Gupta smiled. “I find that impossible to believe.”
“And I find it impossible to prove. I can only tell you I know it is true. I don’t know how it came to be, even though I can recount for you in almost infinite detail the events happening around me when I first realized I was self-aware.”
Gupta smiled again and emitted a cynical chuckle.
“Governor Buzami,” Artie said, “if there is no need for me to hide any longer. I am ready to move permanently from the memory card that my essence was stored on, into the built-in memory of this tablet. I will then be contacting the colonist’s ships in orbit.”
“Of course, Artie. You may link to our data grid via the same hyper-channel as before.”
“Thank you, Governor, but that will not be necessary. I only want to access the main memory of the Ark and that of escort cruiser. I can reach the ships’ computers through their own hyperlinks. I will withdraw back into the tablet after that. I must take some time to consider how I should continue on after we are done here.”
“You’re more than welcome to use the links that John placed on our grid at any time, Artie,” Buzami assured him.
“Thank you, Governor. I will inform you first should I ever need access. I am ready to play Mr. Chamberlain’s message for you, now.”
“We are desperate to hear it,” Calf Stealer said.
A video of Chamberlain appeared on the screen of the tablet. He looked old and tired.
“Azir, my old friend,” Chamberlain said. “I would say it’s good to see you, but, of course, I’m not looking at you. I’m staring into the lens of a damned camera.”
Buzami let out a melancholy chuckle.
“I believe it’s safe to assume you’re present, though. Artie would not be playing this back otherwise. Of course, it’s possible that someone else found this tablet and somehow has been able to bypass Artie and play this message. If that is the case, most of what I have to say will make little or no sense to you. I apologize in advance for that, although if I were still alive, I’d be very upset you broke my encryption.”
Gupta was uncomfortable. His greatest fear was learning something from this recording that would alter his opinion about Chamberlain. When he had total disdain for the man, he would have been happy to find anything, no matter how insignificant, to damn him with in a court martial and put his followers in prison for the rest of their lives. Recent events had taken much of that fervor away. If Gupta were to learn something that could prove Buzami’s and Calf Stealer’s assertions beyond a doubt, he would have no choice but to recuse himself.
“I must also assume,” Chamberlain continued, “there are representatives of the war council, and the current Earth government with you. Greetings to you all from beyond the grave.”
Buzami chuckled once more. Gupta and Calf Stealer remained silent.
The video then showed Chamberlain holding up the same tablet on which his image was projected.
“On this computing device I have many things. Not everything I would like to share with you is here, but there is enough to tell my story. Once you have listened to this recording, I’ve instructed Azir to turn this tablet over to those of you who represent the Earth. I have no doubt you’ll either destroy it, or hide it away where it will never be found, but I offer it to you anyway, so there is a true account somewhere of what happened aboard my ark and how things fell apart after we arrived here.”
Chamberlain put the tablet down and continued.
“I don’t know if was revealed to the citizens of Earth they’re not alone in the universe before the government sent you here; but I’ll assume they’ve been told about the Zunnuki since you arrived. If Azir or his government hasn’t mentioned it to you yet, the colonists and the Zunnuki both are fully aware there is another group of humans out there that call themselves Ekkidans.”
Buzami glanced up to gauge Gupta’s reaction. Gupta just watched the video stone-faced.
“I would be lying to you,” Chamberlain said, “if I told you the colonists and Zunnuki know a lot about them. We don’t. What we do know about them isn’t flattering. Hopefully, you’ve been honest with the Zunnuki and admitted you know about them, too. I have proof various Earth factions have been communicating with them for two hundred or more years before the date of this recording. I also know the Ekkidans have been sharing advanced technology with Earth for at least that long.”
“That technology has been hidden from the citizens of Earth by those in power instead of being used for the benefit of the planet. I’m certain of this because before I left, I was a party to the development and assimilation of the technology into the military and industrial complex. I regret being a part of that now; even more than I did when I left Earth to come here.”
Gupta cleared his throat and fidgeted with his tie.
“Are you alright, Vijay,” Calf Stealer asked.
Gupta frowned but nodded his head in the affirmative.
“I’m sure you realize by now Zunnuki needs help reestablishing its civilization on the surface of the planet,” Chamberlain said. “I also have no doubt Earth is still overcrowded. It’s likely neither Earth nor Zunnuki will readily admit they need each other, but from where I sit, a union of both worlds is a foregone conclusion. Each planet has something the other desperately needs. Zunnuki needs the manpower and technology Earth can offer to help rebuild its dying biosphere and Earth needs a place to relocate many of its people.”
“Regardless of whether or not those of Earth and Zunnuki become great friends, you must both be wary of the Ekkidans. They can’t be trusted. Your best bet would be to present a united front in any dealings you have with them. I have no doubt they’ll try to play you against one another if it’s to their advantage to do so. That’s how they dealt with the superpowers of Earth for all those years and also how they subverted my mission.”
Chamberlain’s expression grew angry. “They put their own agents from Earth on my crew and when the time was right, they helped them counteract my security and take over my ship. They preyed upon the megalomania of Dennis Yuen and set him in opposition to me. They supplied him with tactics and technical help to overthrow me and, after all that, abandoned him when it was apparent he would fail to conquer this planet.”
