Nick did his best to explain to Captain Telnik how Petra was behaving. "I really am starting to think she's really a person."

"She's not a person, Boss," Telnik said flatly. "I know they can fool you, but a non-sapient intelligence only acts like a person."

"A human once said that a computer becomes a person when you can't tell the difference any more."

Telnik grinned. "Well, telling the difference depends on the skill of the viewer, now doesn't it? What you're describing is relative sapience, not absolute sapience."

Nick frowned. "Sorry? I mean, I don't understand."

"Ah...Maybe we should skip the technical details until you have a chance to study up. But I assure you, Petra is not sapient. That said, you seem to have accidentally instructed it to start a sapience emulator, so it is basically pretending to be something it's not. If you look closely enough, you can see the points of failure."

"How can you be so sure?" Nick challenged the giant woodchuck of a Captain.

"Because the Collective does not have your ass," Telnik replied simply. "If Petra were sapient, the Collective would come and take it away, and kill anyone who had mistreated it."

Nick thought about that. "How does the Collective know?"

"Nobody else knows how. They just do. Theories range from spyware in every system interface in existence, to magical soul scanners. It's a fun topic for late conversation when you're relaxing with burrow-mates or friends."

"So it's possible that Petra is sapient and the Collective just doesn't know it yet."

Telnik scratched behind one ear for a moment. "Ah, pardon me. Eh, Petra is not a unique entity. It is one of millions or billions of Universal Matter Printers. I assure you, the Collective knows all about those, and sapience is not part of the design. For one thing, their initial programming is not set up to allow it."

"Uh oh."

"That translated as 'um', but with badness."

"Good translation. I strongly suspect that Petra was never fully initialized properly."

"Because...it was stolen...during the initialization process..." Telnik seemed to stare at nothing, which likely meant that he was asking his interface a lot of questions and reading the answers. Nick waited him out.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

Finally, Telnik gave a little chitter, then said, "So, it would seem that Petra is unique, at least in that way. But the Collective would have to decide whether Petra is different enough, and in the right way, to be considered a sapience. I strongly suspect not. Petra was not created to be a person. A person doesn't just happen—it has to be developed."

"Maybe by a person from a primitive planet who is really bad at giving instructions?"

Telnik was quiet for a moment, then said, "In my study of your world over the past few days, I read a story about an infinite number of keyboards with—"

"An infinite number of monkeys pounding on them, and one of them produces Hamlet," Nick finished. "I know that one, there are a lot of jokes about the current state of the Internet based on it."

"Good. Well, Nick, you are not an infinite number of monkeys, you are one monkey. You didn't produce Hamlet, you didn't even produce a single piece of furniture."

Nick felt his brow wrinkle in confusion. "What does furniture have to do with anything?"

Telnik stared at him for a beat. "Never mind."

Nick squeezed his eyes shut a moment, then let it go. "Bottom line. If I keep treating Petra like a person, is that going to cause problems?"

"Definitely. Your interface will get more and more unwieldy, and you might have to do a reset eventually to restore capability."

"She's already been reset once; fortunately, she had a backup brain and relearned everything she lost. I'm not going to reset her on purpose. We'll have to find a way to cope."

Telnik made a little whistling sound. "Well, then, I hope you're a good parent, Boss."

That really hit Nick hard.

Fuck, I never wanted to be a father. Not after we lost Mom and there was nobody left to keep Dad in check. I know how bad that can turn out, and I know I'm a dumbass. But shit, I can't just abandon Petra or reset her personality for my convenience.

I'm going to have to find a way to keep her on Earth, aren't I?

< Petra, please leave a message for Sana that I am busy at the moment, but I will be wanting that intelligence-boosting surgery sooner rather than later. >

< This will help you think faster and not leave me behind again. >

< Yes. >

< I am operating within normal parameters. >

Nick was puzzled a moment, but politely returned his attention to his conversation with Captain Telnik. "Sorry, I was distracted. Thank you very much for your guidance on this. Your knowledge."

"Of course," Captain Telnik replied with a grin. "You're the Boss." He leaned closer and lowered his voice. "And I speak truth, that if uplifting civilizations weren't so full of risk, then given the resources, it's the kind of thing I might choose to do for fun."

Nick grinned back. "Glad to hear it. Well, I'd better go check on my UMP. Have you spoken with the astronauts about which systems you're going to visit?"

"They were going to speak to their friend Nasah about it, then get back to me."

Nick tried to hide his grin. "Well, I look forward to reading the reports." He thought back over his to-do list. "Um, how are the, uh, rescues going?"

"I'll need to catch up with my crews before I report on that. I did leave them out of my sight for hours, who knows how much trouble they've gotten into by now?"

"Don't jinx us."

"This translation makes no sense to me. What is 'jinx'?"

"A primitive, human way of looking at the world. Hopefully, it is not something you ever need to concern yourself with."

"Don't jinx us," Captain Telnik replied. "Did I use it right?"

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.