Memory Transcription Subject: Ensign Sifal, Arxur Dominion Fleet
Date [standardized human time]: October 18, 2136
The Terran chef stroked his bare chin. “So,” said David, “if I remember correctly--and I admittedly probably don’t--there are two major types of empathy: cognitive empathy and affective empathy. Now, I mentioned cognitive empathy earlier, and that’s the easier one to use.” His eyes drifted back to the meat warmer with the rack of lamb in it, did a quick few calculations in his head, and took a seat at the table across from me. This was the first time I’d seen him seated since we’d first walked in his door. This close, it looked like his eyes were faintly glowing. It took me a moment to recognize he had a digital display built into his thin eyepiece.
Of course, why else would he wear lenses as a civilian? Those are too thin to be protective goggles.
“You visualize yourself as another person,” he said, gesticulating as he spoke. “You’re effectively running a simulation of their mind on your own hardware.” He tapped the side of his head to emphasize which hardware he meant. “Now, there’s a few different layers to that. One, you can just visualize the game board from the opponent’s perspective--sorry, do you guys have board games?”
“What, like competitive ones? With multiple players?” I said, shaking my head. I had a randomized puzzle game I played by myself in the mess hall some days, but hardly anyone ever tried to watch, let alone collaborate on a solution. That sinewy bridge officer asked once, I recalled fondly. “I think I’ve heard of them, but it’s like pulling teeth trying to get the average Arxur to sit in the same room with each other. It’s hard to imagine a game like that not just devolving into a fight the moment it got tense.”
David’s eyes flitted back to me, confused. “You seem perfectly fine around people, though. Is that part of the issue you’re having?”
I stared at my stew, considering. There were small leaves floating in it. If I wasn’t mistaken, there were fewer leaves floating in it than there had been a few bites ago. Why didn’t that bother me more? “I have no idea,” I said. “I think a lot of things just don’t bother me.” I looked back up at the smaller predator. “This is an interesting new experience, and I suppose the fact that other people are involved doesn’t make it less so.”
David tapped the table rhythmically as he took that in. “Alright, well, we have a lot of games that boil down, essentially, to battle simulations, with varying levels of abstraction. Everything from an eight-by-eight grid with mirrored pieces, to elaborate mock battles with figurines, terrain variations, and a stack of rulebooks this high,” he said, holding his hand nearly at eye level. “But, regardless of the game, the trick isn’t just to make the best play from your current position; it’s to predict what your opponent is going to do next. Envision what you would do in your opponent’s position, and adjust your plans accordingly.”
David nodded. “If you don’t know any specific games, then let’s take a simple, rules-agnostic example: suppose you and I got into a fight right now.”
I choked on my stew broth, which helped cover my urge to laugh. It would have been a breach of decorum in any event, and I didn’t want to hurt David’s feelings.
“Just as a thought exercise,” said David, sliding me a napkin. “You, me, fight to the death. Right now. What would you do?”
My eyes flitted around the table. It wasn’t an excessively large table, but I was still flanked by two U.N. Peacekeepers, and David’s corgi, Toki, was still lounging on my lap. “Still depends on the details,” I said. “Are the others involved? Does it start on the clock, or just whenever I decide to attack?”
“Let’s keep it realistic,” said David. “The fight begins whenever you choose to start it, and the others will probably intercede. Your objective is to kill me and survive.”
Alright, well, I endeavored to start with the basic version. “You’re not that far from me,” I pointed out. “I could probably just lunge across the table and bite your face off.”
As if on cue, William and Charmaine both pantomimed drawing their sidearms, far faster than I expected.
“We both die,” said David. “Try again from the top.”
I looked down at Toki, feeling guilty just imagining this. “Wait for William to take another big sip of the broth, then throw Toki at Charmaine. Then lunge.”
I heard a clatter, and my eyes flicked back up. David was already over at the bar, having knocked over his chair in his haste. “You’re off-balance in a pile of furniture. Can you get to your feet faster than the two soldiers can get their bearings?”
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My lips curled back in chagrin. “Probably not,” I said.
David topped up his glass of lumber-scented propellant. “Try again, then.”
This was a frustrating puzzle, and I wasn’t sure if it even had a solution. “Can I have a hint?” I asked. “I feel like I’m missing something again.”
David leaned back against the bar and took a sip of his drink. “I just showed you my first move,” he said. “Why am I over here?”
I barely restrained myself from growling. “I don’t know! Because if you keep your distance from me, the two scouts will finish me off for you?”
David shook his head. “Forget me for a second,” he said. “Can you take out the two soldiers?”
