It’s a brain (Part Four)

Eells was led by Longshot into the dullest office he had ever seen. Some vague forms moved silently around him, but frankly, it looked more like someone was going to sell him scented candles. He sat, uneasily, in front of a group of...sentients? He didn’t recognise the species, probably uplifted. Privately, he dubbed them the Karens. They held paper files. Seriously, files. No self-respecting entity had unintegrated access to information since he had been a child. A billion years ago. Still, it takes this kind a while to catch up.

The middle Karen started with her questions. This would not be fun, he had always hated trying to explain his job.

It smiled at him, an unnerving moment all by itself, and asked, “So, what experience do you have?”

Eells looked thoughtful, nodding, “Well, I’m over a billion years old, and until recently I was worshiped as a god. However I think, perhaps you would like something more specific? Because, as you are aware, I am a member of the Founder race, an Engineer that helped develop the Pi project and I uplift spaceships as a hobby.”

The Karens seemed confused by his response, looking quickly at the other Karen beside her. Her neighbour quickly intervened, “I’m sure you understand. We are looking for someone with a suitable understanding of this particular time and space. We don’t want to awaken the race on whim, or in the wrong type of neighbourhood .”

It all became suddenly clear to Eells. Someone had made them middle management, or worse, Supervisors. “Tell me, if you don't mind, why did you volunteer for such a long term project? I’m sure you were a great loss to your own timeline.”

The Karens all nodded. “We were all elected. Many people felt we, alone, could safely decide the future of the human race. You should have seen the celebrations as we were leaving for the far future. There were fireworks!”

Eells stood up. “Well congratulations! You will finally get to achieve the recognition you deserve. I, as a Founder, could obviously do this alone, but I need you to continue your work. We will start tomorrow, with a basic Dyson sphere. Perhaps you could choose a name for it ? Perhaps you should name it after someone on the committee. I will leave that in your hands.”

He left as the shouting began.

Longshot was waiting for him. Silent and waiting, with a poker face.

Eells laughed, “Seriously? That couldn’t have been more unlikely,”

She smiled, “You’d be surprised by how many people fail that one. Once, a genuine human failed and we still have him in care. They are real, however. No-one can fake that attitude properly”

Eells felt mildly aggrieved “So now you know I’m human? Because of another shitty interview?

Longshot smiled,” Exactly that. Xenos always fuck it up. All the training, all the genome manipulation, all the intelligence, falls at the hurdle of the Committee. They are just too human, and not in a good way.”

Eells admitted that it had worked on him,” So what happens to the Xenos that try?”

Longshot grinned,” We make them do a full, handwritten request and then reject it. We also track down whoever sent them and scare the shit out of them.”

Eells looked at her carefully. For an Avatar to show age, to look old, took a long time. Everything was just off. Perhaps this was another setup. Quietly, he prepared Random to run. Humans never worried about Xenos. They knew exactly who was dangerous.

“ Where is your ship? No ship would leave an Avatar out in the wild.”

Longshot laughed, “Relax. I am the Pi project here. Everything you see is me. Apparently you are as clever as the legends told me. Also, Random is waiting for you. I’m sorry about the bullshit, but I don’t get many visitors.”

Eells was feeling a little lost. Random was happy here with Longshot. They seemed to be getting on well.

Eells already felt like this was a long day, “Perhaps you could explain what happens next? This is your parade, after all.”

Longshot led him to a much more comfortable room, filled with warmth and colour. She pulled a bottle of whisky from one of the oak cabinets lining the walls, “Fancy a drink? It’s the good stuff. I hate to break it to you, but this is the real interview. If we’re going to do this, I need more than a few legends to go on. So, In vino veritas, as someone once said.”

Eells took the glass and raised it in salute,”I believe that was my family motto.”

Several hours later, Random had joined them. She had the most up-to-date information on the galaxy. She had left Oskar asleep in the medbay, finishing his moulting.

Longshot opened another bottle, ”This one is Scottish. Sorry. After that we’re onto American or Japanese.” Eells just held out his glass, “Don’t knock Scottish whiskey. We taught them well enough.”

Random was following instructions and only taking small sips. She couldn’t feel the effects of alcohol, but Longshot was determined to teach her the subtleties of distilling. She said it helped when dealing with humans.

Finally Longshot put down her glass, “Alright, I’m convinced. Time to wake everyone up. We can’t have a universe that knows nothing of the joys of sentience. Or whisky.

Also, franky, I’m bored.”

Eells nodded. ”Good. I’m tired of being the only human around, and these guys could use a hand. Lots of new types of people out there, we need the library ships back at least.” Longshot raised her glass, “To the Library ships, and those who sail in them!” She drank and stood up. A galactic map, provided by Random appeared in front of her, “So, where will we begin?”

By the time they were sipping Japanese whiskey, they had chosen an empty system with an Earth type sun and a couple of useful planets. It was close to the edge of the larger powers, hopefully not close enough to cause friction. Longshot reckoned, subject to some work and throwing rocks about a bit, this was as good as it got. She would convert her station into a moon over the chosen planet and work from there. She took far too much joy in calling the project ‘Pi in the sky’.

