Time of the Stones

by Fred Rothganger

  Enfold the tail of the object just like a rocket when it’s being loaded for launch.

  The nanosecond control needed for formation flying at hypersonic speeds was something only Ship could do. He closed the final few millimeters and exuded a scale-encrusted protrusion onto the backside of the warhead, then expanded the contact along the flat back, working around the edges and forward along the sides, securing a rigid grip.

  Captured

  Pitch up now. Take it into orbit.

  Joy

  Don’t engulf the object fully. It might—

  Ship’s consciousness ended.

  To the north a new sun blazed in the sky. It expanded into a roiling fireball in the upper atmosphere. Three and half minutes later the shock wave swept across Stonehill, smacking tents over and jolting the inhabitants.

  Ground zero was a sparsely populated forest on the other side of the mountain. Susan transferred to the nearest swarm emplacement that was still communicating. She climbed a ledge, morphed to bird and launched into the air.

  Trees lay flat like toothpicks radiating outward. Heat rippled up from singed wood, but no firestorm. The leveled zone extended about the area of a small city. It was a moderate bomb by Ancient standards, perhaps only 50 kilotons.

  In this region there were only two suspected human habitations, little cabins in the middle of nowhere. Susan flew to each place, calling out an offer of help, then listening for human voices. No one called back. She set up a search pattern that spiraled in toward ground zero, then left the bird on autopilot.

  In Birik, Susan remained still with her eyes shut. From vibrations alone she could sense that the room was full and Temujin was still on the throne. Musicians were playing a ballad while girls danced.

  Susan opened her eyes and caught Temujin lurching in surprise. She stood and went to her children.

  Ogedei said, “Mom, people noticed you were gone.”

  “Both of you, leave now. Go to the airfield.”

  The command did not invite question. Ogedei and Pinar hurried from the room. Susan activated a backup copy of Ship’s program and ordered swarm in the area to converge on the end of the runway.

  She strode to the open area in the middle of the hall and stood between the performers and the throne. Pointing at Temujin, she spoke in a voice that could split rocks. “Next time you try to kill me, use a method that does not harm others. Since I am dead to you now, you are no longer my husband. The sad irony is, I really did love you.”

  Temujin pleaded, “It’s politics, not personal. I love you too.”

  Susan took the circlet off her head and tossed it at his feet. She reached up, hooked fingers into the collar of her silk dress and ripped it down. The tattered garment fell into a pile around her feet.

  A gasp echoed round the room, followed by absolute silence.

  The naked queen kicked off her slippers and turned barefoot to the door, with long red hair billowing in a self-made breeze.

  If the guards had not opened the doors in time, she would have smashed right through them. She fled into the garden and abandoned her avatar to the swarm bushes there.

  Ship, your mission is to convey delicate living cargo back to the old spaceport.

  ACK

  Susan drew a simple ovoid solid and sent the parameters.

  Imagine this object and engulf it. Do not accelerate past 3 g, and do not make sudden changes of direction. Keep the temperature inside at 24 degrees, air pressure at 100 kPa.

  ?

  Here’s an air scoop to pressurize the chamber.

  Susan continued the recitation with Ship, trying to ensure that his first attempt at human cargo would arrive alive.

  * * *

  Pinar and Ogedei hurried out the gate and along the main street toward the airfield. The commotion at the palace had distracted the guard that would normally accompany members of the royal family.

  Ogedei said, “Mom sounded angry.”

  Pinar asked, “You think Father actually tried to kill her?”

  Ogedei contemplated this. “Yeah.”

  “Why?”

  “He wants to rule the world. Mom is in the way.”

  They walked for over an hour. Approaching the gate to the airfield, Pinar whispered, “How do we get in?”

  “Let me handle it.” Ogedei squared his young shoulders and strode toward the guards.

  “Prince Ogedei, what brings you here at this hour?”

  “Great Leader sends me on urgent business. We have no time for small talk.”

  Without a blink, the guards stood aside. Ogedei and the Princess went through and headed straight for the runway. There, a seething mass of swarm was growing into the form of an aircraft.

  Pinar whispered, “It’s beautiful. Not like the planes we make.”

  From a nearby hanger, large blobs of swarm dragged two trucks. The craft mounted the vehicles, ripping off their bodies and engines so that only the axles remained. Abandoned parts fell to the side.

  A mouth opened on the underside of the craft and a tongue extended to the ground, corrugated with flat ridges like stairs.

  Ogedei said, “I think Mom wants us to get in that thing.”

  Pinar froze and stared at the maw.

  “Sister, be brave. You must make this journey alone.”

  “Huh?”

  “I won’t run away like some child.”

  “Then I’m staying too!”

  “If Mother is no longer queen, then you are no longer princess. But I have Father’s blood. He won’t kill me if he thinks I’ll become like him.” Ogedei embraced Pinar. “We’ll meet again someday.” He nudged her toward the waiting Ship.

  Pinar took a few wooden steps, then stooped to enter.

  Mother’s voice whispered, “You have become a man, Ogedei. I’ll help you as much as I can, in quiet and invisible ways.”

