Steelheart

by William C. Dietz

  There was a roar of laughter followed by a lessening of tension. Bana Modo was entranced by the nearly mythical presence—especially in light of their correspondence.

  Garrison looked out at his audience, marshaled his thoughts, and allowed the words to flow. ' "This facility was built in order to insulate our work from the political chaos that followed the landing, and yes, as a monument to my own considerable ego."

  There were titters, but no outright laughter, a sure sign that at least some of the audience agreed.

  "Whatever the reason," Garrison continued, "the fact remains that Flat Top was built and, as luck would have it, completed before the troubles began.

  The audience shifted uneasily. Eyebrows were raised. Did Garrison have a point? And if so, what was it? The roboticist continued.

  "The beings we refer to as the Forerunners constructed this planet from the inside out, installed a self-perpetuating, nano-based maintenance structure, and for reasons unknown, left all of it behind."

  Some of the staff members were stunned by the sweep of what the director had said. Others were openly contemptuous. Garrison ignored them.

  "The system I refer to controls what may turn out to be a fusion reactor at the planet's core—as well as geological mechanics that mimic those of more natural planets. That includes the recent seismic activity and the atmospheric changes that stem from it.

  "That's why the ecology is so simple, why there are no native microorganisms, and why Zuul will die. It is my thesis that both Mothri and human nano have systematically attacked and killed their Forerunner counterparts as part of a misguided attempt to dominate Zuul's robotic infrastructure. The situation continues to deteriorate. Barring the unexpected arrival of a ship, there is no means of escape.

  "The solution is obvious. We must prepare a complete inventory of Forerunner nano, identify those that have suffered the most predation, create attack-resistant strains, and introduce them into the planet's geological and biological systems.

  "We must do this quickly, efficiently, and in the face of organized resistance from the Zid. There is no alternative other than death."

  Garrison paused, and the room exploded into chaos. Questions were shouted, objections were heard, and at least one staff member burst into tears.

  Garrison turned to one of his bodyguards, took her weapon, and fired three shots into the ceiling. The babble stopped. The roboticist smiled. "That was the bad news. There is some good news. Many of you, people like Bana Modo, have been working on a solution for some time now. The task of classifying and redesigning the Forerunner nano is already underway. These efforts will shift into high gear as we devote more resources to them.

  "An additional piece of good news is the fact that the Mothri share our concerns ... and are open to an alliance."

  Modo flushed at the mention of his name and felt heads swivel in his direction. Some admired him. Others, their work unrecognized, started to fume.

  It took the better part of three hours to work through initial discussions, name team leaders, and launch "Project Zuul."

  Garrison was exhausted by the time the meeting was over and was glad to reach his quarters. The body was gone, but a bloodstain marked the floor. A maintenance droid whirred as it scrubbed Ahl away.

  The roboticist thanked his security detail, knew they would remain on guard, and entered his apartment. The bed beckoned, and he fell across it. The presentation had gone well, very well, but problems remained.

  The first had to do with the fact that a high percentage of Forerunner nano appeared to be extinct—and the second had to do with translation software. Software that would bridge the gap between the language the Forerunners had used to program their nano and human-derived code.

  The latter was of particular concern since he had lost contact with the being best equipped to solve the problem, a brilliant but somewhat idealistic synthetic who had chosen the name Luis Garcia Sojo.

  In fact, much as the roboticist hated to admit it, and wouldn't admit it, not publicly at least, the possibility of a nano-dependent planetary maintenance system had been Sojo's idea, not his.

  The truth was that instead of supporting his student, and taking pleasure in what he'd been able to accomplish, Garrison had been jealous instead. The human had accused the synthetic of sloppy science, had questioned his motives, and driven a wedge into their relationship. Even now, during the meeting, he had failed to acknowledge the synthetic's contribution.

  Where was Sojo, anyway? Hiding somewhere, his talents going to waste? Or dead? His body parts incorporated into a Zid shrine? Garrison heard himself moan as the full weight of his guilt pressed down on his chest.

  Servos whined as a robot appeared at Garrison's bedside, sent a radio message to the nano that cruised the human's bloodstream, and pulled a blanket over the scientist's skeletal body. An internally administered sedative would help, as would some antidepressants.

  The roboticist fell asleep, and the machine settled in to wait. Something that it, like all its brethren, did very well indeed.

  17

  cru sade' / n / a war or expedition having a religious

  object and sanctioned by the church

  The Cathedral of the Rocks was huge. So huge that it was third behind only the Pilgrim and the Forerunner city known as Maze in terms of overall size. It had four extensions, all of which were triangular in shape and joined to the base. Together they formed a star. The single star, insofar as the Zid hierarchy was concerned.

  Built of limestone, with donated labor, the structure had been sited on top of a hill where it would dominate the city below. Outcroppings of volcanic rock surrounded the cathedral and accounted for its name.

  Due to the fact that the Zid had brought their traditional religious calendar with them, and made use of it without regard to Zuul's orbit around the sun, there was no particular connection between it and the seasons.

