Beyond Pi Snippet 3

 Sitrep: So, I checked my mail and Goodlife sent Beyond Pi back early! So, this is the last snippet. I'll publish the book later today or this weekend.

 

In Hyperspace

 

The rogue science ship, Lois Pasteur,made her cautious way across the void to the Omicron sector. The AI onboard had argued with the doctor many times about the idea of abandoning theirnormal route. He had overruled them by simple force of will and his role asowner of the ship. They were committed now anyway.

The ship’s AI Loi managed the internalsystems carefully. It controlled a legion of robots of various sizes and capacitiesto keep the ship running smoothly. It was his diligence that had allowed theship to remain functional over the centuries of the dark time.

Nikki, his android AI counterpart, was thesecond half of the equation. She managed the day-to-day operations of the shipas well. She was too limited to pilot the ship though; that task fell to eitherLoi, the doctor, or one of their subjects.

Doctor Mathis had been trying forcenturies to recreate his lost love through cloning and memory implants. Todate he had failed utterly or so he insisted.

In truth the bodies were perfect copies ofthe genetic template. There was no drift; each clone was a copy made from theoriginal, carefully maintained subject in a stasis pod. Her cells were culturedfrom samples and rigorously checked for genetic damage from the lethal amountof radiation she had sustained in life.

Since the subject’s DNA had been unstrungand encoded into their files before her accident, she was carefully preserved.

No, the fault laid in the improper copy ofher mind or so the doctor insisted. In truth he could not and would not acceptthat any copy of the original would hold those intrinsic flaws. They weregrowing up in a different environment and time, under different circumstances.They were effectively sisters of the original template.

The other issue was that the memoryimplant process was flawed. If they pushed the memory implants too far, itdamaged the subject. It involved reprogramming the entire brain neuron byneuron. Which was a problem since the original subject’s brain had been damagedbefore death and the process of sampling her mind to upload it to an AI hadn’tbeen complete because of that damage.

And then there was the doctor himself.Doctor Mathis, or, at least the original organic version had died years prior.He had also been preserved but this time in the science lab mainframe. He hadmaintained his bewilderment and grief over the loss of his beloved and hadcontinued with his obsession to bring her back no matter how long it took.

There were seven subjects currently beingcultured. The first had been woken early to help pilot the ship. Her inherenthelm skills had ensured their survival in the arduous trek across the void.Nikki was caring for her now. Loi checked on her and then went back to hisduties.

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Doctor Mathis sighed as the inevitablesigns of failure manifested itself in the latest MRI and GRI scans of subjectZ981A. The young clone had begun to formulate her own memories and personalitythat differentiated from his beloved.

He could trace the change to when she waswoken to take the helm and endure the first scans. They really needed a bettermethod of implanting the memories into the subject brain while monitoring it.However, MRI and GRI scans were not reliable in the detailed nanometric levelhis work required within the close confines of the pod.

Just the act of transferring the subjectfrom the artificial uterus to the pod might be another factor for failure.

It was all so frustrating. But he wouldplay politics and allow Nikki to continue to coddle the youth until they founda proper place to drop her off and start anew once more.

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