by David Weber
He tilted the couch back and crossed his legs. More screens and displays glowed around him, filling Nike’s fighting compartment with a dim, shifting luminescence. There were more of them than there would have been in a more modern-well, recent-Bolo. Nike was a modified Mark XXIII, after all; humans needed broader band data interfaces than any Bolo did, and Nike’s basic technology was eighty years old, without more recent updates in human-machine information management systems. But for all that, the compartment was surprisingly spacious. Not only had Nike been the first fully autonomous Bolo, whether anyone knew it or not, but she’d also been the first to incorporate molycirc psychotronics. It was very early generation stuff, considerably bulkier than its more modern equivalents, but Stavrakas had used it in some amazingly innovative ways. What she might have accomplished with the current technologies scarcely bore thinking on.
He turned his couch and keyed another screen to life. A forty-nine-year-old time and date display glowed in one corner, and the white-haired woman who appeared on it sat in the same crash couch Merrit now occupied. She was far frailer and older than the single, poor-quality flatpic of Major Stavrakas he’d found in Central’s surviving records, but her olive-dark eyes were still sharp and alert. He’d already played the recording three times, yet he felt a fresh sense of respect, coupled with a regret that he’d never known her, as she began to speak.
“Since you’re viewing this-whoever you are-” she said with a wry smile, “someone must’ve finally remembered where they parked Nike and me. I suppose I should be a bit put out with the Brigade and the Navy, but from the little Jeremiah and I have picked up over the all-units channels, we assume the Quern got through to Central.” Her smile faded, and her voice-a soprano remarkably similar to Nike’s-darkened. “I further assume the rest of the Descartes Team must have been lost at the same time, since they all knew where I was.”
She cleared her throat and rubbed her temple with one fragile, veined hand.
“Jeremiah’s offered to use the commercial bands to request a relief ship with a proper medical officer, but I turned him down. However much he may grump and grouse, Santa Cruz is his home now. I know he really loves it here, and so do I, I suppose. Besides, from the bits and pieces we can pick up, the Quern are still operating in some force in the sector. Given their native habitat, I doubt they’d care much for Santa Cruz’s climate, and I suppose that’s the main reason they’ve never paid us a visit. On the other hand, they might just change their mind if they started intercepting transmissions from us. Nike’s good, but I’d just as soon not match her against a Quern planetary assault force. Even if she won, there wouldn’t be very many surviving Santa Cruzans to cheer for her when it was over.”
She lowered her hand and smiled again.
“Actually, it hasn’t been a bad life. A little lonely, sometimes. Thanks to all the Descartes security, most of the locals never even knew Nike and I were here, and those who did know seem to have forgotten, but I had dear Jeremiah. He and I accepted long ago that we’d become permanent residents of Santa Cruz, and in addition to him, I had Nike, my work, and plenty of time to spend with all three of them. And, of course,” her smile became an impish grin, “no brass to give me a hard time! Talk about research freedom-!”
She chuckled and leaned back to fold thin arms across her chest.
“Unfortunately, it would appear I’m finally running out of time. My family’s always been prone to heart trouble, and I’ve had my warning. I’ve discussed it with Nike-she tends to worry, and I’ve made it a habit to be honest with her-and she understands the depot doesn’t stock the sort of spares I need. I’ve also made arrangements to put her on Autonomous Stand-By if-when-the time comes. I’m certain someone somewhere else has picked up where the Descartes Team left off. By now there’s probably a whole new generation of autonomous Bolos out there, but now that you’ve come to relieve me, I think you’ll find Nike still has a few surprises of her own. Take care of her, whoever you are. She’s quite a girl. I’m sure my tinkering is going to raise a few eyebrows-Lord knows the desk-jockeys would tear their hair at the mere thought of some of the capabilities I’ve given her! But I’ve never regretted a single facet of her design. She’s unique… and she’s been more than just my friend.”
The old woman on the screen sighed. Her smile took on a curious blend of sorrow and deep, abiding pride and affection, and her voice was very soft when she spoke again.
