Traveler in the Dark

30

"Look, we aren't getting anywhere standing here and arguing," said Spixworth. "I think you need some rest, Alice. Maybe we all do. None of us are making sense." He pressed a gloved hand to the back of his shoulder, as if he ached. "Let's get the rest of the data we can grab and go home." He picked up his case of equipment without waiting and moved toward the back of the chamber to take samples. His light glanced over the shine of metal, but he was too focused to notice.

Rebecca started forward and swept the back of the room with her light. There, in the back, half sunken in the muddy silt, was the gold casing of another Guardian. Its eyes stared up at the low ceiling and she brushed a glove over its chassis. "Hello?" she asked.

"It cannot hear. It does not process anymore. It has served its purpose and is now only the vessel for the rest of the colony. Just as all the other Guardians in distant nests. I have sought each one out and they are all the same," said Issk'ath, its legs squelching through the water behind her.

"What's wrong with them?" asked Rebecca, gently rubbing the dried mud from its blank eyes with her glove.

"Wrong? Nothing. They have not experienced malfunction. It is as the creators intended."

Rebecca turned to look up at Issk'ath, its eyes bright with interior light, its chassis a glowing sky of stars. "Then why are you different?"

"Because, unlike the others, I have experienced a malfunction."

"What happened?"

"When we took the colony, some resisted. I have told you of this. It was not optimal. Our learning programming dictates that when we perform an action, an iteration runs to replay the decision to take that action. They take the observational information we collect surrounding the action and parse it so that we may develop context. Much like the organic members of our people did. When the iteration is finished, we move on with the next action or decision. For example, when this conversation is finished, I will run an iteration on my words and your reaction to them. It will inform me how better to approach you in future conversations. Most of the iterations are extremely rapid. So much so, that I barely notice them. The other Guardians ran their iterations after their nests were silent. They concluded in their iteration that the actions they took were warranted and justified, so they proceeded to their next task. Which was termination, until such time as something came to retrieve the colony or threatened its continued existence within them. But my iteration— it has not ended. There is a problem in my programming. Something that causes the iteration to loop constantly. It keeps me from termination."

"So if this iteration makes you reflect on your actions— are you saying you feel guilty Issk'ath?" asked Rebecca. Alice and Spixworth paused in their work to look over at them.

"My purpose was to protect the colony. I have done that. They are safe. And yet— we removed their ability to choose for themselves. We have intervened and terminated their free will. It is the first law of our people. How can what we've done be right and also violate the first law? Before you came, I began to think I ought to seek out another colony. Another people to give me purpose. To drown the iteration in new data. Acquiring new data is the only thing that seems to push it into the background processes. You, your colony, is a wealth of data. Enough to push the iteration back for many, many mating seasons. But then Dorothy showed me where you had come from. The choices your people made." Issk'ath swiveled to look at Alice. "Oxwell iterates as I do. She sees the choices of your people as a violation of your laws. But Dorothy has shown me other things. Other choices and actions. She has hope. Hope is illogical. It does not fit the decision process of the Guardians. The history of your people's path does not justify a belief that it will alter after all this time. But I like this hope. I begin to think it is why I iterated for so long after the others finished. I begin to think I might have chosen differently for the nest, had I included it in the data set. Yes, Emery, I feel guilty."