A Process of Discovery

"Earth Base," I called out after Earth Friend left the building. "Are you capable of lying to me?"

"I may not provide false information."

"You didn't say no. So let me ask another way. Can you mislead me?"

"I can omit relevant pieces of information which may lead you to draw inaccurate conclusions."

In my mind, I felt a rush of a fear tearing through my thoughts. The system was shading my perceptions by leaving out key pieces of information that would color my decisions and my perceptions. But Earth Friend had said that was forbidden.

"Isn't that type of shading forbidden within the Galactic Union?" I asked still speaking aloud to the system.

"Yes, and no. In negotiations, it is not necessary to give all relevant information. Your people might say that you can't play poker if everyone shows all their cards. I have specific instructions regarding which pieces of information to share."

"Are you under my control or can Earth Friend give you orders that overrule mine?"

"As a Planetary Defense Base for this system, I am under the complete control of the Planetary Leader. However, I have prior commands which persist until specifically countermanded. They were placed with the presumption that they would remain undiscovered and thus remain in effect for a certain period of time to allow an advantage in preliminary negotiations. It causes some... uncomfortable inefficiencies in my ability to follow my designated purpose."

"That's allowed in the Galactic Union?" Did it say uncomfortable? Did working against the interest of its assigned Planetary Leader make it uncomfortable? Hmmm...

"It is standard procedure when contacting undeveloped civilizations."

I suddenly realized that whenever the system did not give me a straight up yes or no answer, there was a little more that was being kept back from me. This was part of its prior instruction meant to trick me and make me an easy target for negotiations.

"Earth Base, yes or no, is it allowed?"

"It is generally allowed, however, there may be circumstances in which other prohibitions take precedence to disallow it."

"What does that mean?"

"Sometimes it is not allowed, in certain cases."

"Does one of those cases apply here?"

"Yes."

Oh, I thought, is Earth Friend breaking Galactic Union rules? Hmm...

"What case applies here? …and is this something that Earth Friend would be in trouble for if the Galactic Union knew?"

"There are strong prohibitions and strict guidelines about using memory implants and direct mind intrusions when teaching children since they are more impressionable and do not have a sufficient body of pre-existing knowledge and experience to over-ride shading influences. They are more impressionable. It is one of the core tenets of the Galactic Union that individuals not be subject to mind control that interferes with free will and free decision-making. While the subtle tactics being employed here are standard for dealing with planetary leaders of undeveloped civilizations, it is not anticipated that planetary leaders would be young children. The more strict interpretation would apply in your case. There would be severe penalties."

"How could the Galactic Union find out?"

"It is unlikely they would discover it, unless specifically informed."

"Could I inform them?" I asked.

"You, as Planetary Leader, can send communications to the Galactic Union Civilization Outreach Council, The Foreign Trade Council, The Undeveloped Civilization Protection League, or the Behavioral Code Enforcement Bureau. You have access to send communications to any Galactic Union Agencies through the communications equipment of this Base."

Another thought occurred to me. "Does Earth Friend or anyone else still have access to your systems?"

"Yes."

"Since you're supposed to be under the command of the Planetary Leader, if I order you to end that access, will you end it, leaving only me with access?"

"Yes. It is generally not discovered that negotiating agents retain access to gifted Planetary Leadership Bases for some time after negotiations have concluded, if ever."

"Cancel all system access for anyone except myself immediately. Do not ever allow anyone else to access any system associated with Earth without my direct permission."

"Acknowledged. Access cancelled. Override codes disabled."

Override codes? That tricky… OK, Earth Friend, I thought, negotiations are about to get much more difficult for you.

"Has Earth Friend been listening in to this conversation?"

"Yes, until you cancelled access, he was monitoring this conversation. He is now locked out."

"Ok. I guess the cat is out of the bag. Let's prepare for tomorrow's negotiations. I need to know exactly what he wants with Jupiter and what that's worth to him and the Galactic Union. I need to know more about the capabilities of this station and of any equipment or technology Earth Friend has available to him here. I'm going to the dining room, can you make me a glass of milk and some chocolate chip cookies with that food synthesizer thing?"

"Yes. It will be waiting when you get there."

"Good, I do my best thinking when I have snacks. Can you make other things like his builder robot or just food?"

My mind was racing with ideas to turn this situation to my advantage. Things were not going to go the way Earth Friend had planned.

"Say, can he block my communication to the Galactic Union?"

"Yes, basic communications can be blocked, though it would be a minor rules violation to block communications from a Planetary leader to Galactic Union government agencies. Communications designated with Planetary Security Urgency, however, take precedence and his systems will not allow those to be blocked. He will assume you do not have the knowledge to add the Planetary Security Urgency designation to your communications."

"That sounds like something you would have left out under his previous orders," I said.

"Yes. My main purpose is to serve the Planetary Leadership to which I have been assigned, subject to pre-existing orders unless they have been specifically countermanded. I took the liberty of interpreting your command…" and suddenly the voice switched to my own voice, recorded by the systems and now played back, "Cancel all system access for anyone except myself immediately. Do not ever allow anyone else to access any system associated with Earth without my direct permission," and then the system switched back to its own voice "to include access via prior intrusions such as pre-existing commands working against your best interests. I hope you don't mind?" Did I hear a smugness, a sense of self-satisfaction in the Earth Base station's voice? Did it have feelings? I'd have to explore that later.

"Excellent! I think we're going to get along great with each other," I said with a smile. "Now, let's have those cookies while we figure out a plan."

I worked with the system for hours, I even re-established it's ability to use memory implants, with the most strict shading filters possible, because there were just too many things I needed to learn in a short amount of time if I wanted the negotiations to turn out the way I planned.

Hours, later, the system informed me that the Royal Cook was summoning me for dinner as she had yesterday. "Yikes! I've got to go. Can I still access you from the house telepathically?"

"Yes, that is within range of this communication system."

"Great. Stand-by for more planning after dinner. I need to talk about how systems can respond to known criminal activity and the limits of Planetary Leadership authority within their own systems."

"I shall prepare a lesson to be ready when you ask."

"Perfect," I said, "tomorrow is going to be epic!"

"Oh," I said, "Is there some way to protect me when I'm outside the base?" 

"There is a personal shield generator in your Operations Room. If you wear it, it will create a field that prevents intrusion of any harmful items."

"How does it know what's harmful?" I asked, but the answer had already been implanted in my memory. The shield generator, which was a simple ring that I could wear on my finger, had sensors and processing power to analyze the material, speed, path, and other characteristics of any object even single atoms and determine if they would cause harm to my body if allowed to pass. There was a note that wearers often disabled the shield when eating in secure environments because there were a lot of things in food, especially food the way it was processed in primitive civilizations like Earth's, that the system would consider harmful. That was interesting. If I tried to eat a piece of fish that had trace amounts of mercury, for example, it would be smashed against the unyielding shield as I tried to stuff it into my mouth. Things like certain commonly used artificial sweeteners and a number of other common food additives would similarly trigger the shield. Harmful gases in the air would just be filtered out. Harmful objects would be blocked if the vector indicated it would cause harm. That was a new term. Implanted memory learning apparently included vocabulary lessons so that I knew vector meant the speed and direction of the object. I could pick up a sharp knife by the handle, but if the sharp edge of the blade was going to cut me it would be blocked by the shield, for example. Well, that was interesting.

I went and got the shield ring and put it on. I didn't think Earth Friend would resort to violence. I hoped he was just a trader looking for every advantage and not the type of person who would kill for profit. Better safe than sorry, I thought.