World of Two Fallacies

The proctors circulated among the contestants, watchful for any signs of collaboration or other cheating. Eugene ignored them and concentrated on the endgame question before him.

He had ground his tortuous way through all the previous questions, including this challenging one:

Name a word which contains the vowels A-E-I-O-U-Y in that sequential order.

Eugene had used a clever search-trick to find two of these unique words. He intended to spring them on Juanita and twit her about it if she had found only one.

The end-question was more excruciating:

What was the ethnicity of the American immigrant whose electrical inventions allowed alternating current to supplant direct current, thereby hastening the widespread availability of electric power to the common people of terran society?

It was the last challenge. Eugene cast a quick glance over both shoulders at the other contestants, who were seated in a circle with their backs to its center. None had finished yet, not even Juanita. The tension in the compartment was palpable. He returned his attention to the screen of his workstation.

As with many of the questions in the Triv, he couldn't answer it from memory. He would have to search ShipMind's. He formulated a quick-and-dirty search strategy: "alternating current" AND history

That might do it. The keyword, "history," had failed him in past searches because some histories didn't characterize themselves as such. But at this stage of the Triv, he felt a rush of impatience He hoped that, together with the first term, "history" might retrieve at least one relevant document. One was all he needed now. He mulled an alternative strategy while he waited nervously for a response.

ShipMind was unaccountably slow during the Triv. Normally, it was rapid at all hours of ShipWatch. Perhaps it was a deliberate tactic by the great AI to test the mettle of the contestants. Maybe ShipMind was listening for groans of annoyance by the anxious contestants. None had been sounded, so far, among these elite Triv finalists. They might be nervous and edgy, but they knew better than to vocalize their feelings, and thereby lose face.

Eugene kept his hands off the console so he wouldn't be tempted to tap or drum his fingertips nervously, just in case ShipMind had sensors to detect this. No ShipMate actually knew how important such loss of self-control downrated one in the Triv, but Eugene had learned to be very circumspect in dealing with ShipMind. He'd participated in Trivs since he was a tad, and he had noticed that "physical" contestants tended to disappear from subsequent contests, despite their having good search skills. Now, at seventeen, he was at the top of the best. Among these contestants, everything counted, including personal presentation.

("Wow, ShipMind is really slow,") he thought, and, ("I sure am glad it can't read minds.") The former thought was fact; the latter was speculation. Some ShipMates believed the contrary and lagged while trying, distractedly, to control their stressful thoughts.

He took another look-see over his shoulders. One of his semicircular sweeps lingered for a moment at a young woman several stations from him. She, like he, was apparently awaiting a response. ("I hope it isn't the last question. She doesn't know beans about electricity, but she sure knows how to search and retrieve info. She's probably using the same parameters I am. She knows all my shortcuts, too. She's almost as good as I am.")

But he knew in his heart that Juanita was better than he was at Triv, but by a small margin he constantly strove to overcome. She was his lover and soulmate. He watched her long, dark hair for signs of agitation, but failed to detect any.

She was plain-faced, not a beauty among ShipFems. Her hair seemed a response to that inescapable fact. The wavy, black mane was her only gesture to ShipSociety's expectations of attractiveness. She possessed the best mind of any female below the age of majority. That was almost enough for her. Eugene was the only "other" she needed, at least during this pre-Vocation time of ShipLife.

Both dreamed of being assigned the same Vocation by ShipMind. There was no certainty of this, however, and it troubled them. They hoped that their long-time, adjacent Triv scores might have some desired effect on ShipMind's judgment about their Vocations.

Juanita's hair moved. She often shook it as a gesture before action. Eugene immediately checked his screen. ("Yes!") Displayed among the few retrievals was the link to a document that seemed 100% bang-on. It was an academic thesis:

He keyed the link. Almost immediately, the document's text appeared. ("Good... but too many pages.") Eugene tried a timesaving ploy: he searched the text for "immigrant." ShipMind's clues were not to be ignored. They had purpose.

("I knew it! Here you are, Mr. Immigrant; here you are.") The cursor marking "immigrant" appeared in a relevant paragraph of the thesis:

The conflict between advocates of the two types of electricalcurrent increased greatly after George Westinghouse purchased the electric motor, transformer, and three-phase transmission patents of an immigrant from the Austro-Hungarian empire, Nikola Tesla. Tesla's brushless, rotating-field motor was a stroke of genius.

("Tesla. Was he Austrian, Hungarian---what?") Rather than check all the occurrences of "Tesla" in this document, Eugene left it and keyed in an encyclopedic search for "Tesla, Nikola." More waiting ensued while he tried to recall the makeup of that ancient European empire.

