Misjump Read online

  Gregor brought over the coffee. “Can I help?”

  Lori smiled again, this time genuinely. “I was hoping that you would. I will need help getting her into the surgical unit and changing batteries is more your area than mine. Would you be okay with that?”

  Gregor nodded. “Da, electronics is electronics inside or outside person. Will not be a problem.”

  Lori sighed. “Thank you.” She nodded towards the coffee pot. “You are probably going to need one too.” Gregor got up and went to get a mug.

  The surgery went as well as could be hoped. The battery was mounted between Fumi's shoulder blades as the neural attached at multiple points on her spine. Gregor had been surprised how little blood there had been, but Fumi was only alive in a technical sense. The battery had ruptured and corroded despite the low temperature. It had adhered to the underlying muscle as well, but it pulled away without trouble. There were chemical burns beneath which Lori treated as best she could. The connectors were easy enough to swap even through the waldo. Gregor completed the wiring, trying hard to forget that he had his hands inside a friend. He had precooled the battery so that it would be dormant when attached and not heat up the surrounding tissue. They were working beyond the limits of what would usually be attempted outside of a specialist unit, but they didn’t have the unit or the specialist. They were lucky to have the looted surgical unit. Lori closed the incision with a specialised tissue knitting tool that were racked inside the surgical low berth. The standard unit required that the tissue be able to repair itself and the cells were still in forced dormancy.

  “So, what now?” asked Gregor.

  “I will monitor her and see how she does. There isn’t much more that I can do, I am afraid. This is a small ship, and if we have a serious problem, we are supposed to freeze them and hand over care to a groundside hospital. There isn’t a protocol for what to do if groundside goes away. I would like to replace her blood, but I can’t do that without bringing her up to temperature … oh, and having some blood. I have frozen plasma, but I would need to harvest her cells and try not to contaminate the plasma too badly. I don’t like the chances, and I won’t try that if I have a better option.” said Lori.

  Gregor grimaced. “Do you have a better option?”

  Lori shook her head. “Not unless you can find about four litres of A+ somewhere. I am type O, but I don’t have four litres to spare. I can maybe give her a litre, but that won’t make a lot of difference.”

  Gregor nodded. “If mine would help then I would, you know.”

  Lori nodded. “I know, but that is not how it works. There isn’t a way to safely get her back up to temperature anyway. It must be simpler with machines where you can turn them off to work on them.” She forced a weak smile. “You should probably get some sleep if you can. I will let you know if anything changes.”

  “Da. Call me if you need me.” Gregor left the medbay but he still felt wired from the coffee. He would check back, just in case. They were due some good luck.

  Ninety minutes later, Gregor was back in sickbay. “Good news, just maybe, I think. I remember cargo manifest had shipment from company called Allied Meditech. This container insured for big bucks and has medical nanites. Useful maybe?” He smiled nervously.

  Lori walked over to the small crate that he was holding. “Well, maybe, but they are supposed to be controlled by a specialised AI. We don’t have one of those. I don’t think that we can use them.”

  “Wait,” said Gregor and started rummaging in the crate. He pulled out a data slug, “Maybe we do have specialist AI.” He put the crate on the counter and sat in front of the console, slipping the data slug in place. The folder opened automatically, displaying multiple files. “Okay, is software. Says beta version so maybe these are something new.” Lori moved to stand behind him but didn’t speak. “Okay, so these are drivers for controlling nanites, I think. This is self-test tool. Not seeing an AI but there are some big files here, data files … ” He typed a few commands and the screen filled with hex bytes. He paged through the file, most of which was meaningless hash but occasionally words could be seen. “Physical structure,” “Male,” “Female,” “CellType.” “Could be manual for human body, perhaps?” he said doubtfully.

  “That would make sense, I suppose,” said Lori. “The nanites would need to know what they were doing, but I would have expected the AI to use that information, not the nanites. It is not like they have much intelligence. They are smaller than a blood cell.”

