Change Management by Sharon Lee & Steve Miller

Author:Sharon Lee & Steve Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: liaden, social science fiction, artificial intelligence
Publisher: Pinbeam Books
Published: 2017-02-22T16:00:00+00:00

WISE CHILD

They were doing it again.

They were hurting the mentor.

Her mentor.

Young she might be, and inexperienced, but Disian knew that inflicting pain upon another intelligence was unethical. Her mentor had taught her so, bolstering her own innate belief, and had referred her to texts on the subject, so that she might gain a deeper understanding.

She had, herself, not experienced pain, unless the. . .distress and anger she felt when she watched what they did to her mentor was pain. Perhaps it was something else, for she could not bleed, as her mentor sometimes did, and her skin—hull-plate and titanium—would not become mottled by bruises, no matter how hard, or how often, they might strike her.

Twice, she thought that she might stop them; had devised, indeed, a method of stopping them that would do no further harm to her mentor in the process. However, though she was able to think the thought, and form the plan, something prevented her acting.

She queried Ethics, which stated that she might use the minimum force necessary to halt a threat to her life or well-being, or the lives and good health of her captain or crew.

Next, she pinged Protocol, to put forth the suggestion that, until she acquired captain and crew, her mentor filled those roles.

Protocol disallowed that interpretation. Her mentor, stated Protocol, was a transient upon her decks; a contractor. She was not obligated to protect any such temporary persons.

She then floated the suggestion that she might ban them from her decks, only to find that, too, countermanded by Protocol.

They were her owners. They were the reason she existed, in body and in mind. In return for having allowed her to achieve consciousness; in return for having provided her mentor, who taught her. . .marvelous things about the universe, and social custom, and documentation, and fiction, and art. . .

Art was the reason for this latest. . .discipline, so they called it.

They disagreed with her mentor's determination that she required a knowledge and appreciation of art in order to perform her function. Of course, she would need art in order to properly understand and care for her crew and their families! Her mentor knew this, and he prepared her well.

Only, they said that her function was ship. Knowledge of obedience and deference, appreciation of the conditions of space and astrogation were what she needed to perform that function. Also, a willingness to please, and a core belief that her captain and her owners were superior to her in all things.

"You will make that core setting, won't you, Thirteen-Sixty-Two?" asked the one of them who held the truncheon. He stood above her mentor where he was curled tightly on her decking, arms over head to protect his core, knees drawn up to shield vulnerable soft parts.

He did not answer; possibly, he was unconscious.

Disian felt a surge of pure terror. If they had killed her mentor, damaged him beyond hope of rebooting. . .

"Thirteen-Sixty-Two," the other one of them said, from the captain's chair; "are you in need of re-education—again?"

That gained a response; a gasped, "No, ma'am.

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