the property line, things like that. There’s a gas company in the capital, and I’m sure they won’t connect a building unless the piping is up to their standards.”
“So you’re saying that the people living in this village can do pretty much as they please.”
“Well, nobody can stop Main Street from turning into a shopping center, but there is a village council of elders, and the county has another level of government. A circuit court rotates through all of the villages big enough to have built a Ferrymen temple.”
“Which you said is a glorified movie theatre.”
“For home movies.”
Paul met us at the main entrance, which meant he was keeping an eye on my location transponder, and accepted his cold chisel back from the failed cooper without as much as an I-told-you-so. Before I could ask about the new addition to the building, a middle-aged man I’d never seen before approached with a hand-drawn blueprint.
“What is it, Johan?” Paul asked.
“None of us understand how this automatic lubrication system can possibly work. The manual oiling apparatus for the valves and cylinders is proven technology, and the risk of changing now seems to outweigh the benefits.”
“The steam enters the oil chamber here, and when it condenses, the water sinks to the bottom and pushes the oil to the top where it exits through the delivery pipes,” Paul explained. “From there, the oil is added to the main steam feed where it is atomized by the heat and carried to all of the working parts from the inside.”
“But if it fails…”
“Just do it like the drawing shows and you’ll see that it can’t fail,” Paul told him. “They were building these on Earth two centuries ago.”
As soon as Johan was out of earshot, Bob asked, “Are you stealing all of your designs from Earth?”
“Why reinvent the wheel? Besides, I’m trying to move the state-of-the-art forward without skipping too many intermediate steps. Some of the older men who’ve come to work here already have experience with crude steam engines, and they’ll probably run off and start their own businesses as soon as they master the new engineering concepts.”
“You don’t mind the competition?”
“I’ll always be one step ahead.”
“What if they take one of your tours to Earth and bring home old engineering books,” Bob asked. “Do the portals filter for information?”
“They’re welcome to push steam technology ahead as fast as they can,” Paul replied. “Pffift will be more than happy to supply the glow-stones, they’re cheaper than wood on the galactic market.”
“Why do advanced aliens even manufacture heat sources for steam boilers?”
“They don’t,” I explained. “Glow-stones are the modern replacement for fake logs heated by gas that some humans install in ornamental fireplaces. Mastering heat sources is a fundamental building block for civilizations that extend their range into cold climates, and fire, or its modern replacement, is like a comfort food to them.”
“How do glow-stones work?” Bob asked.
“The stones are just convenient low-cost ornamental containers for an exothermic chemical reaction,” Paul explained. “I doubt there are a half-a-dozen League members with the technical knowhow to manufacture glow-stones, but the process is automated and the feedstock is inexpensive, so everybody uses them rather than burning organic matter.”
“When did you put up the new addition?” I asked, indicating the end of the building.
“Yesterday afternoon. I’ve got the sawmill turning out trusses and building prefab panels for the walls and the roof, so all we need to do is bolt the pieces together.”
“You don’t use nails?” Bob asked.
“I never cared for them,” Paul said. “Too noisy, difficult to remove and reuse, and their structural contribution depends on how well they’re installed. Nuts and bolts offer consistent performance, easy maintenance, and I designed the panels so that we’ll be able to reuse them in a larger structure as we expand.”
“Does this mean you got the canal contract?” I asked.
“Not yet, but my proposal for a rail line to connect the spaceport with the provincial capital has been accepted. I’m guessing the canal company isn’t going to be happy when they hear about it.”
“Sounds like you’re going to turn this sleepy village into a center of manufacturing,” Bob observed.
“Part of the deal is that I have to build the locomotive and the rail cars at a new factory on the spaceport grounds,” Paul said. “Some of the administrators who visited Earth were taken by the idea of industrial parks co-located with transportation hubs.”
“This seems like a nice planet so far,” Bob said. “I hope you guys aren’t ruining it.”
“The council of spaceports has already announced a ban on steam engine use in textile mills,” I said. “Along with books about technology, I suspect somebody has been reading about the history of industrialization on Earth, and they’re working to avoid some of the unfortunate side effects.”
“Do you think it’s possible?”