  Inside the mouth was a small chamber. Two protrusions from the back wall formed chairs of a sort. Pinar scrambled into the seat on the left. The tongue retracted from the ground and filled the hole until only a smooth inner surface remained. Wide flat vines wrapped around her waist, down over her shoulders and up between her legs. They met in the middle and fused into a seamless whole. The seat felt neither hard nor soft. Rather, it fit so perfectly it did not need to be soft.

  The walls seemed to turn transparent. Pinar saw Ogedei walk to the side of the runway. Rumbling came from behind, and her back pressed against the seat. The chamber seemed to rotate so that front was up, yet the view remained the same. The ground rushed past and fell away.

  Pinar screamed in terror. When she didn’t die, the scream gradually changed to a giddy laugh. She raised hands over her head and shouted, “Woo!”

  Lights of the capital filled the lower right view as Ship banked to the north. They quickly fell behind. A sea of stars above made a crisp line with the dark horizon.

  The whisper came again, “It’s a gorgeous view, yes? I love flying.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Ship likes you. He thinks you’re a little Creator. Maybe you two will become friends.”

  They flew into dawn. Ship slowed and descended to the Long River valley. A city spread to their right. Pinar stared in excitement as the ground rose. Something like a truck raced ahead of them on the runway. Just as they passed over, the cabin rocked slightly and Ship settled out of the air.

  Ship taxied to the end of the runway and opened his mouth. Pinar staggered to her feet and wandered out in a daze.

  Mother came to her with a small backpack. “Sorry Pinar, you can’t rest yet. Here’s some food and water for your journey, and a copy of your mobile. This elephant will carry you to the Abbey.”

  “Can’t I go where you live?”

  “Of course, but Stonehill is far in the mountains. There’s no palace or even houses, and the people only speak Baseno. At the Abbey they know Ancient English, so you can get by until you learn. It’s every bit as cosmopolitan as the citadel in Birik.”

  “OK.”
Pinar pranced back and petted Ship’s underside. “Thanks. Maybe we can fly again some time.”

  A deep sound like a foghorn emitted from the craft. His skin rippled under her fingers. Pinar needed no translation to understand Ship’s sentiment.

  Mother helped her onto the elephant. “By tradition, a princess remains a virgin until she is married off to some other great house as part of an alliance. The Abbey doesn’t hold those values. If you want to keep acting like a princess, Olivia can help set some boundaries. Otherwise, one of those guys will have you in bed before the week is over.”

  Pinar blushed. “Mother!”

  “Don’t let them smooth-talk you, young one. If you want commitment, you make it a precondition. Also, you should know that everyone who sets foot in the Basin is made infertile by the swarm. Sorry, but you don’t get any special treatment here. If you ever want a child, you must win a birthright in the lottery.”

  “That’s fine. I don’t want a baby just yet.”

  Mother said goodbye and disappeared into the swarm forest.

  The elephant ride lasted over two hours, bringing Pinar to the Abbey around noon. A young woman came out. “Hi, I’m Olivia.”

  Pinar rubbed her eyes. “Mom said she’s known you for twenty-five years. Were you a baby?”

  Olivia laughed. “I just turned fifty.”

  “You could be my sister. How ...”

  “Your mother edited out my latent genetic diseases. Turns out, much of aging is the onset of disease.”

  “I wish they would do that in Birik.”

  “Change takes time, Pinar. Things must seem pretty awful right now, but your people will find their way.”

  Shatter

  Year 25, Day 307

  In Temujin’s bedroom, a volumetric projection flared into existence. Kani shrieked and pulled the covers over herself.

  Susan appeared as a shimmering ghost. “Ah, Kani, I see you’ve risen in the ranks since I left. Has he made you queen yet?”

  The poor girl stammered.

  Susan said, “Temujin, another act of senseless destruction. Have you gone mad?”

  He replied, “We had one more device to test. Since you’re not fond of bombs dropping on your side of the world, we picked somewhere remote.”

  “But a Stone? The flash burned it out.”

  Temujin grinned. “Thanks for that bit of intelligence.”

  “What could you possibly hope to gain from destroying a Stone in the middle of nowhere? Everyone on the southern continent lives near the coast.”

  “Yes, but a brave soul could travel inland and discover it. I’m eliminating any possible competition.”

  Susan stared back as if punched in the face. She muttered, “Your genius is geopolitics. Compared to your skills I am only a child. I should learn from your example.” She vanished from the room.

  A few hours later the sound of small-arms fire woke Temujin. He donned a robe, flew down to the throne room and grabbed a military radio. “What’s the situation?”

  A commander responded, “Great Leader, a strange creature came and took the Stone off the hill. We have pumped thousands of rounds into it, but no matter how much damage we do, it reforms and plods on.”

  “Cease fire! You risk damaging the Stone.”

  “Once the creature gets outside the city, we plan to napalm it.”

  “You may try once. Bring fire-fighting equipment and keep the Stone itself watered.”

  Temujin dressed and took a horse out to the scene. The creature matched the description of ‘elephant’ that Susan had once given him. At the entrance to the city, it patiently crushed through a road-block set up by the soldiers. They fell back and aimed flamethrowers at it. Wherever the napalm hit, its skin curled up, enfolded the burning material and flew away as if propelled by a spring.