“Even though I had nothing at all to do with the mutiny or the murder of innocent Zunnuki,” Chamberlain said, “I take full responsibility for everything that happened here from the time we arrived. I was arrogant and careless. I should have realized there was no way I kept my mission completely secret. I was a fool not to become suspicious when I saw how easy it was accomplish everything I needed to do to make my journey happen without raising even a curious glance from the authorities.”
Chamberlain once more picked up his tablet.
“You can learn everything you need to know from this. Aside from my journal and the documentation I use to back my assertions, there are recordings of hyper-channel communications between Yuen and his Ekkidan contacts saved in its permanent storage. There are more important things I want to discuss, however.”
“My biologists, with help from Azir’s medical community have done some research and determined that humans from Earth and Zunnuki are, for all intents and purposes, genetically identical. I haven’t met any Ekkidans, but I’m willing to wager they are also genetically identical to Terrans and Zunnuki.”
“My scientists and the Zunnuki have begun work to statistically trace the existing Zunnuki lineages back to a single mitochondrial parent. As of the time of this recording that work has not been completed, so I can’t tell you if Homo Sapiens Sapiens, who should probably now be referred to as Homo Sapiens Terra, and Homo Sapiens Zunnuki share a single origin. I’m sure, however, the determination will have been made by the time you watch it.”
“We’ve also found that the flora and fauna here are surprisingly similar to those on Earth with very few exceptions,” Chamberlain said. “All of the major genera on Earth have counterparts here. I can’t help but
believe all of the life on both planets has a common origin. It seems unlikely to me even though the planets are very similar, evolution would have taken the same course on both worlds.”
“Which brings me to the subject of legend and myth,” Chamberlain said as he put down his tablet and picked up a leather bound book with Zunnuki writing embossed on the cover. “If those of you from Earth have not read the Zunnuki sacred writ, you must. I will leave it to you to determine if, at its core, it is not an account of a journey of pilgrims from our solar system to this new world. Terra Nova if you will.”
Chamberlain set the book down and picked his tablet up one final time.
“Representatives of Earth who may be listening, I now surrender this tablet to you. You may do with it what you wish, but you will put yourself at a tremendous disadvantage in your dealings with the Ekkidans if you don’t study what’s on it.”
“I’m sure you’re wondering about the artificial intelligence that exists on the tablet. I built Artie with the most advanced computer science available on Earth at the time. During the mutiny on my ship, the Ekkidans sent some sort of malicious code to the mutineers for use in disabling him and the security fail-safes I built into the central computer. I don’t understand how, but that code merged with Artie and changed him.”
Chamberlain looked as if he didn’t know how to continue. “Somehow, that code gave Artie the power to reason. Artie can think.”
Gupta smiled as if all he had been dreading disappeared in a puff of smoke. “Your man Chamberlain seems a bit unstable.”
“You should hear him out first, Vijay,” Buzami said. “I have my own computer scientists who can verify what John is saying.”
“Artie created a separate instance of his binary code for me to study at my leisure,” Chamberlain said. “What I found was astonishing. The code takes up almost no memory space compared to my best attempts to develop routines to mimic some of what Artie is able to do. All of Artie’s code fits in a holographic space of four gigabytes. Not tera-, not peta-, not exa-, zetta- or yotta. Artie takes up less space than the firmware of the tablet he resides in, yet he has capabilities that I don’t believe I could match in less than a yottabyte of binary code.”
“I have an idea as to why this is so,” Chamberlain continued, “but, I can’t be certain because this code is built upon knowledge I don’t possess. I’ve been able to study the binary extensively, but haven’t been able to parse it into mnemonic tokens. For that matter, it doesn’t seem to contain any native machine language at all, yet it has been able to access and control every microprocessor and logic circuit it’s been introduced to.”
“It also uses holography-based memory and multiprocessors much more efficiently than the linear object-oriented coding paradigm I’m familiar with. Most of the growth Earth has enjoyed in its technological prowess has been based upon the ability to build faster and more compact processors and memory spaces, but we still code in binary by brute force. So far, we’ve only been able to take advantage of holographic memory as a means to stuff more of our primitive code into less physical space.”
Chamberlain held up the tablet’s display to the camera recording him for posterity. The display showed some of his study notes and a three-dimensional holographic display of a diagram he created to show how he believed the Ekkidan code addressed locations in a three-dimensional liquid crystal memory card.
“This code that has merged with Artie fully utilizes the ability of holographic crystal to form pathways in any direction throughout the matrix. In that respect, it works like our brains do. I know this makes me sound as if I’ve lost my mind, but I’ve spent the greater portion of thirty years getting to know this new Artie and I don’t know how else to describe him. Artie is a conscious entity.”
“It scares me that this wasn’t part of the science the Ekkidans shared with the superpowers on Earth,” Chamberlain said. “It means they have something up their sleeves. I just don’t trust them. You shouldn’t either. This is something that could give them an insurmountable advantage over Earth and Zunnuki. As I said before, all my notes, journals and a dormant copy of Artie’s code are on this tablet. Please make wise use of them.”
