I smiled. I could lay that concern to rest. Hari was never happier than when he had engineering problems and studies to work on. “But what about Jax?” I asked, my smile fading. “The kid just got his full share. He won’t be ready to settle down.”
Hari chuckled. “Perhaps not, but he’s already asked me to put in a good word with you about becoming a boat pilot.”
I was shocked. “A boat pilot? Hari, do you know their casualty rate?”
He nodded soberly. “Yes, and I reminded him of it. But he’s young, Val, and immortal. What could be more romantic and exciting?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “I’d been thinking about disbanding the boat unit. The casualty rate is just unacceptably high.”
“Ah ha!” he crowed triumphantly, “So you have been thinking of taking over the rim fleet!”
“Well, not really,” I replied worriedly. “I’d just… well, I guess I meant that I’d planned to talk to Cord about disbanding…” I gave up. “All right, Hari. I honestly hadn’t been thinking about it consciously, but I guess that at some level I just kind of assumed it.”
He nodded. “So did everyone else. So, why are you huddled in here spreading hate and discontent among your crew? Why aren’t you already halfway to Suli's cabin?”
By the time we emerged in Haven’s system, it seemed to be assumed that I would be retaining command of Cord’s fleet. If he appointed anyone else, I suspected that he'd face a mutiny in his command and control ship and his attack boat force.
By the time he actually did offer me command of the rim fleet, it was almost an anticlimax — I think Cord was a bit disappointed at my lack of surprise.
However, I owed much to all those who’d warned me in advance. By being prepared, I got quite a few concessions from Cord; more, I suspect, than he’d been willing to offer.
For one thing, we agreed that one Fleet was enough. Let the Empire have the Fleet, we’d have a ‘Navy’. I also got a free hand in designing and organizing it.
“But Admiral,” he cautioned. “Plan carefully, with a long future in mind. As we pursue my policy of aggressive development, we will become an increasingly tempting target. As the years become decades, and the decades generations, and the Empire continues to decline, future emperors and even renegade viceroys will see the rim as a prize to be looted.
“You mentioned that Chu-Lo conveyed the Emperor’s assurances that he could control the troublemakers for five years; and if the Emperor promised them, you can be assured that we will have those five years. But don’t count on six. I would suggest that you not share every trick and tactic with the Fleet. You may be facing them in battle some day.”
By the time we returned to Thaeron, I was accustomed to wearing stars; they no longer embarrassed me. In fact, Cord had added two more to the three I already wore, so I would have rank equal to the Commander in Chief of the Empire Fleet, Vinlen Chu-Lo!
Hari had a couple of stars, now, too. He was the Commander, Rim Fleet Engineering Command. Now he was the one embarrassed by the rank he carried, which gave me a malicious pleasure.
Shar was annoyingly blase about the two stars he wore as Commander, Thaeron System and my deputy. He acted as though the whole thing were simply a matter of course.
Every one of Toms Tindarr’s boat pilots had decided to forego returning to their asteroid mining jobs, and had joined up. They were strutting around proudly in their new uniforms, showing off the distinctive emblems we'd designed, and telling anyone who'd listen how they’d earned the medals on their chests. I teamed Toms with Thaeron Base’s training officer, and they were designing a training program for attack boat pilots.
Jax couldn't wait. He used his share of Valkyrie ’s sale to the Navy to hire one of Toms' pilots to teach him to fly a boat. By all reports, he was getting ‘pretty good’.
I was also doing my level best to seduce Wil Tor into retiring from the Fleet marines and heading up the Rim Navy Marine Force. If I could pry him loose, he’d be wearing three General’s stars. However, there were problems.
It seemed that on the long lonely nights camped out on Haven, Wil had developed the habit of calling Kaleen just to chat. There was a woman in Wil’s civilian resistance group that was interested in him, and he in her; but for some reason Wil had become obsessed with Kaleen.
When he offered to resign and take a rim commission if I would give him Kaleen’s name and address, I knew I had to do something.
The problem was that Kaleen’s sentience was the most tightly guarded secret on the rim. I conferred with Cord, and he agreed to permit me to break the code of silence in this one instance, and let Wil know that his long- distance lover was a comp.
I had Wil meet me at the palace, and we boarded Rimrunner. “Brace yourself, Wil,” I warned. “This is going to be hard to take.” I turned to a corner of the bridge, where I knew Kaleen had a camera. “Hello, Kaleen,” I said.
“Statement does not compute,” came a flat, mechanical voice. “Please rephrase.” Wil was beginning to look scared. Even without inflection, he was afraid he’d recognized that voice.
“It’s all right, Kaleen,” I said. “The Viceroy has authorized Wil to meet you.”
“Good morning, Captain, Wil,” Kaleen replied, her voice now warm and genuinely welcoming.
Wil was jerking his head wildly from Kaleen’s speaker to my face, and back again. “What is this?” He demanded. “This is a trick!”
I put a hand on his shoulder. “No, Wil, it’s no trick,” I began. “When the comp designers were designing and building the AI for Rimrunner, all they were told was to build the most advanced AI in the Universe, with cost no object. They built better than they knew. Kaleen is the first sentient AI in the universe. She is completely self- aware, and probably smarter than any human on the planet.”
“Obviously,” I continued, “her sentience is the most carefully guarded secret on the rim. Only the Viceroy, a few comp experts, and I know about it. And you, now.”
Wil looked as though he’d been bludgeoned. “Can this be true?” He grabbed my sleeve. “Can this be true, Admiral? You aren’t lying to me?”
I shook my head. “No Wil, I’m not lying, and it’s no trick. When Kaleen got back to Haven and contacted me, it was just too good an opportunity to pass. This is why I ordered you not to try to learn her identity — she doesn’t have one, at least as far as human records are concerned.”
“It is all right, Wil,” Kaleen put in. “I understand the human concepts of privacy and secrecy. I am aware that many of the ideas expressed in our talks were to be regarded as personal and confidential.
“You should know, however,” Kaleen continued, “that I retain complete copies of all our conversations, in real time and actual voice recordings. They are maintained behind multiple levels of security that prevent anyone but me from accessing them. They are also keyed to erase if anyone but me tries to access them.”
Wil was still trying to grasp the fact that the woman he’d fantasized about on those long Haven nights was really just an assemblage of printed nanocircuits.
I tried to help, to give him time. “Why did you do that, Kaleen? You weren’t told to keep records of those conversations.”
Kaleen hesitated. Since her processors worked in nanoseconds, I could not even imagine what was going on in there. “I was not forbidden to do so, Captain,” she finally replied, her tone defensive. Defensive? A comp? I sighed. No matter how many times I had my face rubbed in her sentience, Kaleen surprised me every time she displayed it.
“However, I retained copies so that I could replay them. I… have had few visitors since the battle, other than Captain Sinas and a number of comp analysts who want to poke and probe my systems. I… have been lonely, Captain. Wil’s recordings help. They remind me that I am more than just an assemblage of circuitry bound to a ship hull. I am a person.”
Wil was regaining his composure. “I’m flattered, Kaleen. I, too, valued our talks. But I don’t have verbatim recordings, just memories. Those memories were very important to me a time when I felt disconnected from everything I knew. I thank you for that.”
There was a short silence before Kaleen replied. “Wil? Would you call me occasionally? On radio? Just to talk?”
