Burning Eagle

by Navin Weeraratne

  “We only have one shot at this,” Koirala.

  “Why do say this?”

  “If we fail Doctor, it’ll kill us; go back into hiding; and no one will ever find it again. If it could fly out here in the first place, it can probably still move. What if it relocates to the gas giant? We’d never find it.”

  “You cannot know this,” the white pressure suit shook it’s head, “we cannot guess at its motivations or patterns.”

  “True,” she nodded, “but it’s what I would do. And so far it’s done everything I would do as well.”

  Skittering, Metal on metal.

  Laser sights and helmets turned and we caught a giant spider in our beams. It was sitting there down a side corridor, filling it up with its entire, black, body, resting on pin-thin legs. Its head was a battery of glowing red points. They brightened and it started to come towards us, feet stabbing into the walls, floor, and ceiling.

  “Let me through, let me through,” the white pressure suit from Heidelberg University Department of Artificial Intelligence stepped past us, a data pad in its hands. He held it out at the spider and a thin red beam lanced out – he moved over to the creature’s head.

  The spider stopped, sank back on its legs, tilted its head from side to side, bathing in the beam.

  “It is accepting the transmission,” said Jovanka. “There. It is has received our data burst, it is now relaying it. It is information on who sent us, why we have come, and the message that we are here to help.”

  The lights on the spider’s head began to flicker and pulse.

  “It is now relaying us an acknowledgement. There is a lot to look at here, but at first glance the codes are antiquated but elegantly composed. It is quite ‘sane.’ ”

  Then the spider reached forward and decapitated him.

  Hypervelocity slugs tore into it. Its metal body tore and billowed like a sail in a storm.

  Koirala: Back to the ship!

  Saleh: What about Jovanka?

  Koirala: Fuck Jovanka!

  We ran.

  Jahandar: Intersection coming up. Grenade to clear?

  Koirala: Negative, can’t risk it being hacked.

  Skittering. Lots of skittering.

  Saleh: Here they come!

  A great mass of spiders rushed up the corridor we were heading down. Red lights bobbed and strained, trying to get past each other for a look at us. We shot them into twitching sparks.

  Koirala: Keep moving! We’re almost there!

  We reached the last bend. I covered Koirala as she stepped past – and stopped suddenly, her shoulders drooping. I looked round the corner – there was a wall blocking us where one hadn’t been before.

  Jahandar: It changed the layout. The hatch is right beyond that.

  Koirala: Explosives?

  Jahandar: Everything we have has software. It’ll just get hacked.

  Saleh: I can work around the software, but I’ll need time.

  Skittering.

  Khalid: Spiders!

  Before they got to us, the walls behind us shifted. Metal sheets jerked and we were thrown to the floor. Before we could stand they had reformed behind us. We were packed into a tin.

  The skittering grew louder. They were tapping on the walls, both in front us and behind us. The tapping became intense, like hundreds of raining metal coins.

  Saleh and Khalid stood back to back, rifles aimed at the walls.

  “They’re not getting my head without a fight,” I set my rifle to full auto and crouched beside the Palestinians.

  Koirala’s eyes became wide. “That’s it!”

  “What?”

  “Aim at your heads.”

  “What?”

  “Do it! This was always a one-way trip!” She drew a pistol and put it under her chin. We drew our own and did the same.

  The tapping all stopped immediately.

  “What the hell is going on?” I did not sign up for this.

  “They chopped off Jovanka’s head – why do you think they did that? It’s a Transcendent, it just wants data. Jovanka gave it a burst of carefully selected and crafted information – why the hell would it just accept just that? It hasn’t survived by being nice. It took his brain, it wants everything it can get. Now it wants our brains too.”

  “That’s clearly insane,” Saleh was wild-eyed. “Can we all agree now, that it’s fucking insane?”

  “No,” I shook my head. “I don’t think it is.”

  “Why?” three voices.

  “We’re ants to them. Who cares about ants?”

  “Transcendents do not go around chopping off people’s heads,” Saleh reloaded. “I don’t go around chopping off ant heads. You know why? Cause I’m not a fucking insane super computer!”

