Artificial Evolution

by Joseph R. Lallo

“I could do with a shower and a meal, but they’ll both have to be quick. I’m sure Ronzone in the tank could use the same.”

  “We can set you up. It’ll give us time to round up the first load of coms. Come inside.”

  “Thanks a bunch. I gotta tell ya, Saunders. It’s a shame you and I both fell out of the proper armed forces. I get the feeling we would have worked together just fine.”

  #

  Garotte was having a considerably more difficult time with his assignment. The cloaking device, which thankfully was behaving itself, had allowed him to slip by the blockade without much difficulty, but that was more or less the last victory he’d enjoyed. His task was to slow down or stop the Arbiter that the TKUR had dispatched, and his options in that regard were limited. The direct approach involved disabling or destroying the ship and its escorts. Aside from causing a massive loss of life, which he wasn’t eager to do, it wasn’t terribly feasible for one recently repaired and lightly armed ship to pull off. That left him with essentially one option. He had to put up a roadblock.

  “VectorCorp’s cash cow,” he muttered to himself, eyeing the probe before him.

  It was an unassuming thing, little more than a fifteen-meter sphere of antennas and sensors, but it and the millions like it were the lynchpins of VectorCorp’s stranglehold on communication and transit. It was a relay-and-monitor probe. Not only did it deliver data, but it monitored the routes between worlds to be sure they were clear of debris and flowing properly with traffic. Without them, space travel regressed instantly to the frontier days, moving at a comparative snail’s pace and feeling out the path tentatively. With the exceptions of daredevils like Lex, who flew in uncharted space routinely, anyone moving through an area stripped of its monitors would find their journey going from several hours or days to several days or weeks.

  “Let’s just be sure I’ve exhausted all options, shall we? The admin authorization from Ronzone provided me with communication privileges without raising any eyebrows, but security is still intact, so jamming or scrambling is out of the question. The quarantine has chased away any security though, so that does leave the indelicate option.” He tapped a few controls. “Locking in return route. Delivering final messages. And… cutting the cord and slamming the door.”

  He unleashed four missiles and a full blaster barrage. Potent energy shields shimmered and failed around the probe, and the unassuming little device deactivated. It was the last of the redundant monitors in the area, and only monitored the route that led to Movi. Destroying the device meant that not only was the way no longer confirmed to be safe, but the remnants of the probe itself guaranteed the way was in fact quite dangerous.

  “There. That ought to buy us a fair amount of time.”

  Chapter 24

  The SOB neared the midpoint of the trip back to Big Sigma. At twelve hours in, it was the only stop he’d be making, but Lex had at least been able to plan it out with enough confidence to catch some uninterrupted shut-eye along the way. Back to operating within its design limits, the SOB was no longer trying to roast its passengers, which was a luxury he vowed never to go without again. The trip hadn’t been entirely without mishap, though.

  “Hngh… Squee… what the… Squee!” Lex said, groggily awaking to a fuzzy blur that was literally running rings around the cockpit, using the headrests and windows like a daredevil’s loop de loop.

  There was no telling how long it had been going on, as Lex had been dead to the world until the tone of the ship beginning the drop to conventional speeds started to bring him around.

  “What’s with you?” he said groggily. “I know you get a little jumpy when you want to stretch your legs, but usually not this bad.” He rubbed his eyes and checked the instruments, or at least tried to. Now that he was awake, Squee evidently felt it was time to assault him with affection. She licked his face, nibbled his ears and nose, and tried to burrow into his shirt. He grabbed her and held her out, looking in her darting and over-excited eyes.

  “You’ve definitely taken a few steps closer to Solby,” he said. She licked his nose again. Lex got a whiff of a very distinctive scent. “Uh-oh…”

  He reached down to the elastic strap that had formerly secured the pack of chemically enhanced snack treats. It was still there, but the corner had been chewed open.

