Creation Machine

by Andrew Bannister

  Alameche bowed deeper and the Patriarch laughed. ‘My colleague thinks you have paid him a compliment,’ he told the machine.

  ‘Good. That’s what I intended.’ The machine floated towards Alameche, and he thought he caught the smell of ozone. He held his ground as the machine came closer and closer, and allowed himself a smile.

  ‘That you did pay me a compliment, Ambassador, or that you want me to think you did?’ he asked.

  The machine continued its float until it was only a hand’s breadth from his face. Then it stopped, hanging quite still in front of him. The smell of ozone was unmistakable, and Alameche felt his face prickle faintly as his bristles tried to stand out from his skin.

  Despite its spikes the little machine somehow managed to be oddly featureless; Alameche could as easily have been squaring up to an ornament. But nevertheless he felt . . . studied. He met the blank non-gaze as inscrutably as he could.

  Eventually the machine dipped a little and drew back. ‘Exactly,’ it said. ‘One of those two.’ It waggled from side to side in a gesture Alameche could have sworn was laughter. Then the waggle stopped. ‘Right,’ it said, and now the voice was businesslike, ‘let’s not delay, especially as you seem to have come in something of a rush. I have some information to impart, and I would like to do so somewhere secure. And believe me, where we are at the moment doesn’t count.’

  Alameche opened his mouth, but the Patriarch was quicker. ‘With regard to security, Ambassador, I can assure you—’

  The machine cut him off. ‘With great respect, Your Excellency, I’m afraid you can’t. As we speak this chamber is watched by several entities, some less friendly than others. If I were not preventing them, they could easily tell how thoroughly you had bathed this morning, and where. And feasibly even with whom. Now get us somewhere underground with some good thick rock above us, and I might be able to do something about that.’

  It turned and floated, not towards the grand exit from the chamber but instead towards an insignificant door in one corner. For a moment neither Alameche nor the Patriarch moved, and the machine turned back. ‘Well,’ it said, ‘are you coming?’ It bobbed towards the little door. ‘I think this is the best way, don’t you?’

  Alameche gathered himself. ‘Precisely,’ he said, while making a mental note to find all the staff who had any knowledge of that particular passage and have them publicly flayed. He turned to the Patriarch. ‘Excellency?’

  ‘What? Oh. Yes. Quite so.’ The Patriarch set out for the door, directing an angry glare at Alameche as he passed. Alameche waited until machine and Patriarch were through the doorway, and then followed them, shaking his head.

  As he went he amended his plans. Flayed, and then dipped in something corrosive.

  The room they arrived in was square, windowless and about thirty paces on a side. The floor was a polished glassy black; the ceiling a matt white disfigured by a lot of purposeful-looking steps and bulges, and the walls a dull grey dotted with flecks, possibly a rock containing mica. A round table in the middle of the room had chairs for twenty, and a screen – presently inert – occupied most of one wall. It might have been a rather dated interpretation of a conference room.

  In fact it was an attack-and data-hardened command space, eight storeys below ground and almost half a kilometre to one side of the shaft that led down to it. It dated back a few hundred years, to one of the more paranoid periods in the history of the People’s Democratic Republic, and it was one of six similar, and completely unconnected, such spaces, distributed across the Citadel in a random pattern that appeared on no maps, anywhere. Only six people knew of all the spaces, and each of those six thought he – naturally, they were all men – was the only one.

  Ambassador Eskjog swivelled from side to side as if surveying the room. ‘Shall we sit down?’ it asked. It lowered itself towards the conference table, halting just above the table-top. ‘Just a minute,’ it said, and there was a fuff like someone blowing. A cloud of dust rose from the table below the machine, leaving a darker circle on the surface. Eskjog settled itself down in the middle of the clean circle with three of its spikes slightly flexed to form a tripod. ‘Someone needs to have a word with the cleaners,’ it said.

  Alameche glanced at the Patriarch, who looked as if he was about to explode, and cleared his throat. ‘This space is rarely used, as I have no doubt you know, and dust is not a priority. Security is, and I am expecting to be asked how you breached it.’ He looked at the Patriarch again. ‘Very soon. So please, before you tell us anything else, tell us that.’

