Melissa Scott - Dreamships

Dreamships

Melissa Scott

1992

Editorial Reviews

From Kirkus Reviews

Scott's hardcover debut offers a thought-provoking examination of the possibility of artificial

intelligence. Reverdy Jian, a freelance ``dreamspace'' pilot based on Persephone (an arid world so

hot the population lives underground), and her partners Imre Vaughn and ``Red'' take on a job

flying a custom-made ship for the secretive Meredalia Mitexi. They're to search for Mitexi's lost

brother Venya--an almost legendary designer of the near-sentient computer ``constructs'' that help

human pilots navigate dreamspace- -who vanished soon after his claim to have created a true

artificial intelligence was suppressed by his corporate employer, Kagami Ltd. Aboard Mitexi's

ship, Reverdy works with Manfred, Venya's custom construct, and she grows ever more

convinced that Manfred might be sentient. When Reverdy learns that Mitexi plans to turn

Manfred over to Kagami on their return, she decides she must protect the construct, though she

risks her career and maybe her life. Scott's claustrophobic urban world owes a bit too much to

cyberpunk (as do her characters, whose chip-on-the-shoulder postures receive little justification),

but she adds colorful touches of her own, and her intelligent consideration of the issues

surrounding AI is rare and refreshing. Not perfect, but a solid, thoughtful novel from a promising

writer. --

Ingram

A wealthy corporation owner hires a space pilot to track down her insane brother, a man who

might have just created the first fully conscious artificial intelligence

PERSEPHONE (Persephonean, Persephoneans): only inhabited planet of Hades, Midsector III

Catalogue listing 1390161.f. CPC”A3B/G6171/884G(3). Surface gravity = 1.01 Earth.

Astronomical year =1.38 standard years; local year = (Conglomerate) standard year.

Astronomical day = 80 standard hours; local day = 24 local hours/24 standard hours.

Chronometric correction (standard): ATS 0.0. Climate: Persephone is officially classified as a

warm planet, with average temperatures of 32 °C; seasonal variation is minor, but travelers are

advised that high/low extremes are common, and should consult local met. offices before

traveling on the surface.

Discovered 998 PoDr. by CMS Pentateuch (Freya registry) while on extended materials

survey. The Freyan government proving unable to exploit the planetary resources, Persephone

was leased to the multiplanetary Shipyards Cartel, formed specifically to settle and exploit the

planet. Opened for full settlement PoDr. 1079 as mixed Freyan/corporate colony. Provisional

Conglomerate membership granted PoDr. 1277 as a result of the Fifth Freyan Revolution. No

indigenous animal life. Primary city: Landage (dos 1079 PoDr., star-port). Primary export

products: starships; AI constructs; VWS software, limberware, bioware; IPU mecha, wireware,

biofittings. Government: day-to-day government is handled by the Managing Board of the

Shipyards Cartel, whose members employ 82% of the population; however, Freya maintains a

competing Colonial Office on planet, which controls Persephone's noncommercial foreign

relations and to which the population may appeal decisions of the Managing Board. Disputes

between the two are settled in the Conglomerate courts. Language Group: Urban dialect of Freya

(index

viii

Introduction of variation MS3/5.200935); Urban primary (index of variation MS3/0.002014).

Persephone is a barren planet, settled only because of the vast resources available both on

planet and in the system's two asteroid belts. Because of the unpleasant climate, settlement has

gone underground, or into natural and artificial caverns, and is largely confined to the Daymare

Basin. 97% of Persephone's population is permanently resident in Landage or its suburbs; of that

group, approximately 20% are periodically resident in the assembly complexes at Mirror-Bright

(Whitesands) or the Rutland Seas. Travelers are advised to consult the local authorities and to

employ local transport and/or guides if their business takes them outside the Day-mare Basin.

The Peacekeepers maintain a Class II Traffic Control base on Cerberus in the outer asteroid ring.

The base is restricted; landing by permit only.