  The beast was shrinking! Flamethrowers were an effective weapon.

  Another elephant came and merged with the first. The much larger elephant plodded on, leaving a trail of burning fragments behind.

  The commander called for continuous fire from everyone.

  Another elephant arrived to replenish the diminishing swarm. And another, and another. They were coming from all directions. Some stood back, waiting. A few disappeared, though no one really noticed. Then tendrils sprang from the ground and wrapped around the soldiers.

  Even Temujin found himself immobilized. His steed snorted in panic. Temujin called out, “Cease fire!”

  Commanders echoed the order. Stillness followed, broken only by the sound of flickering material on the ground. The elephant plodded on, leaving them all behind.

  Temujin said, “There is no point in fighting this battle. We know exactly where it’s going.”

  The tendrils unwound and disappeared.

  The commander asked, “Where, sir?”

  “To the mountains, where my father found it.”

  Temujin galloped back to the citadel and up the hill, around the rings of streets. At the biology lab he dismounted and entered the Faraday cage with Galim. It was the only place they could hope to escape the eyes and ears of the swarm. “Do you have anything we can use now?”

  Galim grinned. “We have a way to crack the private key.”

  “But you haven’t yet.”

  He stammered.

  Temujin demanded, “How long?”

  “Remember those keep-alive packets? We realized that it may just be a timestamp. We know how Susan measures time because her NTP server is available to the world. If our guess about the packet content is exactly correct, and if we collect enough of them, we can generate possible keys. One of them might be right.”

  “That’s a lot of ifs. Susan once boasted that she could destroy this whole city in a few hours. Now I believe it.”

  “Great Leader, even if we crack the private key, we won’t be able to take complete control of the swarm. We will merely be a competing source of commands. And the only commands we know are the ones we intercept.”

  “Have your people devise a set of commands that will allow us to pass through her defenses. If we take her out, we become central control.”

  * * *

  “We’ve found something unusual in the satellite imagery.” The technician showed Temujin a set of printouts. “This ring in the middle of the western continent is expanding several hundred meters per day. Off-nadir shows it to be a rather tall wall of swarm.”

  “Is it perfectly circular?”

  “No, Great Leader. It seems to track with the terrain, but it’s fairly close to circular. We have observed it pass over several villages without any noticeable change. There are people visible inside of the ring, apparently going about their lives.”

  One of the generals said, “It seems to have no purpose at all. Maybe it is a ruse to distract us.”

  Temujin stroked his beard. “There is some deep logic to it. Our enemy is the greatest single intelligence on the planet. If we overlook part of her strategy, it could lead to a fatal mistake. Tell our spies to risk everything to learn what this is.”

  A messenger slipped into the Faraday cage. “Swarm attacked the chip fab. All the workers are safe, but the equipment has been wrecked beyond repair.”

  “Any other facilities destroyed?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  Temujin turned to the general in charge of local defense. “This I understand. She wants to remove any independent source of technology. Post a company with flamethrowers at the machine shop. Make a perimeter around the invasion fleet. Perhaps we can hold her off until we crack the private key.”

  The general left the cage and issued orders to his commanders.

  Temujin told the remaining men, “Standard military doctrine lacks the imagination to win this fight.” He touched his fingers together in deep thought. “We spent fifteen years together. What is in your mind, my old love?”

  * * *

  “Sir, our spies report that the center of the ring is where the original organism was found, the one Susan used
to create the swarm.”

  “Any indication about her motives?”

  “All we know is that she sent messages to people in the area, instructing them to stand still and let the wall pass around them.”

  Temujin thought for a moment. “Perhaps it’s a biological filter. She must be killing off the founder organism so we can’t create an independent swarm.”

  Early next morning a messenger called Temujin to the lab. Inside the Faraday cage, Galim said, “We have the key.” At the center of the table sat a fist-sized blob of captive swarm. Galim held up a mobile device and tapped something. The blob shaped into a small dendroid.

  Temujin asked, “Can you do anything else with it?”

  “We might be able to milk the swarm for fuel.”

  “Good, because otherwise this will be a one-way trip.”

  “We need a more powerful transmitter. This little toy won’t stand up to the swarm’s communication network.”

  “You have full wartime authority. Cannibalize anything in the city for parts. Make several. Make them as powerful as possible. And I want the first one delivered to the fleet the moment it’s ready.”

  * * *

  A large military transport plane sat at the end of the runway. Like the rockets, it was a highly specialized construction, one of a kind. The nose flipped up to load the invasion force and its equipment: two armored personnel carriers and a tank with a dozer blade.

  After takeoff, Temujin stood at the front of the cargo hold and addressed the company. “This battle cannot be won by military strength. In fact, Susan will likely order her people to stay away. We are going up against the most powerful force ever unleashed on Earth, something the Ancients called the Singularity. In the balance is freedom for humanity to grow, versus perpetual slavery to a well-intentioned machine. Our chance of success is small, and our chance of survival is even smaller.”