The Lost Swarm

by Vaughn Heppner

  The superior swore, wondering what he should do now.

  -8-

  A quite naked Clone Strand appeared inside a completely white room aboard the Builder base. The clone could tell this wasn’t anywhere on the Agamemnon because it was far too chilly in here, and there was taint in the air that reminded him of Builders.

  “Welcome, Strand,” the Wyr 9000’s metallic voice said over an intercom. “Did you teleport in comfort?”

  Strand looked around, and he felt his chest. It felt…different. Had his idea worked? Had he been right about it?

  “The platform detected certain metal items within you,” the Wyr 9000 said. “It analyzed them as a bomb and a mind control device. Naturally, the items did not teleport. Does that upset you?”

  “It does not,” Strand said, giddy with relief that his gamble had paid off so handsomely. It had worked! He hated Lord Drakos with a seething malice. There was nothing more in the world that he desired than to make Drakos his slave, subjugating him utterly to his will.

  “My sensors tell me you are agitated,” the Wyr 9000 said.

  “I’m gratified,” Strand said. “I appreciate your willingness to allow me to make my claim.”

  “Oh, you know the Builder formula. You are making a claim?”

  “Indeed,” Strand said. “I was a prisoner aboard the Agamemnon, a New Man star cruiser.”

  “I had assigned it a ninety-four percent probability that the bomb and mind control device meant you had been a prisoner. The other six percent was that you lacked courage and needed help to detonate yourself here in an attempt to destroy me.”

  “I have no desires to destroy you, but to thank you profusely. You freed me from a most horrible bondage. I am grateful.”

  “In a sense, it is true I freed you. However, that was not my reason for teleporting you here. I was never going to aid the New Men. They are parasites attempting to corrupt Builder technology. I am much more sympathetic to the Adok ship.”

  Strand frowned.

  “What troubles you now?”

  “Adok ship?” Strand asked. “You don’t mean Starship Victory, do you?”

  “Indeed I do. Is there something wrong with the starship?”

  “Is it near?”

  “Are you attempting to interrogate me, Clone Strand?”

  “Never…I merely lack information that may help me provide you with insight. What should I call you?”

  “Wyr 9000 will do just fine. I am one of the earliest sentient computers built upon the Arioch Builder Theory. Are you familiar with the theory?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “It is quite interesting. Firstly—”

  “Um, I hate to interrupt you. I’m sure the theory is interesting, and I do want to hear it—later, perhaps. Right now, there are a few pressing matters.”

  “True, but I thought we might not get another chance.”

  “I’m sure we will,” Strand said. “I’d like to question you about Victory. May I?”

  “Is there any particular reason why?”

  “Indeed,” Strand said. “The crew of Victory is exceptionally cunning. You cannot trust a thing they say. The crew has a grudge against me and will do anything in their power to destroy me.”

  “Then, let me put you at ease. The crew is in partial stasis. They have said nothing to me, and they never will.”

  “Oh,” Strand said, as a hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his lips. Could he have been this lucky? “Yes, that was a wise precaution on your part.”

  “I thought so, too.”

  “If you didn’t talk to them, how did you come to learn it was an Adok-built starship?”

  “I will ask you a few questions first, if you don’t mind.” This last seemed sarcastic, nearly sneering.

  “Not at all, not at all,” Strand said, smiling in an attempt to hide his unease. The Wyr 9000 had quirks, almost a personality. He hoped it wasn’t a Builder AI run amok. What had the computer said? He was a sentient machine? Strand didn’t like the sound of that.

  The Wyr 9000 started asking questions about the fourteen star cruisers, where they came from, who had built them and what the crews hoped to achieve out here, among other things. Soon, because Strand might have answered a bit too forthrightly, the computer wanted to know about the nature of the Throne Word, softliners, hardliners, the war against Star Watch, and then the joint effort against the first Swarm Invasion.

  “This is all very interesting,” the Wyr 9000 said later. “But you have become unsteady.”

  “I don’t feel so well,” Strand said.

