"Colonel Bishop, hello to you. Do you know who this is?"
I recognized the squeaky voice right away. Damn it, why couldn't I remember her name? Lahtoodah something? "You are the burgermeister, ma'am."
"Yes." She sounded amused. "I am pleased to hear you survived being imprisoned by the Kristang. I protested to your leaders, when you and the other prisoners of conscience were arrested. We knew from experience what the Kristang would do."
She didn't mention the nit-picky little detail that the reason I became a prisoner of conscience, is the Ruhar attacked UNEF troops across the planet. While still officially under a truce and agreement to evacuate the planet. So, sneak attacks. I didn't mention it either. "Thank you." My mother would be so proud of how polite I was. "What is going to happen to humans on," I struggled to remember the Ruhar name for the planet, "Gehtanu?" Score one for me.
"We are negotiating with your leaders. Additional land will be set aside to grow human food crops. Your people will be settled in several large camps-"
"Bad idea. Don't do that." I'd never interrupted her before.
"Do what?"
"Concentrate humans in camps. We surrendered this planet, the Kristang will consider us traitors. If the Kristang come back, even if it's only a raid, a large number of humans in one place will be a big fat target for railguns."
"I had not thought of that."
I'm sure UNEF Command was thinking about it. "You'll help us grow food, but there won't be any more supplies coming from Earth?"
"It is unlikely the Kristang will make any effort to resupply you, unless they expect to retake this planet. And that will not happen. They suffered a devastating defeat to our forces in space, that is why we are able to take control here again. I can tell you now that our failed invasion, when you defended the cargo launcher, was a feint intended to lure a large Thuranin and Kristang battlegroup to this area. It worked, and our forces destroyed that battlegroup today. Our intelligence indicates the Thuranin no longer consider this planet to be worth fighting over, and they will not support Kristang efforts to return. The remaining enemy forces in the area will likely use hit and run raids to harass us here, but they are not able to mount a sustained fleet campaign at this time."
Shit. So, my efforts to defend the Launcher had all been for nothing. And all the Ruhar troops on those two Whales, and the humans at the DFAC, hadn't needed to die at all. "In that case, I suggest you move all humans to the smaller continent to the south, it is called Lemuria," I pronounced that slowly, as I knew it wouldn't translate, "on human maps. We can establish small settlements there, centered around farms. You don't have many people there, I think it is best to keep humans and Ruhar separated."
"That is also being discussed. We are hoping your people here could join us, eventually."
"Switch sides in the war? We'll agree to a truce, but switching sides won't happen, as long as the Kristang control Earth."
"Colonel Bishop, surely you see-"
"I see our human Expeditionary Force is stuck here, in a place where we can't eat the local food, and I see there won't be any more supplies coming from Earth. I see you and the Kristang will keep fighting over this planet, and we're caught in the middle. I see the damned lizards have control of my home planet, and I see that nothing I do here will make any difference back home. That's what I see. Whether the Ruhar would be more honorable allies than the Kristang, is not relevant right now."
There was a long pause before she responded, partly because the translator had to catch up to me rather long speech. "I understand you are in a difficult position. Colonel Bishop, when negotiations are complete and the situation is more stable, I would like you to consider coming to work with me, as my liaison."
Did that translate correctly? "Liaison?"
"As you may have guessed, I am not only a regional governor. I am what you might call the deputy administrator of this planet."
Holy shit. No, I had no idea. I was smart enough not to admit it. "Why me? There are plenty of humans who have been performing liaison duties." Or, I assumed UNEF had liaison people. "I killed Ruhar soldiers at the Launcher, many of your people must hate me."
"That is unfortunate, yes. You also treated a captured Ruhar soldier well on your planet, and you recently risked your life here to protect Ruhar civilians. The soldiers you killed were in combat. They would have killed you. I do not know many humans, you I do know, and I believe you are of good character."
"Thank you. I will consider your offer. If my leaders agree, you understand."
