Nebula

by Howard Marsh

  Haverford nodded. “Yeah, maybe David and Goliath, but we’re hoping for something more like a Trojan horse. Treachery and surprise are better than skill and luck. That’s why we’re banking on the AFO team to get us to a point where my ships have a fighting chance.”

  “There are also our covert agents in the governments,” Brad continued. “They’re the ones who will inform the governments if we need to launch our ships, and they’re also the ones who would coordinate the seizure of control if that becomes necessary. They’re backed up by others who live at Nebula Ops and would be deployed to the surface if and when that operation is needed. But none of those people are in the military arm. They’re in a covert operations branch of Nebula, and they report directly to Seduro and the board of directors. At this time, their main purpose is to provide security. You may already have guessed that I was assigned temporarily to that organization for some specific operations, like the recruitment of some AFO team members who we thought would need a bit of persuasion.”

  Harry certainly knew what Brad was talking about, and from Nigel’s reaction, Harry guessed that he’d been subjected to similar treatment.

  “I need to get back to Ops,” Haverford said. “It was a pleasure meeting all of you finally. I look forward to working with you.” He then shook hands with Brad and left the room.

  “So,” Brad said. “Now you have a general overview of the plan. We have copies at Ops, and you’ll be given spaces in the planning staff area so you can read up on it. I’ll introduce you around to the staff, but for now let’s just relax. It’s been a busy day.”

  They then broke and went their separate ways. Visiting VIP quarters at Nebula Two had been assigned to each of them, so they had a lot of spare time until the next morning. Since none of them had much chance to explore this base during their previous visits, they took the opportunity to look around, each going in his or her own direction, depending on their specific interests.

  *

  The next morning, all nine AFO team members plus several maintenance personnel boarded two shuttles back to Ops. When they got there, Brad left the group and went off to the planning staff area while the other eight returned to the laboratory.

  “I’ve been thinking a bit about Igor and that other new model,” Ludmila said as they walked into the lab. “I think that we may be able to use them a lot sooner than we thought. The computing architecture really isn’t all that different from the older models. There just seem to be some features that were added on top of the basic system.”

  She turned to Judith. “Let’s check it out. I’ll need your help with the electronics. There are those two extra fiber links that we’ll need to unravel, but from what I’ve seen so far, I think that you’ll be able to make sense of them once we can open them up. My suggestion is to start with the worker. It will be a bit simpler, but it should still show us all the main features that we need to deal with.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Judith replied. “When do we start?”

  “How about now? I’m sure that Brad would like to have an option to use them, and everybody seems to be in a hurry-up mode, so why wait? The two robots were moved here from Nebula Two once Doug’s mechanical work was done, so they’re ours to play with.” So off the two of them went to figure out how to deal with the two robots.

  The other six went to their permanent quarters to freshen up and then met at the mess hall for a decent breakfast, something that Nigel called a “proper breakfast” even though he usually complained about the lack of stewed prunes. None of the others shared his complaint.

  *

  Breakfast had become more or less a ritual for the nine AFO team members. No one knew how this started, but each morning at about 8:00 am, they gathered at the same table in the corner of the main mess hall and sat quietly, munching on whatever seemed to each of them to be most appetizing. Brad and Nigel were the only ones who always chose the same things to eat: Brad with his sausage, scrambled eggs, hash browns, toast, and coffee, and Nigel with what he called his proper English breakfast, minus the stewed prunes. He could be relied upon to complain about that missing ingredient.

  But this day was different. When Ludmila arrived, she was very excited and also clearly sleep-deprived. “The problem with Igor and that other robot is solved,” she announced as she approached the table. “My assistant and I have been up most of the night working on it, and we have it beat.”

  “I was wondering where you were all night,” Yuri commented. “Couldn’t it have waited ‘til morning?”

  Ludmila didn’t even hear him and just continued. “We should be able to have both of them up and running in a couple more hours. There are maybe a few thousand more lines of code to write, but most of it will just be some boiler plate that we can paste in from the library that we already use for the other ones.”

  “Calm down,” Brad replied. “Go get something to eat, and you can tell us all about it.”

  “Yeah, I can use a cup of coffee,” she said and went over to the coffee machine and poured a cup of strong Brazilian roast. Then she returned and sat down in her usual place at the table.

  The others watched quietly as she took a couple sips and then resumed her description of the night’s work.

  “It turns out that the difference with the older models isn’t all that much. Judith was able to trace the electronics paths, and the main thing that she found was that the two other fiber links go to small modules that were added to the standard components. Except for those two modules, everything else is identical, so all we needed to do was to figure out what those modules do and to check the code in the main processors against the code in the older models. That part was really easy since we have all the original code to compare against, and the new code was just a series of patches added to it. The new modules were easy too. They just provide very simple functions and very clear logical connections to the main processing.”

  “So, what do the new models do that the old ones don’t?” Yuri asked.