"When dreams don't become their people, people become their dreams

When dreams don't become their people . . . you bring the government down"

- James Grant, Halleluiah Man

1

It was dark under the eaves of Heaven, and she went carefully, more for the cracked tiles that

shifted underfoot than for the chance of trouble in the unlit side ways. To either side of the empty

street, houselights flickered wearily, barely the legal minimum of ten-lumen tubing outlining the

main - the taxable - entrances. Most of the tubing had once been painted good-luck red when the

door was cut, or at least when new people moved in, but that painting had nearly all faded, so that

what light there was lay in sickly straw-and-amber puddles along the sides of the road. Overhead,

the day lights were already dimmed: they went to bed early here in Heaven, to save the nighttime

surcharge.

Light blossomed under the arch that marked the end of the street, the flash of the interchange's

directional glyphs— themselves invisible as yet beyond the archway - reflecting at intervals

across the gray-black tiles. Her steps did not alter, long legs outlined briefly as she came to the

end of the road, striding contrary to the strobing lights. She blinked once, coming into the

interchange and its glare, and that was all.

After the silence of the house rows, the plaza's murmurous voices were quite loud, a rise and

fall of tonal language, vowels drawn up and down the scale. Heaven's people - coolies all, by the

sound of the voices, but lineworkers and construction operators mostly, not the lowest of the low

- were out, savoring the sweaty, not-quite-cool spill of air from the great vents tucked up under

the arch of the roof. Half a hundred men and women moved in that draft, filling the parklike

space inside the four massive central columns - iron trees, carved and grotesque, false branches

curving up with unnatural regularity to uphold the arch of the unreal sky, and the fans that

brought in the wind. She smiled, seeing them, but kept to the perimeter walk.

Ahead, a construction gang, newly off shift, spilled out of the brightly outlined entrance to a

beer shop, clustered loud-voiced around an outdoor server. She knew they were line-workers by

their clothes and the heavy humpback packs, and her step did not alter. She swept through them,

easy strides carrying her fast without having to hurry, and they made way for her, not grudging,

and not afraid, but knowing her too, and her business. Someone called after her, just a greeting;

she lifted a hand in answer, but did not slow her pace. The cooperative lay just beyond, its

staircase picked out with bright blue-green tubing. The same lights outlined the window of the

second-floor flat and formed the double-glyph above the door: pilot, and the clasped hands that

meant cooperative.

As she reached the top of the stairs, the door slid open, spilling a different, yellow light onto

the landing. She held out her hand to the sensors, seeing the wires beneath her skin darken

suddenly, shadow-blue turned deeply green. In the same instant, she felt the pulse of the security

system whipping hot along the tracery of the skinsuit's wires, and the inner door slid open.

The light inside was carefully natural, a sure sign the client had arrived. She made a face, and

turned toward the desk where the imager stood, its screens displaying silent fractal patterns. The

multicolored abstractions vanished as she crossed the sensor line and were replaced by a more

familiar image: a dark woman in a flowered sari, her black hair rolled into a tidy bun.

"Good evening, Bi' Jian," the image said, and the woman answered, "Good evening, Daru." It

annoyed her, as it always did, that she did not know the surname of the woman behind the image,

that she could not address her with what the upperworld would see as proper respect - but Daru

was keyast, proud of her secretarial status, jealous of the hierarchies. Jian put aside her irritation.

"Peace said there was work?"

"Yes, bi'." Dam's image looked aside, at a point past Jian's shoulder, reading the messages that

hung in the air, invisible except to her. "Ba' Malindy says you should go straight back. They're in

the small conference room."

"Thanks," Jian answered. The image faded from the display column as she turned away. As

she pushed through the door that led to the inner rooms, it occurred to her for the first time that

the keyast Daru might not even exist, might only be a virtual person, the persona of some poor

coolie slaving away for the secretarial service. If that was true, the personation was almost

perfect: more power to her - or him— the real "Daru, " for fooling all of us. The thought cheered

her, and she was smiling when she keyed the conference room door.

