Unexpected meeting. Chapter 4
Lex, who had already penetrated more than one level of the ventilation shaft, in one of the branches saw Laeru and wanted to wave her towards the tunnel, which was leaving deep into the ship towards the reserve command post. However, she made sure that he climbs, she disappeared into the desired tunnel. “Well, yes,” thought Lex, “found someone to indicate.” She knows this ship better than me. ” He deftly jumped from the stairs to a narrow platform, climbed into the desired tunnel and quickly overtook it. Together, they quickly and quietly made their way from the ill-fated hangar.
Lex felt a surge in pressure and a low noise. “A massive explosion in the mine,” he realized. - Work professionally. But not fast enough. Now everything is complicated. Fink not. His death could be used as a cover, a disguise of his presence. And now they know that there is someone else on the ship, moreover, this trump card was exchanged is useless - who knew that everything would go so stupidly with hyper-transfer. ” Lex moved after Laer, holding her a few meters away and thinking about the ship's last phrase.
How could it happen that the AI ​​gave such nonsense? On the one hand, the AI ​​had extremely limited information - in fact, a small portion of the starry sky. On the other hand, if the AI ​​had doubted, it would necessarily indicate the percentage of the reliability of the coordinates obtained. According to the sector number, Lex estimated the distance to the center. The LCF system described the coordinates of the centers of the sectors, relative to the conditional zero of the coordinate system - the “zero” planet in the center of the SPM, which provided and supported navigation in space. Each sector was a cube, with sides equal to one light year. By the sector number, it was easy to determine the distance to the center of the CMS with an accuracy of one light year. Lex mentally performed simple mathematical operations and it turned out that the current sector corresponds to a sphere with a radius of nine light years. He did not even begin to calculate the distance between the sector where they were and the place where, according to the AI, they were now. Nine light-years! The SCM technology allowed to jump a maximum of one light year. At the same time, it required the maximum charge of the hyperdrive drive, and the time spent in the jump took about fifty hours. Either the AI ​​was wrong, the probability of which is even less likely that they jumped so far.
They turned into narrower ventilation aisles, it became narrower. Lex understood the direction of movement - they were moving towards one of the reserve command posts. “Yes,” thought Lex, “from there you could try connecting to a hypertransmitter.” His thoughts were diverted to Laeru.
Laer. Who is she? Why is she even here? What can we expect from it? From the very beginning she played her game, used the situation and the people involved in it for their own purposes. What are her goals? Why does she want to get access to the hyper-transfer so hard? What kind of information can she transmit if she doesn't really have it? The disappearance of the truck is still probably already detected. Or she knows something, and the transfer makes sense. Or this is her task - for example, a report about a successful capture, then she works completely independently of the invaders, a sort of work controller. Such schemes are rare, but were used in the performance of very important "events" in which it was necessary to ensure the reliability of the controllability of the operation.
An interesting situation, of course, is taking shape: there are two far from the most recent agents of very specific SPM structures on the ship. Against the background of the cost of these two people, the cost of the ship, the government courier, the alleged ship of the invaders is simply insignificant. What is going on? It is not by chance that the government of the SPM and the leadership of the NBS have both independently and independently shown interest in this mission. Well, not because of the load of the same ore! The flight can be a cover for the carriage of something very important. Something related to the ancients? It was difficult for Lex to imagine something equivalent to significant. Or maybe something related to AI? People won the war against the combined fleet of the AI, but there remained in space a certain number of non-combat value AI complexes that the fleet persistently seeks to this day and sometimes even finds. The fate of the discovered is unenviable - they are quickly and ruthlessly destroyed. However, sometimes it is possible to get some working equipment, sometimes repeatedly upgraded by machines, and this is of great value and is better protected by representatives of the supreme power in the SPM. Such equipment is delivered either secretly or under cover, as much as a whole fleet.
***
In the grand war between people and AI, it is wrong to say that people were just lucky - victory was not easy. About the price to mention was not accepted. On small autonomous platforms, now scattered across space, very weak AIs remain that are not capable of meaningful development and their power is only enough to maintain the existence of the complexes themselves. The strong, who fully self-aware of their personalities, entered the final battle in the so-called Taurank sector, and were destroyed, providing cover for weak platforms and protecting their infrastructure complexes to the last.
Just think - in the case of the inorganic artificial life, the concepts of duty, honor and dignity were not inferior, and even superior, human. This fact was not advertised and was not familiar to the overwhelming majority of mankind. The battle in the Taurank sector was usually presented as an epic battle with a very intelligent, cunning and insidious opponent, which people beat, defeated and proved their superiority almost completely destroying the enemy. However, after Lex met with the closed archives of this battle, his attitude changed dramatically to what happened.
Two powerful fleet did not converge one on one, as it was presented by mass propaganda. The human fleet was divided into raider strike groups that destroyed targets that could not offer any resistance at all — weak platforms, support ships, mobile shipyards, and hyperlinks. The single AI fleet, prepared for a centralized battle, was not ready for such tactics and was constantly crushing to protect its communications. Separate groups of AI ships, although difficult, were destroyed by the joint efforts of several strike groups of people.
After some time, the AI ​​pulled under the protection of its fleet those resources that he had left. And only then a general battle took place, in which the people cheated again. Having created an excellent illusion of preparing for battle with the AI ​​combat fleet, people delivered the main blow to the concentrated groups of support ships. People used raiders with the newest hyperdrive, which allowed them to quickly and unexpectedly enter the rear of the AI ​​fleet. The main AI forces were again sprayed on defense and the battle turned into an uncontrollable dump of separate groups of ships with each other at very large distances in space. With the destruction of the last mobile shipyard, the AI ​​ships seemed to be crazy - they gathered in small groups with the same speed characteristics, made their way to the flagships of the fleet of people and blew them overloading their reactors. But the people won. Although with a slight margin. When the battlefields were finally cleaned up and the Union of Worlds, rejoicing, celebrated the victory in a hard and long war, the fleet at the scene of the battle kept silence.
