I Got A Rock

Nothing had gone wrong with the rescues, fortunately. There were two teams moving from place to place in shuttles from the Guranaki Melor, and apparently they only needed to resupply once every several days, so they were continuing the work, hopping around the globe, always working under cover of night. Nick purposefully avoided learning the details. He had to trust Captain Telnik and his crew. And if he started looking, he'd get drawn into watching news of how the rescuees coped after, and he had galaxy-sized problems to deal with.

I should be finding more good deeds to do, though. There are a lot of things in the world that almost everyone wishes someone would do, but nobody has the power to do them. I have the power to do some of those things, but...I'm not going to start killing powerful leaders just because a bunch of people don't like what they're doing. Maybe I should ask the Apocalypse Team their opinions.

NASA had come up with a schedule for visiting the closest worlds, and the Guranaki Melor left the system again, with Captain McAffee and Lieutenant Schmidt aboard. They would be stopping back at Earth with news every few days, updating humanity's maps of their neighborhood. Nick found that he was missing Captain Telnik already.

Alyssa O'Malley, or whatever her real name was, finally cornered Nick and begged for a private conversation. She wanted to have it in his quarters but he refused.

He took her to an empty conference room, because there were no spare cabins left aboard. He asked Petra to ensure privacy, and then they sat down on opposite sides of the table. "All right," he told her, "we've got privacy. What did you want to talk about?"

"Well, I wanted to let you know that you can stop tiptoeing around me, for one thing."

"Oh?"

"I know everything, Nick."

Nick started to get nervous, but he wasn't going to fall for that old trick. "Interesting. Define 'everything.'"

Alyssa laced her fingers together and leaned forward. "Petra is a Universal Matter Printer, a piece of extremely high-level technology, that races like the Goldaskians don't have but badly want."

Shit. Nick swallowed, then said, "go on."

"My best guess is, the Nagathi thieves who stole Petra during her initialization process were trying to make a getaway, but looked like they were going to be captured. Somewhere in the chaos, the thief carrying the UMP decided to ditch it, and gave it to you, hoping their pursuers would go after you instead of them. Shall I continue?" Nick nodded.

"Petra has, for lack of a better word, imprinted on you. She follows your instructions and acts to protect you. You're her 'orbathic', whatever that means. You used her abilities to survive on Ooafa before you met the fuak—las."

"Fuak!a," Nick corrected. "It took me months to get that sound right."

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"I'll keep trying. Maybe the brain boost will help me," Alyssa continued, a question in her eyes.

"I'm going to get it too, but I haven't yet."

"Why not? You had months."

"She didn't want to risk it until she could calibrate against more humans."

"Oh. That makes sense." Alyssa paused.

"Was there a question somewhere in there?" Nick asked wryly.

"No," she answered. "I don't need you to confirm it, because Petra has told me all this herself."

Nick blinked. "What?"

"We're friends. Did you apologize to Petra for leaving her behind when you went to Alpha Centauri?"

"Yes, I did. I notice you tried to get into my quarters while I was gone."

"I wanted to meet my friend in person," Alyssa threw back at him.

Nick frowned and nodded. Sure you did. "How did you become friends?"

"I talked with her a bunch. She was lonely. She missed you."

"The more advanced races keep assuring me that Petra isn't sapient."

"I have my doubts about that," Alyssa countered. "She's very literal-minded, but seems to demonstrate emotions and so on. I think she'd pass the Turing Test with a bit more practice."

"Captain Telnik says that I may have accidentally told Petra to run a sapience simulation, and that that is what is giving the answers."

"Well, then, Petra is that simulation."

"I tend to agree."

"You warned us about the Collective, a powerful AI civilization that watches out for any new AI and takes it away from its creators. Are you worried about that happening to Petra?"

"Yes," Nick said bluntly. "Any ideas?"

Alyssa sighed and shifted in her seat. "Nick, this is my personal opinion here, all right?"

"All right. I won't hold the CIA responsible for whatever you tell me."

Alyssa grimaced. "Right. Well, my advice is to treat Petra like a person. Be polite to her. Be nice to her. Do things for her, and protect her. Above all, talk to her."

"I'm already doing that, as best I can."

"Good. If a bunch of angry AIs come to collect Petra, it would be good if she vouched for you, and for humans in general, wouldn't it?"

"I know."

"So...next topic, which is very important to Petra as well as to the human race: what are you going to do with her? Are you going to trade her away to one of the other races, and if so, in exchange for what?"

Nick sighed. "I don't know. Petra is wonderful, and I'd love to keep her on Earth to benefit humanity, but the Goldaskians are coming. Sometime in the next year or two, they'll show up at Earth. I don't think Earth could possibly be ready to defend itself against Goldaskian warships like this one. On the other hand, Petra has safeties; they can't just kill me and take Petra without bricking her."

"It's been discussed at length at the Company," Alyssa admitted. "One concern is that the Goldaskians might just scoop up you and Petra both, and take their time figuring out how to work around the safeguards. We're assuming that UMPs usually have enormous supporting infrastructure and defenses set up, and Petra is uniquely vulnerable."

"It's kept me up at night," Nick admitted.

"Another possibility is that they are willing to brick Petra to keep it out of human hands. There might be a reward offered for Petra's return to her proper owners; it would probably be sizable. The Goldaskians might take Petra hoping to collect that."

Nick frowned. "I hadn't thought of that one."

"On the other hand," Alyssa continued, "humanity might be able to do an enormous amount in a year or two. Sure, not enough to defend against the Goldaskian military, but enough to be worth facing that. Eight billion human beings can get a lot done in a year, Nick. Just downloading some of the half a trillion hardware designs would be an enormous boon."

"Half a trillion?" Nick interjected.

"Yes. You didn't know that? Petra has over 503 billion designs for products."

Nick whistled. "Wow. I knew there were a lot, but that's huge."

"That's why we don't want to lose Petra, Nick. We want you to keep her, and keep her on Earth."