The Ouroboros Wave Read Free

for he removed the truck’s console cover and forcibly disconnected the speed governor. The truck’s speed quickly exceeded safe limits.
    By disconnecting the governor, Chapman had taken the truck off-line—which prevented Shiva from detecting it as it came hurtling back. Instead, the laser cannon radar array picked it up. Shiva’s log later showed that the AI had mobilized all of its reasoning capacity to determine that the approaching object was in fact a truck and not a meteor. Then it had searched for a way to gain access to the truck’s power control. It found one—and stopped the truck dead in its tracks.
    Chapman would have been killed instantly, the truck torn to pieces by its own inertia. Its fragments, along with Chapman’s body, hurtled toward the temporary crew modules atop East Platform. The kinetic energy of the pieces and its erstwhile human cargo demolished the modules instantly, producing two types of wreckage. The module debris took an elliptical course toward the interior of the ring. The rest—including what had once been Chapman—hurtled toward the black hole. By now, most of the debris had already been transformed into a gaseous ring by Kali and was flowing into the black hole, sweating X-rays as its atomic structure was disrupted by the immense tidal forces.
    For now, that was the sum total of what was known about the accident.
    “Based on this report, Graham was messing with the speed control,” said Tatsuya.
    “That’s not the problem. Shiva would assume mechanical fault in a case like that. He should’ve decelerated the truck gradually. We’ve had a few glitches with the trucks and the bullet, and that’s how Shiva has always handled them. This is the first time he’s behaved like this. Sure, yanking the limiter circuit created a problem, but not with the truck. The problem is how Shiva responded. SecDiv doesn’t have the tools to get to the bottom of this. This is all about Shiva’s reasoning processes.”
    “In other words, it’s a job for professionals. Like you guys.”
    “You must be joking. SysCon can’t solve this either. This is out of the human realm. First of all, there are way too many lines of inquiry. We’d never work through them all. The only thing we can do is get Sati online as soon as possible so she can find out what went wrong with Shiva.”
    “But we should be analyzing the accident, not every branch of Shiva’s reasoning process. It’s not going to be easy, but do we really have to put another AI on it?”
    “Sati has to analyze all of Shiva’s processes first to tell us where to start looking. And that’s not all.”
    Tatsuya noticed Catherine glancing at the coffeemaker. It hit him that he hadn’t had anything to drink since before the funeral. He’d been thirsty without realizing it. He activated an agent program from his web and ordered the coffeemaker to brew two cups. Their personal mugs were just a few feet away in the wall locker. Tatsuya retrieved them and filled them with coffee from the machine.
    “Thanks,” said Catherine. “But listen, Tatsuya—why did you make coffee for me?”
    “Because I love you? Okay, I thought you’d be thirsty. No fluids since before the funeral.”
    “There. You’ve put your finger on the problem.”
    “Which is?”
    “The impregnable fortress we have to conquer. The difference between humans and AIs. Humans have a theory of mind. AIs don’t.”
    “Are you sure? ‘Thirsty’ equals ‘make coffee.’ Simple logic. Any AI could manage that.”
    Catherine took a few moments to frame a reply. “Here’s the problem. I’ll exaggerate a bit to make the point. Have you ever seen Grünewald’s Crucifixion ?”
    “Sorry, doesn’t ring any bells.”
    Catherine downloaded an image of the centuries-old painting to her web. It showed Christ on the cross, limbs twisted in a grotesque posture of agony. “What does this make you think of?”
    “Well, he has nails through his palms. Must be painful.