Old Guy and the Planet of Eternal Night (An Old Guy/Cybertank Adventure Book 6)

by Timothy J. Gawne

  I wonder what else might have been buried and lost in this Fortress? When I get back to central records I’m going to have to check the old plans, and look for anomalies. I’ll have to bet Harlan that I find something interesting before he does.

  The hours passed. It’s possible the jailers had forgotten about us, but given how little action this place has seen, I think not. Probably they are furiously meeting and arguing over how to proceed. Besides, letting people sit in detention is a classic power trip, a way to demonstrate who’s in charge and soften them up. It won’t work on us though. I got tired of waiting and decided to fall completely asleep myself.

  My watch-dog subroutine woke me up as the guards entered the room outside the cell. I knocked on Harlan’s helmet and he stirred and sat up as well. The guards entered the room, then unlocked the cell and escorted us to an interrogation room. There were two officials dressed in threadbare gray suits. They asked us questions, but they didn’t seem to care about our answers. We answered truthfully – why not? – but the conversation veered into bizarre tangents about the shipping lanes to Fomalhaut and sanctions on the Tau Ceti Federation… when we expressed no knowledge of such things, and even questioned their existence, the official looked irritated and then continued on as if we had given different answers.

  I think I know what happened here, but I need a little more information to be sure.

  Eventually the official was done with us, and we were escorted back to our cells. Harlan announced that he was starting to get bored and was thinking of breaking out, but I said no, let’s see where this leads.

  A few more hours went by, and this time we were escorted into an audience with the president herself. Normally that would require going through a minimum of two separate security stations, but there was only the one working in the central zone, so we went through the same station twice. There was a heated discussion, and they made us go through the same station a third time, just to make sure. The fact that one of us was a heavily armored suit who could easily kill everyone here bare-handed (figure of speech) did not attract any attention. The regulations said we had to be screened – we were screened. And having been officially screened it was all good.

  We ended up in large conference room. I could tell that at one time it must have been impressive, at least for a bare-bones off-world colony, but like everything else it had fallen into decay. The exotic hardwood inlays on the central table had warped and delaminated, the fine leather on the high-backed executive chairs had cracked and the stitching was starting to give out…

  There were six officious looking officials seated around the table, three male and three female, all in various stages of physical decrepitude. The two guards were standing in the back of the room trying to look imposing but failing miserably. One got tired and had to sit down in a folding chair of rusted metal, the other remained standing but only by dint of leaning against the wall and holding on to a shelf.

  What really caught my attention was the president, sitting at the table in an especially high-backed chair, because she was dead. Oh, she wasn’t badly preserved – unlike the dead Hiram Bentholam she had been crudely embalmed, and maintained a semblance of smooth skin and full lips – but she was clearly dead, glass eyes staring ahead, pinned in place in her high-backed chair.

  Sometimes in Neoliberal society, the best play is to be dead. Doubtless there were many ambitious sharks who would want to take her place… but they were jockeying for position, always wanting to be the right-hand person. A live person can be assassinated or interrogated or threatened. A dead person is immune to such things. And so the society had revolved around a dead carcass…

  The six officials began a vigorous debate about trade routes, and high finance, and diplomacy… all for non-existent empires and planetary systems. They were going to send a message, and employ carefully calibrated kinetic actions, and support endogenous non-governmental organizations whose mission statements corresponded with the cross-cutting thrust areas of focus that had been agreed upon in the last meeting of the under-council on foreign relations… Harlan and I, they ignored completely.

  There were large video screens up on the wall, and they were showing more displays from the strategy game Galactic Empires: Provinces in Revolt. And then I got it. I contacted Harlan on our private radio link.

  You realize what happened here?

  “Maybe, but it’s so bizarre that I am having trouble accepting it. Why don’t you tell me?”

  When the rupture occurred, and Trellen cut the presidential palace off from the rest of the colony, what do you think the president’s aides reported?

  “That there had been a revolt and the military had cut the presidential palace off from the rest of the colony?”

  You’re thinking like a soldier. Think like a Neoliberal. Accurate reporting would have meant that someone would have to be blamed. They would lose their job, and their status. No, they reported that the attack had been successfully beaten off due to brilliant planning and that the President was a hero and she would have been prepped for a major speech. All the polls would have shown that her popularity had soared.

  “But there were no speeches…”

  Not that made it out to the rest of the colony. I’m sure there were in here, though. And once that falsehood had started, they were locked in. They kept the president in a bubble – being Neoliberals they would have had a lot of practice at this, it wasn’t that big of a step – and the fantasies about what was happening outside kept spinning farther and farther away from reality. Eventually someone decided to use an existing strategy game, so that they wouldn’t need to keep making stuff up and it would be internally consistent.

  “And then after some centuries the president died… but the system had become so entrenched that none dared break it… I guess, but it’s hard to believe that anybody, no matter what political system, could keep living in a fantasy like this for centuries. It’s the sort of thing you’d read about in bad science fiction.”

