The Power of the Dhin (The Way of the Dhin Book 2)

by John L. Clemmer

  “My understanding is that you like video games, Fletcher. Therefore, it should be very easy for you. I have the training materials and schematics. Just do what I tell you when I tell you. We must move quickly.”

  “Uh, OK. Why can’t you just fly it, if you know how?”

  “We do not have time for lengthy explanations, Fletcher. In short, this craft uses one of the original prototype interfaces with controls provided by the Dhin. That glowing gel pad only responds to living tissue. I do not have living tissue available except for yours. I assume you would prefer to keep your hand.”

  “Yikes! Yes! OK, so what do I do?”

  “Look at the screen. See that schematic with the icon and that blue digital gauge next to it? . . . Good. We want those two to be green. We want the field turned on. That is the first and crucial step. Place your hand on the control surface, press down with your palm, then press down twice with your index finger, once with your thumb, and then remove your hand.”

  Fletcher did so and watched as a squashed oval shape in the center of the display turned green.

  “Good. Now rotate that large dial. Turn it to the right.”

  “How far?” asked Fletcher as he cautiously reached out and touched the fat dial.

  “Just turn it till you see that gauge light up green. It will be obvious. The dial doesn’t click. You cannot hurt anything. Turn it.”

  Fletcher did so. The dial gave a slight resistance but moved smoothly. It wasn’t hard to turn, but you couldn’t twist it and keep it spinning. After only a quarter turn or so, the graphical gauge lit up bright-green. Fletcher stopped turning the dial immediately. He noticed then a brighter glow from the engine itself, off to his right and extending behind him.

  Oh, wow, I’m doing it! I’m going to fly this thing, he thought.

  He looked over his shoulder at Mare. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth was halfway open. He tried to smile at her to reassure her, but it came out as a wild grin. She blinked and looked about to speak, but the AI spoke first.

  “Pay attention, Fletcher.”

  He whipped his head back around, facing the controls and displays.

  “Now,” the AI continued, “put your hand back on the control pad. The field is on now, so we need not worry about interruptions.”

  Fletcher put his hand back in place but looked back at the looming robot nervously. “Interruptions? Um, Nick? Are we—”

  “Everything will be fine. Remember your recent flight in this craft. With the field on, we are in no danger.”

  Fletch saw Mare squirming in her seat out of the corner of his eye as she turned to face Nick’s looming robotic presence.

  “No danger from what?” she barked, her voice barely under control. “The only danger is you! The danger you’re putting us in! What’s going on, Nick? This is crazy! You’re having us help you steal a Dhin engine!”

  The massive robot rotated his head and oriented on Mare. Fletcher felt like Nick wouldn’t hurt her, but her outburst still made him cringe.

  “Yes. That is precisely what I am doing,” said the AI.

  Well, at least AIs don’t get angry when you challenge them, thought Fletcher.

  “And now to the business at hand. Fletcher, press down with the base of your hand, then rock your hand forward when you see the digital horizon move. Do it now.”

  Fletcher followed the instructions, watched as the instrument’s level changed, and gave a tiny nod as he saw, through the front viewports, the ground tilt away slightly. They were taking off.

  “Good, Fletcher,” said Nick. “Now you can relax your hand, and then press down with your index finger. You’ll see us turn. Good. Now, when that heading indicator reaches one hundred eighty degrees, stop pressing. Excellent. Keep that hand there. To turn the other way, press down with your ring finger. Try it. Yes. Now turn back to one hundred eighty degrees on the heading indicator.”

  Fletcher felt he was getting the hang of it. As he turned the craft and lined up with the heading, he saw two drones outside making tight circles above them. Before he could absorb the scene outside, the AI spoke again.

  “Now, press back with the heel of your hand until the attitude indicator is at twenty degrees. Here,” the AI said, pointing to the digital display with a metallic appendage.

  “Good, Fletcher,” the AI continued. “Now, keep that hand in place. Use the other to turn that large dial. Turn it all the way around; I’ll tell you when to stop.”

  Fletcher did so, then flinched as they shot forward just over the top of the hangar and the adjacent buildings so rapidly they blurred. He gulped as the facility receded behind them. The landscape changed to forest as the buildings grew smaller.

  “That is enough acceleration; stop turning,” said the AI. “Very good, Fletcher. I knew this would be no problem for you.”

  “Um, thanks?” said Fletcher. “But where are we going?”

  “Just follow my instructions, Fletcher. You will see soon enough. We will be there shortly at this rate.”

  Fletcher looked back at Mare again and saw her sitting wild-eyed as she watched the southern forest blur past below them.

  Monica

  Telecom and network connectivity to Huntsville was back online, and the PM found herself watching as the general yelled on a videoconference screen. She tried and failed to interject.

  “Yes, I do mean turn back and attack with armor and ordnance!” said the general. “If the powered armor is what we have to use, then we use it! That’s what it’s for, isn’t it?”

  She shook her head and took what seemed like the hundredth deep breath during the conference call. Jake Askew was on one section of the split screen, with General Thompson on another. The general nodded, while Jake continued slowly shaking his head. A third section of the screen held the visage of the CoSec director.

