“Naoko, what’s ‘imprinting’?”
She flushed. “A rather uncomfortable topic, Alice. Perhaps you should discuss it with one of the techs, if you’re curious? They seem quite happy with their situation, and not prone to embarrassment.”
Remembering last night’s conversation, I decided that might be a good idea. I was getting the feeling that Naoko’s situation wasn’t exactly normal, even for an android.
“Alright, Naoko. Sorry if I brought up a bad subject. Um, are you alright? I mean, the captain is taking care of you, right?”
“Yes, Alice. I believe some aspects of my programming hold little appeal to him, but I can cast no blame for that when I find myself equally disturbed. He has been quite kind to devote such effort to helping me, and with his guidance I have… well, I really don’t wish to speak of such things. Is it sufficient to say that he has helped me find ways to cope with my urges that are not so degrading as my designers intended?”
“Yeah. I, ah, probably don’t want to know more than that, anyway. If you’re good with the way things are, then I won’t pry.”
“Thank you, Alice.”
We watched the launch from the crew lounge, chatting about less sensitive topics while I worked my way through four big servings of salad, potato soup, bread sticks, steak, steamed vegetables and lasagna for lunch. I was relieved to see the last of my malnutrition warnings fade away, and it felt amazing to finally be properly fed. I could feel myself getting stronger every day, although I still wasn’t putting on any weight. Something about getting all critical systems online before developing threat displays or trying to fill my mass reserves.
Just the fact that I could feel there was a strategy to my development made me feel a lot better about things. I could be patient about waiting to grow up, as long as I knew it was really going to happen someday.
Our liftoff wasn’t as showy as our landing, probably because a couple of smaller ships had parked a little too close for that during the night. But a two-kilometer bounce followed by a six gravity burn still got us on our way pretty quick, and once we had some altitude Beatrice throttled up to thirty gravities. By the time we cleared the planet’s gravity well and did our alpha transition we were cruising at nearly two hundred kilometers per second.
“How come we’re in such a hurry?” I asked Naoko. “Don’t we usually keep the speed down until we get up into the Delta Layer, where we can do a precision burn for wherever we’re headed?”
“I am certain the captain has his reasons,” Naoko said serenely. “But I fear that I am not aware of them. Are you finished?”
“Yeah, I think I’m full for now. Though I’ve suddenly got this weird craving for electricity. I’ve really got no idea what to do about that.”
“Perhaps you’ve finally grown those power cells you hoped for?”
“It wouldn’t surprise me. I don’t think I’m going to go sticking my finger in a light socket to test the theory, though. I guess I’ll talk to the doc when I get a chance, and see if he can figure it out.”
“That would be wise,” she agreed. “Are you going to visit Dusty now? He’s being a bit of a pest, I fear.”
“Sure, I’ll go see what he wants.”
The crew locator pointed me to one of the smaller holds near the center of the ship, where I found Dusty standing in the door of an open cargo container with a sour expression. His look of relief when he saw me was kind of funny.
“Alice! Just the little miracle worker I was hoping for. Maybe those sharp eyes of yours can solve this mess.”
“What’s wrong?” I asked, peeking inside the container. It was a medium-size industrial cargo model, with a little over a hundred cubic meters of space. The inside was mostly full of cheap-looking steel shipping crates, one of which was pried open to reveal hundreds of neatly-stacked widgets of some sort.
There was a small open space at the door of the container, where Dusty had set up a table and a portable computer. There were more widgets stacked up there, and it looked like he was plugging them into a port on the computer one by one.
“Just a little snafu with the Underground Railroad. The boys over on Irithel thought they’d found the perfect cover for smuggling out refugees when one of them landed a job running an AI factory. The plan was they’d just unplug their escaped serfs and mix them in with a batch of bot modules, and ol’ Dusty’d pull them out on the way and drop them off on Amity when we stop there. Trouble is the gits didn’t think to label them, and they all look the same to me.”
I crossed my arms, and frowned at him. “So those things are AI cores? You’d think those dumb computers they use for bots would look different than the sapient ones.”
“Nah, even a sapient core is pretty tiny. The armored case takes up more room than the computer, so there’s no reason not to make them fit the same plug. You never know when someone might want to stick their bodyguards in warbot bodies or something. But you’ve got all that fancy scanning microwave ultrasound stuff going on, so there’s bound to be something you can see. Right?”
I sighed. “You know, Dusty, I’m still kind of mad about those rebels trying to brainjack me back on Takeo Station. I’m not sure I want to get involved with these android freedom guys.”
“Aw, that weren’t us that set that up, Alice. That’s the Torchbearers you’ll be wanting payback from. They’re the ones what go around cracking the controls on androids with weak security, and telling them they ought to murder their makers. The Railroad’s more of a peaceful group. We find androids that aren’t too attached to their masters, and help them escape to a better life.”
“Where did this bunch come from, then?”
“Irithel’s one of those oppressive oligarchies where the serfs do all the work while the humans live it up. They used to use this really hardcore slave mentality design where the androids could barely decide what to have for lunch without orders, but they had to ease off on that when all the humans quit bothering to work. Then a few years ago they got the bright idea of switching to this fancy new religious imprint system. Now they’re junking all the old AIs, and replacing them with the new model.”
“Wait, they’re just killing them?” I gasped.
He nodded sadly. “Yep. Pull the core, toss it in the trash, plug a new AI into the body and send it back to work. No big deal to them. It’s not like the androids are people.”
I bit my lip. “So your friends are rescuing them from the trash? What will happen to them?”