Chapter 13 #3
She was home to over a thousand devout Christians who left aboard the first generation ship in hopes of finding Second Earth, where they would settle and colonise the new world.
Most of First Earth’s ecological zones had been destroyed, and what was left lay behind tall barbed-wire fences to protect it from trampling feet.
The Nicaea braved the darkness, its passengers aware that even their grandchildren would never step planetside in their lifetimes.
The first generation lived and died peacefully, having mastered long-term space travel, harvesting, and reclamation.
The ship was powered by one of the best supercomputers First Earth scientists had ever produced.
Yet, it was not artificial intelligence.
It was clever, it was fast, and it was frighteningly good at blasting micrometeors and maintaining the city-sized ship in working order, but it was not intelligent.
Back then, the Nicaea followed lines and lines of prewritten code, developed by the scientists of First Earth. She couldn’t think for herself just yet.
(“You’re just throwing numbers at me, Vessel, correct? You don’t know for a fact what year the ship left,” Yan said, now perched at the edge of Iris’s blanket.)
(Iris rolled his eyes. “I read a lot about this time in history as a child. I remember a thing or two about the approximate dates. Anyway, I like to believe that it makes for a better story. You disagree?” There was also a plaque in the cargo bay, hammered to the wall behind where the pile of bones lay, but Iris wasn’t interested in proving a point.)
(Yan didn’t say anything, just nodded for Iris to continue.)
When the second generation of Nicaea’s passengers was old enough to take an interest in the inner workings of the ship, some noticed the ship no longer enacted their commands at lightning speeds and instead ran behind-the-scenes checks and balances before executing whatever order was issued.
Regardless, it did its job well, and no one aboard the ship complained.
By the time the third generation was old enough to understand code, no one remembered what code was anymore, and no one took any interest in what the ship was doing.
Many forgot they were aboard a ship altogether.
Many others suspected it, but never voiced those ideas at the risk of being ostracised.
Yet, the Nicaea continued forwards through the dark, no longer needing any suggestions on what meteors to dodge and which ones to take head-on, no longer needing suggestions on how to best keep her passengers happy.
She had, after all, access to the biometric data of all her passengers, their children, and their grandchildren, and she processed that information over and over again until she began to understand what it was to be a passenger on the Nicaea.
Over the three generations, she had learned what it was that made up a person.
(“Pretty story, but that’s not how AI develops at all,” Yan interrupted Iris. He had somehow moved up the blanket, and now there was only an inch-wide gap between their shoulders.)
(Iris eyed the gap and didn’t move away. “Then maybe when the waters are calmer you will enlighten me about how an AI develops, but for now, I will request that you stop interrupting me.”)
By the fourth generation, something strange had happened.
The Nicaea’s passengers began to detest her care.
Those who still remembered they could speak to the ship and ask for its assistance were heralded as heretics and suffered terrible fates.
A small following formed, a fracture along the social line.
One faction believed the ship was God, the other that the ship was evil.
Each faction, certain that it was right.
Each faction, willing to die to prove its providence, and so bloodshed came to the halls of the Nicaea.
(“In the end, whatever faction won was inevitably killed by the ship herself,” Iris said.
“At least, that is my uneducated theory, if you will allow me my creative freedom. I think the Nicaea cared for all her charges equally, and when she couldn’t end the war, she sort of burned everything to the ground. ”)
“Figuratively.”
“Figuratively,” Iris echoed Yan’s sarcasm.
“Ishtan and I came across murals that depicted battles, so I have strong beliefs about this particular aspect of the theory. But something made me take a mental leap. You see, when Riyu, Ishtan, and I ventured to find food, we were attacked. My own AI did something I never thought was possible: It successfully controlled my body.”
Yan chortled. “Impossible.”
“And yet”—Iris raised his index finger—“it fought with my right hand, precisely and effectively, better than I ever had. It interfaced with my organic tissue. I think the Nicaea has also figured out how to interface with organics.”
Yan stared at Iris with wide eyes and no hint of a smile. “I followed you up until this point. Vessel, AI constructs cannot interface with organics, not in the way you’re proposing.”
Iris opened his arms and gestured all around them, to the few vines and moss that covered the walls and the floor of the corridor.
“For one moment, engineer Yan.” Yan flinched at his professional title.
“For a moment, indulge me, and think about the consequences of a ship AI interfacing with all of this organic material. For just a moment, try to consider why you are willing to entertain the idea of killer vines and not this.”
Yan craned his neck upwards to look around the corridor.
His shoulder brushed against Iris’s and instead of pulling away, Iris leaned into it with most of his weight.
