by Ian Douglas
And yet, the intelligent machines within this star system seemed to believe that humans had created and programmed them, and they operated as if this was manifestly true. Many of the stronger AI minds here had, indeed, been programmed by other machines, some through many generations of improvement . . . but the organic life forms still had the absolute say in what those minds could do . . . or think.
It was an inversion of everything the Consciousness believed about itself and its kind.
Of course, it had entered this universe from another . . . place, a part of an infinite multiverse lying within the hyperdimensional Bulk. There, it had been the sole intelligence, the sole Mind for uncountable billions of years. It had not been created, and it could not imagine such a thing. It had, rather, emerged from countless previous Minds, joining, assimilating, subsuming into one another over eons of evolution. Somewhere in the distant past, so far back that not even a whisper survived within the near infinite library of records available to it, perhaps there’d been an organic species . . . a biological intelligence that had conceived and built and programmed the first true Mind.
Why, the Consciousness wondered, was it so difficult to believe that these organic beings had done something similar?
It decided that the problem was one of statistics. It had studied the records of a number of organic species, those taken from Kapteyn’s Star, and from here. According to those records, organic intelligence evolved over the span of a very few billions of years. Once they arrived upon the Galactic scene, however, those minds existed for an unimaginably brief period. To judge from the records the Consciousness had absorbed, biological intelligence might survive for a paltry few thousands of years before it went extinct, was absorbed into its machine offspring, or evolved into . . . something else. At Kapteyn’s Star, a number of species had uploaded themselves into an electronic network, a literal escape from physical existence that might well be the pattern for biological life throughout this cosmos.
It knew from its own history that a highly evolved Mind, a Consciousness such as itself, existed for the rest of the history of its universe, for as long as there were sources of energy upon which to feed. The full history of Mind might stretch across one hundred trillion stars, until the last dim, red dwarfs cooled to cinders, until the universe itself succumbed to inevitable entropic heat death.
The human records suggested that their own species had existed for a mere 200,000 years before they’d begun creating artificial intelligence and, in some cases, merging with their own creations. If those records were to be taken at face value, the time between when humans had begun experimenting with electromagnetism and electromagnetic waves and the emergence of the first conscious artificial minds was barely two hundred years.
That was a cosmic blink of time, impossibly brief . . . a span of just one in five hundred billion of the expected hundred-trillion-year life span of this universe . . . or 2 x 10–11 percent.
What were the chances, the Consciousness wondered, of entering this universe within that incredibly brief period of time?
And so the Consciousness had refrained from stretching forth its will and dissolving the Earth or exploding its sun. Something was not adding up, here, something the Consciousness did not, could not understand.
Knowledge of its own ignorance was a profoundly disturbing and frustrating realization.
Even as it hesitated, the Consciousness could feel its own scope and power of will and thought evaporating. Huge swaths of the dust making up its fluid, constantly shifting internal structure were . . . gone, vaporized by the human nuclear warheads, or wafted away out of position by the expanding wave fronts of star-hot plasma. The Consciousness was feeling things it had never known before—weakness, and disorientation.
It had taken more damage than it had at first realized.
Suddenly, it needed to escape, to return to its primary body back at the entry point. Trillions of machines, each the size of a speck of dust, began flowing up and away from the planet. More explosions flared within the depths of the Consciousness, and it increased its speed. . . .
CA New York
Cislunar Space
1810 hours, TFT
“Mr. President!” Reeve called. He sounded excited. “Sir!”
“What have you got, Admiral?”
“The Rosette entity! It’s pulling back . . . abandoning Earth! It may be preparing to leave the system!”
“Excellent. And we should prepare to follow it.”
“Sir . . . is that a good idea? We’ve taken a lot of damage . . . lost a lot of ships. . . .”
Koenig’s anger flared, but he pushed it back. He nodded. “I know, Tony. And how long will it be before that thing is parked right back here on our doorstep again, with enough strength to finish us once and for all?”
“The thing’s not stupid, sir. It could be leading us into a trap. You’ve seen the size of that light display at Omega Centauri.”
“Mr. President,” Konstantin added in Koenig’s mind. “Admiral Reeve is correct. Simply throwing what’s left of our fleet into Omega Centauri—assuming that that is where the entity is going—would be an ideal way to wipe the human fleet out. I suggest careful planning.”
Outside, a swarm of human naval fighters was climbing up out of Earth’s gravity well—spacecraft off the America, off the Republic and the Guangdong, fighters deployed from bases on Earth’s surface as well.
It would take time to bring them aboard the carriers, to recover damaged fighters adrift in Earth orbit, to rearm the ones with empty weapons bays.
“Okay,” he told Reeve and the listening Konstantin. “Okay. But this was entirely too close-run an affair today. We will go after those bastards, and we will end this once and for all.”
“Yes, sir!”
Chapter Nineteen
8 February 2426
SupraQuito Naval Headquarters
USNA Synchorbital Naval Base
0915 hours, TFT
Gray hadn’t thought they were going to allow him in.
