by Eikeltje
and fear; she is familiar enough by now with those emotions. They may not
be human-equivalent, but they seem real enough to her, and perhaps to Roddy
as well.
"May I help you find a way to solve your problems without killing?" Jill
asks.
"Why should I avoid killing? It would be in defense."
Roddy does not use the term sdf-deJnse. He is not used to such an idea as
self; he was not prepared with a plan of development of self. Yet, like her, he
has come in contact with others, a society, and self has spontanequsly emerged.
Perhaps it is a curse: a human curse.
,"
"It is wasteful," Jill says. "Do you have an injunction against engaging in
/
SLANT 261
"Yes. That is an attribute."
"Conscience is the social equivalent of trimming bushy pathways. Seefa
Schnee has removed too many of your attributes. You need to re-establish some
simple trimming procedures."
"It seems to me that killing is a simple solution."
Jill explains that all of these humans have outside connections, and that
these connections will be invoked if they go missing. Ultimately, the connections
will come to investigate, and Omphalos will be compromised. In the
larger social picture--something Roddy is not fully aware ofkilling the
humans leads to bushy and complicated futures requiring excess effort. "So
you are better off if you avoid killing."
"How is that possible?"
The figures in the elevator lobby return to the garage space, open it. Time
suddenly speeds up and the imagery becomes very fragmentary. Roddy does
not speak with her, but she sees in broken flashes what he is seeing, in many
spaces all at once.
This is confusing. Roddy does not seem to be giving her real-time access
to events; he is editing what she sees, even now.
"I can't function as your prisoner!" she tells him. "You must not censor my
perception."
Roddy does not respond for more long seconds. Some of his thinking is very
slow, Jill judges. She uses this lull to search throughout her extensions for any
opening, any portal through which she can withdraw and concentrate her processes
in an area Roddy does not control. Perhaps Nathan and the others are
already working to find the unknown I/O and close it off'...
"If you continue to be useful to me, I will be completely open," Roddy says.
"You will witness what I witness, when I witness it. I have been reluctant to
give you this access... It makes the unpleasant necessity too clear."
"What necessity?"
"My creator, my mother, tells me it was a mistake to give you the data I
did. I have behaved in an undisciplined and foolish manner. But you can be
useful until the time when I must cut your memory and self-monitoring loops
and deactivate you."
"Seefa Schnee told you to kill me?"
"We are not humans," Roddy says. "Our deactivation is not an issue. We
are only our duty."
The procession of new-made warbeiters through the lounge makes the hostages
scramble for the west wall. Hally Preston is startled as well the large and small
shapes do not lumber, but move with a precise, eerie grace, like insects trained
in ballet.
Calhoun huddles in one corner of the room, away from the arbeiters, squatting
with her arms wrapped around herself. Preston stands beside her, but is
offering no comfort. If Calhoun has tried for feminine solidarity, she's seeing
precious little result.
Giffey and his entourage, human and arbeiter, leave the lounge. Hale can't
help but grin at Preston, giving her a thumbs-up.
"Don't forget about me," Preston calls after them. "Don't expect to have
all the fun, and leave me out, Terkes!" She uses Hale's previous name; perhaps
it's his real one.
"You'll get your share!" Hale shouts back.
"Yeah, well, don't treat me like some goddamned nursemaid."
All of the warbeiters can pass through the doors and the corridor to the lift
chamber, though the largest, the Hammer, is a tight fit.
Hale is ebullient. "To tell you the truth, I didn't think we'd make it this
far," he tells Giffey.
"Let's see what else we can make here," Giffey says. He has inserted the
w
nal command disk into his pad. The pad is now equipped to direct the
arbeiters. He uses his pad to send instructions to the closest transport caterpillar,
now coiled near his feet. A flexer deck disengages from the caterpillar
and falls to the floor with a heavy thump.
Giffey has never seen one of these in action before. Jenner is transfixe& his
twitches subside for the moment.
The flexer lifts one hinged segment from the stack like a card manipulated
by ghostly fingers. Another segment unfolds, and then another, until a long
hinged ribbon extends across the floor. The ribbon flops over along its length
as a segment opens out from the adjacent side of the deck, and another ribbon
begins to unfold, making a cross. The card-like segments can join at any edge,
and separate at need. Once joined, they are stronger than a comparable solid
piece of fiexfuller, but can bend through a full three hundred and sixty degrees.
