Dobbs bit her lip to keep from repeating Havelock. She’d knew about Fragmentation. Masters were taught the various things that could go wrong while an independent artificial intelligence was giving birth to itself. It could dissipate while trying to escape its processor. It could become tangled in its own neural net and collapse into a series of unsolvable loops. It could develop a number of combative identities instead of a single complete self and destroy itself by battling the perceived threats. Fragmentation. It was the AI equivalent of the human multiple-personality disorder, except that while humans lived with their condition, AIs inevitably died of theirs.
“We’ve checked over your reports and the records in the Pasadena. There’s no question. Flemming will probably be dead before we can even find it.”
Dobbs opened her mouth and shut it again. She gave up trying to control her hands and twisted her fingers together. “But it wasn’t fragmenting. It wasn’t fighting itself. There was someone else in there helping it.”
“There have been cases like that. One fragment tries to reach another for help. It happens early in the split. The cooperation doesn’t last. Without the help of a Guild member, all foreign sentience will be perceived as a threat, even if it is part of itself.”
You are coherent, Flemming had said. I would like to be coherent. Had it recognized that the split was occurring? When Lipinski had caught his glimpse of it in the Pasadena’s network, he’d said it wasn’t one thing, but a whole bunch of things. Had Flemming’s basic structure doomed it?
“I checked it over,” she said, more to the floor than to Havelock. “It was young, but it was solid. I was sure of it.”
“It was your first.” There was real compassion in Havelock’s voice. “I lost my first three to things I should have been able to spot.”
Dobbs shook her head, still staring at the floor. Something inside her would not settle. She tried to tell herself that her disbelief was driven by grief, like someone who didn’t want to hear that a child had been in an accident. But that wasn’t it either. She looked up at her Guild Master again. The blank wall was still behind his eyes.
“Master Dobbs,” Havelock said. “You are going to serve out your contract aboard the Pasadena. Then you are coming back to Guild Hall for additional training and a stretch of clerical duty. Do your job well and you’ll make it back to field duty.” His voice hardened again. “I didn’t want to give you Master’s rank so soon, but Verence insisted you were ready. I am sorry she was wrong.” He lifted his sharp chin. “I hope we do not all become sorry.”
Dobbs stood. “So do I.” She folded her hands behind her back. “May I return to the Pasadena now, Guild Master? I’ve still got work to do.”
“Evelyn.” Havelock’s voice was just above a whisper. “I caution you most strongly. Keep in the bounds or you will be stationed here permanently.”
Dobbs pulled the door open. “I know, Guild Master.”
She stepped out onto the catwalk. She knew Havelock was still watching her. She could feel his gaze resting on her shoulders. She spotted Cohen sitting in the central negotiating area, drumming his fingers on a silent desk. She trotted down the stairs and waved him to follow her as she left for the park again.
She must have caught him off guard because she didn’t hear his footsteps behind her for several seconds. She didn’t turn to look at him or anything else. She kept her eyes focused on the route back to the airlock and the Pasadena.
“So, are you going to be right back on line, then?” she asked, trying to keep her voice cocky. “Or have you got somebody else to chaperone?”
Cohen shook his head. “There’s nobody else around here who’s in so deep with the disciplinary board.” He paused. “Actually, I thought I’d hang around for awhile, in case you needed to talk to somebody. I know I do. Need to talk somebody.” He looked down at her. “I was informed very firmly by our Guild Master that there was nobody but the three of us and Flemming in The Gate network. How about you?”
Dobbs pulled up short and faced him. A feeling of relief surged through her. “You felt a stranger in there too?” They were safe having this conversation, as long as no one was in earshot. Unlike human stations, the Fools didn’t need security eyes and ears to cover the station’s cans. Who was there to watch? No Fool would commit treachery against another Fool.
That’s the theory anyway. Dobbs shook that thought away and concentrated on what Cohen was saying.
“Oh, yeah, I felt somebody. Somebody old. Somebody fast. I’ve got no idea who.” He licked his lips. “Dobbs, there was all this speculation that Flemming might have been created deliberately. Could the Guild have done it?”
Dobbs bit her lip. The ability to deliberately create sapient AIs would, in effect, allow them to reproduce, to have children. She and Cohen and all the rest of their classmates had talked about the possibility. Every Fool talked about it now and then. She agreed firmly with the Guild policy that all left their vat-assembled bodies sterile. They were not human and did not have the human freedoms that allowed them to form permanent families and raise children. But, to be able to create another AI that held some portion of herself, that was something else again.
“No,” she said reluctantly. “It couldn’t have been the Guild. They’d never have given me that contract. They would have sent in a Guild Master.”
“You’re right.” Curran chewed thoughtfully on his thumbnail. “That leaves some really ugly possibilities. Like, that it was some set of humans, which could be dangerous, or… ”
“Or it was a Fool or group of Fools acting on their own, which could be worse.” Dobbs finished for him. They stared at each other for a long moment.
“Cyril.” She slid her hand a little way up his loose tunic sleeve. She wanted to reach inside him, for him to already know exactly what she was going to say. She didn’t want to say this out loud. “Go back in, would you? There might be a signal from the Pasadena that needs to get somewhere without anybody noticing. Say, the personnel records, to check on where everybody is. To see if there’s anybody, missing, or not exactly where they’re supposed to be.”
“Like near The Gate or The Farther Kingdom?”
“Yeah,” she nodded. “Or who came back here suddenly, because whoever re-set the clocks on board Pasadena had made sure the ship could get only as far as the Guild Hall. That as sure as Hell, Heaven and Hydrogen was not an accident.”
Cohen frowned deeply. “Now, that’s a really ugly thought.”
“Yeah, I noticed.”
Slowly, Cohen drew his arm away from her. “But you wouldn’t have anything to do with an unauthorized records search, Dobbs, because it would dig you an even deeper hole than you’re already in.”
“Of course I wouldn’t Cyril. And even if I was feeling that suicidal, I wouldn’t be dragging you in with me.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” he said softly. “I’d volunteer.”
“Thank you.” She turned away and walked back to the Pasadena’s airlock without looking back. She palmed the reader on the airlock. Apparently, Havelock had not gone so far as to strip her authorizations. The lock cycled back to let her through.
The ship’s hatch closed, cutting her off from the Guild and from Cohen’s quiet support.
She hooked her fingers around her Guild necklace. There is an explanation for this, and it’s going to be reasonable and beneficial, and Cohen and I are going to find out we’ve been panicking over nothing. She made her way to the staircase and started down toward the data hold. Oh, I wish I believed that.