Doctor Who_ The Also People - Ben Aaronovitch [51]
'Databases?' prompted Bernice.
'Why don't you tell me what you're looking for,' said saRa!qava.
Bernice was planning to follow a Martian data collation system she'd used on some of her better funded archaeological digs. It involved pulling in information from every possible source, from local legends to the arcane measurements of the bio-statisticians, and compiling it into a single independent database. With that as your baseline data, you input your actual findings at the dig as they occurred and that was supposed to give you an enhanced insight into whatever the hell it was you were looking at, it being an article of faith amongst Martians that one can never have too much data. Aiyix-sith, they called it – the time telescope.
It was also supposed to take six weeks to set up – patience being another Martian trait. But Bernice was betting on saRa!qava's help and saRa!qava's people's obvious expertise with machines.
Which turned out to be a problem because machines, here on the sphere, had rights. Which meant you didn't so much as access data as ask for it – politely. 'What's in someone's mind,'
saRa!qava explained, 'is their business.' There were non-sentient data storage units but they used the same displaced hyperspace storage medium as drones, ships and God – meaning that occasionally they achieved self-awareness. Meaning that according to saRa!qava you sometimes didn't know you were talking to a person until that person started talking back. Sometimes the machine would wait hundreds of years before registering as a sentience. Nobody knew why.
Except God, of course. God knew everything, or at least claimed it did.
Machines didn't think like flesh and blood people, didn't obey the same imperatives that were hardwired into the messy lump of cold porridge that passed for data processing in an upright biped. Human-built machines either behaved like idiot savants or were carefully designed to mimic human mannerisms. Gone native already, Bernice, she thought, saying and thinking machines not robots. Machines here had their own thoughts, their own imperatives, motives and agendas that were sometimes impossible to fathom, even for a native like saRa!qava.
Not that it seemed to bother saRa!qava any – why should people think alike. Any more than it bothered her that machines were smarter, or faster, or more efficient. It bothered Bernice and being bothered made her feel a bit guilty.
With saRa!qava's help she ordered a virgin portable data terminal from central stores, which told them ten minutes. Bernice used the time to clarify some of the terminology. 'Drones' were always people, 'remote-drones' were machines slaved to another person – ships in particular used them to hang out in places where they wouldn't fit. Remote-drones were also called 'jobbers', presumably because they did all the jobs. 'Constructs' were remote-drones that looked like animals, although never like people because that would be in bad taste. 'Houses' were generally not people but occasionally they became one. Sometimes those that changed transferred to a ship or a drone body; for some reason a fairly high percentage of shuttles were run by ex-houses.
They even had an Interest Group, the DSIG – the initials standing for Domestic Service. 'Recipes mostly,' said saRa!qava, 'and how to get stains out of vulnerable fabrics.'
The data terminal arrived via the House's freight lift. It was the size and shape of a cricket ball and covered in short pink fur. Central stores apologized when they complained and said it thought saRa!qava wanted it for one of her children. It could provide them with another if they were willing to wait?
'Never mind,' said Bernice, 'it'll do.'
Smelly thought so too and dropped onto the table to play with the new toy. 'Don't worry,' said saRa!qava as the child tried to stuff it into her mouth, 'she can't damage it.'
'How does it work?' asked Bernice.
'You just tell it what you want,' said saRa!qava. 'It's remote-linked to the