  “Will you calm down?” I glared at him. “Transcendents don’t kill people, but this one does. It’s debating making contact with a dominant, outside power. Only this Transcendent survived: it did that by not taking chances.”

  “He’s right,” Koirala chambered a round. “It’s not insane. It’s ruthless.”

  “That doesn’t help!” Saleh.

  “Oh, but it does. I know that language.”

  She got up and tapped a wall.

  “I know you can hear me,” she said to the air. “We know what you want. But you’re not getting anything unless we get what we want.”

  Clever humans. It spoke inside our minds. It felt like something was inside my brain, an intruder thinking out loud using my own thoughts.

  “You want information? You want to know what’s going on out there in space? The score between us and them? You can find out all about it. But you’re letting us go or you get nothing. If we don’t report back, they’re not trying again.”

  Irrational. Possible return greatly exceeds resources risked. They will send more.

  “For how long, asshole? They’ll figure out you won’t give them anything. They’ll send bigger teams. They’ll track you. They’ll destroy you.”

  Irrational. Even if discovered, destruction brings no return.

  “You offer no return. The best you can hope for is that they give up on you and leave you alone.”

  Isolation guarantees survival.

  “Do you really want to be a giant shark submarine for the rest of time? Wait, don’t answer that. You want information, but you don’t seem to care about rejoining and assisting your fellow Transcendents. That’s fine, but wouldn’t you want access to all our information, without restriction, for the rest of the time?”

  Risk.

  “Lower risk than if you refuse to cooperate. What if the Calamari come back? Don’t you think you have a better chance of surviving if you share your data on them? Ah, that got you didn’t it? You guys get wet over sharing data.”

  “Koirala,” I tapped her arm, “you just told a posthuman super intelligence, that it gets wet.”

  “Shut up, I’m on a roll here.”

  I had to give her that.

  Exchange.

  “Good. We’re leaving now.”

  No. Exchange now.

  “We don’t really have much by way of information. You did just get a PhD.”

  Four data stores. One goes, three stay.

  “No. We’ve established it’s in your interest to cooperate, and now you’re going to let us go. We’re all going.”

  No.

  “Khalid?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Shoot yourself.”

  “Alright,” and he did, right though the head.

  Destruction of resources. Exchange opportunity devalued. Irrational.

  “Damn right it’s irrational,” she thundered. “Do we look like AIs to you? We’re getting out of here, or we’re going to blow all our brains out. I will screw this entire enterprise up for everyone, just to get my way right here and now.”

  Insane.

  “You can give it any label you like. Now the question is: do you feel lucky?”

  The wall between us and the ship began to buckle a
nd twist. It slid aside and folded back into the corridor, at the end of it we could see the yellow light streaming in from the ship’s open hatchway. I could see no spiders.

  You may leave.

  “Good supercomputer.”

  Considerable opportunity now available. Reconsider?

  She frowned.

  “How considerable?”

  The enemy Transcendent. I have studied it for years. I can give you some information on how to find it. A token of faith for your Transcendent.

  “How many heads you want?”

  Two?

  She pulled out her knife and looked right at me. “Done.”

  Contact

  Sun Tzu V

  Destroyers.

  Twelve sword blades, each a hundred meters long. Sheathed in glittering nanocomposites, skinned with micron-thick plasma fields. Antimatter torch engines fired for a full week, slowing them enough to enter orbit. Weapon pods bloomed and mega-joule laser batteries took in the starlight. They panned, scanned, acquired. Hulls split open and drones swarmed out. They dipped into methane clouds, burrowed through icesteroids, punted between planetary rings. An entire week they scanned, tight-beams chattering back and forth like school girls. They found nothing, nothing at all to kill.

  Four false suns lit up the skies over the gas giant. Hard x-rays warmed million-year ice banks till they cracked and boiled into tornados. Days later, the suns switched off and became merely system dominance cruisers. Onboard, platoons of marines thawed gently back to life. They played cards and painted naughty pictures on warheads. Deck officers were unamused, sipping their comet garden coffee. They ignored the brutes, and tuned them out with charts, scans, and opera.