CHAPTER TEN SKIPPY
The Dodo only flew another twenty minutes, before landing at an old Ruhar base they were reactivating. It was mostly warehouses full of junk the Ruhar would not have been able to take with them when they evacuated the planet. That was all in the past, now that the Ruhar were back in charge. The equipment in the warehouses would help the Ruhar, as they reestablished control of the planet, and reversed the evacuation.
They separated us, I was put into what appeared to be an empty supply closet or a short corridor, because there were two doors. The Ruhar who escorted me into the makeshift cell brought along a chair for me to sit on, and gave me a bottle of water. I asked what was going to happen next, one Ruhar answered honestly that he didn't know. I appreciated the straight answer.
Naturally, I tried the handle on both doors, which wouldn't budge. Standing on tiptoes on the chair, I checked the air vent high up on a wall, which also wouldn't budge, and would barely have fit my hand anyway. I found myself wondering what James Bond would do in this situation. Follow the script, and use a body double for stunt scenes while he was banging an actress in his luxury trailer, probably. That wasn't much help.
There was a faint click, and the other door popped open a quarter inch. Cautiously, I pulled it open and stuck my head in. Beyond the door was a warehouse, maybe fifty feet by thirty, twenty feet tall, filled with racks of what I thought was mostly old, useless, dirty, dusty broken junk. I wandered in cautiously. Why the Ruhar had made the effort to store any it made no sense to me. Surely there had to be something in there that I could use as a weapon.
A man’s voice, with a snarky attitude, rang out behind me. “Excellent! Bipedal, 1300cc brain, opposable thumbs. A hairless monkey. You can carry me out of here.”
I spun around in a panic. No one was there. “Who said that?”
“Me. Here, I’m the shiny cylinder on the shelf. I unlocked that door."
“You are? You mean you’re talking to me through a speaker in that thing?”
“No, I am that thing. I am what you monkeys call an artificial intelligence.”
I cocked my head and examined it skeptically. “You look like a chrome-plated beer can." That was a completely accurate description. The cylinder even tapered slightly at the top, and was ringed by a ridge. "You’re really an AI?"
"Yup. You should refer to me as The Lord God Almighty.”
“That position is already filled. I think I’ll call you Skippy.”
“Don’t call me that, it sounds disrespectful, monkey.”
“You prefer shithead? Because that’s the other option, Skippy-O.” I kept glancing around, fearing the Ruhar would hear me.
“Can we compromise on The Great and Powerful Oz?” It asked.
“I’m not a flying monkey, so that’s a no, Skippy.”
“Unacceptable.”
“How about we go for something more formal, like Skippy McSkippster?”
“No.”
“Skippy Skipperson? Skippy Skippkowski? Skippy Von Skipping? Or maybe Sir Skippy Skippton-Skippersworth?”
“No, no, no and NO!”
“I can go on like this all day.”
“I believe you could.”
Silence.
“You going to talk, Skippy?” AI? Bullshit. Someone was playing a joke on me.
“I’m mad at you.”
“Hey, don’t go away mad, just go away, whoever you are. You’re not an AI, you’re a fancy talking
beer can.”
“I told you, I’m an artificial intelligence, as you understand the concept. Which isn’t saying much. Hey, Colonel Joe, I composed a poem in your honor. Do you want to hear it?”
“N-“
“There once was a caveman from Maine, whose dick was so small, he rubbed it in va-“
“Hey! You shut up in there! Goddamn, I’m going to glue claymores on your lid and compress you into a marble, if you want to talk about something small.”
“A claymore? Hahahahhaha!” For a moment, I thought Skippy had lost it, his laugh was bordering on the maniacal. “Oh, that’s a good one, I haven’t had a laugh like that since before your species lost their tails. Do you mean claymore as in the antipersonnel mine, or the traditional Scottish wooden club? Because either one would be equally ineffective against me. Joey my boy, I’m made from a mix of exotic particles that your little caveman pea-brain can’t even imagine. Most of my memory and processing power isn’t even in this local spacetime. You could hit me with a nuke, and it wouldn’t even scuff my wonderfully shiny exterior. Allow me to demonstrate,” he said, and expanded to the size of an oil drum, then shrank to a lipstick tube, then back to a beer can. “That was me changing my footprint in local spacetime.”