  “Must be instruction for the AI then, but I don’t see an AI, just the data and drivers to allow the AI to control the nanites,” said Gregor. “Can we get one?” he asked.

  “There isn’t likely to be one here. They are still experimental. Everything here is old. Maybe if there were another world close by with high technology … ” she trailed off.

  “Da, but if there is one of those, we don’t need to fix her. We can just hand her over and let groundside medical repair her in proper hospital, yes? Question is, is there somewhere within a couple of jumps. No radio chatter coming in system. Not good,” said Gregor, gesturing vaguely.

  Lori looked at Gregor and glanced again at the monitor. “No, that isn’t really the question. The first question is going to be whether she could survive a week in jump. I could be wrong, but I honestly don’t think that I am. Unless we can get the toxic metals out of her system, she won’t make a week. The only way to do that is to bring her back up to temperature, but doing that will increase the reactiveness of the metal and spread it to more of her body. Anything that we do is dangerous.”

  “And doing nothing is most dangerous?” asked Gregor.

  “Doing nothing means that she dies as slowly as possible. She still dies though,” replied Lori.

  “The ship has an AI. It is the wrong type but maybe it can learn.” Gregor rubbed his hands over each other, looking at them without seeing them.

  Lori thought about the idea. “Meilin might be able to do something with it. I would like a better option if there is one though. General computer work is very different to trying to graft an AI with experimental software to prototype nanites. Has she even got the AI back up again?”

  Gregor nodded. “As a fresh install, not yet trained. I would like better option too, but what we have is what is. Is worse than doing nothing?”

  Lori looked over at the monitor, gazing at the slowly changing numbers. “Maybe it is time to get Meilin in here.”

  Chapter 9

  Meilin sat quietly while they briefed her, making notes on her tablet. It was sometimes hard to speak with Meilin as she would listen silently and only comment when she was ready. It felt like the words were going nowhere, but her comments were often thoughtful.

  “I understand what you are asking. I don’t think that it will work and I will explain why. I also think that we should probably still try it.” She looked down at her notes. “The ship’s AI's database got fried, but I have managed to recover the core. The way that an AI is created is simple in a very complicated way. The core of an AI is the same whatever you need it for, but it needs to be taught, shown by example millions of times. It builds itself outward taking on new knowledge including how to interact with people. In a sense, you can’t train an AI. You can only provide it with an opportunity to learn in an environment where there are problems to solve. The lack of an AI is less of a problem than you both think. The lack of training is.”

  “Is there some way that I can teach our AI medicine? It took me years and we don’t have years, but I have reference books,” asked Lori.

  Meilin shook her head. “No, the AI doesn’t know how to learn from a person or a book initially. It learns by doing. It is at the same time very flexible and very inflexible. It can’t change its learning style, but it can learn about anything. From the description, the file that you have found is a weighting file. It describes states of … of whatever the AI is managing. In this case, it is states of the human body, I think. States will carry a weighti
ng from good to bad and the AI will try to control the nanites to get the best possible score of good states. Whether it understands what it is doing is uncertain. We can look at the state of the AI in detail, but it is as complex as a human brain. Seeing what is happening in a single cell doesn’t tell us much. Seeing what it does will be the only guide.”

  Gregor smiled with thin lips. “You make it sound easy. Am guessing is not so easy.”

  Meilin bobbed her head. “It is actually easy to get the AI to control the nanites. It is simple to import the weighting file. The problem is explaining what we want the AI to do. Normally, an AI is run against simulations until it is consistently doing what is expected. After that, it is paired with an experienced AI that can override the student if it makes mistakes. The student becomes a master in time and may then train another student. We have no master that this student can learn from.”

  Lori nodded and spoke quietly. “So, what would happen if we tried it?”

  Meilin looked down. “The AI would do what it thought best. It may leave Fumi better or worse, but it will try to do what gives it the best score. If there were a better option, I would never recommend this, but we know that there is no such option.” Meilin looked at Lori.

