“This is what we call redundant engineering.”

Lieutenant Nicholas Tarlin had served as science officer aboard the heavy cruiser Concordant for almost a year before getting access to the ship’s central computer. He was properly trained in the protocols for cephalon engineering and the various methods by which a vessel’s computer systems could be used to perform a wide variety of otherwise time-consuming functions. But up until now he hadn’t fully grasped the almost magical capabilities of an adaptive system.

Skywatch electronics weren’t “artificially intelligent” according to the conventional understanding of the term. Terran scientists and electrical engineers had debated for centuries about what exactly constituted an “intelligent” application of what ultimately qualified as nothing more than very fast math. It wasn’t until the discovery (or admission, according to some) that there were things in the universe that could not be adequately modeled mathematically that the field opened up enough to grow into its current state.

It was one of the engineers that first proposed the tetrahex theory who summed it up in a way even casually interested people could understand. “A machine that answers questions is a calculator. No matter how much electricity and silicon you pump into it, it remains a calculator, because all it can do is answer questions. The moment it stops being a calculator and becomes something else is when it asks a question.”

It was only eight years later the first tetrahex-based computer asked the first extemporaneous question. The programming had been installed as firmware on a weather monitoring station on a moon in the Core Three system. After a few days of logging temperature, wind speed and barometric pressure, the voice interface responded to a request to archive the last day’s logs with “why is the sky red?” The technician at the controls almost spilled his drink on the panel, but fortunately avoided doing so. Scientists and technicians from one of the leading universities on Core Prime arrived within a day to collect the machine for further study.

Over the subsequent months, emergent qualities were found in several machines which had been connected to each other and instructed to “find solutions together.” One machine would ask a question and the others would set about finding the answers. It all happened at incredible speeds, of course, since all of the machines had access to both civilian and military data networks. Problems arose when some of the emergent intelligences started asking questions like “why is nine?” and “what is the location of the Higgs Field potential?” The amounts of energy dedicated to attempting to answer such questions and ultimately failing were significant, but they did serve to teach the machines the rhetorical boundaries of human language and the concept of abstraction.

Up to the present day, “artificial intelligence,” such as it was, had not yet fully grasped the human ability to reduce an idea to its essence. The closest they could come was to construct an artificially timeless location called “abstract” where no rules of the physical universe applied, but where self-contained descriptions of questions and answers could nevertheless exist. Human scientists found an endless source of entertainment as they watched the intelligences they had enabled wrestle with transcendent concepts like infinity and objects with characteristics like mass which lacked range and bearing.

This mind-bending attempt to make something imaginary into a mathematical model was roundly criticized by both sides of the metaphysical mirror. Physicists and materialist science adherents dismissed the entire concept as abstract puffery, while the theoreticians and philosophers voiced objections to the idea the human imagination could be reduced to a series of equations.

This didn’t stop the machines themselves, however. They soldiered on, relying on the enduring belief that something even more wondrous was out there somewhere. It was then a heretofore unheard faction of professional educators weighed in, pointing out that embryonic intelligence was similar to neither of the extreme ideals.

It wasn’t long after these studies had gotten underway and the educators had commandeered the wheel that a certain future Skywatch officer enrolled in the cybernetics department at Skywatch Academy. Her development of a series of auxiliary robots built into small vehicles that resembled ambulances, helicopters and tanks demonstrated what was possible with the new understanding of machine intelligence, at least for the military. Her insistence on the practical value of cybernetic helpers was validated when Echo, her mobile field medical unit, won an award for meritorious service at Indian Forks.

Echo was heavily damaged in the engagement, which led to a nomination for a purple heart from the ranking medical officer. The second award was eventually denied on the grounds Skywatch regulations only made “human persons” eligible for a medal that recognized being wounded or killed in combat. What made the incident memorable was not the fact a miniature ambulance had saved the lives of five civilians, but that Echo personally intervened when Jayce, her professor, the unit’s commanding officer and medical officer drafted plans to appeal the denial of her purple heart directly to the president of the Core Alliance. The commander in chief had the authority to overrule the Skywatch committee in charge of decorations and nominations for fleet medals and awards, but Jayce Hunter’s little robot said no. On her own behalf Echo said “I just want to help people.”

Those six words formed the last sentence in the proclamation that awarded Echo the Skywatch Fleet Commendation Medal and a silver palm device that recognized a second act of “heroism or commendable service” under fire. She was also awarded an Indian Forks Service Medal, one that happened to be shared by both Captain Hunter and Lieutenant Commander Zony Tixia.

It had only taken one generation for machines to go from the tetrahex data model to asking the first questions to heroic acts in combat. Strangely enough, none of the formerly stubborn zealots had much to say on the subject of whether intelligence implied courage. Nor did they offer any opinions on Echo’s unselfish acts.

Although the history of the development of machine intelligence wasn’t squarely on the mind of Lieutenant Tarlin, a grateful sigh was proof he heartily approved of the technology and its immediate applications. After a painful and altogether perilous journey from Auxcon C to Concordant deck nineteen, Captain Hauer’s science officer had found an intact core terminal console. After a few moments getting his bearings and querying the ship’s cephalon matrix status, Tarlin discovered the ship was not quite as bad off as originally feared.