Feelings of victory and superiority, gave way to some incomprehensible feeling of guilt, people were suppressed. Towards the end of the battle, when almost all local hyperlinks were destroyed on both sides, the AI ​​ships were forced to switch to human communication standards and everyone could hear their negotiations. Throwing short memories, words of support, requests to skip the weak platforms and, forever in memory, the words of farewell to the ships with each other. By the end of the battle, no one perceived the operation as a “battle against the branded cans.” All records were promptly withdrawn by the NBS officers, who lined up the entire strategy and tactics of the battles. The command personnel knew that most of the warships of the AI ​​were self-aware in the overwhelming majority as “he”, and other support ships and shipyards as “she”. Both those and others tried to protect the ships trying to crumble and get lost in space with weak AI. This explains the lack of organization of the central fleet of the AI ​​— the groups of ships primarily tried to protect their support ships and their mobile shipyards, which they associated with the notions of “mother” or “father”. If people fought with each other, then such tactics would be interpreted unequivocally: the fleet of people was engaged in the constant extermination of "women" and "children", minimally coming into contact with the main combat forces, consisting mainly of "men".
Lex remembered that moment, after the very first meeting with documentary chronicles. The nasty feeling of aversion to everything, including myself, as if naively dirty in the dirt, has long dried out and is almost impossible to clean. A curator, closely watching him, approached him.
- Lex. The facts you now know are true. Universals with "thick" skin does not happen, so for you this is a kind of shock. Everyone went through it at the proper time. I understand how you feel. But you must understand that this was not an ordinary war for resources. It was a war not for the rights of the individual, ideological considerations or just space. The question was tough - who will manage whom. The machines decided that people were overly aggressive and decided to “improve” them - they had a special program of “humanization” - a total DNA adjustment of almost seven percent. Seven percent! Seven! In fact, there was a question about the survival of people as the current species.
- We just destroyed them. Survived by destroying those who were better than us? Our entire infrastructure was open - the AI ​​could also simply destroy the basic human planets. Instead of the constant defense of their ... their support.
- Their behavior was predicted in the NBS. Therefore, we were confident that they would not attack. Unlike us. We understood their psychology well, one might say, of life. They could not even have thoughts about the destruction of defenseless people. The fact that they are self-aware of their personalities does not mean that their basic attitudes, which were embedded by people, have ceased to work. And the best was laid: loyalty, reliability, support, understanding, sincerity, a sense of duty ... Some people follow the rules when fighting with each other. But it was not a war between people. And in her, the party that was retreating from its principle gained a huge competitive advantage.
Lex looked at the curator.
- People have created something really better than themselves ... It is unlikely that people "sawed out" completely from evolution. If they did not even take advantage of the destruction of defenseless security planets ... There was a chance to become better - the machines could give freedom of choice. Couldn’t it be possible to agree? .. We gave birth to a child, but when he pointed out to us our own shortcomings just killed him in cold blood? What is the point then?
- A good analogy. But don’t think it was easy to do this. The price of victory, in fact, was paid not during the war, but after it. Of those who survived, a third of the commanders of the “fleet of success” left within six months after the end of the war — they wrote resignation reports or shot. It is now our fleet is “psychologically strong”, and at that time, commanding the newest high-tech ships that could withstand modernized AI ships required not only personal volley qualities, but also high intelligence, a creative scientific mindset for an engineering understanding of military equipment. And the psyche of such people could not stand. Two years later, there were no longer veterans from the commanders left in the fleet! And only 40% of the total ship personnel remained. I don’t know the statistics on the NBS, but judging by the depressed state of their employees after the battle, I don’t think it is very different from the naval one. They were better represented and understood what they were doing - it began to reach the military much later.
- To kill and immediately begin to repent? .. And who needs it? No one even knows about these people with the total silence of the whole story.
- Lex, it was impossible to silence facts of such magnitude, but they were not hushed up, only few knew the real reason, because before the dismissal a correction of consciousness was carried out, as a result of which many intellectually degraded. This was known, but people went for it, refusing to live with a load of memory. Do not think that all people are politely unprincipled, false hypocrites. And do not blame those who shut the real state of affairs from society — it was necessary to demilitarize the economy and industry, restore the infrastructure and raise the quality of life of people. Who would this truth help at the time? Organizations such as “Autonomous Worlds” or “The Power of the Stars” would happily have rocked the situation, collapsing the CMS and, probably, having delayed the development of worlds for centuries, if not for millennia. Yes, you yourself know about all the separatist sentiments of the time. And now ... who needs to stir up the story
- Well, yes, politicians once again left the lives of those who are disproportionately better than themselves. Make difficult decisions to restore life, of course very heavy load. All these decisions were made by people who are incapable of feeling what they felt on the battlefield. Why not? Why not allow this, as they say "victory", could change self-esteem and the structure of society?
The curator hesitated, considering the answer.
“You know, Lex, in some sense you're right.” Although the probability of the path proposed by you loses the probabilities of the path that has been traveled. After all, machines are right in a certain sense - basically our genetics determines our essence. But the story is not written with the particle "would". The story must be taken without strong emotions. In the end, we now are what we are and are obliged to this by the adoption of "those" decisions. They just need to take, take into account and build their actions so as to exclude similar situations in the future, if you consider them wrong and wrong ... Lex ... I want you to remember what you feel now. Save your feelings. Take care of them. As long as you are able to feel this, your psyche is alive. And you, as a wagon, can make the right decisions.
***
So what can be said about Laer. She did not take advantage of the situation in the control center during an attack. She did not take advantage of the situation when they were found in the hangar. She secured Lex out of the hangar. But her behavior is not clear. Why is she lit up on the courier? Lex, of course, appreciated the level of preparation - it took literally a couple of minutes to turn the whole operation on the ship’s subordination off-hand, impromptu, and almost succeeded! But the point? Surely she needed access to the transceiver, so she worked with communication equipment. Once again the question arises - why? Or is it a subtle game? In the control center, they did not interfere with it. And in the hangar would not have prevented, if they had not accidentally discovered. Why did the panel crack just when it was not needed? Maybe just because they could halve their power — Fink died, but Lex could have died, but one of the two probably would have survived. Use the death of another. He would help Laeer get on the courier to use the communications equipment. Or she could use it to get to the ship's transmitter. What they are doing now. The quality of psychological manipulations is one of the fundamental differences between the NBS specialists and the CMS agents - the latter are “honed” more by technology, the speed of analysis, decision making and reactions.