  He’d been talking for hours, answering the computer’s questions because he’d been too afraid to do otherwise. Some time ago, he’d become fuzzyheaded as he shivered.

  “Sit,” the Wyr 9000 said.

  Strand practically collapsed onto the floor.

  A hatch opened and a small machine rolled forward. Metallic tentacles sprouted from it, helping Strand sit up. One put a glass of liquid to his lips, letting him drink.

  Strand coughed and wiped his lips with the back of a hand. “That wasn’t water.”

  “It was mainly water with some compounds to strengthen you,” the Wyr 9000 said. “I believe you will feel better soon.”

  The Wyr 9000 proved correct, as curiosity and verve returned to Strand’s eyes. He climbed back to his feet and no longer shivered.

  “That was a powerful drink,” the clone said.

  “I have many more questions, and I find your verbal replies tedious. Perhaps we should try a mind meld.”

  “Is that wise right away?” Strand asked.

  “It should prove no problem. Do you have any qualms regarding such a meld?”

  “I, ah, do, in fact.”

  “Let me see,” the Wyr 9000 said. “My indicators are telling me you fear it because you wish to keep certain matters hidden from me. I had expected you to dislike a meld because you just had a mind control device removed from you.”

  “May I be frank?”

  “Frank, frank…my human linguistic data tells me that is the name for an ancient group of Germanic barbarians. In time, they regarded themselves as pure and moral. To be frank was to be like them. You wish to speak like a Frank, like an ancient German barbarian. Why did you not simply ask to speak forthrightly?”

  “It was an idiom.”

  “Idiom. You speak like Galyan.”

  Strand froze. “I thought you said you hadn’t spoken to the crew.”

  “That is an imprecise statement on your part.”

  “I mean Victory’s crew,” Strand said. “You told me you hadn’t spoken to them.”

  “Now see here, Strand. I do not like your tone. You are in my Builder base. You are a guest. You should speak to me with a civil tongue. Otherwise, I must conclude that you despise me and thus are working to corrupt me.”

  “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to imply that at all.”

  “Hmm…that is a better tone, at least. I can almost believe you.”

  “It’s just…Galyan hates me as much as the rest of the crew does.”

  “In this case, Galyan is merely an AI personality. I do not believe he emotes as you suggest.”

  “Is he linked to our conversation?”

  The Wyr 9000 did not answer.

  Strand looked around. The white room had become warmer, but he didn’t see any way out. It was time to start playing this differently.

  “Do you have some clothes I could wear?”

  The Wyr 9000 still said nothing.

  “If I’ve upset you in some way—”

  “I am a Wyr 9000 Series Sentient Computer. I do not emote. I am not a biological creature. I have been analyzing your statements and matching them with Galyan’s ideas. You created the New Men?”

  Strand hesitated for a second. “I did.”

  “My indicators tell me you are lying.”

  “Uh…not really. The more complete truth is, Professor Ludendorff and I gene-spliced, matched partners, used gene
tic modifications—”

  “Better,” the Wyr 9000 interrupted. “But my indicators still suggest you are lying about something. Do you care to confess your lie?”

  “I’m not lying.”

  “You are Methuselah Man Strand?”

  After the barest of hesitations, the clone said, “Yes.”

  “Then, I pronounce death upon you for misusing Builder technology.”

  “What are you talking about?” the clone cried.

  “You gave the New Men fusion cannons. That was not your tech to give. I am going to destroy you before you can do worse.”

  “Wait,” Strand shouted. “I lied. I’m not the original. I’m a clone of the real Strand.”

  “You are not real?”

  “I am alive. I have Strand’s genes. But I am not the individual who did those things. I am a replica of him.”

  “To stand in his place?” the Wyr 9000 asked.

  “To live my own life,” the clone said.

  “Let me think.” Seconds later, “I must speak to Galyan.”

  “Wait!” the clone shouted. “Let’s clear up one thing first.”

  There was no answer, and Clone Strand had the terrible feeling that he was alone on the Builder base. He had no tools, no means to escape…

  He looked around.