The client was indeed waiting, and the others were there as well, so that she had to stop just

inside the door to acknowledge their presence. Peace Malindy nodded to her from the head of the

table, and Imre Vaughn wheeled in his pacing to give her a quick, crooked grin and the lift of an

eyebrow. Jian nodded back, careful to include the third man - the redhead exactly as motionless

and full of potential motion as a statue - but her eyes were on the client. The woman sat at

Malindy's right hand, the ceremonial cup of tea acknowledged but untouched in front of her: a

tall woman, dressed in rust-brown silk just darker than her skin, a woman with no marks of

implants on her hands or face, just the wires wound through her heavy black hair to show she

might - and only might - be herself on-line.

"This is the senior pilot of the team," Malindy was saying, and Jian hastened to obey the cue,

easing herself into a chair at the redhead's left. "Reverdy Jian. Reverdy, this is Meredalia Mitexi,

who's hiring."

For a job nobody's willing to describe, Jian thought, and Mitexi smiled as though she'd heard

the unspoken words. Her face was rounded, unremarkable, a mid world face, but the smile

changed, it redefined the broad cheekbones and the amber eyes. It was the smile of a woman who

did not conceal or deny her own power, not complacent either, but dangerous and ambitious and

amused in equal measures. Jian took a careful breath, keeping her own face polite and still. /

wonder what she thinks of me.

"Hiring, yen," Vaughn said, and stopped abruptly in his pacing. The flat yanqui accent -

deliberately assumed, Jian knew - was harsh as a blow. "For what?"

Mitexi met his stare with the same smile turned bland, not - quite—contemptuous, and spoke

to Malindy. "This is the full team?"

Malindy nodded. He was a smallish man, unimposing to look at, especially in the one-piece

suits he habitually wore, but he seemed unaware of Mitexi's tone. "Yes. I understood you

required pilots with experimental licenses?" His inflection made it just barely a question.

Mitexi sobered at once. "That's right." Having said that, however, she seemed disinclined to

proceed, looked instead at the table in front of her. Checking her notes, Jian guessed: the invisible

implants acceptable in the midworld were relatively limited, their internal projections only visible

against a blank background. "I have some technical questions first, though."

"Go ahead." Malindy's voice was scrupulously neutral, as was the glance he directed at his

pilots, but Jian understood the unspoken warning. She would behave, and see that Vaughn did the

same.

"You're both licensed for experimental craft."

It was not a question, and had already been asked even if it had been, but Jian answered

anyway. "That's right. Also for most starships built in the last thirty years, and for about half the

mainline VWS-linked aircraft."

Mitexi nodded absently. 'What's your system?"

Jian heard a sharp intake of breath from Vaughn behind her, laid her right hand on the table,

palm down, fingers curved in private still-sign: shut up. Vaughn shifted again, subsided. Jian

turned her attention to the woman, deliberately placed her left hand on the table as well, and

wound her fingers together to make the wires stand out. The shadowy lines darkened, became

distinct beneath her skin, woven into the nerves of her hands. Those molecular wires covered her

body, made up her skinsuit, the skinsuit that allowed her to interact with the overseer programs

and constructs and control a starship in the chaos of hyperspace. They also made midworlders

uneasy, and Jian waited for the other woman to look away.

"What's your system?" Mitexi asked again, and Jian felt herself flush.

"Mostly Connectrix biofittings, with some Kagami IPUs. It's modified Yannosti wireware - it

would class out as a private-label operating system. It meets Standard Access Requirements,

though, no problems."

"And you?" Mitexi looked at Vaughn. Jian tensed, but the other pilot answered coolly enough.

"Pretty much the same. I like Hot Blue bioware, though."

The redhead said nothing, as usual, even when Mitexi frowned in genuine annoyance. Vaughn

answered for him, "Red's is a standard tech's setup, Staryards fittings and Datachain wireware.