  “Quite a bit,” Ludmila replied. “Remember when I said that the new model of sentry looks like it’s meant to be a soldier, not just a sentry? Well, that’s a fact. We now know for certain that it does have that capability. We verified that the two new links definitely are there to add ability for coordination among robots and aliens and for supervisory commands that can override everything, and there are small changes in the main processors that look like they increase ability to use multiple types of weapons, not just that ray gun that the sentries all carry. They even installed logic like the things that Harry and Yuri developed to handle the complex interactions. The amazing thing is that the software itself seems to be pretty simple. Whoever did the programming is a real artist; it’s the best that I’ve ever seen. The elegant way that they built the code helped us figure out what it does and how to make the mods that we need. We also found that the changes to the worker robot are identical to Igor’s. Those new models of worker are also able to act as soldiers, but they wouldn’t be as good at it as the sentries.”

  “Will you be able to adapt them so we can have supervisory override when they also work with the aliens and whatever robots they bring with them?” Brad asked.

  “Even better,” Ludmila replied. “We’ll be able to hide our presence, and we’ll definitely be able to take control, just like with the older models. But we would also be able to use Igor and the other one as entry points into the command and control network among the other soldier robots if they join that network. If we took them to Mars and the aliens decided to use them to add to whatever else they brought with them, we might be able to override all the alien commands and make all the soldier robots in the network obey us. The only thing that I can’t do right now is partition the memories like in the older models. The interface with the new modules made a change in the way that data is stored and updated. I can hide anything that we do. It just wouldn’t get into storage at all. And I can get us into the alien storage areas, so we can see all the records, inc
luding all the communications and orders. But it would take more time to do the full reorganization of the storage to give us our own secret storage area. That seems to be where the only hard problems are.”

  “How long would that take,” Brad asked.

  “I’m not sure; probably at least a month or two. It’s not going to be easy.”

  Brad thought for a few seconds then congratulated Ludmila on her success. “Good work. Why don’t you forget about the partitioned memory for now? Just finish with the software to get the robots up and running without it. Do all the tests that you need to be sure that everything is OK. Don’t rush with this. It has to be right. Then you can work on the remaining problems and take whatever time you need. It looks like you already got to a point where we’ll be able to take them to Mars when we need to return for the real operation. If you have the partitioned memory by then, that’s great, but even without it, we’ll be able to use them. The partitioned memory isn’t that vital anyway, since we already have that in the three older models on Mars. We’ll be able to copy anything we need into those memories, right?”

  “Sure,” Ludmila replied. “That’s done automatically.”

  It took Ludmila and her assistants only two weeks to work out the remaining details and get Igor and the worker robot up and running. The memory wasn’t partitioned yet, but everything else checked out, so they invited the rest of the team for a demonstration.

  Yuri and Harry put on the headsets. Ludmila had suggested that they be the first people other than Ludmila and her assistants to work with the new models. She figured that they would be the best ones to understand if all the interactive software was doing what it was supposed to do. They went through a standard battery of tests and expanded to some complex coordination activities and were satisfied that these two behaved exactly the same as the earlier models did when they were under human control.

  “OK,” Ludmila said after all the others took their turns. “Now for the real demonstration. I told you that we would be able to impose supervisory overrides on anything that the aliens could do, right? Well, now we’ll show you how that works.”

  She told Yuri to put the headgear on again, this time switched to a mode that was what an alien would use. Harry was given the other headgear that was still in the human mode.

  “Start to direct Igor,” Ludmila said to Yuri. “We’ll let Harry enter the network and give a supervisory command to have it do something else and to stop responding to your commands. All you have to do is think the order, Harry. The interface software will automatically interpret it as a supervisory command. If there are any ambiguities, it will ask you if this is a supervisory override, and you can just think yes.”

  Igor started to move in response to Yuri’s command. Then it stopped, and nothing that Yuri did could make it respond to him. He couldn’t even read the memory any longer. Harry had overridden his command of the robot.

  “Fantastic,” Harry said, clearly amazed that it worked so smoothly.

  “OK, that’s step one,” Ludmila said. “The next thing we’ll do is have Harry send a supervisory command to Igor that directs it to contact every other robot on the supervisory network and forward Harry’s initial override order. Harry won’t need to do anything else. The worker will automatically drop out of alien control. Send that command now, Harry. You just have to think it and the interface will do the translations like before.”

  Once again, everything worked, much to Yuri’s frustration when he tried to get the worker to obey a simple command. It just sat still, ignoring him even though it obviously had no other tasks that might have conflicted with what he was trying to get it to do.

  Brad seemed very pleased with the demonstration. He even took a turn for himself and was impressed by how easy everything seemed to be.

  “Will these two be able to coordinate their work with the three on Mars?” he asked.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” Ludmila replied. “The coordination links are the same and the only differences are in the detailed ways that the robots respond. The newer models can do more things, but they’re backward compatible with the old ones, so a mix of models shouldn’t be a problem. The aliens apparently designed things that way, and it suits our purposes too.”