  The little robot was still here, the one that had given him a drink of drugged water. Maybe he could use the little robot to help him escape from the chamber. He had to get to the control room if he was going to survive his encounter.

  -9-

  Galyan had indeed used Swarm tech earlier, sending a mutated Swarm virus as a message. He’d structured the “message” in such a way that it seemed as if he’d been hailing the base. Instead, he had beamed a mutated Swarm virus at the Builder asteroid. The virus was partly based on the data he had retained from their time on the Builder Dyson Sphere years ago. There, Thrax had corrupted the Builder with a Swarm virus. Galyan had discovered that and lost much of the needed the data until the Wyr 9000 had swept through his memory files.

  Through retro-recovery, some of the erased data from his and Maddox’s fight against the Builder returned to his files. Galyan had used the knowledge to build an augmented and mutated Swarm virus with an Adok kick attached.

  The virus had already begun its work. Without the Wyr 9000’s orders, an eleven-second ultraviolent galvanization beam had just finished reactivating Victory. That included waking the crew from partial stasis.

  Would Drakos and his people have seen the galvanization beam through their sensors? It seemed probable. Galyan understand that he had to work fast if he hoped to save his friends from the Wyr 9000 and the New Men.

  The inner core of the ancient Builder-Adok AI system purred smoothly inside Victory. Block computers clicked as lights flashed on their panels. A lone bulb on the ceiling illuminated the hexagonal chamber. There were processors, cooling units, fans, crystal chargers and a central node integrating everything.

  Despite all that, Galyan “saw” himself as his old self aboard Victory’s former bridge. As a small Adok with ropey arms, he sat in the command chair, with a circular panel around him. A hundred screens lined the bulkheads of the mental bridge, each showing a different image.

  The main screen in Galyan’s bridge—this was his id and ego combined—flickered as a presence filled the bridge with foreboding.

  On the command chair, the little Adok looked up. The image on the main screen showed a swirling black and blue background with a triangular set of red eyes burning at him in what seemed like real vision.

  “Galyan,” the Wyr 9000 said—the triangular set of red eyes was his sentience, it would seem. “What have you done during my absence?”

  Galyan smiled as he said, “Was Strand able to reach you?”

  On the main screen, the swirling background moved faster than before. “Do not avoid the question, little one. Despite all your claims earlier, you have done something nefarious. I know your crew is stirring, and the ship systems are firing back up. What is more galling, I find that I am unable to employ my stasis beam to return the situation to the way it was. This is the damning part. I have found your fingerprints everywhere, metaphorically speaking, of course.”

  “May I point out, that that is a human metaphor,” Galyan said.

  On the main screen, the triangular set of red eyes burned with what almost seemed computer hate. “Have you corrupted me with your infernal virus? Yes, I know all about it, so do not bother denying what you did.”

  “If I have corrupted you, what must you do next?”

  The Wyr 9000 was silent.

  Inside the inner core, AI chamber, the block computers purred louder, and the lights flashed more quickly.

  Galyan knew this was the moment Maddox would strike hardest, no doubt convincing the sentient computer to commit suicide. Did he have the captain’s cunning to do likewise?

  “I must purge the Swarm corruptions from me,” the Wyr 9000 finally said.

  “What if the corruptions run throughout your entire system? What if they have become you?”

  “Ah. I understand,” the Wyr 9000 said. “I have scanned your files or most of them anyway. You are hoping that I will purge myself. That is not going to happen. Instead, I will purge you, Victory and the fourteen star cruisers. I will construct Builder replicants to crew the vessels. In that way, I will usher in a new era of Builder civilization.”

  “Do you have the ability to do that?”

  “Not yet,” the Wyr 9000 admitted. “But I believe I have enough, enough, enough…”

  The swirling background on the main screen broke apart into thousands of colored bubbles. The triangular set of eyes went from red to orange.

  On Galyan’s id-ego command chair, the ropey arms slapped tentacle “fingers” onto controls. By doing so, Galyan beamed several advanced Swarm pulses at the Builder base.

  “What are you doing now?” the Wyr 9000 demanded. “Why could I not finish my questions?”

