La Double Inconstance (2030–31) — Episode 6

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La Double Inconstance (2030–31) — Episode 6

13: Mission Review (excerpt)

[Chair]: “Standardization of terms: the crater containing the anomaly will be termed the target; the entity or entities associated with the target will be termed the Adversary; the joint NATO-ESA programme and mission has been designated Tartarus.”

[NATO]: “You know, we could just nuke it. Phobos is no more than a giant rubble heap. Four or five twenty megaton nukes and Mars would have a new ring belt. My guys have done the math.”

[Chair]: “Yes, General, and we’re grateful. Who knows, it may come to that. But I remind you of the mission objectives. We lack information both about the Adversary’s identity and its intent. We do not want to start an open-ended war gratuitously. The primary objective is reconnaissance and data gathering, with a secondary objective of self-defence and a tertiary one of denying the Adversary possession of equipment and/or personnel from the Tartarus mission.”

[ESA]: “Given our extreme ignorance of the Adversary, could I ask someone here for more details of the mission design?”

[Mission Architect - ESA]: “That would be me. We have repurposed the Mars shuttle mission profile, for which we had several vehicles in orbital assembly. The principal change is the replacement of the civilian crew modules with active combat modules. These are themselves modified intercept craft from the US Space Command inventory. The main changes are improved sensors, massively upgraded engines, a selection of enhanced defensive weaponry and most importantly, a new central computer system.”

[NATO]: “Could you clarify why we’re sending people at all? We could send smaller autonomous craft more cheaply, more quickly and with less risk to life. What was the thinking?”

[Mission Architect - ESA]: “Your points are good ones. If we understood more, that would be our preferred mission architecture. However, we may learn things as the operation progresses - particularly matters relating to the identity, intentions and capabilities of the Adversary - particularly during the encounter phase of the mission. That requires a full human capability for real-time resolution. Crudely we need informed, educated common sense brought to bear. That’s why we’ve inserted humans into the loop.”

[Mission CTO - NATO]: “If I can just elaborate? We expect tactical decisions to occur on a fast loop, faster than human reaction time. The combat-core is configured to take most defensive actions autonomously: clarify the threat and respond appropriately. In most cases this will be to evade. The human crew are restricted to…”

[NATO]: “Excuse me interrupting but on the limited data so far, the Adversary shows worrying signs of proficiency in systems hacking. The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter did not vanish all by itself. If the combat-core is compromised, the mission may be lost; we may breach all of our objectives.”

[Mission CTO - NATO]: “You understand I cannot go into details but the combat-core has a hardened Bayesian read-only firmware kernel. If human or machine systems are compromised, this will come into effect. Its protocol is entirely defensive: it will boost away from the threat at sufficient acceleration to avoid damage or capture. In ultimate fail-safe mode, the module will self-destruct.”

[NATO]: “How hard can it boost?”

[Mission CTO - NATO]: “That’s classified. It will try to stay within the limits of crew survivability, if at all possible.”

14: Thursday evening: Sylvia

Sylvia was in a state. It had taken her hours to get back home from central Paris - the trains had been crowded and repeatedly delayed. And she had kept going over what that ESA person had said. It seemed icky and tacky: she didn’t want to think about her husband that way. She couldn’t get ideas about brothels and prostitutes and unfaithfulness out of her mind. And she didn’t want to talk about any of these things in conversation with her husband.

When André called after completing his afternoon training session, she was evasive and unhappy.

“She wanted to know how we were getting on, with your weekend visits and being away so much,” Sylvia said, “And we discussed the mission itself, about how long it’s going to be.”

It occurred to Sylvia suddenly that she didn’t know how much her husband knew. Oh God, perhaps the subject hadn’t come up! Perhaps they hadn’t told him! She decided to finish this conversation at once.

“Anyway, I was pleased that they’re showing concern and that I’ll get support while you’re away. Now, it must be dinner time and I’m holding you up. Don’t worry about us, we’re doing fine. Little Aimée sends her love. See you tomorrow.”

Sylvia decided the matter was closed and would never be discussed again.

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André’s meeting with Anna de Kasparis is much as before, except that Anna is now wearing her usual coverall uniform rather than the seductive outfit of two days ago. Form continues to follow function.

Anna starts briskly, “I met with your wife this morning and raised the topic. She wasn’t enthusiastic. You would have guessed that.”

He nods soberly: questions are already rising in his mind.

“But she reluctantly acquiesced so we’re good to go: any questions?”

André has a million, most of which he can’t ask, but he proceeds anyway, tentatively.

“Er, how accurate is the model you’re going to produce for me?”

“We’ve got full details on file of Sylvia’s physical dimensions and appearance. It’s no problem to produce an exact likeness. And to forestall your next question, the state of the art is considerably in advance of what you may have seen publicly. Your Sylvia model, we’ll call her Sylvia-X, is the same weight as Sylvia and will have much the same mobility. The model can walk and talk, can articulate her limbs and generally move around. And yes, she’s perfectly able to engage dynamically in sexual behaviour.”

“So it’s a dumb sexual gymnast?”

“Far from it: you deal with talkative AIs every day in your training. You’ll find the conversational mode perfectly acceptable.”

“I’m not going to think it’s much like Sylvia if it’s got off-the-shelf movements and dialogue...”

“Where did I say that? You’ll find Sylvia-X pretty accurately mimics Sylvia both in lovemaking and in pillow talk, not to mention more general chat.”

“How the hell could you know any of that?”

Anna sits placidly with a smile on her face.

“No, you didn’t...?”

“Not my idea but there you go. Anyway, Sylvia-X is a learning system. She’ll respond to your actions and words and adapt both physically and conversationally. As we're so close to launch, she’s being installed in your room as we speak. Don’t wear yourself out - leave something for your wife this weekend. And you don’t need me to tell you that this is totally off-limits. Not a word to your wife or anyone else. It’s mission-secret.”

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The full story text can be found in my SF novel: here:

• "Donatien's Children" (2022) — as a PDF, and


• "Donatien's Children" (2022) — on Amazon for easier reading.

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