Alien Paladin's Redemption - Mina Carter Page 0,60

creation.

“Remote piloting?” Indra asked, her expression curious as she stepped forward. Automatically he put an arm out to stop her getting anywhere near the devilish creation. Seeing the tubes had been bad enough. Thinking that unwitting beings had been trapped in there to die when the Cabal had abandoned this place but now… knowing what they really were, he understood why someone had tried to destroy this level.

He would have as well.

“A banned technology,” he explained on a rasp. “Scientists were trying to create an organic avatar to reduce the need for long starship journeys. One could simply slide into a remote link chair and wake on the planet that was required.”

“Bloody hell… so like teleporting?” she breathed.

“I am not familiar with that term,” he replied.

“One moment you’re like… on Earth and poof the next you’re on a Lathar planet.”

He shook his head. “No, there is no physical transference. Your own body remains on the planet of origin and only your mind transfers over to the new body.”

“Sounds like it has all kinds of applications,” Stephens mused thoughtfully, walking around the printer. “Like cheating death.”

Keris shook her head. “Not possible. The technology wasn’t perfect. The mind remained linked to the host body; they never could work out a permanent transfer. But there were other problems, not least of which was psychological issues within the pilots.”

Indra frowned, leaning into Nyek’s hold. “What kind of issues?”

Keris managed a one-shouldered shrug. It looked odd on her mechanical body. “There were issues with being in two biological bodies at the same time. Psychological fractures occurred—multiple personalities for the different bodies. The more times they transferred, the more often it happened. All pilots in the test program eventually went insane. So the technology was banned.”

“And now remote piloting is only allowed if the avatar is nonbiological,” Nyek finished for her. He motioned toward Keris’s body. “Like M’rln’s current body or the combat avatars.”

Stephens was still studying the printer. “Yeah, but that’s for people like us. Isn’t it? I mean Lathar or human… real people. No offence, Keris,” he added quickly.

“None taken,” she said, inclining her head toward him.

“Your point?” Nyek straightened up, his gaze directly on the human male. Stephens met it without flinching. Given that Nyek had almost killed him in the corridor earlier, would have killed him if Indra hadn’t stopped him, his estimation of the human increased tenfold. He might not be Lathar but he didn’t lack for courage.

“Keris is not biological. She is an AI.” He looked toward M’rln where she stood impassively.

At least, Nyek assumed she was impassive. The model of avatar she wore was, ironically given their current conversation, the kind warriors would use to remote pilot when a combat avatar was not required. Had she been a Latharian pilot, the faceplate would have reflected the features of her biological body, almost as if she wore a spacesuit. Because she did not have a body, it was blank. Still, he could almost see the longing in the set of her body… which was ridiculous. Machines did not have emotions nor express longing.

“She is,” Nyek agreed. “But I fail to see the point of this line of conversation.”

“You’re kidding me, right?” Stephens asked, incredulously. “You’re telling me that as superior as I keep being told the Lathar are, you can’t make a simple leap in logic?”

Nyek growled in warning. “Be careful with your words, human.”

Indra’s small hand on his chest stopped him surging forward.

“He’s only asking a question. And a valid one. Plus,” she smiled up at him. “Compared to humanity, the Lathar are very literal. We think in different ways.”

Her smile stopped him in his tracks, his anger deflating in a manner he’d never experienced before. Like her mere presence made everything right in his world.

“We certainly do. However, I am not unintelligent enough to know what he was asking.” He looked up, his voice and expression serious. “No, we cannot and will not print a body for the AI. This technology is banned for a reason. And she,” he stabbed a finger at M’rln. “… is already an abomination. AIs should never be allowed to inhabit humanoid bodies. I’m surprised it hasn’t gone mad already.”

“It has a name!” Stephens snapped, anger written into every line of his body. He drew closer to the AI, who was silent.

“It is an abomination against nature!” Nyek threw back, his voice raising. “It might have you fooled, but it is not a person. It’s a machine. It cannot feel. It cannot love.