"Yes, I was the captain of a ship on Spatterjay, but I was never one of Jay Hoop's captives, and I arrived there a good few years after the Polity put in an appearance."
"How old are you, then?"
"Old enough to be bored by that particular question."
"Probably about the same age as me."
"You don't even have to speculate, since the information must be available to you."
"Okay, you're about fifty years older than me."
The drone seated itself on the sand and began licking one of its paws. I gazed at it with renewed interest. On the whole, independent drones went out of fashion in the years after the Prador-human war. This was due to the rather lax quality control exercised then in the production of war drones, and because those that survived the war ranged from merely irritating and irascible to dangerously insane. They were not popular with either humans or the major AIs. After the war the big AIs no longer manufactured independent drones, but instead ones run by subminds recorded directly from themselves. However, over the years that changed as some of the subminds gained independence, and independent drones came back into vogue. There seemed almost to be a nostalgia for them, they being the product of a wild and raw time during Polity expansion. Many of the old ones achieved mythic status, like the war drone Sniper still resident on Spatterjay and still looking for trouble. Tigger was unusual in that he must have been made during the time when drones supposedly weren't being manufactured—some 200 years after the war.
"An unusual time for a drone to be made," I suggested.
Tigger returned his paw to the sand. "A drone is an AI, so when is an AI not a drone?"
"If language adhered to logical rules, it would constrain us."
Tigger grinned. "Now that's a quote from Gordon."
I trudged a little way up the beach and plumped myself down on a rock. "Okay, as we define it now, and probably not as we'll define it in fifty years…Those that we don't call drones are permanently sited in large structures, and though they interact with the world they don't change their position in it. But that description immediately falls down when you start talking about ship AIs. Drones are merely smaller more independent AIs, just like Golem androids are. Sildon created a more exact classification based on power usage, processing power and ability to move. I incline more to the idea that those generally called AIs, and nothing else, control the world and those defined as drones and Golem, and even haimans and humans, interact with it. What's your point, anyway?"
"I was incepted as a runcible AI, but some faults developed as I expanded from base format towards that end. I chose then to be a drone."
"Why?"
"I wanted to interact with the world, not control it."
"Then I wonder if what you now describe as faults were truly such."
"I try not to let the question bother me too much."
I sat there and closed my eyes for a moment. I was tired, since it had been a rather trying day. "How long until nightfall?"
"Eight hours."
"Then take me inland now and drop me off." I heaved myself to my feet and stretched. "I'll need some way of contacting you."
I don't know if Tigger had already made the thing in preparation, or simply made it right then as an extrusion from his skin. He flipped his paw at me, sending an object sailing across, which I caught. It was a chain with a pendant attached, the pendant depicting a leaping silver tiger.
"Just say my name close to it—I'll be listening." Technology indistinguishable from magic? In a word: yes.
Orduval—to the Desert
It seemed the only way. His fits were becoming more frequent and the drugs being pumped into him, in an attempt to control them, ever stronger, till he could see himself soon joining the ranks of zombies he saw every day in the asylum. Orduval removed his arterial injector last, dropping it out of the window of the trans-Komarl maglev tram, along with the diagnostic device that linked him to the asylum's computer. Now back there an alarm would be ringing somewhere and the medtechs running to investigate his room. They would find it empty and they would find him gone. He had no intention of ever going back.
Hiatus.
"Hey, are you all right?" The woman leaning over him had the same concerned expression that Orduval had seen too many times before. As he blinked, everything seemed blurred around the edges, and fading light turned into a sharp pain in the centre of his skull. Another fit. He pulled himself upright and wiped bloody saliva from his chin, realising he had once again bitten the inside of his cheek.
"I'm fine, thank you."
The woman returned to her seat, obligation discharged. Orduval quickly checked the time display and the tram's current location on the screen display at the head of the carriage and realised, thankfully, that his latest fit had not taken him past the old outpost station. It would arrive there soon—hopefully before that same woman, now glancing at him with surreptitious concern, decided she was obliged to enquire further. It was always like this: first the immediate concern, then the relief once Orduval claimed to be okay, then a growing guilt impelling them to ask again after his health, to offer aid, to offer to call someone.
Sandposts indicated they were now approaching the station, and the tram began to slow. Orduval picked up his carryall and headed for the nearby doors, confident that another three or four hours would pass before the next fit struck him down. Peering through the window he observed a conglomeration of shacks with aluminium roofs sand-burnished and gleaming under the hot sun, their windows frosted by the desert wind, and their resin-bound sandstone walls carved by the same abrasive force into seemingly organic forms.
"Are you sure you want to get off here?" The woman again, standing up and peering out at the desolation.
"Yes, I'm sure. My brother is coming to pick me up with his sled." Orduval turned to face her and projected as much confidence as he could muster. "I made a small mistake with my medication, but have since corrected that. Thank you for your concern, but I will be perfectly all right."
"I'm sorry to seem intrusive but—"
"Yes, quite. I'm sure you are," said Orduval, and turned back to the doors as the tram finally drew to a halt and settled on the lev-road. He had deliberately calculated his parting words to be just sufficiently insulting to annoy the woman enough for her to think, Damn this uppity prick, I was only trying to help, and then promptly forget the entire incident. Perhaps in some other society she would have persisted in showing concern, but nowadays it wasn't uncommon to see people suffering Orduval's complaint, or something worse.
The doors folded open and Orduval stepped down onto the worn sandstone platform. Glancing to his right and left he waited for a moment to see if anyone else would descend from the front or rear carriages. No one did, and shortly the doors closed again, the tram rising on its magnetic field before sliding away. He watched it dwindle, raising a dust storm in its passage, and only when it was reduced to a black speck in mirage shimmer did he remove the gallon water bottle from his carryall, kick the bag away from him, and set off into the old outpost town nearby.
The wind stirred up dervishes in the dusty streets, and moaned between the abandoned buildings. Orduval stopped to peer inside one house and observed a beetle-chewed floor collapsed inside, and glimmer bugs on the walls airing their photo-active wings. Had he expected anything else? Moving on down the street he soon reached the outskirts and saw how orange dunes buried the road a hundred yards beyond. Ahead of him the Komarl desert extended, interrupted only by granite islands, for 2,000 miles towards the sea. He did not expect to reach that coast.