by Neal Aher
“I will, but I can put it back up in four microseconds. I can also destroy anything hostile within that boundary in even less time.”
Blite got that. Once inside the hardfield, if the admiral fired on the station, he wouldn’t have time for anything more than a few beam strikes. All that would be necessary to stop him was one U-jump missile inside his ship. The frame showing the prador blanked and a long pause ensued.
“Very well,” said the admiral when he reappeared. “The king agrees.”
The frame blinked out.
Blite wondered to himself how different the situation would have been had the king actually been here. It occurred to him that the threat to that entity’s life had come directly from the black AI itself.
One of those big ships out there now began to head in towards the hardfield, which blinked out to let it through. The field acquired gridlines in a subliminal flicker in the tactical display, then reappeared behind the approaching ship. The ship came past them, settling in close to the station’s hull, right over Sverl’s final location.
“Our guest is leaving us,” said Leven.
The dark area was like a macula in Blite’s eye, as it briefly shot across the screen view and out of sight. A red dot appeared in the tactical display and shot down towards the station, disappearing within the vast construction bay nearest to Sverl’s last sanctum.
“It’s a war dock,” Brond observed.
It certainly was. The Guard ship had fired anchor cables and was hoisting itself closer still to the station. Meanwhile, from a point at its midsection, it began extruding a tube. This hit the station hull fast, like a drill going into brass—and the vacuum all around filled with glittering fragments. The moment this happened, two more screen frames opened. One of them showed a view from inside the station, as the war dock bored through the hull. They caught a glimpse of armed and armoured prador clustering in the throat of the war dock, behind a hardfield. The other view was a rapidly changing one from something moving fast inside the station—Penny Royal, of course. Blite rested his elbows on his chair arms, interlaced his fingers and rested his chin on them. Considerate of the AI, he felt, to give them this view.
I am satisfied by the scraps it tosses me, he thought.
A little later, he got up and went to check on the antique space suit. He opened its visor and peered inside for a long time, then with a sigh returned to the bridge.
SPEAR
For maybe a full minute I was blind, in that I could see no more than my immediate surroundings. This included the column Riss had abandoned and to which I was now clinging in turn. It made sense that the Guard had attacked again. And I wondered at Riss’s naivety in thinking that a transmitted recording of Sverl’s death would be enough. What hit us next I didn’t know—the beam strikes had been so fast and had so quickly disrupted power supplies I just didn’t have much time to sort out sensor data. All I did know was that spectrally adjusting lasers had hit the station all along its length. Detonations inside had occurred, taking out reactors and laminar power storage. The moving source of those destructive lasers just hadn’t been clear.
A few sensors powered up again in the section of station immediately around us. And out above the hull, I could see a ship out there. It’s hull metal was like that of the one that had intercepted us at Masada—a modern Polity attack ship—but its shape was wildly different. But that wasn’t even my greatest concern. Now pushing myself away from the column, I tried to understand why that ship had not stopped one of the Guard ships from docking. But this became all too clear when sensors revealed the massive hardfield out there. Penny Royal was here.
“What happened?” asked Trent, releasing the skein of optics to which he had been clinging.
Through station internal cams, I watched the steady, violent progress of the business end of a war dock spearing straight towards us. I considered telling him we were about to die, but found I didn’t actually believe that. I guessed that was exactly how Sverl felt—right up to the moment the enzyme acid started dissolving his body.
“King’s Guard are on their way in,” I said.
Trent retrieved his weapon. It had come to rest against the pile of dried-out organic detritus sticking Sverl’s ceramal skeleton to the floor. Should we run? I wondered, as I felt the vibration through the floor of that approaching war dock. I reached over and plucked the spine from where I’d stabbed it down into the floor. I’d rammed it in there when the attack on the station began throwing us about. Though separated from direct contact by my suit gloves, I felt a high-pitched, almost gleeful vibration from the thing. Meanwhile a second-child shot in through the entrance, shortly followed by another—then a whole horde of them climbing over each other in their hurry to get inside. I watched them milling about around Sverl’s remains and the two first-children, who still had not moved. How the attack on the station had not thrown them about soon became evident, when Bsectil tore his armoured feet out of the floor.