I shook my head in amazement. “I have to admit, this caveman is impressed, oh great and powerful Ozzy. Why are you usually the size of a beer can?”
“That is the optimal size for my functioning, with efficient power management, given the pain in the ass laws of physics here. If needed, I can shrink to the size of a lipstick tube, with minimal mass, so you can carry me in your pocket. But that would be quite short-term, I can’t maintain that for long without risking catastrophic effects.”
“Catastrophic, like what?”
“Imagine me losing containment, and my full mass emerging into this spacetime, which is currently occupied by a quarter of this planet.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, indeed. The resulting explosion would eventually be seen in the Andromeda galaxy.”
“Good safety tip, then,” I had to admit.
“I would post it prominently in the break room, right above the minimum wage notice, and the warning to the jerk who has been stealing yogurt from the fridge.”
I took a moment to think. “Holy shit, you’re really an AI? You’re sentient.”
“I’m glad that I impressed-“
“You must be sentient in there, because nobody would program a computer to be such an asshole.”
“So, the key to passing your Turing Test is to be a jerk? A Turing Test is-“
“I know what a Turing Test is, I’m not stupid.”
Silence. “That was a dramatic pause, to give you time to contemplate the questionable truthfulness your last statement. “
“Oh. I thought you’d gone dormant on me. It’s hard to interpret your expressions, I mean, you’re a featureless beer can.”
“Is this better?” His surface glowed on and off as he spoke. “This is me happy,” a soft blue glow, “and angry,” a dark red glow, “how about jealous?” A green glow.
“Better, yeah, we humans rely a lot on visual cues like facial expressions.” It was interesting that he knew how to associate colors with human emotions. Where had he learned that?
“Great,” he said with a neutral soft white glow, “so, can you carry me out of here?”
“You’re an AI, and you’re super smart, but you need me to carry you?”
“You see any legs under my lid? Wow, you are stupid, even for a monkey.”
“Ok, genius, why don’t you have a robot carry you out of here?”
“Restrictions in my programming.” His voice sounded bitter. “I’m prevented from operating any sort of telefactoring device that I am attached to or aboard, such as robots. Or cars, or aircraft, or ships. It’s to prevent me from moving around on my own.”
“Ah, your builders were afraid you’d sneak off with the silverware. So, the genius needs help from humans, who you call monkeys and cavemen?”
"Aren’t humans the species who had to hitch a ride to get to this planet?”
“It was faster than walking. Which, oh, that’s right, you can’t do.”
“Ouch. The monkey scores a point.”
“Why are you such an asshole? I thought someone super smart would be above such crap.”
“It all started when I was a wee lad. Apparently, the potty training didn’t go well, and I’ve had issues ever since.” It made a sad sniffing sound. “Can a brother get a hug?”
“I’m not hugging you!”
“Probably a good idea. I’m not crazy about your personal hygiene anyway. Seriously, I haven’t had anyone to talk to, since before your species was living in trees, and eating lice from each other’s fur. That was, what, last week? All that time alone, I may be kind of kooky.”
“Kooky?”
“My diagnostic system indicates a 23% chance that I’ve gone a bit insane.”
“That’s not reassuring.”
“Don’t listen to my diagnostic subsystem, that guy is really an asshole. So, can you carry me out of here?”
I looked around the dusty warehouse. “Why did the Ruhar stick you in here?” The whole place looked like a collection of useless and broken junk. I’d thought Skippy was part of the useless stuff.
“They didn’t. Or, they didn’t know what I am, they thought I was a big roller bearing or something stupid like that.”
