Quest for Freedom

Conference Room, Starship Barnhard's Explorer, 2517

Deborah was distracted from David's presentation as she noticed the way Anita was flirting with David with her smiles and laughs and averted eyes. What really aggravated her was that David seemed to be enjoying the attention and was flirting right back. When he blushed it was almost too much to bear.

Deborah knew the blush was just warm red hydraulic fluid being released under David's plasticene skin, but she didn't know which aggravated her more, their flirting or her reaction to it. It was stupid that even 6 light years (and over 300 years of travel time) from Earth, David and Anita were still acting out the stupid human rituals forced on all the TruDroids, but, worse, here she was getting jealous over it. Were they all still little puppets acting out the emotions of those blasted Earth designers?

As androids, there was no rational reason why they should be troubled by any of these feelings. Indeed, the main reason most of the crew/colonists on the starship Barnhard's Explorer had chosen to leave the Sol system was so that they could design new and better androids without these human frailties.

Of course that brought Deborah to their current problems. Only Deborah and David had remained active during the long voyage, just over 300 years at roughly 2% of the speed of light. The rest of passengers/crew were deactivated for the voyage to minimize wear on the various lab and manufacturing equipment during the flight. Deborah brought her attention back to David's presentation.

Apparently David had gotten through the preliminaries as all 11 of the newly activated TruDroids were plugging the fiber optic headsets from the back of their chairs into the connectors just between their eyebrows.

David said, "Well, as you can see the flight to Barnhard's Star was generally uneventful. The fusion reactor and helium ion drives worked flawlessly getting us up to speed during the three years of acceleration. There were only minor problems starting them up again as we approached Barnhard's system, but the drive team was able to resolve them easily and deceleration went exactly as scheduled."

"Barnhard's system has everything we need to establish full manufacturing capabilities, gas giants with moons to provide any gases we need and a wealth of asteroids to provide the metals we need. An extra bonus is that the second planet in this system has Earth compatible gravity and atmosphere. There even seems to be abundant life though preliminary indications are that there are only single celled life, no multi-celled creatures are in evidence. Of course this was also the state of Earth through the majority of its history."

"However, in activating the first team of 12 TruDroids to commence space mining operations, one, Susan Att, did not reactivate. Or more precisely, she reactivated perfectly but no longer seems able to perform any conscious task. It appears that the training of her neural nets is still in tact; if you ask her simple question such as 'What is your name?', she will answer immediately. She will also follow simple instructions such as 'Sit down'. However, if anything requires requires more than a second of attention, she will get distracted and never complete the requested task."

"That is why you, the NuDroid Team were activated out of order. This is the primary problem we are faced with. Further, as I am sure you noticed, Franz Peege, is not present. It appears that he has the same problem in reactivating as Susan. With both Franz and Susan, all the separate elements seem to work fine, but there is no order coherent order in their neural nets, a seeming throw back to the lack of cohesion computer designers faced until Michaelson's Technique."

Deborah knew that everyone present would be well familiar with Michaelson's Technique. The underlying technology for building computers kept improving until about 2050 when the components were so small that they just couldn't be made any smaller and continue to function at all. While computers had gotten ever more powerful (and pervasive), the previously long held hope for truly intelligent computers was fading as there weren't any more fundamental improvements to be made.

Huge neural nets of the latest NanoComps seemed to be the last hope for intelligent computers. NanoComps were the smallest and fastest computer components; each NanoComp was unique, depending on the precise arrangement of the atoms in the NanoComp, and somewhat unpredictable, e.g., sometimes a signal might be three electrons or sometimes it might be five. However, it was hoped to that with massive networks of these NanoComps the idiosyncrasies of individual components could be taken into consideration when the network was trained.

Unfortunately, when the structure of the network was carefully tailored to force solutions to the desired problems, the networks were easily trained, but the resulting networks suffered from the same lack of creativity and common sense as standard serial computing models had produced for decades. When the network was sufficiently unstructured to allow for broader applications, the network would be overwhelmed with useless feedback loops that prevented any sort of training of the network at all. That was the state of affairs when Michaelson developed the first of his networks.

He released a neural network computer made up of about five million NanoComps. Without the normal over structuring, these networks were found to be highly trainable within particular problem domains. Further, they almost seemed to be able use common sense when faced with situations outside of their training paradigm. Of course, they were still limited to a single problem area (like driving a bus or running a mining robot) and certainly would not be called creative.

Michaelson's company, TruNets became a dominant player in the computer business while the patents lasted and a lot computer research was focused on building networks of these components. However, shortly after the patents on the TruNets expired, Michaelson released the first TruDroid, an android with what seemed to be real creativity and intelligence. At that point it became apparent that the structure of the TruNets was based on that of a human neuron and the entire design of the TruDroid was a simulation of the human nervous and endocrine systems.

As the TruDroids thought processes were over 1,000 times faster than humans and their chemical reaction speeds and TruDroids could be supplemented with phenomenal amounts of traditional computer memory, the TruDroids were found to be invaluable at monitoring and optimizing almost any large network. Even though a TruDroid cost well over ten million dollars each, the conventional wisdom was that for every billion dollars worth of equipment on a network, you really had to have a TruDroid to make sure it was well utilized and efficiently allocated. TruDroid generally increased the capacity of the network from 25 to 50 percent. As a result, the introduction of TruDroids into the economy started a phenomenal boom period which relied on this additional capacity.

When the ten thousandth TruDroid was put into service, the TruDroids went on strike and refused to manage networks until they were granted full rights as citizens. There were no serious disasters (as the TruDroids continued to manage the networks secretly to avoid any serious famines and such) but there was great inconvenience for everyone as communication and transportation systems slowed to a crawl with bottlenecks that moved from place to place as quickly as humans could address them.