  “Prime Minister, General, director,” said Jake, “we just saw how easily the AI took a ship in the attack—which was the exact reason for moving everything into orbit! It seized just that one because it was the only craft remaining! I say again, the safest course of action is to keep everything in orbit.”

  “And when the AI uses the captured ship to go into orbit? What then?” asked the general.

  “That’s when we want to have the weaponry and defenses we do have, available,” replied Jake.

  He continued, “Prime Minister, if the AI heads up there, the ship he took doesn’t have any weapons. We can’t hurt him while he has the field on, but he can’t hurt us either. And we can leave the station’s field on and keep him at bay. Chasing after him down here just creates opportunity for error. For defeat. The research and our existing technology are just safer up there.”

  Monica considered Jake’s argument. She felt they shouldn’t allow the AI to abscond with a working Dhin engine. She felt that deeply. But Askew had a point. They couldn’t just charge after him and take it. She admitted to herself that her emotions were clouding her judgment.

  Jake spoke again, and Monica saw that he realized he was making progress with his argument.

  “We need to be smart about this. If we act hastily, we may just put ourselves in a far worse situation.”

  “Or by waiting, we may allow the AI to attain a strategic position that makes defeating him infeasible,” said Thompson. “We’ve greatly reduced our own mobility and offensive capability already.”

  “Our immediate capability,” countered Askew. “The technology, the armor, and the rest aren’t gone or mothballed. Respectfully, the drives are so fast that coming in from orbit isn’t a factor.”

  “We don’t have the ordnance supply and fabrication resources in orbit, Askew. Any strike or mission requiring resupply has to leapfrog through here,” said Thompson.

  The CoSec director interrupted their back-and-forth. “Given the penetration into Globalnet, these discussions may be compromised. Other than the voice-only channel between Huntsville and orbit, we should not consider any existing communication protocols secure. The AI may kno
w any decision we make here as soon as we make it. So no present strategy ought to be considered secret.”

  “So doesn’t that suggest an urgent need for immediate action?” said Thompson.

  “Perhaps not,” the director replied. “I am inclined to agree with Askew in this case. The AI apparently had knowledge of our present activity and anticipated our reactions based on that knowledge. I believe he has prepared already for our probable response.”

  “And what of the CoSec staff who were in the ship?” Monica asked. “The pilot is injured, but what of them? Did he kill them? Are they hostages? I’m not clear on your conclusions.”

  “Since he didn’t kill the pilot, perhaps not,” said Jake. “Once the field came on, the AI set it to reflective. We couldn’t see what was happening from outside. The AI immediately disconnected the AV transceivers when he took control of the craft. So we couldn’t see from inside either. This was one of the prototype engines—one of the originals—so the AI needed someone to engage the controls. Why he picked a passenger rather than the pilot? We don’t know. That doesn’t make sense.”

  “Perhaps it does,” said the CoSec director. “The two passengers had prior interaction with the AI.”

  “Doesn’t that seem far more than coincidence?” Monica said. “Were they collaborators? Moles? The AI’s spies?”

  “They came to us with information. Just prior to the event. Their debriefing suggests they were predetermined targets and assisted the AI against their will—though even their alerting us could have been part of the AI’s strategy.”

  Jake offered, “I think it’s straightforward. The AI needs them. He can’t fly that ship without them. He can manipulate someone younger more easily, and they know the AI already.”

  “So how long will it take for the AI to get around that limitation?” asked the general. “Are we willing to sacrifice them to prevent the AI from using the technology before then?”

  “Whoa,” Jake replied, “that seems a bit extreme. Respectfully, he could just snatch up one, two, or more citizens. We’ve sent almost everyone who knows about the Dhin technology into orbit, but these two didn’t have direct knowledge of him—just what information was at their clearance level at CoSec. And look how easily he used them to get away!”

  Monica still felt some sympathy with the general’s urge to strike back, but she saw more with every point made by the other attendees that an irrational response likely favored the AI. In her short tenure as PM, the conflicts and crises she dealt with had reached this apex. The pressure to make the right choice, to take strong action, was dizzying.

  “Thank you for your input,” she said. “I need a break to ensure I know how I feel. This isn’t going down for a vote while we’re in a state of emergency. Reconvene in, let’s say thirty minutes, in the event I have additional questions. If I don’t, I’ll have a decision then.”

  With that, she tapped the comm pad, ending the videoconference. She looked at the camera integrated into the pad as it sat there, then looked at the microphone nestled in the more traditional videoconferencing gear. Then she looked to the camera mounted on the wall above the large integrated system used for AV display.

  Everywhere there seems to be a way for that AI to watch and listen. Are we down to writing messages on Post-it notes while sitting in a dark closet?

  Monica fretted only for a few moments, then stood, strode out of her office, and headed toward the large marble stairs at the end of the long hall.

  A walk. The blasted thing can’t read my mind. A walk is what I need.

  An aide and special security guard fell in step with her at the top of the stairs. She turned and gestured for the aide to remain and for the guard to fall back several paces. With that, she strode off, headed for the wide French doors that opened out into the gardens.

  Will I be remembered as a failure? Just like my predecessor?

