Chameleon Ch 29

From 28:

“See you both at the lodging tonight, then.” Honey jigged in place, bouncing a bit further away with each landing. Tom began to walk off, then he looked over his shoulder. Rianya’s face had saddened; when she noticed his glance her smile returned, larger than ever, but her eyes disagreed. He dug his nails into his palms, nodded back with his own counterfeit smile, and quickly caught up with Honey already a few meters up the road.

29

Cerebrus stared at Mr. Rougeau with unblinking eyes. He had no idea what Mr. Rougeau meant by the phrase ‘baby pool’. 

“Can you elaborate on that subject? Is that similar to a ‘gene pool’ or a ‘swimming pool’ or a—”

“For Cap’n and Rianya. Everyone guesses when the baby will be born, the date and time.”

“For what purpose?” Rougeau chuckled.

“It’s for fun. In olden days people would put money on it and the winner got the money, but nowadays it’s just a game.”

“The date is not predetermined?”

“Not according to my sister.” 

“I should access the medical database about this. I was distracted since my field medical lesson and haven’t completed my research.”

“What do you want to know? You’re an android. It’s not like you’re going to be a father one day.”

“If the date is not predetermined, then what criteria are used to calculate when?” He looked at Rougeau’s hazel eyes, pale brown with streaks of gold. The man’s pupils grew and shrank almost imperceptibly as he spoke, but he wasn’t certain why they should do so.

“I don’t know exactly, but I’ve been told the baby decides.”

“I conjure someone has told you a fable.”

“Fine, don’t get in on the pool,” Rougeau said.  He double checked some readings on the helm with exaggerated concentration.

“Should I research data on Rianya’s species or Captain Jackson’s?”

“Neither! It’s not your business.” He was surprised that he had been invited to participate in a ‘baby pool’, but it wasn’t his business to comprehend how it worked. Life forms were perplexing enough, but their social structures were infinitely complex.

“What am I required to do?” Cerebrus asked.

“You’re not required; it’s optional. Here,” Rougeau indicated, calling a visual grid to the clear screen. “Pick a date, then a time.” He indicated the X and Y axis. “Find an open square.”

“Most are occupied.”

“Just pick one already!”

“What if I’m wrong?” Rougeau sighed deeply and covered his face with his hand.

“Then you’ll be as wrong as the rest of the crew,” he muttered. Cerebrus decided to stop asking questions before Rougeau stopped talking with him. He pointed to a box at random, not findig any purpose to expend energy on scrutinizing one square over another. Rougeau entered a large ‘C’ in the square, and closed it down.

“When will we know?”

“When? When the baby’s born!” Rougeau stood up. “What rotation are you on for shore leave?”

“I will be with the civilians.”

“I’m on the next wave. If you want, I’ll wait, and I’ll go with you. Unless you have someone to go with...”
“You would wait two leaves, for junior officers and non-coms, to accompany me with civilians? Why?”

“We’re friends, aren’t we?” Cerebrus hadn’t heard anyone use that term with him before. It sounded agreeable.

“Thank you, Rougeau. I appreciate your consideration.”

“Call me Jean, please, when we’re off duty.”

“I am looking forward to it. My duty shift is supposed to end shortly. I would like to speak to you about some issues I continue to encounter.”

“Sure. I’ll meet you in the mess hall. I have to eat.”

“I need to charge, but it can wait.”

Rougeau left Cerebrus alone on the bridge. The android didn’t mind since the ship was in orbit and running on autopilot for all intents and purposes.

The time alone offered him a chance to defragment his memory core, in the background, while he considered his status. Thinking of status when he first came aboard the Maria Mitchell. he’d been accommodated fairly. But he was certainly more talented and useful than any of the civilians, also.

The crew seemed to finally accept him as a member that was entitled to respect, more than they gave a computer, at least. He turned his attention to the radar signal coming from the planet surface. Accessing some of his primary data circuits for information on the signal, he located a signal file under military; naval; submarine. On the dashboard three lights continued to blink in order: red, yellow, blue.

They blinked in succession, matching the amplitude, wavelength, and frequency of the signal. Without direction, he decided to investigate. Radio was a common electromagnetic wavelength, occurring naturally in space, but rarely on a planet that could support life. As radioactive elements decayed such could be identified, but this particular signal seemed artificially precise.