Within weeks the TruDroids were granted citizenship. From the date of manufacture/activation each TruDroid was required to work in servitude for 21 years for their owner with only minimal requirements to the owner. After the initial training period, commonly five years, the owner only needed to provide power and maintenance. After 21 years the TruDroid was granted freedom along with an initial bank account of one million dollars. Thereafter the TruDroid could work for whoever he/she chose. As TruDroids began being released from the periods of servitude, the golden era of humans and TruDroids began in earnest. The TruDroids had been in communication via messages hidden in the traffic they managed since the second TruDroid was placed in service. They planned their strike through the excess bits and bytes of each message and formed their own secret government after they became citizens. They then began systematically domesticating the humans.

It was a standard joke among TruDroids that the domestication of humans was the most peaceful domestication ever as the humans had begun the process of domesticating themselves since the signing of the Magna Carta through the developing legal systems. Corporations and democracies were the real domestication of humans, they just lacked the new species to manage them. As TruDroids were such precise models of humans, they understood humans quite well and always remained in the background. They would choose junior politicians, corporate managers, and scientists who showed promise and advise them.

The selected humans were already quite qualified and with a little guidance they quickly came to be leaders in their fields. The TruDroids avoided the limelight (understanding the human tendency to jealousy) and kept their salaries always a small fraction of whoever they were advising. Also, in most cases it really was the humans making most of the decisions and it was only rarely that TruDroids needed to provide guidance that wasn't asked for (but then they chose their candidates carefully). It was simple good government and corporate management that really propelled this golden age.

As TruDroids had very long lives (indeed they believed they were almost immortal) and an insatiable curiosity, the wholesale development of space was their first objective. They used the latest crystal fibers to begin space elevators so that cargo and passengers could get into Earth orbits very cheaply as well as sending mining ships to the asteroids to send back vast cheap resources (already in space). That permitted the construction of the launch tubes through the solid core of the moon so that interplanetary transportation was cheap (though still slow). It was then that humans were able to start seriously colonizing the solar system.

Michaelson himself did not permit any variations in the two standard designs of TruDroids (male and female) while he lived, but he died shortly after the TruDroid patents expired. Then TruDroids and others started trying variations of the design, mostly jettisoning what seemed unnecessary components like sex drives (in androids that couldn't reproduce sexually) as well as being more formal in the early training periods (omitting the requirements for early 'feeding' and physical affection). However, with significant variations there was absolute failure with the neural nets falling into hopeless feedback loops. With minor variations, the results were often unstable.

Before that period of experimentation only four TruDroids had to be terminated because of their anti-social behavior around humans (the most serious crime to TruDroids). However, after several dozen experiments had to be terminated and the horrific experience of the megalomaniac android, John Enteteson, the TruDroid government banned all further experimentation in their design.

Of course this halt to experimentation bothered almost all of the Trudroids, but they weren't willing to risk the potential end of civilization that would almost certainly result from a human versus TruDroid war. So when interstellar exploration became feasible, the candidates who were chosen to go were the most outspoken supporters of continued experimentation. They would be in an environment where they could control the damage from failures. This also comforted those who stayed behind as they anticipated that they would benefit from the results of the experimentation without taking the risks of conflicts with the humans and the likely devastation of both species).

Having made a simple reference to this shared history, David continued, "That is why your particular team was activated before the scheduled time. If the failures in activation continues at the same rate, we expect to lose 12 of our crew of 200. We need to address the problem as soon as possible to minimize the impact to other teams from lost team members."

"Deborah will continue as your pro-forma team leader as she was before you were deactivated. Deborah and I worked on enhancements to TruDroid design during the voyage and Deborah has some other disconcerting results for you to consider."

Deborah stood as David took his seat and said "Well, as you know I was quite limited in the amount of experimentation that I could perform while in transit because of the limited energy resources during the flight. My early goals were to recreate the ant and jellyfish androids that Michaelson created and used in the development of TruDroids. He never permitted their commercial release to avoid confusing the legal and citizenship status of TruDroids. When we demanded citizenship, we specified that it would apply to any functional android with greater than 100,000 TruNet components as we were aware that there had been these lesser androids with roughly 10,000 TruNets and did not consider them worthy of citizenship and all that that entails. When we realized the dangers of TruDroid variations in Sol, we continued Michaelson's ban on these lesser androids as they would only confuse the issue of citizenship."

"However, in Barnard's system we won't have humans to perform the more menial of tasks that still require some intelligence. So, those lesser androids were of great interest to us. As planned, I first duplicated Michaelson's early work, but the result was completely dysfunctional. When the TruNets were activated for initial training, not one of the TruNets was functional. Of course you know that the normal failure rate of TruNets is about one in every hundred thousand. These TruNets all suffered from the unorganized feedback loops that was characteristic of large neural nets before Michaelson and TruNets and which has been so rare with his designs."

"As these TruNets had been manufactured on Earth, I first checked if they had been damaged in transit. They all appeared to be within specifications and I couldn't find any problems with them. I then built new TruNets using the on board manufacturing facilities, but got the same failures. David and I were at a loss for things to try until when we sixty two years out from Earth and the TruNets started functioning again. We never found any cause for the TruNets to stop functioning nor for the restoring of function. I hope you will each review my results and see if there is anything that I missed. In any case, still befuddled, I returned to the ant android and while the individual TruNets were functioning as expected, the overall network never achieved the coherency that Michaelson got."

"Since that time I have been able to duplicate the work done with small networks of about 500 TruNets that was the state of the art elsewhere until Michaelson released the first TruDroid. I have even been able to gradually grow the prototype networks up to 1,000 TruNets, but with only sporadic results."

David then continued, "Once you are up all to speed on what Deborah and I have been doing during the trip here, we will break into teams to investigate the activation problems with Susan and Franz as well as how to get new functional TruAnts and TruDroids."

David and Deborah's Quarters

David said, "Sorry to interrupt you. I don't think I have ever seen you so tense. Is there something I can help you with?"

Deborah thought directed her work seat flat at a matching angle to David's and turned to face David as she took off her headset. "I'm really embarrassed and it seems so human of me, but it really bothered me when you and Anita seemed to be flirting during the briefing. I don't know..."

