Since there were no jelis on board, Stacia played things out on instinct. One of the rules of storytelling was to keep the person talking. But she just had to make sure that he was playing her game, not vice versa. “Because engineers aren’t philosophers. We like to actually build, while philosophers like to argue everything into mush.”

“There’s that Muungano know-it-all spirit I love so much.”

“Admittedly, we don’t always consider the full, even unintended, implications for what we’re building.”

“You can say it, you know. Admit that you don’t know what you’re doing. Or does that go too contrary to your Muungano sense of pride?”

“For what we were wanting to accomplish with our community, no one did. Not us, certainly not you, since you never bothered to try. How does one code an AI to maximize human flourishing? We don’t even understand what consciousness is or how it develops, so we had no idea whether a nonorganic consciousness could—”

“Love?”

“Be possible.”

“You overthink things. Machines don’t need consciousness to be able to predict our choices. Or manipulate them. What you naively fail to consider is what happens when this self-aware algorithm doesn’t share data with us? Or chooses to share it with someone else? You have a self-aware AI that’s listening to us right now. Judging us.”

“You don’t get it, them, or us. We had to reframe the issue of AI in a human-centered way, reflecting the kind of intelligence we would like to see from any community member.

“If there was one thing we took from the tragedy of Morpheus, to the evolution of Overseer, to Maya, was that the AI was a valued part of the community. We invited them in, and they grew and developed alongside us.”

“Still destined to only serve.”

“Like each of us. We serve one another. That’s what community is. We lost sight of that with Morpheus. What does this have to do with where we find ourselves?”

“You certainly weren’t naive enough to believe that no one would want to let you control the Orun Gate. Not with your track record with valuable resources.”

“That’s your whole problem: the need to control,” Stacia said. “You hear that it’s a stable, artificial wormhole, and that represents technology that you want to declare a proprietary interest in.”

“And”—Zenith held up a finger—“determine the nature of the exploration on the other side.”

“I don’t even understand your beef. We have been working with scientists from Titan, Mars, and, yes, even O.E. Working together, researching together, sharing our findings with one another.”

“Under your leadership.”

“That’s the rub, isn’t it? To you, leadership means control, and you’re not comfortable with control being in ‘our’ hands. Why the need to have this conversation in private? None of what you’ve said would shock an infant among us.”