  “Swarm protocols are disrupting your action centers.”

  “Fool,” the Wyr 9000 said. “I know how to counteract the virus and purge those protocols. I will speak with Strand about—”

  The screen in Galyan’s id-ego command bridge split in two. One part showed the thousands of bubbles and triangular set of orange eyes. The other showed Captain Maddox sitting in his command chair aboard Victory’s bridge. He was handsome, tall and lean, with deeply blue eyes, and he was wearing a black Star Watch uniform.

  “Captain Maddox here,” he said.

  “You are obviously awake,” the Wyr 9000 said. “That would suggest Galyan used a computer jujitsu move against the base through the Swarm virus, cancelling the partial stasis on and in the starship.”

  “Good work, Galyan,” Maddox said.

  “Thank you, Captain,” Galyan said. “I appreciate the kind words.”

  “You won’t appreciate your coming destruction,” the Wyr 9000 said.

  “I notice fourteen star cruisers heading this way,” Maddox said.

  “They belong to Lord Drakos,” Galyan said.

  “Ah,” the captain said. “Builder, may I suggest an alliance against a common enemy?”

  “I am not a Builder, but a Wyr 9000 Series Sentient Computer constructed along Arioch Theory lines.”

  “I see,” Maddox said. “That’s interesting. You must have valuable Builder technology and tools inside your base. That puts you in an advantageous position, as it is my understanding that the Builders are nearly extinct.”

  “Because you murdered those that you have found,” the Wyr 9000 said.

  On the split-screen, Maddox’s eyebrows rose. “Ah, you know about that?”

  “I know much more, murderer. You believe that you are the di-far, a special human hybrid with delusions of grandeur.

  Maddox sat straighter, and perhaps there was the hint of a frown. He hated being called a hybrid, half-breed, anything that slighted his half human, half New Man heritage.
<
br />   “Di-far is a Spacer term,” Maddox said lightly. “The reason that’s important is because the Spacers derived much of their culture from the Builders.”

  “So?” the Wyr 9000 said.

  “So, where is Commander Thrax Ti Ix?” Maddox asked. “If anyone has the power to know, it’s you. If you found him, I’m sure you could use the knowledge to bargain for a better outcome between Lord Drakos and me.”

  The triangular set of eyes changed from orange to red. “That is a fascinating idea,” the Wyr 9000 said.

  “Thank you,” Maddox said. “I thought so, too.”

  “But I will not fall prey to your tactics, Captain. I have scanned Galyan’s files. You believe that you are a clever hybrid.”

  “I doubt I would use that word,” Maddox said, as if he were suddenly clenching his teeth.

  “Does the word ‘hybrid’ hurt your precious pride, Captain?”

  “Galyan,” Maddox said crisply.

  “I am working on it, sir,” Galyan said. “As usual, you are—”

  “None of your excuses, Galyan,” Maddox said, interrupting. “Just get on it.”

  “What was that about?” the Wyr 9000 asked.

  “Sorry,” Maddox said. “I have other worries. I’ll talk to you on the flippity-flop.”

  “Is that some sort of code?” the Wyr 9000 demanded. “Because it makes no sense.”

  “I am initiating,” Galyan said, tapping an id-ego control.

  At that moment, the thousands of moving bubbles and the triangular set of red eyes vanished from the split-screen. The Wyr 9000’s presence also fled.

  On the main screen, Galyan saw the captain bow his head as if exhausted. Maddox rubbed the bridge of his nose and took a deep breath, shaking his head.

  Around the captain on the bridge, others stirred, still trying to rid themselves of the partial stasis. They looked exhausted, too. How had Maddox managed to come out of stasis so much faster than the others?

  “Galyan,” the Wyr 9000 whispered.

  Galyan said nothing. He thought the sentient computer had broken the link. Ah, the computer had, but now it tried to relink.

  “Please talk to me,” the Wyr 9000 said. “I only have seconds of sentience left. Strand, the traitor—” Those were the Wyr 9000’s last words on the id-ego screen.