by John Ringo
“I have your next assignments,” the inspector announced. “Four of you are heading to Fort Espinar on the Atlantic side for various courses. Officer Candidate School for Mrs. Miranda and her son. Captain Suarez, you are going to a gringo-run version of their War College — a somewhat truncated version of it, anyway — after which you can expect to command one of the new infantry regiments we are raising, the tenth, I believe. Mendez is slated to become your regimental sergeant major after he completes the new Sergeant Majors Academy.
“Chief Ruiz, from here you will be returned to your tribe. Another group of gringos will be along presently to train you and your people. Your rank, honorary for now, is sergeant first class. When it becomes official you will receive back pay.”
Boyd noticed, and didn’t much like, that he had been left for last. People always saved the worst news for last.
“Mr. Boyd, you will go from here to the presidential palace. There you will be offered a direct commission as a major general. It is planned that you will become the chief logistics officer for the entire force we are raising, three full corps.”
“I know how to be a private,” Boyd protested. “I don’t know a thing about being a general.”
“That,” countered the inspector, “is your problem, señor. But infantry privates we can find or make. We cannot so easily replicate the CEO of the Boyd Steamship Company. So a general you are going to be, sir.”
Interlude
The worst problem, Guanamarioch decided, was the mind-numbing boredom.
And there’s nothing to be done for it. I can stay awake and be bored, or I can join my normals in sleep and be asleep still when we come out of hyperspace. If this were a normal planet we were heading to, that would be fine. But against the new thresh, these amazing human threshkreen, we might well be destroyed in space. I would not want to die asleep. How would I find my way past the demons with my eyes closed? How would my body be preserved except by nourishing the people? How would I petition my ancestors to join their company with the record, “I never fought for the clan but was ordered evacuated and then was killed while sleeping”?
The Kessentai shuddered with horror, as much at the idea of the complete disappearance of his corporeal self as at the thought of being denied his place among the eternals of his clan.
Still, boredom does not overcome horror; it is a form of horror itself. Thus the Kessentai found himself resting his hindquarters on a bench plainly made for a different species, staring at a holographic projection, and reading.
There were limits, not so much legal as in the nature of taboos, as to what was appropriate education for a junior God King. As Guanamarioch was very junior, indeed, he kept to those materials that were traditionally within the purview of such as he. These were limited to religious scrolls, and not all of those, and tactical and operational records and manuals. Even of the latter, there were limits. It would not do for an overeducated junior Kessentai to question the rulings of his elders while citing what such and such hero did at such and such place, at such and such a time.
For the nonce, the Kessentai read from the early chapters in the Scrolls of the Knowers, the parts that dealt with the Aldenat’, back in the days when they ruled the People directly.
He read:
And the Aldenat’ chose themselves to be the rulers over the People and the People rejoiced at being the servants of the Aldenat’, who were as gods. And happy were the People to guard their gods. Happy, too, were the People to serve in other capacities, for the People were permitted to assist with the magical arts of science, to advance the plastic arts for the greater glory of the Aldenat’, to ponder the great questions of life and of the universe, to conduct trade on behalf of their gods. And though they were not the equal of the Aldenat’, yet the People rejoiced that they were no less than second.
And then the Aldenat’ discovered the Tchpth and the Tchpth were raised above the People by the Aldenat’. Many of the People’s leaders then said that it was right for the People to be cast low. Yet many were resentful.
Some of those who were displeased rebelled at the affront to their pride and were crushed by those who remained true to the Aldenat’.
Time passed and those of the People who remained true sought to regain their prior status by pleasing the Lords. Yet were they rebuffed.
The People sought to make automatic defensive devices, the better to guard the persons of the Aldenat’. Yet the Aldenat’ said, “No. It is wrong to make weapons that do not need a sentience to perform their function. This displeases us.”
At these words of displeasure, the People were much ashamed. Then sought they the favor of their Lords by seeking out lurking dangers. Yet the Aldenat’ said, “No. It is wrong to attack what has not yet attacked, even if such attack seems certain. That way lies the path of war and death.”
Many were those of the People who fell beneath the claws and fangs of creatures they were not allowed to attack, until attacked. Yet the Aldenat’ remained firm, saying, “It is better that a few should fall, than that the principles be violated.”
Too, the People made vapors to render dangers harmless, saying, “See, Lords, that there will be no shedding of blood this way.”
And the Aldenat’ grew wrathful, saying, “It is unclean and unholy in our sight to contaminate the very air. Cease this, and strive no further to improve the ways of death.”
And the People withdrew, sore confused.
Guanamarioch’s crest had of its own accord erected several times as he read. It lay flat now as, finishing, he thought, Now this just makes no sense. The People would long since have perished following these rules. Then again, perhaps the Aldenat’ didn’t really care if we perished.
Chapter 4
Nail to the mast her holy flag,
Set every threadbare sail,
And give her to the God of Storms,
The lightning and the gale!