  “Good. Then we’ll add these two to the three that we already have on Mars. It could come in handy to have a couple of the newer models there, especially if the aliens bring robots with them when they arrive. I expect that they will, since that seems to be their standard procedure. If we can take control of their robots, we could have a pretty strong hand to play if things start to go bad. I’ll arrange for us to go back to the base tomorrow and deliver these two. We probably should check on things anyway. It’s been a while since we were there.”

  News would arrive later that day that would make tomorrow’s visit more than just a delivery and routine check on things.

  Chapter 8

  It was almost dinner time when the message came. It was totally unexpected, like a bolt out of the blue and seemed almost unreal, even though they had been preparing for this and knew that it would come eventually. Still, it was a shock to see it finally arrive.

  Robby had just received a request for approach authorization and guidance from a group of six alien ships. Their message stated that they were currently with the main fleet, about one light day outside the solar system, and were preparing to leave on an armed reconnaissance mission. The third planet from the star was their target of interest.

  This was the standard first step, an attempt to contact any sentries that were active in the solar system. They would wait a sufficient amount of time for any reply to reach them. If none were received, they would proceed under the assumption that the previous exploratory group had perished, along with all its robots. If that were the case, they would come prepared to engage whatever enemy might have caused the destruction of the exploratory group, while the rest of the fleet remained far enough away to make a hasty retreat if that enemy were a powerful one.

  So, the time had come. Robby sent the expected reply, with authorization to proceed and with guidance instructions to bring them to the alien base on Mars. That message would reach the alien fleet in about a day. One day after that, they’d arrive on Mars.

  The AFO had to be in place and ready for them before that, and this meant getting Igor and the worker robot up there as soon as possible and updating the memories in all five robots to make the fictitious histories stored in the alien-accessible memories look real. Fortunately, Ludmila had already written the code and stored it on a transportable memory unit, so it would go quickly once they got to the base.

  But Brad was still concerned that this was happening too quickly to be able to test everything as thoroughly as he wanted and to rehearse operations with all five robots. Ludmila, Yuri, and Harry tried to tell him that they already did all the tests that they needed and that integrating with the three robots on Mars wouldn’t present any new, unexpected problems. But Brad was Brad. His military training and his work on difficult security missions topside, as they referred to the world above the ocean, made him a bit paranoid and obsessive compulsive. He wanted all the i’s dotted and all the t’s crossed. That wasn’t going to happen this time. They would have to go to Mars and start the operation “come as you are.”

  There was no time to waste, so they loaded the robots and their gear onto two spacecraft as quickly as they could and started the short trip to Mars before midnight. They reached the base less than an hour later and began to prepare for the long stay. Once all the gear was unloaded and checked out, the two spacecraft returned to Earth. The AFO team was now on its own, and the countdown to contact with live aliens had begun.

  All of them, even Brad, were visibly nervous, but they knew their jobs and got busy setting up the equipment, getting the ops center in the bunker ready for action. From this room, they would monitor activity at the alien base only several hundred meters away and intercept communications between the aliens and their
main fleet, and they would coordinate all the AFO team’s actions to respond to whatever the aliens did that might compromise the overall plan.

  Two computers and human-to-robot headsets were connected to an interface control box with its covert link into the robot network. They were the main tools for observing and clandestinely controlling the robots. Two other computers and interfaces were running as hot spares. They were for standby backup in case there was a malfunction in the primary systems. If they weren’t needed for that function, they were available for any of the team to look into the data stored in the robots.

  Harry and Yuri were the primary operators at one of the computers, and they also had headgear to link with the robots. Ludmila and Judith were the primary operators at the other. Their job was to monitor the software and electronics and to take supervisory control to prevent or correct problems. When these four needed to take a break or when alien activities were slow, Nigel and Gladys would stand in for Harry and Yuri, and Doug and Mikio would back up Ludmila and Judith. They had rehearsed these roles many times back at Nebula Ops, but this time it was on Mars, and it was for real. They were all on edge as they waited.

  Three diagnostic computer stations had permanent links directly into the supervisory channels. They were programmed to give alarms if anything out of normal was detected in any of the robots. This relieved the team members from the burden of maintaining continuous monitoring of all details in the multi-robot network.

  There were also a number of optical and infrared sensors deployed covertly around the base and providing good views of the entire area outside the aliens’ underground operations center. Their outputs were sent to another six computers and could be selectively called up and displayed on another six screens.

  Alien communications would be intercepted by the five early model robots that had been configured with partitioned storage. Ludmila had programmed them to monitor all alien channels and to route the messages into the human-accessible storage area. From there, the stored data could be read through any of the computers connected to the robots. They would be able to read the enemy’s “mail” as quickly as the data and language translations could be processed.