“When forty winters shall besiege thy brow,
And dig deep trenches in thy beauty’s field,
Thy youth’s proud livery, so gazed on now,
Will be a tatter’d weed, of small worth held:
Then being ask’d where all thy beauty lies,
Where all the treasure of thy lusty days,
To say, within thine own deep-sunken eyes,
Were an ill-fitting shame and thriftless praise.
How much more praise deserved thy beauty’s use,
If thou couldst answer ‘This fair child of mine
Shall sum my count and make my old excuse,’
Proving her beauty by succession thine.
This were to be new made when thou art old,
And see thy blood warm when thou feel’st it cold.”
She blinked misty eyes and nodded to the pickup, as if she could actually see him, measure him, know the innermost, most secret part of him.
“A tiny misquote, perhaps,” she said quietly, “but I think Shakespeare would forgive me. Take good care of my child, whoever you are.”
The screen blanked, and Merrit shook his head,
“You must have been quite a girl yourself, Major,” he murmured.
“She was,” the Bolo’s soprano said softly, and he looked up at the small green light glowing below the speaker from which it came. Now that he’d seen Stavrakas’ last log entry, it no longer seemed strange to hear Nike speak without prompting. There was a moment of silence, and then the Bolo continued in that same, soft voice. “I never realized I had that message in memory, Commander. She must have recorded it during one of my down periods.”
“She didn’t want you to worry about her.”
Merrit didn’t even want to think about how the psych types would react to this entire conversation. Every field officer of the Dinochrome Brigade could quote chapter and verse from the manual’s warnings against over-identification with Bolos. They were war machines, the manual said. Self-aware and with personalities, yes, but machines, built to fight and die against humanity’s enemies, which must, in the final analysis, be regarded as expendable. The Bolos themselves knew that; it was only their human commanders and partners who tended to forget-as Merrit had forgotten on Sandlot.
“No. I compute that she would not have wanted that,” Nike agreed after a moment.
“Of course she wouldn’t have. But she was proud of you, Nike, and even from the little I’ve seen so far, she had reason to be.”
“Indeed?” The Bolo sounded pleased, and somehow he had the sense of a cocked head and a quirked eyebrow. “I compute that seventy-nine-plus years have passed since I was deployed, Commander. Surely newer and more modern Bolos surpass my own capabilities?”
“Fishing for compliments, Nike?” Merrit grinned and patted the arm of his crash couch. “Major Stavrakas was right. The desk-jockeys would tear their hair out if they could hear you now!”
“Why?” the Bolo asked simply.
“Because they worry about Bolos that get too human.”
“Because they fear what such a Bolo might do? Or because they fear what it might refuse to do?”
“I think because they’re afraid it might start asking questions just like those,” Merrit said more seriously. “You’re a very powerful fighting machine, Nike. There’s never-ever-been an instance of an undamaged Bolo in proper repair violating orders, but we’ve had the occasional accident with a unit that’s suffered damage or lack of maintenance. That’s why the Brigade still worries about its ability to retain control of
the newer, autonomous units. They’ve cut back on the inhibitory software in the Mark XXVs, but the core package is still in there.”
“A wise precaution,” Nike observed after a moment. “An irrational machine with the combat power I possess would be far too dangerous to its friends.”
“I’m afraid I have to agree, but that’s what would upset the desk-jockeys about you. You don’t have anywhere near the systems redundancy the Mark XXIVs and XXVs have. Technically, that makes you more vulnerable to failure from battle damage, and-probably worse, from HQ’s perspective-what I’ve seen so far suggests that Major Stavrakas’ modifications to your Personality and Command Centers are way outside the current parameters, as well. Just for starters, your inhibitory package is a lot less restrictive. No modern Bolo should be as ‘awake’ as you are outside Battle Mode, either, and it looks like your personality integration is at least a full magnitude more developed than a Mark XXV’s. I’m not certain yet, but coupled with the modifications to your secondary command cortex, I suspect you could even hold off the Omega Worm for a while.”
“Omega Worm?”
“Sorry. That’s current slang for the Total Systems Override Program.”
