Dreamships - Melissa Scott(1), ebook
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Dreamships
Melissa Scott
1992
Editorial Reviews
From Kirkus Reviews
Scott's hardcover debut offers a thought-provoking examination of the possibility of artificial
intelligence. Reverdy Jian, a freelance ``dreamspace'' pilot based on Persephone (an arid world so
hot the population lives underground), and her partners Imre Vaughn and ``Red'' take on a job
flying a custom-made ship for the secretive Meredalia Mitexi. They're to search for Mitexi's lost
brother Venya--an almost legendary designer of the near-sentient computer ``constructs'' that help
human pilots navigate dreamspace- -who vanished soon after his claim to have created a true
artificial intelligence was suppressed by his corporate employer, Kagami Ltd. Aboard Mitexi's
ship, Reverdy works with Manfred, Venya's custom construct, and she grows ever more
convinced that Manfred might be sentient. When Reverdy learns that Mitexi plans to turn
Manfred over to Kagami on their return, she decides she must protect the construct, though she
risks her career and maybe her life. Scott's claustrophobic urban world owes a bit too much to
cyberpunk (as do her characters, whose chip-on-the-shoulder postures receive little justification),
but she adds colorful touches of her own, and her intelligent consideration of the issues
surrounding AI is rare and refreshing. Not perfect, but a solid, thoughtful novel from a promising
writer. --
Ingram
A wealthy corporation owner hires a space pilot to track down her insane brother, a man who
might have just created the first fully conscious artificial intelligence
PERSEPHONE (Persephonean, Persephoneans): only inhabited planet of Hades, Midsector III
Catalogue listing 1390161.f. CPC”A3B/G6171/884G(3). Surface gravity = 1.01 Earth.
Astronomical year =1.38 standard years; local year = (Conglomerate) standard year.
Astronomical day = 80 standard hours; local day = 24 local hours/24 standard hours.
Chronometric correction (standard): ATS 0.0. Climate: Persephone is officially classified as a
warm planet, with average temperatures of 32 °C; seasonal variation is minor, but travelers are
advised that high/low extremes are common, and should consult local met. offices before
traveling on the surface.
Discovered 998 PoDr. by CMS Pentateuch (Freya registry) while on extended materials
survey. The Freyan government proving unable to exploit the planetary resources, Persephone
was leased to the multiplanetary Shipyards Cartel, formed specifically to settle and exploit the
planet. Opened for full settlement PoDr. 1079 as mixed Freyan/corporate colony. Provisional
Conglomerate membership granted PoDr. 1277 as a result of the Fifth Freyan Revolution. No
indigenous animal life. Primary city: Landage (dos 1079 PoDr., star-port). Primary export
products: starships; AI constructs; VWS software, limberware, bioware; IPU mecha, wireware,
biofittings. Government: day-to-day government is handled by the Managing Board of the
Shipyards Cartel, whose members employ 82% of the population; however, Freya maintains a
competing Colonial Office on planet, which controls Persephone's noncommercial foreign
relations and to which the population may appeal decisions of the Managing Board. Disputes
between the two are settled in the Conglomerate courts. Language Group: Urban dialect of Freya
(index
viii
Introduction of variation MS3/5.200935); Urban primary (index of variation MS3/0.002014).
Persephone is a barren planet, settled only because of the vast resources available both on
planet and in the system's two asteroid belts. Because of the unpleasant climate, settlement has
gone underground, or into natural and artificial caverns, and is largely confined to the Daymare
Basin. 97% of Persephone's population is permanently resident in Landage or its suburbs; of that
group, approximately 20% are periodically resident in the assembly complexes at Mirror-Bright
(Whitesands) or the Rutland Seas. Travelers are advised to consult the local authorities and to
employ local transport and/or guides if their business takes them outside the Day-mare Basin.
The Peacekeepers maintain a Class II Traffic Control base on Cerberus in the outer asteroid ring.
The base is restricted; landing by permit only.
"When dreams don't become their people, people become their dreams
When dreams don't become their people . . . you bring the government down"
- James Grant, Halleluiah Man
1
It was dark under the eaves of Heaven, and she went carefully, more for the cracked tiles that
shifted underfoot than for the chance of trouble in the unlit side ways. To either side of the empty
street, houselights flickered wearily, barely the legal minimum of ten-lumen tubing outlining the
main - the taxable - entrances. Most of the tubing had once been painted good-luck red when the
door was cut, or at least when new people moved in, but that painting had nearly all faded, so that
what light there was lay in sickly straw-and-amber puddles along the sides of the road. Overhead,
the day lights were already dimmed: they went to bed early here in Heaven, to save the nighttime
surcharge.
Light blossomed under the arch that marked the end of the street, the flash of the interchange's
directional glyphs— themselves invisible as yet beyond the archway - reflecting at intervals
across the gray-black tiles. Her steps did not alter, long legs outlined briefly as she came to the
end of the road, striding contrary to the strobing lights. She blinked once, coming into the
interchange and its glare, and that was all.
After the silence of the house rows, the plaza's murmurous voices were quite loud, a rise and
fall of tonal language, vowels drawn up and down the scale. Heaven's people - coolies all, by the
sound of the voices, but lineworkers and construction operators mostly, not the lowest of the low
- were out, savoring the sweaty, not-quite-cool spill of air from the great vents tucked up under
the arch of the roof. Half a hundred men and women moved in that draft, filling the parklike
space inside the four massive central columns - iron trees, carved and grotesque, false branches
curving up with unnatural regularity to uphold the arch of the unreal sky, and the fans that
brought in the wind. She smiled, seeing them, but kept to the perimeter walk.
Ahead, a construction gang, newly off shift, spilled out of the brightly outlined entrance to a
beer shop, clustered loud-voiced around an outdoor server. She knew they were line-workers by
their clothes and the heavy humpback packs, and her step did not alter. She swept through them,
easy strides carrying her fast without having to hurry, and they made way for her, not grudging,
and not afraid, but knowing her too, and her business. Someone called after her, just a greeting;
she lifted a hand in answer, but did not slow her pace. The cooperative lay just beyond, its
staircase picked out with bright blue-green tubing. The same lights outlined the window of the
second-floor flat and formed the double-glyph above the door: pilot, and the clasped hands that
meant cooperative.
As she reached the top of the stairs, the door slid open, spilling a different, yellow light onto
the landing. She held out her hand to the sensors, seeing the wires beneath her skin darken
suddenly, shadow-blue turned deeply green. In the same instant, she felt the pulse of the security
system whipping hot along the tracery of the skinsuit's wires, and the inner door slid open.
The light inside was carefully natural, a sure sign the client had arrived. She made a face, and
turned toward the desk where the imager stood, its screens displaying silent fractal patterns. The
multicolored abstractions vanished as she crossed the sensor line and were replaced by a more
familiar image: a dark woman in a flowered sari, her black hair rolled into a tidy bun.
"Good evening, Bi' Jian," the image said, and the woman answered, "Good evening, Daru." It
annoyed her, as it always did, that she did not know the surname of the woman behind the image,
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