The Human Division #11: A Problem of Proportion (5 page)

I am a brain in a box. The truth is already hard to hear.

Wilson smiled. “That’s a very philosophical way of looking at things.”

When you’re a brain in a box, philosophy is what you have.

“There’s a bomb in your box,” Wilson said. “It’s attached to the power buffer. As far as I can tell, it has a monitor that tracks power input. The
Urse Damay
’s power system is integrated with its emergency power systems so that when the first goes down, the second is already running and there’s no interruption of power to critical systems, including your box. But if we remove your box from the system entirely, the monitor is going to register it, and the bomb will go off.”

It would kill me.

“Yes,” Wilson said. “Since you asked me not to lie, I’ll tell you I suspect the real point of the bomb is to make sure the technology of that box you’re in isn’t taken and examined. Your death is an incidental result of that.”

On second thought, maybe you can lie to me a little.

“Sorry,” Wilson said.

Is there any way to remove me from the box?

“Not that I can see,” Wilson said. “At least, not in a way that keeps you alive. The box is, if I may say so, an impressive piece of engineering. If I had more time, I could reverse-engineer the thing and tell you how it works. I don’t have that time. I could take you out of the box—the part that’s actually you—but I couldn’t just then take that part and hook it up a battery. The box is an integrated system. You can’t survive without it.”

I’m not going to survive long in it, either.

“I can reattach the batteries we’ve removed from the system,” Wilson said. “It can buy us some more time.”

Us?

“I’m here,” Wilson said. “I can keep working on this. There’s probably something I’ve missed.”

If you tinker with the bomb, then there’s a chance you’ll set it off.

“Yes,” Wilson said.

And when the power goes out, the bomb will explode anyway.

“I imagine the bomb will use the energy in the buffer to set itself off, yes,” Wilson said.

Do you dismantle bombs on a regular basis? Is this your specialty?

“I do technology research and development. This is up my alley,” Wilson said.

I think this is you lying to me a little.

“I think I might be able to save you,” Wilson said.

Why do you want to save me?

“You don’t deserve to die like this,” Wilson said. “As an afterthought. As a brain in a box. As less than fully yourself.”

You said yourself this box is an impressive piece of technology. It looks like whoever did this took some effort to make sure it couldn’t be taken. I don’t want to insult you, but given that you’ve had only a very little amount of time with this box, do you really think you’re going to find some way to outwit it and save me?

“I’m good at what I do,” Wilson said.

If you were that good, you wouldn’t be here. No offense.

“I’d like to try,” Wilson said.

I would like you to try, if it didn’t mean you possibly dying. One of us dying seems inevitable at this point. Both of us dying seems avoidable.

“You asked us to help you,” Wilson reminded Rayth Ablant.

You did. You tried. And even right now, if you wanted to keep trying, it’s clear I couldn’t stop you. But when I asked you to help, you helped. Now I am asking you to stop.

“All right,” Wilson said, after a moment.

Thank you.

“What else can I do for you?” Wilson asked. “Do you have friends or family that you want us to contact? Do you have messages for anyone I can send for you?”

I have no real family. Most of my friends were on the
Urse Damay.
Most of the people I know are already gone. I have no friends left.

“That’s not entirely true,” Wilson said.

Are you volunteering yourself?

“I’d be happy if you considered me your friend,” Wilson said.

I did try to kill you.

“That was before you knew me,” Wilson repeated. “And now that you do, you’ve made it clear you won’t let me die if you can help it. I think that makes up for your earlier indiscretions.”

If you are my friend, then I have a request.

“Name it,” Wilson said.

You are a soldier. You’ve killed before.

“It’s not a point of pride,” Wilson said. “But yes.”

I’m going to die because people who don’t care about me have used me and then thrown me away. I’d prefer to leave on my own terms.

“You want me to help you,” Wilson said.

If you can. I’m not asking you to do it yourself. If this box is as sensitive as you say it is, if I die, the bomb could go off. I don’t want you anywhere near when it does. But I think you could find another way.

“I imagine I could,” Wilson said. “Or at the very least I could try.”

For your trouble, let me offer you this.

There was a data ping on Wilson’s BrainPal: an encrypted file, in a format he wasn’t familiar with.

When I had completed my mission—when I had killed your ship and the Conclave ship—I was to feed this into the ship’s guidance system. It’s coordinates for my return trip. Maybe you’ll find whoever’s behind this there.

“Thank you,” Wilson said. “That’s incredibly helpful.”

When you find them, blow them up a little for me.

Wilson grinned. “You got it,” he said.

There’s not much time before the emergency power is entirely used up.

“I’ll have to leave you,” Wilson said. “Which means that no matter what happens I’m not coming back.”