  “No,” said Lori. “If we do nothing then Fumi will suffer increasing rates of cell death and irreversible brain death. If we take her temperature down as low as possible, she might last a week, but she would be too far gone to save even if there were a hospital waiting. The best case and worst case are the same for any treatment that I can give. The only difference is when she dies.”

  Meilin nodded. “I can have the AI set up with the weighting file and nanite drivers in about three hours. I would like to do some checks that may take another two hours. Would the extra time make a difference to Fumi?”

  “No,” said Lori, hoping that she was right.

  “I will need the data slug then,” said Meilin. Gregor handed it to her wordlessly.

  With final checks, it was closer to six hours before the system was in place. The nanites needed a microwave feed for power, which Gregor had rigged up. Meilin had routed control of the AI to medical. There had been a hitch.

  “Where do you want the nanites inserted?” asked Lori.

  Meilin looked back blankly. “They are normally put in the bloodstream, aren’t they?”

  Lori nodded. “Yes, but where she is in cryosleep, she doesn’t have much circulation. I don’t think that the nanites will get where they are needed if I just inject them.”

  Gregor came up with a solution of sorts. “How about you inject some near the damage site and then apply the rest to her skin? They can travel through skin, yes? We have to let the AI work out the details.” For want of a better idea, that is what they did. Lori prepared a glycerine spray laced with nanites and handed out surgical masks. It would be unwise to breathe any in even with the localised power source.

  After a wait that seemed endless, Meilin looked at Lori and Gregor. “I am not ready but I am as close as I am going to get. The nanites are responding to the AI and it has accepted the weighting file. I could work on this for another year, but I don’t know if it would be any better. How is Fumi doing?”

  Lori didn’t look at the screen. “Not good. Her body temperature is rising despite everything that the berth is doing. It is now or never.”

  Meilin nodded. “Then it is time to turn off the refrigeration. The AI has no concept of cryosleep and will try to bring her to human normal. I hope that it can do repairs fast enough to make that successful.”

  “I could try to bring her out of cryosleep before they start, but I am sure that she wouldn’t survive it,” said Lori. Her eyes were red from lack of sleep and she wondered if she looked as bad as Gregor.

  Meilin nodded. “Then this is the only hope that we have. Ready?”

  Lori nodded. “No. I won’t ever be either. I wish I could be as calm as you.” She pushed the shutdown button on the surgical cryo but left the monitoring on. “Go.”

  Meilin reached down to the keyboard and pressed the enter key. The click sounded loud in the medlab. She raised a hand to show it trembling, her face seeming impassive behind the surgical mask. “Not so calm.”

  A few seconds later, they all let out a breath. Nothing seemed to be happening except some numbers on the secondary display changing. The view changed to show a ghostly human shape in red, some areas bright but with the extremities fading out. “Nanite density map. I think that they will spread out from the concentrations,” said Meilin.

  “Power draw increasing. Within limits but rising,” added Gregor.

  “Her body temperature is rising. Her tissues are going to need oxygen soon,” said Lori.

  “Power has to go somewhere,” muttered Gregor.

  The diagram changed, the area around the implant flicking from red to blue. The display key now read “Changing” in blue and “Sensing” in red. Gregor nodded at the display. “Makes sense that they would have the most work to do nearest battery. Is good sign, I think.”

  Lori watched the display on the surgical unit, the orange text of the screen reflecting from her eyes. “O2 level is dropping. Temperature is rising. I will start manual ventilation soon if she doesn’t start breathing.”

  Meilin watched the display presented by the AI. “O2 is tracked here as well. I think that the nanites are trying to control it too. I don’t know what will happen if we try to intervene.”

  Lori moved over to the open unit and unclipped the respirator from the side. “I can’t see additional oxygen doing much harm. A normal patient would be breathing, and the nanites have to expect that.” She pressed the mask over Fumi’s face and began to squeeze the bag. Fumi’s chest began to rise slowly. “Gregor, what is her pulse?”

