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Authors: Alan Dean Foster
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wish I could be more helpful, Flinx. As you know, in the course of our travels together since I was made, it has been occasionally necessary for me to communicate with other AI’s. It became apparent to me some time ago that you are an unusual example of your species.”
“I know,” he replied dryly. “I wish I weren’t.”
“Wishing. Something else humans can do that is denied to machines. In the course of learning about other humans, I have become aware of your generally gregarious nature. You usually seek the companionship of your own kind. Yet you have spent much of the past years traveling alone in me, with only your flying snake for company. I believe this may be the source of at least some of your present discomfort. You need to talk to other humans, Flinx, and I think also to confide in them concerning your uncertainties.”
It was silent on the bridge for long moments. Either the Teacher knew more about human nature than it claimed or the AI was being disingenuous. Either way, the truth of what it had said forced its way into his consciousness and wouldn’t let go.
Maybe it was right. Maybe what he needed more than anything was to talk to someone. But who? There was no one he could confide in, no one who would understand the nature and gravity of his disturbing dreams as well as sympathize with his personal problems and the emptiness that always traveled with him. There was Mother Mastiff—but she was getting on in years. She could listen but would not really understand. Empathetic as she was, she did not possess the necessary intellectual referents to comprehend what was going on inside of him. Pip could make him feel warm inside but could not talk. The Teacher , as it had just wisely observed, could provide erudite conversation but not simple humanity.
Furthermore, not only did he need someone he could talk to about everything that was going on inside him, that person also had to be trustworthy. Conversation and understanding, he had long since learned, were far easier to find than trust.
Actually, he realized with a start, there was someone. One someone. Maybe.
Where to go looking? Obviously, the place where they had last seen each other. He hesitated. Was he doing the right thing? The possibility of betrayal was always uppermost in his mind. For many years it had prevented him from seeking to share intimately of himself. But the Teacher was right, he knew. He had gone without confiding in another human being for far longer than was healthy. For better or worse, he had to find a way to unburden himself to someone who would not only listen but also might respond with something deeper and more emotive than machine logic.
Still uncertain he was doing the right thing but unable to decide what else to do—and desperate to do something —he raised his voice to finally supply the Teacher with a destination.
New Riviera was not just a beautiful, accommodating, and pleasant world. In all of mankind’s more than seven hundred years of exploring and spreading itself through the Orion Arm of the galaxy, it was still the best place humans had ever found. Some planets were rated comfortable and others livable. But out of the hundreds that had been catalogued by humans and thranx alike, only “Nur,” as it was often called, was considered even more hospitable than Mother Earth.
It was as if Nature had chosen—in a particularly languid, relaxed, and contented moment—to design a place for human beings to live. Nur was not paradise. It was, for example, home to hostile creatures. Just not very many of them. There were endemic diseases. They just weren’t very serious or common. The planet had seasons, but winter, as humans were used to thinking of it, was confined to the far north and south poles. Thanks to a remarkably stable orbit and axis, weather tended to the consistently tropic or temperate over the majority of the planet’s surface. In the absence of dramatic mountain ranges,
“I know,” he replied dryly. “I wish I weren’t.”
“Wishing. Something else humans can do that is denied to machines. In the course of learning about other humans, I have become aware of your generally gregarious nature. You usually seek the companionship of your own kind. Yet you have spent much of the past years traveling alone in me, with only your flying snake for company. I believe this may be the source of at least some of your present discomfort. You need to talk to other humans, Flinx, and I think also to confide in them concerning your uncertainties.”
It was silent on the bridge for long moments. Either the Teacher knew more about human nature than it claimed or the AI was being disingenuous. Either way, the truth of what it had said forced its way into his consciousness and wouldn’t let go.
Maybe it was right. Maybe what he needed more than anything was to talk to someone. But who? There was no one he could confide in, no one who would understand the nature and gravity of his disturbing dreams as well as sympathize with his personal problems and the emptiness that always traveled with him. There was Mother Mastiff—but she was getting on in years. She could listen but would not really understand. Empathetic as she was, she did not possess the necessary intellectual referents to comprehend what was going on inside of him. Pip could make him feel warm inside but could not talk. The Teacher , as it had just wisely observed, could provide erudite conversation but not simple humanity.
Furthermore, not only did he need someone he could talk to about everything that was going on inside him, that person also had to be trustworthy. Conversation and understanding, he had long since learned, were far easier to find than trust.
Actually, he realized with a start, there was someone. One someone. Maybe.
Where to go looking? Obviously, the place where they had last seen each other. He hesitated. Was he doing the right thing? The possibility of betrayal was always uppermost in his mind. For many years it had prevented him from seeking to share intimately of himself. But the Teacher was right, he knew. He had gone without confiding in another human being for far longer than was healthy. For better or worse, he had to find a way to unburden himself to someone who would not only listen but also might respond with something deeper and more emotive than machine logic.
Still uncertain he was doing the right thing but unable to decide what else to do—and desperate to do something —he raised his voice to finally supply the Teacher with a destination.
New Riviera was not just a beautiful, accommodating, and pleasant world. In all of mankind’s more than seven hundred years of exploring and spreading itself through the Orion Arm of the galaxy, it was still the best place humans had ever found. Some planets were rated comfortable and others livable. But out of the hundreds that had been catalogued by humans and thranx alike, only “Nur,” as it was often called, was considered even more hospitable than Mother Earth.
It was as if Nature had chosen—in a particularly languid, relaxed, and contented moment—to design a place for human beings to live. Nur was not paradise. It was, for example, home to hostile creatures. Just not very many of them. There were endemic diseases. They just weren’t very serious or common. The planet had seasons, but winter, as humans were used to thinking of it, was confined to the far north and south poles. Thanks to a remarkably stable orbit and axis, weather tended to the consistently tropic or temperate over the majority of the planet’s surface. In the absence of dramatic mountain ranges,
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