by Neal Asher
“Perhaps I should go and greet it,” suggested Grafton.
“I don’t think so,” the Brockle replied. “I am as uncomfortable with its presence as you and feel it better if we keep our distance.”
“Until the mission is over and it can be dumped back in that prison hulk the Tyburn?”
“Yes, quite.” The Brockle now felt uncomfortable, since it seemed Grafton knew more than it had supposed. It watched her wave a dismissive hand as with a touch to her data screen she transmitted the orders to her aug so she could digest them properly. This conversation was over.
Time to move.
The Brockle now began extracting most of its units from the geodesic surrounding the High Castle AI, just leaving a few in place to intercept transmissions and ship data and relay them back to its main mass. Separated into a hundred silver worms, it squirmed and hopped across the floor, incidentally sending the instruction, via its relay units, to open the door ahead. Once out of the armoured sphere, it stuck to ship corridors to take it to the Tuelin Suite, aware through cams ahead that there was no one to see it and, because it now controlled the cams, erasing any recording of its presence.
Soon it arrived in the main lounge of the suite, coagulating back into its preferred form of a bald fat man, then strode off to the series of cabins, choosing the executive one at the rear of the corridor for itself. As it opened the door and stepped inside, it pondered a past exchange it had endured with Earth Central.
“As you are well aware,” Earth Central had said, “an intelligence lodging itself in AI crystal with greater capacity for thought and memory is no guarantee of sanity.”
The conversation had concerned a Golem that had been sent for interrogation—its mind an upload from a human being. The Brockle had rather resented that “as you are well aware” since it seemed the AI was implying the Brockle was insane. Anyway, EC was wrong on so many levels. The Brockle had once been a man and it had uploaded, not to crystal but to a DNA substrate and later to a distributed series of etched-atom processors in organo-metal—there was none of the usual AI crystal involved. And it felt itself to be utterly sane, saner than any other AI in the Polity.
The Brockle examined its own thoughts and other internal processes and could find no fault with its reasoning either then or now. The attitude of other Polity AIs to Penny Royal was simply wrong. Sure, the black AI had demonstrated altruism by, in its strange fashion, righting past wrongs. It had changed Trent Sobel into a man now incapable of committing the crimes he had once committed. It had stopped Sverl becoming the key to a rebellion in the Kingdom, which could have then led to that realm again going to war with the Polity. And, along the way it had saved many lives. It had even expended the accrued energy of a time-debt on diverting part of the blast front of a supernova though, of course, that wouldn’t have been necessary if it hadn’t first stolen those evacuation runcibles . . .
However, other facts were clear: in dealing with Isobel Satomi—causing this human criminal to metamorphose into an Atheter war machine - Penny Royal had placed power in the claws of the Weaver—a creature like some strange amalgam of a platypus, caterpillar and Buddha, but writ large scale, and the only living member of the ancient Atheter race. This led to a degree of independence for that entity, which had definitely not been in the interest of the Polity. In accruing time-debts it had risked causing catastrophic destruction. It was demonstrating by its actions a blasé attitude to the security of the Polity. It was still a possible paradigm changer, still dangerous, and should be exterminated.
In its suite the Brockle lowered its obese form into a comfortable chair, mind ranging out. With some satisfaction it studied the stats of the arsenal of missiles, specifically the U-jump disruptor missiles. There were enough to cover a vast region of space, and now, all the Brockle needed to do was wait right at the centre of it.
Riss
As Riss hit the floor she almost felt disappointed. She had understood for a while now that Spear was right. Penny Royal had done no more to her than destroy her illusions and banish her last grip on the hope that she served a purpose. The AI had played with her briefly then discarded her. It hadn’t done this out of malice but out of amorality and an inability to see suffering or pleasure as any more than functions, like lines of code in a pre-Quiet War computer. Riss’s transformation of her darkness into a need for vengeance had been a solution of sorts, but her growing understanding of what Penny Royal was and what it had ceased to be had undermined even that. However, rather than return to the void Riss had tried to recover her purpose and regain her hate. It had all been false.
Her attack on Sverl had made her realize she couldn’t objectify the prador, especially these prador—she couldn’t mentally turn them back into archetypal bad guys. She had now learned too much. There was the thing: she might have felt empty, but she had been steadily filling with knowledge, experience and, perhaps, wisdom.
She had been unable to kill that second-child she had encountered when on her way in here to kill Sverl because she recognized him as a distinct being, a product of nature and nurture. Not the savage kind she had encountered during the war. This was even more the case with Bsorol and Bsectil for, in the end, she had to admit to herself that she rather liked them. Sverl was an even stronger example for he was what had changed them. He was a reasonable being, not a vicious predator. But it had been the right thing to do: Sverl had to die so others could live, the greatest good for the greatest number . . .
Yet even as Riss had broadcast his death to the King’s Guard the horror of it had flooded into her emptiness.
And she had wanted to die.
“It was the solution,” said a voice.
The EMR pulse had left Riss all but blind. Most of her sensors were down and her body wasn’t functioning correctly, though she wasn’t anywhere near as damaged as on the last occasion here. She retained just enough awareness to know that Bsorol had been about to fry her, and enough to know that she’d been dropped again. And she was just able to raise her internal defences quickly against computer attack.
