by Jay Allan
“Thank you…I finally managed to pull myself together, even if it took half my life.”
“You did very well, and that is all that matters.”
“Maybe…though I can’t help but wonder what I might have become if I’d been more aggressive in my earlier years.”
“Terrance…you were born into a difficult situation. Few, if any, others would have done any better.”
Compton just sat for a moment. Then he decided to change the direction of the discussion. “How have you been?” It was an odd question, perhaps, but he realized he had never asked before.
“I am fine, Terrance…though I am…lonely. It is not surprising that technology has advanced, and I have become less and less useful, but still it is…difficult…sometimes.”
Compton listened, and he found himself feeling sorry for the computer, perhaps more than he had before. He knew it wasn’t human, that it’s version of “difficult” wasn’t exactly the same as a person would feel. But it had once been the most sophisticated computer on Earth 2, and possibly throughout humanity’s reach. He knew it came close to “feeling” things, even if he was just as sure it wasn’t entirely there.
“I am certain it has been difficult.” Compton found himself feeling bad suddenly, sorry he hadn’t found more time recently to visit the machine. In truth, it had been almost eight years since he had been there. “I’m afraid my duties have taken me off world for most of my time, but I will try to visit you more often in the future.” Partially true…he had spent most of his time over the past ten or twelve years off world, but he’d been back many times, and he’d had multiple opportunities to visit the computer. He simply hadn’t.
Whether he would come back more often in the future…that was a question he couldn’t answer, not even for himself.
“I am pleased you are here now, Terrance.” A pause, just an instant, but noticeable, nevertheless. “I understand that your life has gotten much more involved as you have advanced through the command levels. You are number two now, in the whole fleet…and likely to accede to total command when Admiral Frette resigns, which I suspect will be fairly soon.”
“Perhaps…if the admiral steps down.” He was uncomfortable discussing it, though he couldn’t deny that he’d thought about it before. Whether he actually wanted it or not was another matter. Sometimes he truly did, and others he imagined stepping down himself, living a quiet life in retirement. “I just wanted to see you, to catch up.” He was deliberately changing the subject, and he suspected the computer would know. But he didn’t care.
“I am very happy to see you, Terrance. As we said before, it has been a long time. A very long time.” The computer didn’t add anything like, “try to come back again sooner,” but Compton heard it anyway.
“I have to go…” Partial truth…he was busy, but he could have spared an extra hour or two. “…but I just wanted to say to you that you were very important to me. I mean you still are…” A bit of a lie he suspected both of them understood. “…but I don’t think I would have made it through my younger days without you.” He paused, almost not saying what he had come to say. But then it just came out. “I want to thank you. When I was younger, everyone expected something from me. Everyone but you.” He paused again, and then added simply another, “Thank you.”
“You are welcome, Terrance…and I can see now that I was right. You turned out very well—very well indeed—and I feel I have had a place in that.”
“You did…certainly.” Compton just nodded, finding himself a bit emotionally unstable. Then he said, “I have to go, but I will be back again…I promise. Much sooner.” He wasn’t sure he was being entirely honest, but he mostly believed he was.
Then he turned and quickly walked out.
* * *
H2 walked into the room, looking grim, as he usually did. “Father, I was told you wanted to see me.” Despite his fairly dark expression, his voice was normal. Cutter hadn’t known when he’d created H2 that he would be the only one of his kind. He’d always called H2 a Mule, but he knew that, despite the creation’s greater intelligence than a normal human, he was inferior to the Mules that followed. H2 had fought against that perception for years, at least before he’d lost the strength. The Mules had agreed to take him in, and Achilles had led the endeavor, but despite the effort made by both sides, Cutter realized H2 was just destined to more or less live alone.
“Thank you, H2…I appreciate your taking the time.”
“I have nothing to do, Father…” He retained calling Cutter “father,’ though the accuracy of the description was far less than 100%. “…I am happy to help any way I can.”
Cutter looked at him for a minute, wondering whether he could see the slightest signs of aging, or if it was just his imagination. H2 was a bit older than the first generation of Mules, and he too had failed to age, looking nothing at all like his more than sixty years. Still, Cutter had been able to detect no aging whatsoever in the Mules…but as he looked at H2, he wondered if he was seeing the first signs, or if his creation was just tired.
“Thank you, H2…I appreciate that.” He paused, for a long while. “H2, I wanted to ask you about the Mules.”
H2 looked back, a strange expression on his face. “You want to know if they are planning anything…incendiary.” The strange individual, the only one of his kind, paused. Then he answered, “I’m sorry, Father, but I don’t really know what is happening. I’m fairly sure Achilles and the others of the oldest generation remain reasonably loyal, but I don’t know about the others, particularly the newer ones.” He went silent again, for a long while. Then he said, “You know the Mules…have accepted me…at least the older generation, but there has always been discomfort there. I spend most of my time here, as you no doubt know, and not there…despite Achilles’s willingness to recognize me and stand up for my presence. So, in fact, I know little more than you probably do, especially about the youngest generations of Mules, with which I’ve had little more contact than you have.”