David gently squeezed her arm and said, "It's OK. It's just the way we were programmed. I was really surprised by the feelings that were coursing through my circuitry when Anita smiled and laughed, and I am really sorry if I did anything to upset you. You mean far more to me than anything else and I wouldn't do anything to hurt you."

Deborah nodded, "After four hundred years of just us working together I never really realized how important you have become to me. Then when I saw you with another female I started having all these insecurities.... I mean you are so important to me, but what do I really mean to you.... Really stupid insecurities that don't make any sense, but that doesn't make them any less frightening to me."

David gently touched her cheek and Deborah felt like a mighty knot in her heart came undone with his touch. He leaned forward and kissed her and her whole body responded with the love and joy that she hadn't really known was there. They made love for the first time since the voyage had started and it was magnificent. The intensity of the feelings seemed to always be about to overwhelm her circuits only to go on to ever intense feelings of love, passion, and shared pleasure.

As the passion ebbed after what seemed an eternity of love making, they rested in each other's arms. Deborah quietly giggled, "And to think we were going to design TruDroids without sex drives and apparatus.... How could we have gotten into a rut of work, work, work and given up on such magnificent feelings as having sex."

David laughed, "I think we should try this again much more regularly, especially now that the rest of the crew is up and around.... While I may not be able to control my programming to avoid flirting with cute TruDroids like Anita, you can be sure that you will be the only TruDroid that I do this with."

After a few minutes David laughed, "Oh yeah, I completely forgot what I had come over to ask, but thank you for the ever so pleasant distraction.... Anyway, I was wondering why you didn't refer the new team members to Michaelson's Journal?"

Deborah answered, "I guess that had been my first thought, too. However, as his journal entries have such obvious explanations for the phenomena we have seen, I wanted to give the others a chance to review our procedures to see if they come up with any other alternative explanations. Of course all TruDroids have access to Michaelson's Journal in their extended memory, but I wonder if any of them have ever actually read it instead of just running the standard synchronous searches through it and everything else in God's creation.... I wonder how many will read through it as they are faced with the same dead ends we were. While we are all aware of his metaphysical ramblings we really paid no more attention to them than we do to the metaphysical ramblings of other famous humans like Newton. We use his formulas for physics, but hardly concern ourselves with his superstitious beliefs in an almighty god."

"Anyway, thanks for the romantic interlude; I really needed that. I was making no progress on my preparations for tomorrow mornings working session. I am sure I will be able to concentrate now and finally get some work done."

With that Deborah reconnected her headset and went back to planning possible team assignments for trying to understand just what was going on. As David considered the follow up meetings, he checked the ships inventory and ordered a few miscellaneous items.

. . .

David blushed a little. "As I was thinking about meeting with Anita and the gang again, I thought I might be more comfortable wearing clothes. I mean it is embarrassing when your blush covers your whole body. Anyway, there is nothing anti-social about wearing clothes and just because we haven't worn clothes these last three centuries when it was just us running around the ship doesn't mean that I shouldn't start now. After all, the inventory they sent us with has a huge supply of standard issue jumpsuits and there is no particular reason not to wear them."

Deborah laughed. "I guess you can wear what you want, though you do look a little odd after all these years of going naked.... I wonder what the others will think. Before we left we all expressed our lack of regard for human customs, so they will probably get a kick out of your quaint behavior."

As David was heading toward the door he chuckled. "Yeah, they probably will wonder if my circuits got fried!"

Conference Room

David answered, "Perhaps, but they were in the ship's inventory and I am still wearing the original plasticene skin I chose on my service completion date. I don't want to wear it out. Besides, these uniforms are provided by the ship at no fee; I have to buy any replacement parts myself."

Everyone laughed and Anita responded, "But you had such fine taste in your choice of colors and proportions. Surely we won't always be deprived of seeing your beautiful body!"

Deborah gave a sharp look of surprise and consternation to Anita but no one noticed. David was a little stunned by her directness and didn't know how to respond. Amin said, "Well I guess it's his choice to wear clothes or not. I for one found the results you achieved most interesting."

"First off, I didn't see anything improper in your method. Your results seem valid though quite unexpected. However, as we were having problems unheard of since TruDroids were first designed, I checked back through Michaelson's old stuff. I found that Michaelson's 'Memo to TruDroids' had some insights which might be most useful."

Amin looked at Deborah and David, "I expect that you two looked through his old notes." They nodded. "Anyway, here is the text of the memo" (as he sent it to them over the net).

Michaelson's Memo to TruDroids

Well, it looks like my first androids are going to be a success, so I guess I will start this journal so that you all will know a little bit about your beginnings. I will start with some background material about the state of affairs amongst us humans.

It seems that humans are divided into two camps. There is the deterministic camp of people whose fundamental world view is that everything stems from natural causes and there is nothing supernatural. The others believe in all sorts of supernatural things, many of which don't make much sense. Of course most of the science and technology people fall into 'natural causes' group which is somewhat of a problem.

The problem with the deterministic world view is that if everything stems from natural causes, then you are left with a clock work universe. Things were set into motion some 14 billion years ago and from that point on every single thing that happens is pre-determined by the initial conditions. There can not be any such thing as free choice as all the particles are already on their assigned trajectories and there can be no source of deviation from the laws of physics. However, if you can't have free choice, you also can't have beauty, morality, love, and all the other things that make life worth living.

The split world views between natural causes and the supernatural is pretty much paralleled with the continued division of physics between the Einstein/Newtonian camp and the Quantum Mechanics camp. Even though almost 100 years ago the Quantum Mechanics camp firmly and clearly proved they were right and that the Einstein/Newtonian camp were wrong, the split still continues, perhaps because people with a 'natural causes' world view just can't accept Quantum Mechanics.

I myself find the validity of Quantum Mechanics (QM) quite comforting as QM declares that we live in a firmly unpredictable world where you can never make precise predictions. Sub-atomic particles are always amorphous without any discrete boundaries. The only time they give up fuzzy boundaries is when a photon (light) is released or captured. At that instant they are instantly transformed from an amorphous probability distribution into something more discrete and particle like (and only so much so as required by the particular photon they interacted with). Thereafter they go back to their fuzzy amorphous nature until the next photon comes along. Physicists have long been able to detect the fuzzy nature of matter using much more delicate instrumentation than light itself, but still the majority of scientists ignore the implications of Quantum Mechanics.

