The Fountains of Youth - Brian Stableford [154]
“What do you mean, if?” I objected, sharply. “Your transmitter’s working, isn’t it?”
“According to my diagnostic program,” the silver replied, with what seemed to me to be undue caution, “my broadcasting capability has not been impaired.”
The unspoken but rang more clearly in my consciousness than if it had been voiced.
“So what has been impaired?” I demanded.
“I fear, sir, that I am not able to receive any kind of incoming message. The fact that I have not received an acknowledgment obliges me to retain some doubt as to whether my alarm signal has been picked up—but far the greater probability is that it has been heard and that it is the failure of my own equipment that prevents me from detecting a response. I apologize for the inadequacy of my equipment, which was not designed with our present environment in mind. It has sustained a certain amount of damage as a result of pressure damage to my outer tegument and a small leak.”
“How small?” I demanded, trying hard not to let the shock of the revelation turn into stark terror.
“It is sealed now,” the machine assured me. “All being well, the seal should hold for between eighteen and twenty hours, although I cannot be absolutely sure of that.”
“What you’re trying to tell me,” I eventually said, deciding that a summary recap wouldn’t do any harm, “is that you’re pretty sure that your mayday is going out, but that we won’t actually know whether help is at hand unless and until it actually arrives—although you have no reason to suppose that any submarine capable of saving my life is capable of reaching us before we suffer enough further damage to kill me.”
“Very succinctly put, sir,” the silver said. It wasn’t being sarcastic.
“But you might be wrong,” I said, hopefully. “You don’t know of any submarine capable of attempting a rescue, but that judgment’s based entirely on information you already had when we set out. Because you can only transmit and not receive, you can’t update your status report.”
“The fact that I am not aware of the proximity of a submarine capable of taking us aboard,” the silver confirmed, carefully refusing to overstate the case, “does not necessarily mean that no such vessel can get to us in time to render assistance.”
“However,” I went on, doggedly, “everything you do know about the deployment of suitable submarines suggests the odds against us are far worse than evens and might well be as bad as a thousand to one. Barring a miracle, in fact, we’re as good as dead.”
Even a silver programmed for honesty wasn’t going to admit that. “There are too many imponderables to allow me to make any accurate assessment of probability, sir,” it said, dutifully, “but it is never a good idea, under any circumstances, to give up hope.”
“Is there anything useful we can actually do?” I asked.
“To the best of my knowledge, sir,” the AI navigator informed me, “the course of action that gives us our best, admittedly slender, chance of surviving is to remain as still as possible while continuing to send out a request for urgent assistance. The world has many resources of which I know nothing, and we may be sure that as soon as our distress call is received, always provided that it is received, the people on the surface will do everything in their power to get help to us. We must put our trust in human ingenuity.”
I was quiet for a little while then, while I busied myself exploring my feelings, which turned out to be more than a little confused.
I’ve been here before, I thought,