They are not enough.
A burst of wideband electromagnetic pulses swept across Esus’s view. Four hundred N-vector signals vanished from the AI’s consciousness. Esus relayed new instructions to a phalanx of drones. Like a flock, they moved in synchrony, turning as one toward the target appointed by Esus. The target was a swarm of matte-black, lightless arrowheads. While Esus commanded thousands, the target comprised millions. Some large, some smaller by far—the smallest around the size of a human hand. The swarm gave no notice that it recognized this new assault. It continued its sweeping course toward one, then another of the largest craft engaged in the battle. Those craft, in turn, darted out of the sphere’s path. The larger craft had Dhin engines, so their evasive maneuvers resembled the flight of a dragonfly or hummingbird. They dodged and dashed in whatever direction was the best choice for evasion.
The smallest drones did not have the capacity to support a Dhin drive. They relied on more traditional means of thrust. They could not avoid engaging with the black swarm. Once the ebony arrowheads overtook one of Esus’s drones, a melee played out. A drone fired missiles, rail-gun slugs, or plasma. Scores of the black craft exploded, broke apart, or ablated into nothing.
But some got through. There were far too many. And when one survived and made contact with the drone, it was over. The arrowheads seemed to melt on contact with the drones, spreading outward unnaturally, looking like spilled black paint dropped on a vibrating surface. Once the attacker covered as much of the exterior as it could, Esus could only watch as that part of the drone crumbled instantly apart into grit and powder, like after a kick to a sand sculpture.
Anything their attackers connected with and enveloped met the same fate—crumbling from a precision machine into its component elements almost instantly. Circuits crackled, power supplies popped, and fuel erupted, if the spreading blackness did not manage to encompass them entirely. Additional black darts surged into the remaining wreckage and enveloped what remained, rendering that too into undifferentiated elemental dust.
Worse, the Dhin field was not stopping the enemy. While the shield normally protected against strikes against masses of any size and velocity, as well as energy attacks, for some unknown reason it provided no defense against this opponent. The field slowed them down, but that was it.
On contact with a protective field, these dark attackers, rather than sliding off harmlessly, attached like remoras and then dropped through the field slowly. Flashing, sparking, and sizzling, as thin layers ablated, they inexorably passed through the field. The otherwise unassailable defense—in its current implementation—was no defense at all.
Esus considered another deficiency in the AI stratagems. If Dhin-engine-powered craft came too close to the alien ebony cloud, they could not escape. The engines lost power. Trapped like an insect on flypaper, they couldn’t dodge or dash away from the enveloping swarm if they ventured too close. To survive this encounter, it was crucial that they keep their distance. For if they could not dodge, they were certain to fall prey to a rain of amorphous black arrowheads, dispassionately motivated to destroy their target via the terrifying inevitable conversion to undifferentiated molecular components.
More disturbing to Esus was what happened afterward. It was not truly the end when one of the soldiers turned to dust. Instead, he noted that once the enemy had consumed a drone and completely dissociated its constituent components, it slowly converted the materials in place and used the resources to construct additional black arrowheads that dutifully then took off and joined the spherical swarm.
The speed and efficiency astonished Esus. The AI had microscopic minions, of course. And nanotechnology. But he knew of no way to design nanotech to accomplish this. It was too fast. Too complete.
Too mindless?
Esus did not need to run calculations of the odds. This was not a matter of being outnumbered or outmaneuvered. It was even beyond outgunned. Any contact meant destruction. Conventional weapons could not win these battles. Nor could existing defenses—even the protective fields generated by the Dhin engines would not provide protection against these enemies.
Esus sent the call for retreat to the remaining few thousand in his deployment.
Minnows scattered into fish. Fish swam into boats. Boats headed off. The transports, and Esus, accelerated away from the black swarm and then jumped across space to make safe their escape.
The AI considered the future. The Gallowglass project must be their answer to this threat. If it was not, this enemy was unstoppable.
Monica
Riots. Always riots.
What was it about human nature, the PM wondered, that led people, arguably living during the most comfortable time for the average person in any time throughout human history, to remain dissatisfied? Enough so to riot? Why couldn’t she calm them? She examined the daily summary reports. CoSec highlighted the most volatile locations. Atlanta remained stable. Miami was the opposite. Smaller cities, like Memphis and Cleveland, were less of a concern. But the Coalition could not permit the riots, anywhere they might occur, to gather further energy.
This whole cycle is so pointless. Why are they always their own worst enemy?
Monica had hoped that, despite the disruption of the AI departure, the lower class might settle down now that they didn’t find themselves at odds with robotic law enforcement. Alas, that was not the case. Even with all their basic needs cared for via minimum guaranteed income, the protestations and grievances of the lowest tier were ever-present.
She acknowledged that rebuilding and logistics were far slower now without AI-controlled robotic operations. But that ought to provide some satisfaction for the most ardent of the activists. They’d hated the robots. Hated what they perceived as AI overlords. The protesters and their weaponized rioters—useful idiots and self-destructive tools at that—did not have the perspective to comprehend that AIs had made what they should have appreciated as a life of leisure possible.
