by Gray Lanter
“Yes, sir.”
What Astrid said was true. Some ship had to bring those gold robots to this planet. Perhaps whoever the Masters were, they figured the robots were expendable and wouldn’t bother coming back for them. But, then, why waste fighting men, err, robots? If their ship was coming back, I didn’t want to be here. For that matter, why didn’t the original ship just stick around? I buzzed Science Officer Anson.
“How long until you are through with the prisoner?”
“About fifteen minutes, maybe. Then I was going to come down and give you my preliminary report. There is some interesting stuff here, major.”
“See if you can make it five minutes. We want to get out of here.”
“Yes, sir.”
Anson was true to his word. Five minutes later he walked into my office, a puzzled look on his face. I was used to bafflement from the gold robot but Anson usually wore an expression of scientific certainty. He eased down into a chair.
“These are very strange creatures, sir. Unlike any I’ve ever seen before.”
“Nonsense, you’ve seen everything.”
“No, not everything.”
“They looked rather ordinary to me. What do you find ‘strange’ about them? Or what’s strange about the one we have?”
Anson gave a quizzical look. “For one thing, he doesn’t want to be sent back. He has asked if he could stay with us.”
I took a long swallow of the bourbon. “He what?”
“Wants to stay. That’s what he said.”
“But we are inferior creatures who are about to be exterminated by the Masters. Why would he want to stay with us?”
“Well, since you asked my opinion I will give it to you. Because your Master Sergeant Rab and Cadet Tagashi touched him.”
When he didn’t add anything to that statement but just kept looking at me, I frowned.
“I assume there is something more to that sentence. Try to put it non-scientific language. I admire Rab as a fighter and friend. Young Cadet Tagashi has the makings of an excellent soldier but I was not aware either of them had such a mesmerizing touch.”
“OK, but this is preliminary and I mean very preliminary. I haven’t had a chance to do extensive testing on Ralph.”
“Ralph?”
“It’s as good as name as any.”
“Guess it is. Please continue.”
“Much of what he is made of has similarities to what we build robots and androids out of. Most of the characteristics are the same although the actual metals and plastic are different. The amazing thing is his brain.”
“He has a brain.”
“An undeveloped one. I know he looks like a full grown man, or robot as the case may be, but his brain is still developing.”
“Isn’t it just metals and wires and nanobytes and viruses?”
“No, not at all. The words are imprecise because we are comparing one species with another. But I have a sense he was just built recently. His mind is still forming. For all practical purposes it is, shall we say, a human brain or a human-like brain. He’s a child, although by now he’s hit adolescence.”
“Anson, that makes no sense, even if you are correct in your brief analysis of… Ralph. Whoever built killer robots built them with one purpose in mind – to kill humans, or other enemies. There is no reason to put a human brain or the equivalent of a human brain into a killing machine. They are not programmed to think. Their Masters only want their machines to display military skills. Now it is true a thinking soldier is obviously better than a non-thinking one. A thinking man or AIs can make necessary decisions on the battlefields. When situations change, he can adapt to them and change tactics. He can decide wisely on when to retreat and when to advance and when to stay where he is. But the Masters can provide thinking for their troops. From my – admittedly – very brief conversation with him, I’m guessing those things were meant to kill and only kill,” I said.
“No, I think they were meant to do more than that. They will need some type of thinking to accomplish their task. But their brains, as I noted, are still in a learning mode. The brain is aging although the metallic body is already mature.”
I filled my glass again with bourbon. “Ok, let me say I accept your theory – with reservations – but we’ll go with it. So how did touching Cadet Tagashi and Rab have to do with this?”
“First, can you describe your two people to me? Briefly.”
“Rab is the finest soldier I’ve ever served with. Intelligent, incredibly courageous, has a long list of positive traits. Loyalty, has a sense of honor and a code he lives by. He was raised Catholic but is now an atheist but a great deal of that code he lives by was determined by early Christian teaching. He also has a sense of humor. Plus, you just enjoy being around him. I don’t know Cadet Tagashi well, but I sense she is young and idealistic, full of hopes and ambition and will willingly risk her life to help and serve others. She’s just the type of soldier I want in my squadron. She’s the type of recruit veteran military officers respect and admire. She reminds us of the time that we were a bit younger and, maybe, not quite as jaded.”
