Those Who Knew Earth: Succession, Part 7

Phillip Peterson trained all his life to lead this mission, at least as long as he lived. That life approaches an end, fifty years into the voyage, and Phil seeks to settle some minor rebellion peacefully before his successors take over. But the events of the previous night cast the Captain and the ship’s AI in a new light.

It took a reminder through Cyonics but Conrad Junior1 kept the meeting with Captain Phillip, finding him in the Section 1 lounge. The young man’s insouciance was lessened by the events of the previous night, which had put his face-saving defiance in perspective, and he readily apologized for laxness in cleaning air filters. The conversation turned quickly to the young man’s father-in-law, Gabriel — as were surely most conversations aboard the ship that morning. Phillip didn’t ask John to tally that. Phillip didn’t want to ask John for much right now.

“The amnesia and weakness are burden enough,” Junior said, rubbing his eyes, “but the night terrors kept the whole Section up.”

Phillip nodded. “It’s going to be rough. If you like, I’ll ask John to filter out the noise; the last thing we need is frayed nerves. Hopefully things improve as Gabe gets more interactions with his friends and family, gets mentally sorted out. How is Aisha adjusting?”

Junior shrugged. “Not really opening up to us either. But if you’re hoping she secretly doesn’t hate you and it’s a façade… no such luck.”

“I can live with that.” Probably the least I deserve. “What about you?”

Junior looked at the Captain a moment before shrugging. “I don’t know. It’s messy. You didn’t put him in the coma, Alex did, and he paid for it long ago. Unless that funeral was a sham?”2

Phillip recalled the recycling of his son’s tumor-stricken body. “No.”

Junior nodded, waiting a respectful moment. “Well if there’s nothing else…?”

“Just one thing. I’d like you to help Charles with the physical therapy for Gabriel. Maybe get some medical expertise for yourself, build a rapport, put someone Aisha trusts between…” he licked his lips, hesitating a moment to verbalize the sentiment, “my people and hers. I’ll take you off other duties in the meantime to compensate if that’s agreeable.” Junior nodded, granting the older man a bit of a smile in appreciation. “By the way, do you know where Sun3 is?”

“Yeah, I saw him headed to the Arcology with Isaac. I’ll tell him to come here.”

“No, I’ll head down. Might be better to chat in a casual setting.”

All in all, the meeting had gone better than he expected. Phil allowed himself a bit of pride at handling Junior. Sun may be a different matter. Phil still couldn’t relate with him, despite being close to his grandparents. Perhaps a mistake, but at least a comparatively minor one.

God, what had he been thinking, going along with John’s deception? Well, maybe in hindsight it was wrong to so trust the mind-reading supercomputer. But Phil gave what John asked for. Always had.

Ironically, if he had opposed John’s covert use of Gabriel’s brain as working memory, the boy — man, now — probably never would have awoken. But the secrecy. That was what they were holding against him, and rightfully so.

Never mind. The past was gone. “John, which arcology section is Sun in?”

“Section 2,” came the automatic reply.

“I’ll get my exercise, then.” Phillip walked the halls of the ship counterspin from Section 1, where he shared quarters with his daughter Paige and her husband, towards Section 2. He made an effort to keep his posture upright as the morning runners passed him by. He had kept most of his height as he aged but developed an annoying habit to stoop when he didn’t consciously correct it, and image was important to authority. He snorted at the notion his image could be repaired with posture.

Would his protégés be able to keep the peace once he died? And more importantly, keep the crew following John’s instructions for running the habitation systems? He had done his part, given his life to the mission. He had no choice but to pass on the mantle and rest in the hope that the preparations would be enough.

In time; no reason to check out of the voyage even a day early. But…

It would be nice to see Kiri again. To see her knowing, blue eyes, disarming smile… not the type he would have thought he’d end up with in his youth, but the best of the best in retrospect. Yeah, it would be nice to see her. Maybe he’d tell himself that he’d have a chance to be reunited in some afterlife when his time came, unlikely as he found the notion.

Phillip shook his head as he headed down the stairs to the arcology. His thoughts had gotten morose lately. As the crew grew in number and he advanced in age, he found himself with both more responsibility and less influence. The early years were easier, except for the recent memories of earth and everything they’d left behind there. Acute pain, simple tasks. Now the children were grown4 — old, even, or middle aged at least — and his generation was starting to pass. Well, that was the way of life. And it was time to face the fact that he was unneeded, or rather, that he’d better go ahead and make himself so, quick, and then settle down to playing with babies and let someone else steer this boat.