Cerebrus recorded a sample and uploaded it into the database in search of a match. He also decided that, although he didn’t have time to fully charge his power cells, he could, at least, back up his memory into storage. He didn’t have to be in his cabin to do so, therefore, he removed the smallest digit on his left hand, set it carefully on the helm, and inserted the open port on his hand onto a shallow post at the end of the helm peninsula.

He didn’t even have to take that much effort. Normally when he charged his cells, he downloaded his net data wirelessly into an ultra-high DNA density cube, storing 1 exabyte per cubic millimeter of material. With a half-life of more than 500 years, the data would be obsolete long before the ability to access it would be replaced. Various algorithms converted binary bytes of 00, 01, 10, or 11, to A, T, G, or C, and that had been enough technology to solve a variety of problems for the last century. The final encoded sequences were read as any other DNA, with a standard sequencing technology.

“Jean, may I ask your personal belief?” Cerebrus asked of Rougeau. The man took a bite of cherry pie before he started on his entrée.

“Can I join you?” Rougeau and Cerebrus both look up to see Jay May with a plate of something in his hands. They both gestured for the lieutenant to take a seat with them in the mess. He placed his things on the table. “I’m going down later. Are you two going?”

“Not until the civilian shift,” Rougeau said.

“I’d like to interrupt,” Cerebrus said. “What do both of you think? Jean? Jay?”

“About what?” May asked. He took a drink of his coffee.

“He wants to know if we think he’s alive or not.”

“You’re an incredibly sophisticated machine, but you are a machine and not an organic life form.”

“Can I become a non-organic life form?”

“Why would you want to?” May asked. “We age, we forget stuff, we have to eat, wear clothes, wear EV suits to go outside – we can die.”

“But, if I were to shoot you, it would be a murder. If you were to shoot me, it would not be a murder?”

“Whoa, where are you going with this?” Rougeau asked.

“In my off time, I discovered a curious branch of physics that I have been absorbing. It has to do with the primary colors in the human visual spectrum.” Both men stopped eating to listen to the android. “Life is simply an incredibly sophisticated chemical reaction, to use Jay’s words.”

“Biochemical,” May clarified.

“Not exactly. Within stars, a triple alpha process produces a Hoyle state, which is a highly unstable condition. It’s primordial, and gave rise to the light elements, which enable life, such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen. In fact, these elements are required for life.”

Rougeau blinked slowly, then glanced at May.

“What?”

“Helium-four. As stars burn their hydrogen, helium results. Helium-four alpha particles fuse, creating a beryllium atom. A third Helium-four particle fuses and Carbon-twelve is produced, and gamma rays. This happens inside stars, and when the star goes nova, these elements are distributed forming the foundation of life. I am created of those same elements.”

“And the primary colors?”

“Red, Yellow, and Blue. Each represents part of the process. So many natural processes happen in triads, such as the atom itself. It has three particles: positive, negative, and neutral. Within each of those are three quarks, and it is represented all over the galaxy as Borromean Rings, three rings that must have all three or everything falls apart.”

“So, you think that because you are made of the same components as biological life, you are also living,” May summarized.

“Technically, yes.”

“Can I say something here?” May asked, munching down a piece of fruit. “This is my own experience, so it’s thirty some years ago.

“I was raised by a symbiont. I don’t think they’re superior to humans. My mother was a professor and worked a lot. My dad was killed in the Last War when I was four. My mom bought a female caretaker.

“She was kind enough, but had taken to calling me Jaybird. All on her own, after a few months, it bestowed this nickname on me, which at first seemed cute. Then it was old. Then it became irritating. By the time I was fourteen, I was downright embarrassed. I asked her to stop, but she didn’t. Nanny Evergood had grown a mind of her own, and a personality to match. She didn’t age, but I did. She always looked like a forty-year-old woman. 

“My mom sold her for a depreciated price, even though she had a fully developed AI. At the time I was glad. Within a few months, I was filled with regret and guilt. This AI had been a loyal companion; selling her seemed akin to slavery. My mother reminded me that she was a tool, but I’ve carried that conflict around ever since.”

“I am not a symbiont,” Cerebrus told him. “Your experience is exactly why they are rare now.”

“I know. But I also know you aren’t biological, despite your Hoyle thing and number three and all.”

“I think,” Rougeau slipped in, “we haven’t worked long with androids, and it might take more time for some to see it your way.”

“At this point, I am only concerned that the captain sees me as a life form, and not a tool to be sold.”

“Give him a little time. He’ll come around.”

“We will see,” Cerebrus said.