Cutter sighed softly. He’d heard only what he’d expected, but he still found it disturbing. He considered stepping back, giving into age and yielding. But he knew he would never do that. He would work until the day he died, and right now there was nothing he could do more important than this. As capable as he was, his scientific efforts had been largely bypassed by the Mules…but controlling his creations was still his job.
“H2…” He paused for a few seconds. “…we both know that the Mules, all of them, think of themselves as superior.” He hesitated again. “Hell…we know they are superior, in many ways at least…but that doesn’t mean they have to run everything, rule over the others. But I fear they will, and that the only difference between any of them, the older vs. the younger, will be whether they wait until the Regent is destroyed or they don’t.” He realized there was a good chance, probably the best one, that the Regent would actually prevail, making the Mules vs. the regular humans a pointless argument, but if that was the case, there was nothing he could do about it anyway. At least nothing he wasn’t doing anyway.
“That is probably true…it is true, as far as I know.”
“Do you believe it is possible to…convince them to pursue another plan, to accept the others as equals?”
H2 sat quietly for a moment. “You mean after the Regent is…destroyed?” It was clear H2 thought the chance of that was at least as bad as Cutter did.
“Yes.”
H2 thought for a moment, and then he replied. “No.” A few seconds later, he finished the thought. “I think there can be some differences on how the others are treated, but if you’re asking me if the Mules will go on forever as equals…I just don’t see it.”
Cutter sighed softly. “That is my opinion as well, H2. So, what I would like you to do…only if you feel right doing it…is contact Achilles. He is likely to be our best course of action.”
“Best course of action for what?”
Cutter sat quietly for a moment. “For n
egotiating the best deal…for all the others.”
“You mean a surrender?”
“Preferably not anything so stark, H2…but ‘yes.’ What choice do we have? The Mules will not accept us as their equals…but that doesn’t mean we can’t have some kind of arrangement, some kind of deal other than an outright takeover.”
“You’re talking about yielding.”
“No…I’m talking about trying not to yield outright…and only if the Mules are willing to wait to take any moves until after the current fight is over. It hasn’t been disclosed yet, of course, but with the enemy at Linshire, we can’t have more than a year before they find us here…and possibly quite a bit less.”
“You’re saying you will accept a junior position, that you will acknowledge the Mules as the superiors?”
Cutter hesitated. “I don’t know what else I can do. Most of my colleagues feel differently, of course, but I understand the Mules better than they do. The Mules will probably gain control, you know that as well as I do, and even if we had any chance to destroy them, we can’t do it before the Regent is fought anyway. Whatever chance we have to defeat it will fall almost to nothing without the Mules. All we can do is try to maximize the position of the others, the regular humans and the Tanks, to contribute all we can to the fight…and push our whole conflict until after the Regent is destroyed. That is essential…anything must wait until the Regent is defeated.”
H2 was silent for a long moment. Then he said, “Very well, Father. I will speak with Achilles…and I will do what I can.”
“Thank you…that is all any of us can do.”
* * *
“Theseus, I swear to you, I am telling you the truth. Linshire is under attack, and that puts the enemy months away, at best. I urge you to listen to me, to hear what I am saying. I understand your decision to move against the…others, whether I agree with it or not…but now would be the worst possible timing. It will lead only to destruction, ours as well as theirs.” Achilles spoke, his voice cracking slightly, as he tried his very best to convince the leader of the rival unit of Mules that he told only the truth.
Theseus paused, hesitant for a moment, but only that long. “You mean the enemy really attacked…after twenty years passed with almost nothing?”
“Yes…it is just randomness, of course, the breakdown of the enemy’s searching…but it happened to fall right at the time you were planning on making your move.”
Theseus stood for a moment, and then he looked back at Achilles. “We planned the thing for over a year, and I convinced myself that we had the time.” The young Mule looked up at Achilles, and perhaps for the first time, he looked uncertain. “I could have destroyed us.”
Achilles nodded slightly, himself only recently aware that the operation had been slated to begin literally within hours. “You could have, perhaps, through the randomness of timing if nothing else…but you didn’t. That is all that matters. There is still time.” Unless we lose the fight…which is probably better odds than our winning it…
“I will, of course, pull everyone back. It was always my intention to yield to you once we forced the…changeover. I don’t know how many people actually believe me, but I have no interest in a long term political position. I just wanted to be sure this matter was…resolved.”
“I understand. Do I have your word, then, that you will halt this now?”
Theseus nodded. “Certainly…but…”
“You want to discuss what follows…assuming we are able to win against the Regent.”
Theseus looked down for a second, and then back up toward Achilles. “Yes. I know you have close relationships with several of the NBs, but while we will put all our efforts into the fight before us now, I can promise you that your people, most if not all of them, regardless of age, will not accept a position below the NBs, or even equal with them, not forever.”
Achilles listened, and he knew as he heard it, that he was getting nothing but the truth. The older Mules even believed that way, for the most part, anyway. They had only forgotten momentarily because of the enemy threat.