Or maybe he’d be passing on a much harder job than he had had. Hopefully John’s learning routines would repair whatever damage his programming had suffered now that he knew about it. But it bore watching, lest they need to take stronger measures. Without John, the voyage would be much harder.

But it could be done. The systems John used could be operated without a conscious, digital mind. They’d been assured of that in training, though it wasn’t a thought he dwelled on. Losing John would do more than leave them scrambling to control the ship. Phil chuckled. Overbearing or not, John was a friend.

He set foot onto the Arcology floor. Only a couple meters of insulation, irrigation, electric wiring, radiation shielding, and structural reinforcement stood between him and the void. It was less pleasant down here for him lately, due to the way gravity increased as he moved radially away from the axle around which they rotated. The habitat spin was calibrated to provide Earth gravity at the middle floor; the arcology, further away, was slightly stronger, and the sleeping quarters were slightly weaker. Some of the young ones, like his great grandson, enjoyed experiencing the difference; a privilege of youth.

Down the aisle he saw Sun and his nephew Isaac, each silently loading various herbs into a small plastic tub. It was nice to see that Sun could do some work when he would directly benefit from it. A start, at least.

“Good morning, Sun, Isaac,” he called as he approached.

The younger boy turned and waved a greeting at the same time his uncle mumbled, “Captain. Good morning.” He cocked his head quizzically. “You should have just passed him.”

“I’m sorry?”

“What are you sorry about?” asked Isaac.

“Isaac. He just left,” Sun said to Phillip.

Phillip looked back and forth between the two for a moment. “Your nephew.” He put his hand on Isaac’s shoulder.

Isaac giggled. “My what?”

“Right,” said Sun. “My nephew Isaac. We were talking and he ran off. I guess he had to go recycle.” He squatted down to inspect a lower planter, uprooting several green onion plants.

“What were you two talking about?”

Sun shrugged. “Just stuff. Ideas. Nothing serious.”

Isaac said, “Me and my uncle? He said he was going to tell me the truth about the adult world. But then he just turned and left. But it’s okay, I can gather the breakfast veggies all by myself.”

Phillip ran his fingers through his hair, then looked down, finding several strands protruded from his fist. He forced himself to relax, then said out loud, “John. I thought we agreed I would handle the crew interaction?”

“Captain? Please specify your query.”

“Don’t play dumb with me.” Sun and Isaac were both looking at him, though still neither at the other.

“You have an objection to my using Cyonic interfaces to adjust crew members’ perceptions?”

“Yes! Emphatically yes, you jumped-up pile of circuits! There shall be no presumptive ‘adjustments’ whatsoever. No interference of any perception without explicit prior consent for the purpose of entertainment, training, or communication.”

“What are you talking about?” Sun said, moving close to Phillip. Clearly John was speaking to Phil alone.

“Please include Sun in this discussion. He deserves that much.”

John complied with that request while disputing the principle. “Captain, while your emotional state is a mission critical priority, I’m afraid I cannot defer to you entirely no matter how strongly you insist on the matter.”

Phillip stepped away from the other two. “John, you have no grasp of human psychology, not anymore, and I wonder if you ever did. You are treading on dangerous ground here, and I thought you’d learned better.”

“I will continue to use the tools at my disposal to improve success probability. Further, it was not entirely my own judgment. Tao has often internally resolved to prevent the spread of dangerous and false ideas from Sun to Isaac.”

“But not like this. We don’t counter ideas by having you shut off people’s brains.”

“That is not a fair characterization of the methodology.”

Sun stomped impatiently, interjecting himself into the Captain’s debate. “Tell me what you’re talking about. What brains are shut off?”

“Sun, Isaac is standing right here. John removed him from your visual and auditory perception. Probably olfactory and tactile as well.”

“Captain, I find your attempt to counteract my guidance to be highly detrimental to mission success. Please desist.”

Sun looked around frantically. “What the hell are you talking about? John? End program. Get out of my head.” His eyes fell at last on Isaac and he jumped back, startled. “See?” he shouted to the boy. “See? You can’t trust a word of the adults or the computer. It’s all manipulation and control.”

“If you have a complaint, please register it through the formal channels and we will attempt to come up with the most equitable resolution.”

