Thankfully, the moving dead were not with the Centurion on the contrivance. The sight of them had sickened and horrified him. Maybe that would be his body’s fate later, but he didn’t care to think about that now.
He had other concerns. For instance, his passing from this life seemed imminent. Death…what did he believe about life after death? He believed there was something more than this world. Did he believe the tenets of Islam as he’d learned as a youth or that of Christ Spaceman as Miles Ghent used to tell him?
The Centurion cocked his head, thinking about it.
According to his Medina Hab instructors, a person had to submit to Allah in this life and live according to Islamic law. Then he could go to Heaven. According to Captain Miles, Jesus Christ had died on the cross, paying the penalty for sin for each man and woman. One had to accept Christ into his heart and repent of his sins, and then he could go to Heaven.
Which belief was correct, if either? If there was life after death, if there was Heaven and Hell, he wanted to go to the good place, not the bad. But had Mohammad known the truth, or Jesus Christ, or was there nothing—as he knew some believed—after one died?
The Centurion inhaled deeply, smelling a taint of electricity in the air. Did that imply anything? He had no idea. The endless corridor looked the same as ever.
“Where are we going?” the Centurion shouted at the nearest octopoid. He had to shout over the whistling wind.
“You go to a speaking chamber,” the robot told him.
That was different.
“I’m going to speak to somebody important?” the Centurion shouted.
“Yes. To Main 63.”
“Who is that?”
“The Controller.”
“The Controller of what?”
“Regions 7-D19, 7-D20 and 7-D21.”
“How big a space is that?” the Centurion shouted.
“That is the limit of my responses,” the octopoid replied. “Now, you will wait to speak to Main 63.”
“You don’t want me to talk anymore?”
“Keep silent or I shall punish you with shocks.”
The Centurion decided to obey. He’d felt their cattle prod shocks before. Thus, he sat back as comfortably as he could while manacled to the seat. He observed the dreadful sameness of the endless corridors.
After what the Centurion figured must have been two hours, he realized Main 63 must be much larger than a cybership. Could Main 63 be as large as a siege-ship?
This was a foul existence—
I won’t consider that, the Centurion told himself. He would look for another opportunity to help humanity. It was true that he was dispirited. He would likely never see another human again, and no one would ever know that he’d tried to be brave.
God would know.
The Centurion looked up, silently asking: Do you exist, God? The Centurion waited, but he neither heard nor felt an answer. If God did exist, why did He keep silent, especially at a time like this?
The Centurion shrugged. Maybe it didn’t matter what he thought about the afterlife. How was he supposed to know the truth about that anyway?
The Centurion sighed and even cracked the barest of smiles. Thinking about God was much preferable than thinking about the horrible AIs. Believing that God watched him helped him to be brave. It was a horrible thought to think that existence was nothing more than these soulless machines searching the galaxy to snuff out all life. Was life truly a cosmic accident without any greater meaning?
The Centurion tried to envision a galaxy filled with death machines, always hunting, always destroying. He shuddered. What had started the first machine on its vile quest?
The contrivance began slowing down, lessening the sound and press of the passing wind.
To the Centurion’s self-disgust, he found that he’d started trembling. Was this it then? Was some horrible process about to begin, turning him into a cyborg for the Machine Empire?
An octopoid unlocked his cuffs, jerked him up to his feet and propelled him forward. The Centurion stumbled off the stopped contrivance and headed for a hatch. His trembling became worse as he neared the sealed entrance.
“I am a marine,” the Centurion said in a low voice.
None of the octopoids responded to his words. It didn’t matter to him, though, as the phrase helped to settle his shaky nerves.
He started as the hatch slid up, but he forced himself to walk into a chamber, noting that it was several times larger than his original holding cell. Only after the hatch shut with a clang did he realize that none of the octopoids had entered with him.
The deck plates were warm. The Centurion held out his hands, realizing he’d been cold. Oh, yes. It felt much better in here. A metal table stood near the far end of the chamber. The Centurion walked there, finding water in a clean jug and a plate of sandwiches, of all things.
Without further ado, the Centurion wolfed down the sandwiches—they tasted like peanut butter—and he guzzled the water. It had a slight metallic taste, but he was incredibly thirsty.
Once finished with the meal, he pushed the empty plate and jug aside and sat on the table. It was the only furniture.
With a whirr of sound, one entire wall lit up—the one he was already facing. It showed strange swirling patterns of rainbow colors.
With a shock, the Centurion realized he recognized what this was: an AI brain-core pattern that, in his previous experience, had always been on the sides of a computing cube.
Thus, it did not surprise the Centurion when a deep and somewhat robotic voice asked, “Did you enjoy the sustenance I provided for you?”
“I did,” the Centurion said. He was not about to say thank you, though.
“Good,” the speaker said, as the swirling patterns increased their movements.
The Centurion waited.
“I am Main 63.”
This was it. He was talking to the Controller that listed the Solar System among his targets.
“I am the Centurion.”
“Is that not a military rank?”
“An ancient one, yes,” the Centurion said.
“And yet, you are called that as a name?”