  ‘Yes, well. Security is relative. Relative to your tech level, this space is secure. But – and I don’t mean to patronize – relative to the average tech level in the Outer Spin, it is less so. And relative to mine, it is like a clean glass of water: transparently innocent.’ Eskjog rose off the table and turned towards the Patriarch. ‘Therefore, Excellency, if you are inclined to take out your disapproval on your servant here, I beg you to think again. He really couldn’t have prevented intrusion.’ It paused. ‘Not without my help.’

  The Patriarch looked at the machine. ‘Are you offering your help?’

  ‘Well, yes. Amongst other things.’

  Alameche and the Patriarch looked at each other and the Patriarch nodded slightly. Alameche turned to the machine. ‘Well?’ he said.

  ‘Right. Let’s start. Oh, you might want to sit down. This will take a little while.’

  Alameche waited until the Patriarch had pulled out a chair and lowered himself into it before doing the same. When they were both seated Eskjog floated to a position between them. ‘I’m going to tell you a story,’ it said. ‘If you listen through to the end, then a year from now you will probably still have what you think of as a civilization, and possibly your position in the Spin will have been enhanced dramatically.’

  ‘And if we don’t listen?’ asked Alameche.

  ‘Ah.’ The machine sagged a little. ‘Almost certain annihilation. Want me to go on?’

  The word ‘annihilation’ hovered in the room.

  Alameche and the Patriarch exchanged a look. The Patriarch frowned. ‘Annihilation? Ambassador, I hope you’re exaggerating.’

  ‘Not really. Look, hear me out and then judge for yourselves.’

  The Patriarch compressed his lips. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Tell us.’

  ‘All right. Before I start, do you mind if I patch in to your display? It’ll make things easier.’

  The Patriarch raised an eyebrow towards Alameche, who shrugged. He turned back to Eskjog. ‘I don’t suppose we can stop you, can we?’ he said.

  ‘No you can’t, but I always think it’s polite to ask.’ There was a soft chime. The room darkened and the big screen on the opposite wall flickered and settled down to show an image of a star field. ‘The Spin, of course,’ said Eskjog. ‘Perhaps we should say, both of the Spins. Outer, and Inner.’ As it spoke, the screen divided into two colour fields, with the Outer planetary systems forming a bulbous green crescent wrapped round the red of the Inner. ‘Your good selves, here.’ Near the centre, Taussich flashed a brighter red. ‘What you euphemistically call the Fortunate Protectorates, here.’ The five planets of the Spin Centre flashed. ‘And something very interesting here.’ Four of the planets faded, leaving one which flared quickly through orange, yellow and green to a fierce, blue-white point.

  The Patriarch leaned forward. ‘What planet is that?’ he asked.

  Alameche squinted at the burning dot. ‘Silthx, Excellency.’

  ‘Ah. Our most recent converts.’ The Patriarch nodded. ‘What makes them interesting?’

  ‘Well, lots of things. To you lot, slaves and mineral resources, obviously, plus strategic location and a good fertile agriculture.’ Eskjog made a noise like a sigh. ‘Although the manner of your conquest didn’t do much for that last bit. The word “converts” seems a bit optimistic.’

  The Patriarch shrugged. ‘Insurgency has to be tackled. Eh, Alameche? That was one of yours, I bel
ieve?’

  Alameche inclined his head. ‘Yes, Excellency.’

  ‘And you did it so well,’ said Eskjog. ‘Most of the population dead or enslaved in only a few weeks, and four fifths of the productive farmland radioactive for generations. That makes it interesting to other people, of course. Environmental catastrophes always attract attention and a bit of genocide just adds sauce.’

  The point on the screen was painfully bright now. Alameche looked away from it and down at Eskjog. It suddenly looked different, but at first he couldn’t see why. As his eyes adjusted, he realized that in the near-darkness of the room the little machine was surrounded by a faint violet penumbra. The effect was sinister; he found himself wondering exactly what Ambassador Eskjog really was, and if it was as potent as it seemed to be. And if it really was, what did that mean about the abilities of its distant masters?

  He suppressed a shiver.

  Eskjog went on, its voice even. ‘Make no mistake, Excellency, you have attracted attention. There are two strands of opinion. One, that you should be blown out of the sky; two, that you should be walled up in your own nasty corner of the Spin and left to fester.’