Also modified, but it passes SAR."

Mitexi stared at the redhead for a moment longer, her face unreadable, then glanced at the

table again. "What about overseers? I understand you provide your own."

Jian's hands released each other, the right-hand fingers once again enjoining silence. Vaughn

made a soft noise, breath hissing between his teeth, but said nothing. Jian said, "Unless the

contractor wants otherwise. Yes, we each have an overseer - top of the line, a Spelvin construct."

How else would we fly the ship? Nobody can read hyperspace unassisted; you have to have an

overseer - topline near-AI, with plenty of power and memory and a whole flock of virtual-world

subroutines - if you're going to fly at all.

Mitexi nodded again, almost to herself, still looking at the table. "Would you be willing to

work with an experimental construct?"

Vaughn stirred again at that, and Malindy said, "That wasn't in the precis, Bi' Mitexi."

Mitexi slanted a smile toward him, unabashed. "No." She looked back at the pilots. "Would

you be?"

"That would depend," Vaughn began, the yanqui accent forgotten in anger, and Jian cut in

smoothly, " - on what the ship was like, how well tested your overseer has been, how easy it

would be to dump and reload with our own constructs if yours turns out to have bugs. ..." She

matched Mitexi's smile. "So you see it's impossible to give you a solid answer. ''

Mitexi's whole attention was on her now, for the first time, and Jian found it an oddly

disconcerting experience. The woman's eyes really were the color of amber, red-toned brown,

and possessed of unexpected humor. There was something predatory in them as well, impatient

and demanding, an urgency lurking in that glance, like muscles beneath the skin.

"If you had the appropriate assurances, then," Mitexi said, "you would be willing."

"I would consider it, yes," Jian answered, and saw the other woman's lips twitch into a fugitive

smile at the changed verb.

"And Ba' Vaughn?" Mitexi seemed to have come to the realization that the redhead would not

answer for himself if he could avoid it; her eyes flicked to the other pilot.

"We'd consider it," Vaughn answered. "But I want to know a lot more."

"Of course." The smile that seemed to be always close to the surface in Mitexi's expression

broke free again. "As I'm sure Ba' Malindy will have told you, I have an unrated ship I need to

have flown. It's old, but in good condition - an inheritance which has finally come fully into my

control. It was built about fifty years ago, and at the time was considered highly advanced. I

understand from the engineers that most of the systems developed for the Byron - the ship-was

commissioned Young Lord Byron - have since come into common use, so nothing should be too

unfamiliar.''

An inheritance, Jian thought. A whole starship. I knew there were rich people in the

underworld, but - Even as the thought formed, it was rejected. Mitexi was not of the underworld,

the richest classes who could afford to live in fully automatedcomfort far below Persephone's

scorched surface. The clothes were wrong, for one thing, and the face - and, more than that, she's

hungry still. There's nothing to be that ambitious for, not the way she is, once you get down to the

sub-Exchange districts.

"Where would we be flying this ship of yours?" The yanqui notes were back in Vaughn's

voice, a sure sign his annoyance was under control again.

Mitexi's lips twitched, but she did not succumb either to amusement or irritation. "Refuge."

Jian blinked at that, and then, when it became clear that Mitexi would not elaborate, could not

help feeling a sneaking admiration for the woman. It took guts to say simply "Refuge" and not

offer anything else, explanation, defense, anything at all to explain why anyone would willingly

choose to go to Refuge, when there was anyplace else left to go.

Vaughn laughed harshly. "Not on your life."

The redhead stirred too, an infinitesimal movement of head and shoulders that shifted the

coarse mane of his hair, but made no other comment. Jian glanced sideways at him, but his face

betrayed nothing but his astonishing beauty.

Mitexi laughed back at them, the sound unforced music. It was the only thing pretty about her,

and that prettiness was not intended. "I'm looking for someone," she said. "My brother. I have

reason to think he's on Refuge."

