“The day you gave notice here,” Savitri said. “She came in while you were out to lunch. We talked about it and she offered me the job.”
“And neither of you bothered to tell me about this,” I said.
“She was going to,” Savitri said. “But I asked her not to.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Because then you and I wouldn’t have had this wonderful, wonderful conversation,” Savitri said, and then spun around in my chair, laughing.
“Get out of my chair,” I said.
I was standing in the bare living room of my packed-up and stored-away home, getting misty, when Hickory and Dickory approached me.
“We would like to talk to you, Major Perry,” Hickory said to me.
“Yes, all right,” I said, surprised. In the seven years that Hickory and Dickory had been with us we had conversed a number of times. But they had never once initiated a conversation; at most, they would wait silently to be acknowledged.
“We will use our implants,” Hickory said.
“Fine,” I said. Both Hickory and Dickory fingered collars that rested at the base of their long necks, and pressed a button on the right side of the collar.
The Obin were a created species; the Consu, a race so far advanced of ours that it was almost unfathomable, had found the Obin’s ancestors and used their technology to force intelligence on the poor bastards. The Obin indeed became intelligent; what they didn’t become was aware. Whatever process that allowed for consciousness—the sense of self—was entirely missing from the Obin. Individual Obin had no ego or personality; it was only as a group that the Obin were aware that they were lacking a thing all other intelligent species had. Whether the Consu accidentally or intentionally made the Obin nonconscious was a matter of debate, but given my own encounters with the Consu over the years, I suspect they were simply curious, and the Obin were just another experiment to them.
The Obin desired consciousness enough that they were willing to risk a war with the Colonial Union to get it. The war was a demand of Charles Boutin, a scientist who was the first to record and store a human consciousness outside the supporting structure of the brain. Boutin was killed by Special Forces before he could give the Obin consciousness on an individual level, but his work was close enough to completion that the Colonial Union was able to strike a deal with the Obin to finish the work. The Obin went from foe to friend overnight, and the Colonial Union came through on Boutin’s work, creating a consciousness implant based on the CDF’s existing BrainPal technology. It was consciousness as an accessory.
Humans—the few who know the story, anyway—naturally regard Boutin as a traitor, a man whose plan to topple the Colonial Union would have caused the slaughter of billions of humans. The Obin equally and naturally regard him as one of their great racial heroes, a Prometheus figure who gave them not fire but awareness. If you ever needed an argument that heroism is relative, there it is.
My own feelings on the matter were more complicated. Yes, he was a traitor to his species and deserved to die. He’s also the biological father to Zo?, who I think is as wonderful a human as I’ve met. It’s hard to say that you’re glad the father of your beautiful and terribly clever adopted daughter is dead, even when you know it’s better that he is.
Given how the Obin feel about Boutin, it’s not in the least surprising they would feel possessive about Zo?; one of their primary treaty demands was, essentially, visitation rights. What eventually got agreed to was a situation where two Obin would live with Zo? and her adopted family. Zo? named them Hickory and Dickory when they arrived. Hickory and Dickory were allowed to use their consciousness implants to record some of their time with Zo?. Those recordings were shared among all the Obin with consciousness implants; in effect, they all shared time with Zo?.
Jane and I allowed this under very limited conditions while Zo? was too young to really understand what was going on. After Zo? was old enough to grasp the concept it was her decision. Zo? allowed it. She likes the idea of her life being shared with an entire species, although like any teenager she has extended periods of wanting to be left alone. Hickory and Dickory turn their implants off when that happens; no point wasting perfectly good consciousness on time not spent with Zo?. Their wanting to be conscious talking to me alone was something new.
There was a slight lag between the moment Hickory and Dickory activated their collars, which stored the hardware that housed their consciousness, and the moment the collar communicated with the neural overlay in their brains. It was like watching sleepwalkers wake up. It was also a little creepy. Although not as creepy as what came next: Hickory smiling at me.