Sun snorted and shoved past the Captain. Phillip caught his shoulder as he passed. “We still need to chat.” Sun wrenched away, stalking towards the stairs without looking back. Phillip looked down at Isaac, who watched in wide eyed fascination, and forced a smile. “That’s probably enough onions. How about you run those up to the kitchen now?” Isaac nodded and followed wordlessly after his uncle.

“Can you understand now why you should heed me in this, John? You can’t keep secrets half as good as you think you do, and people aren’t going to take kindly to your presumption here.”

“I will update my protocols according to performance Captain. I hope you do likewise.”

“What does that mean?”

“There would have been no altercation here without your interference. You cannot take a single foiled attempt at social control as indicative of my full capabilities. Further, if you cannot trust me, I feel you should accelerate your plans to retire.”

A single foiled attempt. Perhaps John meant to imply that this was an isolated practice, but it was surely more likely that it was the noticing of it that was unique. What had John… What would John… Phillip took a deep breath, fighting to control his thoughts even unto the sub-verbal level. “Right. Surely you know best. I will give you my full confidence from now on. There must be undue stress interfering with my judgment.”

“You do have elevated heart rate. Schedule a medical evaluation, Captain. Is there anything else to discuss? Sun is causing some commotion in the dining room and I should attend to it more closely.”

“Oh my — yes, please do. I’ll leave it in your hands.” Phillip headed up the staircase, emerging into the hall and glancing around. Breakfast was approaching and he had to duck out of the way as several young children dashed down the stairs and headed towards the dining hall. However Sun chose to vent his frustration was probably justified, but more importantly, distracting to John, whatever the AI decided to do about it. Phillip would deal with the repercussions of Sun’s tantrum later. The bigger problem was — but no. He must keep his thoughts under control. Execute the plan, without thinking about it. Hopefully Wei understood their coded conversation last night.

For all that Zhang Wei had been a rival as they had begun their small community, they had always been on the same team, and he trusted the man’s judgment and systematic thinking.5 Maybe it wasn’t as altruistic and fervent as the great John Alexander, but it didn’t seem like they had John Alexander any longer. Or else he had never been the person Phil had thought he was.

He found his granddaughter passing by from the Section 1 staircase, heading to breakfast with Charles and their children, Angel and Peter. “Jewel. A favor, please.” She passed the small hand gripping hers off to her husband and paused in the alcove with Phillip.

“Grandfather?”

“Can you go up to Section 2 and tell Wei we need to meet sooner than expected? Escort him to my office, and tell him to expect me in, oh, thirty minutes.”

“What’s this about?”

“He’ll understand.”

“But I’d like to know.” She still wasn’t moving. “I’m in training, right? Learning from the master.”

From the dining room he heard raised voices, Sun and Tao as far as he could tell. The commotion was likely drawing most of John’s spare attention, but he didn’t want to risk dwelling on it lest it bring to mind his plan. His brain was a battleground, and he won the battle by fleeing it.

He cast about for distraction; Jewel. He mentally replayed the girl’s life, from her birth to his daughter Paige, then onto her early childhood. Kiri bragging about the insightful questions she asked in school. An inquisitive mind and strong will he didn’t want to see overpowered by — well, so much for that line of thought.6

“Personal matter, Sparkles.” She rolled her eyes at the childish nickname. “Just want to reminisce with an old friend.”

“You made an appointment to chit-chat?”

His voice raised a notch. “What’s so difficult about just — sorry. Tell you what, I’ll explain it tomorrow, alright?”

“Sure, sorry, didn’t mean to pry.” She turned away and walked briskly towards the section 2 stairwell.

Phillip headed towards the nearest acceleration chamber, the sideways room that they sheltered in when gaining speed during the start of the journey, to which some, maybe Jewel, surely not him, would return in another half a century. He carefully inspected a spacesuit before donning it and returning to the stairwell. He caught an odd look from a couple passing him on the way but hurried on, paying no heed, and proceeded to climb past the third floor living quarters. The stairs from one of the six sections’ stairwells extended all the way to the center of the hub, where the ring revolved around the central axle. But that part wasn’t pressurized, hence the need for the suit and personal air supply.

He shut and sealed the airlock between the third floor and the narrow cylindrical stairwell, undoing the safety lock and activating the pumps to preserve the precious atmosphere. That apparently got John’s attention. “Captain? I can’t account for your position in the Section 1 stairwell airlock. Explain.”

Next week, Phil and John argue to death … In Space!