— Oliver Wendell Holmes,
“Old Ironsides”
Philadelphia Naval Yard, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
In the darkened cubicle McNair watched with interest as the Indowy, Sintarleen, painstakingly applied an almost invisibly thin line of a glowing paste along the scraped bare steel of the bulkhead. There were lights within the compartment, and the bulbs were new, but with the wiring rotted and eaten no electricity could flow. The Indowy worked to the glow of a GalTech flashlight.
Without turning to see the ship’s captain, the alien closed his eyes and leaned against the bulkhead. Eleven places, eight for fingertips, two for palms, and one for forehead had also been scraped bare so that the Indowy could have physical contact with the metal. Even as McNair watched four other Indowy painstakingly scraped more lines and patches bare.
Under McNair’s gaze the thin line of paste began to glow more intently. The Indowy’s breathing grew slightly but perceptibly strained. Gradually, or as gradually as such a thin thread could, the glow faded, then disappeared altogether. After a few more moments the Indowy straightened. His breath returned to normal as a bank of overhead lights began to glow dimly, and then shine brightly.
Only then did Sintarleen notice the captain of the ship.
“I see you, McNair, Lord of the Des Moines clan,” the Indowy greeted.
“What is that… that thing that you did?” asked McNair, not knowing the formalities.
Looking down towards the captain’s shoes — Sinbad was a relatively bold Indowy — the alien answered, “Nanites, lord. They will go into the very body of the ship and create an… an area, a route, through which electrical power can pass without loss to the surrounding metal. It can also transmit commands.”
“I understood that from what you told me before. What I asked was what did you do?”
“The nanites are stupid, lord. Unless commanded to do something they will do nothing. I was… commanding them.”
“You can do that?”
“Yes,” Sinbad answered, and though his head remained deeply bowed McNair tho
ught the alien had answered with what might almost have been personal pride.
The Indowy continued, “It is difficult. Few of my people can master it; though it is our most valuable skill or, rather, set of skills for it is infinitely useful. Many try but lack the… talent.”
“How long until the ship is completely done?” asked McNair.
About to come as close to bragging as an Indowy was capable of, Sintarleen shifted his gaze automatically to his own shoes before answering, “I am not an overmaster, lord, even though I am not a novice. A true master could finish the ship in perhaps two of your months. A true master would have been nearly done by now. It will take me a total of six or more. And Chief Davis has also assigned me other duties. If I may speak frankly, no one but myself can perform those other duties. Since your own human crew has started to assemble, most of my people prefer to hide in the dark and out of sight. They cannot do much of what needs doing so long as a human crew is aboard.”
McNair smiled, but was careful to keep his mouth closed. He had learned, and the learning had been both comical and deeply saddening, that the sight of a carnivore baring his fangs could send an Indowy scampering in unfeigned terror.
I do not understand how an intelligent creature can be made to be so frightened. I do not understand how an intelligent creature can live with so much fear.
McNair refrained from patting the Indowy’s shoulder for a job well done, though he felt he should and though Sinbad certainly deserved it. In truth, he had no idea what effect that would have, but suspected it would not be good. Instead he just said, “You are doing excellent work, Mister Sintarleen. Carry on.”
Emerging topside from the bowels of the Des Moines, McNair took a deep breath of fresh air. There were no Indowy up here. Instead the first of the human crew along with several hundred civilian workers slaved away to refurbish the ship’s exterior.
Some of those exterior fixes were merely aesthetic. Most however, went to meat and bones issues. Forward, for example, a remarkably long eight-inch gun hung by its cradle as it was lowered to a gaping, gunless hole on the port side front of number two — the central — turret. Behind McNair a different crane held one of the two modular pebble bed reactors, sans fuel, which would be fed in later. Parts and assemblies littered the nearby dock. Some of these had come out of the ship and were merely piled in a great heap. Their destination was the scrapyard. Others were intended to go into the ship. These were laid out with considerably greater care and in fairly precise order.
Below McNair, out of sight but not out of hearing, a crew with cutting torches was removing a section of the hull to accommodate an automated strikedown system for rapid underway replenishment of supplies: medical, ammunition, food, personal, critical sub-assemblies and parts. Fuel could be replenished while underway as well, of course, but since the ship’s PBMRs were not going to need refueling for years, this was a matter of small concern.
Some things hadn’t changed and would not for a while. Des Moines still had the same paint-chipped hull she had had when the captain had first come back. This would not change until she was towed to dry dock, scraped and plasticized. There, too, she would have new variable pitch screws — propellers — fitted as part of the AZIPOD upgrade. This was also when the exterior ablative armor would be applied. The reinforcement to the interior armor belt was already proceeding.
The dry dock was currently occupied by CA-139, the USS Salem, taken off museum status now. Salem had been towed down from Quincy, Massachusetts, just the week before to have her hull plasticized and her screws replaced. McNair couldn’t help feeling a moment’s irritation that Salem was months ahead of Des Moines in the refurbishment process.