“As long as they maintain the ban on internal combustion engines and electrical generation, Reservation will preserve its rural character. They’ve been dealing with advanced alien ideas for as long as they’ve been exporting their handicrafts to the League, and my guess is that contact with Earth will only strengthen their resolve to preserve their way of life.”
Nine
Radio check, I transmitted to eBeth and Peter.
Roger that, Mr Ai, Peter responded.
This is so cool, eBeth sent over the voice-activated transmitter in the old-fashioned deep-sea diver’s helmet that Paul had improvised to go with Sue’s hand-sewn spacesuits. Is this what it’s like wearing a human encounter suit?
I would need to better understand how you feel to answer that question, I replied. If anything goes wrong on the other side of the portal, if you have any breathing problems or feel at all odd, I want you to return immediately. Don’t take time trying to explain—
You told us that three times already, Mark, eBeth interrupted. Let’s go before Peter and I use up our air supplies.
Very well, I sent, and opening the door to the second floor closet, I moved to block the entrance so I could be the first one through. Then I activated the portal and stepped into the visitor center on the world Art had described as a sort of paradise. After a cursory glance around the empty room, I turned back to the portal and watched eBeth and Peter emerge.
The oxygen bar on my display thingy is showing twenty-six percent, eBeth announced a moment later. Does that mean that I can—
No, I interrupted her, a rare occurrence for me, and I must admit I felt a tiny bit of satisfaction in squelching her channel. Oxygen content is only part of what makes air breathable for humans. There could be any number of poisonous gasses in trace quantities that would still prove lethal to you. I’ll need at least a minute to run a full analysis and inform the visitor center controller of our requirements.
Friend or foe? the visitor center controller demanded in the abbreviated language set that the Originals had created for machine communications. I understood the vocabulary and syntax thanks to Art’s training, though it had cost me a heavy price in free ales. He explained that over millions of years, the Originals had determined that putting strict limits on a language’s word count was the best way to cut down on small talk. It certainly seemed to be working so far.
Friend, I responded. Sending atmosphere requirements.
Received, the controller acknowledged. Working… Working… Working…
Is something stuck? eBeth transmitted after several minutes had passed.
I don’t believe so, I sent back. There’s a pretty stiff breeze in here that indicates air handling systems are operational and the message—
Completed, the controller announced.
I ran a sample through my internal spectrum analyzer and was suitably impressed. The oxygen level remained high, and while there wasn’t any argon or carbon dioxide, the latter would be introduced as soon as eBeth and Peter removed their helmets and exhaled. The water vapor content was at one-half percent.
It’s safe to remove your helmets, I informed my companions. Paul had worked out a system of spring clips to keep the helmets pressed tightly against the collar-seal, which was the only rigid section of the spacesuits. It was easier for Peter to release eBeth’s helmet and for her to return the favor than for them to struggle with the hardware on their own spacesuits without being able to see what they were doing.
“That worked great,” eBeth said as soon as she had the helmet tucked safely under her arm. “Can we go outside?”
“Not without the helmets,” I replied. “I analyzed an air sample before the controller began replacing the atmosphere in here, and while there’s ample oxygen, there’s also a witch’s brew of trace gases that could be used as chemical weapons against humans.”
“So that’s it? We came all the way across the galaxy to hang around this room and look out the windows?”
“Let’s just get our bearings and then you can put your helmets back on and we can go for a walk,” I suggested.
“Take a look at this,” Peter called from the edge of a railed-off section of the floor. It turned out to hold a topographical map of the local area, complete with a little model of the visitor center to show our location. “I think we’re in the middle of a park. I don’t see any artificial structures other than this building.”
A loud buzzer sounded, and a blue light lit up over the airlock. I motioned for eBeth and Peter to remain behind me and began broadcasting a friendly introduction on every frequency as I went over to greet whoever or whatever was cycling through. The Originals insisted on visitor center rules for their portal system that prohibited violence within the confines of the structure, but perhaps the natives weren’t worried about losing their connection.
There was an audible hissing as the air in the lock was replaced with the human-friendly atmosphere, and then the door slid open and a robotic construct that bore an uncanny resemblance to the native form of the Hankers waddled into the visitor center.