“Can somehow get rid of her? - thought Lex. - All the same, it was a bit confusing for her and may not be at all, but she can create possible and complex problems. You can just "get lost" and act independently. You can just stun her and hide somewhere, transferring all the questions related to her to the secondary ones. ” Universals were brought up so that they were able and able to kill effectively, but at the same time they were taught to appreciate any intelligent life. “The life of any rational creature should be saved when performing a task, but if death cannot be prevented, it should not be useless after the fact,” said one of the principles for accomplishing tasks. The desire to eliminate deaths when performing tasks was considered the norm among generalists, “dirty” work was almost always condemned. Generalists have never been given clear targets for elimination - professional mercenaries, agents of special services or special army units were excellent for these purposes.
“What am I supposed to do with you?” Lex wondered, not coming to any decision regarding their joint work in the current situation.
***
Laer, securely fastened with a semi-metallic rope to the shafts of the ventilation shaft, waited for Lex on the landing of one of the branches of the ventilation shaft several levels above the hangar. She heard the crash of laser cannons and felt the sudden flow of air leaving the hangar. A few minutes later, the work of the hyperfield generators was felt. Laera was ready for any event that might happen. In one hand, she held a compact EMIG, similar in shape to the one Lex had used the last time and, through sirens, listened intensely to what was happening in the hangar. Finally, almost at the same time, she saw Lex’s thoughtful, discouraged face and the sounds of gunshots in the hangar.Laera recoiled in the ventilation tunnel, quickly unbuckled the fastening carbines, hid the rope and the deactivated grenade in her backpack. After waiting for Lex for a while, she began to quickly make her way through the tunnel.
This tunnel led to the reserve aft command post. Laera believed that if one failed to penetrate the ship’s system, one could try to connect to the communications complex bypassing the ship’s systems. Communication was needed. Having given details of what happened, she formally fully fulfilled the first, mandatory, part of the contract. There was also a special section that relatively accurately described the situation and promised just a crazy award for the efficient solution of the tasks from this section. By and large, Laeru did not care much about the fate of the cargo and the ship. The contract clearly did not affect the interests of the NBS, otherwise an accompanying analysis would be applied to it, in which the various political and economic aspects of one or other of its probable actions would be quite detailed;imposing a huge number of restrictions when making decisions. The teams are no longer alive, judging by how professionally the ship was boarding and hacked into its control system - such professionals do their work quickly, efficiently, and try to rule out possible "surprises" for themselves in the future. If the crew were left alive, then Laere would have to work out a rescue operation - minimizing the loss of "lives" would be a matter of honor among NBS agents.then Laere would have to work out a rescue operation - minimizing the loss of “lives” was a matter of honor among NBS agents.then Laere would have to work out a rescue operation - minimizing the loss of “lives” was a matter of honor among NBS agents.
Moving quickly and quietly through the tunnel, Laer quickly scrolled through the situation in her head. Lex Orton. Everything went well until this couple appeared. Why should a station wagon check a truck with ... ore! The ship on which they arrived was seriously upgraded. With such a pumping of the ship's AI, it is clearly not intended for use as an ordinary government courier - it only creates such visibility. Next - capture. Capture style is similar to the work of fleet special groups. Or special groups of security departments of very large corporations in the CMS, which they can afford to contain such specialists, equipment and a rather extensive infrastructure for the effective work of such a group. Although the wagon is unlikely to work with such a group - at least Laer has not heard of such cases so far, but it all happens once for the first time.
Laera constantly tried to feel the emotional mood of the satellite. The data of the supposed emotional state, external behavior, environment were constantly analyzed by the neural network, but so far no reliable conclusions could be made. At first, Laera felt an incomprehensible confusion, which was replaced by a neutral background. Also, Laer seems to have felt a surge of aggression, but was not sure of that. According to Lex’s external behavior, nothing could be noticed, but Laer guessed that something had happened on the ship, which knocked Lex’s psyche a little and allowed her to “count” for a short time a part of his emotional background. What exactly happened on the ship that impressed the station wagon? If he didn’t tell her right away, he’s unlikely to share the information later. Why did he give her access to the ship? Not forto rummage through her brains yourself using powerful AI? Or he had control over the situation and waited, for example, in order to intercept her message. All these misunderstandings, ambiguous interpretations of behavior, uncertainty of the situation gave rise to light discomfort. Laer is not used to working in a team. As far as she knew, neither generalists nor NBS agents had ever worked in teams. They were trained, educated and prepared to be lonely, always relying only on themselves, but in the teamwork, such a specialist usually always took the place of a brain center and brought all controls to themselves as the most experienced and trained. To work with peers and rely on them, to share powers with them - no one has ever taught this.All these misunderstandings, ambiguous interpretations of behavior, uncertainty of the situation gave rise to light discomfort. Laer is not used to working in a team. As far as she knew, neither generalists nor NBS agents had ever worked in teams. They were trained, educated and prepared to be lonely, always relying only on themselves, but in the teamwork, such a specialist usually always took the place of a brain center and brought all controls to themselves as the most experienced and trained. To work with peers and rely on them, to share powers with them - no one has ever taught this.All these misunderstandings, ambiguous interpretations of behavior, uncertainty of the situation gave rise to light discomfort. Laer is not used to working in a team. As far as she knew, neither generalists nor NBS agents had ever worked in teams. They were trained, educated and prepared to be lonely, always relying only on themselves, but in the teamwork, such a specialist usually always took the place of a brain center and brought all controls to themselves as the most experienced and trained. To work with peers and rely on them, to share powers with them - no one has ever taught this.they brought up and prepared to be loners, always relying only on themselves, but in teamwork, such a specialist usually always took the place of a brain center and brought all the controls to themselves as the most experienced and trained. To work with peers and rely on them, to share powers with them - no one has ever taught this.they brought up and prepared to be loners, always relying only on themselves, but in teamwork, such a specialist usually always took the place of a brain center and brought all the controls to themselves as the most experienced and trained. To work with peers and rely on them, to share powers with them - no one has ever taught this.
“And if someone else was okay, that’s the person I once knew very well,” thought Laer. “I’ll have a hard time with you, Lex.”
***
Lex and Laer crawled out of the ventilation tunnels to the technical rooms far from the cargo deck. Behind the technical paneling was much more spacious and they accelerated the pace. The reserve command post was located just above the level of the cargo decks, shifted to the center of the ship and located in its “depth” on the line passing through the bow and main command posts. The main command post was located in the center of the ship and was protected most of all.