  ‘And which strand do you represent?’ The Patriarch’s voice, too, was quiet, but Alameche recognized the chilly edge in it. He had heard that tone only a few times, and each time he had hoped never to hear it again.

  ‘Neither, happily.’ Eskjog sounded amused. ‘First, don’t be misled by what I said earlier. I may be legally human, but I am not human. The opposite, in fact. Inhuman. I really don’t care about the fate of biological beings; for my money you can rape, starve, enslave and irradiate each other as much as you like.’

  ‘How kind.’ The Patriarch’s voice was still icy.

  ‘Not at all. Frankly, your Alameche could say the same.’ Eskjog rose a little and repeated the waggle that Alameche had suspected meant laughter. Then it floated to the middle of the conference table and settled itself down, this time without bothering to clear the dust. ‘Blowing you out of the sky has been discussed at high level, but it was rejected. Partly squeamishness, and partly because the irony of wiping you out because you had wiped other people out seemed a bit extreme.’

  ‘So where does that leave us? Stewing in our own juice?’ The Patriarch was sitting well forward in his seat. Alameche thought he looked as if he wanted to pounce on something.

  ‘Until a while ago, yes, so everyone left you to it. But now, no.’ Eskjog rose a finger’s breadth from the table and turned so that one of its spikes pointed first at the Patriarch, and then at Alameche. ‘Leaving you alone is no longer an option. That’s where the story comes in.’

  The image on the screen faded so that the room was completely dark, except for Eskjog’s ghostly fetch-light glow. Alameche leaned back in his seat, and sensed the Patriarch doing the same. Eskjog remained silent for a few seconds more. When it began to speak it sounded more purposeful.

  ‘You invaded Silthx two years ago. Close to a billion corpses, atmosphere zapped with some very dirty old nukes, you cheeky monkeys, environmental catastrophe, yada yada. Much liberal hand-, tentacle- or flipper-wringing. You enslaved nearly all the remaining population, plundered the planet pretty well to the core and bought yourselves a ten-year future in rare-earth elements that will fund the next phase of your nasty little expansion. But – and now I am partly guessing – you also tripped over a local rumour. Yes?’

  Alameche remained silent. So did the Patriarch.

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes. You heard about some strange object that flew out of the skies, without warning and without showing on the sensors, and landed slap-down-doodie in the core of the biggest nuclear plant on the planet – a plant that was later turned into a sort of memorial to the people killed at the time. Yes?’

  Again, both men remained silent. Eskjog made a sighing noise. ‘Another yes, I think,’ it said. ‘So you investigated. Guesses or not, I’m afraid we know this part. You used unprotected human forced labour to excavate the exposed nuclear core of a demolished fission plant. This desecrated the memorial and created yet another heap of corpses, if a bit more slowly than usual. And you found something.’

  The screen lit up, making Alameche blink. Then his eyes adapted and he registered the image. It was a white ovoid. There was no sense of scale; it could have been millimetres or kilometres long.

  Eskjog went on speaking. ‘Going back to guesswork, I suspect you have this thing deep in a lab somewhere. I don’t know where, so you have actually managed to conceal something. Well done you. I also suspect that you have no idea what it is and that it has defied analysis, otherwise your whole civilization would be in another place altogether. And if that’s true, if it really isn’t letting you in – then it must still be alive, although possibly compromised.’

  There was a long silence while both men stared at the screen. Then the Patriarch spoke. ‘How did you obtain that image?’ he asked, his voice shaking.

  ‘Ah well.’ Eskjog’s voice sounded smug. ‘That’s the bit that leaked, I’m afraid.’

  ‘But how?’ The Patriarch’s voice was practically a roar. ‘We killed them all! Didn’t we kill them all? Alameche, you useless bastard! Tell me we killed them all!’

  ‘Whoa! Steady.’ Eskjog floated towards the Patriarch, and through his growing terror Alameche had the insane notion that it would have mopped the man’s brow if it could. ‘You did kill them all. That is, Alameche here had them all killed, just like you told him. But these days, with the right technology death is – how can I put this – a nuanced condition. A personality escaped.’

  The Patriarch groaned and slumped back in his seat. ‘Alameche,’ he said, ‘I have stopped understanding. Understand for me, or I’ll have your head cooked on your neck.’