  Members, and that included everyone, were expected to worship every day of the week, but Six-Days were especially important, and considered mandatory.

  Dr. Suti Canova thought there was something fascinating about the weekly spectacle, about looking out upon hundreds of Zid faces, their features registering emotions—but which ones? Did gill-fluttering signify distress? Was mouth-rippling equivalent to a smile? She thought so, but couldn't be sure. Still, she could feel their hatred, and was certain that it could be seen in their implacable stares.

  Of course, that was the whole purpose of a living altar: to provide the congregation with a focal point for their hate— an emotion around which the entire organization had been encouraged to coalesce.

  Viewed from that perspective, the alien landings had been the best things that ever happened to the Antitechnic Church. Left on its own, without an external threat to reinforce the need for unity, the organization had already started to wither. The arrival of first the Mothri, then the humans, gave the Zid something to hate. And hatred held their theocracy together.

  Interestingly enough, the same phenomenon had been observed in human history—which seemed to suggest a higher than expected level of psychocultural commonality between the Zid and human races. Or did it? To what extent were the local Zid representative of the race that had marooned them on Zuul? They were self-proclaimed cultural deviants—and to generalize from their activities to the rest of Zid might be a mistake.

  Fascinating stuff—especially for Canova's peers. Not that the medical doctor and amateur xenoanthropologist was likely to share her findings—since she'd been co-opted by the very structure she sought to understand.

  The model twenty had actually set out to study the Mothri, a somewhat safer line of inquiry, when a scav known as the Junkman had captured and sold her. Canova had begged the human to kill her, to settle for what her body parts would bring, but he refused. The synthetic wondered how the scav was doing and hoped for the worst.

  Corley Maras hated Six-Day with every bone in her ten-year-old body. But that was a secret, a very important
secret, and one that she must never reveal. First because she was human, and humans were automatically suspect, and second because her father was none other than George Maras, Administrator General for the Antitechnic Church, and a very important personage.

  It was an influential position, one that guaranteed plenty to eat, and a nice place to live, but forced Corley to tell lies, a lot of lies, which her father said was okay, but her mother would never have approved of.

  That's why Corley smiled as her father led her into the much-hated cathedral—and toward the Devil's altar. Not the second, third, or fourth altars, one for each point of the star, but the main altar, where the top members of the hierarchy paused before making their way down the central aisle to take their places before the true altar, from which a long, boring sermon would soon be delivered.

  George Maras nodded to members of the council, and knew that his superior, a human named Victor Jantz, would wait to make an entrance. One more seemingly insignificant note in a symphony of moves calculated to undermine Zid leadership.

  Not an effort that Maras had intended to become part of, but one he had fallen into, and continued to support as the means to protect Corley. After all, most of the humans resident in the holy lands during the Cleansing had been killed by rampaging mobs, subjected to the inquisition, or turned out to starve.

  Only the fact that Maras had converted early and demonstrated the value of nontechnological management practices had protected father and daughter from sharing similar fates.

  That's what Maras told himself, anyway, although there was a part of him, a seldom-heard voice, that questioned his motives. Had he come to enjoy power for power's sake? And what about the perks that went with it? The questions surfaced ... but went unanswered.

  Seats had been saved for Maras and his daughter. He genuflected in front of the altar and backed into his chair. Corley did likewise. The contemplation of evil, and the threat it represented, was a necessary prerequisite to serious worship.

  The little girl checked the altar to see if anything had changed. It was carved from a huge chunk of glistening clay that was never allowed to harden—a strategy that allowed the altar keepers to change the display by adding or removing components. A hand here, a circuit board here, and lots of randomly connected metal, wire, and plastic.

  One thing never changed, however, and that was the eyes that stared down at her, and the face they were part of. It reminded her of the Madonna—as seen in the media player she no longer had. Corley's mother was a roboticist, and the little girl had grown up around such machines, so she knew the synthetic was a model twenty that possessed a brain, personality and emotions every bit as real as hers. That's what her mother said, and Corley believed it.

  The only problem was that the Church said androids were evil, and even though Corley didn't want to believe that, it was hard to ignore what they said.

  The synthetic winked at her, and Corley turned to her father. He had a vacant expression and was clearly unaware. Corley looked left, right, and back again. No one seemed to be watching. It was a daring thing to do, but the little girl met the android's gaze and winked in return.

  Canova collected the wink in the same way that a glutton might accept an especially tasty dish, with a sort of greedy intensity. She wanted more. More contact, more interchange, and more stimulation. For the android, like her creators, was a social being.

  There was no chance of that, however, as the Mar as family rose to make way for the newly arrived, who made their way down toward the center of the cathedral, and took the next set of seats reserved for their exclusive use.

  Victor Jantz, easily the third most important being in the Antitechnic Church, and quite possibly the second, examined himself before a mirror. He was a handsome man with large eyes, a long straight nose, and a firm jaw. All of which meant nothing to the Zid. They thought all humans were ugly.

