The Long Mars by Terry Pratchett, Stephen Baxter

perhaps Lobsang himself was actually ageing, in his own way. After all, nobody knew what would happen to an artificial intelligence as it grew older, as its substrate turned into a thing of layers of increasingly elderly technologies, both hardware and software – ‘accreting like a coral reef’, as Lobsang had once put it – and as its own inner complexity grew ever more tangled. It was an experiment nobody had ever run before.
    No wonder then that Lobsang sometimes rambled, almost like a confused and disappointed old man. Well, Agnes was used to confused and disappointed old men; there were plenty of them in the hierarchy of the Church.
    Maybe this was why she herself was here. Lobsang had brought her back from the grave to be a kind of adversary, a balance to his ambition. Yes, once upon a time she would undoubtedly have called herself his adversary, even if her role had always been basically constructive. Now, though, she was – well, what? A friend? Yes, of course, but also his confidante and moral compass – the latter being difficult because her own compass had a tendency to spin like a weathercock in a twister.
    How was she supposed to have any kind of relationship with such a being? Well, she didn’t know, but she seemed to be finding a way. She had a great deal of confidence in herself. She was resilient. She would cope. She always had.
    ‘Consider this,’ he was saying now. ‘Humanity got to the moon, and you can’t say that wasn’t a remarkable thing. After all, what other creature has got off the planet? And then, what did Homo sapiens do? Came home again! Bringing a few boxes of rocks, and a smug feeling of being master of the universe . . .’
    ‘Yes, dear,’ she said automatically.
    ‘You could argue that such a species deserves to be supplanted by a better breed.’
    ‘If you say so.’
    ‘Nearly done. I’ve got some tea in the flasks. Earl Grey or Lady Grey? . . . What are you laughing at?’
    Agnes tried to look solemn. ‘At you . For segueing from arguing that humanity deserves extinction to politely asking me whether I would like something so cheerful and normal as a cup of tea! Look – I understand everything you have been saying. Humanity is pretty shallow. It took a trip to the moon for most people even to understand what the Earth really was: round, finite, precious and endangered. We can’t organize ourselves for toffee. But isn’t humanity showing more common sense , even at this late hour? Look how well we’re coping with the Yellowstone disaster – well, so it seems to me.’
    ‘Hmm. Maybe. Though I’ve seen some hints that we may have had some help . . .’
    She dismissed that. ‘Oh, don’t be enigmatic, Lobsang, it’s an irritating habit. And don’t assume that we can’t change – change and grow. Believe me, I’ve seen some fine adults grow out of difficult children; there’s potential in everybody. And, frankly, for all the nonsense you spout about how we’re doomed to be supplanted, I don’t see the new model around anywhere. What happens when they do show up? Should we listen for the sound of jackboots?’
    ‘Dear Agnes, I know that you exaggerate for effect, a ploy which rarely helps matters. No, not jackboots. Something more – helpful. Well, as I hinted so enigmatically. Imagine something subtler – slow and careful and insidious but not necessarily sinister, and yes, better organized than Homo sapiens could ever be . . .’
    But his voice tailed off, and his expression changed, as if he was responding to some distant call.
    You had to get used to that happening. He’d told her all about parallel processing, a concept she hadn’t heard of before her reincarnation. This meant running more than one task at once, or breaking down one big job into smaller jobs to be handled simultaneously. Not that she was particularly impressed. After all, she had been doing that all her life, thinking about making dinner while also blowing noses and teaching