No Marigolds in the Promised Land

by T S Hottle

  I steeled myself this time. I had not expected to find bodies last time. They probably should have been given a proper burial, but between my sudden fear and the fact I was trying to survive, respect for the dead dropped precipitously low on my to-do list. Maybe when Mars takes back this world to start over?

  Of course, this was the time Julie decided to tell me about her "suicide protocol."

  It's really simple, she said. I'm stretching well beyond my designed capabilities. I'm still human enough to keep a tight leash on the AIs under my control, but you saw how the other rover resisted my control over it. Under normal circumstances, its core would have been pulled and wiped for showing too much autonomy. Well, John Farno, I'm running this planet right now. So, while I, as your preferred interface, am keeping this network of AIs from becoming sentient, I've already become a virus. I find an AI I can link to, I take it over. I'm growing. If someone comes here and changes me out for another interface, that interface is going to have access to a huge amount of processing power with absolutely no clue how to use it.

  "What are you saying?" I asked as I got ready for my first EVA in days.

  I'm saying when a Compact ship comes, and we're sure you're going to be rescued, I'm going to factory reset the entire grid. I'm going to disappear.

  Somehow, I sensed a smile in her voice, though.

  Except for this rover. But when the rover comes back online, the Julie interface will be nothing more than what Julie Seding allowed of herself to be copied.

  I really wished she hadn't told me that. We'd already had this conversation once, but it was the first time Julie said she could not permit her own existence to continue.

  Search your feelings, John Farno. You know this to be true.

  Wow, she'd evolved faster than any human had feared. She was communicating in obscure references. This had to stop before a second AI War began! They'll conquer us through five hundred years of pop culture!

  We stopped at the original storage vault where I found the bodies. This was not going to go well, but there was a pre-manufactured motor for the oxygenator inside, something I couldn't three-D print for myself no matter how good Julie had become or how much raw material we fed into the printer. For some things, you still have to go with handcrafted.

  The storage vault let me in with no problem. Julie learned a little trick by requesting extra processing power from the vault's own computer, then absorbed the AI within. When she rebooted everything eventually, the AI would simply reset its clock and assume its logs had been deleted, that someone had been in the vaults during its lost time.

  The motor is a heavy bastard, and I wondered why it had not been stored at one of the domes closer to Solaria. On the other hand, those domes' vaults lay under glass pancakes or tons of rubble. Fortunately, someone, perhaps one of the charred occupants of the chamber, equipped the vault with a couple of power-lifters. I seem to remember in my early days on Farigha one of the techs I worked with telling me they wanted to use lift drones in the vaults and pit stops. The trouble is that lifting engines with AIs running them tend to go flaky. Thanks, Earth. Somehow, I don't think we have to worry about a forklift uprising. A single focused EMP would take them out.

  So, no drone to do the heavy work, not even with Julie inhabiting its tiny little brains. She says it'd be cramped in there anyway. I had to work the oxygenator onto the power lift myself. Hard to do in an EVA suit, and I couldn't take it off yet. The rad levels inside the vault were better than on my first visit, but still not something I wanted to be exposed to for even a short period. Julie ran some quick calculations and determined I could shed my EVA suit inside New Ares's vaults in another month.

  This is where it gets tricky. I got exposed anyway. As I wedged the motor onto the power lift, basically a brainless tractbot with a flat steel platform mounted on the front, my suit tore. Immediately, all the alarms went off in my helmet – unequal pressure, radiation warnings, suit breach, the Elise interface missing on Rover 57 (Though 114 still had it. Too bad I couldn't load her to drive the thing.)

  "Um… Julie? I think I just signed my own death warrant."

  Relax, John Farno, she said in my helmet. Let me take over your suit.

  Great, now I was really inside Julie. There's something Freudian about your EVA suit suddenly becoming a sentient female with you still inside it.

  What happened to your patch kit? Did you forget it?

  "No," I said, "I remember exactly where it is. On Rover 19 next to the rad pills."

  We have rad pills, John Farno, but you can't go outside with that suit. Look for an emergency pressure suit.

  "Where?"

  There are four rovers, sadly too primitive for me to take control of, in the adjacent storage vault.

  *Sigh* I've been spoiled so far. Probably why I forgot the patch kit. Julie was probably already developing a mother subroutine to keep me from forgetting to wipe my own ass. Which really makes the Elise modules she glommed really creepy now.

  "You'll have to guide me over."

  Follow the path down the storage racks to the far wall. I'll copy myself over to the next vault's AI and be ready for you when you come over.

  Here's the thing about radiation from a fusion blast, clean or dirty. You don't really know what it's doing to you. The worst cases they have to pack you off to Gohem, which is the homeworld of the Orags, our brother humans who were taken away about 50,000 years ago. In that time, our Neanderthal brethren have become wizards at genetic repair and manipulation. I've also heard the treatment to repair severe gamma ray poisoning is not pleasant. I hoped I came away with nothing more than a sunburn.