At a distance, it’d be suicide. The humans were as good as Arxur at marksmanship, if not better, and coordinated their squad tactics nearly effortlessly. In a sudden and unexpected close-quarters brawl, though? The scouts each had a single combat knife apiece. I was bigger, faster, and had a full set of “knives” permanently attached to each hand and also my face. “It wouldn’t be pretty,” I said, with cautious optimism, “but I could see myself pulling that off.”
“Okay, so what am I doing over here?” asked David, leaning forward, expectantly.
“...having a last drink before your untimely death?” I tried.
David chuckled. “No,” he said, shaking his head. “Come on, the exercise is about visualizing the opponent’s perspective. Imagine you’re me. There’s a much larger predator trying to kill you. You have no formal combat training, and your only weapons,” he proffered his chef’s knife again, “are things not particularly designed with fights in mind. The two soldiers just bought you a minute of breathing room.” He put his knife back down on the bar. “How do you win?”
Visualizing myself as a human…. It was just such a bizarre concept! I closed my eyes and tried to imagine. There was something there, but… I was unpracticed. I needed more to set the scene.
Against my every instinct, I nudged Toki off of me. The little dog hopped down without complaint, and plodded back to a spot near the bar that he seemed to favor. As for me, I stood up, walked around to the other side of the table, set David’s chair aright, and sat in his spot. I closed my eyes again, and tried to visualize myself as a human, with an Arxur across the table from me. So what then? What was I capable of?
I’d asked David how humans had hunted before the invention of ranged weapons. He’d said that humans could throw things with force and pinpoint accuracy, and then he threw a piece of soppressata at my head to demonstrate. The same calculus I’d done when estimating my own odds against the scouts was reversed now: if I were David, I’d expect to lose a hand-to-hand fight against an Arxur, so I’d be plotting a decisive ranged attack. But with what? David had a sharp knife, sure, but against a charging Arxur? He’d have to throw it flawlessly. It would have to be a perfect hit to a vital area, like the heart or the throat. A claw’s length to either side--like, say, if the Arxur dodged even slightly--and it’s not a killshot, just a painful inconvenience. The knife might still be a good option to throw my opponent off-balance, but I needed to throw something that could at least incapacitate--
I was jolted out of my train of thought by Charmaine snickering. I glared at her. “Sorry,” she said. “You were just like… perfectly mimicking the way David talks with his hands when he’s thinking.”
“Keep going!” said David. I twisted around to look at him, and he was smiling and waving me on. “That’s good, that means it’s working!” He took another sip of his lumber-scented propellant.
I settled back into my new chair, and closed my eyes again. What did I have to work with that was dangerous? I was an engineer, sure, and could probably rig up something nasty in a pinch--trying to overload the building’s backup generator came to mind--but how much did David know about engineering? He was asking me some pretty basic questions earlier about his holopad, and about antimatter bombs. It wasn’t his profession. But he knew things outside of his profession! Like… art and history? That didn’t seem useful. What else did he know?
I wracked my brain for little details. I was probably being unfair in under-assessing his engineering acumen. He knew the tools of his trade quite well. Like his robotic kitchen, and his fancy pressure cooker. The lovely stew I’d been enjoying had been a product of that pressure cooker…. Plus a few food chemistry tricks.
I whipped around once more, staring down my opponent. David smiled politely, and sipped again at his flammable beverage as I levied my accusation. “You… can breathe fire!”
The two scouts howled with laughter. My face went hot with embarrassment, and it took everything in my power to ignore them. I kept my eyes focused on David, waiting for his answer. He wasn’t laughing. There was a twinkle of mirth in his eyes at best. He mostly just seemed like he was enjoying himself.
Silently, he set down his drink, reached behind the bar, and pulled out a different bottle, and a small handheld device shaped vaguely like a pistol. With one thumb, he flicked the cap off of the bottle, took a deep breath, and then drained a mouthful. For the briefest moment, he held it there, cheeks puffed out like a Dossur. It smelled sharper by far than the one he’d been drinking. With all his might, he sprayed the propellant out forcefully. He fired the little pistol thing into the stream, and it ignited into a brightly surging gout of flame.
The human breathed fire.
The scouts laughed even harder, but the cadence had changed from mocking to impressed. “Hahaha holy shit!” they shouted one after another. “Can’t believe you actually did it, you crazy bastard!”
David bowed slightly. “I was actually just going to throw a homemade incendiary, but that was too good an opening to pass up.”
“I was close,” I said, pouting.
David grinned. “Very close,” he agreed.