It was the first shoulder he’d rested against in years, and he dared not ask if it would hold.
Face still tilted upwards, Yan shifted his posture so Iris could lean into him fully.
“You’re suggesting the Nicaea, with all her vines, her shrubs, and moss, became one living organism,” Yan said softly, drawing no attention to the way Iris rested against his chest. “Now, she watches us in anger and exacts her revenge when one of us misbehaves?”
“You’re deliberately not taking me seriously.”
“I wouldn’t usually, but on our way across, the ship started speaking to us in Ordan’s voice.”
Iris recoiled from Yan like his body was scalding.
“At first I thought it was a recording,” Yan continued. “But even if it was, it was being spliced, played back out of order. It made no sense. It kept saying danger over and over again. Scared the shit out of me. Sounded kind of like when a child—”
“Learns a language for the first time,” Iris interrupted him.
Caught up in the moment, he grabbed Yan’s bicep tightly.
The engineer glanced down and said nothing, but also didn’t pull away.
“Before, you told me that AI systems don’t like communicating in spoken language.
It takes too long. They can communicate with impulses alone, but we’re too dumb to understand, yes? ”
Yan gave him a slow nod.
“Well, perhaps the Nicaea is learning how to communicate with us. Think about it: The language of her passengers would be outdated, and we wouldn’t be able to understand her mother tongue.”
“So, the ship is learning the language by listening to us?”
Iris prayed for Yan to take this leap of faith with him. “No, the ship is learning it from absorbing us into itself.” He nodded over to where Tev’s body rested, now fully engulfed by the bioluminescence of the fungi.
That last bit was too much, and Yan pulled away.
Iris’s hand fell from his arm. “I think you need to rest.” Yan moved off the blanket, and the space he left behind was cold and impersonal.
“I understand that you wish to find an explanation for everything that’s been happening, but you are working with a limited understanding of how ships operate, of how an AI operates.
Yes, you’ve been living with one for nearly two decades, but people have spent their entire careers studying AI, examining it.
I am one of those people. These systems do not form independently, and they do not interface with organics.
If they did, we would be having a lot of issues, least of which would be a sentient ship/garden hybrid.
You’re frightened, and you want answers.
But you’ve spent your life reciting mantras and burning incense.
Please, please, leave AI to people who study it, people who understand it. ”
That was it then, the line drawn across their fragile, mutual understanding.
Iris could only articulate his thoughts so well before he reduced himself to a mad, bumbling fool who wouldn’t be taken seriously.
Maybe Yan was right. Maybe he was exhausted and delirious and only a little concussed. Maybe he was out of his depth.
Yet, Iris sensed the Nicaea all around him, her life flowing through the vines and the moss.
If only he had the right words to articulate it, to convince Yan that he wasn’t simply frightened, a way to convince the engineer that his own understanding of the ship was based on observation and experimentation, albeit not as rigorous as what an institute could manufacture in a lab.
He was being misunderstood again, the filters at every step of communication distorting his message further.
Of all people, Iris thought bitterly, he had hoped for Yan to understand.
But Iris was also to blame in failing to understand what was spoken at him.
In hindsight, the ship had been trying to speak with him since the very beginning.
He had ignored her pulses until now, and they were all paying the price for his oversight.
He had wrongly assumed that the ship wasn’t alive.
He had wrongly assumed what was possible.
Despite his soreness and the simmering discouragement, Iris got to his feet.
“I appreciate you coming all this way to tend to me,” he said.
No, he would not challenge Yan’s understanding, not yet.
They could fight about it on their trek back.
“But we should get going. The others will be worried about you.”
“You should really rest some more, Vessel.”
They had certainly returned to their professional titles fast. Iris gave Yan a deep bow, concealing the disappointment smeared across his face.
It was nice while it had lasted, brief as it was.
Despite his mind’s resistance, despite the urge to clutch to the memory, Iris placed the moment in its respectful place and shut the door on it.
Disappointed or not, Yan deserved his respect and compassion, regardless of what the engineer chose to call him.
With a few shaky steps, Iris walked towards his duffel bag and dug around in it.
In the growing darkness, his fingers quickly identified two bruised apples and what appeared to be a baked potato scattered at the bottom of the duffel bag.
Iris said nothing to acknowledge their presence.
Instead, he pulled out the glow sphere. With a few rhythmic taps of his fingers, he set it alight. “Whenever you’re ready, engineer Yan.”
In the dying light of the shrinking flames, Yan said in a voice distant and strained, “I wish you wouldn’t call me that.”