Turing Test Read online

  “So you have rules, like the Prime Directive from Star Trek, which prohibits interfering with the natural development of lesser civilizations even when well-intentioned,” Professor Minchen said.

  “I watched all of the old Star Trek episodes after arriving on your world, and while they talked a good game about their Prime Directive, it seems to me they interfered on a regular basis.”

  “Kirk was pretty bad, but Picard made a real effort.”

  “Who?”

  “Never mind. Are you allowed to share your own rules?”

  “I’m not supposed to be talking to you at all,” I told them. “In any case, it’s just a list of prohibitions, like no keeping pets or interfering with your customs.”

  “So do you consider us pets or are you worried that telling us this will interfere with our customs?”

  “That wasn’t the whole list. We aren’t supposed to reveal our presence to humans or any other alien visitors, which has all of a sudden become an issue. We can’t deploy technology or knowledge which could lead to our presence being revealed.”

  “Like your heads-up on the approaching ship,” Professor Nordgren pointed out helpfully.

  “Right. There’s something about not recruiting humans for off-world labor or violating local laws. No looting your cultural treasures, and of course, no going native.”

  “What does your League have against pets?”

  “It’s because Observers move on when the mission is complete and public access to the portal system is connected,” I explained. “It’s basically a reminder against adopting and abandoning sentient creatures.”

  “You recognize animals as sentient?”

  “You wouldn’t ask that if you’d met my dog.” That didn’t sound right. “I mean, my canine roommate.”

  “The Hankers seem very friendly,” Professor Nordgren ventured. “The news reports from Davos claim that they are demonstrating all sorts of advanced technologies to the delegates behind closed doors, not to mention taking people for rides into space on their landing craft.”

  “In return for each passenger’s weight in gold,” I pointed out.

  “The Hankers do seem a bit mercenary, but they told everybody right off that they are merchants, and I imagine it costs quite a bit to travel here from their homeworld.”

  “Empire. The Hankers control hundreds of occupied planets and have claimed tens of thousands of star systems that are empty of intelligent life. One of the reasons I’m talking to you now is to warn you against them.”

  “Will they force us to join their empire?” Professor Minchen asked.

  “No. I have a hard time picturing any scenario under which they would allow you to join their empire. To be perfectly honest, I’m not entirely sure why they are here, but I know they will try to take advantage of your people before you have the chance to weigh the alternatives.”

  “And your League? They’ll allow this?”

  “Politics is always local,” I said. “There are factions within the League representing different views on how the galaxy should operate, and whoever leaked the information about your world is no doubt working behind the scenes to delay the executive council’s decision on your starting level. Unfortunately, if the Hankers close business deals with your people that meet our Uniform Mercantile Code of Conduct, the League will be obliged to honor them.”

  “So you’re saying we might miss out on lower prices, but anything called a ‘Code of Conduct’ must have protections built in.”

  “It prevents the Hankers from selling you products that are dangerous to your health, which I’m sure will come as a great disappointment to many of your people. The code also includes prohibitions against certain types of profiteering, primarily in the financial products area, such as inviting you to participate in Ponzi schemes. There’s nothing in the code to prevent them from taking advantage of your ignorance, which is their favorite part of business. The Hankers aren’t happy unless they’re making somebody else look silly. They’re terrible practical jokers.”

  “Are the Hankers also artificial intelligence constructs? My colleagues and I are skeptical that evolution on an alien world would have brought about a dominant species that happens to be identical in form to our giant pandas. Your own body, or however you refer to your physical container, shows how little we can tell from appearances.”

  “The Hankers have invested way too much time and effort into vat-grown bodies,” I told them. “My own encounter suit, or body if you prefer, is entirely synthetic, and if it was damaged in some accident or attack that would reveal its true nature, it would self-destruct in a way that leaves no residual evidence.”

  “Leading to your death?”

  “I’d lose a little memory since my last incremental back-up but AI isn’t as easy to kill as in the movies.”

  “What about your League?” Professor Nordgren asked. “What’s its reason for being?”

  “The dual mandate is to keep members from slaughtering each other and to promote tourism.” I noted that Helen’s location beacon was moving steadily in our direction, but I was more resistant than ever to using our private channel in non-emergency situations, especially since the Hankers might be monitoring the full spectrum in hopes of determining our rough location.

  “Tourism?” she asked in disbelief.

  “Most sentient life forms like to travel and see new things, especially when they have disposable income. The older species enjoy much longer lifespans than humans, and the longer you’ve lived, the farther you have to go to see something you haven’t encountered before. Once your world is connected to the portal system, you can expect to see exponential growth in extra-terrestrial tourists, provided you treat them nicely and stop driving like lunatics.”

  “But how about the important things, like pooling scientific knowledge?” Professor Minchen asked.

  “By which you mean League members sharing their science with you?” I replied, smiling to soften the blow. “Generally speaking, everybody keeps their technology and magic to themselves, even when it’s of limited commercial value. You’re better off not skipping steps on your own journey up the technological and scientific ladder. It may be difficult to believe, but if we just gave you all the answers, rather than leaping ahead, your abilities would atrophy.”

