Sir George grunted as if he'd just been punched in the belly. For a long, seemingly endless moment, his mind simply refused to grapple with the idea. But however long it seemed, it was only a moment, for Sir George never knowingly lied to himself. Besides, the concept differed only in scale from what he'd already deduced the demon-jester would do if his violation of the Council's decrees became public knowledge.
"What... what can we do about it?" he asked.
"About your home world, nothing," the dragon-man replied in a tone of gentle but firm compassion. "We can only hope the Federation is as lethargic as usual and gives your people time to develop their own defenses. Yet there is something you may do to protect your species, as opposed to your world."
"What?" Sir George shook himself. "What do you mean? You just said—"
"We said we couldn't protect your home world. But if your kind and ours, working together, could seize this ship, it is more than ample to transport all of us to a habitable world so far from the normal trade routes that it wouldn't be found for centuries, or even longer. We here aboard this ship are unable to reproduce our kind, but, as you, we have received the longevity treatments. You have not only received those treatments but are capable of reproducing, and the medical capabilities of the ship would provide the support needed to avoid the consequences of genetic drift or associated problems. Moreover, the ship itself is designed to last for centuries of hard service, and its computers contain a vast percentage of the Federation's total information and technological base."
"But would Computer share that information with us?" Sir George asked.
"The computers would have no choice but to provide any information you requested from them if you controlled the ship," the dragon-man said in a slightly puzzled tone.
"Computers?" Sir George stressed the plural and raised an eyebrow in surprise, and the dragon-man gazed at him speculatively for several seconds. Then the baron felt that stretched sensation in his mind once again, and gasped as yet another tide of information and concepts flooded through him.
"We cannot implant a great deal more of information directly into your mind in a single evening without risking damage to it," the dragon-man told him. "But given the importance of the ship's information systems to what we propose, it seemed necessary to provide you with a better concept of how those systems work."
" `Better concept,' indeed!" Sir George snorted while his thoughts darted hither and yon among the sharp-faceted heaps of knowledge the dragon-man had bestowed upon him. "I see that `Computer' isn't precisely what I'd thought," he said slowly after a moment, "but I think perhaps `he' may be a bit closer to what I'd thought than you realize."
"In what way?" the dragon-man asked, gazing speculatively once more at the baron. Then he nodded. "Ah. We see. And you're certainly correct in at least some respects, Sir George. What you call `Computer' is actually an artificial gestalt which is shared between several different data storage and processing systems throughout the ship. It would be fair enough, I suppose, to call it an artificial intelligence, but it is scarcely what might be thought of as a person."
"And why should he not be thought of as a person?" Sir George demanded, stressing the pronoun deliberately.
"Because the computer systems are no more than artifacts." The dragon-man seemed puzzled by the human's attitude. "They are artificial constructs. Tools."
"Artificial, indeed," Sir George agreed. "But don't the `Commander' and his guild regard your people and mine as no more than `tools'? Haven't you just finished explaining to me the fashion in which they treat all of their `natural inferiors' as property to be used and disposed of for their benefit?"
"Well, yes... ."
"Then perhaps it would be wise of us to extend our concept of just what makes a person a person a bit further," Sir George suggested.
"The Federation has imposed strict laws, backed by very heavy penalties, against the unrestrained development of AI," the dragon-man said slowly. He thought for a few more moments, and then Sir George received the strong impression of an equally slow smile. "My people hadn't really considered the full implications of those laws until this very moment," he went on, "but now that we have, perhaps you have a point. The Federation has banned such developments because the creation of a true artificial intelligence, one which was permitted or even encouraged to regard itself as an individual who might actually enjoy such things as rights or freedom, might well prove a very destabilizing influence."
"Such was my own thought," Sir George agreed. "But there are two other points which I believe should be considered, My Lord Dragon. First is that to retain Computer as a servant with no will and no freedom of his own is to run precisely the same risks which the `Commander' and his guild ran with your own people. Just as your queens `programmed' you exactly as they were required to rather than as they knew your purchasers actually intended, so might we one day discover that Computer has plans of his own and loopholes which might permit him to attain them. If he does, and if we've acted to thwart them and treated him as our chattel, then he would be as justified in regarding us as enemies as we are justified in regarding the Federation as an enemy. But second, and perhaps even more important to me after my own people's experience with the kindness and compassion of this Federation you speak of, is my belief that Computer is already far more a `person' than you realize. I've worked with him many times over the years, and while I realize that I understand far less about the Federation's technology than you do—what you've already taught me this evening would be proof enough of that!—that may actually permit me to see a bit more clearly than you do. You begin from what you already know of the capabilities and limitations of the technology about you. I begin with no such knowledge, and so I may see possibilities and realities your very familiarity blinds you to.
"I believe that Computer is already an individual, even if, perhaps, he himself hasn't yet recognized that, as much in bondage to the `Commander' and his guild as you or I. If we would free ourselves of our bondage, do we not have an obligation to free him from his? And if my belief is correct, would he not prove as invaluable as an ally as he might prove dangerous as an enemy?"
"We cannot answer your questions," the dragon-man replied after a moment. "So far as we know, no one in the Federation has ever so much as considered them. Or, if they have, no one has dared to ask them aloud. Not one of the `advanced races' would ever contemplate the risk to their own positions and their own beloved stability inherent in injecting such an element of change into their social matrix."