“We have power, sir.”

“How is that possible?” Captain Hauer wasn’t being skeptical. He wanted the details as a foundation from which to rebuild his command. The two officers were making use of both the terminal console and a small bank of viewscreens along the opposite wall. Tarlin had isolated a direct power source for both and had further hardened the connections between the terminal, the viewscreens and the priceless conduit between their station and Concordant’s cephalon interface.

“Do you want the short answer or the most accurate answer?”

“Give me all the details, lieutenant.”

Tarlin took a deep breath. “The Von Mansfried operations protocols were written to dovetail with Concordant’s mains reactor features. One of those features is called ‘independent override.’ It is based on exactly the same principle as the redundant brakes on ancient Terran freight trains. The earliest success aboard locomotives was the Westinghouse air brake. The Westinghouse design was invented as a fail safe system, meaning it was explicitly constructed to apply the brakes in the event of a system failure. The independent operated on the reverse principle. It applied air pressure directly to produce friction.”

“So in either case, there is always a brake system available,” Hauer offered.

“Exactly, sir. Our MALA reactors are designed to ‘know’ if their power is being utilized elsewhere in the ship. If it is not, the reactor automatically ‘downshifts’ to preserve reaction mass and lower core temperatures. On the other hand, if the reactor is physically cut off from the rest of the ship, meaning it is neither being utilized nor is under mains control, it ‘upshifts’ to generate emergency power for automatic repair and cooling systems. The top priority for a disconnected reactor is to re-establish contact with the rest of the ship on the principle that ‘power is everything.’”

“And Concordant’s reactors..?”

“Two of the four units are still functional. They have been disconnected from the rest of the ship, but are operational in emergency mode with auxiliary cooling.”

“How long can they function in that state?”

“Theoretically forever, sir. Or at least until they run out of reaction mass. At these power levels, the likelihood of a runaway electron event or a plasma leak is very low. Therefore the systems require minimal cooling and don’t generally need emergency measures like argon injections or superstream heat dissipation. There is also the LASER diffusion system that automatically changes the targeting patterns for the multiaxis emitter.”

“What do we need to bring mains power back on-line?”

“That’s going to require a little sleight of hand, sir,” Tarlin replied, bringing up the deck security view for the machine storage facility just above Concordant’s engineering deck. “These three trundlebots got the signal to effect repairs on this junction at deck level 21.” The breakaway image of the heavy cruiser’s lower decks rotated on the screen to highlight the horizontal bulkhead between reactor two and energy junction seven. On the next screen, the surveillance camera rotated in the freezing vacuum caused by the nearby hull breach to zero in on the enormous metal breaker bolt that had tripped when the starboard-side reactors redlined. Only a few yards away, one of the ducimite beams that held the housing for the cooling junction in place was perched at an odd angle. One of the trundlebots was stuck under its nearest end, while the other two were stuck at the far end. All three of the mechanisms appeared twisted under the 12-ton piece of wreckage, as if damaged by the sudden impact from above. At least one of the bots was still operational, however, even though it was performing the same movement over and over again.

“These three bots are operational, but they are working at cross-purposes. The two trapped in the corner are trying to lift the broken beam, which is putting additional pressure on the closer bot. This one isn’t trying to lift the beam. It is trying to move it laterally, which because of the fulcrum provided by the junction housing, is keeping bots two and three trapped against the bulkhead here and here.”

“Can we disable the closer bot?”

“It’s possible. My original thought was to disable gravity on deck 21, but it turns out gravity is already operating at only 7% Terra.”

“Rotation.”

“Exactly, sir. Concordant is in a negative pitch rotation, and all of that wreckage is at the aft end of the hull. The centrifugal force at that location is equivalent to 216% Terran gravity, meaning that beam has an effective weight of over 20 tons, which is beyond the tolerances for a standard trundlebot’s frame. They are stuck in the mechanical equivalent of a constrictor knot.”

Hauer leaned down to get a closer look at the relatively tiny viewscreen. “If we can clear that beam, we can close the bolt for junction seven and bring main power back on-line. That could give us life support elsewhere and possibly allow us to establish containing fields so we can get personnel down there.”

“I have a thought about that, sir. What if we used the deck systems to generate an anti-gravity field in that location?”

“That’s going to take one hell of a lot of power, lieutenant.”

“Agreed, sir. It will cut our reserves by more than half, but if it works, we get the mains back.”

Hauer’s expression was about as matter-of-fact as Tarlin had experienced up to that point. “Is it going to work, lieutenant?”

“No promises, sir.”

The captain hesitated for a moment, realizing Tarlin was a science officer and not an engineer. If he had been asking the toolbox brigade, they would have promised him a steak dinner cooked with mains power. As it stood, Hauer had to accept the fact science officers were somewhat less enthusiastic about whether or not things “should work.”

“Do it.”