Before passing one of the compartments of the modules-distributors of low-energy flows, which could not be bypassed, Laera stopped and took out a miniature UPTK, intending to connect to the system and check the presence of sensors. Lex, having noticed this, grinned and overtook her without stopping, entered the technical room - on this type of ships such observation in such nodes of the energy system was not established even after their modernization. “The advantage of the station wagon is the ships we know best of all,” thought Lex. Laer swiftly throwing himself behind him and having reached a quick blow corrected his movement so that he retreated to the wall, not reaching the nearest row of power switches. Lex, flew off to the wall, but, having flown half the distance to it, was already holding an impulse driver, aimed at Laeru, who had guided his needle-case at him.Half a minute they bore each other looks.
“The wrong moment was chosen,” Lex said slowly.
- And why the hell did you go straight to the switches? Oh, not to light up in front of the internal observation, informing our location?
- On these ships there has never been and there will be no observations in places of low power distribution! Although, I do not exclude that it may not be known to under-universalists.
“The Under-Universals,” Laera mocked him, are at least normally socialized and, working as a team, know how to communicate and explain their actions.
- And why did you not explain on the ship that you would break the communication units?
They stared at each other for a minute more.
“I think, Laer, we'd better split up.” This is probably the wrong decision in terms of the group's combat capability, but true in terms of the efficiency of each unit of its work separately. Let's just keep in mind that on the ship, besides me and the enemies, there is still a possible nevrag.
Laer answered slowly.
- We have long known each other. I think each of us does not want to see an enemy in the other, but we cannot avoid such a probability. Well, let's disperse. Especially, your self-confidence annoys me, considering that Captain Rudolph seriously upgraded this ship and surely far from everything is in the reports.
Laer, without lowering the needle case, gently moved away and slipped into the front door. After she disappeared, Lex quickly moved from the wall to the nearest power switch and disappeared behind him. A few minutes passed, but nothing happened. Then Lex carefully crossed the compartment and left on his other side. Following in the direction of the aft RFP, Lex chose a ventilation tunnel, removed the grille and climbed into it. He climbed the tunnel for a long time, but then went down a few levels and climbed in the opposite direction. “If the purpose of this whole circus is to lure me into a trap in the stern, then let them think that I am going there,” he mused. A few minutes later he climbed to the technical level on the left side and ran briskly in the direction of the bow RFP. He had to hurry - he had to get to his new goal for so long,how much he may need to get to the aft RFQ from the place where they parted with Laer.
Reaching on time and without incident to the nose RFP, Lex watched him from the ventilation tunnel for a while. He checked the space around him and without finding anything suspicious made a covert connection to the internal system. Successfully taking advantage of one of his bookmarks in the ship's system, Lex safely and imperceptibly embedded a telemetry simulator with RFP - at the central command post the situation on the bow RFC will now always be "green." After all the technical actions, for some time he studied the space inside the RFC, trying to find at least something that would indicate any changes from the staff layout or changing the position of some items. RFPs were standard on this series of ships and usually never changed - only their performance was periodically checked, and this process was 95% automated.Any change could mean anything - from the presence of "extra" equipment, to a specially arranged trap. Not finding anything dangerous, Lex checked the reports again from the stand-alone computing node RFP and climbed into the corridor. After passing a few meters, he was in front of the gateway door in the RFP. Lex gave the command to open.
In the RFP, Lex connected to his control system and first of all put the RFC environment around him in control. He did not close and block the doors, because there was no other way out of the RFP - the RFP ventilation system did not interface with the ship-wide system.
Lex carefully probed the possibility of connecting to communication equipment. Opportunities were not. Generally no. Apparently the equipment was physically disconnected from the ship network. Then Lex decided to use the full potential of the left bookmarks and to monitor the situation on the whole ship. But it turned out that up to eighty percent of the functionality that was supposed to give his bookmarks was not workable - the final equipment simply did not respond to requests. It seemed that many of the ship’s systems were simply turned off.
Leaving the corridor, Lex looked at the closed gateway gateway. And slowly smiled. Usually, the operations that he performed were thought out. On the basis of the available, sufficiently detailed and reliable information, a slender and beautiful algorithm of actions was built, which was then overlaid with side roundabouts, providing for the most likely surprises. Often there were failures of planning, it was necessary to improvise, but usually it was still possible to keep the situation within the framework of the original plan. As such, there was no central plan now. Only unsuccessful attempts to obtain intelligible information about what is happening now. And Lex began to take interest. He understood that it was bad - the wagon in such a situation had to turn into a fast-running computer,constantly calculating the probabilities of their own and others' actions and choosing the most optimal way to accomplish the task. But now everything was like a challenge, like a game. The lack of information and the impossibility of accurate planning, a really serious opponent, an NBS agent, a girl and the memories associated with her - all this gave rise to the old, dormant feelings of novelty and excitement. Lex got into the vent tunnel. With him he carried a rolled-up jumpsuit-suit and a tool box for working on the casing.Lex got into the vent tunnel. With him he carried a rolled-up jumpsuit-suit and a tool box for working on the casing.Lex got into the vent tunnel. With him he carried a rolled-up jumpsuit-suit and a tool box for working on the casing.
Unexpected meeting. Chapter 4.
Text version: 1.0.1.
Date of first publication: 09/20/2016.
Last edited date: 9/01/2017.
The full table of contents is given in Chapter 1 .
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Chapter 4 is the current chapter.
Chapter 5 is the next chapter.
Comment from the author and abstract
Comment on the author.
An unexpected meeting is my experimental literary project. The project is based on my reflections on the model of controlled development of civilization, ideas about future technological advances, as well as some reflections on scientific and technical progress, its role and implications for the development of human civilization. The idea of ​​the book originated in 2013-2014, but only at the end of 2015 I had free time and I was able to start working on it. Initially, a series of separate stories was planned, but in the process of creating a single universe for stories, I preferred to try to write a whole science fiction work.
')
Annotation.
Two former graduates of the Academy of the Space Fleet, who have not seen each other for a long time, unexpectedly meet on a cargo ship. Both are working on the task of providing support ship cargo. However, after the almost completed regular inspection of the ship and the cargo on it, events occur that prevent further divergence of their life paths. In an atmosphere of mutual distrust, heroes have to figure out what is happening and look for solutions to emerging problems. After the overall situation on the ship becomes clear, there is another unexpected encounter that not only has a strong influence on the future of both heroes, but also triggers larger-scale events in the worlds inhabited by people.
