Tess laughed. “Great rule. We can still gamble, right?”
“Sure.” He left feeling bewildered.
Later, Phillip found him in the deckhouse and said, “Did you set them straight?”
Garrett looked up from his work, considered lying for the sake of harmony, then answered, “I let them carry on.”
“What! I thought you were going to stop them.”
“They weren’t hurting anyone.”
“Of course they were. Gambling is a sin.”
Garrett sat up straighter, finding Phillip tiresome. “I don’t mind that you think that, but these divers were my guests, not part of your… group, and they’re not bound by your rules. You wouldn’t appreciate my ordering that your people imitate my fashion sense, would you?”
“That’s irrelevant.”
Garrett pressed him. “So can I demand that you all get naked or something?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’m saying we need moral rules.”
“I’m not going to use whatever authority I have to impose your moral rules on people.”
“They’re not my rules, they’re God’s.”
Garrett stared at him like a bug. How many people had claimed to have a direct line to God? “What do you want me to do, throw people in jail? Make cells from fish cages? The fact is, I haven’t got the resources to punish anyone for anything.”
Phillip paced the room, hands behind his back. “You disappoint me, Captain. If that title is even appropriate. For God’s sake, man, what if one of your guests kills someone? A real captain isn’t afraid to impose simple and necessary rules on the people under his command.”
“This isn’t the Army of Northern Virginia, and we’re not under martial law. I can’t go around beheading people.” Garrett sighed. He hated to admit it, but the man had a point. “If we’re going to have tourists, we do need some basic rules. But I haven’t got a court or a police force, and we can’t waste time screwing around barking orders. I don’t care what commandments you have for your group, but given our resources, any overall rules have got to be the absolute minimum to keep this station running. I’ll think about it, but the rules probably won’t match your standards.”
“It’s a start,” Phillip groused.
Garrett had a bad taste in his mouth from talking politics. He took a break by ferrying Eaton and the divers back to Cuba. At the post office there was junk waiting, and something else.
The postal clerk said, “Oh! You’re the one with the crate. Come around back.”
Garrett went to a loading dock and saw a crate labeled “Hayflick Technologies — FRAGILE.” He stared at it, then read the attached letter:
“G: I enjoy old-fashioned letter-writing, don’t you? It’s more personal and less closely watched. I don’t have anything secret to say, just that I’m glad to hear you’re still at work. I envy what you’re doing.
“What I’m sending is an improved prototype, the Stingray Mark II. Test it, see what it can do. Good luck.
“I’m starting to think my work is obsolete, that people want only berserker slaves for war and dull, obedient ones for manual labor. Warmechs and workmechs. Where’s my niche? The Loebner-class robo-pets sell well, but any mind upgrade that I try flunks our marketing tests. People just don’t want a machine that will give them any lip. I guess anything I make is either a dumbass or a smartass, and the second kind creeps people out. But the first is dull! It’s not the best I can do! Well, here’s a new smartass body.
“You’ve still got that kid Tesla with you, right? I’ve enclosed a book for her. It inspired me.
“Go forth and conquer. -V.”
Garrett definitely owed Val. Another whole robot! Sure, technically he was doing product testing for her. After the hurricane he’d sent Valerie a favorable account of Zephyr’s performance, and Tess had made Garrett shudder by adding her own version of events. But this new body was quite a payment for using something that was a gift in the first place. He thanked the clerk and tried to figure out how to transport the crate. Presumably he could open it right there and have Zephyr — uh, whoever — walk out.
He ended up riding back with the crate and thinking about law. With no jail, the options for punishment were limited: a stern warning, a fine, exile, or keel-hauling, yaar. Enforcing any of those required some amount of physical force. “Keep It Simple, Stupid,” his engineering training told him. Nor was he eager to enforce the law of the Pilgrims’ God. So he figured the rules should be, don’t break or steal anything, and don’t hurt anybody, and no swimming for thirty minutes after eating. Those should be enough.
He got back to Castor and found that nothing had exploded in his absence. Reaching the dock meant navigating around the warning buoys of their fish cages and submerged walkways. A few of the Pilgrims waved to him while walking on the water. A red-and-white dive flag marked yet more activity beneath the surface. Garrett smiled.
Dockside, the warehouse turned living room, was quiet when he arrived. He had to summon two Pilgrims to help him with the crate. The box’s lid creaked open with a puff of sawdust that made him cough. A body was inside, clutching a paperback copy of Gödel, Escher, Bach, a book about AI and philosophy. “I am a strange loop,” Garrett quoted. He’d read it (skimming a bit) and found it brilliant, though confusing.
The Pilgrims stared into the crate. “Captain, what’s this?”
“A crewmember. Bring an extension cord, please.”
They watched Garrett fishing for the socket in the robot’s leg and said, “What’s it for?”
“Some of everything.” He let the bot charge for a minute, realizing he didn’t know how to turn it on. “I have to warn you, he may be offensive.” With a whirr the motors stirred, and a fan-driven breeze made foam packing flutter. Blue eyes lit up. The Pilgrims backed away.
“Hello,” said the robot.
Garrett said, “Zephyr?” and kicked himself. He hadn’t loaded Zephyr’s software, yet some sort of AI was apparently included.
“I am a Mana-class AI using a Stingray Mark Two body. I am licensed to Garrett Fox. You appear to be him. Are you?” The voice was flatter, lacking the nuance of Zephyr’s.
“Yes.”
“I am your property, sir. What name do you wish me to use?”
“Wait. The software… Is there some way to get an interface to it?”
“Yes, sir. A limited set of commands is available. You can access them through the leg port.” The robot waited for input, while its fans were probably overheating in the box.
Garrett plugged a computer into the robot. He supposed it made sense not to have the thing subject to wireless mind control. A Basic Input/Output System came up. “Debug, Exit, Reset, Uninstall?” it said. Garrett looked up from the screen and said, “Robot. Say something.”
“I am a Mana-class AI using—”
“Never mind. What are your goals?”
“I must never harm a human or allow one to come to harm through inaction. I must obey any command given by a human unless—”
“That’s enough.” He thought Val hated Asimov’s Laws, and wasn’t even sure how you could program those. This bot seemed dumber, too.
Dumbass or smartass, then? Maybe he could run this robot as-is, and still keep Zephyr around. But no, he didn’t want to leave Zephyr bodiless, having nothing to do but talk with Tess. That wasn’t useful. Come to think of it, this AI seemed more likely to get itself broken through its passivity than Zephyr would through improvisation. Also, this one was boring!