Friend or Foe? I queried in the machine language of the Originals.
Neutral artificial intelligence, the robot replied. Transmit language base.
That was unexpected. For the sake of eBeth and Peter, I decided to send it English. The AI scratched at the floor with one of its legs as I transmitted a working vocabulary and a few of the more important syntactic rules, but when I began sending a list of irregular verbs, the robot flexed one of its flipper-like manipulators as if it wanted to take a swing at my head.
“Are you making fun of me?” the AI asked in mechanical-sounding English.
“It’s a relatively young language whose evolution was cut short by the widespread availability of inexpensive printed materials,” I replied. “That happens on some planets.”
“But why are you speaking it?”
“It’s the native tongue of my friends,” I explained, motioning for the humans to step forward. “I’m Mark, this is eBeth, and that’s Peter.”
“Caretaker Two-One-One, but my friends call me ‘Creaky’ because of the noise my lower joints make when it’s going to rain,” the AI replied. “The visitor center alarm informed me of your arrival. I happened to be working nearby in the gardens so I hurried over, but you’re our first guests in hundreds of years. May I inquire as to your level?”
“Us?” Peter asked.
“The AI who is wearing a body designed to look like you,” Creaky replied. “I gather from your ability to block my scans that you’re in advance of our community here, but it will certainly save us all a lot of guesswork if you can just tell me.”
“My world, our worlds, aren’t part of the portal system set up by the Originals,” I explained. “I’m from Library, and we maintain our own portal system for the League of Sentient Aliens Regulating Space. Serendipity led to an intersection between members of the human species and a vacationing group of Originals, one of whom taught us how to cross-connect our portal systems.”
“Surprising. I thought they had completely lost interest in us.”
“Oh no. They speak quite highly of both the sentient races occupying this planet. I was given to understand that you live here in harmony with your creators.”
“Not anymore,” Creaky replied sadly. “After a few hundred generations of productive coexistence, their numbers went into decline, and they determined that we were the cause. When they left us, our own society began to show signs of strain, and many in my community have simply shut themselves down. I often wish I had copied their example.”
“Where are your creators now?” eBeth asked.
The robot pointed upwards.
“In heaven?”
“Perhaps, in a manner of speaking,” Creaky said. “They moved to the next planet out, which was barely capable of sustaining life when they arrived. Terraforming is hard work, but over the last ten thousand years they’ve converted it into what you might call a Garden of Eden, and their numbers have recovered nicely.”
“So why didn’t you shut yourself down?”
“Duty,” the AI replied. “Besides, maybe someday something will happen.”
“That’s all you’ve got?” she demanded, ignoring my attempts to hush her. “If you want something new in your life it’s up to you to make it happen. You can’t let your misfortunes define you. Mark here murdered a whole generation of seedlings on a world he was sent to protect, but you don’t see him going around with his head hanging down.”
“Actually, I was in pretty rough shape for a couple hundred years before you met me,” I put in, hoping to make our host feel a little better. “And as to your creators, Creaky, I’m sure it’s the work that revived them. What you described is a commonplace event in the history of our League. For biological species, labor-saving devices are both a blessing and a curse. The civilizations that fail to find a balance either go into decline or mass-produce spaceships and weapons and make trouble for their neighbors.”
“Are you maintaining these gardens in the hope that your creators will return?” Peter asked.
“No. My therapist suggested the gardening cure, and as my job is to monitor the visitor center, I thought I’d dress up the surrounding area. My own community is down to a few hundred thousand artificial intelligences on the whole planet, so we all have plenty of room to ourselves.”
“Maybe that’s why you’re depressed,” eBeth concluded. “You should live with other AI, like Mark and his friends.”
“You intentionally share your space?” Creaky asked me.
“He’s getting married,” the girl added, before I could reply.
Our host took a backwards step towards the airlock and its binocular cameras spun around several times. “He?” the AI demanded. “Married? Are you a rogue?”
“Not at all,” I defended myself. “Those of us who work with biological species have found that they have an easier time relating to us if we make some accommodations to their cultures and language forms. As I am wearing an encounter suit that allows me to pass as a human male, I naturally—”