He nodded. “The brain is the repository of our emotions. Not the arms, not the legs, not the heart. Ralph has the extraordinary and extremely unusual of not only sensing the emotions of those he touches but… somehow those emotions can become a part of him. The behavior traits you described in your two soldiers are now in Ralph. He has sensed their idealism, their morals and their courage and those emotions are… in the process of changing him.”
“Impossible.”
Anson shook his head. “No, it’s not. Improbable perhaps, but how many times have we seen the improbable in this line of work?”
“Often, but not as improbable as this.”
“Ralph is… I don’t want to call him half-human because the Masters may not have any idea what human is, but Ralph is human-like. His developing brain was changed by his experience with us. He doesn’t want to go back to his gold pals. He wants to stay here.”
“Does this mean that all we have to do is touch the gold killers and they will become gold saints?”
“No, not at all. If we had interacted with Ralph a week or two later, his brain would have already been formed. And I suspect, with no evidence to back this up, that the gold robots were mass produced. In mass production you can always make a mistake and something can go wrong. Whenever they built him, there was a hitch and he became more than they thought he would.”
I took a few more sips of the bourbon. And then took a few more sips.
“I would like to talk to him more and run one or two more tests on him. I’ve had very little time with Ralph but those are my tentative conclusions.”
“You better be right. We don’t want to keep him around if he has allegiance to his old comrades.”
“I don’t think that will be the case.”
“But if we do keep him around he might provide us with valuable information about the Masters, although initially he said he didn’t know too much about them. Our basic question is since the Masters are off in their own little corner of the galaxy, how do they know about humans and why do they want to exterminate them?”
“He may be of limited use in answering that question. He was built and given his orders. He may know nothing of the society or government or race that created him. He could have spent all his life in a robot-making factory, without knowing anything of the outside environment.”
“I’m drinking too much. The job does this to you,” I said, as I poured another drink. “For a simple rescue mission, this is becoming a little complicated.”
“That’s why they pay you the big bucks.”
“When I get back I’m asking for a raise.” I sighed. “So is it the official opinion of the Science Officer that we agree to Ralph’s request and keep him on board rather than sending him back to the planet?”
Anson nodded. “That is my scientific and my humanitarian opinion. Thankfully, in this case, the two lead t
o the same conclusion. I can send that to you in triplicate if you like.”’
“One electronic copy will do.” I thought for a moment. “He could be an advantage for us if we tangle with the Masters. But I’m going to keep a few guards on him, at least for a while, just in case.”
“Fine. Thank you, sir. And I would like to craft him another hand.”
“We could do that easily when we get back to our headquarters. Could we replace it while we’re on the ship?”
“Yes, I spoke to a few people in engineering. It shouldn’t be difficult to build him a replacement hand.”
“Even if the metals or whatever the Masters used are alien materials? They’d be compatible with what we have on the ship?”
“We think so. Can’t be sure until we try but there’s a good possibility we can make a fit.”
I shrugged. “Go right ahead. By the way, what exactly is Ralph? I mean is he robotic, android, synthetic with robotic parts, artificial with metal parts? Just wondering.”
“I don’t think we can define him yet, sir. Let’s say bio-metallic. A Biomet for short.”
“OK, so be it.”
He smiled and saluted. I buzzed Captain Nuyen and asked him to drop in for a visit. When he came in I asked him if he wanted a drink. He declined. He’s a tall, thin man with a quick smile. All of us are Genrich, which means our IQs would be considered at genius level in an earlier age. But Nuyen’s intelligence puts the rest of us to shame.
“Captain, have you had time to read the brief report about our visit to the planet and the interrogation of the prisoner?”
“Yes, sir. Very interesting.”
“That’s one word to describe it. I understand that Ralph has identified the planet of his origin.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I was wondering what we know about that section of space.”
“I’m glad you didn’t ask me a difficult question. That’s an easy one. Nothing, sir.”
“Nothing?” I said.
“That’s right. Nothing. Zero. We have sent out probes but they sent back nothing definitive. This is basically an unknown section of space. Anything could be out there. We certainly didn’t know if there was any life, but if Ralph can be relied upon, the Masters are living there, whoever they are.”