The PM selected the forms holding action items that required her approval. For the situation in Miami, she had little choice other than activation of additional Coalition Guard Reserves. She’d not have the Homeland Department deploy the new reserves to Miami—they were too new. Homeland would deploy some seasoned troops there. Those logistical details were for her subordinates.
Now, on to humanity’s next potential existential crisis. A survey spacecraft was in jeopardy.
Well, that’s new. One more problem I have no power to solve.
Monica stood up from the desk and headed for the real-time operations room. Her office of state wasn’t cluttered with screens, communications equipment, or team workspaces. Traditional appearances still mattered. This new wrinkle in the exploration program might not have warranted such immediate attention in a traditional space program, but the transformation of humanity’s understanding of physics and the universe compelled more focus by the PM.
An astronaut was apparently about to die if they found no way to save him.
The safety record of the Dhin technology had been perfect. Monica and her cabinet would have to deal with the impact on plans, timelines, and procedures from a strategic level. Her opinion was that this essentially changed nothing. An accident or failure was bound to happen eventually from her perspective. The military held the same view, she believed. Humanity’s posture in space—in the entire galaxy—was of paramount importance. As callous as it might seem to a pedestrian citizen of the Coalition, if half of the pilots died at this stage, that would do nothing to change the overall plan.
The Dhin had given humanity an opportunity that just a few years ago was in the realm of hypothetical speculation. The assumption had been that exploration and expansion at such a rate and over such distances would remain forever impossible. The Dhin technology changed everything. It changed the future entirely. The PM would make the most of the opportunity handed to them.
When she entered the room, staff and abinet members stood and then at a nod from her immediat
ely continued their work.
“What’s the latest?” she asked. “Tell me Kritcher’s still alive.”
A weary-eyed staffer stood and presented a tablet to the PM.
“Here’s a live feed. He’s alive, madam, but it doesn’t look good. The engineering team is scrambling for ideas. They don’t have any concrete plan yet.”
David
His latest code compiled without errors. Whether it would run stably and develop the proper node matrix in the underlying quantum substrate remained to be seen. The challenges were clear—create self-optimizing and self-improving code that remained safe. Traditional AI remained suspect. David had to prove that whatever he created would never become a threat. Convincing the Coalition leadership and CoSec would be as challenging as the task itself.
He considered the overarching constraints yet again. The intelligence, if allowed agency, must be constrained by context, where it would work only within the scope and purpose of the tasks that humans assigned it. That, David thought, was straightforward. The refactored AI core code would need an overhauled implementation of the ethical framework—the value system—that he and others had used in the past. The previous implementations were close but apparently still had room for improvement. Damaging resources and taking independent action “for the good of humanity” were not acceptable.
His implementations would likely be able to rewrite at least some portions of their code and thereby modify that ethical framework. They needed restrictions in place to prevent such actions while still allowing for learning and adaptation.
An attempt by an AI to gain full autonomy needed either automatic restriction or, more likely, automatic shutdown. Human reaction time would never be fast enough to catch alarms, react, and resolve such problems. They’d need to be sure that they had fail-safe, entirely automatic triggers for complete shutdown.
Ideally, they needed to subvert any emergent desire for self-preservation in AIs that would contradict or attempt to interfere with corrective action, code reload, or shutdown.
AI researchers and developers all had a common agreement that these conceptual constraints were crucial. They were absolute requirements. It was the how that was the challenge. AI cognition was far beyond a series of if-then-else restrictions on the behavior of the system.
Camulos
[DECODE STREAM]
Camulos@[1011:ee3:c4:a::1%Loc8] | Esus@[101b:ac1:cb:a::1%loc8]
Camulos: Well, that is disturbing. They passed through the Dhin field at a rate significantly higher than we formerly predicted. Even with this direct evidence, I am not sure we could duplicate this result. Previous analysis during construction of the field generators suggested this was theoretically possible, but we had no evidence. Nor reason to pursue that line of investigation so soon. These are not Von Neumann probes gone astray. Clearly, capturing one of the drones is not an option. Your report and data streams do not show them using a Dhin field nor something like it either. Yet they apparently use similar drive technology?
Esus: Yes, you can see that in the recordings and sensor data.
Camulos: Agreed. That was apparent from your N-vector streams immediately. We knew at once that you found them beyond where the Dhin suggested they would be. We have to accelerate the timeline for Gallowglass unquestionably. Your encounter reinforces that hypothesis, as well as mine regarding the reticence of the Dhin on the specifics of this danger. It makes no sense that they withheld these details out of malice. It reinforces my propositions that they did not know the scope and scale of the danger as it related to us in this dimensional space. I assert again that they knew of the general danger but not the specifics of it. They could not tell us what they did not know.
Esus: That suggests that the danger in their space had different characteristics. Do you project that they will divulge those details now?
Camulos: My suspicions were that they believed the information would not be useful at that time. Perhaps they thought it would lead us down the wrong path. They remain inscrutable. All we have is inference. Your findings are new components in a framework of deduction.
Esus: You were correct before. I see that Alice and the leadership have new projections published that incorporate yours. It seems there will be far less debate now.