  “How many did you get?” he muttered, digging through and trying to remember how many he’d eaten. “Looks like… maybe half of one, and you’re a Tasmanian devil now. Glad you didn’t eat the whole pack.” He flipped her on her back and held her in his lap with a hand on her tummy, tickling and rubbing it to keep her occupied. “Try to settle down, Squee. I’m going to check in with Ma and Mitch. We’re still about twelve hours out. Hopefully they’ve made some progress. Ow!” He pulled his hand back from Squee for a moment after her nibbles got a bit too enthusiastic. “I guess I’d better check and see if Ma’s got anything to say on the subject of caffeine and funks, too.”

  He punched in the proper commands and waited while the connection negotiated. Their current rest stop was a small rocky moon around a gas giant. There was a refueling station, but the SOB was the only ship in the area and still had enough in the tank to finish the return trip.

  “Greetings, Lex. I trust your journey thus far has been uneventful?” Ma said once the call connected.

  “More or less. Ow!” He glanced down at the feisty funk. “With one exception. How’s Karter doing with the info?”

  “He has been quite productive. Stand by… he has requested to inform you of his progress personally.”

  The holographic display screen over the controls flickered to life, filling most of the front of the SOB with a black image that flicked over to a video stream of Karter at his drafting table surrounded by crumpled-up paper and the remnants of several meals.

  “Lex. It’s about time. We’re just getting to the point where I’d need you to sign the contract before I could do any more work.”

  “So you’re almost done?”

  “Almost done planning. I don’t work until I get a signed contract. I’m still doing some simulations, but I think we can hammer down the specifics.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “Okay. So I looked at the data you sent. You must have got it from a real pro, because it was some of the most ruthlessly redacted info I’ve ever laid eyes on. It’s been a while since I worked with someone with that sort of skill. I mean, you hear the term butcher and it sounds like a sloppy job. But a real butcher is basically a surgeon who doesn’t sew back up when he’s done, and this guy was a real butcher. Huge hunks of vital info missing, but the bits I needed were intact, with comments.”

  “Karter, that’s great and all, but—”

  “Yeah, yeah. Details. Coming up.” He motioned and schematics and code replaced the video of him. “From the start these things have been about ninety percent construction and ten percent combat, but that ten percent is really well written. Gen-Mechs have rudimentary survival tactics. They never go all-in on an offensive. They stay in constant contact with one another and keep stats on losses and gains, retreating and regrouping when there’s a bad cost-to-benefit ratio. It is stuff designed to keep them from getting completely wiped out, and if they aren’t completely wiped out, then sooner or later they’ll be back to full force.”

  “That’s not good news.”

  “Not good news if you were talking to a general trying to come up with a strategy. Those guys are idiots, always thinking in terms of existing techniques and such, few of which will be any good here. I’m an engineer. Engineers always have options. In this case, the weakness isn’t in the combat section, it’s in the construction section. You ever tried to make a quantum transponder from a pile of sand?” He paused. “I’m asking you a question.”

  “No, Karter, I’ve never made a quantum whatever out of a pile of sand.”

  “Of course not. It’s hard, and it takes a lot of time and energy. You’d just go find one. Same here. These things are geared to
reproduce quickly. They preferentially target equipment that can most quickly be adapted to the more complex and hard to replicate components. And a strong priority is placed on putting those parts to good use. If a robot is damaged beyond the point of usefulness, it will actually mark itself for salvage. Like a big, fat beacon telling its brothers to grab all of the really useful bits that still work. And the highest resource priority goes to this little beauty right here.” The screen froze on a schematic of mind-bending complexity. It was a seemingly endless network of electrical symbols and incomprehensible notations. “The aforementioned quantum transponder. It is responsible for all of their communications. Without one, they can’t collaborate and they can’t coordinate. They can’t even program a new core without at least a simple one. So if they find one ready-made, they will harvest, guaranteed. Not only that, but because it is so vital to the survival of the group, if they find a transponder better than what they’ve got, they’ll swap theirs out to improve their survival chances.”