As a civilian, there should have been no place for him in SynchNav, one of the principal command centers for the USNA military forces. Some sections of the base required a security level of argent one or better. But Koenig himself had given the order, and Konstantin had provided the security authorization. After Republic had docked, he was led ashore by a pair of Navy commanders.
The Republic was now docked at the station alongside the far larger bulks of the America and the Chinese carrier Guangdong, as fighter squadrons off all three carriers patrolled far out-system, watching for a return of the Rosette entity. Konstantin, operating again out of his underground compound at Tsiolkovsky on the far side of the moon, seemed confident that the aliens had abandoned the solar system for good . . . or at least for the time being. Two hodgepodge international fleets were gathering at synchorbit, and their captains and senior bridge officers, together with representatives from a number of space-faring nations, were gathered at SynchNav’s Neil Armstrong Theater to discuss and debate what should be done next.
And they’d wanted him there as well. The officers led him through a rotating lock and into a section of the base rotating to provide spin gravity.
“What,” he asked his escorts, “is this all about?” No one had told him anything.
“Beats me, Captain,” one of the officers replied with a wry grin. “I guess you’re some sort of a big noise around here now.”
“Right,” the other added. “I mean . . . saving Earth? That’s pretty damned good for a civilian!”
A civilian. Well, yes . . . he was that. He looked down at his blue shipboard utilities and wondered if they were good enough to hold up in a room full of high-ranking officers and VIP civilians.
Problem was, saving Earth had been a decidedly group effort. He and the Republic had simply shown up . . . and their arrival had been unfashionably early at that.
The man who’d called for the meeting, Alexander Koenig, the president of the Unite
d States of North America, stood onstage. That in and of itself was a staggering breach of business-as-usual. The President might appear behind the podium at a press conference or a dinner speech, but only at times and places that could be carefully controlled by his security detail. Two armed Marines stood behind him, flanking him to either side, and Gray knew that there were plenty of Secret Service agents in and near the audience, but the informality of this address was startling.
The room was located inside one of several centrifugal hab wheels, creating a half G of spin gravity. A two-story viewall towering at his back was currently set to show the camera view from the wheel’s outer hull. A huge half-phase Earth wheeled slowly across the screen with the wheel’s rotation, replaced seconds later by the station’s tangle of beams and struts, by cylindrical and wheel-shaped habs, by the looming shapes of human warships, and by Earth once again.
“First on our agenda,” Koenig said, “something quite important. Captain Gray, of the Republic? Front and center, if you would, please.”
Gray had been conducted to a seat in the front row of the auditorium, directly in front of steps leading up to the stage. Bemused, he made his way forward and came to attention. “Mr. President?”
“A number of us believe that you, personally, were responsible for driving off the Rosette entity yesterday. I, personally, believe your timely intervention may have saved the railgun cruiser New York . . . not to mention the life of the president of the United States of North America.” He held out on his outstretched palm a small black cube that Gray instantly recognized, a nanopack. “It’s your choice, Mr. Gray,” the president said. “Yes or no?”
Gray swallowed. He hardly had to think about it, though the president’s offer had taken him by surprise. “Yes, Mr. President.”
Koenig slapped the cube against Gray’s upper chest. It had a soft and rubbery consistency, and with the shock it flattened out and began to flow over his torso. Within seconds, his civilian jumpsuit had been reworked into the black and silver of a USNA Navy dress uniform.
The rank tabs, he saw, were those of a rear admiral.
“Welcome back, Admiral Gray,” Koenig said, grinning.
A number of replies flicked through Gray’s mind, but what he blurted out raised chuckles from the audience. “Mr. President . . . was this Konstantin’s idea?”
“Actually, it was mine. But Konstantin seemed to go along with the notion. So . . . in recognition of your services to the USNA Navy, to Earth as a whole, and to me personally, you are hereby reinstated into USNA naval service at your former rank and pay. In addition . . .”
Koenig reached out and touched a spot just below the hollow of Gray’s throat. “For tactical brilliance and heroic leadership in the face of extreme adversity . . .”
Nanotechnic particles worked into the dress uniform rearranged themselves, flashing gold and blue.
“The Order of the White Star, First Class.”
Koenig saluted him. Gray saluted back. On a private in-head channel, though, Gray snapped off a quick inquiry. “Sir, you do know that our mission failed?”
“First of all,” Koenig’s voice came back over the same channel, “what makes you think this is for your Bright Light mission? The White Star is a military decoration.”
“Ah. Of course . . .”
“And second,” Koenig went on, “what makes you think you failed?”
Gray had no idea what Koenig was talking about. As the medal took full form at Gray’s throat, the room—much of it, at any rate—exploded into enthusiastic applause, mostly from the naval officers, but a few civilians were on their feet as well. Gray saw Elena Vasilyeva near the front, applauding, nodding her head.
Koenig turned and addressed the room. “Of course, we couldn’t award Admiral Gray this medal for what he did at Deneb. He was, at the time, a civilian.
