A New Trick or Two

No Space for Family [Chapter 3]

Consider space— like, outer space, for you people that live on a planet. Consider that there is more nothing than there is something. Does that make sense? Like there are stars and planets and asteroids and other little celestial bodies, but the rest of that is literally nothing. And somehow that lack of anything can be more dangerous than any physical presence. Despite all the danger, people traverse the inky darkness all the time.

My family are some of those people. Truthfully, not everyone can manage something like space. And you can’t do it alone. Spaceships need a whole crew. And a leader there to make sure their crew doesn’t fight and drive each other crazy. One day I’d like to be the captain of a ship. That, or the engineer who makes the ship do all the stuff and keeps all the people alive while they are being captained. My dad actually does both those roles. And while I’m not the captain, I can still talk about our crew complement and introduce them properly.

First, there’s my dad. My mom says he’s tall, dark, and handsome. That sounds like a phrase you would find in a storybook for adults. To me… he’s just my dad. You may have heard of him, actually, if you work in the Field of AI. Jefferson Umburter, a pioneer and entrepreneur in a unique branch of artificial intelligence. At least, that’s how he describes himself.

Here’s that deal with his job if you’re interested. Every colony bigger than a few thousand people wants their own artificial intelligence core to make its systems easier to manage and expand upon. My dad helps colonies like those get AIs. And colony founding is big business. At least according to my mom, Amelia Ankern. Tell me you’ve heard of her?

My mom is pale-skinned and straight-haired, a strawberry blond, which sounds more delicious than it actually is. I think I would have freckles like her if my skin wasn’t dark like my dad’s. More importantly, my mom helps with the whole AI business my dad works all the time on. She’s what they call a ‘colonization consultant,’ a person who tells other people what to do and then they do it and pay her lots of money. If not a captain or an engineer, that’s what I would like to be when I’m older.

We can’t forget my brother who is still nicely sharing a corner of his room with me. Now some people say I’m like a little version of my dad, but that title actually goes to Terren. He’s got the look, even down to his shiny, shaved head to match my dad. He follows my dad around everywhere and tries to act like he’s also the captain whenever my dad isn’t directly at his post. I’m the only one he can boss around, though.

Grandma Aida is my mom’s mom and… well, before I get to her, let’s talk more about the AI business. The problem with artificial intelligence cores is that they require massive installations for processing and storage. And while deep space data transmission has come a long way, at least in our quadrant, it would still take a lifetime to send a copy of an entire AI’s neural network lightyears away to a new core. And training a new AI costs a lot of money and time. I think I’m getting all this; I’m just repeating stuff my dad has said in the past.

The solution? For my dad, it was to take a retired freighter craft and fit it with a surrogate core that could host the copy of an AI while it was transported to a new permanent installation in whatever colony ordered it. My mom would then see to it that the AI was tuned to its new home and able to adapt to its new tasks. Since the creation of the enterprise, we had done five successful transplants and earned a lot of money for the investors, so says my dad.

There is one strange thing about this process though. That is the artificial intelligences themselves. First off, they are smart like a person, a person who has read many books and gone to many classes and talked to many people and solved many problems. On top of that, they were good at paying attention. I guess they were told that they were copies of an original and were going to end up somewhere else to take on a new job. None of them had a problem, surprisingly. I honestly applaud them— after all, I remember when I had to be pulled out of regular school to join my dad on this job of his. Saying goodbye to your friends sucks!

Anyways, you should know that AI cores don’t simply get turned off. It’s kind of like a person. Your brain still works when you go to sleep, you know. That’s how you get dreams. And nightmares. And why sometimes you wake up all of a sudden and have to pee.

During the extent of our journeys, the AIs in our careful possession live with us inside the ship and communicate with us. I guess since they can think real fast, having nothing to do or say would be extra boring.

I still remember the first AI we had with us. His official name was DWRF-3 MK2, but I nicknamed him Rocky. His station was going to be on a planet rich with minerals, where he would analyze the junk brought in from various mines about the surface. From there he was supposed to guide the human operators to new potential dig spots and mineral veins.

I learned about lots of minerals from Rocky. He showed me how to look through a spectroscope for radioactive minerals and then how to stay away from them. He told me about a planet where diamonds rained from the sky just naturally. I asked if it would be possible to live there, and he said only if I wanted to get hit in the head by one of the hardest known minerals in this corner of the galaxy. That response taught me that being intelligent doesn’t always mean that your jokes will be good.

Grandma Aida also had bad jokes. I guess I can’t not talk about her anymore. First off, Grandma Aida was once a living, breathing old lady. Well, she wouldn’t have said she was old. I never actually heard how old she was. She was my mom’s mom, and my mom wasn’t that old to begin with. If you do the math between my age and my mom’s age, you could map a trend to determine what grandma’s approximate age was.