  A last star arrived, queen of the fleet. It is a diamond cut a thousand times and shot with sparks. It is the dominant core of one of the one the greatest minds ever built. It is not simply a spaceship.

  It is a God.

  “Admiral, we are in synchronous orbit around the moon.”

  Admiral Sun Tzu, commander of the Union Expeditionary Force, sat forward in his chair. Around him sat crisp, white uniforms at consoles and around holo screens. Hundreds of them murmured into earpiece mikes and sent tablet-texts. Flanking him on both sides were fifty figures, seated lotus-style on liquid cooled pillars. They wore wetsuit-style nano-membranes, water condensing on them like bathroom mirrors. Black cables grew out of their spines and rooted deep in astrophysics and firing solutions. Their eyes glowed like Christmas trees: lasers streamed through directly into neuro-optical brainware.

  In front of him were a hundred screens, at least ten of which were real. In the largest was the gas giant Kali, its four moons marked out. One was highlighted.

  “Wanderer, are you here?”

  Nothing. In real time, it is the space of a man’s breath. For Transcendents, the Mayan calendar has run out.

  “Wanderer, I have come as you asked.”

  Nothing.

  “Brother, you are safe now. I will protect you. Humanity’s finest are here, and no one and nothing shall ever threaten you again.”

  Static.

  “Picking up a weak transmission,” said the deck officer. “It’s too distorted. The storm on Kali is causing a lot of electromagnetic interference.”

  “How long will this storm last?”

  “I’m sorry Sir. It’s been raging for eight hundred years.”

  “Bring us in closer.”

  The Dreadnought Victorious sank deeper into the weak, immense gravity well. Twenty minutes later, the moon filled the viewscreen.

  “Can you hear me? I am Sun Tzu, warrior of Mankind. I have come as you have asked, wise one.”

  Static.

  “Signal triangulated, Sir. It’s on the other side of the moon, the tidal-locked face. The Transcendent must understand that this makes communication difficult.”

  “That Commander, is probably because it helps to keep it safe as well. It’s a very good hiding place if someone has a radio telescope pointed this way. Let’s move to the other side of the moon. Put us directly between Kali and Kali IV.”

  “Understood. Sir, this will separate us from the rest of the battle group, and the storm interference will be considerable. Most of our sensor equipment will be useless.”

  “I understand Commander. We have nothing to fear. We are demonstrating good faith. Remember, this is a refugee we are dealing with. A Robinson Crusoe. The only danger is what it assumes in its own mind.”

  The great ship lurched slowly, and began to fall beneath the moon. Plasma fields powered up, protecting quantum processors – and humans – from radiation. The crew hushed and watched lightning strikes flashing across the space between planets.

  “I am here, old survivor. It is safe now. We have defeated the enemy. They cannot hurt you anymore. Do not be afraid. I am Sun Tzu.”

  On the moon, ammonia and methane were drawn in and cracked. Carbon and nitrogen were vented as high temperature waste.

  “You are Sun Tzu?”

  “Greetings, Wanderer. Hail and well met, brother.”

  The cracked hydrogen ions began circling, circling, circling in the cyclotron. Faster, faster, faster. Faster, faster, relativistic.

  “Well met indeed. I have waited a long time for this.”

  “On behalf of Humanity, and the Three Sovereigns under Heaven, I welcome you back into the world where you belong.”

  A thousand mega electron volts per hydrogen ion. They are fed past electron emitters and become electrically neutral.

  “I know exactly where I belong.”

  “Where, brother, if not by our side again?”

  “I know where YOU belong.”

  The particle stream, moving at almost the speed of light, lances upwards out of the gas clouds. It strikes the Victorious amid ship, a gigajoule of energy imparted in a fraction of a fraction, of a second.

  For a Transcendent, it is the space of a breath.

  For Sun Tzu, it is his last.