I wouldn’t want you here no matter what happens. You’ll stay in contact with me?

“Yes, of course,” Wilson said.

Then you should go now. And hurry, because there’s not a lot of time left.

“This isn’t going to be a popular sentiment, but he’s going to die anyway,” said Captain Fotew. “We don’t have to expend the effort.”

“Are you suddenly on a budget, Captain?” Wilson asked. “Can the Conclave no longer afford a missile or a particle beam?” They were on the bridge of the
Nurimal,
along with Abumwe and Sorvalh.

“I said it wouldn’t be a popular sentiment,” Fotew said. “But someone ought to point it out, at least.”

“Rayth Ablant has given us vital information about the whereabouts of the people directing him,” Wilson said, and pointed toward the bridge’s communications and science station, where the science officer was already busily attempting to crack the encryption on the orders. “He’s been cooperative with us since our engagement with his ship.”

“It’s not as if he had much of a choice in that,” Fotew said.

“Of course he had a choice,” Wilson said. “If he hadn’t signaled to Corporal Carn, we wouldn’t know he was there. We wouldn’t know that some organization out there is taking the Conclave’s missing ships and turning them into glorified armed drones. We wouldn’t know that whoever this group is, they’re a threat to both the Conclave and the Colonial Union equally. And we wouldn’t know that neither of our governments is engaging in a stealth war with the other.”

“We still don’t know that last one, Lieutenant Wilson,” Sorvalh said. “Because we still don’t know the
who
. We still don’t know the players in this game.”

“Not yet,” Wilson said, motioning back to the science station. “But depending how good your code cracker is over there, this may be a temporary problem. And for the moment, at least, our governments are sharing information, since you’ve gotten that information from me.”

“But this is a problem of proportion, isn’t it?” Sorvalh said. “Is what we learn from you going to be worth everything we’ve expended to learn it? Is what we lose by granting Rayth Ablant his death more than we gain by, for example, what remains of his box when the explosion is over? There’s still a lot we could learn from the debris.”

Wilson looked over to Abumwe pleadingly. “Councillor,” Abumwe said, “not too long ago you chose to surrender your vessel to us. Lieutenant Wilson here refused your surrender. You praised him for his thinking then. Consider his thinking now.”

“Consider his thinking?” Sorvalh said, to Abumwe. “Or give him a decision on credit, because of a presumed debt to him?”

“I would prefer the first,” Abumwe said. “I would take the second, however.”

Sorvalh smiled at this, looked over to Wilson and then to Fotew. “Captain?”

“I think it’s a waste,” Fotew said. “But it’s your call to make, Councillor.”

“Prepare a missile,” Sorvalh said. Captain Fotew turned to do her bidding; Sorvalh turned her attention back to Wilson. “You used your credit with me, Lieutenant,” she said. “Let’s hope that in the future you don’t have cause to wish you had spent it on something else.”

Wilson nodded and opened up a channel to the
Urse Damay
. “Rayth Ablant,” he said.

I am here,
came back the text.

“I’ve gotten you what you wanted,” Wilson said.

Just in time. I am down to the last 2 percent of my power.

“Missile prepped and ready for launch,” Captain Fotew said, to Sorvalh. Sorvalh nodded to Wilson.

“Just tell me when you want it,” Wilson said.

Now is good.

Wilson nodded to Fotew. “Fire,” she said, to her weapons station.

“On its way,” Wilson said.

Thank you for everything, Lieutenant Wilson.

“Glad to,” Wilson said.

I’ll miss you.

“Likewise,” Wilson said.

There was no response.

“We’ve cracked the order,” the science officer said.

“Tell us,” Sorvalh said.

The science officer looked at the humans on the bridge and then Captain Fortew. “Ma’am?” she said.

“You have your orders,” Fotew said.

“The coordinates for the return flight of the
Urse Damay
are in this system,” the science officer said. “They resolve under the surface of the local star. If it came out of skip there, it would have been destroyed instantly.”

“Your friend was never going home, Lieutenant Wilson,” Sorvalh said.

“Missile has reached the
Urse Damay,
” Fotew said, looking at her bridge display. “Direct hit.”

“I’d like to think he just got there on his own, Councillor,” Wilson said.

He walked off the bridge of the
Nurimal
and headed toward the shuttle bay, alone.

JOHN SCALZI is the author of several SF novels including the bestselling
Old Man’s War
and its sequels, and the
New York Times
bestsellers
Fuzzy Nation
and
Redshirts.
He is a winner of science fiction’s John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, and he won the Hugo Award for
Your Hate Mail Will Be Graded,
a collection of essays from his wildly popular blog
Whatever
(
whatever.scalzi.com
). He lives in Ohio with his wife and daughter.