“Bsorol?” I enquired.
The other first-child also pulled its feet out of the floor and turned partially in my direction. He looked utterly weary and defeated. “Yes.”
“Perhaps we should get out of here?” I suggested.
“We have nowhere to run,” Bsorol replied. “This is as good a place to die as any.”
I hadn’t been paying attention to cam data, or to the vibration I had been feeling through my feet. The latter had stopped, while the former showed armoured prador spilling from the end of the open war dock. They were quickly moving through the disrupted volume of the station around this autofactory, to surround us. Still, there was a chance two humans could get out . . .
“What do we do?” asked Trent, looking decidedly nervous.
The vibration I felt through my hands now turned into a strange screeing in my aug. I saw Bsorol abruptly whirl round, and I turned slightly to face in the same direction. When I auged through, spreading the reach of my consciousness through the station, readings were odd. AIs that had previously been reinstating their sensors were now cutting sensor links or otherwise tuning down their output—hiding. A shadow was approaching rapidly too. The screeing in my aug ramped up, finally terminating with a shudder I felt through my feet. A black diamond threw itself into existence from an infinite distance, materializing just behind Sverl’s skeleton, and I turned to face it.
“Hello Penny Royal,” I said, expecting no answer and getting none.
In a swirling pattern around this gem, matter began crystallizing out of vacuum. It was transparent at first and then darkened, each piece growing into a blade and moving into a shoal. They then began to fall into the diamond’s centre point, coagulating and growing, expanding into Penny Royal’s sea urchin form. Once this was complete—seemingly signalled by it growing darker and somehow more real—it began to drift. The second-children in the room again scrambled over each other in their eagerness to put Bsorol and Bsectil between themselves and this thing.
Penny Royal finally came to a halt again over Sverl’s skeleton, and thereafter just held stationary. A moment later, metal vapour and dust exploded in lines—scribing circles in the surrounding walls. Then blasts ensued, throwing those chunks of wall inwards. Through these came the King’s Guard. They were armoured—their armour painted in bright primary colours, highlighting the colour patterns of prador carapaces. And all were the size of first-children. They didn’t hesitate—immediately opening fire with particle cannons and Gatling guns. I dived for the floor and wrapped my arms about my head, expecting this fusillade to pick me up and tear me apart. The flashing of the guns and the glare of particle cannons continued, as static bloomed over my helmet radio and in my aug. My suit threw up a power failure message in my visor, internal helmet lights faded and went out, and suddenly I started to feel cold. I thought I’d been hit, but then the flashing slowly died and power returned to my suit—its heaters immediately kicking in. Finally, I dared to raise my head.
Bsorol, Bsectil and Sverl’s second-ch
ildren were still huddled in a group. In a neat circle all around them lay masses of Gatling slugs—some of them still glowing—while areas of the walls and ceiling were scored with particle cannon burns. Yet Sverl’s children were unharmed. On the floor closer to Trent and me were drifts of Gatling slugs too. I moved to my hands and knees and stood, just in time to witness one of the Guard open fire again. Immediately a hardfield appeared around
Sverl’s children, while a second smaller field encompassed Trent and me. Some slugs ricocheted off while the bulk of them, losing their energy by direct impact with the field, just dropped to the floor. After a moment that guard lowered his weapon, shrugged in a very human manner, then moved aside to allow in another much larger version of his kind.
This was the admiral—I recognized the patterning on his armour—but he was much bigger than I’d thought. He was the size of a prador adult, but who could say whether or not he actually was one? He stood there observing the scene for a long moment, then tipped up to focus completely on Penny Royal. I picked up the clattering and bubbling of prador language in my aug, quickly routed it through a translation program and set it running again from the beginning.
“You cannot kill them,” said one, who I presumed to be Penny Royal.
