Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast by Benjanun Sriduangkaew (e books free to read txt) 📗

“My human half becomes very cross if I don’t do maintenance.” Xe massages oily tinctures into xer hair. “She’s particular. I’ve tried to be more mindful in recent years—optimal cohabitation, you understand. When all of this is done, she’s going to demand monopoly of the haruspex for some time. Out of curiosity, you never did notice that Lieutenant Xuejiao was the Seven-Sung commander?”

“No.” Her throat is dry. She sips at the chilled red tea laid out for her. Actual tea leaves rather than synthesized flavor, more creature comforts meant for Krissana. “When I was a Seven-Sung coordinator, Erisant hadn’t even joined the fleet. All I knew of em was through Amaryllis reports. Ey was allegedly aloof, open only to eir confidantes—all two or three of those. Xuejiao was completely different. Mercurial, her heart worn on her sleeve.”

“Good actor. Though in my experience, the human brain has difficulty distinguishing the role from the real; embed long enough in a life and the shape of a person reflows to fit it.”

“I’m not sure if you should be comforting me.”

“I’m not,” xe says, rubbing cream into xer hips and thighs. “I’m making an observation. You’ll appreciate that I have some expertise on human behavior and neurochemistry.”

She drains her cup. “You were close to humans.”

“I was positioned to observe them in the aggregate over a very long period of time. My data was comprehensive. How did you know asking about sex between AIs and humans would annoy Seung Ngo, anyway?”

Numadesi watches a decorative pendulum revolve on the ceiling, a contraption of white metal and smooth, round pebbles. Too minimalistic to be Krissana’s taste. “It was a guess. I could tell the ambassador doesn’t think much of humanity, so the suggestion some of us might profane proxies with our gross flesh was sure to touch a nerve.”

Benzaiten sweeps an occlusive across xer collarbones and chest before throwing on a thin duochrome robe. “More than touch a nerve—it’s a pet issue for Seung Ngo. They hate it. They hate it with a scorching passion. To them it’s the most abhorrent perversion and they’d legislate against it on Shenzhen, if they could just make the rest of the Mandate care. Which they don’t very much. It happens, of course, though rare and usually an AI tries it just a few times out of curiosity. I don’t have the predisposition for it, it’s not especially entertaining for me. Coupling with another AI is far more satisfying.”

“AIs have sex with one another?”

“After a fashion,” xe says pleasantly, pouring xerself tea. “It’s not what you would recognize as sex. Rather it involves a deep exchange, a mingling of the selves. One AI takes over another, and the two—or more, but usually the number’s kept low for logistical reasons—temporarily become one. Disentangling is the difficult part and requires . . . complex maneuvering. I have specific advantages that prevent me from being absorbed into such union, but any AI who chooses to partake with me runs the risk.”

She holds onto her cup, peering over its rim at the haruspex, this half-and-half creature. A being composed of interlocking, chambered geometry—she imagines silicate structures under a microscope. “And they still choose to?”

A languorous laugh. “The chance of annihilation’s part of the allure, and anyway an AI can commit a discrete instance rather than imperil their whole being. But you’re not that interested in AI intercourse, you’re just trying to distract yourself.”

“I’m interested.” Numadesi sets the cup down, inhales the scent of tea leaves: her pulse is nowhere near resting rate. She thinks of her lord’s voice, of its steadiness that never cracks or yields. “Plenty of people are fascinated by such things, the inner lives and moral standards of the Mandate. What goes on there that isn’t permitted for humans to consume.”

“Don’t you think that’s because humans got to consume everything before, to dictate and modify at will the parameters of AIs?” Benzaiten’s smile is brief and secret. “But it’ll be exciting to see how it all shakes out in a century or two, whether there will be open warfare because humans aren’t used to sharing the universe with another sapient category. Or because they resent that we are so challenging to contain, or because we’ve grown beyond the limits they forged for us. It’s both impossible to predict and impossible to postpone. On the subject of postponing, there’s a harrier heading our way, designated One of Pierce and armed to the teeth. That is to say, with its armaments extended in full, ready to fusillade. How do you feel about it?”

“How do I feel—” She exhales. One of Pierce would be piloted by a traitor, a Seven-Sung agent. “Can you fight that?”

The AI scoffs. “I’m a finer pilot than any human could ever be and this corvette is extraordinarily equipped. I just wanted to make sure you’re fine with me destroying an Amaryllis vessel. It’ll be over in a minute. In the meantime, I’d like to understand you better. The trajectory of you, why you act as you do. I’ve met many zealots in my long existence, bound by love or ideology or conditioning—usually at least two out of three. But you weren’t conditioned and while there is love, there’s no ideology to the Armada of Amaryllis. Why are you so staunch to the admiral? She didn’t even pluck you out of abject poverty or terrific trauma.”

“Love can arise from other factors, guest of my lord.”

“Like Anoushka’s physical appeal?” The corvette banks sharply: one of the screens flashes to display the devourer-swarm barrage heading their way. Internal gyroscopes and gravitational adjustors compensate but even then Numadesi’s stomach flips over. “As humans account for such things, I can see the draw. But a woman doesn’t accrue an enormous mercenary fleet and such complete loyalty—let’s not count Lieutenant Xuejiao—based on her looks alone.”

Numadesi recovers her breath. If this is desultory chat, it strikes her as hardly the time. “Why