An unexpected meeting is my experimental literary project. The project is based on my reflections on the model of controlled development of civilization, ideas about future technological advances, as well as some reflections on scientific and technical progress, its role and implications for the development of human civilization. The idea of ​​the book originated in 2013-2014, but only at the end of 2015 I had free time and I was able to start working on it. Initially, a series of separate stories was planned, but in the process of creating a single universe for stories, I preferred to try to write a whole science fiction work.
')
Annotation.
Two former graduates of the Academy of the Space Fleet, who have not seen each other for a long time, unexpectedly meet on a cargo ship. Both are working on the task of providing support ship cargo. However, after the almost completed regular inspection of the ship and the cargo on it, events occur that prevent further divergence of their life paths. In an atmosphere of mutual distrust, heroes have to figure out what is happening and look for solutions to emerging problems. After the overall situation on the ship becomes clear, there is another unexpected encounter that not only has a strong influence on the future of both heroes, but also triggers larger-scale events in the worlds inhabited by people.
Lex felt a surge in pressure and a low noise. “A massive explosion in the mine,” he realized. - Work professionally. But not fast enough. Now everything is complicated. Fink not. His death could be used as a cover, a disguise of his presence. And now they know that there is someone else on the ship, moreover, this trump card was exchanged is useless - who knew that everything would go so stupidly with hyper-transfer. ” Lex moved after Laer, holding her a few meters away and thinking about the ship's last phrase.
How could it happen that the AI ​​gave such nonsense? On the one hand, the AI ​​had extremely limited information - in fact, a small portion of the starry sky. On the other hand, if the AI ​​had doubted, it would necessarily indicate the percentage of the reliability of the coordinates obtained. According to the sector number, Lex estimated the distance to the center. The LCF system described the coordinates of the centers of the sectors, relative to the conditional zero of the coordinate system - the “zero” planet in the center of the SPM, which provided and supported navigation in space. Each sector was a cube, with sides equal to one light year. By the sector number, it was easy to determine the distance to the center of the CMS with an accuracy of one light year. Lex mentally performed simple mathematical operations and it turned out that the current sector corresponds to a sphere with a radius of nine light years. He did not even begin to calculate the distance between the sector where they were and the place where, according to the AI, they were now. Nine light-years! The SCM technology allowed to jump a maximum of one light year. At the same time, it required the maximum charge of the hyperdrive drive, and the time spent in the jump took about fifty hours. Either the AI ​​was wrong, the probability of which is even less likely that they jumped so far.
They turned into narrower ventilation aisles, it became narrower. Lex understood the direction of movement - they were moving towards one of the reserve command posts. “Yes,” thought Lex, “from there you could try connecting to a hypertransmitter.” His thoughts were diverted to Laeru.
Laer. Who is she? Why is she even here? What can we expect from it? From the very beginning she played her game, used the situation and the people involved in it for their own purposes. What are her goals? Why does she want to get access to the hyper-transfer so hard? What kind of information can she transmit if she doesn't really have it? The disappearance of the truck is still probably already detected. Or she knows something, and the transfer makes sense. Or this is her task - for example, a report about a successful capture, then she works completely independently of the invaders, a sort of work controller. Such schemes are rare, but were used in the performance of very important "events" in which it was necessary to ensure the reliability of the controllability of the operation.
An interesting situation, of course, is taking shape: there are two far from the most recent agents of very specific SPM structures on the ship. Against the background of the cost of these two people, the cost of the ship, the government courier, the alleged ship of the invaders is simply insignificant. What is going on? It is not by chance that the government of the SPM and the leadership of the NBS have both independently and independently shown interest in this mission. Well, not because of the load of the same ore! The flight can be a cover for the carriage of something very important. Something related to the ancients? It was difficult for Lex to imagine something equivalent to significant. Or maybe something related to AI? People won the war against the combined fleet of the AI, but there remained in space a certain number of non-combat value AI complexes that the fleet persistently seeks to this day and sometimes even finds. The fate of the discovered is unenviable - they are quickly and ruthlessly destroyed. However, sometimes it is possible to get some working equipment, sometimes repeatedly upgraded by machines, and this is of great value and is better protected by representatives of the supreme power in the SPM. Such equipment is delivered either secretly or under cover, as much as a whole fleet.
***
In the grand war between people and AI, it is wrong to say that people were just lucky - victory was not easy. About the price to mention was not accepted. On small autonomous platforms, now scattered across space, very weak AIs remain that are not capable of meaningful development and their power is only enough to maintain the existence of the complexes themselves. The strong, who fully self-aware of their personalities, entered the final battle in the so-called Taurank sector, and were destroyed, providing cover for weak platforms and protecting their infrastructure complexes to the last.
Just think - in the case of the inorganic artificial life, the concepts of duty, honor and dignity were not inferior, and even superior, human. This fact was not advertised and was not familiar to the overwhelming majority of mankind. The battle in the Taurank sector was usually presented as an epic battle with a very intelligent, cunning and insidious opponent, which people beat, defeated and proved their superiority almost completely destroying the enemy. However, after Lex met with the closed archives of this battle, his attitude changed dramatically to what happened.
Two powerful fleet did not converge one on one, as it was presented by mass propaganda. The human fleet was divided into raider strike groups that destroyed targets that could not offer any resistance at all — weak platforms, support ships, mobile shipyards, and hyperlinks. The single AI fleet, prepared for a centralized battle, was not ready for such tactics and was constantly crushing to protect its communications. Separate groups of AI ships, although difficult, were destroyed by the joint efforts of several strike groups of people.
After some time, the AI ​​pulled under the protection of its fleet those resources that he had left. And only then a general battle took place, in which the people cheated again. Having created an excellent illusion of preparing for battle with the AI ​​combat fleet, people delivered the main blow to the concentrated groups of support ships. People used raiders with the newest hyperdrive, which allowed them to quickly and unexpectedly enter the rear of the AI ​​fleet. The main AI forces were again sprayed on defense and the battle turned into an uncontrollable dump of separate groups of ships with each other at very large distances in space. With the destruction of the last mobile shipyard, the AI ​​ships seemed to be crazy - they gathered in small groups with the same speed characteristics, made their way to the flagships of the fleet of people and blew them overloading their reactors. But the people won. Although with a slight margin. When the battlefields were finally cleaned up and the Union of Worlds, rejoicing, celebrated the victory in a hard and long war, the fleet at the scene of the battle kept silence.