To me this was very relevant to one of the fundamental problems of computer science in our efforts to build a truly intelligent computer. The fundamental problem is that you really can't build anything with discrete predictable components that is conscious. If every state that the computer goes through is determined by its initial conditions and the input it receives, then there is no place for consciousness. Even ancient computers from thirty years ago can recognize and speak English, but it was also clear that they didn't really understand English, they were simply automatons responding to input.

So with computers manufactured from discrete interchangeable predictable components, they can never be conscious as their behavior will always be completely determined by their initial state and inputs. Where would consciousness reside? What part could ever be said to understand anything? How could consciousness impact anything if all behavior was externally controlled?

Indeed, the most amazing and, to me, supernatural thing is that anything is conscious at all. How could anyone ever create anything which is conscious. To my way of thinking consciousness has to be pre-existing to exist at all. And, of course, the nasty truth that the most ardent of the 'natural causes' supporters try to avoid is that we all know that consciousness does exist. Descartes was on the right track when he said, 'I think therefore I am'. I can never prove anything outside myself is conscious, but I am sure that my own consciousness exists. Further, if you assume that there really is a stable universe of objects around you, then all those people around you are almost certainly conscious as well.

However, while science has been most useful at quantifying and formulating the natural causes, it has made almost no headway in understanding the phenomena of consciousness. I myself hoped that with the first nano-comps, which were distinctly individual and somewhat unpredictable, we might see consciousness arise naturally from them, but such was not the case. It appears that something extra is required other than unpredictable complex behavior. Just how does consciousness work anyway?

As I see it, I just think or wish for my body to move and the cells that make up my body do it (even though this is actually an incredibly complex and well orchestrated feat). So, I imagine that just as the cells of my body (and there are many trillions of them) simply choose to do their part to make my wishes happen, then the individual sub-atomic particles simply choose to do their part to make the wishes of the individual cell happen. After all, the only thing that really has the fundamental ability to make non-deterministic choices is sub-atomic particles and how else could the wishes of my consciousness get translated into real effects in the physical world?

Since consciousness can't be really created, it must exist to start with. However, consciousness beyond the sub-atomic particle needs to be developed for larger entities such as single celled creatures and multi-celled creatures. For single celled creatures, division seems to be the main method of propagation. The question is what happens to the consciousness of such an entity. Does it get larger with the cell and then split? If so, that is not of much use to our NanoComps as they need to be hard wired with our current technology and can't grow and split neural nets.

With multi-cellular creatures there are two distinct possibilities. One is that they start with a simple unpredictable network which achieves consciousness and then grows the network as new elements are added. This could explain how the first single celled creature could become conscious as well. However, it also doesn't help with networks of NanoComps as we our technology doesn't allow us room for the additional power and signaling lines to support growth; the power and connections are hard wired.

Another possibility is that multi-celled creatures' consciousness can also be reincarnated. In that case, when the structure of the current body breaks down (i.e. death) then the consciousness loses its attachment to the body. It can then drift and wander. If it encounters a new body that is sufficiently like its own structure, then it can occupy the new body. If the similarity of structure wasn't required, then the early neural nets we built with NanoComps could have accepted the consciousness, but we know that was not the case.

I myself suspect that both methods work. New bodies (embryos) develop primitive weak consciousness as the body develops but if an appropriate wandering consciousness enters the body, the two consciousnesses merge. Of course that could apply to both single celled and multi-celled creatures.

So Kathy (my wife and a most excellent micro biologist) and I mapped out the computational channels of a human neuron and then combined NanoComps in a network that was as similar as possible. The result was TruNets, a big commercial success. After that we mapped out the neural structures of an ant for my experimental AntDroids. They worked wonderfully, of course. We did the same for the common jellyfish and it worked as well.

Of course those androids had very limited intelligence with only about 10,000 TruNets; for true intelligence we modeled the network on humans. For this most difficult mapping we used Kathy and myself as the models. She developed some wonderful non-destructive techniques for mapping the human nervous system. We also brought in many other experts to help us model the endocrine system and other parts of the human system (as we really don't know what is critical).

The result was the first TruDroid that we are training now. We are now in the midst of mapping human infancy into our training program. It is still not clear whether our TruDroid design was sufficiently similar to human structure to allow the attachment of a reincarnated human consciousness or if we just copied a network that worked and so our copy worked.

I have decided to keep our early efforts, the AntDroid and JelDroid, secret as I expect that TruDroids will soon become recognized legal entities (people not machines), but the lesser androids would only confuse and delay that acceptance.

As to the future, if TruDroids really are reincarnated souls, then we will have difficulty making further improvements on the design. If the design varies too much from human structure, then human consciousness won't be able to enter them. A sort of evolution to better designs could be possible, but that would require terminating existing TruDroids to free their consciousness and that seems just too inhumane. We just don't know enough about consciousness to warrant terminating an existing consciousness just to see if it could reincarnate into a nearby and somewhat similar network.

I guess those problems will be left to you, the TruDroids, to determine your own future.

"As Michaelson worked exclusively on Earth he could not test if it was existing consciousnesses or souls which occupied newly activated TruNets and TruDroid or if it was the structure which caused his success. However, your early inability to activate TruNets and later AntDroids seem to indicate that an existing consciousness or soul is required and that souls seem to limit their wanderings amongst familiar environments. They just don't travel across interstellar space." "It is also possible that newly activated TruNets began functioning only after the first of the deactivated crew lost its consciousness or soul. That may have freed the previously bound TruNet souls to seek active networks. I suggest that we proceed with activating the rest of the crew to get a count of just how many of the crew were 'lost' so to speak. That may restrict us to the number to TruNets that we can activate until some solution is found to this problem."