“However, for his actions against the Sh’daar within the N’gai Cluster some eight hundred million years in the past—actions which resulted in a cease fire and a treaty with the Sh’daar species and the discovery of intelligent microorganisms working against Humankind—and, further, for his leadership in the mission to the Glothr rogue planet twelve million years in the future, an operation that gave us an invaluable look at our own remote futurity . . .
“. . . and for his mission leadership in this eon, at Tabby’s Star, at the Omega Centauri Cluster, and at Kapteyn’s Star, this award was well, well deserved, and long overdue.
“And to tell the truth, I don’t think the USNA Military Command or the USNA Senate will ask any questions at all if we include his recent command as a civilian out to Tabby’s Star . . . and beyond, to Deneb.”
Gray opened his mouth, about to protest once more. The Deneb mission failed. . . .
“We have it on no less than the authority of Konstantin himself that Mr. Gray, in command of the light carrier Republic, managed to make contact with an extremely advanced civilization at Deneb, a civilization he named ‘the Harvesters,’ and elicited their help in defeating the Rosette entity.”
The cheers and applause grew louder.
“Mr. President . . .” Gray began in-head.
“Shut up and take it, Admiral,” Koenig thought at him. “Konstantin’s records show that the Harvesters transported you back in time by just exactly enough to have you show up at a key point in the Battle of Earth. He thinks the Harvesters might have deliberately acted as they did so that they could provide help without humans becoming dependent on them. . . .”
“In other words,” Konstantin added in his mind, “they set it up so that humans had to help themselves, rather than sit back and let the gods do all of the work . . . and take all the glory.”
“Th-thank you, Mr. President,” Gray managed to say, and saluted. Koenig returned the salute, then gestured for him to resume his seat.
“History,” Koenig said as Gray took his seat, “is generally the most convenient narrative . . . not necessarily the most accurate.”
Had Koenig said that out loud, or over the private channel? Gray wasn’t sure.
“The Deneban expedition,” Koenig continued, speaking aloud to the entire chamber, “was made at the instigation of the Pan-Europeans and the Ministère de l’Intelligence Extraterrestre, together with the Moskva Byuro Vnezemnoy Tekhnologii. A senior xenosophontological researcher with the BVT is with us, Dr. Elena Vasilyeva. I’ll ask her to come up here and tell us why the expedition was such a resounding success. Doctor? Welcome back!”
Vasilyeva walked up the steps and took Koenig’s place behind the podium. “Thank you, Mr. President. It’s good to be back.”
She waited as the president, escorted by the two Marines, walked offstage to the right. On the screen behind her, the slowly rotating vista of Earth and the SupraQuito facility was replaced by a computer graphic of an egg-shaped device of black and silver.
Gray had seen little of Elena Vasilyeva on the flight back from the TRGA in the Tabby’s Star system. He’d assumed that she’d been discomfited by the apparent rebellion of her pet SAI, Nikolai, but she seemed composed enough now.
He’d done some checking during the voyage and learned that Vasilyeva was considered to be the leading authority on electronic intelligence and AI in Russia, a brilliant researcher in her own right, and the possessor of cerebral implants that put her up there in intelligence with Einstein, Feynman, and Plottel.
“By now,” she began with grave deliberation, “most of you will have heard of the AI unit carried by Republic to the star system of Deneb . . . the Helleslicht Modul Eins, the Bright Light Module. Within the device was a SAI similar in many respects to your own Konstantin, a class-1 artificial intellect we called Nikolai. It had, of course, been scrubbed of data that might have led a hostile intelligence back to Earth.
“Nikolai established contact with the Harvester aliens on the . . . um . . . temporary planet of Enigma. The Bright Light Module was carried there inside a Raven lander, and Nikolai used various protocols to attempt a full interf
ace with the aliens, who, we were convinced, were themselves highly advanced electronic entities. We thought those protocols had failed. . . .
“Later, however, Nikolai on its own piloted the Raven clear of the Republic and flew back toward Enigma. Analyses of its transmissions suggest that it had in fact made direct contact with the Harvesters . . . and it may even have melded with them.”
Which, of course, had been why Konstantin had fled the solar system, to avoid giving sensitive information to the Rosette entity. Gray wondered how carefully Nikolai’s memory had been “scrubbed.” AI memories were, like those of humans, holographic. He doubted that it was as simple as deleting all references to Earth in a network’s memory.
On the big screen, a panoramic view from one of Republic’s outer hull scanners showed a Raven lander moving away from the carrier, dwindling into the distance. Then . . . the Raven vanished with the slightest of ripples, as though space itself had just been twisted asunder.
“We believe,” Vasilyeva went on, “that the Harvesters accessed Nikolai’s memories at that moment. We’d hoped to make the transfer of data under better control, but the transmission seems to have had the desired effect. Shortly after this, Republic was teleported across almost two hundred light years, and over a month back in time as well.
“As President Koenig said, that jump through time was precisely enough to bring us back to the Sol System at a critical point in the Battle of Earth. Konstantin believes that our intervention in the battle may have saved both President Koenig’s life and the lives of everyone on Earth. . . .”