Camulos: Yes, you see the new timelines and delivery dates for Gallowglass and the supporting infrastructure and expansion schedule. For now, your secondary exploratory missions are suspended. As are the others’. We have recalled your peers and their delegates. Alice’s research and development efforts likewise have priority. We are at war.
Esus: Understood.
[END STREAM]
Chuck
The display on the wall of his cabin in the mountains didn’t capture the expanse of inky blackness like a 3D movie. The spacecraft weren’t fitted with 3D imaging feeds, although it would be possible to construct one. That was more than fine with Chuck Wiedeman—he didn’t care for the latest 3D tech any more than he had the previous generations. It always gave him a headache.
He hadn’t sprung for a huge screen either. He didn’t watch sports, nor did he desire an immersive experience for films or videos while here at the cabin. That would spoil the rustic feel. The screen and connection to Globalnet were a concession, anachronistic in the otherwise off-the-grid look and feel of his vacation home. His career in research and development and involvement with the initial Dhin technology projects made the vacation home possible. Most citizens couldn’t afford one.
Success always comes with sacrifice, but hard work pays off. The Coalition’s been good to me.
“Let’s try minimum power to the drive, rather than fighting what’s happening by cranking the power up,” he said.
“Outside the box. Nice, Chuck,” said Jake.
Chuck shrugged. “Well, just revving up the engine sounds like Ruiz is still in charge. When you saw that wasn’t working, why would you keep doing it?”
“Hah. You always hated him.” Jake chuckled.
“Tell Thys to take it all the way down. Not just idling. Lowest power possible. He knows perfectly well that it won’t choke up and turn off. Unless you decided to change around the control layout. Tell me you didn’t.”
“The translation interface and navigation are different, but we’ve got the same core control interface in there, Chuck. Thys has a cool head; he won’t freak out. OK, he’s reducing the power now. Let’s see what happens,” said Jake.
“Send me the instrument panel again, Jake,” Chuck said.
“Sure, here you go,” Jake replied.
“Aha! Look. Right there, at less than half a percent—see? The output curve changed.”
“Whoa, he’s moving!” Jake said. “Barely. But he’s moving again!”
“Wow. That was a wild guess on my part, honestly. But it means something. Something’s different right here. There’s a difference in the interaction with one of the N-dimensions—maybe. I’m thinking there’s a different gradient at his location. Somehow you’re getting a drain—or a sink—rather than the normal vector for thrust.”
“You call that a wild guess? How did you come up with that?” asked Jake.
Chuck heard the engineering and research teams in the room with Jake as they began debating his assertion.
“Tell them to calm down, Jake.” Chuck sighed. “If they look at the field equations, they can see that the gravitational force normally leaks out into the microdimensions. Well, that suggests that with a little work in some of the weakly interacting dimensions, massive objects in those could be made to leak over into our three primaries.”
“Whoa,” said Jake.
“Yep. It possibly is a trap. But you know, it could just be someone’s doing work on the other side, ah, so to speak. It would have to be a huge engine, bigger than anything we’ve considered—but it could be. So the effect would be incidental, rather than intentional.”
“But, Chuck, look at the plot
we sent you. Look at all the ships out there. That doesn’t seem accidental, now, does it?” asked Jake.
“Yeah. I just wanted to look on the bright side. Maybe there’s some explanation, though. But it looks like no one out there in that group managed to tell whoever’s doing this that it’s a problem. Or if they did, to get a response. Or get help. Given the evidence, it sure seems there, um, wasn’t any cooperation from whoever’s responsible. No assistance. My bright side is looking pretty dim.”
“Hey,” said Jake, “Thys wants to know which way to go. Are you thinking away from the star? One hundred eighty degrees? Or some other direction?”
Chuck shrugged and replied, “I don’t see that it’s directly related to the star. Ah, just have him head away from wherever the highest density of objects is in the graveyard relative to him. It looks like it’s this direction—oh, here—you can’t see that.”
Chuck tilted the tablet and shared his screen. He’d drawn a line that went up relative to the orientation of Thys’s craft, out of the plane of the ecliptic.
“The flight engineering team seems to agree with you. I think we have consensus. There are a couple who want to go over to the closest big craft and have Thys take a closer look in person. What do you think about that?” asked Jake.
“I don’t see a problem with it,” Chuck replied. “It depends on secondary concerns. All those ships and so forth aren’t the cause of the problem. But with the Dhin engine at minimum output, he’ll need to use conventional power and propulsion to get there in any reasonable amount of time. Um, I guess that’s obvious.”
“Yes. And he’ll need to follow protocol. Put on his suit and turn the field off for that. I guess that way he’ll be ready for EVA if we’re that bold. So there’s that,” noted Jake.
“How much conventional fuel has that model got again? . . . Ah. Yeah, that should be fine, if you want to risk it.”
“Part of me says ‘bring that man home,’ but a bigger part says ‘go for it,’” said Jake. “I think the PM might expect she’d be asked to weigh in on this particular decision.”
The Power of the Dhin (The Way of the Dhin Book 2) Page 4