  It does seem hard to accept. Neoliberals had perfected the art of living in their own echo-chamber, but still, this degree of denial of reality is extreme even for them. But when people are isolated, and they have maintained the same rituals for centuries, and there are no negative consequences for maintaining the fantasy… it must be possible, because we are seeing it here in front of us.

  “I can imagine one person pointing out how crazy it had all become, and then being fired and allowed to starve… so the survivors have the point hammered home that perhaps it’s not so crazy after all, not if it’s what keeps you alive…”

  That was the Neoliberal way. Make everyone a wage slave that is completely dependent upon being a cog in the system to survive.

  Harlan and I listened for a while longer, as the officials continued debating impractical strategies for subduing imaginary empires with non-existent forces. It was amusing for a while but then it started to pale. I was about to suggest to Harlan that it was time for us to leave, when the enormous armored form of Captain Brendan smashed through the wall to our right, followed close behind by two other medium suits.

  Harlan’s light suit was larger than a normal human, and intimidating up close, but compared to the heavy suit he was a 40 kilogram weakling. Brendan covered the assembled officials with a variety of heavy weapons, and barked out: “Nobody move. What’s going on here?”

  “Guards!” said one of the officials, “arrest these intruders!”

  The medium suit to the left of Brendan pointed a gun that no biological human could lift unaided at one of the elderly guards, and said, “I think that would be inadvisable.”

  The medium suit to the right of Brendan aimed his weapon at the other guard, and said, “definitely inadvisable.” The guards looked at each other, and then backed off.

  “Hello, Brother Captain,” said Harlan. “We seem to have stumbled onto the survivors of the executive zone. They were just discussing with us their plans to conquer Betelgeuse when you made that so-d
ashing and dramatic entrance.”

  Brendan swiveled around and took in the entire scene. “General Trellen decided that you had been gone long enough, so he sent me to check in on you. Harlan, the things you stumble into continue to amaze.”

  I helped.

  Brendan ignored me, and turned his heavy helm back to the officials. “I take it the president is dead?”

  “Looks that way,” said Harlan.

  “Pity,” said Brendan. “Then this lot will have to do.” He snapped his heavy plasma cannons into their side-brackets, and extruded razor-sharp three-centimeter long metal claws from each finger. “I will carve them up with my own hands, I will dissect out their spinal cords and tie them in knots, I will rip out their bowels and shatter their joints…”

  Harlan interrupted the heavy suit. “No, you won’t. I have Dibbs.”

  Brendan turned back towards the light scout trooper, claws still extended. I think that he could have torn even the armored form of Scout Captain Harlan apart. “I have an issue with these people. I am entitled.”

  “I know,” said Harlan. “But I saw them first. Thus, I call Dibbs.”

  Brendan did not move. “And what would you do with these people? You realize what they are responsible for?”

  “Oh yes, very aware,” said Harlan. “And you’re not the only one to want revenge. But I say we just seal the palace back up again, and let them live out their fantasies until they finally rot away in madness and disease, alone.”

  Brendan though about it for a moment, then he retracted his claws. “Very well. I like my way better, but leave them here to rot it is. You did call Dibbs.”

  We turned and left through the hole that Captain Brendan had made. The officials had gone pale with fright at the sight of a real physical threat. However, I could not resist having the last word, so I paused and turned back towards the officials.

  We apologize for the inconvenience.

  But just as we were making our way out, security guard Victor Magnusson hobbled into the room and confronted Captain Brendan. “Wait! Wait! You forgot your temporary ID badges!”

  Damn but I didn’t get the last word after all. I’m really slipping.

  --------------------

  We left the presidential palace, but first checked for the nuclear weapons that, legend had it, were stored there. We found them, an even dozen, but their igniter cores had long since decayed, and they were inoperable.

  I did have one idea though. Harlan and I snuck back into the office of the late Hiram Bentholam. I accessed his terminal, and I set the difficulty level of Galactic Empires: Provinces in Revolt from “Easy” to “Expert.”

  Technically the decision on what to do with the surviving Neoliberals was not Harlan’s to make, and so the issue was discussed at a meeting of the full council of General Trellen, Colonel Villers, and all the other captains, and the decision was upheld.

  Later on I was talking about this with General Trellen.

  “I still don’t understand why you weren’t more excited about finding biological humans,” said Trellen.

  Let me try to explain. In classic bad science fiction, AIs were generally either implacably evil, or impossibly geared to serving human needs. I, however, am psychologically human, and react to finding new humans as any human would. Suppose that you have an extended family. One day they all disappear. Did they move away without telling you? Did something bad happen to them? That would gnaw at you, yes? If they were the victims of foul play, you’d want revenge. But then you meet another stranger – and that’s nice, but doesn’t replace the loss. We have ourselves a vital and rich culture and don’t need humans for company or fulfillment or anything. We could clone new biological humans if we wanted, but what would be the point? We don’t miss biological humans per se. We miss our humans.

