Star Wars_ The Black Fleet Crisis 03_ Tyrant's Test - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [141]
Lando knew only that Lobot was connected to a machine with the power to take him away and no apparent inclination to return him. After observing the phenomenon the first time, Lando set strict limits and appointed himself the enforcer of them. Throughout the duration of the hyperspace jump, Lobot spent no more than an hour at a time linked, with at least two hours between sessions.
Even allowing that much was a concession to Lobot, who insisted that the most productive part of a session was the part when he was insensible to anything but the vagabond’s data structures. That assertion was one Lando had to take on faith. So far, Lando hadn’t seen enough in the way of useful results to justify risking any contact at all. The insights Lobot was gleaning from contact with the vagabond seemed far more meaningful than the ones he was managing to communicate to Lando.
“It doesn’t know what it is,” Lobot had explained. “It only knows what it does.” But even within those parameters, what the vagabond “told” Lobot seemed all too changeable, subject not only to interpretation but to Lobot’s errors of enthusiasm.
The ship was a protect-against-harm, a shelter-and-nurture, a heal-and-succor, a flee-from-predators, a maintain-and-preserve, and a welcome-and-teach—which Lobot variously interpreted as egg, mother, creche, repository, and chrysalis. The rounded bodies in the inner tubules were sleepers, keepers, corpses, creepers, sacrifices, and directors—with half of those designations suggesting they were part of the vessel and half suggesting they were something apart.
“I don’t think it knows any more,” Lobot had said at one point, responding to Lando’s frustration. “Its reflexes are complex and elegant, and it has great power at its command. But it lacks even a child’s self-awareness or sense of purpose. It does what it knows to do, by stimulus and response, by instinct—it is conscious of those processes but nothing beyond them. I don’t think it even realizes where it is, any more than a seed buried in the ground does.”
“If you and it make up your mind about anything, make a point of sharing that with me,” Lando had answered in disgust. “If it won’t obey us, I don’t see that we’re getting anything useful out of this. So if you’re going to keep communing with it, at least keep working on that point.”
Even as Lobot had found a new focus, Lando seemed to have lost his. They had access to the entire ship now, but Lando had shown little interest in making use of it. He had powered down both droids, and spent most of his time floating in chamber 229. The near exhaustion of his propellant was only a pretext concealing his loss of heart.
Lobot made one attempt to talk to Lando about what he was seeing. “In our travels together, I have only seen you leave the table twice,” he said. “Once when you found yourself in a rigged game, and once when that woman, Sarra Dolas, came and sat at Narka Tobb’s side instead of yours. I have only seen you fold your hand in the face of a game that could not be won, and a game that you no longer cared about winning. Which is it this time?”
“Neither,” said Lando. “I’ve done everything that I know how to do. None of it’s done a thing to improve our position. Now you say it’s headed home. I’m just waiting for the last hand to be played.”
But the unprecedentedly violent shaking of the vagabond as it exited from hyperspace shook Lando out of his indifference. “Lobot, where are you?” he called over the suit comm.
“In the interspace, aft,” Lobot replied.
“Did you hear what just almost didn’t happen? On my worst mornings after my worst days, I don’t sound that bad trying to get up,” Lando said.
“Yes, Lando,” said Lobot. “The exit growl was extraordinarily loud and extended here—I had the distinct impression of hearing it from behind, from the stern first, and