“Do we know the atmosphere of the planets? Could the Masters be anything like any race we know?”
“We haven’t really catalogued any stars and planets in that area. Sorry to disappoint you, sir, but two lines on a space report would give you all the information we have on the planets in that region.”
“OK, now I’m shooting in the dark here but any idea why a race which is a long, long way away from us would spend time, money and energy devising a genocidal plan against the human race?”
“I’m guessing that, for whatever reason, they just don’t like us.”
I grinned. “I hate it when you throw your superior intelligence around like that. I would have never thought of that answer.”
“Having a high IQ does have its benefit. You can spot answers right away that elude most men. Want me to tell you why the sun is hot?”
“Yes, I’ve been wondering about that. Maybe another time.”
CHAPTER 8
I decided I needed some exercise so I walked out and headed down to the second floor where Captain Higgins’s cabin was. Then turned around. Because they had been on the surface, all of the expedition would be given routine checks by our medical department. As I walked toward the door, it opened and LeMac walked out.
“Captain, mind if I walk with you?”
“Of course not. What’s on your mind, major?”
“I was wondering if you had any warning before the gold guys appeared and started shooting. Did you see their ship and was there any communication before the attack?”
He shook his head. “No, they worked and fought in silence. We had left our ship on shuttles five days before the attack. During that time all was peaceful. We were commenting on how nice the scenery was. Beautiful sunsets on the planet. On Earth there is often an orange and even reddish glow when the sun goes down. Here there is a purplish glow. Quiet amazing. Utterly stunning. More than once the entire camp just stood and stared at it. Once there was a green flash all over the horizon. That took your breath away too. From what I saw, there were not many predators on the planet. We saw one or two animals who killed for food but there’s not many of them. It was something of a paradise until the invaders came.
“Five days after we landed we received an emergency call from the ship. Officers said they were under attack and firing back. They said a black ship had swarmed in and starting firing. They had tried establishing communication to no avail. There was no reply from whatever race that was in the ship. Then a short time later we lost all communication. I started putting up some defenses but when I saw the opposition I knew we could never hold out. The gold robots landed on the planet and immediately headed for us. We did have some large bombs, which we brought down more of an afterthought than anything else. We melted some of the advance guard but the robots behind them kept coming. We were going to be annihilated. I figured our only hope was to retreat and keep retreating until help arrived. I left some target shooters hoping they might slow down the army. I think they did, to a degree, but I lost all of them. They sacrificed for the rest of us.
“There was no communication with the robots either. And we tried. We kept signaling them hoping they would talk. They wouldn’t. I don’t even know if they had any communication equipment. They don’t need it. They just kept walking toward us. They did, for reasons I don’t know, stop at night. They always halted their advance about six in the evening and started again at six in the morning. On the minute.”
“Early to bed, early to rise…”
The admiral buzzed. I answered.
“Major, we have a huge alien ship heading for us. A black ship. It’s coming fast. I don’t think it’s friendly.”
“Be right there.” I looked at Higgins. “Well, they’re not using their voices but I think golden boy’s friends are sending us a message.”
Two minutes later I was at the helm. Admiral Nikanawa was in the command chair. He started to move but I signaled him to stay seated. I am officially the commander on this mission but the admiral has much more experience in fighting space naval battles than I am, being a landlubber. I’m not about to supplant him. The main screen didn’t give much detail to our adversary. A tiny black spot moved toward us through the vastness of space.
“We know anything about it?” I asked.
“Not much, major. Just that it’s headed this way. The odd thing the ship doesn’t seem to be in any particular hurry. It’s going at regular warp speed, nothing more.”
I frowned. If the ship was manned by golden boy’s friends, the speed was understandable. Not having any emotions, they are devoid of a sense of urgency. Humans would be racing at the fastest speed possible. But not robots or androids or even AIs, which I was guessing these aliens were. Golden boy did not seem to have highly advanced intelligence but someone or something designed him; chances are they made an advanced race too and an advanced, these days, needed to be AI.
But AIs had no emotions either. No sense of being connected with their fellow machines. No lives were at stake so there was no reason to hurry. A billion of their fellow golden machines could be blown away and it would not matter to the rest of them. Overhead, I heard the admiral’s voice.
