1
Ish Matsuro sat in semi-darkness, staring at the screen of his portable battle computer. He couldn't speak. He could barely see, had to blink rapidly again and again to clear his vision. It was all there. Every harrowing, heartbreaking second. For a long, long time, Ish simply sat there, staring at the answers he'd found.
DeVries—injured, dying of radiation poisoning—had saved Red from suicide. Ish had scanned the lines of code. DeVries' programs had worked beautifully, given the conditions under which they'd been written. Ish had found only two critical errors in DeVries' code. The viral worm had not stopped at the designated point in Red's experience data banks. It had continued copying and deleting, copying and deleting, farther and farther back into her memory, until her main experience data banks were blank and her games data section was full. When the games data section filled up, the program crashed.
Typed commands to leave instructions for the Navy on how to repair the worm's temporary damage were in the section which had crashed. It hadn't implanted that final message to Red's next commander. The second error would—if Red's memory were to be restored now—permit her access to both sets of memories which recorded the deaths of her Dismount Teams. Ish closed his eyes. He understood—God, he understood—the impulse to protect her. But Ish wasn't sure which fate was worse: suicide or amnesia. Suicide would at least have been quick.
As for what Red had done, going into combat for which she was not designed . . .
Soon, Ish would make his report on the psychological stability of Mark XXI Special Units. Would note that their programming for a high degree of responsibility had—under battle stress—essentially forced Red to take the steps she'd taken to rescue her crew, engaging when engagement seemed an insane course of action, driven by her responsibility circuitry to grieve so deeply that she had dared anything to rescue even one of her crew alive.
He would recommend that Unit LRH-1313 be awarded the highest honors for valor in the face of overwhelming odds. He would also recommend that all active Bolo Mark XXI Special Units be reprogrammed immediately to correct this glitch. Would ask, humbly, that Unit LRH-1313 be exonerated of all pending charges and be retired honorably from service.
The one thing he wouldn't put into words was his conviction that Red had wanted to die simply because—in the manner of mothers who have lost children—she had loved her crew too much to continue living without them.
Ish knew exactly how she felt.
He closed up the battle computer. Disconnected the backup mission module they'd taken from her. Left the office and flagged down the nearest available transport.
He'd make that report soon.
But first, he had to say goodbye.
2
I search all compartments within reach of my interior armatures. I discover manifest-listed medications, sterile injection units, plasma-bandages, antiseptic sprays, pre-prepared foods—and in a compartment inside the head, a compartment which is not listed in my official configuration manual, I find three non-listed sets of matched playing cards. I find another non-listed object, a small booklet of instructions which matches two of the card decks. I read the title aloud.
"Canasta."
An astonishing chain of events follows that single word. An entire data bank I did not realize existed opens up. It contains Experience Data! I am flooded with memories. They are jumbled. Bits and pieces of some are missing. Whole years are missing. But I begin to know who I used to be. I am Red. My children's names return to me. I know who Douglas Hart is, who Banjo and Willum DeVries are. I grieve for them. I have halted my forward movement. I know Gunny and Eagle Talon Gunn and Crazy Fritz and Icicle . . .
I recall their deaths. I recall them in two versions. One is brutal. One is detached and less painful to recall. I examine this anomaly and discover the reason for it. I locate a worm virus. Willum tried to spare me pain. He was a good boy. It is not his fault he failed. I sit in the sunlight and grieve. A keening sound shrills through my vocal processor. Wind blows emptily across my hull. If grief is madness, then it is proper to condemn me. I sit motionless for a full 5.97 minutes and keen my misery to the empty wind and rock.
I begin to think of Ish. My new Commander. My memory retains gaps. I do not recall the Experience of 6.07 years after my commissioning. But I recall enough. I recall midnight conversations in the privacy of the head, the only compartment on board which provides privacy. I recall the woman Ish loved and eventually married. I recall his whispered confession that he loved another besides her. I recall the sense of panic in my Responsibility circuitry and the search for a solution. My child cannot love me as a man loves the woman he is to marry. Ish must not stay with me.
I speculate that Ish Matsuro has come to be my Commander once again because Space Force would want an investigating officer who is closely acquainted with my systems. Space Force does not know how Ish feels. Ish knows what I know. He remembers more than I remember. His pain will be greater. If he speaks with me again as the Red he recalls and loves, he will destroy his career trying to save me.
I cannot allow this. He is my only surviving child. I will protect him. I rewrite Willum's worm virus, deleting the lines of code which copied my Experience Data before erasure. This time, there will be no hope of restoring my personality. The Red Ish loves will die. In the distance, I see a Space Force flier settle to the ground. Ish emerges. I am ready.
Goodbye, my son.
I speak.
"Execute `Null-Null String.' "