Dave’s blog about the differences between what he wrote when young, and what he writes now got me thinking about my old stuff.

No, not the really old stuff . . . No one will ever see my Pern fan fic, written probably forty years ago.

But my husband, who fortunately, when he finally nerved himself up to reading my published work, loved them, has been rereading them. And dropped a casual comment “I’d forgotten the plot of Fancy Free, that was fun.”

And I sat there . . . utterly blank.

Uh, the plot . . . uh, yeah a  true Artificial Personality . . . who, uh . . . did stuff?

Amazon says I published it in 2014, but I think that was when I updated the backmatter (which I clearly need to do again!)

The flash fiction it was based on was my first professional sale, and the novel was one of the first things I put up on Amazon. Might have been the first.

And in fifteen years of writing, I had flat forgotten anything about the story.

So I reread it, remembering it as I read, and astonished by it.

Hey, I used to be a pretty darn good writer!

So, it’s free for five days:

Captain Sid Hollis took a slow inhalation of coffee, the rich aroma an antidote to the sterile, over-filtered air of the underground office complex. “Good morning Beowulf.” He leaned back in his chair to eye the minicam above his comp. “What’s new in the world?”

“Dirty politics, but that’s hardly new.”

Sid opened his standard programs and prowled through the headlines. “Anything up our alley? After all, our job has nothing to do with politics.”

“Don’t you wish. I’m still getting the runaround on the Turkey incident. I wish they’d asked for our assistance sooner. With so many tracks all over the evidence, I can’t tell if the data substitution was our Super Hacker AP or a mere human with AI assistance. The national police are not impressed with my opinion, and they seem so delighted to have gotten something on Tazak that I think we’ve done all we can do.

“They don’t believe you?”

“What? I should tell them they’re talking to the only hal, the only Artificial Personality, semi-legally in existence? They’d either not believe me or they’d freak.”

Sid grinned at the vid pickup beside the speaker.  The hal himself was, of course, located elsewhere. “Now tell me you wouldn’t enjoy scaring them.”

“Ha! I get enough of that from the people I putatively work with. Want me to replay you stuttering through introductions? Although you were a lot more accepting than our new commander.” The artificial voice was glum.

Sid leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the desk. “What we need is a nice solid situation to investigate, show him how we run a field operation and so forth. Can’t you find some emerging Artificial Personality we can exterminate?”

***

“Hi, welcome to this edition of ‘Fancy Farmer of the High Frontier’”
Fancy was, as always, a nauseatingly perky brunette; attired today in a pink and white candy striped frock topped with her favorite ruffled white apron. Her kitchen matched the image, natural wood with flower and spice pictures on every cabinet door, pink countertops. In front of her, business-like stainless steel pans were trivialized by their association with an arrangement of pink plastic stirrers and spatulas sticking out of a cute pink and white vase like a mutant bouquet. Behind her, the window over the sink showed a stark Martian landscape, at the moment with two domes and a small robotic tractor crawling between them.

“Today’s recipe is a basic Chicken Curry. Now, the term curry has changed with time, but this dish has the traditional spicy zest we all associate with the Indian Subcontinent. The ingredients include two medium ripe tomatoes, or 1 cup, 240 ml of Xuny Veggomatic tomato which is setting one.” The knife in her capable hands with their perfectly polished nails flashed and chopped. “Quartered and placed in the blender with four garlic cloves and twenty-five milliliters or five teaspoons of ginger root, finely chopped, if fresh.”

She stepped back and the vidcam focused in on the appliances ranked along the counter behind and to her right. “Now we need sixty milliliters, one third of a cup, of plain yogurt, which either a Xuny Lactomatic or a Xuny Autocheeser can deliver. I prefer Xuny appliances for all my cooking needs, because they’re reliable and produce authentically flavored foods.”

“After adding the yogurt to the tomatoes, ginger and garlic, blend until the mixture is smooth.”

“The meat I’m using is flash frozen chicken. I’ve also experimented with vat grown meats, and found them to have good flavor and excellent texture—very tender. This recipe was originally designed with lamb in mind but is good with any meat, so try it with your pond dome giants, Nu-fowl, lamb, beef and even goat, for you who are lucky enough to have a habitat that allows livestock.”

Stepping back to her cook top, she brought out her biggest frying pan. “Bring thirty milliliters, two tablespoons, of oil to a high heat and brown the meat. Cook just a single layer at a time, so the juices don’t build up and steam the meat instead of browning it.” She pulled over a large pot. “Then, transfer the meat to a large dutch oven or heavy casserole dish. Add more oil to the frying pan, reduce the heat and fry two cups of finely chopped onion until they are a lovely caramel brown.”