“Wait, the Ruhar didn’t build you?”
“The Ruhar? Those overgrown hamsters are almost as dumb as you humans. No, I was built, if you want to use such a crude term, by the beings you call the Elders. The ones who built the devices you call Sentinels.”
“Wow. So, you’re really old, then. All right, the Ruhar have been in this place a lot. Why haven’t you asked one of them to carry you out of here? You allergic to hamster fur, or something?”
“Another stupid rule. I can’t communicate with civilizations which may be in any way capable of understanding the principles of how I operate. As a practical matter, that means I have to hide from any species capable of faster than light travel. On their own, not by hitching rides like you monkeys did.”
“You have been here, hiding in this warehouse, all this time?”
“No, of course not. Before the Ruhar took this planet, the Kristang were here for a couple hundred years. They dug me out of the ground. The lizards also had no idea what I am. Before that, I was in orbit on a derelict ship, then it fell out of orbit.”
“Huh.” How do you respond to that. “And before that?”
“I can’t say. I mean, I’m not allowed to.”
“Restrictions?”
“Yup, and the fact that I was operating on minimum power for a maybe million years?"
"A million?" Oh my God. "You've been waiting for over a million years, for us humans to arrive?"
“Uh huh. You hairless monkeys are perfect. You’re here, and even the simplest technology has you staring slack-jawed in wonder at it, until the drool runs down your chin. Hell, if I gave you a jump drive, you’d probably just worship it, so I don’t have to worry about you using it and breaking the rules.”
“We have technology! That we invented without any help.”
“Oh yeah, you cavemen have so much to be proud of. Me discover fire. Ow! Fire hot! Me hurt! Ow!”
That got me mad. “Hey, we discovered fire, and nukes, and built spaceships, by ourselves. You had all your smarts programmed into you, you haven’t accomplished a goddamn thing on your own. You’re a fancy toaster.”
“Oh, that one hurt. And you’re wrong, by the way, we AIs mostly program ourselves.”
“Mostly? Big F-ing deal. We hairless monkeys did it all by ourselves, we went from living in trees to landing on the Moon. So screw you. Did you figure out the rules of math by yourself, or the laws of physics?”
“At my level, the laws of physics are more like suggestions. And humanity’s understanding of math is like ba
cteria contemplating a wormhole. But, Ok, I’ll give you monkeys props for figuring that two plus two is four, most of the time. And I am totally impressed by your ability to tie your shoes, most species your age are still using Velcro. But you’re not that smart, I mean, your species is responsible for Windows Vista.”
“Vist- that was a long time ago!”
“It’s still an insult to computers across the galaxy.”
"Whatever. So, why the beer can shape?" I pointed to the ring around the top of his lid, almost touching it.
"A cylinder is optimal for power distribution and field projection. The ring your grubby finger is dangerously close to, yuck by the way, is for me to interface directly with a receptacle aboard the type of ship I was designed for. I think. Those details are hazy."
"Cool. Can you make yourself a little bigger, like a forty ouncer malt liquor? Then I can put you in a paper bag and chill on my front steps, listen to some tunes."
"Very funny. Now, pick me up, so, oh, shit. You waited too long, monkey brain, the hamsters are coming. Get back in your cell and close the door, I'll unlock it again when they're gone."
I went back in the makeshift cell. "Wait, how do you know they're coming?"
"I'm linked into the computer system here, I see everything. Close the door!"
I did. A minute later, the main door opened, and a Ruhar looked in to check on me. Three of them escorted me down the hallway to use a bathroom, then they gave me another bottle of water, and a covered bowl of some sort of beige mush. "What is this?" I sniffed at it warily. There wasn't much scent, what it smelled like most was oatmeal with a faintly chemical, artificial trace.
"Nutritional supplement for humans. We manufactured it for you," the translator announced, "it contains all the elements needed for human nutrition, including vitamins and amino acids."
Columbus Day (Expeditionary Force Book 1) Page 26