Providence - Max Barry Page 0,76
A laugh popped out of her. Just a short bark, but inexcusable, given the company. She searched for composure, but the absurdity of the question was so great that she couldn’t figure out how to address it directly. “If software runs the ship, what do you need a captain for?”
“The real war,” Nettle said.
She felt air leaving her body in a slow, tired way. Of course. Of course.
“You’ve done a bang-up job speaking around the country,” Nettle said. “People admire you. They trust you. The message it would send if you captained a Providence . . .”
“No,” she said. “Please.”
“It would be a tremendous vote of confidence. Not just in this program, but the entire direction of the war. It would tell people that the sacrifices they’re making to fund the fleet are worth it.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t.”
“The AI is sound,” said Bogart. His tone was apologetic, but she couldn’t look at him. “It’s advanced a great deal in the three years since you shipped out to Fornina Sirius. And this isn’t just a Surplex innovation. There’s machine intelligence driving decision-making at all levels in most major corporations these days, with incredibly positive results. The political parties are using it to drive candidate selection and platform generation. I don’t want to sound glib, but by the time you come home, it may be running the country.”
She stared at him.
“It can fly your ship,” Bogart said. “It can do that better than you can.”
She kept her mouth shut. Nothing that would come out now would do her any good.
“You know what?” Nettle said. He seemed unperturbed by her reaction. “Let it roll around in your mind. We don’t require a decision today. Take a week. A month.”
A year. A lifetime. There was nothing that could put her in one of those ships.
“You may change your mind when you meet the crew,” Nettle said.
* * *
—
It was a bundle of hangars and habitats forty miles north of Anchorage, where they could shoot birds over the pole without blowing out anyone’s windows. There were nine hundred candidates, drawn from every branch of Service and corporate fast-tracks, vying for twenty-four crew slots. As the shuttle dipped toward the snowfields, the polite young flight lieutenant who was accompanying her leaned across and pointed out landmarks. There weren’t many. She spotted a squad in the snow, struggling through drifts.
“Including officers and support staff, the permanent base population is about five hundred,” he said. “Not counting visitors.”
“Why is it named Camp Zero?” she said.
“Because this is where it starts. Where we win the war.” She looked at him, but he was completely serious.
* * *
—
She spent a week lurking at the rear of classes and watching field training through binocs. On her second day, she was called to deliver a speech on an actual stage in a hangar. She gazed out at a sea of bright young faces and did what she’d done ever since she’d returned from Fornina Sirius: spoke of the nobility of Service, the depravity of the enemy, and the confidence she possessed that the awesomeness of the human spirit plus a Providence-class battleship would give birth to victory so splendid, it would inspire a thousand songs.
Nettle called her on the flight home. “Well?” he said.
“They’re children.” The flight lieutenant was sitting across from her, his expression neutral, his eyes on the wall. “Do they even know that a Providence doesn’t need a crew?”
“We don’t emphasize it.”
“They think this is for the best. That’s why they’re here. Not because they want to fight. To further their careers.”
“And?”
“I saw a round table on what they wanted to get out of the mission,” she said. “What they wanted.”
“It’s the younger generation. They’re less motivated by patriotism and duty. It doesn’t make them bad soldiers.”
“It doesn’t make them good ones.”
“I’m not letting this go, Jolene,” Nettle said. “I’ll ask you to visit again, in time.”
She shook her head. She was more convinced than ever that the