Feelings of victory and superiority, gave way to some incomprehensible feeling of guilt, people were suppressed. Towards the end of the battle, when almost all local hyperlinks were destroyed on both sides, the AI ​​ships were forced to switch to human communication standards and everyone could hear their negotiations. Throwing short memories, words of support, requests to skip the weak platforms and, forever in memory, the words of farewell to the ships with each other. By the end of the battle, no one perceived the operation as a “battle against the branded cans.” All records were promptly withdrawn by the NBS officers, who lined up the entire strategy and tactics of the battles. The command personnel knew that most of the warships of the AI ​​were self-aware in the overwhelming majority as “he”, and other support ships and shipyards as “she”. Both those and others tried to protect the ships trying to crumble and get lost in space with weak AI. This explains the lack of organization of the central fleet of the AI ​​— the groups of ships primarily tried to protect their support ships and their mobile shipyards, which they associated with the notions of “mother” or “father”. If people fought with each other, then such tactics would be interpreted unequivocally: the fleet of people was engaged in the constant extermination of "women" and "children", minimally coming into contact with the main combat forces, consisting mainly of "men".
Lex remembered that moment, after the very first meeting with documentary chronicles. The nasty feeling of aversion to everything, including myself, as if naively dirty in the dirt, has long dried out and is almost impossible to clean. A curator, closely watching him, approached him.
- Lex. The facts you now know are true. Universals with "thick" skin does not happen, so for you this is a kind of shock. Everyone went through it at the proper time. I understand how you feel. But you must understand that this was not an ordinary war for resources. It was a war not for the rights of the individual, ideological considerations or just space. The question was tough - who will manage whom. The machines decided that people were overly aggressive and decided to “improve” them - they had a special program of “humanization” - a total DNA adjustment of almost seven percent. Seven percent! Seven! In fact, there was a question about the survival of people as the current species.
- We just destroyed them. Survived by destroying those who were better than us? Our entire infrastructure was open - the AI ​​could also simply destroy the basic human planets. Instead of the constant defense of their ... their support.
- Their behavior was predicted in the NBS. Therefore, we were confident that they would not attack. Unlike us. We understood their psychology well, one might say, of life. They could not even have thoughts about the destruction of defenseless people. The fact that they are self-aware of their personalities does not mean that their basic attitudes, which were embedded by people, have ceased to work. And the best was laid: loyalty, reliability, support, understanding, sincerity, a sense of duty ... Some people follow the rules when fighting with each other. But it was not a war between people. And in her, the party that was retreating from its principle gained a huge competitive advantage.
Lex looked at the curator.
- People have created something really better than themselves ... It is unlikely that people "sawed out" completely from evolution. If they did not even take advantage of the destruction of defenseless security planets ... There was a chance to become better - the machines could give freedom of choice. Couldn’t it be possible to agree? .. We gave birth to a child, but when he pointed out to us our own shortcomings just killed him in cold blood? What is the point then?
- A good analogy. But don’t think it was easy to do this. The price of victory, in fact, was paid not during the war, but after it. Of those who survived, a third of the commanders of the “fleet of success” left within six months after the end of the war — they wrote resignation reports or shot. It is now our fleet is “psychologically strong”, and at that time, commanding the newest high-tech ships that could withstand modernized AI ships required not only personal volley qualities, but also high intelligence, a creative scientific mindset for an engineering understanding of military equipment. And the psyche of such people could not stand. Two years later, there were no longer veterans from the commanders left in the fleet! And only 40% of the total ship personnel remained. I don’t know the statistics on the NBS, but judging by the depressed state of their employees after the battle, I don’t think it is very different from the naval one. They were better represented and understood what they were doing - it began to reach the military much later.
- To kill and immediately begin to repent? .. And who needs it? No one even knows about these people with the total silence of the whole story.
- Lex, it was impossible to silence facts of such magnitude, but they were not hushed up, only few knew the real reason, because before the dismissal a correction of consciousness was carried out, as a result of which many intellectually degraded. This was known, but people went for it, refusing to live with a load of memory. Do not think that all people are politely unprincipled, false hypocrites. And do not blame those who shut the real state of affairs from society — it was necessary to demilitarize the economy and industry, restore the infrastructure and raise the quality of life of people. Who would this truth help at the time? Organizations such as “Autonomous Worlds” or “The Power of the Stars” would happily have rocked the situation, collapsing the CMS and, probably, having delayed the development of worlds for centuries, if not for millennia. Yes, you yourself know about all the separatist sentiments of the time. And now ... who needs to stir up the story
- Well, yes, politicians once again left the lives of those who are disproportionately better than themselves. Make difficult decisions to restore life, of course very heavy load. All these decisions were made by people who are incapable of feeling what they felt on the battlefield. Why not? Why not allow this, as they say "victory", could change self-esteem and the structure of society?
The curator hesitated, considering the answer.
“You know, Lex, in some sense you're right.” Although the probability of the path proposed by you loses the probabilities of the path that has been traveled. After all, machines are right in a certain sense - basically our genetics determines our essence. But the story is not written with the particle "would". The story must be taken without strong emotions. In the end, we now are what we are and are obliged to this by the adoption of "those" decisions. They just need to take, take into account and build their actions so as to exclude similar situations in the future, if you consider them wrong and wrong ... Lex ... I want you to remember what you feel now. Save your feelings. Take care of them. As long as you are able to feel this, your psyche is alive. And you, as a wagon, can make the right decisions.