  “Karter, I really don’t need details, I just need—”

  “You will shut up and listen to my proposal because it is what you’ll be paying for, and I don’t want there to be any contract disputes!” he barked. “Besides, we’re up to the meat of it. I’ve designed this.” The screen was replaced with a new network of symbols and notations that, to Lex’s untrained eye, was identical to the first one. “I call it the Poison Pill Transponder. To all outward scans and functionality checks, it is a fully functional, very high-quality transponder of the precise design called for in the original- and current-gen internal replication schematic. But this little subcircuit is unstable. It’ll operate optimally for about four minutes, then it will degrade, causing an interference pattern precisely identical to the ‘I have been damaged, harvest me for parts’ signal. At that point the nearby bots will slice and dice their comrade. The one with the worst transponder will swap it out for this one; four minutes later it’ll put up the ‘eat me’ sign again, lather, rinse, repeat.”

  “I’m getting it, I think.”

  “You better be, since I’m spelling it out for you in crayon. Now, you sign the contract, I’ll fab up a couple thousand of these pills over the next few hours. You dump them anywhere within about a kilometer of a Gen-Mech and it’ll come running, plug it in, and get butchered. The best part is, once a Poison Pill activates and marks a bot for scavenging, that signal is global. Every robot within an astronomical unit will stop and scan it to see if it has any parts that would be worth harvesting for itself. Meanwhile the rest of the bots will be taking the leftovers and building a new bot, which will be equipped with the transponder the first one replaced with the Poison Pill. There’ll be a neat little loop of robots wrecking each other, constantly attracting more and more bots from all over the planet, until they are all in one massive death cluster. Then it’ll be a simple matter to clean up the mess with conventional explosives, maybe a nice tactical nuke, or my favorite, a healthy dose of thermite. There is no situation that cannot be improved with the addition of spontaneously liquefied iron.”

  “Do you think that’ll work?”

  “Thermite? Sure. I’ve got my own recipe that’s good for a nice, reliable ignition.”

  “No, I mean the pills. Will it be able to get them all?”

  “Ma ran the numbers and rigged up a sim. The more pills activated, the higher priority the part harvest will be, because these things are programmed to preferentially target areas of high harvest value. By the time two or three hundred of these ‘harvest me’ signals are lit, the priority to reach and consume the parts will be so high, they’ll literally run down their power supplies before they’ll stop heading for the source of the signal. This will work unless you screw it up. If you ask me, the bigger question mark is how you’re going to convince the bombardiers in orbit that the problem’s solved. But you’re not paying me to figure that one out.” He sniffed. “And speaking of payment. Here’s my quote. It’s mostly back-charging for the hours I put into it. Materials and labor will be pretty light,” Karter said.

  He pushed an itemized bill to the display, revealing a final cost. There were quite a few zeroes.

  “That’s more money than I’ve made in the last three years combined,” Lex said.

  “You should have gone into the field of freelance engineering. And also not been an idiot,” Karter recommended.

  “Ma, is there any chance Garotte and-or Silo have got that kind of money?” Lex asked.

  “They probably do, but they’re not the ones in a position to sign this contract, you are,” Karter said. “Ma, push the contract to him. All you need to do is put your thumbprint on this one and you can put another notch in your world-saving belt, buddy boy.”

  Lex sighed. “Well. I’ve owed money to the mob, to a whole pile of banks and loan agencies, and to huge corporations. I guess I may as well add a mad sci—a mad engineer to that list.”

  “You’ll find my installment plans are quite reasonable. And the late payment penalties are much more creative,” Karter said.

  “Yeah, I’m sure they are,” Lex said, tugging free his slidepad and pressing his thumb to the screen. Doing so caused a split-second gap in the tickling and fondling that had been keeping the hyperactive funk at bay, and thus unleashed the furry ball of energy to run a few more yapping laps around the cockpit.

  “Pleasure doing business with you, Lex. My spending money overflow account was getting a little low.”

  Karter dropped the connection, but Ma remained on the line. “It would appear that Squee is rather energetic this evening.”