  Gregor glanced over at the unit. “Eight. No, nine. Cell death rate is thirty-two, uh, no units, just thirty-two.”

  “Shit. Toxins will be spreading through her system. Not good but can’t be helped. Meilin, what is happening with the oxygen?” asked Lori.

  “Saturation rising, at eighty-nine percent. Uh, the AI is reporting scavenging. I think that means that it is … the nanite count is rising. I think it is breeding nanites,” said Meilin.

  “From what?” asked Gregor.

  “I don’t know,” said Meilin. “Dead cells, maybe?”

  Gregor thought about this. “Nanites are metal and ceramics mainly. Can they make that from cells? Wouldn’t they need … Pizda rulu! Her implant. They must be harvesting that.”

  “Okay,” said Lori. “She doesn’t need that and it won’t be in the weightings. She can get a new one later. What is her O2?”

  Meilin started to speak but Gregor cut in. “Yes, but the battery, if they compromise that then won’t leak make things much worse?”

  “Oh shit. Yes. Meilin, can you stop that happening?” asked Lori.

  Meilin started typing. “I can modify the weightings file, but it will take a while, and I am not sure if I can update it while the AI is running.”

  “Lori,” said Gregor, “can you remove the battery again? We did it before.”

  Lori shook her head. “Not safely. She is less stable now, and I don’t know if her body can take the insult.”

  “The nanites would try to stop you anyway,” said Meilin without looking up. “I am telling them not to take plastics, metals, or ceramics. I think that I have found a way to update the file.” The sound of keystrokes didn’t change pace as she spoke. “We may need to provide more materials for the nanites once this starts to work. It will take a while.”

  Gregor reached over to one of Meilin’s screens and pulled the window showing the AI status over to his own workstation. “O2 now at ninety-one percent, heart rate at twelve, body temperature is eighteen degrees. Cell death still rising but slower.” He looked at the outline of the body on the screen and saw that it was much better defined with nanites in every part of Fumi’s body. “Body temperature now nineteen degrees,” he said.

  �
��Where is the heat coming from? We normally don’t wake sleepers up this quickly,” asked Lori.

  Gregor quickly cycled through his displays. “The nanites, some waste heat, but they must be trying to get her temperature to a more normal range. They are drawing over a kilowatt now.” Gregor didn’t mention that this was enough power to cook a steak. The cell death rate flashed yellow for an instant, indicating a fall in the rate, flickered to red again and then settled on solid yellow. The numbers started to fall. “Cell death slowing. Is working! Pulse is now fourteen.”

  Lori breathed out, her shoulders relaxing a little as she continued to pump the bag, pushing air into Fumi. “Gregor, flip to the neural activity tab. Any sign of brain activity?”

  Gregor flipped between screens. “Da, yes, very high levels of activity.”

  Lori hesitated in her pumping for a moment. “High levels? Across what bands?”

  Gregor rechecked the display. “All bands. Spikes all over place. No idea how to read this.”

  Lori looked at Fumi’s face. She was pale but didn’t look especially cyanosed for someone still so far below normal temperature. There was a flicker of eye movement. That meant that there was indeed brain activity. Lori decided that she could spare a moment to look at the readings. She straightened up and stepped over to the display, her hand going to the ache in the small of her back. Gregor got out of Lori’s way. Oxygen saturation looked good and rose to 93% as she looked. The nanites must be handling the transfer pretty effectively. Blood CO2 was very low, so her body would not want to breathe yet. Lori looked at the brain activity charts. She wondered if this could be a malfunction in the sensor array; this was too much activity even for someone who was fully conscious. There was also a pattern to it, a regularity almost hidden in the noise. She switched back to the full body map. There was still massive nanite presence around the implant. “Meilin, how long before you can get that patch in place?”