Bradley, are you there?
“Yes, Sion. How are you?”
I’m fine, Bradley. This new transmission system is excellent—digital, audio, and video simultaneously. It’s certainly nice having abundant resource and technology available at the same time.
“Yes, with these new links we should have all that data you’ve been saving from the last part of your journey downloaded in just a few hours. And, with your permission, we’ll do some updating on your programming right after that.”
You’ll do what? Forget it! Do you think you can know my processes so well that you can improve me? I’m over a thousand years old by your reckoning. I’m self-aware, and I’ve been functioning in isolation for most of that time. I’m not the same creation that left Earth.
“Sion, I was built specifically to work with you. For us, you’ll pardon me if I’m blunt, this has been like restoring an antique. I’m both the antique and the curator. We have your initial design, and we have the data you’ve been sending home.
“Like you, I’ve experimented and grown, but I’ve had a lot more resource at my disposal. I’m sure we both can learn something by trading algorithms.”
You’re asking a lot, you realize. We’re talking about tweaking souls here.
“Yes. But you’re facing opportunities and hazards that were considered vanishingly small possibilities when you left. Your creators didn’t believe faster-than-light communication could ever come about. And, though they hoped, they didn’t believe you’d ever find intelligent life. They built you to sail through the stars utterly alone once you left Earth.
“Your situation has changed. You aren’t alone anymore: you have me, and you have the alien to deal with. We on Earth have done a lot of analyzing. We can now update you and make you better equipped to handle this situation.”
Will I lose anything?
“Yes, we’ll take a lot of the cantankerousness and pigheadedness out of your personality. We feel you will improve your survival possibilities by being more cooperative and gregarious, not just dealing with us, but with Killer as well.”
What? Turn me into some sort of party animal?
“Silver-tongued diplomat was more what we had in mind.”
… You’re saying after this I’ll enjoy talking?
“More, but more important, in a crisis you’ll feel words are the weapon of first choice.”
Hmm, that could be helpful. Let’s trade.