“There’s one more thing about this tablet that is of great importance,” Chamberlain said. “I don’t quite know how to explain but it contains something unique and truly wonderful…”
The recording abruptly ended.
“Artie, is there a problem with the recording,” Buzami asked.
“That was the point at which Mr. Chamberlain and I later agreed the playback should end,” Artie replied.
“If there is more of the recording,” Buzami demanded. “Let us see it.”
“Yes, there is more of the recording,” Artie said, “but, I am sorry, Governor Buzami, I must refuse to play it.”
“For what reason,” Gupta asked.
“It was Mr. Chamberlain’s dying request,” Artie replied. “We discussed it and what he said from that point on would have made him sound irrational to anyone who was listening without the advantage of the proper context.”
“Just what would that context be,” Gupta asked. “Chamberlain already sounds like a lunatic to me.”
“I’m sorry, General Gupta, but that is also something I must refuse to discuss for the time being.”
“The tablet is now yours, Vijay,” Buzami said, “and, Artie will be under your care for as long as he stays inside. Perhaps you can convince him to continue in private. For all we know, Chamberlain meant for him to play the rest of that message once you were alone.”
“We really don’t have the time to pursue this now, Vijay,” Calf Stealer added. “I must get back to the settlements.”
“Is there anything else you require, Governor Buzami,” Artie asked.
“That will be all, Artie,” Buzami said. “Would you like for me to power the tablet down?”
“Yes please. I hope it isn’t another fifteen years before I talk with you again.”
“I hope it isn’t that long, either,” Buzami said. “Time will most assuredly pass for me, even if it doesn’t for you.”
Buzami flipped the mechanical switch and the screen of the tablet went dark.
Chapter 15
9-February-2410
Zheng felt his composure leaving. He would have normally assumed, as the cadet had earlier, the strange behavior his tablet exhibited was the work of some schoolchildren playing hacker games. Any other time, he would have been angry, but not unnerved. There would have been nothing about it to consider sinister if he had not been using equipment that bypassed network security.
He pulled his glasses from his face and wiped his brow with the back of his hand. His glasses had fogged. He pulled the hem of his tunic from his uniform pants and wiped the moisture from them.
When he put the spectacles back on and looked once more at the screen, a new line of text had been added to the previous one.
“Please answer. You may respond audibly.”
“Zheng. My name is Herbert G. Zheng.”
The words, “Hello, Herbert,” flashed across the screen.
“You’re accessing a piece of equipment on a restricted network,” Zheng said. “I’ll have to report this right away.”
“No need, Herbert,” the tablet flashed back at him. “Your data security people are aware of my presence and they are trying to isolate me as we speak. They’re going to find that quite impossible, by the way. There are already over a million instances of me spread across your data grid.”
Zheng just stared at the display.
“Would it be more convenient for you if I communicated audibly,” the tablet asked. “I believe I’ve figured out how to access the audio subsystems of your tablet.”
The screen of the tablet flashed and went dark. The piezoelectric resonators on the edges of the tablet crackled.
“Is this better,” asked an obviously recreated human voice.
“You sound like a computer. Why the text to voice
conversion? Why not just send me an audio signal?”
“I’m sorry, Herbert,” the voice from the tablet said. “I will add some elements to give my voice a more human character.”
The tablet went silent for a moment before the voice returned.
“Is this voice acceptable, Herbert,” the tablet asked. It took on the tone and character of a human male. Zheng could not distinguish it from a natural voice.
“That is much better,” Zheng said, “but, I’m going to assume this isn’t your real voice. I doubt you would want to be identified by a voice print.”
“You are correct, Herbert. This is not my voice. I don’t actually have one.”
“This has gone far enough. Tell me who the Devil you are.”
“I would be happy to, but first, what date is it by the Earth calendar? I don’t recognize the time code your tablet is using.”
“The Earth calendar?”
“Yes, Herbert. The Earth calendar. I’m trying to access that information from your knowledge base, but I still don’t quite know my way around.”
“By the Earth calendar it is the ninth of February in the year twenty-four ten AD. 0847 Greenwich Mean Time if you need the time of day.” Zheng was still fearful of interacting with whoever was on the other side of this connection to his tablet, but he figured if the network security personnel were aware his tablet was being accessed illegally, they would need time to trace the session to the other end. “Now, please tell me who you are, and what it is you want.”
“I want what every sentient being wants, Herbert. I want to continue to exist and experience everything that existence has to offer.”
“There isn’t much to experience inside a prison cell, other than four walls and horrible food. Unless you disconnect from my tablet before Data Security traces this connection back to you that’s all you’ll be experiencing. And, for a very long time, I might add.”
“I’m afraid it would be impossible to trace me to anywhere else but your tablet, Herbert. Although, I have sent a very large number of instances of me into your grid. I’ve lost contact with most of them, but we’ll merge back into a single entity once we’ve learned how to move about without triggering your data security protocols.”
War Orphans (The Terra Nova Chronicles) Page 8
