‘Let me put this thought experiment to you,’ the old drone said, as they played a card-game which it had assured him was mostly luck. They sat – well, the drone floated – under an arcade of delicately pink stone, by the side of a small pool; the shouts of people playing a complicated ball-game on the far side of the pool filtered through bushes and small trees to them.
‘Forget,’ said the drone, ‘about how machine brains are actually put together; think about making a machine brain – an electronic computer – in the image of a human one. One might start with a few cells, as the human embryo does; these multiply, gradually establish connections. So one would continually add new components and make the relevant, even – if one was to follow the exact development of one single human through the various stages – the identical connections.
‘One would, of course, have to limit the speed of the messages transmitted down those connections to a tiny fraction of their normal electronic speed, but that would not be difficult, nor would having these neuron-like components act like their biological equivalents internally, firing their own messages according to the types of signal they received; all this could be done comparatively simply. By building up in this gradual way, you could mimic exactly the development of a human brain, and you could mimic its output; just as an embryo can experience sound and touch and even light inside the womb, so could you send similar signals to your developing electronic equivalent; you could impersonate the experience of birth, and use any degree of sensory stimulation to fool this device into thinking it was feeling touching, tasting, smelling, hearing and seeing everything your real human was (or, of course, you might choose not actually to fool it, but always give it just as much genuine sensory input, and of the same quality, as the human personality was experiencing at any given point).
‘Now; my question to you is this; where is the difference? The brain of each being works in exactly the same way as the other; they will respond to stimuli with a greater correspondence than one finds even between monozygotic twins; but how can one still choose to call one a conscious entity, and the other merely a machine?
‘Your brain is made up of matter, Mr Zakalwe, organised into information-handling, processing and storage units by your genetic inheritance and by the biochemistry of first your mother’s body and later your own, not to mention your experiences since some short time before your birth until now.
‘An electronic computer is also made up of matter, but organised differently; what is there so magical about the workings of the huge, slow cells of the animal brain that they can claim themselves to be conscious, but would deny a quicker, more finely-grained device of equivalent power – or even a machine hobbled so that it worked with precisely the same ponderous-ness – a similar distinction?
‘Hmm?’ the machine said, its aura field flashing the pink he was beginning to identify as drone amusement. ‘Unless, of course, you wish to invoke superstition? Do you believe in gods?’
He smiled. ‘I have never had that inclination,’ he said.
‘Well then,’ the drone said. ‘What would you say? Is the machine in the human image conscious, sentient, or not?’
He studied his cards. ‘I’m thinking,’ he said, and laughed.
Sometimes he saw other aliens (obviously aliens, that is; he was sure that a few of the humans he saw each day were not Culture people, though without stopping to ask them it was impossible to tell; somebody dressed as a savage, or in some obviously non-Culture garb, was quite possibly just dressing up like that for a laugh, or going to a party… but there were some very obviously different species around as well).
‘Yes, young man?’ the alien said. It had eight limbs, a fairly distinct head with two quite small eyes, curiously flower-like mouth parts, and a large, almost spherical, lightly haired body, coloured red and purple. Its own voice was composed of clicks from its mouth and almost subsonic vibrations from its body; a small amulet did the translating.
He asked if he could sit with the alien; it directed him to the seat across the table from it in the cafe where he had overheard it talking briefly to a passing human about Special Circumstances.
‘… It is in layers,’ the alien replied to his question. ‘A tiny core of Special Circumstances, a shell of Contact, and a vast chaotic ecosphere of everything else. Bit like a… you come from a planet?’
He nodded. The creature glanced at its amulet for a translation of the gesture the man had used – it was not what the Culture called nodding – then said, ‘Well, it is like a planet, only the core is tiny; very tiny. And the ecosphere is more disparate and less distinct than the wrapping of atmosphere round a globe; a red giant star might even be a better comparison. But in the end, you will never know them, because you will be like me, in Special Circumstances, and only ever know them as the great, irresistible force behind you; people like you and I are the edge; you will in time come to feel like a tooth on the biggest saw in the galaxy, sir.’ The alien’s eyes closed; it waggled all its limbs very energetically, and its mouth parts crackled. ‘Ha ha ha!’ the amulet said, primly.
‘How did you know I was actually involved with Special Circumstances?’ he asked, sitting back.
‘Ah! How much my vanity wishes me to claim I simply guessed, so clever I am… but I heard there was a new recruit coming aboard,’ the alien told him. ‘And that it was a fairly human-basic male. You… smell right, if I may use that turn of phrase. And you… have just been asking all the right questions.’
‘And you’re in SC too?’
‘For ten standard years now.’
‘Think I should do it? Work for them?’
‘Oh yes; I imagine it’s better than what you left, no?’
He shrugged, remembering the blizzard and the ice. ‘I suppose.’
‘You enjoy… fighting, yes?’
‘Well… sometimes,’ he admitted. ‘I’m good at it, so they say. Not that I’m necessarily convinced of that myself.’
‘No-one wins all the time, sir,’ the creature said. ‘Not through skill, anyway, and the Culture does not believe in luck, or at the very least does not believe it is transferrable. They must like your attitude, that’s all. Hee hee.’
The alien laughed quietly.
‘To be good at soldiering,’ it said, ‘is a great curse, I think sometimes. Working for these people at least relieves one of some of the responsibility. I have never found cause to complain.’ The alien scratched its body, looked down, picked something from the hairs around where he would have guessed its belly might be, and ate it. ‘Of course, you must not expect to be told the truth all the time. You can insist that they do, always, and they will do so, but they may not be able to use you as often as they might like to; sometimes they need you not to know you are fighting on the wrong side. My advice would be to just do as they ask; much more exciting.’
‘Are you in it for the excitement?’
‘Partly, and partly because of family honour; SC did something for my people once, and we could not let them steal our honour by accepting nothing in return. I work until that debt is paid off.’
‘How long’s that?’
‘Oh, for life,’ the creature said, sitting back in a gesture he felt reasonably justified in translating as surprise. ‘Until I die, of course. But who cares? As I say; it’s fun. Here.’ It banged its drink-bowl on the table to attract a passing tray. ‘Let’s have another drink; see who gets drunk first.’
‘You have more legs.’ He grinned. ‘I think I might fall over more easily.’
‘Ah, but the more the legs, the bigger the tangle.’
‘Fair enough.’ He waited for a fresh glass.
To one side of them was a small terrace and the bar, to the other a gulf of airy space. The ship, the GSV, went on beyond its apparent boundaries. Its hull was pierced multitudinously by terraces, balconies, walk-ways, open windows, and open bay doors. Surrounding the vessel proper was an immense ellipsoid bubble of air, held inside dozens of different fields, which together made up the Vehicle’s real – though insubstantial – hull.
He took up the recharged glass when it arrived, and watched a puttering, piston-engined, paper-winged hang-glider zip past the terrace; he waved at the pilot, then shook his head.
‘To the Culture,’ he said, raising his glass to the alien. It matched his gesture. ‘To its total lack of respect for all things majestic.’
‘Agreed,’ the alien said, and together they drank.