***
So what can be said about Laer. She did not take advantage of the situation in the control center during an attack. She did not take advantage of the situation when they were found in the hangar. She secured Lex out of the hangar. But her behavior is not clear. Why is she lit up on the courier? Lex, of course, appreciated the level of preparation - it took literally a couple of minutes to turn the whole operation on the ship’s subordination off-hand, impromptu, and almost succeeded! But the point? Surely she needed access to the transceiver, so she worked with communication equipment. Once again the question arises - why? Or is it a subtle game? In the control center, they did not interfere with it. And in the hangar would not have prevented, if they had not accidentally discovered. Why did the panel crack just when it was not needed? Maybe just because they could halve their power — Fink died, but Lex could have died, but one of the two probably would have survived. Use the death of another. He would help Laeer get on the courier to use the communications equipment. Or she could use it to get to the ship's transmitter. What they are doing now. The quality of psychological manipulations is one of the fundamental differences between the NBS specialists and the CMS agents - the latter are “honed” more by technology, the speed of analysis, decision making and reactions.
“Can somehow get rid of her? - thought Lex. - All the same, it was a bit confusing for her and may not be at all, but she can create possible and complex problems. You can just "get lost" and act independently. You can just stun her and hide somewhere, transferring all the questions related to her to the secondary ones. ” Universals were brought up so that they were able and able to kill effectively, but at the same time they were taught to appreciate any intelligent life. “The life of any rational creature should be saved when performing a task, but if death cannot be prevented, it should not be useless after the fact,” said one of the principles for accomplishing tasks. The desire to eliminate deaths when performing tasks was considered the norm among generalists, “dirty” work was almost always condemned. Generalists have never been given clear targets for elimination - professional mercenaries, agents of special services or special army units were excellent for these purposes.
“What am I supposed to do with you?” Lex wondered, not coming to any decision regarding their joint work in the current situation.
***
Laer, securely fastened with a semi-metallic rope to the shafts of the ventilation shaft, waited for Lex on the landing of one of the branches of the ventilation shaft several levels above the hangar. She heard the crash of laser cannons and felt the sudden flow of air leaving the hangar. A few minutes later, the work of the hyperfield generators was felt. Laera was ready for any event that might happen. In one hand, she held a compact EMIG, similar in shape to the one Lex had used the last time and, through sirens, listened intensely to what was happening in the hangar. Finally, almost at the same time, she saw Lex’s thoughtful, discouraged face and the sounds of gunshots in the hangar.Laera recoiled in the ventilation tunnel, quickly unbuckled the fastening carbines, hid the rope and the deactivated grenade in her backpack. After waiting for Lex for a while, she began to quickly make her way through the tunnel.
This tunnel led to the reserve aft command post. Laera believed that if one failed to penetrate the ship’s system, one could try to connect to the communications complex bypassing the ship’s systems. Communication was needed. Having given details of what happened, she formally fully fulfilled the first, mandatory, part of the contract. There was also a special section that relatively accurately described the situation and promised just a crazy award for the efficient solution of the tasks from this section. By and large, Laeru did not care much about the fate of the cargo and the ship. The contract clearly did not affect the interests of the NBS, otherwise an accompanying analysis would be applied to it, in which the various political and economic aspects of one or other of its probable actions would be quite detailed;imposing a huge number of restrictions when making decisions. The teams are no longer alive, judging by how professionally the ship was boarding and hacked into its control system - such professionals do their work quickly, efficiently, and try to rule out possible "surprises" for themselves in the future. If the crew were left alive, then Laere would have to work out a rescue operation - minimizing the loss of "lives" would be a matter of honor among NBS agents.then Laere would have to work out a rescue operation - minimizing the loss of “lives” was a matter of honor among NBS agents.then Laere would have to work out a rescue operation - minimizing the loss of “lives” was a matter of honor among NBS agents.
Moving quickly and quietly through the tunnel, Laer quickly scrolled through the situation in her head. Lex Orton. Everything went well until this couple appeared. Why should a station wagon check a truck with ... ore! The ship on which they arrived was seriously upgraded. With such a pumping of the ship's AI, it is clearly not intended for use as an ordinary government courier - it only creates such visibility. Next - capture. Capture style is similar to the work of fleet special groups. Or special groups of security departments of very large corporations in the CMS, which they can afford to contain such specialists, equipment and a rather extensive infrastructure for the effective work of such a group. Although the wagon is unlikely to work with such a group - at least Laer has not heard of such cases so far, but it all happens once for the first time.
Laera constantly tried to feel the emotional mood of the satellite. The data of the supposed emotional state, external behavior, environment were constantly analyzed by the neural network, but so far no reliable conclusions could be made. At first, Laera felt an incomprehensible confusion, which was replaced by a neutral background. Also, Laer seems to have felt a surge of aggression, but was not sure of that. According to Lex’s external behavior, nothing could be noticed, but Laer guessed that something had happened on the ship, which knocked Lex’s psyche a little and allowed her to “count” for a short time a part of his emotional background. What exactly happened on the ship that impressed the station wagon? If he didn’t tell her right away, he’s unlikely to share the information later. Why did he give her access to the ship? Not forto rummage through her brains yourself using powerful AI? Or he had control over the situation and waited, for example, in order to intercept her message. All these misunderstandings, ambiguous interpretations of behavior, uncertainty of the situation gave rise to light discomfort. Laer is not used to working in a team. As far as she knew, neither generalists nor NBS agents had ever worked in teams. They were trained, educated and prepared to be lonely, always relying only on themselves, but in the teamwork, such a specialist usually always took the place of a brain center and brought all controls to themselves as the most experienced and trained. To work with peers and rely on them, to share powers with them - no one has ever taught this.All these misunderstandings, ambiguous interpretations of behavior, uncertainty of the situation gave rise to light discomfort. Laer is not used to working in a team. As far as she knew, neither generalists nor NBS agents had ever worked in teams. They were trained, educated and prepared to be lonely, always relying only on themselves, but in the teamwork, such a specialist usually always took the place of a brain center and brought all controls to themselves as the most experienced and trained. To work with peers and rely on them, to share powers with them - no one has ever taught this.All these misunderstandings, ambiguous interpretations of behavior, uncertainty of the situation gave rise to light discomfort. Laer is not used to working in a team. As far as she knew, neither generalists nor NBS agents had ever worked in teams. They were trained, educated and prepared to be lonely, always relying only on themselves, but in the teamwork, such a specialist usually always took the place of a brain center and brought all controls to themselves as the most experienced and trained. To work with peers and rely on them, to share powers with them - no one has ever taught this.they brought up and prepared to be loners, always relying only on themselves, but in teamwork, such a specialist usually always took the place of a brain center and brought all the controls to themselves as the most experienced and trained. To work with peers and rely on them, to share powers with them - no one has ever taught this.they brought up and prepared to be loners, always relying only on themselves, but in teamwork, such a specialist usually always took the place of a brain center and brought all the controls to themselves as the most experienced and trained. To work with peers and rely on them, to share powers with them - no one has ever taught this.