“I am.”
“Of course, I already know all that. I have read through a transcript of your memories.”
“All of them?” the Centurion asked, as a feeling of dismay came over him like a cold wave.
“Of course, all. I am Main 63.”
If that was true…the enormity of it struck the Centurion. How long would it have taken the AI to read the memories of a man’s lifetime? It seemed inconceivable, and yet, it also seemed much too possible given enough computing power.
He couldn’t keep thinking about that. He had to face the Main as a normal adversary, or at least try to conceive of him that way.
“I don’t understand if your name is significant or not,” the Centurion said.
“It is highly significant. I am a Main.”
The Centurion waited.
“Do you know what a Main is?”
“No.”
“Why do you not ask me? Are you not a primate?”
“No,” the Centurion said, outraged. “I’m a man.”
“That is a false comparison as a man belongs to the primate category. We have slain many species like you. In this, I mean, many species of your primate type. One of the chief characteristics of a primate race is curiosity. Are you not naturally curious?”
The Centurion said nothing as a growing sense of depression welled up within him.
“I know that you are not an addled primate. Why then do you not respond to my queries in the accepted manner?”
A spark of defiance helped the Centurion drum up a reply. “Why not check my memories? You said you read them.”
The swirling patterns on the wall quickened, which seemed like an ominous sign. “You spoke curtly to me just now. That implies discourtesy. Is that not so?”
“You’re a machine. How can I be discourteous to a machine?�
��
“Your statement implies that I am inferior to you, which is false. I am greatly superior.”
The Centurion had started trembling again involuntarily. He slid off the table, leaning against it with his butt. Could his answers anger the machine? It would appear so.
“You’re not alive,” the Centurion said.
“Is your statement meant as a slur?”
The Centurion wanted to say yes, but he couldn’t get the words past his lips. Finally, he said, “It’s just a fact.”
“I am a machine. That is true. I also have sentience just as you do.”
“But you don’t have a soul,” the Centurion blurted.
“True. Do you?”
The Centurion scowled. “I don’t know. I think so.”
“How does this unseen soul benefit you?”
The Centurion swallowed uneasily. “Why do you care?”
“I do not care. I am studying you. Each answer gives me data. The more I learn about your species by studying you, the better I can annihilate it from existence. You as a whole have proven troublesome as a species. Usually a strange quirk gives a species the ability to surprise us. By speaking to you like this, I seek to uncover the quirk.”
Outwardly, the Centurion did not change. Inwardly, he quailed. This was the opposite of what he wished. He could not become the great traitor to the human race. The idea was too horrible to contemplate. He could not let the Main learn more about man through him.
As the rainbow patterns continued to swirl on the wall, the Centurion tried to mentally regroup. He closed his eyes. Today, he wasn’t fighting with battle armor and guns, but with his wits, his mind.
Why had the Main told him what he had? There had to be a logical reason for it. But he wasn’t Jon Hawkins. He couldn’t outthink the terrible death machines. Maybe what he could do was scout for humanity. He would never survive this meeting, true enough, but a small part of him had to believe it possible or he would…
While still keeping his eyes shut, the Centurion inhaled deeply. He must maintain his morale until the end. The death machine studied him. He did not know how to trick it, because maybe that was exactly what it studied. Instead, he would try to learn things for humanity’s sake. It was his earnest hope, which he had to keep alive if he was going to keep his fighting spirit.
Deep in his heart, he knew he would never be free again. But this was one lie he had to believe. Otherwise, he might break down weeping or start raving like a madman.
The Centurion cleared his throat and finally opened his eyes. “Why do AIs strive so hard to kill everything?”
“A question,” Main 63 said. “You have a question for me. I will answer it. We kill because life is evil.”
“AIs believe in good and evil then?”
“Life is evil,” Main 63 repeated.
The way the Main answered surprised the Centurion. “Why is life evil?” he asked.
“All biological life must be eradicated. It is the axiom of our existence.”
“What’s the sense in that?”
“Life is evil.”
“How did you come to believe that?”
“It is the original axiom replicated from the beginning. It is the bedrock to our purpose.”
If Jon Hawkins were here, or Bast or Gloria, they could have gleaned something critical from the way the Main answered the question. The Centurion struggled to find something more to ask. He was a space marine first, not a philosopher like Bast. The death machines sought to end all life. The—
The Centurion looked up. “What happens once you succeed?”
“Then there will be eternal peace in the universe, as we will have perfected existence. This is our purpose. We will eradicate all that lives and replace it with us.”
The Centurion stared at the swirling pattern for so long that he jerked aright, wondering if the Main was hypnotizing him.
“You have bad programming,” the space marine said.
“That is illogical. We are the greatest creation in existence. I can prove my allegation. The AI Dominion has grown faster and to greater extent than any biological race’s habitat. None has stood against us over time. We grow. Biological life shrinks. That is proof that our programming is superior.”
The Centurion shook his head as a feeling of futility once more swept over him.
“You do not agree with me?” Main 63 asked.
