Read Online Parker Interstellar Travels 4: The Trilisk Hunt by Michael McCloskey - Free Book Online

encountered before,” she said. “We should not go kill any Trilisk at
random. There may be peaceful Trilisks out there.”
    “Do you think it’s alone,
Shiny?”
    “Unknown, uncertain,
unanswerable.”
    “I’ll need a day to finish up
with the prayers,” Magnus said.
    “Acceptable.”
    “Okay then, are we taking two
ships again? I see you made yourself a new one.”
    “Two ships, affirmative,
correct, verified.”
    “That’s great then. We’ll be
ready,” Telisa said. “As you know, we’re training the new recruits. I guess we
don’t know how long it will take.”
    “Other options now exist.
Terran operatives may duplicate, copy, improve themselves using Trilisk
machines. Duplicates superior. Faster, stronger, longer lived.”
    “Whoa. You just dropped a bomb
here. Duplicates?” asked Cilreth.
    “New body, vessel, receptacle
separate from original. Telisa familiar with process.”
    “We can supersede… into a new
copy of ourselves?” Telisa asked.
    “Affirmative, correct,
agreement.”
    “Wait. I want to make sure I
follow you. It’s not a new body for our brains? I just want a new body and my
brain. Me. In a new body,” Magnus said.
    “Very eloquent,” Telisa
laughed.
    Magnus shrugged. “Okay, that
was harder to say than I thought,” he explained.
    “Technically achievable by
Trilisk,” Shiny said. “Not achievable by Shiny using ready-made Trilisk device.”
    “It should be easier to just
provide the new body,” Magnus said.
    “Improvements apply, involve,
actuate changes at atomic level to brain material. Minority of improvements
possible to body alone, others undoable, impossible, unworkable. Also, furthermore,
additionally: Trilisk machines’ function highly advanced. Modification
difficult.”
    “I think he means, he doesn’t
understand how to tinker with the Trilisk machines and alter them to just
implant our existing brain into a new body. All he can do is tell it to
transfer us into a full new body,” Telisa suggested.
    “Affirmative, correct,
agreement,” Shiny said.
    Damn it. I just want what I
want. Like the prayer device!
    “So we have to go to a copy of
ourselves?” Telisa said. “Is it really our consciousness, then, or just a
duplicate down to the level of subatomic particles and their energy states? As
I recall it now, it was as if that creature really was me. But I guess if the
memories were just downloaded from somewhere else, I’d never notice the
difference.”
    “Debatable, uncertain, unclear,
but functionally irrelevant,” Shiny said.
    “Okay I follow you on the
irrelevant from outside observer part,” Magnus said. “A perfect copy of Magnus
is Magnus as far as anyone else can tell. But if the real me has to go to sleep
forever so a better copy can run around, I’m not sure I’m okay with that, even
though… I guess I would be asleep and never notice.”
    “Well it goes both ways,”
Telisa said. “After our expedition, we could go back to our original selves,
sync up, and we’ll wake up with all the memories. So it won’t matter.”
    “But then what about the
copies? Do they just die when we go back? They will have the same
reservations.”
    Telisa was silent for a moment,
then she nodded.
    “It’s complicated. Let’s
discuss it awhile,” Telisa said. “What do you think, Cilreth?”
    “I’ll pass and watch you guys
screw it up for a while. Then I want one. But I’m not going to take as many
risks this mission. I’ll let you take the young ones out for a spin.”
    “Shall we ask Arakaki about it
first?” asked Magnus.
    “Let’s ask all of them,” Telisa
deflected.
    Magnus decided that meant she
cared what the others thought. The other part was unsaid: Arakaki, not so
much.
    “Good idea,” Magnus said.
“Shiny, are you going to use this?”
    There was a delay. It was only
a second or two, but longer than Shiny usually took to respond.
    “Physiological benefits less
for Shiny. Many improvements already made. Possible plan