Canticle Blue

68. Midnight Walk

Music - Midnight by Anuna

Late that night, after Amdahl's talk, he found Annibet walking the promenade on the Bryn Institute level of the Picarin. It was a time of day when she was usually free of the discomforts of her pregnancy, and she enjoyed the view and the quiet. Not only did the sweeping curves and drifting clouds of Nantis enhance the walkway there, but earlier the shadow of Havel itself had passed through the atrium as it transited the sun, its coronal boundaries detailing every edge they found. It had reminded her of a young Elyse Gan painting trellises.

There was much to think about, and she was thankful for the free time and solitude. But she wasn't resentful of Mr. Erenn and was surprised at how nice it felt to have someone to walk with. She smiled and spoke quietly, "I'm guessing that Elyse told you where to find me."

"So it wouldn't be tattling on her if I said 'yes' then," he laughed. "I've been told by the Middi that my grasp of your language is adequate, so I thought it was worth the risk to come. Elyse warned me not to take your witticisms personally. She said you were actually a wonderful person."

"She says that to me too. I told her that, even if I could manage my manners, I would still have my mannerisms. I'm afraid you'll have to deal with my serious side tonight. But, I'm glad to get a chance to talk to you, and that you got to sample the ambiance up here. I will really miss Nantis if we did decide to leave. Terreska is still much more than my second home, but I love it here. My husband helped build this ship."

"I would be more than tactless if I said I understood what you're going through. I've lived in Shoriel all my life and have never been faced with possible separation from my people. I've never even lived in a solar system. Still, maybe it won't come to that."

She replied, "I love my husband dearly, and I know we'll be together no matter what. But, I don't think I could bear to be away from my friends again, Mr. Erenn."

"Amdahl, if you please," he offered. But he couldn't think of how to continue after that.

"You were going to tell us about Panjeum..."

"Yes, but I hope you won't be disappointed by how little I know. My brother was a brilliant man, but he was often unable to explain his work to us, especially later in life. He was always fascinated with particle physics, even at an early age. When he began to see, in the experiments of others, that matter could sometimes behave as if it had awareness and even volition, he determined to take up research himself when he could. His first experiments dealt with quantum entanglement, and he soon made progress with both the numbers of entangled particles and the distances between them. After that, he found a way to create mutually coherent groups. As he progressed, communication between the groups became ever more complex, especially when he found ways to involve exotic matter configurations with them. Eventually the groups were able to send information and instructions to one another, often using quantum teleportation. They even achieved mobility and autonomy.

"I never knew if my brother considered Panjeum to be complete because he simply worked on it until there was nothing left of him.

"I was quite surprised to hear of Panjeum leaving clues for you on Per'sa Island. Liet would have been very impressed with that, and also with its decision to risk damage to itself for your protection."

"Can you still communicate with it?" Annibet asked.

"Yes, at least with the part of it in Shoriel at the moment. The other part is somewhere in this solar system. We don't always know where.

"I wanted to ask you—actually every Per'sa scientist wants to ask you—about the Middi. We are just astonished by them. Even our best A.I. researchers were not sure that level of sentience was possible. How did you achieve it, if you don't mind me asking?"

"I certainly don't mind your asking, but my answers are liable to be wordy."

"I happen to like 'wordy,'" he chuckled.

"Well, "achieve" might be too strong a word, in the same sense that someone
preparing a recipe can't claim to have invented the ingredients. But we had some very imaginative people on the original project. The A.I. team was part of the Materials Science group then. We started with Ip in a virtual environment, but with innate knowledge cores in permanent memory. Even then, we began to notice hints of self-awareness, and then we were faced with some very hard choices. If we decided to change the core information for some reason, we risked losing what she had gained.

But, if we were going to leave the information as it was, then the "truth" in them needed to be true. For instance, her cores told her that she was a valuable part of a community, so she would never be able to think outside the parameters of that information. But what if we failed to be that kind of community? As it happened, that didn't turn out to be a problem. At first, we made efforts to behave as we would be perceived. But then it became natural, and we didn't have to act anymore. From that point on, it would just be a matter of adding hardware—it sounds crude to hear myself say that now—and helping her make the transition to the real world. She was free to grow personally by pursuing the things that interested her.

"There are so many questions we've asked ourselves about the Middi, and we've been surprised by the answers. Are they sentient? If we decide that only a Middi understands what it's like to be a Middi, we quickly realize that kind of understanding applies to all of us. At the same time, our people never discounted the miraculous complexity of our own sentience. Are the Middi truly sociable? Their responses certainly aren't artificial. They come from what they are. Do they experience emotion? On their terms, they very well might. When they rescued Terreska, with no human help, they were motivated by something that outweighed their directives for self-preservation. Is their intelligence artificial? They created Terreska Circle, the Canticle Moon, and Bead Trees on their own initiative, with seemingly no other motivation than to enrich the lives of all of us. That intelligence is real enough for me."

Amdahl asked, "Are you concerned about how my people will regard the Middi if you come to live with us?"

"In a word, yes. So, if your group could spend time with them while you're here, and give us your impressions, I would very much appreciate it."

"We will. I promise."