Liaden Universe [19] - Alliance of Equals - eARC by Steve Miller, Sharon Lee Read Free Book Online

Smooth and personable and specifically nonthreatening, the curve of her gleaming white chassis suggesting something feminine; the smallness of it hinting at vulnerability. She moved herself about the ship by floating a few inches above the deck plates—nothing so crass, or noisy, as wheels or skis. He hadn’t worked out if her motivating force was antigrav, magnetics, or a tightly focused and utterly silent air pad. It seemed rude to ask.
    It was Tolly’s opinion, as an expert in the field, that there wasn’t the least need for Pilot Tocohl to sit station. Pilot Tocohl had direct access to all ship’s systems right there inside her pretty little head, or he was a three-nosed Andulsin frog.
    “She’s got a healed-by date,” he said in answer in his pilot’s question. “Fourteen hours from now this bridge is gonna be full up with big, stubborn woman, who’ll be wanting to talk to her captain, stat.”
    “I shall be very glad to see her, and in such condition,” Pilot Tocohl said composedly. “In the meantime, I wonder, Pilot, if you will answer some questions for me.”
    “Do my best,” he said, like his stomach hadn’t kind of cramped up, hearing that. “Understand that I don’t know the answers to all the questions.”
    “Oh, yes, I do understand that,” she said. “Before we begin, let me request that you not lie to me. If you do not wish to answer a question, simply refrain from doing so.”
    “All right, Pilot,” he said, and slipped into his chair. “I’m curious myself, though. The—my contact, who approached me about this project…he has my credentials.”
    “Indeed, your credentials are…impressive,” she said. “And you are undeniably resourceful. Our mutual contact was quite clear that you are a mentor of great talent. The most talented in your field, he said.”
    “To be fair, the field isn’t that big, the Complex Logic Laws bein’ what they are.”
    That the pilot was herself a violation of the Complex Logic Laws went without saying. His being hired as copilot was to cover for her. She was a prototype, so the script went, some kind of a cybermech pilot, sophisticated, but stopping short of illegal. Which was why she sat station. He was along for the ride, to observe, to make notes, and to abort her if something went wrong.
    However, his contract had two sections to it, and the second part engaged his services in evaluating and, if possible, socializing, a newly realized AI, who had come to Tolly under unspecified, but difficult, circumstances, unmentored.
    He didn’t have anything against sitting copilot, but he might not have taken the contract just to give Pilot Tocohl cover, seeing that his own blanket had lately developed a considerable number of holes. The second part of the contract, though…that had grabbed his attention and it hadn’t let go.
    Never mind that the Complex Logic Laws made Pilot Tocohl and all her kind out to be rogue devices, bent on destroying human life. If encountered, according to the CLL, an AI was to be confined, deactivated, or destroyed; nobody was to take it into their heads to build one for any reason whatsoever, under pain of death.
    It hadn’t always been that way. Truth said, it wasn’t that way, even now. AIs got born…not as a frequent thing, but often enough that mentors were needed. They worked the underside, but not one mentor Tolly’d ever met or heard of had minded that.
    Pilot Tocohl turned toward him, the flat screen at the apex of her slender core column showing the shadow of a face, smiling a shadow smile.
    “The field may be small, but that does not negate the fact of your mastery, Tolly. Our contact praised you in the highest terms. I have no questions there.”
    Tolly took a breath.
    “Where do you have questions, then?” he asked her, but he already knew.
    There was a small pause, as if Pilot Tocohl needed a moment to gather her thoughts. Tolly sighed gently.
    “A sigh, Pilot Tolly?”
    “I was thinking I’d like to