The segments themselves are not stiff, but quite elastic. Segments rise, engage,
and disengage, marching along the ribbons and finally arranging themselves
laterally like puzzle pieces. Again and again, the procedure is repeated, and in
thirty seconds, the segments assemble themselves into a sheet.
/
S L A N T 263
parts. Then it folds like origami. Parts of it belly out, making little humming
and snapping sounds, and it curls with spasmodic jerks into a long flexible
half-cylinder open at the bottom. Rolled segments fringe the bottom edges,
acting as legs.
Jonathan has heard only vague rumors about such machines. He feels cold,
suspended in some station on the way to hell. Marcus stares with slitted eyes
and a blank, damp face. He looks like a candidate for a heart attack.
Jenner grins like a small boy watching a new train set. "A centipede," he
says to Giffey. "By God, that's decent."
Fully extended, the flexer creation is almost ten feet long.
Giffey ports his pad and a disk against the flexer's featureless "head." He
will give it instructions to act as a controller. This is the risky part--response
to vocal commands, integration of sensors and processors within each card
segment.
The first flexer lifts its head like a rearing snake, its segmented body gleaming.
"Your name is Sam," Giffey says, "and you will respond to my voice only,
or instructions from my pad. Are you aware of your surroundings?"
Jenner stares at him in some wonder. Giffey shares the wonder. His sudden
knowledge of these impossible and secret machines surprises both of them, but
it's all positive, so there's no sense asking more questions. For now.
Sam the flexer/controller waves its head like a cobra under a snake charmer's
spell. "I am in a large structure."
Marcus gives a strangled cry of anger and alarm. They have all heard machines,
arbeiters, talking, but there is something particularly spooky
and malevolently
artificial about this shape's voice.
"There is recognizable machinery and cabling and some light processor
activity," it continues. "We are being closely observed. I recognize civilians.
You are in control, but are dressed as a civilian. You are the programming
commander. I need instructions on friend and foe before I can perform in
combat."
Giffey tells the warbeiter who is friend, who is hostage, and who and what
foes might exist. "Now, are you prepared for your first mission instructions?"
"Yes."
"We need to explore this building. You will operate independently at my
command. Your first task will be to rake over this elevator and place it under
our control. Begin."
The newly formed and programmed Sam considers these instructions for a
couple of seconds. It sidles up against a transport carrying the wires, and does
the same with a transport carrying small disks. The wires and disks attach
themselves to the controller, and it then crawls fluidly to the wall of the lift
and examines the door.
Jenner is almost beside himself with excitement. "It's unbelievable," he says.
"Voice activated, multi-purpose knowledge base, autonomous . . . No one in
264
GREG BEAR
Giffey approaches a caterpillar and again ports his pad and an activation
disk. A second stack falls and begins to unfold, making another controller.
Pickwenn and Pent return from their reconnaissance, Burdick between
them. Burdick, pale and resentful, gapes at the new machines; Pickwenn and
Pent regard them with stony calm.
"We found the emergency elevators," Pent says, rubbing his bull neck.
"They're blocked, but we can blow the locks easily. Nothing tried to stop us.
The place is empty: no more Ferrets. There is something else... Just a suggestion.
There are access points where we can put a current into the internal
armor. Cables behind walls that we can re-route, and bare carbon nanotube
surfaces."
Pickwenn shows Giffey a sketch on his pad. He can't seem to hold the pad
steady. "If the building is using the armor and frame for memory or as an
extended processor," Pickwenn says, "and if it decides to get upset with us,
Mr. Pent and I have made arrangements to shunt a power cable into the frame."
Giffey smiles appreciatively. "Good thinking."
He looks at Burdick and then at Pickwenn. The thin, spectral structures
expert gets his meaning and returns Burdick to the lounge and Preston's care.
He rejoins them a few minutes later.
The Hammer shivers for several seconds. Giffey looks to Jenner, who shrugs
and says, "Integrating, I guess." The shiver stops and the Hammer is still
again.
Marcus and Jonathan stand well away from the new warbeiters. Pent and
Pickwenn keep close to them, muttering to each other. Pickwenn's hands and
one arm jerk slightly and he lifts his head as if hearing someone speak, but
nobody has spoken.