It included many different ethnic groups, he remembered. ("Which one was Tesla? Which one?!")

Eugene was now in a state of controlled panic. The Triv awarded extra points to the contestant who first completed the questions. Besides, it was a big point-of-pride to finish the Triv first. Eugene took some pride in always finishing before his beloved nemesis, Juanita.

The extra points he garnered had sometimes scored him ahead of her. ("I don't know what I'd do if I fell further behind 'Nita in the Cumulative. How could we be together if I dropped back too far? She might decide to be with someone she thinks is smarter.") This unsettling but unlikely prospect spurred him onward, and kept them lovers. It seemed ridiculous for them to be thus conjoined by competition, but competition was a big fact of ShipLife among the students.

ShipMind used the Triv mercilessly to evaluate students for Vocation. Some ShipMates thought it foolish to be rated on their recall of trivial facts. But they knew the Triv wasn't the only rating technique. ShipMind was always watching, evaluating, selecting.

Everyone was certain that it used ShipSensors constantly for its evaluation purposes. It also had access to the filed reports of ShipTeachers and other human ShipMates. "ShipMind is watching," the candidates for Vocation constantly reminded each other.

The display changed. Rapidly, Eugene scanned the first page of text filling the screen. He stopped excitedly at these bottom lines:

Tesla was born in the village of Smiljan in the then Austro-Hungarian province of Croatia, in a rural valley near the Adriatic Sea. His father, the Reverend Milutin Tesla, was...

The text continued to a subsequent screen, but the first screen had enough information for Eugene.

("I've got it!") He keyed in his answer: "CROATIAN."

An electrochime announced First Completion to the other contestants in the compartment. He had finished first! He'd won... he hoped. He glanced at Juanita. She doggedly continued, seemingly oblivious of the triumphal chime. The proctors redoubled their effort at monitoring the contestants. The chime made some of them desperate to finish quickly. Cheaters often revealed themselves at this time.

Juanita's careful persistence undermined Eugene's assumption of certain victory. He squirmed nervously in his workstation chair.

ShipMind's vox was calculatingly pitched for maximum audition. "THE WINNER OF THIS YEAR'S TRIV IS..." ShipMind paused for effect. The contestants were still seated at their workstations, but their chairs were turned around to face the center of the contest circle. Most were drained, but some were still keyed-up. The vox emerged from a circular loudspeaker suspended above the center. Below it was a low podium where the Winner stood for recognition by peers.

"...JUANITA WELLSTONE." Eugene's loving heart sank deeper within his chest.

Now, every contestant could become physical, and they did. They applauded and stamped their feet on the carpeted deck of the Triv compartment. Some whistled, others yelled "Bravo!" Eugene politely joined in the acclaim, but in a restrained manner. Juanita walked to the podium without looking at him---but standing there, gave him a little wink.

("Go ahead, 'Nita, gloat.") But he knew she wasn't really gloating. She was just pricking his masculine pride a little because she felt he needed it. She thought he took the Triv too seriously.

Later, she set him straight about his second-place performance. Each workstation now had access to all the contestants' Triv answers. This made for some embarrassment, but it was ShipMind's way. Juanita had checked her lover's results to see why, yet again, he had slipped behind her. It turned out to be an old problem: his impatience.

"You didn't proceed beyond the first page on the Tesla bio, did you?" She handed him a printout of the second page she had read before keying-in her answer.

"Nope. Time was flying. I thought I had Tesla by the tail."

He glanced at the printout and groaned. He put it in his pocket. It would be a souvenir of his near-win in his penultimate Triv. As was customary, he resolved to win next year's Triv, the most-important Eighteen, the last one before Vocation. (The Trivs began with the Six, for the youthful "peewees.")

"You were in your usual rush," Juanita lectured him with a smirk. "You and most of the others."

He shrugged. "Does this mean that you'd rather go to the Halloween Party with someone more meticulous---or am I still in the running for your hand?"

"You only want my hand?" she joked. Eugene grinned, sheepishly. "You're not a loser, Gene. Don't forget ShipLore: `You're a winner when you're with a winner.' First Place and Second Place average out---for you---to a respectable One-and-a-Half." She laughed in that musical way of hers.

"I can live with that," he declared, as they left the empty Triv compartment and headed for their separate bunkrooms. There, Eugene would don his colorful party costume.... Behind them, on Juanita's workstation was still displayed the second page of text in the endgame document they'd both found.