  Jantz was rugged, though, and physically powerful, which the T-heads admired. The human laughed out loud. If only they knew! Robotics, the technology they loved to hate, was only one of the ways through which sentients could leverage their abilities. There was genetic engineering to consider, along with his own personal favorite, medical science.

  Yeah, the T-heads could scan his body all day long and never discover the truth, which was that his overall musculature had been enhanced with drugs, his right leg had been grown in a lab, his left kidney had been "harvested" from an accident victim, and nano, far too small to see, kept his pipes in good repair. So far, anyway. Just one of the reasons why he never seemed to age.

  Jantz smiled at the image in front of him, and it smiled in return. Life, which was undeniably good, would soon get better. First things first, however... which meant a fire-and-brimstone sermon. A sermon similar to the ones his pa liked to deliver, back before he beat the crap out of his son one too many times and went to an early grave.

  The authorities never suspected the fifteen-year-old boy. Not given the attacker's obvious strength and the almost unbelievable violence with which the murder was carried out. It was strange how as the years had passed, Jantz had failed at every profession he tried, except the least likely of all: man of God.

  The religious leader straightened his robe, plastered a stern look on his face, and left the office. The underground corridor led past the armory, past the Zid powered altar mechanism, and past the holding cells. The heretics, one of whom was human, rattled their bars and begged for mercy. Jantz, his mind on other things, didn't hear a sound.

  The cathedral was not only huge, but extremely complex, containing a labyrinth of rooms, chapels, halls, and cells for the resident monks and priests. Woven in and around those many compartments were countless halls, corridors, stairs, and walkways some of which were secret and known to a very few.

  Narly Lictor was one of those few, and used the little-traveled passageways for his own purposes, watching through spy holes, listening to conversations he wasn't supposed to hear, and "appearing" as if by magic when it suited his purposes to do so.

  It was boring for the most part, but there were moments when the vigils paid off, when he found out something others thought was secret, and hoarded that knowledge against the time when it could best be used. For even God's instrument in the physical world can use an edge once in awhile. Especially if he wanted to retain control—which Lictor definitely did.

  All of which explained why the Chosen One was there, watching through a peephole while Jantz examined himself in the mirror, smiled, and left the room. Never mind the mirror, which signaled the human's vanity—why had his strangely horizontal mouth curved upward in the human equivalent of a smile? Because he was happy with his appearance? Or because of something else? Something Lictor wouldn't like.

  The decision to include humans within the Church hierarchy had seemed logical at the time, especially given the number of alien converts streaming in from the HZ, but now he had started to wonder. Did the humans want to join the Church? Or take it over? That was a troubling thought.

  Maras watched Jantz emerge from the circular opening in front of the altar, bow to the congregation, and climb the stairs that led to the podium. There was a creaking sound as the entire altar started to rotate. The shaft, gears, and other components involved were all made of wood, and allowed by a special dispensation from the council.

  Maras, like the officials seated around him, had witnessed the phenomenon many times before, but a group of pilgrims, just arrived from distant villages, sucked air through their gills. It made a whistling sound. The altar really did rotate! Just like everyone said. . . . . Still another wonder to report on their return.

  Jantz opened the book of rotes to a beautifully illuminated page, cleared his throat portentously, and started to read. Not in Spanglish, sometimes referred to as standard, but in the Zid dialect used by most members of the Church. A human who spoke Zid! The pilgrims looked at each other in amazement.

  Jantz, who had a near photographic memory, as well as a natural ear for
language, didn't especially like the tongue but understood the value of speaking it.

  The human wondered if the master language from which the dialect had been taken was equally drab, or more vibrant, belonging as it did to beings who had space flight and the common sense to unload their troublemakers on remote planets. It was an errant thought, and he pushed it away.

  The sermon was a back-to-basics sort of thing, a way to refocus the congregation on fundamentals while positioning himself as a true rote-spewing, rock-throwing, fire-breathing zealot.

  Jantz started with the book of rotes, reviewed the appropriate scripture, and launched into a sermon titled "The Three Faces of the Devil."

  The faces included heresy, or the failure to believe, subversion, the very thing he hoped to accomplish, and idolatry, which referred to the worship of physical objects, most especially robots, but also including a wide variety of icons, tools, and art.

  It was good stuff, but somewhat basic, and therefore dry. Which was why Jantz had made arrangements to liven things up. "And so," he said, the audience turning before him, "the first face is that of heresy."

  The Zid, a none too bright specimen that had been caught relieving himself against one of the cathedral's walls, was pushed up a ramp. Guards, well aware of what was about to take place, grabbed the unfortunate and held him in place. He started to whine but stopped in response to a well-directed blow.

  "Look well," Jantz cautioned the audience, "for the Devil is a master of disguise. A face such as this one might appear anywhere. You could encounter it on the street, in church, or, most terrifying of all, on the other side of the dinner table."

  Canova had zoomed in on the Zid's face. She listened to the words, guessed what was coming, and dumped her sensory input. She had witnessed such moments before, and felt no desire to do so again.