There was a moment of silence-a very human moment which Merrit understood perfectly. The TSORP was the ultimate defense against a rogue Bolo, a suicide file designed to crash every execution file in the memory of any Bolo which disobeyed the direct orders of its properly identified commander. Many Brigade personnel, like Merrit himself, questioned TSORP’s necessity. Since the brain box technology had come in, so many redundant, stand-alone backup systems had been added to the Bolo’s brains that the possibility of irrational behavior virtually no longer existed. And, as he’d just told Nike, no Bolo had ever disobeyed a legal order. But TSORP had been incorporated into the very first self-aware Bolos and every Bolo since, and it could not be a pleasant thing to know an involuntary suicide override controlled by others was part of your basic matrix.
“I believe you are correct, Commander,” Nike said after a moment, and his eyebrows rose at her merely thoughtful tone. “I could not resist it indefinitely, of course, yet I compute that the additional processing capability Major Stavrakas installed within my psychotronics would allow me to delay file execution for no less than forty minutes and possibly for as much as an hour. Does this constitute an unwarrantable risk factor in my design?”
“I don’t think so. Of course, given my own record, I may not be the most impartial judge. I guess the risk factor depends on how likely you are to disobey your commander’s orders.”
“I am a unit of the Dinochrome Brigade. I would never act against the honor of my Brigade, Commander.”
“I know, Nike. I know. I told you I wasn’t worried.” Merrit gave the couch arm one more pat, then rose and yawned hugely. “Sorry, Nike. Unlike you, I don’t have a fusion plant, and it’s been a long day for me. I need some shuteye.”
“Of course, Commander.”
“Wake me at oh-six-hundred, would you?”
“Certainly.”
“Thank you.” He smiled and waved to the visual pickup above the main fire control screens. It was a common gesture of courtesy among the men and women who commanded the self-aware war machines of the Dinochrome Brigade, yet it had more meaning than usual for him tonight. The green “System Active” light under the speaker flashed in unmistakable response, and he chuckled wearily and climbed out the hatch.
I watch through the depot’s interior optics as my new Commander makes his way down the corridor to the Personnel Section. He is only my second Commander. I am aware that my experiential data is thus insufficient to permit a realistic evaluation of his suitability as Major Stavrakas’ replacement, and he is quite different from my previous Commander, but I feel content. It is good to have a Commander once more, yet this is more than the relief a unit of the Line should feel at receiving a new Commander. There is something about him which I cannot adequately define. I devote a full 20.0571 seconds to an attempt to do so, but without success. Perhaps further acquaintance with him will provide the critical data my analysis presently lacks.
I consider what he has said as I watch him prepare for bed. He is correct about the danger an uncontrollable unit of the Line would pose to all about it. My function is to protect and defend humanity, not to threaten my creators, and I feel an odd disquiet at the thought that I am less well protected against that possibility than more modern Bolos. Yet my Commander is also correct in recognizing the remote probability of such a situation. TSORP becomes operational only in units that reject direct orders, and I cannot conceive of a unit of the Line in proper repair which would commit such an act.
My Commander extinguishes the lights in his new quarters, and I leave the audio system on-line. Should he wake and desire to communicate with me, I will be ready.
He has not instructed me to return to Stand-By to conserve power. In that much, at least, he is like Major Stavrakas. My Main Memory contains much background data on standard operating procedure; I realize how rare this is, and I am grateful for it. The depot power systems are fully charged. I do not even require internal power to maintain Full Alert Status, and I turn to my Library Files with pleasure.
7
Gerald Osterwelt didn’t like Ursula. Sector capital or no, the planet, as all planets in the frontier sectors, was terminally uncultured. He preferred the civilized amenities and pleasures of the Core Worlds, yet he comforted himself with the reflection that his task here was worth temporary inconveniences. He supposed it wasn’t really necessary for GalCorp to own the entire Santa Cruz System, but they certainly needed to own enough of it to control the rest, and the original planetary charter had made that difficult. Virgin as much of the planet might still be, most of it was already owned by some descendent of the original colonists or set aside in nature reserves held by the planetary government. Certainly all the choicest bits and pieces were, and GalCorp hadn’t become the third largest transstellar corporation of the Concordiat by settling for leftovers.
