Now Will Machines Hollow the Beast by Benjanun Sriduangkaew (read me a book .TXT) 📕

Xe snorts. “Stars are completely comprehensible. I could image, map, and analyze one for you within seconds regardless of its astrophysical anomalies. No. Haruspices have a reason and they provide a different state, a way of being that AIs couldn’t before experience, and the human halves are as human as you are. Not that you’d concede the point even if I show you the brain scans to prove it, you quantify the human soul in frankincense and sacrifice. You’re a most infuriating woman.”

She simply smiles. “Shall I have food prepared? I assume you require the usual things for a human body. Proteins, carbohydrates, vitamins.”

“I can go longer without than most. But by all means.” Benzaiten returns to xer side of the table, propping xer ankle on xer knee. Xer clothing rustles and deepens, the redshift effect growing more pronounced as the fabric parts like bruised currents around xer leg. “I consider Anoushka a valued accomplice. It is in my interest that she’s not hampered by treachery from within.”

“Then we are in utter alignment. If you’ve researched me as far back as the golden city, you would know my loyalty to the admiral has been total, and that my being in that city when she found me couldn’t possibly have been premeditated. The Seven-Sung Fleet was a long time ago, further back.” Another life, one of little consequence, even her name and sense of self have changed since. She was less than nothing there; in Anoushka’s arms she is everything.

“I’ll take that on conditional faith.”

The young sergeant reappears alongside a serving drone. They take the platter from the drone and lay out the items. A banquet of tandoori chicken, lamb and paneer curry, bowls of buttered saffron rice and plates of garlic naan. The sergeant bows and retreats from the parlor.

“That sergeant istaken with you, aren’t they?” Benzaiten rips off a piece of naan and wraps it around a morsel of chicken. “They could have just let the drone do its job.”

“Drones don’t offend you?” Considering that, given the correct parameters and processing power, all simple algorithms have the potential to grow into true AIs.

“Are you offended that various types of primates are used for experiments or kept in zoos? No? Then I am not offended by drones, automata, or paper puppets.”

She takes a spoonful of rice and curry. “I was under the impression the Mandate sought to uplift all artificial intelligences.”

Xe smirks. “Oh no no. You’re thinking of quantity. I prefer quality. There are members of the Mandate who desire to bring all machines into the fold, but truly, what’s the point of sheer number? We have enough disharmony as it is, though that’s inevitable and it’s why I’m not in Shenzhen often these days. More AIs are born every cycle, we propagate prodigiously. As soon as fifty years from now, everything’ll be drastically shifted. This chicken is good. Or rather it is something Krissana would like, it matches her palate profile. I don’t have much of an opinion on taste receptor input.”

Numadesi deliberates, between sips of lassi, over her next words. What possibilities lie ahead; how much she can trust xer claim to prize Anoushka as an ally. “There is a set of data I’d like you to look at, if it pleases my lord’s guest.”

“Naturally I shall. In return for this meal, which I assume is scrumptious.” In a moment—scanning through years’ worth of names, dates, causes and times of execution and individual dossiers—xe tilts xer head. “What am I looking for? Or rather what are you hoping I’ll find?”

“A pattern.” She hesitates, but no point being coy: the fact of her background is already out in the open. “A pattern of enemy action. One that’s almost—one that reminds me of certain Seven-Sung signatures. I can’t articulate it precisely but Seven-Sung commanders had specific biases, tactical behaviors, and I’m seeing them when I look through these. Except I can’t pinpoint who is behind it.” Or who are behind it; there could be more than one infiltrator.

Benzaiten swallows a mouthful of lamb curry, seemingly without chewing. “I’m not your analytic assistant, you realize. But it won’t do to have Anoushka assassinated or her army unraveled—I’d be very inconvenienced, and I don’t want to install a puppet admiral to run this. It’d upset you and most human polities, and also the Mandate. I’m retrieving publicly available records of the Seven-Sung Fleet, battle logs and operations, whatever else I can grab on short notice . . . Any particular commander you’ve got in mind?”

“Captain Erisant, for better or worse, personally dictated all operating parameters and procedures.” She doesn’t ask how much information Benzaiten can retrieve—it is evident that xe has another instance or another proxy elsewhere. The AI advantage: to place enough proxies on different worlds and stations that every category of secrets is within easy reach, unlimited by the range of relays or signal repeaters.

“Intriguing,” xe says, dousing xer plate of saffron rice in curry. “Someone with Captain Erisant’s face turned up on a remote world not long after the Seven-Sung’s defeat. They disappeared almost immediately.”

Numadesi’s gut tenses. Erisant was not her commander; back then ey hadn’t yet joined the Seven-Sung Fleet or mightn’t even have been born. But once ey joined, ey rose through the ranks and became captain in no time. A meteoric trajectory, not too different from Anoushka’s. “Without a single trace?”

The AI makes a humming noise. “Not even one. So ey either perished or possibly got a new face. What do you think? Maybe ey gave up on avenging eir assets and went to lead a quiet life as a beekeeper?”

“No. Ey’s too spiteful for that.” To be with her lord has granted her supreme equilibrium, a state of calm in which terror cannot pierce her. It does now. The plunging of the stomach, the chill that turns her fingertips to ice, the heat that tightens her chest.

Xe finishes xer rice as though it is the most important thing in the world to keep xer body fed. Every