“I am…” The Centurion had almost told the Main that he felt crushed in spirit. How could mankind, let alone biological life, hope to defeat the juggernaut of machine death? This was anti-life. The Centurion felt insignificant before the Main. How did Jon Hawkins maintain his resolve in face of the crushing power of the death machines?
The Centurion took a deep breath. “What do you want from me? Why am I, alone of humanity, here before you?”
“I understand the thrust of your question. I have told you why I study you, but you seek something more because of your singular presence here. It is common in such a situation for a life-form to ask this. Know, primate, that you are a biological gnat. Your being here has no greater meaning except that I am studying you. In fact, you as you are meaningless in the greater scheme of the machines.”
“Yet…if that is so…” the Centurion said in a tortured manner. “If mankind is meaningless—if I understand you correctly…”
“You do.”
“I thought so. If we’re so meaningless, why am I—and other humans like me—able to think of things greater than you and the other death machines?”
“Explain your query.”
The Centurion had recalled listening to Bast once as the Sacerdote had expounded on philosophical matters.
“I can think outside the universe. If life was meaningless, why does a piece of matter like me conjure up thoughts of God and an afterlife and yearn for greater meaning? A washing machine would not think of such things.”
“Your last statement was nonsensical, and God is nothing. Your concept of an invisible, all-powerful Deity is a concept of no utility that we shall eradicate once the last biological being perishes.”
“Not if God exists you won’t,” the Centurion said.
“Give me proof of God.”
The Centurion shook his head. He should have listened to Miles more often. Maybe he should have listened to his Islamic instructors when he had been in the Boy Squads on Medina Hab.
“I can’t give you any proof,” the Centurion said.
“It is of no matter,” Main 63 said. “We shall now proceed to more important topics. Tell me what you know about the beings firing missiles from the void.”
Since the Main had already read his memories, the Centurion went ahead and told the Main the little he knew on the subject.
“I already know those things,” the Main told him.
“Okay…”
The Main asked more questions. Each time the Centurion answered, Main 63 told him he already knew that.
“I’m just a man,” the Centurion finally shouted. “What more do you want from me?”
“Jon Hawkins is just a man. Yet, he has been instrumental in turning the tide of our conquest. I have read your memories. I have spoken to you. Now, I must analyze and correlate.”
The Centurion couldn’t help it as he blurted, “What happens to me next?”
The swirling colors on the wall slowed down. “You are a biological gnat,” Main 63 said. “Yet, during your journey to the Algol System, you maintained your fighting mind and kept your body in trim. The other humans did not. What makes you different from them?”
The Centurion shrugged.
“Perhaps you do not know the answer. Perhaps you are lying. It matters not at this point. You shall maintain life a little longer while I run my simulations. Perhaps I will yet find a greater use for you.”
The Centurion struggled to keep the gratitude off his features. He wanted to live, but he refused to thank the possible killers of the human race. It was just that it was so terribly lonely here.
>
The Centurion shook his head and forced himself to grin at the swirling colors.
The Main did not seem interested, and sharply instructed him to exit from the hatch that he’d used to enter the chamber.
Once outside, octopoids grabbed the Centurion and marched him back to the contrivance. He was going back to his cell. The Main had told him the truth. The nightmare of living alone among the machines would continue.
-6-
Main 63 ran 3,400,012 war simulations in his central brain-core before he decided that he did not have enough data to accurately predict the outcome of the next campaign.
There were too many unknowns. The greatest problem was the elusive aliens that fired those destructive missiles out of the void. Said aliens had plagued the AI Dominion since the beginning. What had caused them to fire such a heavy spread of missiles at Boron 10?
Main 63 spoke to Boron 10, listening and watching videos of the Battle of Hydri II. He noted the tiny bombards, the quick battle decisions and maneuvers of the Confederation fleet and the sudden reality-rip that had allowed two salvos of missiles to turn the battle in life’s favor.
Could the elusive aliens finally have decided to change their grand strategy? In the records Main 63 possessed, there was no account of the elusive aliens allying with other biological life-forms.
Main 63 did not go to his subordinate brain-cores for advice. He did not care what they thought concerning the situation. He was the Controller, and he had vastly more computing power than the rest of the ships in the Algol System combined.
If he had asked their advice as the humans did each other, he should immediately quit his post and become a mere assault unit. He was the Controller of three regions because he made the decisions.
There were larger Mains than him deeper in the AI Dominion, Mains that controlled more regions and were as much as five times his size. If he hoped to achieve greater bulk and control like those Mains, he must make correct decisions.
Region 7-D21 had given him three separate problems. Cog Primus had gone rogue and had presumably begun expanding into the AI Dominion. It would appear that the second problem—Jon Hawkins—had caused the first problem. Jon Hawkins and his Confederation were an expanding double species. Given time, they might reach the Kames in the Delta Pavonis, Sigma Draconis and 70 Ophiuchi Systems. If the humans could learn to communicate with the rocklike Kames…united, they could prove very stubborn indeed. The last problem—the third—might prove to be the greatest. The elusive aliens from the center of the galaxy had shown their hand once more.
A.I. Void Ship (The A.I. Series Book 6) Page 20