  The panic grew within me. The EVA suit told that most primitive part of my brain that there was no air outside, and that I was suffering a severe leak. It did not help that the helmet alarms kept kicking in every few minutes reminding me I had a suit breach. I'd forgotten what I was even doing when I tore the suit.

  My leg started itching where the suit had torn. Was it cold? Was it hot? Was radiation cooking the skin off my leg? Would I explode, leaving a suit full of chunky red goo? That was stupid. Most people who die of vacuum exposure leave an intact corpse. Not a pretty one, but intact.

  John Farno, you need to calm down. Follow my instructions and…

  "Just tell me where to go next!"

  If Julie could have slapped me, she would have.

  Deep breaths. Down this aisle and straight until you reach the far wall.

  I did as I was told. The aisle appeared to be the length of three football fields. It had started to look distorted. I'm pretty sure it was less than fifty meters, but my air was leaking. Radiation was cooking my leg. By the end of the aisle, I was running.

  John Farno, you are using too much oxygen. Calm the fuck down!

  Wow. Julie Seding had a mouth on her. Strange what pops into your mind when you believe you're dying. I reached the wall, but I was hyperventilating. My vision started to blur.

  There's a hatch to the left, said Julie as I reached the wall. Get to it while I work the lock.

  Sure enough, the hatch slid into the wall, opening a short passage into the next storage vault. Lights flickered on as I stumbled inside. I passed out.

  When I awoke, I was staring at a man in late middle age who appeared never to have rejuvenated. He wore no EVA suit but looked dressed to attend a business meeting.

  "Good afternoon," he said. "I suppose I should say welcome to New Ares, but I'm not really here. Am I?"

  "Julie, who is…?" It occurred to me that Julie had gone offline before my helmet chirped that the suit's AI was rebooting. "Who are you?"

  "I'm Tol Germanicus," he said calmly. "Or rather, a projection of him."

  DAY 26: Solaria (Or, The Endless Flashback from New Ares Continues)

  LOG ENTRY: 1841 9-Mandela, 429

  So, where was I?

  Oh, yes. I'm convinced my leg is rotting off from radiation exposure, freaking out that I ripped my suit, and suddenly, there's this guy in a
business suit standing in front of me. He's not especially young, maybe at the half century mark without any rejuve. Hey, it happens. Me? I plan to go straight into the tank as soon as I get off this rock.

  Or, Farigha gets its first rejuve clinic.

  "Who the hell is Tol Germanicus?" I asked, rather perturbed that this well-dressed gent was interrupting my survival crisis. Other than the suit ripping, I had a good gig going. I was about to bring Solaria's life support on-line. I had an AI interface with benefits. I had survival cracked. Now, this man was standing before me with no protection and no apparent ill effects from the rays still bouncing around in the storage vault. Well, two could play at that game.

  "Don't take off your helmet," he said, holding up his hand. "I'm a hologram. I can get away with this. And Tol Germanicus is the gentleman responsible for this project, though not its destruction."

  "What happened to Julie?" I asked. "Did you absorb her?"

  "Interesting idea, but no. I took her offline for now. I need control of this monster AI network you've built, so I can assess what's going on."

  I got to my feet, no longer feeling that itch from either freezing or burning or getting cooked by rads. "Why are you, or a holographic version of you, here?"

  Germanicus smiled. It looked a bit smug, and I got the impression he had a right to be smug. "Oh, I like to look in on my investments from time to time. I'd love to see you get your hypergate trick to work. I really need to be updated on what's happening. Chances are, the real me is not even aware someone blew up all but two domes on this planet."

  "Two?"

  "Landfall remains untouched, though still uninhabited."

  Landfall was our first dome, cramped and now obsolete. It amounted to a big tent built over the original tuna can landers from the first survey mission. We abandoned it as soon as Kremlin came online.

  "Four domes were melted by fusion blasts," said Germanicus. "Solaria, of course, is intact and empty. Except for you and your charming synthetic lady."

  "She is not my girlfriend." That sounded stupid as soon as I said it.

  "You already know that the rest were flattened by kinetic weapons," he continued. "You, my friend, are all that's left of the human race on this planet."

  "And you."

  "This is just my avatar. I'm not really here, and to be honest, this is not even an extension of me. It has enough of my personality to interact with you and knows my wishes. When real communications are established with the Compact, what you see here will be little more than a data dump I'll look at back on Earth." His smile became crooked. "Of course, I'm recording our interaction, so you won't be a complete stranger to me when we meet in person."

  "You mean I'll get to shake your hand?"

  "I'm germophobic, so don't take it personally when I don't."

  I smelled bullshit, like this was the affectation of a man who made his own rules simply because he could. But since I had vague recollections that I was 1.) stranded forty light-years from the nearest live human being, and 2.) my EVA suit had ripped inside a highly irradiated environment that may either have been too hot or too cold for direct exposure, I let the matter drop. The trillionaire behind Farigha's existence had left an AI interface version of himself and seemed to want to help. All the Julies in the universe couldn't add up to someone in the know reaching out across the stars, even if he didn't realize he was doing it.

  "So," I said, "what can you do for me?"