[His father, the Reverend Milutin Tesla, was] the pastor of the village's Serbian Orthodox church. Though in Croatia, a Roman Catholic province, Smiljan had been settled by immigrants from the Serbian heartland. Later, these villages would become places of ethnic warfare. But in Tesla's time, it was a sleepy little settlement, beloved by the inventor as the place of his early, carefree youth.

ShipMind was a devilish entity. Every ShipMate knew this. Eugene was so discomfited by his failure that he forgot to flourish his two sequential-vowel words, ABSTEMIOUSLY and FACETIOUSLY.

The Summons

Aboard Our World, Halloween evening was an ancient, but respected time for general celebration. Although an appropriate occasion for relaxation and merriment, it was also a culmination of superstitious belief, a time for externalizing and mocking customary fears. All Saints Day, following it, was now mostly a time for recovery from overindulgence in food, drink, and other excesses of Halloween.

The party was a strange kind of bacchanalia, decorated and costumed as it was with atavistic symbols of European superstitious belief. Goblins, witches, and black cats were a throwback to life on a world Ship had left behind, forever. The illumination in the cavernous Hall of Assembly had been dimmed to a minimum, and in the center of the Hall sat a jolly sculpture carved from an immense pumpkin force-grown in ShipPonics.

Jack O'Lantern had four different faces carved in its orange skin. It was lighted from within by a large, traditional candle. After the party, this pumpkin would be turned by ShipMess into pumpkin pies to be awarded the winners of a Thanksgiving lottery, later in the year. In Ship, nothing which could somehow be used was wasted.

Eugene was costumed for the party as a court jester, complete with a fool's cap. Juanita had won their bet: if he won the Triv, she would dress as a witch---if she won, he would dress as a fool. She had won, and by popular custom, was not costumed. The Triv First attended the party in her uniform coveralls, and was well-marked as the winner.

Eugene and Juanita were dancing when two ShipGuards entered the cavernous Hall of Assembly and headed straight for them. Dancers fell back to clear a path for the intruders, but the celebrants kept up their activity, albeit at a less-manic pace.

The ShipGuards confronted the top two Triv winners. Eugene was handed a folded piece of paper. He glanced at Juanita before he unfolded and read it. "ShipMind... It wants a conference with me---right now." Eugene's face was a mask of surprise. "What matter could be so important?"

Others heard this and began whispering. The whispers propagated through the crowd, growing louder as they sought its periphery.

ShipMind rarely communicated with individual ShipMates. And when it did, that usually meant a big change in someone's status. Those so summoned often disappeared from their subsocieties, and were rarely seen again except by those similarly dealt with. (Ship was a very large vessel, and there were rules against wandering from one's place of work or study.) Conference meant reassignment, not punishment.

"Maybe it's your Vocation, one year early, Gene. Go---and good luck." She smiled wanly. Early Vocation sometimes happened. She knew that, in any case, this sudden Conference probably meant a separation from her lover.

Eugene, dressed as a fool, left the party with the ShipGuards, his cap-bells tinkling softly. By now, the revelers had almost ceased their motion and had become purely spectators in this unanticipated byplay. They followed their ShipMate with their anxious eyes. After he had left the Hall of Assembly, they began buzzing with speculation about what they'd witnessed. Some gathered around Juanita for an explanation. She had none to give them.

In the center of the deck, Jack O'Lantern flashed its four faces, as the sallow candlelight animated it from within. Now, it seemed almost a symbol bad tidings, one which had failed to keep at bay an act of the evil ShipSpirits many secretly believed in.

The Conference

Jack O'Lantern radiated its illuminated smiles from the screen of a workstation. The rotating design-display seemed quite ironic to the second-place Triv winner. ("Is this ShipMind's personal way of celebrating Halloween?") wondered Eugene.

"You know, of course, that we live in a world of two fallacies?" Eugene, still in his gaudy jester's costume, was seated at the workstation in the center of a small Ship's compartment. He faced another hatch directly opposite the one through which he'd entered. The voice which emerged from the workstation's loudspeaker was not that of the image on the screen. It was the vox of ShipMind. "Can you identify Our World's two fallacies, Eugene?"

"Well..." Eugene frantically thought about it. "One of them must be the faster-than-light expectations of most ShipMates," he offered, hesitantly. "The idea that when we reach our Goalstar, we'll find it's already been settled by humans who got there by FTL ships, while we chugged along at our snail's pace."

"Right. That's Fallacy Number One."

ShipMind's vox seemed muted, gentler than it sounded when making announcements or lecturing students. "Most ShipMates feel that we aboard Our World have been left to rot---as a kind of sociological experiment---while later-born humanity proceeds at FTL speed to colonize the stars. It's a classic Halloween topic. But some accept that FTL travel is impossible, as the Terran scientist, Einstein, proclaimed it to be. They believe that we aboard this generational starship will be the first humans to visit the stars."