“You needed the shock, it seems,” said the voice. “You needed to kill again and understand that it would not, could not fill your void.”
The void . . .
Steadily, inside her, nano- and microbots were making repairs. They were rebuilding burned electro-muscle, heat correcting optic fibre faults. Smart matter and memory metal were reforming. Connections in her AI crystal were rerouting. Soon she would be back to how she had been; all her parts would come together and function as a whole. All she would need was a recharge of her super-dense power storage and the injection of some required materials. Was this why she felt she was coming together as a tighter and more integrated whole? Was this why a large gap seemed to have closed up? Whatever. Soon she would be ready to hunt down the source of that voice, that damned tactical AI.
“The acid burned us both,” said the voice, “and solved our problems. You can now live without the need to fulfil your original function.”
Full vision across a broad reach of the EM spectrum returned to Riss but she wasn’t yet ready to open her black eye and see further. Bsorol was standing over her, Spear was standing off to one side with a look of dumbfounded shock, while on the further side of the room stood Bsectil and three second-children. All were looking in towards the centre at the silvery ceramal skeleton of Sverl. It was down off its dais and moving, shifting its prosthetic legs and opening and closing one claw. Why hadn’t Riss seen this? Why hadn’t Riss seen this was possible for Sverl? The answer was simple: Riss had been just too wrapped up in her own misery to notice.
“What was the solution for you?” she finally asked.
“First one must outline the dilemma that needed to be solved,” replied the AI Sverl. “Penny Royal instituted changes in me that turned me into a grotesque physical joke, but also turned me into a mental amalgam of prador, human and AI. If I
was too soft, that was human. If I was too vicious, that was prador. If I was too coldly logical, that was AI. I should have understood Flute better.”
“He fully loaded to his crystal,” said Riss, understanding glimmering in her mind.
“I wanted something from Penny Royal, but I had no idea what it was. Did I want to be returned to being the vengeful prador I was? Did I want to be fully human? Did I want to be fully AI? It seemed to me that my three minds were always in conflict.”
“And now you’re fully AI?” asked Riss.
“You destroyed my grotesque body, forcing me to load everything from my commingled organic brain to crystal. But tell me, do human minds or prador minds loaded to crystal respectively cease to be human or prador? Does an AI mind loaded to a human or prador body cease to be AI?”
“I’m not exactly a philosopher,” said Riss.
“I’ll tell you the answer then: the labels are all but meaningless. To others I could be described as prador, human and AI, but I am none of these.”
“Then what are you?”
“I am Sverl.”
“I’m Riss,” said Riss. “I’m sorry I caused you such pain.”
“I am pleased to meet you, Riss, and neither of us should be sorry—we both have clarity now.”
It was true, now that at least a portion of the guilt had been eliminated. Riss felt comfortable in her own skin but understood that she wasn’t that skin. Perhaps, when they got out of this station, she would load herself to a Golem chassis or a ship, or have some sort of custom body built, or perhaps not. It didn’t matter because she was Riss and no longer defined herself by the purpose for which she was built.
Spear
“You’re alive,” I said, struggling with that definition and damning myself for stupidity. “Cvorn will be pleased, if he’s alive,” I finished weakly.
The ship mind Flute had been an amalgam of organic prador ganglion and AI crystal and, when his cooling system was damaged and that ganglion had ceased to function, Flute had transferred all of himself into his AI crystal. Damn it, I didn’t even have to look outside of myself to see this. Hadn’t I had a memplant inside my skull when I went to war over a hundred years ago? Didn’t I still have one now? I too had copied across from an organic mind to crystal.
There had been some sort of exchange going on between Riss and Sverl, of which I’d just caught the tail end. I could delve into Riss’s memory to get it all and I could probably penetrate Sverl’s mind too, but felt disinclined; it seemed rude. Sverl swung away from the snake drone to face me. I wondered how he was seeing since, though this skeleton possessed limbs and the motors to move them, it didn’t have any eyes.
“Cvorn is no longer a problem,” he said—his voice generating somewhere in that skeleton. “I have no doubt that you saw the King’s Guard attack his ship, but you probably aren’t aware that he was dead before that. Perhaps in the hope of stopping the King’s Guard’s attack on the ship, one of Vlern’s children, Sfolk, broadcast an interesting recording of Cvorn being boiled alive in his own mating pool.” Sverl sent me a file which, still trusting him, I opened. I watched a scene in which an adult prador with prosthetic limbs climbed out onto a ledge from a pool of boiling water. In the process he managed to tear out one of those limbs. He lay on the ledge for a while, shifting intermittently, then further limbs popped out of their sockets from which prador blood, boiled black, began to ooze.
“Uh?” I remembered then that Vlern was the other adult prador who, after the war, had sought refuge on the planet called Rock Pool. It had been his children who had been allies of Cvorn’s while they stole that ST dreadnought, then Cvorn’s slaves when he took control of them through their biotech augs. One of them, apparently this Sfolk, had obviously broken free and extracted typically horrifying revenge on his tormentor.