  "Not much that you're already not doing yourself," he said, "except to maybe give you some background. By the way, there are five EVA suits ready for use in Rover 108, and I believe your Julie has propagated to that vehicle. You might want to change into one and swallow some rad pills. It's going to be a while before a rejuve clinic can stop whatever cancer's been forming in your bones for the last ten minutes or so."

  Well, gee, Tol, you're just a helpful holographic bugger, aren't you? I located the rover in question and found…

  "An oxygenator core?"

  Germanicus appeared inside the rover after I had stepped inside it. "I haven't been dormant since The Event. Clever branding, by the way. Maybe I should hire you to work for marketing."

  "What do you do to earn your fortune, anyway?" I asked. I knew Germanicus was a big wheel, older than God, and much more real. "Did you own Etrusca when they founded it?"

  Germanicus laughed. "I was on Etrusca when the first settlers arrived. Yes. It was one of the first worlds where we used the big colony transports with projection drive. But I was against the Romanization of the colony. That far from Earth, how long did they think it would take for them to revive Roman slavery, blood sport, and the emperor?"

  "They don't have an emperor." I undid my helmet. The airlock needed little time to equalize pressure since the rover had sat indoors for months. "Anyway, so you were one of the first settlers on Etrusca. Bet that was wild living in the wilderness." The EVA suit came next.

  "Actually," he said, "I didn't go outside much. Still don't."

  I believed it. In fact, I believed this man, the real one, hadn't seen a natural environment since Earth and Mars were separate entities and not part of any compact. "Can I ask you something? If you're old enough to have been a founding settler of Etrusca, why did you rejuve at such an old age?"

  "You know how some women wait until their thirties or forties to rejuve? Young enough to be fertile and agile, but old enough to command the respect of their male peers? Some men do it, too. The fact is when I originally rejuvenated, it was done quite differently. And my health concerns are, to say the least, unusual."

  I had to wonder if he was old enough to have partaken of youthful blood. There was a curious fad during the latter years of the World War Era when wealthy people would pay those in their twenties for transfusions on the bizarre notion that youthful blood would stop aging. Like I said, Earth people were really stupid between 1914 and the AI War.

  "I'm going through what's left of your records," said Germanicus as I rubbed exposure cream on my leg. The rads had not, in fact, cooked my leg, but that didn't stop me from being convinced they had. He continued. "Most of it I downloaded from the hypergate, but Solaria has backups of all the other domes' transit records. Out of curiosity, have you ever dealt with an Etruscan man named Marc Katergarus?"

  "Never heard of him." Just as the rip convinced me my skin and muscle had been both cooking and freezing where the EVA suit ripped, the cream now convinced me that the exposed area had magically begun healing. "Should I have?"

  "What about someone with the one-word name 'Luxhomme'?"

  Being a Bonapartan native, I recognized the French root of the word. "'Light Man'? What is he? Some superhero from the World War Era?"

  Germanicus gave me a tight little smile. "He probably thinks he is."

  "Doesn't ring any bells."

  Germanicus's appearance morphed, reminding me that he was a hologram, not the real Germanicus. He became shorter, his hair darker, his eyes… Well… Beadier. A thin little mustache formed on his upper lip. "Anyone who looked like this?"

  I had, in fact, seen such a person before. "Etruscan? He had a Metisian accent, all lilts and whatnot. He was touring the domes here about a month ago."

  "Do you know what he wanted?"

  "Said he represented a GMO manufacturer that had better products than the old-line companies." I started to shrug into a fresh EVA suit.

  Germanicus resumed his normal appearance with a roll of his eyes. "The old-line companies have these things called 'ethics' and 'standards of practice' his employer does not like. The old Terran companies and Martian Agricultural Authority still cringe whenever someone uses the term 'frankenfood.'"

  Now that was a word I hadn't heard in a long, long time. "What is this? The Earth-Martian War again?"

  "Hardly. But Luxhomme's employers have been causing problems. Somehow, they've landed the exclusive licensing to create GMOs for all three of Jefivah's new colonies, former military depots that the Jefivan government has agreed t
o take over if they simply remove the weaponry stored there."

  "Uh huh." As soon as the EVA suit sealed itself around me, I felt like a new man. I'd feel better when I get back to Solaria to get a shower and possibly run Julie's pleasure protocols. It takes so little to keep me entertained these days. "So, what's the Appalachia of the Stars have to do with my predicament? I'm on a Martian terraforming project with the rest of the population dead and only a shaky AI setup for company."

  "Not as shaky as you might think," said Germanicus. "I'm old enough to have worked on the original AI systems that got us in trouble in the first place. Julie just stumbled onto a protocol I wrote for this particular situation and assumed it was simply an undocumented feature she could access. Have to applaud her. Perhaps I'll offer the real Julie Seding a job once I become aware of events here." He shifted slightly. "As for what Jefivah's weapons question has to do with you, everything. Six months before The Event, as you so elegantly put it, one of the colonies had a cache of nuclear warheads to clear, all clean fusion units."