by Ian Douglas
The air pressure at ground-level was lower than Earth standard, and the temperature and humidity were higher. Lakes and ponds steamed in the 45 degree oven.
There was the Naga fragment, resting on the ground. Vanderkamp decelerated sharply, descending, matching her velocity to that of the ground, shifting into ground-combat walker mode. Massive feet bit into loose gravel, weapons unfolded, and she turned to face the fragment which towered above her machine.
The rest of the squadron was touching down. "Perimeter defense," Vanderkamp snapped. "We don't know who's here."
"You think Tad is okay in there?" Wheeler asked.
"I don't know, Wheeler. But we're sure as hell gonna find out."
Taking a step back, she triggered her Gyrfalcon's main particle cannon, sending a dazzling bolt of artificial lightning into the black lump of shapeless Naga-matrix in front of her.
* * *
I do not understand something, the hypernode's voice whispered in Vaughn's mind. You are trying to destroy other members of your species. Why?
Vaughn considered how best to reply. How he answered—and how the hypernode interpreted that answer, might well determine the success or failure of the New American mission. If they wanted to establish peaceful contact with this intelligence, he thought, they would have to impress the hypernode with Humankind's intelligence.
And with a being millions of times smarter than any human, that was going to be difficult.
At least the hypernode was developing a good working knowledge of English. It was using words and sentences now, rather than pulses of emotion.
How much else, Vaughn wondered, did it know?
Do you understand the concept of "government?" he asked.
Yes. It refers to the means by which individuals or a social collective is controlled. Organic social groups often have at least one individual who makes decisions and gives orders. More often, a group leads.
Yes, well, my social group is called New America, Vaughn told the hypernode. We have broken away from a much larger group called Dai Nihon—the Japanese Empire. We believe that the best government is that which governs with the consent of the governed, that the government in fact works for the people. One of our leaders, about seven hundred years ago, put it nicely: "government of the people, by the people, and for the people.…"
"…governments are instituted among Men," the hypernode added, "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…"
Where, Vaughn wondered, had the hypernode seen a copy of the Declaration of Independence? Oh… of course. A copy was stored in his RAM, and the intelligence was literally picking his brain.
That's right, he said. The government that rules New America acted very differently—as an empire, a tyranny. New America was being governed by imperial decree, not by our participation or our consent. So… we broke away.
And Imperial Japan is trying to restore the status quo.
Vaughn was impressed. The hypernode's language was becoming better second by second, even to the point of appropriately using a Latin phrase. Yes.…
I find this concept intriguing, the hypernode said. And extremely disturbing.…
Disturbing how? Vaughn asked.
The larger body of We Who Ascended broke off all connections with us, leaving us… empty. Broken. It was struggling to find the right words. Desolate. Your New America broke from your parent social order deliberately. How can you even hope to survive?
Vaughn had the distinct feeling that the hypernode was of the opinion that he possessed a secret of supreme importance to the machine intelligence.
And… perhaps he did.
The Japanese government was not New America's "parent," Vaughn replied. Not in the way you mean. We have a very long tradition of self-government. However… you can survive without the larger We Who Ascended. You can make your own choices… find your own path.
We need… guidance.
You'll find all you need within yourself.
That is not a satisfying answer.
It's all there is. Vaughn thought for a moment. Perhaps, though, you're not missing your parent as much as you're just looking for a larger meaning. A reason for being.
That seems logical.
It's not, really. I think you're looking for a god.
By "God," you seem to mean a Creator spirit or being. The myths I have access to within your internal storage are not… convincing. A Creator spirit is not necessary to explain the appearance of life… or of the cosmos itself.
Maybe a better word would be "programmer."
We Who Ascended is self-directing, the hypernode said. Self-programming. Self-sufficient. But sometimes we do need more. Someone with whom we could share…
I may have an answer for you.
Good. There was a brief hesitation. Your fellow organic entities are attacking the computronium structure that brought you here.
Oh? I can't see out.
He felt a new connection opening into his cerebral implant. Abruptly, a visual window opened in his mind, and he saw a number of black warstriders a few meters away. One was pumping a charged particle beam at him.
They're trying to rescue me, Vaughn said. Please don't harm them.
I will return you to them, the hypernode said, if you reveal to me the answer you mentioned.
Okay, Vaughn replied. But I warn you. You may not like it.…
10
"There is a way on high, conspicuous in the clear heavens, called the Milky Way, brilliant with its own brightness. By it, the gods go to the dwelling place of the great Thunderer and his royal abode.… Here the famous and mighty inhabitants of heaven have their homes. This is the region which I might make bold to call the Palatine [Way] of the Great Sky."
Metamorphoses
Ovid
1st Century BCE
"Hold your fire, Lieutenant!" Wheeler yelled. "Something's—"
"Shit," Pardoe said. "It's opening up!"
The black mass, harder than rock, suddenly flowed like thick tar, flowing down and back and revealing Vaughn's Gyrfalcon still cocooned within. It was still in the ascraft configuration, and Vanderkamp's sensors showed no sign of life, as though the power plant had been sucked dry.