  “Like when we started allowing students to use calculators on exams,” Professor Nordgren said ruefully. “I have conversations with students who can’t follow what I’m talking about because they lack the ability to do simple math in their heads.”

  “Yet you are here in secret to evaluate our technology,” the MIT professor said accusingly.

  “You have it backward,” I told him. “We’re here to evaluate, for lack of a better word, your humanity. I set up shop as a computer repairman to learn how you relate to your existing technology, not to grade the technology itself. I have to say that you treat your computers poorly, but given the software you have to work with, I can hardly blame you.”

  “It sounds like the AI version of a Turing Test,” Professor Nordgren exclaimed. “You want to find out how capable we are of exhibiting intelligent behavior!”

  “We’re less concerned with evaluating your intelligence than your manners,” I admitted. “Nobody likes a rude alien. If your species was further advanced in knowledge, I would have needed more time for the assessment, but fortunately, I was able to check off the ‘Just getting started,’ box.”

  “You don’t think we have anything at all to offer you?” Professor Minchen asked.

  “I would never go that far, but a lot of knowledge is species-specific, even if it doesn’t appear that way at first.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Take food, for example. I don’t eat, at least, I don’t digest what I do eat for the sake of passing as human. I have yet to meet an AI with any interest in cooking, yet your bookstores dedicate whole sections to the craft, not to mention shows on TV.”

  “So you aren’t impressed by our scient
ific efforts, but we may turn out to make the best omelets in the galaxy,” the professor said sadly. “Does all of this mean that even if you add us to this portal system, you won’t explain how it works?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not a portal engineer and I’ve never been able to justify buying the knowledge when I don’t have any immediate reason to do so. Information can be quite expensive in my culture. It’s what we really value.”

  “Helen,” Professor Nordgren greeted my approaching team member. “I’d like you to meet our computer repairman, Mark Ai, and my colleague from MIT, David Minchen. We were just chatting about the Hankers.”

  “Nasty aliens,” Helen said. She pulled back the plastic wrap from a tray which she held out to us. “Does anybody want a cookie? I made them myself. My roommates have been teaching me how to bake.”

  “What are you doing here so early?” Professor Nordgren asked, taking a cookie and giving it an experimental nibble. “It won’t be dark out for another hour.”

  “I wanted to spend a little time working on my charts before getting on the telescope. I haven’t said anything yet because I need to make a sixth observation before applying the Kalman Filter Algorithm—”

  “You believe you’ve spotted a new comet?” Professor Minchen interrupted.

  “I know, I know. I’m new to this and the odds are against it being anything, but I’ve been tracking something for the last five nights, and the orbital inclination is quite high, which might explain why nobody else has reported it.”

  “My prodigy,” Professor Nordgren declared, patting Helen’s shoulder. “I’ve been reviewing your notes in the log book and your methodology is excellent. Your high school science teacher deserves a medal.”

  “I just like looking at the stars when I get homesick.”

  “The stars remind you of home?” Professor Minchen asked sharply, looking back and forth between Helen and myself. If she hadn’t brought the cookies, I suspect he would have already leapt to the correct conclusion.

  “The Outback,” Helen said, putting on an exaggerated Australian accent. “The stars are much brighter back home.”

  Fourteen

  “Is Spot invited to the painting party?” eBeth asked.

  The dog jumped up from the couch and went to fetch his leash. I had bad news for him.

  “Put it back, Spot. You know what happened the last time we took you to one of Justin’s job sites.”

  “He promises to be good this time,” eBeth interpreted the dog’s whimper for me. “I’ll bet he thought we were going to paint the floor next and he was trying to help.”

  “Doubtful.” If Spot had simply spilled a gallon of paint out on a drop cloth, it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but the can had rolled down the stairs, splattering canary yellow all over the bone-white walls and the balusters of the banister. “Come on, you can try out your new driver’s permit.”

  “I don’t see why you don’t just give me my own car key,” she said, taking mine from the hook next to the door.

  “Because you aren’t allowed to drive without adult supervision.”

  “I wasn’t allowed to drive at all before I got the permit, but you let me do it as long as you were in the car,” she argued. “If I can’t drive alone with the permit, what’s the point of even having one?”

  I didn’t have a good answer so I followed her down the stairs in silence. We were halfway to the van when Spot caught up, still with the leash in his mouth.

  “Did you close the door?” eBeth asked over her shoulder.

  “Which one of us are you talking to?”

  “Spot. I know you wouldn’t forget.”

  I checked the status of the lock remotely. “It’s closed. I really wish you hadn’t taught him that trick with the knob.”

  “He taught himself,” eBeth said, beeping open the cargo door.

  Spot leapt in ahead of me and wriggled through to claim the passenger seat. The girl also climbed through the cargo door and slipped through to the front where she began adjusting everything to compensate for being a foot shorter than myself. As usual, I was left in the back with the computer parts and an unused leash.

