even she can’t even remember what’s true and what’s not. The friend who can’t get enough of Helper’s stories, for example—yeah, total fabrication. But when you’re dealing with sub-legal intelligences and want results, you do what you have to do. And it’s not like Sarya’s the only one who does it; everybody does. Helper’s manual even encourages it, in spirit if not in actual words.
Your new sub-legal intelligence comes with a primary motivation pre-installed. For the best possible results, make sure that all work assigned to the intelligence aligns with this motivation.
What it doesn’t say—and yet pretty much does, if you think about it—is that a higher intelligence can stretch this to the breaking point. It’s not hard to fool a lower intelligence, especially when you tell them things they want to hear. To pull an example from the void, say you have a childcare intelligence that’s been your constant and annoying companion for as long as you can remember. Perhaps it has a primary motivation toward storytelling, because your mother thought that would be useful. But you don’t need storytelling anymore, because you’ve matured. Now, you need help with a certain interest—fine, a certain obsession—that requires research. It’s not easy to search a galaxy-wide Network for Human sightings, after all. You need help. So. Given this hypothetical situation, you might concoct a nonexistent friend who really loves stories—but only stories on a specific topic. And to create those stories, a storytelling intelligence would need to do research. And there you have it: you have now transformed a useless childcare intelligence into a highly motivated research assistant. And it is not wrong—so you can shut up right now, conscience—because the work gets done, Helper is happy, and everybody wins.
“You’re right. I did say,” she concedes. “It’s just that right now I have to…” She has to…what? She has to waste the next six hours of her life wandering the station, imagining what could have been? Or she has to seize an opportunity that will never come again?
Well, when you put it that way.
“I have to go see someone,” says Sarya the Daughter, and instantly that feeling in her chest shifts. It’s not uncertainty now. It’s…well, it’s not exactly peace, but it’s something like it. This is what a Human would do, because she is a Human and it’s what she just decided to do. Done.
“Is it your friend who loves stories? Do you think I could meet her? Because if I could just have a quick conversation with her I think I could—”
“No, he’s—” He’s what? She has no idea. “It’s just someone who wants to meet me.” That’s safe enough.
“Does he like stories?”
“I’ll be sure to ask,” she says. She glances up and down the unfamiliar corridor. “But you know what I need to do first?”
“Um—”
“I need to find out how to get to Dock A from here.”
“Well,” says Helper, sounding unenthused, “I’m a little busy. I’ve got a lot of dead members of a certain extinct species to track down.”
“You know what?” says Sarya, adjusting her strategy instantly. “I just remembered. He does like stories. He especially likes stories about Humans.”
“Really? How come all your friends like stories about Humans?”
She deflects Helper’s suspicion with skillful ease. “You know, I’ve never thought to ask.”
“I mean, that’s fine, of course—whatever plots your orbit, I always say. And if people want stories, well, I’m not named Helper for nothing!” The voice is picking up already as the primary motivation takes hold. “Let me just whip up a route for you, and…here you go!”
In the center of the empty corridor, a diagram begins to unfold. Sarya expected a simple map, but her new unit has a way of making the mundane beautiful. This area is unfamiliar, but most of the jumbled asymmetry she knows as well as her own blades—hands, whatever. Their shapes take form before her, from the administrative sections to the arboretums where she spent most of her childhood to the arcing promenades that lead to her own residential section. A brilliant red ribbon begins at her feet and threads through the crash of architecture, from this point down to this freight elevator, from there under the concourse to—
“Wait a minute,” says Sarya. She expands the map with one hand and points with the other. “Why is this part missing?”
“What do you mean?” asks Helper.
“Right here. This is—I was literally right here like eight minutes ago. In this big empty spot. There’s a giant observation deck right here.”
[Shrug],