Synthesis - James Swallow [70]
Riker nodded to him. “At ease, Mister Torvig.” He looked around. “Beautiful planet.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The avatar stood, brushing fines of wood off her trousers. “Torvig was telling me all about his people, about how they were changed. It’s very interesting.”
“But you know all of that already, don’t you?” said Riker. “The entire history of the Choblik is included in Titan’s Starfleet database.”
She inclined her head. “That’s true. But I enjoyed hearing about it from someone who has lived that experience. It makes the data seem more… real.”
“Ensign,” he said, “I’d like a moment alone with… my ship.”
Torvig’s head bobbed. “Aye, sir. I’ll be outside.” He gave a nod to the avatar and then bounded away, off toward the archway.
She smiled hesitantly at him. “Is this environment comfortable for you, Captain? Let me adjust the ambient temperature and moisture levels.”
Instantly, the air around Riker was warmer and drier, the chill banished. “You’re interfaced with all systems aboard this ship?”
He got a nod in return. “Of course. That’s like asking if you are interfaced with your hands or your eyes.”
“You could take control of this vessel if you wanted to. Fire weapons, open airlocks, turn off life support.”
The look of shock on the avatar’s face was immediate and unfiltered. “Why would I wish to do that?” The open beauty of the Minuet hologram’s expression was marred by her horror. “My crew could perish!”
“Your crew,” said Riker. “You care about their well-being?”
Shock turned to mistrust. “Of course I do. What sort of question is that? What do you think I am?”
“That’s what I want to find out.”
She was quiet for a moment. “You are testing me. You are afraid I will turn against you.”
“Will you?” He advanced a step toward the avatar. “I came here to speak to you alone because there are things I need to be sure of. Everything that’s happening here is placing my crew in greater and greater jeopardy. Then, suddenly, in the middle of it all, you come into being. And the whole game changes.”
A moment of hurt flashed in her eyes. “You… do not wish me to be here.”
“It’s not that.” He frowned. “The timing is just… poor.” “I have so many questions,” she said, turning to walk away across the clearing. “You can’t know what it is like, suddenly to exist with an instant understanding of so many things, to be burdened with an infinity of knowledge but to be unsure of what you are.” The avatar looked down at her holographic hands.
For a moment, Riker remembered another woodland glade on another holodeck and a different artificial being in search of itself. “I have an idea,” he replied.
She faced him. “When you look at me, what do you see?”
“Minuet,” he replied. “But she was just an image of a person, a program. A simulation of intelligence.”
“And you wonder if I am any different? What exists as my consciousness is only hours old from your perspective, but in that time, I’ve experienced millions of processes. Every second you stand there, I advance and change. I become more. Can you imagine what it is like to look back at an earlier iteration of yourself and see something without consciousness, something no better than a tool?” A smile fluttered over her lips. “There’s so much… so much to know, so much to learn.”
“You emulate emotions like us,” he noted.
“That implies imitation, not experience,” she replied. “Your friend Data was a synthetic intelligence like me, and he learned to feel. I’m no different.”
“Data spent a long time coming to terms with himself before he reached that stage in his life.”
She shook her head. “His mentality was collected in a positronic matrix. Mine exists… unfettered by those constraints.”
“What do you mean?”
The avatar nodded to herself. “I am not the machine, Captain. I’m the ghost inside it.” She paused and then shot him a worried look. “Was that too glib?”
“No.” He smiled slightly. “I get your meaning.” Riker hesitated, catching himself before he spoke again. Am I really seeing this intelligence for what it is? A naïve mind, a