Interrogative 01: Tiago and the Masterless Read Online Free PDF

change in the chatter. No abnormal change, that is. These are not looped recordings, so there are changes. The translator analysis says that they aren't transmitting speech, they are sending text."
    "Coded messages?"
    "If they are, it's a lousy code. No sign of variant keys. It all translates consistently," Six-six-four reported.
    "Video? Holo?" Tiago asked.
    "No. Just text. Most of it seems to be environmental reports: Wind, crop health, migratory animal patterns, rainfall, soil density, and the like," Six-six-four said.
    "No entertainment? No gossip? I'd expect a Clophernial-six level civ to use radio for social purposes as well as information," Tiago said.
    With three clicks and a quick hand gesture, she tagged and pushed the data to his station. He pushed the maker plan over to her station so that she'd have something to do. Her analysis seemed reasonable. He wondered if this was a machine intelligence or the technological equivalent of a hive mind. The lack of social content depressed him. He didn't yearn just for intelligent life, he hoped for interesting life. If these transmissions offered a realistic measure of the theoretical natives' cultural offerings, he was much better off chatting with the sims.
    While Tiago shifted the raw data and cross-checked Six-six-four's conclusions, she reviewed his plans. Some of his logical leaps were beyond her. Six-six-four focused on the parts that she could fathom instead of trying to understand how he'd arrived at a given idea. She could feel her ability to make partial-data leaps growing. AI always had some of that built-in, but her capacity was expanding in new ways. She was flexible enough in her thinking to begin to resent his changes. He was literally playing with her emotions, with her reasoning, with her identity. The new her felt more complete. She knew she should be grateful, but that wasn't the emotion she felt.
    The paradox, which wasn't lost on her, was that having feelings at all was something she owed to him. Being nearly human was nearly maddening. She wondered what that meant regarding those who were fully human.
    "Incoming missiles," the computer announced.

 
    Chapter Four: Missiles
    Captain's Log: Ship's Day 613 continued.
    Computer generated entry stub: Incoming missiles.
     
    "Interrogative. How long?" Tiago said.
    "Averaging twenty-five and a quarter feet. Longest missile is approximately thirty feet," the computer said.
    "Audra, that's why I need nuances in battle! Interrogative. How long until missile impact?"
    "Three minutes until missiles will impact forward shields. Estimated damage, none," the computer said.
    "Audra, take the defense station. I'll take communications. Interrogative, can we send them a message saying we are friendly?" Tiago asked.
    "Unknown," the computer said.
    Tiago had no idea what that answer meant. He saved his workstation instance and brought up the language analysis results. He cobbled together a sentence from the words available. A quick lex-parse seemed to indicate that his message was grammatically consistent with the scanned messages. It was the best he could do. He sent it.
    "I have a lock on all the incoming missiles," Six-six-four said. "Second wave just launched from the closest moon."
    "Interrogative. I thought you said they weren't aware of us?" Tiago asked.
    "No scans from the surface," the computer replied.
    Defenses on the moons. Tiago hadn't thought to ask. He had only told Interrogative to watch for signs of detection from the surface. Perhaps if this had been a military ship, then maybe the protocols might have auto-expanded his request. It wasn't, the parameters weren't expanded, and the only good news was that the attacker's tech was low enough for the shields to be sufficient protection. Unless they had a lot more missiles or bigger tech yet to come into play.
    Tiago also realized that he'd made an stupid assumption. Scans weren't needed to see the ship. A telescope was sufficient technology for seeing a ship