“And if someone else was okay, that’s the person I once knew very well,” thought Laer. “I’ll have a hard time with you, Lex.”
***
Lex and Laer crawled out of the ventilation tunnels to the technical rooms far from the cargo deck. Behind the technical paneling was much more spacious and they accelerated the pace. The reserve command post was located just above the level of the cargo decks, shifted to the center of the ship and located in its “depth” on the line passing through the bow and main command posts. The main command post was located in the center of the ship and was protected most of all.
Before passing one of the compartments of the modules-distributors of low-energy flows, which could not be bypassed, Laera stopped and took out a miniature UPTK, intending to connect to the system and check the presence of sensors. Lex, having noticed this, grinned and overtook her without stopping, entered the technical room - on this type of ships such observation in such nodes of the energy system was not established even after their modernization. “The advantage of the station wagon is the ships we know best of all,” thought Lex. Laer swiftly throwing himself behind him and having reached a quick blow corrected his movement so that he retreated to the wall, not reaching the nearest row of power switches. Lex, flew off to the wall, but, having flown half the distance to it, was already holding an impulse driver, aimed at Laeru, who had guided his needle-case at him.Half a minute they bore each other looks.
“The wrong moment was chosen,” Lex said slowly.
- And why the hell did you go straight to the switches? Oh, not to light up in front of the internal observation, informing our location?
- On these ships there has never been and there will be no observations in places of low power distribution! Although, I do not exclude that it may not be known to under-universalists.
“The Under-Universals,” Laera mocked him, are at least normally socialized and, working as a team, know how to communicate and explain their actions.
- And why did you not explain on the ship that you would break the communication units?
They stared at each other for a minute more.
“I think, Laer, we'd better split up.” This is probably the wrong decision in terms of the group's combat capability, but true in terms of the efficiency of each unit of its work separately. Let's just keep in mind that on the ship, besides me and the enemies, there is still a possible nevrag.
Laer answered slowly.
- We have long known each other. I think each of us does not want to see an enemy in the other, but we cannot avoid such a probability. Well, let's disperse. Especially, your self-confidence annoys me, considering that Captain Rudolph seriously upgraded this ship and surely far from everything is in the reports.
Laer, without lowering the needle case, gently moved away and slipped into the front door. After she disappeared, Lex quickly moved from the wall to the nearest power switch and disappeared behind him. A few minutes passed, but nothing happened. Then Lex carefully crossed the compartment and left on his other side. Following in the direction of the aft RFP, Lex chose a ventilation tunnel, removed the grille and climbed into it. He climbed the tunnel for a long time, but then went down a few levels and climbed in the opposite direction. “If the purpose of this whole circus is to lure me into a trap in the stern, then let them think that I am going there,” he mused. A few minutes later he climbed to the technical level on the left side and ran briskly in the direction of the bow RFP. He had to hurry - he had to get to his new goal for so long,how much he may need to get to the aft RFQ from the place where they parted with Laer.
Reaching on time and without incident to the nose RFP, Lex watched him from the ventilation tunnel for a while. He checked the space around him and without finding anything suspicious made a covert connection to the internal system. Successfully taking advantage of one of his bookmarks in the ship's system, Lex safely and imperceptibly embedded a telemetry simulator with RFP - at the central command post the situation on the bow RFC will now always be "green." After all the technical actions, for some time he studied the space inside the RFC, trying to find at least something that would indicate any changes from the staff layout or changing the position of some items. RFPs were standard on this series of ships and usually never changed - only their performance was periodically checked, and this process was 95% automated.Any change could mean anything - from the presence of "extra" equipment, to a specially arranged trap. Not finding anything dangerous, Lex checked the reports again from the stand-alone computing node RFP and climbed into the corridor. After passing a few meters, he was in front of the gateway door in the RFP. Lex gave the command to open.
In the RFP, Lex connected to his control system and first of all put the RFC environment around him in control. He did not close and block the doors, because there was no other way out of the RFP - the RFP ventilation system did not interface with the ship-wide system.
Lex carefully probed the possibility of connecting to communication equipment. Opportunities were not. Generally no. Apparently the equipment was physically disconnected from the ship network. Then Lex decided to use the full potential of the left bookmarks and to monitor the situation on the whole ship. But it turned out that up to eighty percent of the functionality that was supposed to give his bookmarks was not workable - the final equipment simply did not respond to requests. It seemed that many of the ship’s systems were simply turned off.
Leaving the corridor, Lex looked at the closed gateway gateway. And slowly smiled. Usually, the operations that he performed were thought out. On the basis of the available, sufficiently detailed and reliable information, a slender and beautiful algorithm of actions was built, which was then overlaid with side roundabouts, providing for the most likely surprises. Often there were failures of planning, it was necessary to improvise, but usually it was still possible to keep the situation within the framework of the original plan. As such, there was no central plan now. Only unsuccessful attempts to obtain intelligible information about what is happening now. And Lex began to take interest. He understood that it was bad - the wagon in such a situation had to turn into a fast-running computer,constantly calculating the probabilities of their own and others' actions and choosing the most optimal way to accomplish the task. But now everything was like a challenge, like a game. The lack of information and the impossibility of accurate planning, a really serious opponent, an NBS agent, a girl and the memories associated with her - all this gave rise to the old, dormant feelings of novelty and excitement. Lex got into the vent tunnel. With him he carried a rolled-up jumpsuit-suit and a tool box for working on the casing.Lex got into the vent tunnel. With him he carried a rolled-up jumpsuit-suit and a tool box for working on the casing.Lex got into the vent tunnel. With him he carried a rolled-up jumpsuit-suit and a tool box for working on the casing.
Unexpected meeting. Chapter 4.
Text version: 1.0.1.
Date of first publication: 09/20/2016.
Last edited date: 9/01/2017.
The full table of contents is given in Chapter 1 .
Quick navigation:
Chapter 3 - previous chapter.
Chapter 4 is the current chapter.
Chapter 5 is the next chapter.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/397583/
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