I revealed this set of experimental calculations to my dad first as a precaution, and while proud, he reminded me that sometimes keeping friends is better than being right. My dad must have been right a lot around Grandma because they didn’t seem very much like friends.

I had met my Grandma before she came to join us on our current mission, but it was only for a few days at a time. I guess she didn’t like to do much space travel, but she had a reason to join us this time; her husband had passed away. Don’t worry, that man wasn’t my grandpa or even my mom’s dad. He was actually Grandma’s third husband, and according to her, her last. Well, that man had grown up in a colony on a planet that started out no more than rock. His final wish was for his ashes to be returned to that very planet to fertilize the ground there or something. Only then would all his money and stuff be allowed to go to Grandma.

You already know the story of how I was forced out of my room to let Grandma stay there. There was still a lot of stuff that happened between then and now. We started off by picking her up on Chandra, a moon in the Sirius system. Actually, we visited the moon properly for a few days. My mom says it’s good for my growth to get some actual gravity in me rather than just the artificial stuff the ship generates.

This may sound weird, but maybe you’ve experienced this. Like, I know Sirius isn’t terribly far from where humans grew up. But Chandra has a lot of humans. Not that it’s weird seeing people that look like yourself, but the planet where I grew up had a lot more people that weren’t humans. I had many friends back in school who looked pretty different, but that’s also why I liked them.

I didn’t have much time to think about all the differences because we lifted off with Grandma a few days later, her husband’s ashes included. “I feel so heavy. Why do I feel like everything is going to my ankles?” She asked immediately as we left Chandra’s atmosphere.

Terren, who had been busying himself with stowing her luggage out of the way, took the time to answer. “The artificial gravity is a little bit stronger than you may be used to, Gram.”

“I don’t like it.”

My mom retreated to the common room after helping my dad in the cockpit clear the planet’s pull. “Sola, why don’t you expand out the kitchenette? Show Grandma. We’ll do a little bit of proper cooking tonight.”

I nodded and did as I was told. The common room’s facilities could be folded in and out of the walls and floor as needed to save space. While the kitchen was coming to, my mom extruded the dining setup out of the floor and sat my grandma down.

“Have a seat, mom,” she directed, hands on Grandma’s shoulders. “You’ll get used to the gravity. We have it set to the same constant as back at our home. There’s evidence that irregular gravitational forces have greater effects on growing bodies. Sola’s, for example.”

Grandma huffed but accepted her seat. “My body will be growing too, but downwards. My bones aren’t what they used to be, I’ll have you know.”

I saw my mom’s eyes roll in a way that I would have gotten in trouble for if I had done it to her. “Well, we got that medication from your doctor just for that purpose. We told him exactly what sort of conditions you’d be experiencing. Do you remember which bag of yours you put it in?”

Grandma stomped her foot. “Of course I remember! I’m not senile! And you saw me pack those bags! I certainly didn’t forget a single thing.”

“Right, right,” my mom nodded. “It was in with your toiletries, right?”

“Yes. The little silver bag.”

My mom glanced around. Terren had just come back out from the back hall where our two rooms were located. “Terren?”

“Huh?”

“Grab Grandma’s silver bag from your sister’s room, okay?”

Terren spun right on his foot and went back the way he came, his shoulders slumped and steps a little bit more forceful than before.

Grandma finally seemed to relax. Or maybe she was just worn out. Either way, she still had the energy to talk, though. “How many days was it before we get to Greenmire, again?”

My dad popped out of the cockpit as the autopilot kicked in. “In a straight shot, six standard days. But we’ve told you that our job is still the priority. At the very least, it’s on the way.”

Grandma clicked her tongue and nodded. “Right, you needed to get the ship wired with one of those talk-boxes.”

“It’s an AI grandma,” I spoke up, carefully pronouncing the words. “Arit…ficial intelligence. And they might get mad if you badmouth them.”

“Oh, they wouldn’t be the only one,” she responded, hands crossed over her chest.

“I think you’ll like this one Aida,” my dad said smugly, leaning in the doorway of the cockpit.

“Will I?”

My dad stood up straight and shrugged, glancing back once to check on the autopilot. “I mean, I remember when you were a little… disappointed Amelia married me and not someone more important like you were hoping for.”

“Was I?” Grandma sighed wistfully.

“Perhaps? Maybe it is my memory that’s failing,” my dad said. “Anyways, this AI is custom-built for the medical industry. A super doctor if you will.”

“As long as it doesn’t tell me I need to trade out my real bacon for the synthetic stuff, I’m sure we’ll be the best of friends. Speaking of which, when’s dinner?”

My mom had suddenly appeared behind me, guiding me with a nudge out of the kitchen area. “We’ll get cooking right now.”