  Trellen thought about that for a moment. “An interesting perspective. I see your point, that speculative literature has so conditioned us to think of human-centric AIs as desperately needing to serve humans in order to justify their existence. However, you are, as you say, essentially human.”

  And as are you. If we are ever rescued by my peers, we would treat you with the same respect that we would any other randomly-found human. Not something to desperately worship, but another branch of the family.

  “Something to look forward to,” said Trellen, “but we have plenty to engage our attentions now.”

  True enough. However, it is your reaction to discovering the people in the old executive section that I don’t understand. Yes they were once your enemies, but they are still people. More to the point: unlike us cybertanks, you armored suits don’t have the ability to create a full culture on your own. You can hardly maintain the essential systems of this fortress as it is. If some of those people could still have children, you would be able to rebuild what you have lost.

  “Indeed,” said Trellen. “I have considered that. However, your reports suggest that the survivors are too decrepit to have children. In addition, they may well not have enough surviving diversity to avoid a genetic bottleneck, and the plague may still be present here on the surface. Therefore that would be unlikely to work.”

  Unlikely, perhaps, but not impossible. You will not know unless you try.

  “That is always true,” said Trellen. “However, there is the other issue, that after having everything taken away from us, would we really want to build up another civilization? To have good friends and colleagues, only to have it all torn away again by whatever foul power resides here? Once was painful enough.”

  Every child that is born will die, every love will end, every civilization will fall. That is no excuse for hiding in your room and doing nothing.

  “Yes, I agree,” said Trellen. “Maybe someday we will change our minds and do as you suggest. But perhaps we should not perform like animals in a zoo, for the entertainment of some sadistic force. It is one thing to have a child in an unpredictable universe, and quite another to have it in a laboratory where you know that it will be cruelly experimented on. We choose not to play that game anymore.”

  10. The Journal of Lysis Trellen Part V: Revolution

  “The constant repetition of a rational argument in the face of willful ignorance is not evidence of error. Although some find it annoying.” – Giuseppe Vargas, date and location disputed.

  The weapons of the executive section of the colony had opened up in free-fire mode, and they took down most of the weird dinosaur-things, but they also cut swathes through our own colony and our own people. The idiots in the central administration had panicked and set their automated weapons to max fire with no limits. Now it’s chaos.

  The alien dinosaurs are now the least of my worries, it’s these trigger-happy morons who were so eager to risk other people’s lives on hair-brained Larry Lightbulb schemes, but faced with personal danger they lash out mindlessly.

  I tried to call the executives, but they didn’t return my calls. All of my troops were trying to contact me at the same time, as well as the Chief of Police and the local security guards. A dozen alarms and alerts were blazing from every terminal, and the AI was warning me that the low levels of humidity on the planet meant that people should be careful to drink enough water to stay hydrated.

  I think I was close to what the instructors in the academy called “command overload.” Too much is happening, too fast, and I can’t prioritize…

  I closed my eyes and focused. I’d been reading some more of Pascal’s precious books lately, and she’d helped me practice some of the more basic forms of mental discipline. You just have to clear your head, and adjust your mind in a certain way…

  I opened my eyes, and my path is obvious. I silenced the alarms. I told the AI to stop talking about relative humidity, and called up the plans for the weapons around the executive zone. I contacted my platoon commanders, and have them detail some railgun squads to handle any surviving dinosaur things. Brendan left to join them, and Wolfram stayed with me in the HQ. I had all other personnel
not involved in monitoring the perimeter defenses assemble in strike teams at specific locations near the executive zone, and await further orders. I contacted the civilian police and told them to assist others in taking cover and then take cover themselves.

  I reviewed the colony plans. The executive zone itself is off-limits to my AI, but the external weapons emplacements are not. The zone is heavily armored, self-sufficient, and studded with serious weapons emplacements – railguns, light plasma cannons, more brute firepower than my regular army troops possess. They are centralized, and the external weapons are all remotely controlled so if I can cut the connections, I can cut off the threat.

  I tried using the AI to see if I could over-ride the signals from the executive to their external weapons, but they are direct fiber-optic connections that are not accessible to my network. They are, however, accessible to shaped charges.

  I had my strike teams move in on the communications junctions: fortunately there hasn’t been enough time to bury the cables connecting them, so they are relatively exposed. Another dinosaur thing popped up in the middle zone of the colony. The executive weapons opened up and took it out – and maybe another 50 colonists for good measure. I ordered the assault: my forces take some casualties but my troops are good and the losses were fortunately light. They set charges and withdrew, the armored fiber optic cables were severed, and the heavy executive weapons fall silent.

  The battlefield quieted down, but only a little. There were screams and moans in the distance, and secondary explosions as high-power batteries exploded, and whistles as shattered pipes vented to the atmosphere. The railgun teams hunted down the last of the dinosaur-things. I declared a provisional all-clear, alerted the medical division, and saw that casualties were being systematically found and evacuated.

  I stood up to stretch, and noticed Private Wolfram looking strangely at me.