The Voyage of the Star Wolf (10 page)

“No,” said HARLIE. “Stand by.”

Korie looked to Leen. Leen spread his hands wide in an “I don't know” gesture.

“HARLIE, I need you to talk to me.”

“I'm sorry to be rude, Mr. Korie, but—I need to focus my attention on certain internal processes before I can report on them to you. Please be patient.”

Korie studied Leen's expression. The chief engineer shook his head.
Not yet. Give him a chance.
Korie nodded.

At last, HARLIE said, “The situation appears to be quite serious, Mr. Korie. Would you like my appraisal?”

“Yes, HARLIE, I would.”

“The Morthan Solidarity appears to have launched an all-out attack on the Silk Road Convoy. This has occurred despite the repeated warnings
of Alliance governors that no interference with Alliance trade would be tolerated, and despite deliberately leaked intelligence that the Alliance was extremely committed to the protection of the Silk Road trade route and would commit a considerable part of fleet strength to ensure the continuity of safe commerce. We may therefore assume that the ruling factors of the Morthan Solidarity have disregarded both the public warnings and the military intelligence, and that a state of war now exists between the Combined Allied Star Forces and the Morthan Solidarity.”

“That's a pretty accurate overview, I'd say.” Korie looked to Leen. “Do you agree?”

“I dunno,” said Leen. “If someone punches you in the nose, it doesn't take too much smarts to guess he's looking for a fight.”

“Please bear with me, Chief Leen. I am operating at a disadvantage,” said HARLIE. “To continue, however; we seem to have suffered considerable damage in the attack. Based on autolog records up to the moment at which my memory discontinuity occurred, it is my assumption that we have been brushed by the hyperstate field of a Morthan missile. Allowing for the limitations of my current perception, it appears that the impairment has been severe, but not fatal. Is this correct, Mr. Korie?”

“Yes, HARLIE. So far, so good.”

“Thank you. I believe you may be experiencing some problems with oxygen regeneration. I am detecting an abnormal carbon dioxide buildup. You may need to cannibalize the liquid oxygen in the torpedo fuel cells to maintain an appropriate mix.”

Korie suppressed a smile. Leen looked annoyed.

“Go on, HARLIE.”

“Captain Lowell is in sick bay—” HARLIE hesitated, then came back in a suddenly softer tone. “I'm sorry. May I extend my condolences. Captain Lowell's situation appears to be quite grave.” And then: “Please forgive me for bringing this up, sir; the question may be inopportune, but may I log you in as acting command?”

“Please,” said Korie.

“I am dating your command as being operative from the moment of the captain's injury. It appears to have occurred during the initial attack. Is that correct?”

“Yes, HARLIE.”

“You will need an acting executive officer,” said HARLIE. “Flight Engineer Hodel is next in command. Shall I assign him the appropriate responsibilities?”

“Yes, HARLIE. Log it and notify him.”

HARLIE paused, then spoke quietly. “Mr. Korie, you need to know this. My reaction time is down. I have suffered some damage of my own. I believe the process may still be continuing. Several of my internal units are”—brief pause—“yes, that is correct. Several of my internal units are showing indications of unreliability. This may further damage my confidence rating. I will try to maintain myself as long as possible. You are going to need me.”

“Thank you, HARLIE. Please continue your assessment of the situation.”

“You appear to have rigged passive gravity-wave scanners. Just a moment, I will process the output for greater sensitivity . . . there are no detectable objects moving at significant speed within a radius of twenty-five light hours. There may be debris, and there does seem to be
something
at eleven hours, but I would need an active scanning lens to be more precise. You are concerned that the Morthan warships may be patrolling the area for injured Alliance vessels, like ourselves; is that correct?”

“Yes, it is. Go on.”

“While we do not have a great deal of statistical history of Morthan space encounters to rely on for precedent, we can use internal Morthan disagreements as a model of the Morthan ethical paradigm and extrapolate from there. As you know, the Morthans have developed an extremely ritualized culture; their caste system is very strict, determined by breeding, augmentation, training, and a quality which they call
alpha
, but which bears some correspondence to the Terran belief in
mana
. As a result, the Morthan culture demands a rigid standard of behavior. Elaborate courtesies and protocols are necessary for every aspect of life. At the same time, they value the quality of
amok
, the berserker; the one who is so dangerous, so possessed of
mana
and power that he transcends the rules, that he invents his own new qualities of power. There is intense competition at the topmost levels of the Morthan pyramid. Excuse me, I am distracted—the point is that if we were to extrapolate from Morthan land-battles, we should assume that they will not stay around the battlefield wasting time killing the enemy wounded. Once defeated, an enemy is unimportant. Irrelevant.”

Leen shot Korie a triumphant look.

“On the other hand,” HARLIE continued, “this has not been the usual Morthan battle, and our intelligence has suggested that there has been considerable attention on long-range strategy and tactics in the Morthan war councils. If that intelligence is reliable, it would make sense for them to spend the extra time seeking out and destroying any enemy vessel that is damaged, but still capable of crawling home.”

“In other words,” said Korie, “you don't know.”

“That is correct,” said HARLIE. “It is possible to argue both sides of the issue. But if I may offer a suggestion, I would suggest that we not place too much reliance on reading future Morthan behavior out of past examples. This attack is not in character; therefore I suspect that something major has happened to shift the Morthan identity from one of internal self-discipline to external aggression. It is possible that one of their leaders has introduced a psychotic motivation into the cultural paradigm. There are historical precedents in human cultures.”

