Laroose glanced at him, but declined to comment. “So what do you do now? You have an interim government in place, and that finally gives you the time to pay more attention to your own people.”
“I am leaving,” the Starwolf declared. “As soon as they have Valthyrra up and going, Quendari Valcyr is going to lead the Methryn and the Vardon on our first visit to Terra — Earth, as she calls it. Keflyn is very anxious to get back. She was unable to tell the Feldenneh colonists that the Union fleet had been destroyed, so they are still waiting for their world to be destroyed.”
With the eight memory cells locked into their secured access tunnels and all connections installed and tested thoroughly, all of the physical stages of bringing Valthyrra into her new home were complete. There was nothing to do now but to access those memory units, assemble Valthyrra’s personality program in the matrix of the sentient computer complex, and see how well it worked.
Consherra was very glad to have Venn Saevyn to assist her in the process of starting up the new computer complex. Venn Keflyn had anticipated the need, and had arranged for an expert with considerable experience to accompany the Valtrytian fleet. Saevyn was not only competent in the repair of sentient systems, he had even designed a couple.
Consherra learned a few things about sentient machines that she had never guessed. One thing was their size. Most of the sentient computers built by the Aldessan were in self-contained units about the size of one of Valthyrra’s memory cells, five tons of machinery that was mostly just its protective housing in weight and memory storage in volume. The Starwolf sentient computers were six hundred tons of storage cells, primary, secondary, and peripheral units, a result mostly of their dedicated military roles, heavy shielding and shock protection. Ninety percent of their system involved non-sentient systems that could be accessed directly on either conscious or fully automatic levels. They also had their own maze of redundancy; even their conscious systems were spread throughout the nose of the carrier, and they could lose three-quarters of their circuitry before it even began to effect their operation.
“The trick is to avoid shock,” Saevyn explained as he and Consherra opened the access door to Valthyrra’s main terminal station.
“But how do you manage that?” Consherra asked. She was busy using one of the large access wrenches on the door, which opened exactly like those over the memory cells.
She removed the outer door of the terminal station, and Saevyn politely stepped forward to take it from her. “The key to the conscious intelligence of the sentient computers is in their array of liquid crystal processors. The matrix in the processor can change on command, so that the processor adapts its internal circuitry according to its required function.”
“Yes, I know that much,” Consherra agreed. The inner door slid up, and she stepped through into Valthyrra’s computer core.
“With simple, stupid computers, there is no harm if the liquid crystal processors change their form abruptly, even as often as several times each second,” he continued as he slid his own massive form through the relatively small opening of the hatch. His slender draconic body fit through easily, but he had to fold each of his long, triple-jointed arms and legs into a variety of contortions to get them through, and he was wearing a full armored suit to contain any loose fur. “But your ship is quite another matter, with eight simultaneous levels of consciousness and quite literally billions of liquid crystal synaptic connections in a network of hundreds of major processors. A rapid startup of such a large and complex system can be a very great shock, especially if you suspect trouble with the personality programming anyway. It can place the system and the programming into a conflict that might never be resolved.”
He stood for a moment, looking about the long, narrow chamber with its banks of monitors and relay stations. Then he moved to the main control station and eased his large form onto the long, couch-like seat designed to serve the sinuous forms of the Aldessan, the only permanently mounted feature for their use in the entire ship. Consherra took the ordinary seat beside him.
“First we will assemble her full personality program from her memory units and establish them in a cache in her short-term memory.” Saevyn explained. “Then we proceed to a normal startup with her original programming. That was the foundation of her current personality, and it will serve as a guide for her to access and accept her programming back into her network.”
He moved himself closer to the main keyboard and monitor and began the process of bringing Valthyrra out of storage. Consherra watched in silence as he ran a final systems check through the Methryn’s entire computer network, then loaded Valthyrra’s primary, personal program from the reference files kept on optical disks. He did not start her up right away but engaged only the automatic functions, directing the rest into a temporary memory cache. Once he knew that everything was going well so far, he began to bring the large memory cells on line, one at a time and fine-tuning each before he had all eight of the units in perfect sync with the computer complex.
“This ship is an absolute marvel,” Venn Saevyn declared after hours of intense work. “I have never seen a system so thorough in its design. Not easy to work with, but built like the rest of this ship. Quick, competent, and almost indestructible.”
“It looks good?” Consherra dared to ask.
“As good as we have any right to expect,” he said. “There is fragmentary damage to her personality programming. Redundancy resolved most of the damage and the system self-corrected many of the remaining holes by logical extrapolation. If Valthyrra accesses her full programming, any remaining damage will be repaired automatically.”
Consherra frowned. “Is she likely to?”
Saevyn laid back his ears, a gesture that Consherra recognized quickly enough from her long association with Venn Keflyn. He glanced over at the inactive camera pod, mounted to one side of the main console. “At the very least, her memories will guide her into developing a new personality that is in most ways like the old.”
