Archaea 3: Red by Dain White Page B

against him on our last cruise, and it proved to be an easy hurdle for the Captain to leap – he makes a damn fine cup of coffee.
    “No, it's not that, the taste is fine. I don't like the way it makes me feel sir, the jittery, antsy, always wanting to leap up and do something. I'm no stranger to it, many mornings on the firing line were spent pounding coffee... but if I am just sitting here with nowhere to run, it would drive me crazy.”
    The captain considered that for a moment, accentuated by an extra-long sip.
    “Well, I guess that's understandable. In that case, Pauli can have your share, which means...” he trailed off, looking at his holos.
    “Sir?” I asked, momentarily worried.
    “Oh, it's nothing – I was just preparing a report showing Yak's coffee usage over time. This shows me that Pauli i s entitled to one-quarter of a cup of coffee per month, terran-equivalent. Yak, this report seems to indicate you drink three cups of coffee per year? That can't be right.”
    “That sounds about right. I may have had one cup over the past three months or so.” he stated from his station, as he brought up the targeting and comms screens.
    “Well, let's try to make that once every four months, son.” the captain said with a straight face, while we laughed.
    “So Pauli, now that we have sorted out your rations, what else is cooking. Anything else I need to know about?”
    I thought for a bit. “Well, Janis is working on a long-running analysis of some code we collected from the AV network, part of their AI, sir. She collected an enormous amount of code, but none of it makes any sense to me. Janis can read it, but I can't.”
    “Pauli, as much as I like having Janis around, I am not really comfortable with the thought that there are others like her out there. Janis did pretty well against this one, right?”
    “Well... yeah , she did, especially towards the end. It was a full attack, something I hadn't really ever expected. She did great though sir – she passively allowed all sorts of hooks, and then, she rooted and burned as needed to survive.”
    “Well, what do you think she wants with that code, Pauli?” he asked thoughtfully.
    “ Well sir, she initially stated that she wanted it for research.”
    “Isn’t that dangerous, son?”
    “I don’t think so, sir – but it couldn’t hurt to make sure.” I took another quick sip to gather my thoughts. “Janis?”
    “Yes Steven?”
    “Please report on your research of the code you captured from the AI that attacked us over Solis. What was the overall goal of your research?”
    “My research focused on understanding, Steven.”
    “Do you understand the code?”
    “At this time I do.”
    “What have you learned?”
    “Steven, M1 was based on a Mandelbrot database and used heuristics that built processes to fulfill functions. While this appears to be an elegant system for organization, it is also needlessly complex. ”
    “I agree, Janis. I much prefer your nodeless architecture. Though it is incredibly challenging for me to trace, it is clearly more efficient than any sort of tiered structure.”
    The captain laughed. “Janis, do you know what he is talking about?”
    “Captain he is referring to the differences between our logic structures. M1 is based on a multi-dimensional structure that uses recursively fractal relationships between segments. This allows for information to be highly cross-referential, and reduces internal latency. In other words, the time it takes to arrive at a decision is reduced.”
    Captain Smith thought briefly and replied, “Janis, your structure differs in there are no structures at all?”
    “That is correct Captain. I create momentary segments that include predetermined information to build relationships with other segments in the core. This structure allows me to build forward and avoid logic faults deterministically.”
    “Janis, when do you create these momentary segments?”
    “Captain, they were created to the