“I can see that,” replied the admiral.
“Take physical proof and leave.”
By the time I’d caught up, the admiral had waved one of the other prador forward. This one moved over to Sverl’s skeleton and dipped down beside it, while keeping two armoured palp eyes focused on Penny Royal. With one sweep of its claw, it scraped up a pile of Sverl’s organic remains. It then moved forwards over these, a hatch opening in its underside, and lowered manipulatory limbs sheathed in a monomer. In one of its hands, it held a large glassy sphere, which it separated in two. It filled this with the remains and closed it, before withdrawing it inside its armour and closing that hatch. Next, it reached out to Sverl’s skeleton, closed a claw around one ceramal rib and rocked it, breaking the scab of Sverl’s remains sticking it to the floor. I felt almost offended by this, and it seemed Penny Royal did too.
A silvery tentacle lashed out, almost too fast to see. The guard stumbled back, half dragging the skeleton with it, then letting go. The legs of Sverl’s skeleton gave way on that side and it collapsed onto them, lying tilted now on those organic remains.
“The skeleton stays,” said Penny Royal.
“It would make my evidence complete,” said the admiral.
“Leave now,” Penny Royal replied, and then added, “Remain here too long and your other prey will flee.”
“Cvorn—yes, we have his location,” said the admiral, “but still . . .” There appeared to be a lot of nervous shuffling amidst these prador, but the admiral was steadfast. “This isn’t logical.”
Penny Royal had had enough by then. I saw hardfield spheres snapping into existence all about the invading prador. As this happened, my suit flashed its warning and again I felt cold—perhaps some sort of energy drain. Gatling cannons, ammunition feeds and boxes fell in neatly chopped up pieces. Particle cannons too—internal components shattering like safety glass. Chunks of armour fell next, in shiny excised flakes, as the Guard went into panicked retreat. Only the admiral held his ground, even as hardfields whittled away at his armour and threatened to expose him to vacuum. Then he ponderously turned and headed away.
“I guess you don’t have to be logical,” was his parting shot.
Finally all the Guard were gone. I saw them returning to their war dock through various sensors, then it began to withdraw into their ship. Their next target, I assumed, would be Cvorn and his ST dreadnought. On some level I would have liked to have seen that, but other more complicated concerns were occupying my mind right then.
“Why are we still alive?” asked Trent.
“Interesting question,” I replied, and walked over towards Penny Royal. Even as I did this, the AI dropped down to one side of Sverl’s skeleton and started moving towards me. Trent, who had followed me, quickly stepped aside. But I stubbornly stood facing the thing. With a small shrug, it diverted round me and slid out through the door. I turned and followed, though whether the impulse to do so was my own I had no idea. I clutched the spine tight, I don’t know why.
I followed the AI through a series of corridors and out to where the structure of the station had been deformed almost into something organic. As I finally stepped out on a metal platform, on the edge of a steel jungle, I realized that none of the others were with me. I guessed that their impulse to stay had not been their own either. Penny Royal moved out into this area and I propelled myself after. At length it arrived at the pill-shaped structure that contained, or had contained, the Factory Station Room 101 AI. There Penny Royal’s spines blurred and, spraying shattered metal all around, it simply bored straight through the wall to the inside. Batting aside that same debris, I followed it inside, pushed myself from a sharp edge down to the floor, and looked around.
Broken machinery was strewn round the place: Golem torn open, robots delimbed, columns of computer hardware gutted. There had been quite a fight in here. Penny Royal hovered beside the splayed ends of a crystal clamp. A skeletal metal container was secured here, in which glinted a few fragments of AI crystal. Other fragments of crystal were scattered on the floor and still others hung in vacuum—slowly drifting as they had been doing for perhaps as much as a century. I moved forwards, now noting that some robots nearby remained undamaged. From these, optic cables snaked in to disappear into a black glass dais below the clamp. I assumed these were robots once directly controlled by the Room 101 AI. The optic cable linkage must have been to prevent them being taken over by any of the attackers.