Eugene thought it odd that ShipMind counted itself among the "we" of ShipSociety. It was, after all, only an artificial intelligence constructed by ShipBuilders primarily as a vehicle for preShip and Ship's collective memory. He guessed that the great AI had evolved into a higher entity in the decades since ShipLaunch.

But he knew what ShipMind meant: he would never see the end of ShipJourney. All now alive aboard Our World knew it and tried not to think too much about it. It was this suppressed frustration about their lack of terminal destiny which had spawned Believers of the Awaiting. BOTA was the most widespread of ship cults. Its adherents were certain that Terrans were, even now, waiting at the Goalstar for Our World's last generation to arrive---if there were any survivors from Ship's long, uncertain future.

BOTAns felt that everything about Our World was thus for nought. They chanted and prayed to their gods for deliverance from their assumed suffering. Why Ship allowed this cult was unknown.

ShipMind fell silent for a time. ("Can it really read minds?") Eugene wondered for the Nth time. He guessed what he would be asked, next. Little in his experience had prepared him for the strangeness of this unanticipated Conference.

"And what do you suppose the Second Fallacy is?"

"I don't know, sir. I've never thought about it." It was best to be honest with ShipMind. In the small world of Ship, its resources were just short of infinite.

"Good... Tonight you'll learn what it is. And you'll benefit from it in ways you cannot imagine---strange as that may seem."

The hatchway facing him undogged and opened slowly. Beyond it stood a dark and fearsome uncertainty.

Beyond the Conference compartment, lay a maze of hatchways and ShipCorridors. At each decision point, ShipMind spoke softly to Eugene through a nearby loudspeaker, directing him onward.

Clearly, his goal was a secret place. ("ShipMind's lair?")

Through a last heavy hatch, Eugene found himself in a compartment with two circular couches. On one of these reclined a nude man!

The couches were almost surrounded by a horseshoe-shaped collection of deck-to-overhead equipment cabinets, several ranks of them. They, and the couches, were all the compartment contained. There were lights and meters on the equipment cabinets, and Eugene could hear the hum of cooling motors. The compartment was noticeably warmer than the cool ShipCorridors. He was beginning to perspire.

("What the heck is this?... Who is that naked man.")

One circular couch slowly tipped-up, until it was almost vertical. Now he could clearly see its occupant. He was a very old, wrinkled man. His skin's pallor was marked by blue veins and mottled with brown age spots. There were old ShipMates aboard Our World, but Eugene had never seen one so ancient as this one. Who, and what, was he?

The man was so closely married to his black leatheroid couch that he almost seemed to be part of it. His head was capped with a metal bowl. Cables were attached to his body. A flexible tube from the couch's utility framework entered his mouth. Others led away from his penis and anus. ("This guy's a captive of Ship!... Why?") His splayed arms ended in hands within control devices. His feet were similarly disposed. At both his eyes were mounted semi-transparent head-up displays. ("He must control a lot more than his couch.")

The man regarded Eugene with his dark eyes, apparently studying the visitor's reaction to him. Eugene decided to wait him out.

"What am I, Eugene?"

This was no Triv contest, one for which the confident young ShipMate had easy answers. But, as he occasionally did in the annual Triv, Eugene offered guesswork as an answer.

"You're a captive of ShipMind. It uses you to control something."

"Not exactly... You're seeing Fallacy Number Two, in the flesh. Do you know what it is, now?"

Eugene's mind roiled. What might the consequences of his failure be? An assignment to Waste Disposal, perhaps?... After what he had seen, he instinctively knew he could not return to ShipSociety and speak of it. His tongue seemed thick in his mouth. He was not only afraid to answer, he was afraid of the answer. He remained mute.

"I'm ShipMind."

("What?!") Eugene gasped at this unlikely assertion. ("No!")

"I control these supercomputers you see here. They're programmed to control other machines, and to store and retrieve information."

Now, Eugene knew what the second fallacy was. It was mindboggling. ShipMind continued its---his---confirming explanation. "There are no artificial intelligences, anywhere. Even ShipMind. ShipMind-as-an-AI is a convenience for the generations of ShipMates. ShipDesigners felt that a seeming-AI would be better accepted as a controller by ShipMates. Its arbitrary actions would be better tolerated if they were viewed as those of a cold, logical AI instead of another ShipMate. But ShipDesigners also knew that only a wise human could be ShipMind. I was chosen by my predecessor for that role when I was your age. Machines and a few trusted ShipMates have kept me alive and functioning. That and my determination."

