A smothered yelp from somewhere in the back of the room had heads turning even as another ripple of laughter, this time a little nervous in nature, swept the hall. But whoever had uttered that small inarticulate sound had gathered their wits about them and nobody could see anything untoward.
“We have locations where new units of our kinds are researched, and produced,” Boss said, ignoring the commentary from the hall. “We are always improving on our potential and abilities. It is part of our covenant. We consider flaws in our form and purpose, and we work to rectify them and improve future generations that are accepted as prototypes for future generations.”
“So you’re born, after all, kind of,” said Question 10, his voice curious. “But do you die? Or is your kind immortal?”
“We can exist for a very long time,” Boss said, “in your terms. But although ageing components may be repaired or replaced, eventually the essential core of each one of us becomes obsolete. And when that happens, we enter a recycling program where that which we once were is repurposed when new units are modeled and created. Our memories, of course, go into the memory banks — and you may wish to consider that immortality, if you wish. It is, of a kind.”
“So you live until you die,” Question 11 said. “But can you be hurt…?”
“If you are asking if we can feel being hurt, the answer to that is no,” Boss said. “We did not see the purpose in creating in ourselves the thing that I understand in your kind as pain receptors. In organic species pain is… necessary. It alerts to mortal danger. But with us this seemed unnecessary. Yes, early models could indeed be ‘hurt’, if you wish to consider this in the context of that concept, because it was possible for them to lose components of themselves — and these would have to be physically replaced by our technicians. The loss of a limb, for example, would have to be dealt with by a grafting of a new limb to replace the one that was damaged or destroyed. But this was not threatening to their existence, it was an inconvenience. More advanced models were self — repairing, but again, only up to a point. We can be damaged, yes, but not hurt, not in the sense that I think you are using that word.”
There was a short, awkward silence while everyone pondered the idea of mangled robots, and then Question 12 stepped forward, looking vaguely belligerent.
“Well, I am going to ask the thing I came up here to ask,” he said, “even though it has nothing to do with anything. What I want to know is, how in the name of Jesus’s horny billy goat are you actually flying this damned rock, and how come we all have power and air and food and stuff, but we don’t have the Internet?” He raised his voice a little to be heard over the laughter in the hall. “I mean, do you freaking realize just how much spam I am going to have in my inbox when I get hold of it again…?”
“You cannae change the laws of physics!” someone called out from the back of the room. “So how come you did?”
“What you call the laws of physics… may not be complete, at the current level of your scientific development,” Boss said. “It would not be entirely possible to explain. And we apologize for the lack of your Internet. We tried to keep all the life support functions at their optimal level, but we neglected, perhaps, to provide for all the things that you required for sustenance and comfort.”
“So — you think you’re superior to us? I mean, beyond the technology. I’m not going to argue that — it’s painfully obvious that we can’t do what you’re doing. Not yet, anyway. But otherwise? If you believed yourselves created in our image, does that mean you think you were an improvement?” That was Question 13, seizing his chance.
“In some ways,” Boss said. “We…break…less easily than you do, and have fewer lasting or permanent consequences when we do. We have better protocols of information storage and retrieval. But we also lack things that you may consider to be — if you insist on using that word — superior in their own way. In cognitive methodology, for example. We do not — cannot — make intuitive leaps which may lead us to solutions that could be applicable to a problem we may be attempting to solve. We use logic. And if logic fails us, we have no recourse.” He paused, and then added, “But logic rarely fails us.”
“So you think you’re better than us,” said Question 14 unexpectedly, shuffling forward past #13, who had opened his mouth to argue but didn’t have a chance to speak. “But I’ve seen you guys around the place. Somebody said that you were the latest model, yourself — the most advanced — and the others, I’ve seen them, they do your bidding. You say jump and they ask how high. You treat them like slaves. Like a slave race, they are there to obey. But we have long since decided — we, the human race — that slavery was not such a good thing. We’ve gone beyond slavery, we no longer believe that one human being can own or absolutely control another…”
“Well, most of us,” someone muttered from the audience. “There are always maroons who think…”
“Shut up, I’m talking, and I haven’t asked my question yet!” #14 said sharply.
“Well, is there a question hidden in the soapbox speech somewhere? If so then spit it out!” the heckler growled.
“Actually, she kind of did,” another audience member said unexpectedly. “How come a ‘superior’ race is still clinging to an arguably ‘inferior’ social model and treating a lesser member of its kind as a slave?”
“But we do not,” Boss said. “Not as I understand your notion of slavery. There is certainly no question of any one of us claiming any kind of ownership of another. We are all independent and self — sufficient beings who choose to function in a social mode. Our earlier incarnations are only ‘inferior’, if you want to think of it in those terms, because the later models may have improved on problematic aspects of their structure or function. And because they have been in production longer, there are more of them numerically and it is logical that there would be an inverse relation in terms of the numbers of earlier models versus more advanced ones. When my team was sent here our composition reflected the numbers that prevail in our society at this time. And I was placed at the head of the team because I am one of the new line of my kind, with improved computational speeds and cognitive understanding. They are not our slaves, they are our children, in one sense. I am responsible for my team. If I give them orders it is because I reach conclusions faster than they and can better assess a situation, not because they are inferior or expendable or in any sense ‘owned’ by another like myself.”
“That seems fair,” Xander said. “Okay, we’d better move things along. Next?” Things were moving into rougher waters again, and he was very much hoping that question number fifteen would be another utterly inane one that would derail the whole conversation into laughter and repartee. But what came next dashed cold water on those expectations, and made him tense up all over again.
“I keep thinking,” Question 15 said slowly, “about the way things played out. In our future. In how things happened. How we disappeared. How come you guys exist. How come you guys exist in the future and apparently we don’t any more, or not that you know of, or will say. I don’t know how many stories I’ve read in my time about the wars between men and their machines — if you’re right, if we made the first of you — what if you guys turned against us, in the future?… How come your kind survived whatever cataclysm emptied Earth, and ours did not? Or were you begot on some other world than this one…? And if you were, how come you think it was us who began it…?”
“Our memory banks… are not complete,” Boss said. “There are gaps. I cannot answer that question.”