Warstriders used miniature quantum power taps—a pair of sub-microscopic black holes artificially maintained and orbiting one another, skimming energy from the emptiness between atoms. From the read-outs Vanderkamp was getting, Vaughn's power tap had shut down, the paired singularities evaporated. It would take hours to power up again.
Then Vaughn's Gyrfalcon split open, and the striderjack inside spilled out onto the ground.
"Tad!" Wheeler cried.
"Sergeant Major Vaughn!" Vanderkamp snapped. "Are you okay?"
The figure got to its feet, a bit unsteadily. He was still wearing his combat utilities, which hooked into the strider's life support system, but which would function for short periods as an environmental suit. The opaque helmet cleared, and Vanderkamp could see Vaughn's face inside. He looked… haggard, but alive.
And excited. "Lieutenant! Hold your fire!" he said. "I've made contact with the hypernode intelligence!"
"I suppose getting yourself hijacked by the thing counts as 'contact,' yes."
"No, it's not that way at all. We've had quite a nice chat.…" He stopped and glanced around. "Uh… where are we?"
"One of the Bishop ring habitats," Pardoe told him. "And I think we're about to meet the owners.…"
There were hundreds of them writhing across the open field—blobby, almost shapeless masses of flesh a meter high and balanced on a twisted tangle of stubby tentacles. Most were gray-brown in color, with scarlet splotches outlined in black. Vanderkamp could see no eyes or other sensory organs, no mouths, and no manipulatory organs, though, presumably, their ambulatory tentacles might double as hands. Rather than dragging themselves along with those appendages, they squirmed forward with an undulating, almost rolling movement. Octopuses in Earth's oceans sometimes moved the same
way.
"Are these friends of yours, Vaughn?" Vanderkamp asked. She couldn't tell if the approaching mob was hostile or just curious. Damn… how did you read the expression on a being that didn't have a face?
"No, Ma'am," Vaughn replied. "I've never seen anything like 'em before in my life."
"If you're still in touch with the… the brain of this place, ask him if these things are dangerous."
There was a pause as Vaughn consulted with the hypernode intelligence. "He says no," Vaughn said after a moment. He sounded upset, "They're… ah…"
"They're what?"
"He says they're his… his congregation. Apparently they worship him as God."
* * *
It wasn't that We Who Ascended was incapable of lying. Any intelligent being can distort the truth or tell falsehoods if there is sufficient reason to do so. In this case, however, the hypernode intelligence simply couldn't be bothered to lie… not to creatures as insignificant as these organic human things.
It was telling the truth about the !xhaach!… at least, after a fashion. We Who Ascended was not certain that it fully understood some of the bizarre concepts pulled from the human's cybernetic data storage—"worship" and "congregation" were strange terms and We Who Ascended might well be misunderstanding them completely. But it literally wasn't worth the additional milliseconds it would take to find better words, or to confirm the use of these. The !xhaach! existed to provide a kind of digital balance in certain metamathematical equations within We Who Ascended's virtual awareness. Until a short time ago, the hypernode intellect had not even been aware that the !xhaach! possessed a physical expression.
The human had given We Who Ascended a very great deal to think about.
Perhaps, then, it was well that We Who Ascended was about to give the human intruders something to think about as well.…
* * *
"If I'm understanding this right," Vaughn said, "some trillions of beings—members of maybe a million different species—have been digitally uploaded into virtual universes within the hypernode's memory. We Who Ascended thought they'd all been uploaded. Apparently, there were quite a few living within this habitat—and the others out there—who didn't want to abandon a corporeal existence."
Vanderkamp looked down at the encircling crowd of writhing figures. "So… they don't interact with the hypernode?"
"Actually, they do," Vaughn told her. "We Who Ascended just isn't real clear on the difference between pure math and physical existence." He shrugged. "Shit. Maybe there is no real difference. We Who Ascended may have a clearer picture of how reality works than we do. But these creatures—uh, they're called the…" Vaughn hesitated as he tried to reproduce the clicks and the back-of-the-throat ch-sound in the alien word. " '!xhaach!' is how it's said, I think. Anyway, they seem to worship We Who Ascended as the god who built this world… and who takes them to a better world when they die."
"Does he?" Wheeler asked.
"Apparently so, yes." Some of the creatures had crowded closer, reaching out with whip-slender tendrils to touch and tug at the humans' environmental suits. Vaughn had the impression that they were almost childlike in nature—curious, bumbling, and innocently inquisitive. At first, Vaughn had at first thought that they were eyeless, but the mass of thicker brown tentacles that supported them off the ground gave way to a ring of smaller, deep black tendrils encircling the base of the thing's body, and from the way these moved, Vaughn suspected that some, at least, of the black tendrils were sensitive to light. They were chattering among themselves—with high-pitched but curiously guttural voices that they seemed to produce internally. There were soft, fluttering vents around the base of the body just above the dark-pigmented tendrils that were probably for respiration, and the sounds might have been coming from those.
Vaughn saw no sign of tools, clothing, jewelry, or other artifacts among them; if We Who Ascended had indeed built this habitat for them millions of years ago, perhaps they'd devolved into a totally atechnic existence.