Hell, he believed it, too. He had come around somewhat, lessened his thoughts about the position of the NBs and Tanks…but he’d never really given up his belief in the supremacy of the Mules.
Never.
“I agree with you, Theseus. I will want to see the humans, the NBs and Tanks, treated with certain levels of guarantees, probably more serious than you imagine…but other than that, I agree. They will have to be subordinate to us.” He paused for an instant, and then he added, “That is after the battle against the Regent, however, and assuming we survive. Until then, there can be no talk at all about this…understood?” He stared at his younger companion, and potential rival, despite the youthful Mule’s assurances, and his companion just looked back. Then he nodded.
Achilles returned the gesture. He had enough to worry about dealing with the Regent, with somehow not losing that fight he knew was to come…and yet if he did prevail, if the humans were successful, he’d almost immediately have to dive into the situation on Earth 2. He would have to lead the Mules to victory, to control over the humans…and to guarantee the others enough that they could accept that.
As much as he tried to tell himself that would be an easy fight, he knew it was going to be difficult. Perhaps not from the point of view of ultimate victory, but definitely along the lines of defeating the resistance of the NBs and the Tanks, of bringing them into some kind of line, some level they could accept…without destroying them utterly.
But first things first…and he had to do everything possible to win the current fight. “Okay, Theseus…let us focus now on what has to be done. I need to know everything you’ve got, every advance, every bit of new technology…and I need to know it now.”
Chapter Ten
Planet Linshire, Beta-Tarzana III
Earth Two Date 12.16.62
Elliot looked out from the edge of the mountain. He’d brought his people far in just a couple of days, but the enemy had bombarded them hard, too. He was trying to catch up on his informal census, but with the staggering losses of the past several days, building onto the uncertainty of the initial attack, he had no real idea. He had sent his people all over the place, hiding them anywhere he could, but in truth, it was only a guess how many were still alive. He knew half his people were dead—at least—but he wasn’t sure how many of the others, now scattered over almost two hundred kilometers, were still alive. He was sure at least a thousand were, probably several thousand…but his opinions on more were just that. Guesses.
“Sir…excuse me.” Tilman Oswald moved up slowly. He was Gosnard’s closest friend, but he had taken to calling him in much more formal tones over the past few days.
“Yes, Til…what is it?”
“We have some updates.” The tone and cadence of his friend told him most of what he needed to know. After a brief pause, Tilman continued…and told him it was worse even than he’d thought. “The gathering on the west side. We hoped there were at least a thousand survivors there.” He looked at his friend, who already knew the news wasn’t going to be good. But Gosnard still wasn’t prepared for what it truly was. “We haven’t found a single survivor in the area, sir. The bombardment was bad, but we’d hoped that some at least might have survived…but…”
He stammered to a halt, but Elliot had promised himself he would listen to everything. “What is it, Til? You can tell me.”
“No survivors, sir…none at all. It seems they were all hunkered down in a large cave…rather than in a number of them. And…” He paused for a few seconds, but then he caught himself and continued. “It appears the local leader decided they’d be better off in one large cave complex…and it was hit. Almost dead on. We sent a team to inspect, but so far there is nothing.” Tilman caught himself, on the verge of losing it. “It looks like there are no survivors, sir,” he repeated.
Elliot just sighed. The news wasn’t terribly surprising, at least not in consi
deration of what had happened already. Still, his mind worked, rehashing the numbers he had left. He had no idea how many there still were—though now he was certain it was less than a third—but they were getting smaller…much smaller.
“Okay…we’ve got what we’ve got, Til. There’s no point endlessly discussing those we’ve lost…or how me might have saved them. They’ll be time for that later…if we survive.” He had felt a variety of ways, including an almost inexplicable rush of positive feeling early on, but now, the negatives were growing out of control. He thought about his people, the thousands he’d lost, as well as the ones he still had at the moment. He wondered if any of them would survive. He’d tried to guess how long the enemy would remain, how aggressively they would batter the surface, but he really had no idea.
“I’m going to…” Til had begun to speak, but suddenly, he heard something. They all heard it.
Elliot looked up, and he saw a series of bright dots, rapidly becoming larger. He knew what they were almost immediately, but for an instant, he tried to think of something else, anything else. But they continued to get bigger, and they fanned off, landing in at least four or five different spots.
They were landers…and Elliot knew just what that meant.
“Til…get into the emergency sheds. We need the heaviest weapons we’ve got…and we need them now.” Elliot paused again, watching the arriving shuttles as they landed. “Arm everyone you can find…as quickly as possible!”
* * *
Artificial Intelligence AC-230315 emerged from the shuttle and looked around. He was the senior commander on the ground, and his forces were dispatched to eliminate the remnants of the enemy personnel, or to come as close to that as possible…as quickly as it could.
It wasn’t sure about its return, whether the robots assigned with it would go back, or just its commanding units. Or just itself. It wasn’t anywhere near as complex as SP-01012 or its minions, but it was a capable mechanism. It certainly had some level of self-preservation, though it was also well aware that it would sacrifice itself, if necessary. First, it had to defeat the surviving humans, and survive. Then, perhaps it could return to the ship.