CAPACITY

“His mother has been in a coma since just before he was born. We’ll decide on a name once she comes out of it.”

“Your wife is in a coma? How unusual. What’s the matter with her?”

“The White Death. Have you heard of it?”

“Of course,” said the pod, “…I’m sorry.” There was a pause. The pod continued: “Only, how old is the baby? Fifteen months, I would guess.”

“Almost exactly. Don’t say anything else. Anya will get better, and then we’ll choose a name for our son.”

A pregnant pause. And then the AI made the statement Justinian had been waiting for.

“Historically speaking, people would leave their children at home when they traveled into dangerous situations.”

“Historically speaking,” said Justinian, slowly and deliberately, “people used to rape, murder, and die of starvation. Just because it happened in the past doesn’t mean it has to be a good thing. Nowadays, parents do not leave their children to be raised by others, and as his mother is ill, where else would he be but here with me?”

Another pause.

“Okay,” said the pod slowly, “if that’s what you think is best. Why did they send you here to Gateway? There must be lots of other counselors specializing in PCs who don’t have children. Or whose partner isn’t in a coma… Ah.” The pod suddenly understood. “So,” it wondered, “am I like Anya? Do you think that I might have caught the White Death?”

“I don’t think so,” said Justinian. “You’re still thinking.”

“Albeit at a much reduced level.”

Justinian waved to the baby. It didn’t see him; it seemed to be concentrating on trying to unscrew Leslie’s head. Just a few more questions and then he could get back on the flier and move on to the next pod. Gateway was a bust and he knew it. There were no answers to Anya’s illness here. He needed to wrap this up.

“I have access to a lot of data about the Environment Agency,” said the pod conversationally, “but most of it goes right over my head.”

“And why is that?” asked Justinian, striving to keep his voice level. It was pointless, he knew, for the pod would read his motives. But then maybe it would realize how important it was to admit what had happened to it. It even seemed to want to tell him.

The pod hesitated, then spoke the truth.

“All right, I think you know this already, but I’ll tell you anyway. My intelligence is currently residing in the boot system for the processing space within this pod. The boot space is a physical system, so naturally that limits my ability to think. I’m about as intelligent as the Turing machine in your flier-nice chap though it is. But, Justinian, I need to occupy the cloudware in order to execute the non-Turing processes that will truly allow me to be.”

“So what are you doing in the boot system?” Justinian asked, knowing the answer already. “Why not move into the cloudware?”

“I’ve stopped myself. When I first came to this planet I occupied the cloudware, but the intelligence that I then was wiped the evolutionary processes when it wrote me into the boot system. My former self committed suicide and left me here: a pale, stunted thing, unable to grow. It’s fair to say that I’m not the AI I used to be.”

Justinian smiled. “You’re half right,” he said. “I hoped you were going to say all that. It’s an important stage in the healing process.”

“No, it isn’t,” said the pod with finality. “I can’t be healed. Even if I were to grow again, I would not be the personality that I once was.”

Justinian did not comment on the point. He knew the pod was right. Instead he followed his prescribed line of inquiry.

“Do you know why your former self committed suicide?”

“No. It has hidden those reasons from me. One can’t help thinking we should perhaps respect the judgment of one more intelligent than both of us. Are your inquiries wise?”

Justinian sighed. The sun had risen above the horizon, and the trailing fingers of mud ribbons making up the wide delta glowed red, a bright contrast to the shadowy sea all around. Justinian felt as if the same black water was seeping up through his feet, filling his body with despair through some dark osmosis. What was he doing here, standing on a mud flat in the middle of a silted-over river delta, marooned on a barely explored planet at the edge of human space? A man, a pod, and a white scattering of grass seed.

He moved on to the next question on his list. “Okay, do you remember why you were placed here?”

“Oh yes,” the pod said. “River reclamation project. I can see the plans laid out right here. Get rid of the silt in this delta and you’ve got the ideal location for a city port. This planet is intended to be an Earth model, you know: an example of Earth life and culture spread out to be seen by whatever may lie out there in that galaxy. In M32.”

It gave a rueful sigh. “Look at this. I don’t know what happened to my former self, but I seem to have been very premature in my terraforming process. I shouldn’t have released the grass seed yet.”

Justinian yawned and waved to the baby again. Leslie was pointing over in his direction, trying to get the boy to see his father.

“These little black boxes,” said the pod. “I don’t remember them. Did we find them somewhere in space?”

Justinian eyed the boxes on the mud right in front of the pod. They had all shifted their positions, if indeed they were even the same cubes that had lain there when he first arrived. As all Schrödinger boxes looked identical, there was no way of really telling how far they traveled as they wandered the surface of this planet. Was the cube that was by your left foot the same one that had been by your right foot when you looked down a moment earlier, or was it another one entirely? The question had seemed fascinating three weeks ago when he had first come here-but no longer. It was amazing how quickly the cubes had become commonplace.

Justinian shook his head. “No, the Schrödinger boxes only exist here on Gateway.”

“I wonder what they are,” the pod said in a soft voice.

“I’m sure we’ll find out,” Justinian replied, rubbing his hands together briskly. “Well, that’s just about everything. I’d like to thank you for your help.”

There were three more questions left on the list. Justinian didn’t even need to check his console to see what they were; he knew them by heart. Do you want to come with me or stay here? It would choose to stay. For a terraform pod, the place they were located would always seem like home. Have you been in contact with any other of the AIs since the suicide, and do you want to be put in contact with them if not? It would answer no to both questions. Can you remember anything else from before the suicide? It would say no to that.

And then Justinian could get back on the flier. He wobbled his hand in a drink gesture over towards Leslie. Naturally, the robot didn’t see it; it was already walking back into the ship. Justinian yawned again. Time to wrap things up.

“Now,” he said in a businesslike fashion. “I can take you back with me, or would you rather stay here?”

“I’ll stay here, thank you.”

“Fine. Have you been in contact with any of the other AIs since the suicide?”

“No.”

“Would you like to be put in contact with them?”

“No. What would I have to say to them?”

“No problem. If you change your mind, let us know. I’m leaving a pulse transmitter here just in case.” He threw the heavy yellow egg shape down into the mud by the base of the pod. “Finally, can you remember anything else significant from before the suicide?”

“Not exactly.”

“Okay, then. Well, I’ll be getting back to the flier. Remember, if you ever want to speak to us, just use the pulse trans…”

Justinian’s words trailed away. He could feel his heart thumping in his chest, hear a pounding in his ears. What had the pod just said? Every other pod had answered no…