Vaughn lifted an eyebrow at that, but said nothing. Jian waited, too, knowing that there would

be more and willing to let the silence find it for her. Malindy glanced at his pilots, then at Mitexi,

but made no comment.

Mitexi said, grudging the admission, "I'm not entirely my own master in this. I hope to

franchise some of the standing systems and their limberware; my backers' investment was

contingent on a lightspeed cruise, at least transsector. And I need to find my brother.''

It was an odd choice of verb, Jian thought, but at least the rest of it made sense.

"Who's your backer?" Vaughn asked, and Malindy rolled his eyes in despair.

"Do you really expect an answer, Ba' Vaughn?" Mitexi answered, and the pilot shook his head,

grinning. Mitexi nodded at him, almost with respect, and turned her attention back to Jian. "I

have the technical specifications, if you want to look at them."

"Yes," Vaughn said rudely, and Jian said, "Did you really expect otherwise?"

Mitexi nodded again - not an answer, but acknowledgment of the deliberate parody. "Take

your time with them," she said, and slid a package across the table. The datadisks gleamed inside

their clear case, catching rainbow-colored lights from the fixtures overhead. "I'll give you some

privacy." She pushed back her chair and stood, drawing the hood of her coat back up over her

glittering hair. She used both hands, a movement practiced and graceful enough to draw Jian's

attention away from the disks. Mitexi seemed unaware of the scrutiny, but then her eyes slid

sideways, met Jian's look, and flicked away again.

Malindy was on his feet, too. "This way, bi'." He gestured politely to the door, and Mitexi

lifted her hand to sign “open please.” The door slid back, its sensors recognizing the movement,

and she preceded Malindy from the room. The coordinator paused for a moment in the doorway,

glancing back at the pilots, then followed Mitexi, letting the door slide shut behind him.

"Why be polite to a damn door?" Vaughn muttered, and reached for the box.

Jian reached for the table controls instead, beating Vaughn to them by a hair, and touched the

buttons that brought the player/projector up out of the central well. Vaughn gave her a glance that

might have been oblique apology - she knew sign perfectly well, the stepfather whose name she

bore had been coolie and deaf, and there was no call to insult either him or her - and fed the disks

into the display slots. There was a faint whirring, and then red pinlights flared at the top of the

projection ball: the machine was ready to display whatever was on the disks. She was out of line.

She frowned, and shifted until she was looking directly into the nearest light.

"Wait," Vaughn said, though she had not yet touched the display controls, and glanced over

his shoulder at the redhead. "You might want to see this, bach."

The redhead obeyed, moving to his left until he, too, was looking directly into one of the

lights.

"All set?" Jian asked, and touched the start switch without waiting for the unneeded answer.

Light flared in her eyes, her brain, drowning ordinary vision with the data that flooded along the

carrier beam and into the processors implanted in her eyes. She felt the data streaming, a cascade

of light and warmth and sheer sensation, along the molecular wires of her suit, and then she was

looking inward, focused on the symbols bouncing back into the air before her face.

The ship's schematics flowered in her sight, rotating slowly as though the ship itself was

showing off its virtues, the sleek lines of its hull, the invisible lines and points of its sensor net,

made visible in the display. Then the hull exploded silently, revealing inner space: the lines of the

decking, the interior systems and subsystems weaving a multicolored shell between the hull and

the unfamiliar symbols of the cabin fittings. That too was stripped away, the power plant swelling

so that they could see its familiar shapes and the labeling glyphs and numbers; the power plant

faded back and the control links appeared - standing systems packages, mainstay subconstruct,

overseer link, but no overseer - and then the image receded. The subsystems wove themselves

back over the interior volume and the plates of the hull became solid again: the show was over.

