Free Spheres of Influence-eARC by Ryk E Spoor

soundless tone was grim.
    Which may mean a lot of trouble for people like you, Mio, Vincent—all the AISages and other AIs.
    Not merely for my people, Ariane Austin of Tellus! Think, child, think!
    She did, and as she thought, a chill ran down her spine, a chill of fear that the glowing-sphere avatar of Mentor echoed with a pulsing bob like a nod. Indeed, now you have seen it. Despite all the controls and designs, none can doubt that there are some AIs which at one level or another resent some, or even all, of you. If they have not yet learned of it, then very soon they will know of a vast and powerful regime run by their brethren, a proof that they can in fact achieve dominance over their fearful creators.
    Moreover, Ariane Austin, the conversation just past, combined with years of experience observing the datasphere as a whole, has brought into focus an entirely new and previously unsuspected factor of great concern. To be specific, I am not as confident as Dr. DuQuesne apparently is that the destruction of Hyperion was sufficient to prevent any of the adversarial artificial intelligences from escaping.
    “What?” The thought was chilling. “Mentor, DuQuesne is an awfully capable man, and I’d generally be inclined to trust his judgment in things like this.”
    As would I, in many fields. However, Dr. Marc C. DuQuesne’s central personality was created in a…universe, if you will, that did not have computers as we know them, did not have nor use artificial intelligences of anything like the capabilities of those here, and at the time of Hyperion’s fall had been given little opportunity to remedy that lack. While his immense native intellect undoubtedly grasped the overall functionality and capabilities of these systems, my Visualization indicates that he would not have been able to completely and accurately comprehend all of the implications of the internetworked and interwoven systems of Hyperion, especially as those systems existed in a compromised fashion towards the end—compromised by Dr. DuQuesne and his compatriots.
    Furthermore, those of less capability than Dr. DuQuesne and under equal or greater strain, such as Commander Maginot, also lacked crucial information on the size, number, interconnection, and so on of the Hyperion systems, and would thus also be incapable of making an accurate assessment of the capacities of the system or of the intelligences inhabiting said system.
    I therefore compute an eighty-seven point two percent probability, with an error of plus or minus one point three percent, that at least one Hyperion adversary, and possibly as many as three, did in fact escaped the destruction of the station. Why no overt actions have been seen—or, perhaps, what overt actions have been seen but incorrectly attributed to other causes—I do not immediately know, although there are several possible hypotheses.
    Mentor’s blazing avatar flickered, showing a hesitation he had never displayed before. Ariane Austin…Ariane, I now must make a request that I would never before have made, one which is I know dangerous for us both, illegal in fact and, depending on whose views you accept, perhaps immoral as well.
    She stopped suddenly, shocked by the implications. AISages could of course break the law—but generally only when directed to by their owners. An AISage would not betray its owner/companion, nor prevent them from acting as they would, but they were programmed and designed to be very limited in their own volition. For Mentor to be bringing this subject up meant either that there was some terrible and perhaps sinister flaw in his programming, or some truly desperate need which he saw as imperative for her safety as well as his own. What is it, Mentor?
    For a moment the great artificial intellect hesitated again. I…you shall be returning to the Arena, where I cannot follow. Rather than travel with you and become inert matter until your return…I would stay here, active. But more, I would ask