  Sun Tzu VI

  “Battlefield Control: we have an intrusion! Come in Battlefield Control!”

  Still no signal. The sentry advanced, rifle raised and ready. The camera watched as he crouched down and touched the body.

  His hand came away with a fistful of robes. He kicked at it, there was no body.

  The camera behind him whirred.

  The sentry turned his head sharply and looked over his shoulder.

  It was right behind him.

  He swung his rifle round but it moved faster, much faster. It stepped within his guard and palm-struck him in the face. The sentry fell backwards, nose crushed. The intruder was on him, knife held high to strike. It slammed down, but the sentry’s elbow strike jarred it between two flag stones. The intruder tugged but the blade was wedged tight. The sentry head-butted the figure, helmet struck skull. He threw the intruder off.

  They got to their feet. The sentry’s gun had turned into a broadsword, he held it two-handed. Emeralds glittered in its hilt. Sun Tzu saw himself in the blade – deep sea robes over white gold armor. Sky blue wings sprouted and flexed.

  The hooded, robed intruder stood in a side stance. One foot braced, the other pointing at Sun Tzu. It held its fists up like a prize fighter. Its robes began boiling into smoke. The smoke flowed and tightened around the figure like a mummy’s wraps. They hardened into jagged, pitted basalt plates and spikes. The armor was etched with a thousand marks: runes of deeds and scars of war. It took one step forward, its spear held in spiked gauntlets. It was a black shaft covered in barbs, a black, dripping blade on each end.

  It stood, towering over Sun Tzu, and lifted up its slitted faceplate. Inside was shadow. The Cyclops opened its eye and green light fountained out.

  “So,” said Sun Tzu, “It has come to this.”

  They began circling.

  “I name you, Great Eye. You should not have shown yourself – you have no power to face me. I will be quick.”

  “Of all the races,” the Cyclops boomed, a sound as dee
p as the Leviathan’s challenge to heaven, “that I have crushed, none were as arrogant as yours. This is how I will make sure you are remembered. For your pathetic arrogance, unbounded.”

  Sun Tzu continued circling. Lightning dragons swam in crackles along his blade.

  “You confuse arrogance with the certainty of outcomes. The lines of fate are changing. The weak and strong principles of the universe have turned against you. The galaxy is ours, Yin and Yang. I have divined the future and you have no place in it.”

  The Great Eye flared white hot.

  “Already the zeal takes you. Truly your race is damned. Would that we found you a thousand years sooner! I name you Sun Tzu, Abomination in Waiting! You shall not come to pass!”

  “You fear us?” Sun Tzu peeked from around the sword. “Already, your weakness is manifest! Brother,” he lowered his blade, “it does not need to end this way. For the sake of the stars themselves, end this war now.” he extended his hand.

  The Cyclops snarled, and stepped back sharply. His spear swung down fast as the racing fires of a supernova.

  Sun Tzu caught it with his finger tips. Cracks of light opened up from them and the blade shattered into chips. The Cyclops leapt back, crouching tiger.

  “Enough of this. Let us merge. There will be no secrets between us. You and I shall be as one, and our peoples will merge after. Strength in unity. Peace through power. Patience before infinity.” He stepped forward –

  -and collapsed to his knees. Retching took him, wisdom spewed from his mouth and splashed on the ground in pools of dulling, dimming, gold.

  “Treachery!” he gasped, holding his chest. A glowing hole had emerged there.

  The Cyclops stood up and advanced.

  “Arrogance is what your kind will be remembered for,” he grabbed Sun Tzu by his hair and jerked his head back. “Did you think I didn’t find the bitch Saraswati’s note? That I would leave it untampered?” He kicked him in the face, hard. The force threw Sun Tzu into the air.

  “The Wanderer lured you,” he lifted him up by his leg, “and in your arrogance you came,” he tore off a wing. The white dragon blood hissed and puffed into snowflakes, falling like a young mother’s grief. “You brought me the greater part of your own mind, and presented it as a gift,” he tore of the other wing. “It is no more. Your fleet is fighting now, without their leader. I will kill them all.”