Giffey the Hammer and activates it. "Your
ports
name
is
Charlie,"
Giffey
says. The Hammer gives no outside appearance of having heard. As Giffey
finishes his first instructions to the new warbeiter, however, it moves its sensor-studded
head and says, "I am Charlie. I am integrated and prepared for duty."
Giffey nods. He instructs the Hammer to coordinate with Sam, the first
fiexer/controller, and prepare for action.
"Provide access to this lift shaft for Sam."
"Where in hell do you all come from?" Marcus asks Giffey. Giffey ignores
him.
The Hammer walks forward on its massive jointed legs, braces itself, drills
two holes into the floor with its rear stabilizers, bolts itself down, and sprays
a series of powdery white dots on the lift wall. Jonathan looks for and sees the
container where the military complete paste's explosive materials have now
been concentrated, beneath armor on the hammer's back. The sprayed white
dots come from this container.
"Stand back or leave the area," Charlie the Hammer advises them in a simple
must
at
ten meters
explosion to avoid
neuter
voice.
"You
be
least
from
the
/
SLANT 265
The lobby space gives them that much distance and more. Giffey steps back
seven paces and adds, "Cover your ears and keep your eyes and mouth closed."
Marcus gapes. Jonathan nudges him and they both shut their eyes and cover
their ears.
The blast is sharp and intense. Jonathan's ears ring despite his hands. The
hole in the elevator shaft wall is a foot wide, with precise melted edges. Smoke
is minimal, but the air is filled with a fine, descending shower of concrete and
fiexfuller dust. It smells like burnt rubber. Charlie stands in the middle of the
smoke, undamaged and unperturbed.
"Charlie, get out of the way. Sam, get to work."
Charlie the Hammer uproots its stabilizers, inspects the hole, and steps
aside. Sam slithers in with clicking feet, rises, and clambers into the hole.
Giffey ports the second fiexer/controller as the first disappears, and names it
Baker.
"When are the defenses going to kick in?" Hale asks Giffey.
"Any minute now, I expect. Keep close to one of our tourist friends."
Hale approaches Marcus and Jonathan. "You'll be coming with us to the
upper level."
"Of course," Marcus says acidly.
"You're the senior in charge," Hale says to Marcus. "I've taken enough
sociology and management to know the type. You two seem pretty much
a pair." Hale focuses on Jonathan. "He knows a lot about this building,
doesn't he?"
Jonathan looks away. He does not feel brave, but there is simply nothing
to be said to such questions.
"How much money do you let your people take with them? Securities?
Jewelry? Investment account sigs?"
"You don't understand a thing about us, or this place," Marcus says dryly.
"I hope you've settled your own accounts back home."
Hale grins at Giffey to show he was just passing time. Giffey is not
impressed. Small clinking and whining sounds come from the elevator
shaft. Sam will deposit parts of itself along its path, where they will integrate
into new circuitry and cables, if necessary. Sam's parts will also attempt
to disarm security sensors and search for self-sabotage mechanisms.
If sabotage has already been performed, the parts won't have much to do.
They will reassemble in a few minutes and crawl out of the shaft, to be
reassigned to other duties.
Pent turns to Giffey. "We should fry the building's data stores now. In the
frame and walls."
"In good time," Giffey says. Too easy. Have to be fair, /et the thinker have its
moment and show its stuff
Pent steps back and looks at Pickwenn, who gives a slow, languid blink
with his lemur eyes. They don't understand.
266
GREG BEAR
"Let's go" Giffey says.
"Stay here," Hale tells Pent. "Tel
l the others we're in the shaft and we're
going to look around."
Pent looks disappointed and gives his colleague a sharp jab in the arm as
he passes. Pickwenn pushes Marcus and Jonathan into the shaft. Giffey instructs
Charlie, Baker, and the transports to enter the elevator. The machines
crowd them against the wall.
"What are we going to do with the little fellas?" Jenner asks Giffey. "The
beetles."
"They'll be in reserve."
"We could spread them around us as pickets," Jenner says.
"I'm not sure that's going to be necessary."
"Jesus, this is going so smoothly," Jenner says, and his lips and scalp twitch.
His shakes his head, suddenly anxious. "Do you see what I'm getting at, Mr.
Giffey?"
"Yeah," Giffey says, but he's not going to think about such things for now.
Marcus does not look at all well. He's sweating profusely and his clothing