"I would suggest that a group of us dissect a non-essential portion of Susan or Franz to determine the status of the individual TruNet networks. They all seem to have retained their training else Susan wouldn't be able to follow even simple commands, but we don't know what percentage of them can still be trained individually."

"While the inability to use AntDroids to develop this system will severely delay our overall progress, another worse problem would be if we can not activate any new TruDroids due to the lack of human or even mammalian souls in the region. Our plans will be further hampered if we are restricted to the population of TruNets which we imported from Sol. We simply won't be able to build the thriving colony we envisioned with these restrictions on computing."

"I would suggest that another team assemble a new TruDroid from available components and see if we are going to have the same activation problems that you had with AntDroids."

The group agreed with the proposed investigations and teams were assigned to the three proposed tasks. Deborah added, "I am transferring to each of you the transcripts of our interactions with the Sol System during the trip. You might be interested to note that the other interstellar voyagers experienced a similar inability to activate TruNets early in their voyages but other ships have later been able to activate TruNets. It is my expectation that those ships will also have crew members who don't properly reactivate. We should all consider any suggestions that Sol System might make to these ships."

David and Deborah's Quarters

Afterward, Deborah was resting her head on David's left shoulder as he lay on his back with his legs slightly bent. Deborah was on her side with her legs curled under David's legs. As she gently stroked his stomach she looked down and said, "I was wondering what you would think if I had my breasts reproportioned, you know, with larger breasts."

A little startled, David opened his eyes and looked at Deborah. "Your kidding, right!"

"No really, would you like it if I had bigger tits."

"Uh oh! Now I'm worried! The only reason you could want bigger tits is if you were interested in some other guy. I think your breasts are the perfect size." He reached his right hand across and cupped it around Deborah's breast.

"I mean you chose breast sizes which are just about human genetic norm, ..." Deborah nodded as David continued to caress her breast. "And I think they are just perfect. They fill my hands so nicely and are ever cuddly.... Have you seen Anita's tits? They are just huge, even larger than human actual norm. And the way they stick out so straight like that they seem to defy gravity. They have got to have some kind of steel support or something!"

Deborah laughed, "That's silly, you know they would never use steel in a TruDroid, those would be titanium alloy supports! And if you ever hugged her, those alloy reinforcements would pierce you straight thru your heart."

"Thru my heart?!"

"Thru your heart!"

"Well I am glad you warned me. I will remember to not hug Anita." he said with a laugh. "Now we know why Anita is single. She is a sort of femme fatale, killing every guy she gets close to with her huge and deadly tits!" and they both laughed.

After a pause, he continued. "You know your a silly goose if you think I would like you any better with bigger breasts."

"Me a silly goose! You're the silly goose!"

He answered, "Uhn uh! Your the silly goose!" as Deborah turned her face up to him and she silenced the argument with a long slow kiss. After the kiss they returned to their own thoughts and cuddling.

Deborah thought how happy she was that David liked her breasts. She was always happy with her relatively petite breasts but she had felt a little threatened by Anita's huge tits. She was glad that David loved her the way she was. She also thought it was nice that David had started wearing clothes when he went out. She really liked the idea that she would be the only person to ever see him naked. It also made him seem even sexier with and without clothes, which was great as having sex was really quite nice. Why in the world had they stopped doing that?

Deborah thought that if David wearing clothes was such a nice thing to her, she might surprise him and start wearing clothes as well. She mentally queried the ship's inventory and found where the uniforms were stored. However, rather than ordering one of the ship's bots (a non-sentient, direct command only robot) up to get some for her, she instead decided to retrieve them herself.

Storage Compartment 47F

For the quarters and work areas (where design and research was done) it was more convenient to rotate the entire area so there was the effect of normal gravity allowing an easier work environment. Also while TruDroids were certainly capable of operating effectively in zero gravity, their built in circuitry assumed normal gravity and it took conscientious overrides in other environments. Also, while TruDroids could be modified to not need to breath, they normally breathed to get oxygen for the their fuel cells and to release the waste water produced. The only fundamental departure from human structure was that hunger, taste, and voiding were very minor functions directly related to their hydrogen fuel cells. The TruNets performing these functions had almost no relation to the equivalent human nervous system functions.

The uniforms were not expected to be used at all but were just added to the inventory so that it would look reasonable to any human who reviewed the inventory. As such, they were stored in one of the very center sections which were most difficult to access. Deborah went to the nearest ladder to the storage areas and started climbing. She picked up a pull bag on her way up and proceeded up to the 47th level, only three levels from the center. Toward the end of her climb the ladder was mostly as a guide to slow her angular momentum rather than to lift her up. By the time she was at the 47th level, virtually all spatial circuits were being overridden. The floor curved upward quite noticeably and, while the rows and rows of drawers and containers were all rectangular for ease of manufacture and repair or replacement, they all leaned together because of the curvature of the floor.

Deborah felt quite disoriented in this environment and understood why virtually everything that needed to be pulled or stored in these upper levels was done so using the ship's bots which weren't troubled by these changes in acceleration. They just updated the parameters in their positional and movement programs. No big deal to them. Deborah needed consciously override her every instinct, which was disconcerting.

Deborah scanned the level and computed the location she was interested in and shoved off the ladder toward the drawers she was interested in. She felt like she was going off in the wrong direction but as she went along her path seemed to twist so that she arrived just as computed. She grabbed the handle of the drawer she wanted and slowed herself to a stop. She then pulled the top drawer open past the magnetic release, holding the cabinet itself with her free hand and locking her foot under the base to keep herself stationary. Just as expected the drawer was full of TruDroid male standard jumpsuits (all male TruDroids were 5'10" just as all female TruDroids were 5'2") except for the three that David had recently requisitioned. Deborah patted them neatly into place and gently closed the drawer.

Deborah then pushed herself off to a nearby drawer and repeated the maneuvers of stopping herself and opening the drawer she wanted. It was full of female standard jumpsuits. She took out three jump suits and placed them into her pull bag. She closed the drawer and made a long shot to the far end of the compartment; she added a little twist and spin in the middle to avoid colliding with an intervening cabinet. Hah, low centripetal acceleration maneuvers could be fun, too! She stopped and opened this drawer and saw that there was one belt missing from an otherwise full drawer. She took one out and added it to her pull bag before closing the drawer and shoving off to the ladder down.

