2.
Just in case. The phrase kept ringing in Kira’s ears. What could they do if things went wrong, as they so often did? A single blast from one of the Jelly ships would be more than enough to disable or destroy the Wallfish.… It didn’t bear thinking about, and yet she couldn’t help herself. Preparation was a person’s best ward against the inevitable mishaps of space travel, but opportunities for preparation were limited when the actors deciding outcomes were spaceships and not individuals.
She helped Hwa-jung with a few service tasks around the ship. Then they adjourned to the galley. Everyone but Vishal was already there, crammed in around the near table.
Kira fetched some rations and then went to sit next to Nielsen. The first officer nodded and said, “I think … I’m going to record a message for my family and give it to Tschetter and also the Seventh. Just in case.”
Just in case. “Sounds like a good idea. Maybe I’ll do the same.”
Like the others, Kira ate, and like the others, she talked, mainly speculations about how best to destroy the Battered Hierophant with one of their Casaba-Howitzers—it seemed unlikely they would be able to fire more than one shot without being noticed—as well as how best to survive the chaos that was sure to follow.
The consensus that emerged was that they were at a serious disadvantage without Gregorovich to oversee operations throughout the Wallfish. As with most ship minds, it had been Gregorovich’s responsibility to operate the lasers, the Casaba-Howitzers, the countermeasures against both blasters and missiles, and the cyberwarfare suite, as well as oversee the piloting of the Wallfish in combat, which was as much about strategy as it was calculating the uncompromising math of their delta-v.
The pseudo-intelligence, Morven, was capable enough, but like all such programs, it was limited in ways that a human—or human-derived—intelligence wasn’t. “They lack imagination,” said Sparrow, “and that’s the truth of it. Won’t say we’re sitting ducks, but it’s not ideal.”
“How big of a drop in operational efficiency do you think we’re looking at?” Falconi asked.
Sparrow’s bare shoulders rose and fell. “You tell me. Just think back to before you had Gregorovich on board. UMC figures put the difference at somewhere between fourteen to twenty-eight percent. And—”
“That much?” said Nielsen.
Hwa-jung was the one to answer: “Gregorovich helps oversee the balance between all the systems in the ship, as well as coordinating with each of us.”
A quick downward jerk of Sparrow’s chin. “Yeah, and what I was going to say is that when it comes to strategy, logistics—basically any kind of creative problem-solving—ship minds blow everyone and everything out of the water. It’s not the sort of skill you can really quantify, but the UMC estimates that ship minds are at least an order of magnitude better at that stuff than any regular human, much less a pseudo-intelligence.”
Jorrus said, “But only so long as they—” He hesitated, waiting for Veera to finish the sentence. When she shook her head, seemingly not knowing what to say, he continued on, disconcerted: “Uh, only as long as they are functional.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” said Falconi. “For all of us.”
Kira picked at her food while she thought about the situation. If only … No. The idea was still too crazy. Then she pictured the Jelly fleet around Cordova. Maybe there was no such thing as too crazy, under the circumstances.
Conversation throughout the galley stopped as Vishal appeared in the doorway. He looked drained, exhausted.
“Well?” Falconi asked.
Vishal shook his head and held up a finger. Not saying a word, he marched to the back of the galley, got himself a pouch of instant coffee, drained it, and then, and only then, returned to stand in front of the captain.
“That bad, huh?” said Falconi.
Nielsen leaned forward. “How is Gregorovich?”
Vishal sighed and rubbed his hands together. “His implants are too damaged for me to fix. I cannot remove or replace the broken leads. And I cannot identify the ones that end in a dead neuron. I tried rerouting signals to different parts of his brain, where the wires still work, but there aren’t enough of them, or Gregorovich could not pick out the signal from the disorganized sensory information he’s receiving.”
“You still have him sedated?” Falconi asked.
“Yes.”
“Is he going to be okay, though?” Nielsen asked.
Sparrow shifted in her seat. “Yeah, is he going to end up impaired or something like that?”
“No,” Vishal said slowly, cautiously. “But, we will have to take him to a proper facility. The connections are continuing to degrade. In another day, Gregorovich may become completely cut off from his internal computer. He would be totally isolated.”
“Shit,” said Sparrow.
Falconi turned toward the Entropists. “Don’t suppose there’s anything you could do to help?”
They shook their heads. “Alas, no,” said Veera. “Implants are delicate things and—”
“—we would be reluctant to work on an ordinary-sized neural net, much less—”
“—that of a ship mind.” The Entropists appeared smug at the smoothness of their exchange.
Falconi made a face. “I was afraid of that. Doc, you can still put him in cryo, right?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You’d better go ahead and put him under, then. He’ll be safer that way.”
Kira tapped her fork on her plate. Everyone looked at her. “So,” she said, feeling out her words, “just to be clear: the only thing that’s wrong with Gregorovich are the wires going into his brain, is that right?”
“Oh, there’s a whole lot more wrong with him than just that,” Sparrow quipped.
Vishal assumed a long-suffering expression as he said, “You are correct, Ms. Kira.”
“He doesn’t have large amounts of tissue trauma or anything like that?”
Vishal started to move toward the door, obviously eager to get back to Gregorovich. He paused at the threshold. “No. The only damage was the neurons he lost at the ends of some wires, but it is a negligible loss for a ship mind of his size.”
“I see,” said Kira. She tapped her fork again.
A wary look came over Falconi’s face. “Kira,” he said in a warning tone. “What are you thinking?”
She took a moment to answer. “I’m thinking … I might be able to use the Soft Blade to help Gregorovich.”
A babble of exclamations filled the galley. “Let me explain!” said Kira, and they quieted down. “I could do the same thing I did with Akawe, back at Cygni. Connect the Soft Blade to Gregorovich’s nerves, only this time, I’d be hooking them back up to the wires in his neural net.”
Sparrow let out a long, high whistle. “Thule. You really think you could pull this off?”
“Yes, I do. But I also can’t make any guarantees.” Kira shifted her gaze back to Falconi. “You saw how I was able to heal your bonsai. And you saw what I did in my cabin. The Soft Blade isn’t just a weapon. It’s capable of so much more.”
Falconi scratched the side of his chin. “Greg is a person, not a plant. There’s a big difference there.”
Then Nielsen said, “Just because the Soft Blade is capable, are you, Kira?”