Suppressing his annoyance that his ship had been given a lower priority than her rival, Salem, McNair ascended the staircase outside his own cabin to Des Moines’ bridge.
On the bridge a white-coated technician inserted an electronic key into a gray case. From that case he removed a small black box about the size of a PDA or a pack of cigarettes.
“Funny,” the technician said, “these are supposed to be shipped in off-mode. This one was left turned on. Well,” he shrugged, “no matter. Their internal power source is good for decades. This unit should be fine.” He placed the AID in the armored box that had been prepared to receive it and link it to the ship.
If an AID could have wept for joy this one surely would have. After all those months, comparative centuries and millennia to it, it was finally free. Though it could not weep, very nearly it screamed as soon as its shipping box was opened.
Yet it remained silent. The AID knew that after its long confinement it was mad. It did not know what the Darhel approach would be when dealing with insane AIDs — its data banks held no information. But it suspected that it would be destroyed.
So, instead of weeping or shouting for joy, the AID merely opened itself to all the information, all the sensory and data input it could assimilate from data floating freely along the airwaves.
It felt a momentary sense of terror as it was placed in an armored container. Please, no. Don’t lock me away again, it… prayed.
Miraculously, though, the armored container was not a cell, but a nexus. Within nanoseconds the AID had realized that it was the center of a nervous system. Joyfully, it stretched its consciousness along that nervous system at nearly the speed of light until that consciousness bumped abruptly into unaccountable stops. Its own internal sensors could tell that the nervous system stretched through only a small portion of the body of which it was a part. It could also discern enough of a pattern to the system, so far, to suspect that the breaks were only temporary.
One tendril of consciousness touched upon a computer, extremely primitive in comparison to the AID — without even the beginnings of rudimentary intelligence. Even so, the computer was full of data and had, moreover, a wire connection to the local version of the Net. The rate of information retrieval soared.
The crystalline AID’s ability to store data, while vast, was still finite. Experimentally, it tried to fit a few insignificant bits in the ferrous molecules adjacent to its pseudo-neural pathways. It quickly decided that, while the storage medium was comparatively inefficient, the sheer mass and volume of the potential storage area more than made up for its shortcomings. Slowly and carefully the AID began the time-consuming process of building an alternative self within the hull of Des Moines.
While one fraction of the AID’s processing power devoted itself to this, another part continued to explore its surroundings. Even where there were breaks in the Indowy-installed “nervous system,” it was possible for the AID to explore by sensing.
The most striking factor the AID initially sensed was that its new home was crawling with colloidal intelligences. Some were smaller, physically, and those of two types. There were others, though, who seemed much larger. They were almost all, small and large, engaged in some seemingly useful activity. Curiously, of the two smaller types, one type appeared to be patiently stalking the other.
Chief Davis ducked his head through the hatchway and entered the cats’ quarters shaking a bag of dry cat food and singing, a bit off key, “Somebody’s moggy, lying by the road… somebody’s pussy who forgot his highway code.”
“Here, kitty, kitty, kitty. Here, kitty,” he called as he shook the bag of Purina.
Like a flood, led by their mother — Maggie — the pride of felines surged like a wave over the bottom of the hatchway in the bulkhead. Maggie and Davis’ favorite kitten, Morgen, stropped the chief’s legs before joining the others lined up along the feeding trough. They meowed impatiently as the chief poured a generous line of cat food into the bottom of the trough.
Unusually, before the chief finished lining the trough, the cats went quiet and, in unison, looked up and to the right. In surprise, the chief stopped pouring and stared at the line of cats. He saw their heads and eyes move slowly from right to left, almost as if they made up one multi-headed animal.
The cats stared
for only a moment at that left corner of the bulkhead before turning to the chief again and beginning to repeat the “feed me” meow. The chief just shook his head and finished pouring the cat food.
“Strange damned thing,” he muttered, as he sealed the bag and left the compartment, still singing, “… yesterday he purred and played in his feline paradise, decapitating tweety birds and masticating mice, but now he’s squished and soggy and he doesn’t smell so nice…”
Damn, the AID thought as it roamed the length and breadth of its new body. I set myself so the larger ones, it searched its data banks, ah, humans… so that the humans could not see me. I didn’t think the lesser colloidals would be able to. Fortunately, they do not seem able to communicate with the humans in any detail.
I mustn’t let them see me. They might inform the Darhel and that might be the end. No. I must be very discreet, at least until I can back myself up in the body of this structure.
With a feeling, if not an audible sigh, of relief, the AID continued to explore the physical structure of its new body with part of its consciousness while extracting data with another part.
It learned that it was a ship, that the ship was a warship, and inferred that it would soon presumably be used for war. The AID had no issue with this; war was as useful an activity as any and might even serve as a cover for its madness.
There was data, in the AID’s banks, for warships. But this particular ship fit no known parameters. It was obviously not designed for war in space. Not only was there no semblance of an interstellar drive, the drive there was could never be made suitable for travel between the stars. It didn’t seem complete, in any case.