In the Next Life, Canto I, stanzas 40-57 revised

The picture's drawn in two dimensions now.
Before we add a third to flesh it out,
let us consider something more of how
a can can have a life, lest you may doubt

There’s one more feature that these things possess:
an extra fancy autopilot mode.
The tubes can run themselves quite well unless
presented with an overriding code.

Not only can they fully self-direct
but they can make adjustments when they slip
and learn by watching those whose thoughts are checked
when their insiders take charge of the ship.

This trick requires heavy-duty brains
or silicon equivalents thereof,
more like our own than artificial strains
that work below on what was done above.

The tubes’ designers have to get this right.
They’ve found a way, but only their best guess.
Some variations in their creatures might
work better with environmental stress.

The robots that live long will reproduce.
The others—well, it’s just like in the wild.
More goslings for the strong and healthy goose;
the smarter parent has the smarter child.

Here’s how it works: Each carrier has two
computers, swapping watches in the nose.
The humans strapped inside create one new
By copying the one that’s in repose.

Both parents, then, have three brains when they breed.
The daughter gets the mashup from each set,
and all three carriers will thence proceed
with two brains and a third one coming yet.

This method works for many other parts:
the furniture and lighting, I suppose,
the pumps that work the legs, and all the charts
that tell what each piece does and where it goes.

The circuitry, while intricate as hell,
is reproducible by human hands.
Don’t tell me it’s impossible ’cuz, well,
we have to take the story as it stands.

Some folks on plausibility insist.
If that's your peeve, it's probably too late.
Some folks might hang up on something I missed,
like how this turkey reached the starting gate.

The likelihood that anyone will find
a planet that is livable at all
is very slim, and that is being kind,
so popular support is pretty small.

The people who imagined this thing, then,
are anxious to preserve its lower key.
They know they’ll lose their funding if and when
it’s argued as a public policy.

It’s easy for our group to get involved,
for some of them at space departments reign.
Their lack-of-resource problem now is solved,
and none who’ve been supplanted can complain.

They’ve new criteria now for the crew:
Each one should worship as the others would.
One-half a married couple will not do.
Though they don’t know it, they are in for good.

Prime physical and mental health is still
essential for the staff committee’s picks,
but military status henceforth will
be less important than the gender mix.

The books they read and copy now include
less for the mind and more to reach the soul.
As one book says, their spirits too need food.
What’s read alone just wouldn’t keep them whole.

Once these and other changes have been made,
and all the lot is tested as can be,
some seven of these tubes can be arrayed
beneath restricted portions of the sea.

©2010, 2015 Louis A. Merrimac