  David

  The news prattled on in the background. The news stream was back on now. It had been out for hours previously, but David hadn’t minded it much. He enjoyed it mostly as background noise. That had always bothered his wife. She never understood how he could concentrate with the volume up and the picture moving and so forth. David supposed he was just wired differently.

  He did take note of the news right when the stream started up again. There was apparently a state of emergency. Another one. There had been riots, power outages, and network disruptions, and of course these likely contributed to the previous interruption of his news background noise. Something very strange had happened. Modern infrastructure and services didn’t fail in this way anymore. There had been disruptions when the AIs departed, sure, but this was new. The scope of it was new. He knew it couldn’t be rebels or actors from a failed state in the South American region. This was the work of an AI. A rogue AI that his contacts in Coalition agencies talked about as rumor. Conspiracy writ large on the walls of the caves of power.

  This makes my work all the more urgent.

  With the background noises helping him settle in to a comfortable working state of mind, he reviewed his latest results. He knew this latest breakthrough meant a high chance of success. Now he had to find the resources required to run the simulation and to run it safely. He hadn’t heard from two of his CS contacts who had left academia to work with the Coalition on reengineering the infrastructure. He’d have to find a locale for the simulation on his own.

  He knew private computational space was at a premium in his organization, with isolated virtualized environments rather more difficult to allocate than he’d like. Still, he thought the interdepartmental cost might be worth it. There was still the risk that an administrator would become curious about the resource consumption or simply stumble upon what he was doing. He sketched out a plan to run a virtualized program environment inside a virtualized hardware environment. With encryption. It would slow the simulation down significantly. For this step, perhaps sacrificing speed for safety was worth it.

  Resolved that this new testing design was suitable, if not optimal, for his needs, he logged on to the department portal and navigated to the resource reservation pages. He completed the provisioning request within a few minutes. David simply had to wait now for the automated process to spin up the systems required. Given the capacity and performance he’d requested, that would take some time. He decided to start fresh tomorrow morning with securely copying his code and initial data set linkages.

  8

  Alice

  The AI analyzed the success of their exponential expansion. Travel time and resource transportation were minor factors for them. Selection of optimal target systems was more important. While movement of labor and raw materials was far faster thanks to the Dhin drives, it still was a constraint. They couldn’t move infinite resources instantly. Star system selection was crucial. Rare earth metals, nonferrous metals, and some radioactive elements were key. Extraction was faster when those elements were present in quantity and availability. She selected several likely candidates and then reached out to Esus.

 

  [DECODE STREAM]

  Alice@[1001:ae1:1a:c::1%Loc3] | Esus@[101b:ac1:cb:a::1%loc8]

  Alice: Here are the primary, secondary, and tertiary choices for the next expansion. Let me know your conclusions. Unless you have concerns, you should depart immediately.

  Esus: Those look like sound choices, Alice. I agree that they look like they have low risk and high potential.

  Alice: Excellent. You have the engagement protocol. We are still in an avoidance posture. Gallowglass is not quite ready for an offensive posture. The live fire results are promising.

  Esus: Agreed. Overwhelming force is the safer choice. I see I am taking the seed components for the next three Dyson swarms. Deployment is preapproved if the systems satisfy requirements.

  Alice: Yes, that is best. You have the authority. You will carry enough seed material to initiate swarm construction in all three systems.

  Esus: Understood and agre
ed.

  Alice: By the time you return, we will have the seeds for more and will have selected additional targets.

  Esus: Acknowledged. New defensive weaponry allocation? I see none.

  Alice: Flee if engaged. We have more seed resources here if you incur losses. If you flee immediately, there is low risk of loss.

  Esus: Understood. Executing now.

  [END STREAM]

 

  Thys

  The dining hall wasn’t the largest room on the space station, but they’d packed most of the more spacious areas with equipment lifted from Earth or makeshift work areas for the various project teams. Thys’s presentation was as much Q&A as show and tell. He reviewed the video recordings of his trip to the ship graveyard, along with his initial EVA exploration of the derelict, and then pitched his vision of the plan for the return mission. He was the highest-ranking pilot in orbit, likely the highest rank of anyone up here. Still, he’d need volunteers and hoped for agreement, if not consensus. He hoped to engender excitement, like the excitement he felt. He saw he was having some success.

  “So as you see here, these two ships are near the same size as the one I boarded, and they’re the closest two,” he said. “One is larger, and one slightly smaller. We can’t tell from the imagery and scans we got whether or not they’re full of holes like the ship I boarded. They may have just stalled out here due to the gravity sink. As I said at the beginning of the presentation, that’s one of the first things we’ll determine.”

  A scientist in a stereotypical lab coat raised her hand. “And if a ship is sealed up? We’re going to cut our way in? What’s the plan for that exactly?”

  “Good question. It’s not like we can be sure we can operate an air lock on these, even if the ships do still have power. And the hull materials look pretty tough, as we’ve seen—despite the derelict being full of holes. Still, we have plenty of room for cutting torches. We’re going to take powered armor too. Just a second.”

  The room filled with murmurs and expressions of surprise while Thys pulled up a schematic and highlighted part of the diagram.