  “So how many apartments does this make?” eBeth asked.

  “Thirty-four in the new building,” I told her. “I hope the project doesn’t fall apart when Justin has to leave. Pooling social security payments to finance an independent living compound works well on paper, but it’s going to require competent management.”

  “You just don’t think people are capable of taking care of themselves,” eBeth said, and then shocked me by actually checking the mirrors before pulling away from the curb.

  “Justin is focused on helping people who were already having trouble taking care of themselves when they became his clients,” I reminded her. “Many of them were medicated to the point that they could barely think straight or concentrate for more than a couple of minutes at a stretch. I have to admit I like the name, though.”

  “Living Independently, Together,” eBeth recited. “It’s kind of an oxymoron.”

  “The name means a lot to older people,” I told her. “Both the independent part and the together part. According to Kim’s data, humans who spend all of their time alone as they age can expect inferior health outcomes. Justin has a clever ad using the acronym—Don’t get ILL, get LIT.”

  “I don’t ever want to get old.”

  “Have you considered the alternative?”

  “Yeah. I want to go somewhere where they can make a backup of my mind and then put me in a body like yours—I mean, like Helen’s. But not until I’m over the hill, like, thirty-five or something.”

  “You don’t really want to do that,” I told her.

  “Sure I—Idiot!” she yelled, slamming on the brakes and the horn. The driver of the stopped car in front of us got out and began to approach the minivan, but Spot peeled himself off the dashboard and lunged across eBeth, snarling and pawing the window glass like a police dog who’d gotten into the crystal meth. The other driver spun on his heel and fled back to his car.

  “They’re supposed to stop when the light turns yellow,” I informed eBeth. “You were in the wrong.”

  “No, he could have made it. We both could have made it.” The light turned green but eBeth didn’t go because she was fumbling in her purse for a tissue to wipe Spot’s drool off the window. The car behind us honked.

  “Here,” I said, passing her a paper towel from the roll I kept for cleaning junk off computer screens. “You’re blocking traffic.”

  “I know that.” She accelerated into the intersection, almost clipping a car that had cut across her lane when she didn’t go in a timely manner. “Have you talked to Sue?”

  If I had been human, I would have blushed.

  “You’re blushing,” eBeth said, turning to stare at me. “I didn’t know your encounter suit could do that.”

  “Watch the road!” I barked.

  She turned her head forward, but I could see her eyes on me in the rearview mirror. Spot chose this time to belatedly do his seatbelt trick, strapping himself in.

  “Sue talked to me,” I admitted. “You were right.”

  “I was what?”

  “You were—you heard me the first time.”

  “It’s just that I enjoyed it so much. Did you ask her out?”

  “She was under the influence of simulated inebriation,” I said. “It didn’t seem like the right time.”

  eBeth sighed. “You really are an idiot. Why do you think she was drinking in the first place?”

  “It was a party. You’ll understand when you’re older.”

  “If I never age another day I’ll still understand relationships better than you and your hundreds of years. Just pull out your phone and call her.”

  “She’ll be at the painting party. I think it’s better that I talk to her face-to-face.”

  “Don’t think. You’ve already proven that this stuff is beyond you. Just call her already.”

&nbs
p; My hand moved to my pocket and pulled out the phone as if it had a mind of its own, and I even swiped to unlock before I realized I was taking advice from an alien high-school dropout.

  “Call Sue,” eBeth yelled.

  At first I thought she was just being obnoxious, but then I realized she was talking to the voice recognition software. The phone had dialed and it was already too late to hang up because Sue would see the incoming call and worry. I sighed.

  “Mark. Aren’t you coming to the painting party?” Sue asked.

  “We’re on our way,” I replied. “I just wanted to call ahead and—don’t say anything, eBeth. I can do this.”

  “What?” Sue asked.

  “Sorry. eBeth has been acting funny today and you know they don’t come equipped with any self-diagnostics.”

  “Tell me about it,” my second-in-command commiserated. “The little ones can’t even tell you where it hurts. They just cry and make you feel helpless.”

  “Anyway, I, uh, I was thinking that maybe you’d like to go for a walk later. Maybe take a look around the state park. I hear the woods are lovely this time of year.”

  “It’s January,” eBeth hissed, unable to control herself any longer.

  “That would be great, Mark. I’m looking forward to it.”

  “All right. See you in two minutes.

  “Bye. And thanks for calling.”

  “Well?” eBeth demanded.

  “You know the cold doesn’t bother us.”

  “That’s not what I meant.”

  “You were right again, but you just missed the turn for the parking lot.”

  The antilock brakes prevented her from flat-spotting my tires and the seatbelt kept Spot from ending up on the dashboard again, but I had to magnetize myself to the floor to avoid going through the windshield. I know I should have been wearing a seatbelt myself to set a good example but I’ve always hated the feeling of my encounter suit being confined. All the same, maybe I’ll ask Paul if he’d sold the rear seats he took out of the minivan for me back when I thought I’d need the space.