Unfortunately, his mother had been correct in at least one respect. His original bootlegged copy of Ursula Central’s records on the planet had been less complete than he’d thought. Central had updated itself considerably in the eighteen months since he’d first obtained access to its files, and it seemed Santa Cruz would be a tougher nut for a “messy solution” than he’d originally expected. The fact that the local yokel militia had no less than fourteen Wolverine heavy tanks was unfortunate, but formidable as the Wolverines had been in their day, they were also seventy or eighty years out of date. They could have been dealt with fairly easily if not for the real joker he’d never anticipated finding in the deck.
A Bolo. What in the name of sanity was a Bolo doing on a backwoods farming planet? More to the point, how did he go about neutralizing it? Despite his original airy confidence, he knew his mother’s maternal feelings would not suffice to preserve his present clear right of succession to the GalCorp throne if he blew this operation, but discovering a Bolo in the mix made things far more complicated.
He sat in the lounge of his palatial hyperyacht while options revolved in his brain. One did not normally-as humanity’s enemies had discovered over the last seven hundred years-employ a brute force solution against a Bolo with any great probability of success. Of course, this Bolo was as out of date as the militia’s Wolverines, but “obsolescent” was a purely relative concept where Bolos were concerned. No, no. If he was going to pull this off, he required a more subtle approach, and it was just possible he had one. Bolos might be incorruptible, but the same, alas, could not always be said for all the people who built or commanded them.
Yet even if he could somehow neutralize the Bolo, he would still require someone with the will, the experience, and the resources to deal with the militia’s over-aged armored element. There were plenty of mercenary outfits with the last two qualities, but finding one which was willing to undertake the operation in the first place might prove
difficult. The Concordiat Navy would be extremely unhappy with them, and if any planetary survivor could identify them afterward, unhappiness on the Navy’s part could all too easily prove fatal. What he needed was an outfit with minimal scruples and maximum need, one whose greed for the sort of clandestine support GalCorp could provide would overcome both any lingering humanitarian principles and fear of the Navy’s potential response.
Finding it wouldn’t be easy, he admitted to himself, but he had time. Survey Command moved with glacial slowness when it came to certifying jump lines. By his most pessimistic estimate, it would be another T-year before the galaxy at large got the information GalCorp had already obtained. That gave him six or even seven months to get things organized, and it would probably take most of that time to find the Bolo’s Achilles heel, anyway.
He nodded to himself and brought his encrypted com on-line. The first step was to call home and get Mother’s research teams started finding the contacts he needed.
8
The subterranean rumble of an earthquake shook the jungle as the enormous doors covering the depot’s vehicle ramp swept ponderously wide for the first time in eighty years. The patient, insatiable incursions of creepers and small trees had mounded two meters of spongy earth over those doors, and “birds” screamed in alarm as the very ground parted with a huge tearing sound. Trees-some of them ten and twenty meters tall-toppled in slow motion as the gaping wound snapped roots like threads, and then, with the rumble of mighty engines, the squeak of sprockets, and a grating clash of treads, Nike moved majestically into the light.
The alloy leviathan paused for a moment, optic heads swiveling to scan its surroundings, and Paul Merrit felt a thrill he hadn’t felt in years as he rode Nike’s crash couch. No self-aware Bolo needed an on-board commander, but there was always an indescribable sense of communion-an adrenaline-charged exhilaration-the first time an officer of the Dinochrome Brigade rode his command’s unstoppable power, and that feeling had never been stronger than it was today, for Nike was like no Bolo he had ever commanded. Marina Stavrakas’ unauthorized modifications to the Descartes Team’s original brain box design had gone far deeper than he’d first realized. She hadn’t stopped with making Nike fully autonomous; she’d taken the step no other Bolo tech had dared take even yet and given her creation-her child-genuine emotions. Nike wasn’t “just” a machine, however magnificent; she was a person, and Merrit could feel her delight as direct sunlight bathed her hull at long last.