  Alameche felt as if his head was already cooking. He shook it carefully. ‘I think it’s a sort of simulation, Excellency. A human personality can exist as a model, within an artificial intelligence.’ He looked at Eskjog. ‘Although how such a thing can “escape”, I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, the sort of thing you have just described probably couldn’t,’ said Eskjog, ‘and if it did it wouldn’t be much good. But this is the other way round. It’s not a model personality, it’s real, and it exists in a simulated virtual mind. It’s actually easier that way, believe it or not.’

  Alameche frowned. ‘Easier to simulate a mind? How can that be?’

  ‘Oh, the mind isn’t the difficult bit. It’s like music: you can play a complicated piece on a simple instrument.’

  The Patriarch sighed. ‘Ambassador, with all respect, I don’t see the relevance of this. We, ah, assimilated Silthx and found an artefact in the process. It’s very important but we don’t know why. Something got out and told you. Some of you are cross. Some of you are interested. Both the interest and the anger represent possible existential threats to us. Yes?’

  ‘A masterly summary,’ said Eskjog.

  ‘Good.’ The Patriarch stood up and stretched. ‘At last we know where we are. I always do the same thing about existential threats, and it is this: Alameche, in time for our forthcoming Anniversary Celebrations you will present to me a strategy for the neutralization of this threat, to the glory of our civilization.’

  Alameche inclined his head. ‘Excellency.’

  ‘Very good. My thanks for your information, Ambassador, and any other help you can offer.’ The Patriarch knitted his fingers together, faced his palms outwards and cracked his knuckles in a fusillade that made Alameche blink. ‘Danger has a particular effect on me. I am going to find something female and nubile.’ He looked distant for a moment and added: ‘Young and female and nubile.’

  Alameche waited until the door had clicked shut behind his master, then turned to Eskjog and spread his arms apologetically. The little machine rose from the table. ‘Young?’ it said.

  Alameche smiled. ‘The age of consent is strictly enforced in our society.’

  ‘Right. And the age of consent is set by . . .?
’ Eskjog let the sentence tail off.

  Alameche nodded. ‘The Patriarch,’ he said.

  ‘Hmmph.’ Eskjog settled back down on to the table. ‘I find I have more sympathy for biological beings than I thought. Young ones, at least. But you,’ and it inclined back a little so that one of its spikes was pointing at Alameche, ‘you noticed something.’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Which was?’

  Alameche smiled. ‘The mistake in the Patriarch’s summary,’ he said. ‘He assumed that the escaped personality found you first. But you didn’t say that.’

  ‘No, I didn’t. Because it didn’t. Well done, again.’

  ‘So who did it find?’

  ‘It’s more a question of who found it,’ said Eskjog. ‘Someone – or something – who went looking for it, is the answer. How up to speed are you on politics in the Outer Spin?’

  ‘Not very. Not as much as I should be. You haven’t answered my question.’

  ‘No, I haven’t. That’s partly because I can’t, with any precision. I don’t like being imprecise.’

  Alameche waited. After a moment, Eskjog made a sighing noise. ‘All right. The short imprecise answer is that I – we – don’t know. The longer one is that whoever it was had three things: knowledge of the genocide, the ability to snatch a personality from a dying body and a reason to do so.’

  Alameche raised an eyebrow. ‘That’s not only imprecise, it’s obvious. Where does it lead?’

  ‘Well, to any one of several hundred places that we know about, plus the unknown number we don’t. Some of them could even be here, which is something you might like to think about. But it’s not that important. What matters more is that the personality has moved on. It’s now in a place where we can track it covertly – and I am really not going to enlighten you any more about that.’

  Alameche nodded and looked at the ovoid on the screen again. ‘The thing we found. You said it was still alive. What is it?’

  ‘Well, we’re not really sure. As far as we know there’s only been one found before, and that didn’t end well for the finders.’ The screen flowered into a bright blue-white explosion which made Alameche flinch. Then it darkened, and went back to showing the image of the Spin. Eskjog rose from the table and floated over to hover in front of the glittering star field. ‘But we think it’s a remnant, an artefact from the Construction Phase. Maybe a part of the Construction itself.’ It paused. ‘Maybe – probably, even – a causal part.’