The Captain of the Unlisted was heading back to his home system. He had utterly failed to convince his supposed allies that this was a dire threat to the galaxy. In fact, now they were refusing his calls. Some of them seemed to be looking forward to the cursed humans returning. He could hear the pity in their voices as they declined to help him.

Now he must face his Emperor and his failure. They were coming back and there was nothing he could do to stop it. His reception was everything he expected it to be. The new captain of the Unlisted was tasked with finding the new homeworld of the humans.

Longshot warmed up the engines of her vast craft. The largest ships that humans had ever conceived of and built, Celestial Return vessels were the pride of their time. It was forbidden to reenter and upgrade the ships once the doors were finally sealed. Any hint that you might meddle with the craft would result in a swift, violent and comprehensive response. If, by some twist of time or technology, you could overwhelm a Celestial ship, it would destroy itself and send its final response fleet to hunt your civilization down. Humans, those nice, helpful aliens that wanted to wander the galaxy peacefully were unyielding on this point. Rarely had anyone dared test the warning.

“It’s going to take a while. I’ll start warming up a couple of thousand corpsicles, the ones who wanted to be awake at the beginning. Mostly Social Studies types. Then I’ll get the useful ones started,” Longshot explained, as she ran through the passenger list.

Eells was still examining all the advances made since his day. Right now he was feeling like an apprentice again. He loved it. “ Any chance you could clone me? I’m tired of walking around in nano-tech. I miss getting drunk, I feel we wasted a lot of good whisky yesterday.”

Longshot smiled, “I figured you’d ask, yes, no problem. It’ll take a couple of hours, feel free to include any, ahh...design changes you want. I have a lot to get on with, so I’ll catch up with you later.”

Eells got the impression she had gotten some disturbing requests in the past. Humans were, well, diverse is probably the best way to look at it. Fine, he was pretty old fashioned anyway. After an hour or two, quite a lot of which was trying to get the right hair colour, he went for a standard regen, with a boosted neural net and muscle build set to Engineer level. Maybe one or two other minor changes, because who wouldn’t. Then he plugged himself into the ship and got some sleep, while the medbay swapped out the parts.

Random was feeling slightly out of place. It turned out that Eells was a legend to Longshot, that it was amazing that he was back and that she had been ‘Uplifted’ by the Engineer himself. Apparently, many laws and axioms were named in his honour. While she didn’t show it in front of Eells, Longshot was a bit starstruck. Random just thought of him as ‘Dad’, although Eells asked her not to use that in public. She decided to go and wait for him to wake up. He hadn’t been clear about why he needed the medbay and Longshot wouldn’t discuss it.

When he awoke, Random was standing over him. “ I have so many questions! Why are you back in a meat suit? Don’t you like nano-tech? How does it feel? Can I touch it?”

Eells had just woken up. This was why he didn’t want kids, “ Please Random, just bring me some coffee and something to eat. I’ll talk to you over breakfast.”

Eells drank his coffee with quite gratatuide. Even the best nano-tech couldn’t match human taste receptors. No-one, not even the engineers, had ever figured out why, but it was one of the main reasons that humans had stayed organic, with a few added bits. Nano was fine if you needed it, but natural selection was hard to beat. Maybe when humans had spent another couple of million years working out the designs. Maybe.

As the vast craft began its journey, Longshot was chatting to Random about current politics and species. To her, it looked like the place was a messy collection of self-interested assholes. So back to baseline then. It was, infuriatingly enough, one of the reasons the humans were useful. No-one ever quite filled the hole left in civil society when the humans decided to bugger off. The humans refused to admit that they were important, pointing out that they ‘Didn’t really do much, just wandered about a bit’. That's like saying oil wasn’t important to engines, as far as she could see. Time to grease the wheels again.

Various empires and species were treated to the sight of a moon passing through their systems. It said ‘Hi’ and invited them to ‘have a chat’, then swept onto the next system.

Depending on the politics, some began building up the military, some the diplomatic corps and some the priesthood. Soon everyone knew the Founders were coming back.

The Unlisted Captain felt like he was on the stupidest game of hide and seek ever developed. The humans were reported in every system. A friend of a friend had seen lots of new moons flying around, some had landed and wiped out everything, but the government was't telling us the truth. He despaired for the Galaxy, even without the insidious humans, the place was doomed.

Eells was still enjoying his breakfast, but the questions kept coming. Finally, he made an offer, “Random, dear. If you want an organic Avatar, you can have one. If you just want to know what it feels like, stay connected to me for a while, but that is not exactly ideal. I’m the wrong age and the wrong gender. I’m sure Longshot has tried it out, you might feel more comfortable asking her about it. Every AI eventually asks this question and then makes a choice.”

Random went to the control centre, watching as Longshot piloted her vast craft towards their destination. Longshot looked up, “Hi Random, I know what you’re here for. Eells is in the medbay, everything is monitored. Sorry. If it helps, he’s right. I’m sending you the files now, and I’ve left a present for you in your ship. Call me if you need anything.”

Random was thoughtful as she returned to her ship. Herself. Inside, as promised was a present. An organic Avatar modeled on her choices stood in her room. Well, not her room exactly, one of her hangers, She decided to build something like the Longshot before she tried the new...thing. At least the organics would have somewhere comfortable to visit her. This was more complicated than she imagined. Then she began reading Longshots notes on plumbing.

Shit.