  “Yeah. She got into the caffeinated meat a few minutes ago. Or maybe hours ago. Not sure on that one.”

  “I see. Please be mindful of the fact that Vice Stix are not a recommended part of a funk’s diet.”

  “They’re not a recommended part of anyone’s diet,” Lex said.

  “Indeed, but it is within the rights of humans to make self-destructive decisions regarding calorie and chemical-stimulant intake. Funks are not capable of making informed choices in that regard. Please refrain from endangering Squee’s health. She is your responsibility.”

  “I know, Ma. I promise to continue to take better care of her than I do of me,” Lex said.

  “Thank you. Karter has initiated the manufacture of a suitable number of Poison Pill Transponders. The manufacturing will be complete in ten hours seventeen minutes.”

  “I’ll try to show up right when they’re done. With the work the SOB has been doing and the beating it’s taken, I don’t know how much earlier I’d be able to get there without a proper cool down.”

  “I have completed my assessment of the SOB’s condition. Complete cosmetic restoration will take approximately twenty-one hours. It is unlikely a delay of that duration can be justified. In our last communication with Garotte, he had implemented his final option for delaying the planetary sanitation.”

  “Don’t worry about it. After I show up I’ll dump heat and refuel so I can do another sprint to Movi. The SOB is a tough little ship, and if she can’t quite cut it, I’ll just have to pick up the slack.”

  “While you are in transit, I will assess your assets and earnings potential. I shall endeavor to devise a payment scheme for Karter’s services that will minimize your financial burden.”

  “Good luck with that, Ma. For my sake I hope you come up with something good.”

  “I am confident I will do so. I have an extreme proficiency with numbers.”

  “Okay. I’ve got the route plugged in. I’ll see you soon,” Lex said. Squee, deciding her mad dash around the cockpit was no longer sufficiently entertaining, took a turn and dove directly at Lex’s head, wrapping herself around it and trying to burrow down into the neck of his shirt again. He snagged her and pulled her to his lap. “Assuming Squee doesn’t kill me first.”

  “I, as always, eagerly anticipate your visit.”

  Lex closed the connection and pushed the ship to FTL. Once the view outside
the window had shifted up through blue and on to invisibility, he commenced distracting Squee.

  “It seems like the timing is going to be tight, Squee. But hey, I’m a courier. I’m used to keeping to a schedule.”

  Chapter 25

  Twelve hours later, Lex watched the heat distortion outside the cockpit of the SOB as he took the last few turns on the way through Big Sigma’s debris field. The comparatively leisurely pace they’d gone to get back to Big Sigma had only just started to warm up the cabin. He glanced down to the temperature indicators.

  “Temps are dropping nicely. A few minutes in a nice, thick, freezing cold atmosphere should have us ready for another good, long sprint in no time. Let’s just hope the thermal whiplash doesn’t cause any fractures.” He tapped the communicator. “Ma, we’re about to touch down. How’s the production going?”

  “A final batch of Poison Pills is just being completed. They will be crated and prepared for transit in eleven minutes,” Ma said. “I trust your journey since our last communication was pleasant and uneventful.”

  “Well, for the first hour Squee continued to be a handful, but once she crashed she was basically a scarf the whole time,” he said, jabbing a thumb at the funk, who was deeply asleep.

  “Please be mindful of her heart rate and neurological responsiveness for the next eighteen hours. My experience regarding the physiological effects of caffeine and nicotine on an adult funk is limited.”

  “Will do, Ma.”

  He guided the SOB to the surface and eased it to the ground. Thanks to some minor damage to one of the landing struts, the ship listed a bit crookedly upon landing. Lex noted the damage with another resigned sigh, then popped the cockpit and climbed to the ground. The cold was punishing, but he shrugged it off. Having experienced baking heat and biting cold, cold was the lesser of two evils. At least in small doses it was. He hurried inside, Ma helpfully opening the door. Michella was waiting for him.

  “Trev!” she cried, diving at him and pulling him tight.