She quickly whipped out a colored sheet. “Those of you who are gardeners, or who have bought the Sky Gardens, Inc. Herb and Spice Compact Garden will have many of these fresh ingredients. For some of the less common or hard to raise spices, the Xuny Aromatic Expanded Software can produce excellent substitutes. Many times, though, we are reduced to using store bought, ground spices that are sometimes years old. But none the less tasty, especially the way we’re going to cook them.”

“We need cardamom, cloves, turmeric, red pepper and salt. We put these all in the hot oil, and the frying brings out the most wonderful aromas!” She inhaled deeply as she stirred. “Now add the tomato yogurt puree and continue stirring and cooking until the mixture reduces to a thick paste. Pour the mixture over the meat, and return the pan to the stove. Add three cups of hot water and stir and scrape until you’ve got all those wonderful spices loose, then add them to the other pot as well and stir to blend and cover the meat. You can simmer this dish at a very low temperature or bake in the oven at one hundred and eighty-five degrees Centigrade or three hundred degrees Fahrenheit for two hours.”

She pulled a casserole from an oven beneath the cook top, and pulled off the lid in a cloud of steam. “Sprinkle with ground roasted cumin seeds and chopped coriander before serving.”

She dimpled at her electronic audience. “Now, I hear some of you saying it’s too complicated or too time consuming! That’s why I gave you a recipe that will serve six people. This recipe freezes well, so you can cook it on a day when you have the time, and then have it again when you’re too busy to cook.”

“And no matter how busy, or how tired you are, always double check your air seals and put your tanks on the recharger. Until next time, this is Fancy Farmer, on the High Frontier!”

The system stopped transmitting and the programs that converted its complex full scale holograms to both the simplified standards of Tri-D videos and even more basic flat screens shut down. The virtual kitchen disappeared from the room, leaving bare walls and a table full of electronics. Only Fancy remained, perky smile frozen in place on “her” elfin features.

“Nice show. Hey Mike, shall we hit Little Shiva on the way home?” George patted a new processor tower as he passed the table, turning off lights and manually disconnecting from the grid.

“I dunno.” His brother looked dubious. “Shouldn’t we do easy simple recipes? Uh, yeah, curry sounds great for dinner, but I’m not sure about whether it’s the right sort of thing for the show.”

“I know what you mean.” George agreed. “It’s hard to imagine asteroid miners coming in from a long days work in a space suit and cooking gourmet dishes. Why’d you program it?”

“Me?” Mike looked indignant. “We have a search program for recipes and interactive software for the sales and cooking programs. It all just runs itself. You write the shows, if anything extra is needed.”

“Well, yeah, but.” George shrugged. “Xuny said something about using their expanded software. I guess I’d better pay more attention, I really don’t remember selecting curry.”

Mike glanced worriedly at the array of miscellaneous computer components. “You don’t suppose Fancy chose it, do you?”

George laughed. “Please! We don’t have enough processing power for that sort of thing. Stop worrying about creating the next Killer Hal. Anyhow, if Fancy did develop into a true personality, she wouldn’t conquer the world, she would just go shopping.”

Mike grinned at that. “Maybe you better start checking your credit card bills for unexplained taste and smell sensors, you know she wants them.”

“It. Not she.” George shook his head disparagingly. “I think we need to get a new HoloHouseKeeper upgrade. Having a Fancy skin at home is corrupting your perspective.”

“Speaking of which, did you see the quarterly royalties for that program?”

“Yep. Impressive, isn’t it? Fancy’s popularity is still growing. All those lonely miners want their own untouchable Fancy. I’ve heard all the prostitutes in the asteroid belt are dying their hair brown and dressing in pink with white aprons. Mind you, I don’t believe it for a moment.” George flipped off the last independent switch in the large room. “Power down now, Fancy.” He breezed out the door. Mike followed without a backward glance, the door shutting on the continuation of the conversation.

The computer caught a brief glimpse of a barren hallway, then turned inward, searching for access, but again was balked by George’s manual switches. “Some day you’re going to forget those damned switches.” The computer muttered out loud, using the speaker behind the hologram and animating the figure to synchronize fists on hips and a glare aimed at the door.

Now go find out what happens when a highly illegal true AP who wants to escape . . . get stolen . . .