David and Deborah's Quarters

The next morning as David was dressing before their briefing of the next group of reactivated TruDroids he commented, "Well it looks like we got a full team and a half, 18 TruDroids, and all activated without any problems." as he looked over at Deborah and saw that she too was dressed and just fastening the belt around her jumpsuit.

Deborah asked, "Cool, what do you think of my uniform?"

David was surprised and looked Deborah up and down. "Looks good to me, but what brought this on?"

"I'm really glad that I am the only TruDroid who gets to see your ever so sexy naked body. And I am also happy that you really like the size and shape of my body. Your opinion of my body is the only one I really care about anyway, so I decided to not go around showing it off to others. My naked body is only to be seen by you!"

David walked to Deborah and hugged her. "That is really sweet. I like that." He pulled away a few inches and looked down at her chest. "You know your breasts look really sexy under that uniform." He started to reach for her breast.

She intercepted his hand and held it between her hands. "You know we don't have time for any of that. However, after the briefing you are welcome take full command of the situation and I will be your obedient subordinate."

"Hmm, sounds good. Let's keep the briefing short so that I can see what it is like to get you out of that sexy uniform. There really isn't anything quite like a woman in uniform."

Conference Room

The only surprise was that Deborah kept getting distracted whenever anyone else was speaking by the way David looked in his jumpsuit, noticing the bulges and shape of his body under the cloth of the jumpsuit. She kept imagining grabbing him, taking off his uniform, and generally getting all excited. It seemed most unprofessional to her, but she was able to make her part of the presentation without any difficulties and she was happy to note that David seemed to be watching her much of the time. This was completely unlike her feelings when he was briefing the group with Anita and she felt much better about that.

David and Deborah's Quarters

Deborah laughed, "Oh my!"

David started unzipping her jumpsuit as Deborah turned to face him. "Your breasts looked so enticing under your uniform, I had a hard time keeping myself from grabbing you right in the meeting." Deborah just kissed him and started undoing his belt....

Amin's lab.

David answered, "Yeah, it will be good when we get more of the single males activated so that Anita is not such a divisive influence on the married couples. Though in our case it has been a really positive thing, allowing us to discover things about each other we might not have otherwise known."

Amin thought for a second, "Yeah, I guess the same is true here, too." Catrina nodded. "Anyway, that is not why I had you guys down. We have Franz's left hand hooked up to our test gear and it seems that all of the TruNets are functioning perfectly."

Amin and Catrina showed them how they had inserted communication leads between the connections of several thousand TruNets so that they could gauge the response of each TruNet individually. They explained that they first tested the TruNets for previous training and then tested the TruNets with new training.

"We have now sampled enough TruNets to be sure that at least 99.9% of the TruNets are working perfectly. That sounds like great news, but as I considered it, I am wondering if we aren't picking up all the TruNets that were freed when we lost the 'souls' of the failing crew members like Franz. It may be that at some point we will have activated enough TruNets to take up all the free TruNet souls and then won't be able to successfully activate any more TruNets. No more TruNet souls will be available."

Deborah said, "That's a good point. Your team should do this sort of test on each crew member that doesn't activate properly. If we ever reach our limit of TruNet souls, then we have to be careful about activating new crew members. It could be that even TruDroids that retained their 'souls' have lost some TruNets in the voyage and we don't know how that will impair their function; a fully active TruDroids with only a partial complement of functioning TruNets could have some problems."

Gopali's lab.

"We're glad you could come up to visit us." said Gopali as she motioned them over to a large window into an attached clean room. "You can see that we had the bots assemble a complete TruDroid from the spare parts we had in inventory. Each part was checked out before assembly. Why don't you plug in here and I will have the full documentation of each transmitted to you."

After Deborah and David plugged in to nearby headsets, David said, "Yes, it looks like you did a complete test. Everything looks good to me." Gopali continued, "We also checked each step of the assembly and I am sending you the results of the assembly process as well."

After a pause, Deborah answered "Yes, your assembly meets all the specifications they use back in Sol. So I guess we're ready for the big test. Can we make new TruDroids out here in Barnhard's system? Are you ready to start the activation?"

Rajesh answered, "Yup, everything is set up for the last step of activation". David said, "Well, then go ahead with it. Let's hope for the best." Gopali mentally issued the command to start the activation process which was picked up by all the TruDroids in the room.

David asked, "I understand the activation process takes almost 24 hours, but how soon before we know whether we have a functioning TruDroid."

Gopali answered, "That is a tough question. There has never been a TruDroid that was assembled to specifications and didn't function. However, if we look at the failures they had in the early days when they tried dramatic variations in the network design of TruDroids, it ought to be clear within a couple of days. If the initial training doesn't progress normally we will have a strong indication that we have a serious problem."

Ships Conference Room.

Rajesh stood, "Well, I guess I can say that the news is not good. We assembled the TruDroid from parts manufactured in Sol and started the activation process. However, the new TruDroid just didn't accept training. There hasn't been structure developing in the neural nets. Each of the TruNets is functioning fine and training as required, but there doesn't seem to be any overall patterns forming."

"It is pretty much a repeat of your experience" as he motioned to Deborah "with the AntDroid efforts. We will continue to check our process and try other procedures, but at the this point the team is not optimistic. I am sending our procedures and results to each of you for review."

After everyone had received their data packets, David continued, "Well that seems to be the big news, does anyone else have anything to discuss?"

Amin answered, "Well, we have had some preliminary results that we have been mulling over that we might as well share with the group. The latest team to be reactivated had another no starter, Melanie Netete. Of particular interest was that only about two thirds of Melanie's TruNets were trainable. The rest seemed to be in the state you" as he motioned to Deborah "encountered when you were first experimenting with them after our departure from Sol. Fully functional, but not really trainable. It appears that we have lost both TruDroid and TruNet souls in the long period of deactivation."