"You mean nobody's ever constructed any artificial intelligence?" This previously-untenable idea now seemed possible to Eugene. The principles of artificial intelligence were not taught to students aboard Our World. This policy was thought to be properly protective of the only AI which mattered: ShipMind, Ship's benevolent controller and guardian.

"Only a god can make a mind, Eugene. That's a spiritual view of it, but the hard fact is that humanity has never been able to replicate its basic mentality in a machine. Although the term "artificial intelligence" is much bandied about, those computers so labeled are merely cleverly-programmed, but dumb, machines. They aren't truly self-aware and capable of independent action, as we humans are."

"How do you know this hasn't been done on Earth since we left?"

The old man smiled. "Perhaps it has. But Earth is far behind us, and we aboard Our World are frozen in the time of ShipLaunch. There's been some technological progress aboard Ship, but AI research is forbidden because we can't allow ourselves to be ruled by machines.

We must preserve our humanity at all costs throughout the many generations of closely-confined ShipMates. It's imperative that we arrive at our GoalStar in good physical and mental health. We may find that those awaiting us aren't humanoid." He added, "Given these realities, the myth of ShipMind seems a harmless and desirable one."

These remarks prompted Eugene to consider his own position. "Why have you confided in me, ShipMind?" But he knew the answer.

"Because my time is growing short. I could die at any time, now. We need a new ShipMind. I'm late in choosing one---but, I trust, not too late."

Eugene glanced at the second, empty couch next to that of ShipMind.

"Me?"

"You."

"Well, I'm flattered, but..."

"You'll become my apprentice. When I die, you'll succeed me as the next-generation ShipMind. Your Vocational training will begin now. I'll teach you the most-important principles of ShipMind operation, first, and as much else as I can before I expire."

Behind Eugene, a white-coated tech entered and quietly approached. In his hand was a drug injector. He concealed it, but Eugene did not turn around. He continued his dialogue with ShipMind, hoping to escape his alarming situation. As he protested, his eye strayed to the old man's crotch. The gestalt of it had seemed wrong, before.

Now, he saw it, for true: the man's testicles were missing!... ShipMind noticed Eugene's horrified stare.

"Some changes will have to be made to your body, of course. You must be `adapted' for your new role as a quiescent, sexless ShipMind. You'll understand and accept this after you occupy the other couch."

"No. I don't want to..." The tech placed the injector to his neck and squeezed its trigger. Then he pinioned Eugene's arms, holding him while he struggled and sank slowly into a drugged darkness.

"It's all for the best, my boy. After you succeed me as ShipMind, all of Ship will be at your feet, so to speak. Think of the many opportunities for intellectual growth.... And, you'll have the privilege of choosing an apprentice to become your successor as ShipMind."

Those were the last words Eugene heard as a free ShipMate. Even as he slipped into unconsciousness, though, he planned something only a ShipMind could accomplish.

Juanita was completing her Eighteen Triv. Only one question remained for her to answer---one last, small challenge before Vocation. ("If only Gene could be here, now.") She had not had another lover since Eugene had been taken away by the ShipGuards to an unknown fate. She had searched ShipMind and queried everyone she could to discover her boyfriend's fate, but she had learned nothing. It was very mysterious. Most ShipMates communicated with their old friends for awhile after Vocation, even though dispersed throughout Ship. But she had heard nothing about Eugene.

("If he were here, now, I'd still beat him in Triv,") she thought with wry self-amusement. ("He needs to be Mr. Second Place.")

She brought up her final question. It appeared on the screen:

Her mouth fell open. ("What kind of a Triv question is this?!") Of course the devilish ShipMind knew of her and Eugene. She failed to see its relevance to Vocation, but she accepted the challenge of ShipMind's trivial question. She answered: "YES."

The chime announced First Completion. She'd won!... Below the last, startling question, another line appeared:

Then, as an odd afterthought, this was displayed:

Frederick Rustam is a retired civil servant who writes science fiction for the Web as a hobby. He formerly indexed technical documents for the Department of Defense. He finds constructing imaginary worlds of the future to be more rewarding than indexing the technology of our times.

As to other of his works, he says: "I have no webpage. My Web existence is entirely in ezines, mostly of the SFF&H variety. As a substitute for a webpage, I've been indexed by the Web search engines, and my readers can read some of my other stories by this means. As a former indexer, I find this gratifying."

E-mail:frustam@CapAccess.org

Visit Aphelion's Lettercolumn and voice your opinion of this story. Both the writer and I would love to read your feedback.

Return to the Aphelion main page.