Consherra did not answer. She was thinking about Theralda Vardon and the disquieting lifelessness that was often a part of her character, or the quiet, machine-like efficiency of Quendari Valcyr because of the lack of personal contacts she needed to fully develop her own personality. Valthyrra had enough of her own programming to mirror her original personality to a very high degree, but she would never be exactly the same person she had been before. Consherra had to wonder which would be better, to endure the ghost of the Valthyrra she knew or a completely new ship.
She noticed almost too late that Venn Saevyn had already begun initiating the startup of Valthyrra’s primary programming. Consherra began to fear that something had gone wrong, however, when the single-lens camera pod only continued to stare aimlessly rather than turn to orient on them.
“Valthyrra Methryn, do you hear me?” Saevyn asked. “How do you feel?”
The camera pod turned at last, the lens rotating slowly as it came around. “I am in perfect operating condition, to the extent that I have so far been able to determine. I have initiated a complete system check.”
Consherra closed her eyes as she sat back in her seat. That voice, a cold, lifeless monotone, was only vaguely recognizable as Valthyrra’s.
“Valthyrra, do you recognize either of us?” he asked.
The camera pod rotated around a fraction more. “I regret that I do not know you, but I do of course recognize Consherra, Helm and First Officer of the Methryn.”
“And do you know where you are and what has happened to you?”
Valthyrra seemed to consider that for a moment. “I am in my construction bay on Alkayja Station. I am aware that I have been installed aboard the new carrier, so I must assume that the Methryn has been destroyed. My last memory is of speaking with Commander Velmeran on the bridge. That seems now like a very long time ago.”
“That will be enough for now,” he told her. “We will speak with you again on the bridge in a few minutes.”
Venn Saevyn closed down the terminal, and they withdrew from the core. Consherra hurried to secure the access hatch, lifting the door back into place and locking it down.
“I am actually encouraged,” Saevyn remarked. “She initiated a more detailed response to my last question than I had specifically asked. She seems to be curious about the fixtures of her past life, and that may well lead her to investigate her full programming. But we must still take things slowly.”
Velmeran and Tregloran followed Venn Keflyn into the small room in a quiet section of the Methryn’s infirmary. Dyenlayk, the Methryn’s chief medic, was already waiting in the room, standing over the unconscious form that lay in the narrow bed.
“Installing Valthyrra in a new ship gave me the idea,” Velmeran explained. “That reminded me of when I first met Venn Keflyn, and she told me that she had been forced to take a new body when she was young.”
Tregloran glanced at Venn Keflyn, who looked embarrassed. “I was very indiscreet when I was younger.”
Velmeran walked over to stand across the bed from Dyenlayk. “Is she ready?”
The medic nodded. “She seems to be in perfect condition. I see no reason why we should not awaken her.”
“Do it, then.”
Dyenlayk bent over the inert form and administered a drug through the intravenous connection, then began removing the straps of the wrist unit. “You can talk to her now. That should bring her around.”
Velmeran nodded and, with a quick glance at Tregloran, bent over the bed. “Lenna Makayen? Lenna Makayen? Do you know why Scotsmen wear kilts?”
Although she did not open her eyes, a slow, mischievous smile crossed her face. “I have no idea, Commander. Why do Scotsmen wear kilts?”
“Because sheep can hear a zipper from a hundred meters.”
Lenna made a face, then opened her eyes and stared up at Velmeran in a very accusing manner. “I’m dead.”
“You were. We fixed that,” he told her. “We cloned you a whole new body, and Venn Keflyn moved you right inside. It seems that Aldessan do it all the time, so it must be respectable.”
“I have no complaints;” Lenna insisted. She yawned and stretched, and in the process noticed something that she had not expected. “Four arms! I have four arms! Did you people put me together wrong, or something?”
“Well, we had to clone you a whole new body,” Velmeran explained. “Venn Keflyn did say that it does not have to be cloned from your original self, even if that is the usual method. You always did want to be a real Starwolf.”
“Yes, but what Starwolf?” she asked, obviously concerned. “I mean, if I am going to go through life looking like someone else, I want to know who.”
“Consherra provided the genetic material. We did a little manipulation with the variables, to give you individuality. Tregloran will have to find you a mirror. Venn Keflyn and I have to be getting back to work now.”
“Mercy, that was abruptly subtle,” Lenna declared. “By the way, what happened?”
“The end of civilization as we knew it,” Velmeran said. “You will have to ask Tregloran about that, since I cannot spare the two hours it would take to explain.”
Velmeran returned to the nearest lift, taking that to the main port airlock to leave the ship by the most direct route. He was under orders from Venn Saevyn to keep his distance from Valthyrra, for fear that his presence would shock her into possibly damaging her ability to access her damaged programming. He preferred to continue his immediate work from the command sections of the station.