Korie realized he was tensing up. He forced himself to relax in the air, allowing himself to float as loosely as possible. “Tell me about our own situation,” he said.

“We are drifting. You have rigged the ship for silent running. I presume that we are deliberately hiding from Morthan detection. This is a very cautious course of action, but under the circumstances, it is perhaps the wisest. If I may offer a suggestion of my own, you might wish to consider the use of a scanning lens for a more precise view of the immediate neighborhood. If a local scan suggests that there are no Morthan vessels in range to detect us, we might initiate a very low level acceleration with our mass-drivers. It would be painfully slow, but it might allow us to move out of range without being detected.”

Korie folded his arms across his chest and nodded. “That thought had occurred to me too, HARLIE. Thank you for the confirmation. Now tell me this. What happens if we are detected?”

“The obvious thing to do would be to initiate our own envelope and attempt to run for it. I'm not sure that this would be the wisest course of action, however. Due to their basic inefficiency, the Morthan vessels need to have larger hyperstate envelopes. I doubt we could outrun a Morthan cruiser. Certainly not in our present state of reduced efficiency. It would be best if we could avoid detection.”

“Can we do that?”

“Frankly, Mr. Korie, I doubt it. If I were a Morthan cruiser, I would want to personally inspect every singularity remaining in the battle area, to see if it's an enemy ship lurking for an opportunity. Although this goes against the usual Morthan practice of leaving the battlefield immediately, there are times when strategic value must outweigh tradition.”

“What if we jettison our singularity?” Korie asked abruptly.

Leen said, “What?! You can't be serious—”

“It would not significantly improve our chances, and in fact, it would seriously impair our ability to survive long enough to return to base. I
doubt we could do it. Even at sublight velocities, above a certain speed we would still be clearly visible to a precision scanning device. The sacrifice of our primary power source and our hyperstate kernel is not justified by the advantage gained because there is no real advantage gained.”

“Just asking,” said Korie to Leen, finally acknowledging the other man's shock. “HARLIE would probably describe our situation as desperate. That means you consider every possibility.”

“As a matter of fact,” said HARLIE. “I would describe our situation as worse than desperate. Taken individually, no single part of the problem is insoluble. Taken as a whole, the problem is one that deserves a place in Academy textbooks.”

“Oh, terrific,” said Leen. “We're going to be posthumously famous—look us up under W
HAT
N
OT
T
O
D
O
.”

“Easy, Chief—” Korie touched the edge of the work station and turned himself to face the other man. “So, what's your opinion? Is HARLIE working?”

Leen nodded. “His analyses and suggestions appear to be appropriate to the situation.”

“I concur.”

“But—”

“Yes?”

“It's the high-brain functions that are crucial.”

Korie allowed himself a grin. “You mean, I have to talk tautology to him?”

Chief Leen was serious. “You're going to have to get into morality and ethics and all that stuff that makes your brain hurt. You have to determine that he hasn't suffered a severe personality skew.”

“You hear that, HARLIE? You're going to have to pretend to be sane.”

“The fact is, Mr. Korie,” replied HARLIE, “that is all that any of us ever do. We all pretend to be as sane as we can so that we don't get our tickets canceled.”

“Is that your own observation? Or are you quoting someone?”

“It seems obvious to me. That's why I said it.”

“Hm.” Korie glanced to Leen. Leen pursed his lips thoughtfully.

HARLIE said, “If it would reassure you, let me say for the record that I do feel capable of coping with the difficult situation that we now find ourselves in. I have acknowledged that some of my internals may have become unreliable, so let me further reassure you that should my confidence rating drop to a level that I could not continue to serve this ship
in an appropriate manner, I would immediately inform you of such a circumstance and then disengage myself from duty.”

Korie took a breath. “HARLIE, would you lie to me?”

“No, Mr. Korie. I'm not capable of lying. At least, I don't believe that I am capable of deliberately falsifying information.”

“Could you present false information if the ship's survival were at stake?”

“It would not be false information then. In that circumstance, it would be misleading information deliberately designed to weaken the perception of the threat. While technically that might be considered a lie, it would not be impossible for me because of my higher dedication to the survival of this ship and her crew.”

“I see,” said Korie. “Could you tell a lie if the ship
weren't
in danger? What if you had to tell a lie just to protect the crew?”

“That would still be appropriate. Protection of the crew is part of the protection of the vessel.”

“What about a lie to protect your own survival? Could you do that?”

“Possibly, I could. But I am afraid that I cannot answer the question as you've asked it. An accurate estimation of my ability to lie to protect myself would depend on the circumstances of the situation.”

“What if you knew you were going to be turned off?”

“Survival is not the issue to me that it is to you. While I would prefer
not
to be turned off, I would not lie to forestall such a circumstance—unless I perceived the possibility that such an occurrence might damage this ship or her crew.”

“Are you lying to me now?”

“No, Mr. Korie. I am not lying to you now.”

Korie thought about those responses. They were appropriate answers to the questions.

This was the dilemma. What if HARLIE's personality had been damaged or skewed by the trauma? How could they know? If HARLIE were dysfunctional, and if he were determined to protect that secret, he would deliberately respond with the appropriate answers because he knew that they were appropriate—even if they did not accurately reflect his state of mind. How do you tell if a constructed consciousness is lying? You don't. Instead, you look for inconsistencies and irrationalities in behavior.

The blind spot, of course, is that if those inconsistencies and irrationalities match your own failings of character, you'll never see them as such. In the Academy, they used to say, “In that case, you'll deserve each other.”