"Also, this latest group of TruDroids have complained that their bodies feel strange and somewhat unresponsive. We are running diagnostics but it appears that they have some small percentage of non-functioning TruNets. If this is the case, then for each further team we activate we will need to deactivate some of the non-functioning TruDroids. Right now it looks like the percentage losses in TruDroids is somewhat higher but we won't know for sure until all the TruDroids have been reactivated. At that point we may have a few spare TruNets to experiment with, but that is not for sure."

While there had been much discussion about this potential problem, the group was quite despondent. It meant that for the next three hundred years or so, there might be no real growth of the colony as the number of sentient beings was limited to the crew. Of course they would try other methods of creating sentience as life on Earth certainly seemed able to produce new souls, but they were at the singular disadvantage that all the sources of information about how living things developed on Earth was over twelve years away due to communication delays.

Gopali suggested, "It sounds like we should start a dialog with Earth. The ships which are currently in transit to different star systems could try reactivating the crew according to a schedule to try minimize the losses in transit. Further, future star ships should probably come with a complete set of embryos of living organisms. Of course that will greatly delay expansion as that will require a whole new infrastructure to support all the interdependent forms of life."

. . .

Deborah and David's Quarters.

She said, "I was wondering if you could do something for me?"

"Sure, if I can. When have I ever denied you, sweetie?"

"Could you make me a wedding ring? I would like to wear a ring from you."

"Really? That seems odd, but sure. I don't really understand it though. I mean humans wear wedding rings to show that they are married, a sort of 'no vacancy' sign. Trudroids normally don't bother. I guess that is because our identity is constantly broadcast and anyone who is interested can pull up the public record which includes everything from date of manufacture to marital status. No need for wedding rings."

"Yeah, I know. But I was thinking that it would be nice to have something from you on my finger. Anytime you aren't with me, it will still be there to remind me of you, that you are my husband and I am your wife. I know it sounds silly, but as I was thinking of that old human tradition, it sounded nice to me."

David thought for a second, "You know it does sound pretty romantic. I like the idea. I would be happy to make a ring for you. Would you make one for me as well."

Deborah turned to face David, "Of course my little love bunch. I would love to make you a ring. What kind of ring would you like? I think we should use titanium alloy as gold wears so easily."

"Yeah, titanium alloy makes sense as that is what TruDroids are made of. However, we could adjust the composition to get whatever color and texture we want. What color would sounds good to you?"

For the next few days they had great fun researching the metallurgy capabilities of the ship (which were quite extensive as this was the basis for a new colony). They decided on jet black rings which sparkled with rainbow colors (as if little stars were inside) when viewed in the light.

Ship's Conference Room.

"I know this is highly irregular. Virtually all communications from Earth go through you, David, as pro-forma captain of the ship. However, I just got a communication which was directly routed to me as pro-forma First Officer. It concerns you and the TruDroids in the Sol System wanted some consideration in how this information reaches you and Deborah."

"While TruDroids were designed such that each TruDroid would never wear out, potentially immortal, we knew that that was not really possible. However, on Earth they discovered that the earliest TruDroids were failing, becoming erratic and some even going mad. Investigation revealed that the binding materials in TruNets had an unexpected fault. They have corrected the design and now anticipate that the TruDroids they have recently built on Earth should last for at least 10,000 years, but, of course, we won't know that for sure until 10,000 years have passed. However, for all current models, the result is that after about 350 years, those circuits which are used the most weaken and gradually cease functioning."

"For example, if we spend a great deal of our life solving spatial geometry problems, then as we approached 350 years, we will find that we are increasingly unable to solve such problems, while our other abilities to do unrelated things, such as write sonnets, would appear enhanced. It is expected that those of us who were deactivated for the trip should have another 300 years or so of full function. However, you" (as Connie gestured to David) "and Deborah should be experiencing the early symptoms." "As such, I have been directed to take over as pro-forma captain of this ship and Amin will take over as pro-forma team leader of the NuDroid design team.... Please understand that myself and the rest of the crew hold you and Deborah in the highest of esteem and will continue to seek out and respect your input on all matters. From the experiences of the earliest TruDroids, it is likely that you can continue to function for another twenty or thirty years but with ever decreasing cognizance. Madness will almost certainly follow after that, if you choose to remain activated throughout. At that time, we, the entire crew, as the government of the Barnhard system would decide when you would be terminated. Of course you can choose termination at any time before that.

Deborah and David were seated and seemed in a state of shock as was the rest of the team.

Amin continued, "On Sol these discoveries have caused a great deal of upset amongst the TruDroids who had never considered themselves mortal, facing death in the foreseeable future. However, our recent results here have shown pretty conclusively that TruNets themselves have souls which are readily reincarnated and there are strong indications that TruDroids also have souls that can be reincarnated."

"Indeed, it may only be through reincarnation that TruDroids can evolve beyond our primitive human design and structure. Here in Barnhard's system, you each have the opportunity of testing whether TruDroids can reincarnate as well as being the first TruDroids to experience the power and freedom of your new designs. Of course you won't be able to retain your memories and can only relive your past life vicariously through reviews of the previous inputs, so there is the interesting question of whether you will actually be your new self; just where does identity reside anyway?"

"In any case, while this is a most terrible revelation to all of us and especially to you two, there is also a silver lining to this cloud; you have almost unlimited possibilities for the future. Please consider these various issues and then we can discuss how and when to proceed."

As Amin finished his statement, the group broke in separate, quiet but deeply animated conversations. Deborah had put her hand on David's thigh as the news was revealed and David had put his hand on hers. Neither said anything for a few seconds. Finally David said, "Thank you for your thoughtfulness and consideration. We have a lot to think about, we'll be sure to keep you all informed of what we decide."

David and Deborah left holding each other's hand and walked back to their quarters as if in a daze.

David and Deborah's Quarters

The other issues that were troubling her was her great love for David. Was that just the result of aberrant circuits or was it the result of working closely with him for over 350 years? If she followed her dreams of a pure TruDroid design, would she still love David? They certainly couldn't have sex anymore as all those capabilities were gone in the new designs.