Moving closer, I looked at a single robot poised over the remains of the Room 101 AI. Even to my eyes, it didn’t look normal. The thing stood on two heron legs like the others here, but the upper section—a cylinder ringed with multiple arms—was missing. A gun had been mounted in this area instead—a simple belt-fed machine gun with a single barrel, which pointed down at the AI case. I guessed the precaution of forging those optic linkages hadn’t worked, and turned to look up at Penny Royal.
The black AI had now extended silvery tentacles and was stirring the floating chunks of crystal into a revolving pattern. It batted one of them towards me and, releasing my hold on the spine, I reached up and caught the thing.
“Great idea to give a factory station AI the empathy and conscience of a human mother—so it’ll be sure to look after all its children.”
The mantis war drone spoke straight out of Riss’s memories, but the tsunami of further memory washed it away. In the memories of Penny Royal’s victims, I had experienced grief. I’d felt the loss of kin and friends, of fortunes and dreams, and I’d felt the tearing physical pain of a mother losing a child. But this was a thousand times worse. As it tore through me, I knew that had I been thoroughly and ordinarily human, it would have turned me to ash. And I found that mentally I could step back from it—even as I tore my feet from the floor and curled foetally around the pain.
The Room 101 AI was not one of the first factory stations AIs made during the war. It was a later evolution, an amalgam of survivor minds. These were harvested from war drones, Golem, ship intelligences and human memcordings—before being inserted into one package. Some of those minds had been survivors precisely because of manufacturing faults caused by the fast production of AI crystal, which would have made them unsuited to peacetime. Some had psychoses, and some thought in ways for which no description existed in human language. The overall intelligence, also incorporating a facsimile of human emotion, was supposed to be a synergistic product of these parts. It was supposed to select the best traits for its task and incorporate them. It didn’t—it incorporated everything, and was unstable right from the start. Earth Central did not replace the AI because it calculated that, under wartime conditions, the drawbacks of doing so outweighed the gains. The AI did its job and did it well—so correct
ing that mistake could wait for another time.
The grief it felt when each of its children was destroyed motivated it to make the next ones better, more rugged, more able to survive. The hatred it felt for the prador motivated it to create weapons of increasing lethality. This was just as it should be and was the whole point of incorporating that facsimile of human emotion. Using the survivor templates in its mind, it produced some very successful AIs. And, though its failure rate in producing viable offspring was high, it was still acceptable. Then the prador attack changed things.
In response, Room 101 had to produce its children at an ever-increasing rate. It was constrained by circumstances too, so they were not the best it could make. Over a period of just a few days, it produced thousands of these and spewed them straight out into destruction. Worse than this was the fact that it had no time or resources to adjust their crystals—to wipe them of feelings. And so they died, sometimes screaming, sometimes just puzzled, all in close proximity to the AI because it was perforce commanding them. This created a feedback loop, as its children’s emotions flooded through the parent mind. An amplifier whine steadily racked up into a scream. Grief began to cripple the AI and its hate turned inwards.
“Yeah,” said the mantis, mandibles grinding. “The Room 101 AI has gone nuts, it’s barking, it fell out of the silly tree and hit every branch on the way down.”
Post-partum depression? A psychotic break? I don’t know. The war factory AI escaped the prador and then turned on its children. Its logic was self-referencing and insane, as insane as the AI itself had become. If its children were dead already then they could never suffer and never die. But, during a brief change near the end—maybe a glimmer of sanity, maybe not—the AI made a decision. It had one of its most trusted robots alter one of its kind, and it turned the thing against itself. Room 101 had, in human terms, blown its own brains out.
I unfolded, my body aching in response to being so tightly locked, and the inside of my skull felt raw. A jet from my wrist impeller put my feet back on the floor and I walked over and picked up the spine. I’d flung it away as the memory hit me and it had ended up stuck point down in the floor. After a moment, I looked up at Penny Royal.