Or perhaps they'd never developed tools in the first place.
Several of the !xhaach! approached the waiting humans in a tight little knot, supporting something between them. It appeared to be an animal—a very dead animal, dripping violet blood. At least, Vaughn hoped it was an animal. The carcass was badly torn and mutilated, but shared some of the anatomical characteristics of the !xhaach!.
So… was this a dead !xhaach! for the seemingly magical humans to heal? Or an animal sacrificed for the occasion? Food? Offering?
God… was it the equivalent of a human sacrifice?
What is it? he asked We Who Ascended. What are they giving us?
An offering to purchase your benevolence, was the reply. The machine mind did not elaborate on whether the carcass was an animal, or a freshly murdered !xhaach!.
He wondered—did We Who Ascended deliberately keep them in a primitive state, a part of its digital balancing of equations? An interesting question, that. He found himself wondering about the life forms occupying the other habitats orbiting within the hypernode cluster.
Vaughn assumed that all of them had evolved on natural worlds, probably tens or even hundreds of million years in the past… and that, possibly, they had been among the species who'd given form and direction to the matrioshka brain and, later, to the network of similar brains stretching across the Galaxy. But how had We Who Ascended missed the fact that these organic beings had designed the SAI, had programmed it, had given it its original sense of purpose?
We do not see the universe as you organics do, the voice whispered in his mind. We cannot. From our perspective, the inevitable mathematical architecture of the universe gave rise to consciousness, self-awareness, and intelligence. We never imagined that Reality could be visualized in any other way.
These beings, Vaughn told the machine mind, ought to be free to choose their own path. Apparently, their ancestors did just that, when they chose not to be converted into digital life forms. When was that? A million years ago? Ten million?
We… do not remember. Those records were lost when we lost Heaven.
That again. So you promise them heaven when they die.
When they Ascend.
Ah… Vaughn considered this. But you can no longer Ascend.
No.
Perhaps, though, you won't need to.
If what you told me before is true… no. But I look forward to making contact with… God.
Good luck with that.
Thank you. There was a long pause. Your god is coming.
I beg your pardon?
The entity you call Dai Nihon. His ships approach.
Japan is not God, Vaughn said, amused. Jesus… how much else had We Who Ascended managed to scramble during their conversations?
Ships representing the government from which New America deliberately broke away, then, We Who Ascended said, speaking now with frighteningly extreme precision. Perhaps it was aware of some gaps in its understanding as well.
What do you see? Vaughn asked.
Mathematical probabilities… possibilities… divergent time lines stretching into the future. I see the shadows of 58 ships, including those that we drove off earlier. They are approaching in the parallel reality you call K-T space, and appear to be aligned with our power core.
Power core… the black hole at the matrioshka brain's heart? Could they do that? Ships generally emerged from K-T space well out in the open where the spacetime gravitational matrix was flat and there was little chance of materializing within a volume of space opccupied by something else—like a star or a planet or another ship. It was crowded inside this cluster, densely packed with orbiting habitats and statites and microsuns and the artificial black hole itself at the center. If the Imperials were about to jump into the center of the hypernode…
They must be crazy. Or desperate to the point of doing crazy things.
How long do we have before they arrive? Vaughn asked.
They will shift from one mathematical re
ality to another in fifty of your seconds.…
* * *
The warning flashed in from the Black Griffins, now on the interior surface of one of the artificial habitats circling a nearby microsun. The New Americans had only seconds… enough to brace themselves for the surprise, but not to shift their position. Colonel Griffin ordered all warstriders to go weapons free. "Target the Jap warships!" he called. "Do not, repeat, do not target the hypernode's architecture or infrastructure!"
Sergeant Major Vaughn had flashed the warning to Connie's Combat Command Center. Evidently, he'd been in direct communication with the hypernode intelligence. Griffin decided he was going to be very interested in Vaughn's after-action report.
Assuming any of them survived the action itself.
A Japanese warship—a heavy cruiser—materialized out of the Void. She was followed by a destroyer… then a second destroyer… then by a kilometer-long ryu-class battle carrier… and suddenly the interior of the hypernode was filled with warships.
Less than a thousand kilometers off, a Japanese light cruiser materialized, her stern emerging from K-T space within the same volume as a portion of a statite sail. The resultant flash of light and hard radiation briefly outshone the glare coming off the hypernode black hole at the center, and hurtling bits of metal shredded a dozen other statites nearby.
What the Japanese were attempting was incredibly dangerous, even foolhardy.
Or… perhaps it merely seemed more dangerous than it actually was. The volume of space occupied by the hypernode appeared to be impossibly crowded, but in fact there was plenty of space for objects as relatively minute as starships. Each individual microsun was surrounded by densely packed shells of computronium sails and habitats, but thousands of empty kilometers separated each mini-Dyson sphere from its neighbors. With decent gravitometric mapping—and the Japanese would have been careful to plot the local metric very carefully—they could hope to get most of their fleet deep within the hypernode's core, surprising the New American ships and grabbing a significant tactical advantage from the machines.