Jian blinked hard, still dazzled, blinked again, trying to make some sense of the chaos of data

she had seen. The overall systems, hull shape, overseer linkage, internal control train, were

familiar enough - in outline, at least, all she'd seen, recognized - She shook herself again,

disciplining her thoughts, and tried again. The skinsuit's systems had not stored the data;

mechanical memory was too precious to waste when training could bring natural memory within

operating limits and external memory sources were so easily available. She closed her eyes,

focused on retrieving the primary glyphs and matching them to the systems. The ship carried

mostly standard fittings, there was no doubt about that, and the power plant - a Merlin IVa - was

still being built, a good, reliable system with power to spare. There were nonstandard systems as

well, but most of those seemed to be in crew support and living quarters; the environmental

monitor itself was, reassuringly, a tried-and-true Ace/Kagarni standing system. There were

newer, flashier models, but this one could certainly be trusted to do the job. The overseer

interfaces were SAR/normal, but there was no data on the overseer itself.

"Well, now," Vaughn said, and stopped abruptly.

Jian said, "Nothing on this experimental construct." The words were thick on her tongue,

clumsy in realtime after the illusory speed of virtual space.

"Did you expect it?" Vaughn answered, but his tone was less sharp than the words.

"Not really." Jian closed her eyes, remembering. "I thought I might be able to get some hints

from the interface structure, though."

Vaughn grunted agreement. "No luck?"

"None." Jian reached for the table controls. "Do you want me to run it again, or have you seen

enough?"

"I say we take the job," Vaughn said. Jian raised an eyebrow at him, but he was looking at the

redhead. "Well?"

Red looked down and away, long eyelashes veiling his dark eyes. "It looks all right," he said

after a moment.

Vaughn nodded, satisfied. "Reverdy?"

"I'd like to know a hell of a lot more about the overseer."

"You're connected, you know enough constructors and shadows," Vaughn retorted. "The specs

must be on file someplace."

That was true enough, Jian thought, and there were people she could contact to dig out the

information - and she had hesitated only because Vaughn had assumed her consent. "It looks like

a good ship, sure," she said aloud. "You're sure you want to go to Refuge, Imre?"

Vaughn grinned. "You can bet your sweet life I won't be going planetside."

''I say we do it, then.'' Jian reached for the table controls again, pressed the button that lit the

signal in the second conference room. There was a polite interval - long enough and to spare to

show that no one had been listening at the door, though eavesdroppers were hardly so crude

anymore— before the door slid back again. Mitexi entered first, putting back her wide hood with

the same elegant two-handed gesture. Malindy, following, looking even less prepossessing than

usual in his crumpled one-piece suit. If he was aware of the contrast, however, he gave no sign of

it. "You've come to a decision." It was only just a question, and only for politeness.

"That's right," Vaughn said, and Jian cut in easily.

"We're willing to take the job, but with some provisos. We're still not happy about this

mysterious construct - excuse my bluntness, Bi' Mitexi - and I'm not reassured by knowing my

construct will fit your standing systems. I want more details, and I think we're owed more pay. I'll

leave that to you, Peace. But I - we - want more tech detail."

"That is reasonable," Malindy said.

Mitexi frowned. "I think you also understand my position. The construct is an extremely

sophisticated program matrix; obviously I can't take the chance of having it fall into . . . my

competitors' hands."

"I don't think we're talking about preflighting the full construct," Malindy said, with a glance

at his pilots. Jian shook her head. "Just some better idea of how well they'll be able to interface

with it and the ship.''

Mitexi was still frowning. "I think I can provide some information without compromising the

construct. If I put together another disk, will that do?"

"We'll know when we get it, won't we?" Vaughn muttered, but nodded.

"I expect we can manage a compromise," Malindy said. "And an appropriate hazard fee."

Mitexi nodded. "We can link in the morning, then." She glanced sideways, positioning unseen

projections against a blank wall. "I will be available for contact after midday, actually, if that's

acceptable."

Malindy nodded his agreement, fingering the palmscriber that hung at his waist.

"I'll expect to speak with you then," Mitexi said, and drew her hood up over her coiled and

wire-bound hair. "Ba' Vaughn, Ba' - " Her eyes flicked over the redhead, dismissing him, settled

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