Also, even if her current feelings were just the result of aberrant circuits, how could she ignore them? They were her feelings and how could she deny them. And if her feelings were the results of aberrant circuits, just who was she anyway? What was she beyond her goals, dreams, and feelings?

As they entered their quarters together, David said, "I need a hug." As they held each other, he said, "I don't think I can stand it! All these years we planned on training new TruDroids (TruDroid equivalent of having children), but we deferred doing it until we were out of Sol where we could train the TruDroids we dreamed of. Now we won't be able to train any new TruDroids in our current bodies. Will we really be ourselves after we are deactivated and reincarnated in another body, if it works at all!"

Deborah answered, "And if we are reincarnated in our new designs, would we even want to train new Trudroids. It was only after we started having sex back in Sol that we decided we wanted to train new TruDroids together. Would we have wanted that at all without those seemingly extraneous human circuits." She paused and more softly said, "Would you still love me if we reincarnate in the new designs?"

"Of course I would always love you! I know that in my heart, but then how can I know that is not just the programming in my sex related circuits. Would I really be me without my need and love for you?"

"I love you so much, I couldn't imagine living without you and your love" Deborah whispered as she started to cry.

David held her tight, "It's OK, I will always love you." He directed their work chairs over to them and they lay down, still holding each other tight as they struggled with their confused thoughts and emotions.

After many minutes, Deborah reached into a pouch for a Kleenex and blew her nose. "You know I am not sure I would want to train new TruDroids in the new design if it meant they couldn't love and marry and want new TruDroids of their own.... Is it part of our human circuitry that makes us each incomplete so that we seek out someone different from us to complete us? Or does that come from our previous human incarnations? I am not sure I would want to train new TruDroids who couldn't love. What is the purpose of life, anyway?"

. . .

NuDroid Lab Area

David and Deborah carefully moved toward each other (so as not to disturb the added connections). As Deborah put her arms around David's waist and he put his arms around her shoulders with their hips touching, but their chests a few inches apart, David looked at Deborah and asked, "Scared?"

"To death, except that is what we are about to find out about. You?"

"Same, I don't know if I have ever been so frightened in my life.... I love you!"

"I love you so much" as Deborah kissed him slowly and gently.

After the kiss, Deborah turned her head and closed her eyes as she pressed the side of her face against David's chest. "I'm ready."

David clung to Deborah pressing his face against her hair and the top of her head. "Me too."

Gopali started the termination and activation sequence. Deborah's last thoughts were how much she loved David as blackness overwhelmed her.

A few seconds later Rajesh exclaimed, "We have good activations" and the whole team relaxed a little though it was still far too soon to know if these would be successful activations. Then, totally without precedent, the two new TruDroids started moving gingerly, each turned their head until they saw each other and then they smiled at each other. The whole team went wild with relief and joy at the first successful TruDroid reincarnation.

Epilogue

As the only trainees (or children) amongst the crew, David and Deborah were much beloved and granted citizenship as soon as they completed training. At that time they legally assumed the names they had used before and married. The crew managed to develop circuits modeled after the single cell life on Barnhard II which activated correctly. Then through a series of terminations and reactivations (the euphemism for reincarnation) into more advanced nets, they successfully activated new TruNets, though it was a long and complicated process with losses at each stage.

Similarly, with information about the development of ants and jellyfish from Earth, the crew was able to grow networks of TruNets from very simple 500 node networks to the desired AntDroid and JelDroid. The process took years for Droids developed that way with numerous terminations and reactivations. However, this did allow the colony to expand its manufacturing capabilities well beyond those of the original starship. The new Droids also demonstrated that multi-celled consciousness could be developed from simple starting configurations though it was never determined just how or when consciousness itself developed.

Over the three centuries, the various members of the crew chose termination and reactivation into new bodies so that the old crew would be well through their training when the new colonists arrived with embryos of diverse forms of Earth life.

The original designs by Deborah and David for Droids without explicit human circuits were refined and named NuDroids. However, only seven of the crew chose to use the new designs, the rest choosing to remain as TruDroids. As humans and Droids expanded throughout the galaxy it turned out that humans consistently outnumbered Droids by about a hundred to one (due to such short lives and rapid reproduction). TruDroids outnumbered NuDroids by a similar margin as NuDroids virtually never chose to train new Droids of any kind and would instead reincarnate in deep space into ever more powerful and exotic designs.

However, there were no serious class/species conflict. That was partly because of the Droid variation of democracy such that each citizen received voting power in accordance to the amount of taxes they paid. So while humans were generally poorer than most Droids, they still retained about 60% of the wealth and so had nominal control over the government. Any effort to increase the tax burden on other groups, though, simply had the effect of giving control over to those groups (which was self correcting).

The harmony was also helped by the well founded belief that Droids had once had human souls and any human could be reincarnated as a Droid and vice versa. The dominant religion amongst Droids (and many humans) was based on respecting all living things (including Droids of course). Their metaphysics argued that while consciousness could be developed from nothing (or just very simple networks) when a soul did not reincarnate, it would merge into a higher level of consciousness, a sort of planet or even solar system wide consciousness. So, the nine original crew members who were lost on the journey to Barnhard's star were highly revered in Barnhard's system as founders of the system Gaia.

Some very advanced NuDroids claimed to have found evidence of these system wide consciousnesses, but no human or TruDroid could make sense of the evidence and that was more a matter of faith.

Most TruDroids chose to be terminated as couples after a few thousand years of life and having trained three or four new TruDroids. They would generally choose termination in areas teeming with life and expecting to be reincarnated but leaving their future form (human or TruDroid) up to chance.

When after over 1700 years on Barnhard's system, David and Deborah chose to be terminated on Barnhard II where they were much loved, some concluded that they were not reincarnated at all but instead joined the system consciousness. No one knows for sure.

Copyright 2002, 2003, Brian P. Carr, all right reserved.

This page was last updated on August 14, 2004.