“It didn’t help much,” Sverl added.
“Uh?” I said again, feeling stupid.
“It didn’t stop their attack.”
“Right . . .”
“So Cvorn is no problem, but there are other immediate problems,” Sverl continued. “The remaining AIs here could yet organize alliances when they realize I destroyed some of their number in an effort to destabilize the situation here.” He made an elegant gesture with one claw to encompass our situation. The din penetrating this autofactory had not waned, and I was sure I was hearing more impacts on the armour out there. Again I had to think fast to try and paste things together in my mind.
“So you were Riss’s ‘tactical AI’?”
“I was.” Sverl dipped his skeletal body in agreement. “I also directed the Golem Grey to kill other AIs here.”
“Why?”
“I intend to take full control of this entire station.”
“So murder is still okay for you,” I suggested, tasting bile, “if it furthers your ends.”
“I did no more than those AIs would have done given the chance. They were murderers themselves and under your Polity laws would face . . . being decommissioned.”
“It’s not necessary for you to take over the station,” I said. “Help me take back my ship and we can all leave.”
“And where would I go?” Sverl asked. “I cannot return to the Kingdom and I very much doubt the Polity would accept me.” He waved that claw again, more impatiently this time. “Here I can make a home for myself and my children. Here I have resources and here I can build something.”
I had to accept that. In an attempt to save his ship Sverl had broken it up before coming here, but the King’s Guard had destroyed many of those parts. It was also evident that, like most prador, he wanted to encyst deep inside defences—he wanted a home. I had no right to deny him that and, really, I owed him my life.
“And Penny Royal?” I asked.
“Our story has nearly concluded,” said Sverl. “But the AI has one small part to play yet.”
“In what way?”
“I need to use the spine.” Sverl held out one claw.
I instinctively clutched that object closer. “Why and how?”
“You saw how I used it to penetrate the block in Riss’s mind. You know yourself how it can be used to penetrate any mind. With the current chaos aboard this station I can use it to lance the sickness here, bring all the AIs under control and restore some sanity.”
Did I trust him? More importantly: did I have any choice?
“And,” he added, “if you do not allow me to use the spine then your companions now in a hospital aboard this station, may not survive.”
My heart lurched. Just for a moment I’d forgotten about them and now, as I considered the chaos I had seen, I realized they might be fighting for their lives. I looked around at the others here. I made my decision, and held the spine out. Sverl delicately closed a claw around it and drew it in.
A moment later Mr Grey had moved over, unravelled the optic and power cable wound around the spine’s base and threaded it inside Sverl’s skeleton, where he found a place to plug in the nether end. In Sverl’s claw the spine changed. It had powered up somehow and in the process grew midnight black. Meanwhile, he must have been issuing other instructions because more second-children had entered the old autofactory and were busily running optic cables from various ports around the walls in towards Sverl. Bsectil had disappeared and when I turned I saw that Bsorol was also at some cable work. He had opened a hatch in the floor from where he was rolling out a thick superconducting power cable.
While all this was happening, the noise was growing ever louder. Something was hammering constantly at one section of the armour. A moment later the airlock opened and, whirling round, I saw second-children jammed in there together like crabs in a fish’s gut. They avalanched out, their armour hot, smoking, scarred and dented. I felt some relief spotting the one Riss had paralysed, and wondered if this was the whole complement of them.
As they spread
out they soon revealed that it hadn’t only been them in the airlock. A thing like a ribbed moray eel rose up then thrashed its tail across, sending one of the children tumbling, while a couple of beetle-format printer-bots scuttled to the wall, printing heads raised for protection.
“Leave them,” Sverl instructed.
The two printer-bots powered down, lowering their limbs to the floor. The eel thing abruptly sank low and coiled into a perfect spiral. I could feel Sverl reaching out now and testing the extent of what I’d handed over to him. That began to ramp up as Bsorol plugged a power cable into his father’s body, and my head began to ache in response. Through slightly blurred vision I saw one of the second-children shedding smoking armour, then I staggered back and sat down heavily on the floor, feeling the pull of it dragging me in its wake, even as the hammering outside died.
Trent
Big mistake. Huge mistake, thought Trent.
Florence was just about holding off those trying to get through the hole torn in the wall as, with shaking hands, Trent reeled out a charging cable from his particle cannon and plugged its universal bayonet into a wall socket. Once it was in place he looked up just in time to swipe the cannon across and knock something with far too many legs skidding across the floor, where an autodoc snared and dismembered it. Over at the door Sepia was conserving the remaining power in her laser carbine by firing single disabling shots, whereupon Cole waded in with his makeshift club. This couldn’t last. They were losing.
Up in his visor display the charge bar began to rise, but it was just out of the red area. Trent aimed at some ribbed snakelike thing writhing past Florence and fired, blasting its head to pieces, but then the cannon sputtered and died. He put the weapon down, grabbed up a burned-out military autodoc and brought it crashing down on another of those scorpion things. Like Cole he had learned to aim for sensor clusters because, while it was difficult enough to completely immobilize the things, they could still be blinded.
“Retreat,” said Florence. “Time to retreat.”
