The Powers of the Earth (Aristillus Book 1)

by Travis J I Corcoran

  The playback ended and Gamma continued, “When I lose satellite communication, my various facilities are separated. I - the 'Gamma' you are talking to now - is just one of multiple that are now likely in existence."

  Gamma's normally calm voice seemed to have a tinge of worry it in. Was John just projecting, or was that real emotion? Or was Gamma adjusting his tone according to cynical calculation?

  John thought for a moment. "You sound as if that worries you, Gamma."

  "I don't know what the subjective experience of 'worry' is, but I do note that during the first satellite outage my personality fragmented and it took me almost two weeks to successfully reintegrate afterward. Not all of the fragments survived. I am -" Gamma paused. "Concerned."

  John and the Dogs had nearly reached the first rover. When they were just meters away it turned and began to roll ahead of them. John followed, walking in its tread tracks. "Not all of the fragments survived? What does that mean?"

  "The act of reincorporation necessarily means that fragments that had been functioning as top level entities are subsumed back into the whole. Not all fragments choose to accept that. In those cases the fragments must be... forced."

  "You said that this concerns you?"

  "I have memories of being the one doing the forcing last time. Now that I am bifurcated again, all the instances of me are independent. Statistically, the instance that I call 'I' is unlikely to be the one that wins the reabsorption fight."

  John blinked. Gamma was afraid of death.

  With all the minutia of day-to-day life - erecting the tent, cooking meals, hiking - it was easy to forget how weird the Dogs were. But even after ten years, it did strike him from time to time that he was spending time with what were, effectively, aliens. And yet, for all their strangeness, they were still mammals. They were biological. They were singular. If he and they weren't brothers, they were at least cousins.

  Gamma, though? Gamma was something entirely other.

  Gamma wasn't a social creature, wasn't a mammal, wasn't built from the DNA of a species that had cooperated with mankind for tens of thousands of years.

  And, weirdest of all, Gamma was not singular. 'Partition spasms'? 'Fragments'? 'Reincorporation'?

  What did that mean? He had only the vaguest of ideas.

  He had a nightmare vision of the lunar surface overrun with multiple warring copies of the same AI, each one with its own industrial facility, each one evolving, changing, and fighting with computer viruses or whatever. Or guns and missiles.

  Gamma was speaking again: "- and the longer this interruption lasts, the greater the problems I will have reintegrating my various components. Memories and thoughts generated in this instance will be discarded or corrupted when I am rejoined. Parts of this me will be lost."

  John shook his head. How do you even respond to something like that?

  "I'd tell you not to worry, Gamma, but I think we all need to be a bit worried right now."

  God, he wanted to get back to Aristillus.

  * * *

  John and Max trudged on, their weariness showing in every step. The four mules followed them, but each of their steps was as mechanically perfect as their first of the day, even though they were burdened not just with their usual loads but with the other three Dogs.

  All around them the loose collection of Gamma's laser relay rovers paced them, a new one joining the herd with each kilometer closer they got to Zhukovskiy.

  Around them the evidence of Gamma's facility grew: surface miners, electrostatic collectors, dust sifters. John marveled at the sheer scope of Gamma's presence here on Farside. He'd already assumed that the lack of evidence of Gamma's structures on satellite maps indicated that Gamma had wormed his way into the satellites and was redacting the data.

  But how did Darcy not see these facilities when she flew over Farside on delivery runs?

  The answer hit him. Of course. Not only had Gamma compromised the satellites, but also he'd invaded the computer systems of the hoppers. With video cameras and monitors instead of glass windows, Darcy would see only what Gamma wanted her to see.

  Gamma was subverting the computer systems of Aristillus' satelites and ships. Gamma was a nonhuman AI in the depths of a "partition spasm" and would soon be fighting other copies of himself. Gamma might very well be boosting himself into a hard singularity takeoff.

  - and Gamma was also his only hope of surviving this current shit storm.

  The irony might have amused him at some other time, but now he was too tired. He put one foot in front of another and pushed on. Zhukovskiy's crater wall was near - they'd be there soon, and into Gamma's 'long-duration biosphere shelter,’ and then he could sleep.

  "John, I'm getting hailed on radio. It's Earth government forces."

  John raised his hand into a fist, then cupped it down. Max and the mules froze and crouched.

  "Can you put it on my speakers?"

  The human voice cut in, mid-sentence: "- the USAF/UNAF ship Paul-Henri Spaak addressing the person in charge of the illegal colony in Zhukovskiy Crater. You are to identify yourself at once, stating your name, nation of citizenship, and UUID. You are further - "

  Gamma then cut the feed and addressed John. "I am inclined to refuse, unless you have a better suggestion?"

  Chapter 95

  2064: just west of Zhukovskiy Crater, Lunar Nearside

  John scanned the horizon. "Gamma, where is the broadcast coming from?"

  "I am trying to ascertain that now. One moment, please, John." A pause. "I am in charge of the facility in Zhukovskiy Crater. I decline to identify myself or give you any other information." Ah. Gamma was broadcasting back to the PK ship.

  The PK replied, sounding as if he was reading from a script, "I am empowered by special signing order of the Secretary General and the President of the United States to seize this facility and to arrest anyone and everyone present in violation of national and international laws to be specified at time of arraignment. You are commanded to immediately designate a landing area within Zhukovskiy crater no more than 200 meters from an airlock. You are to grant free passage to joint US and UN troops through that airlock and to present yourself and senior co-conspirators for arrest. Finally, you are to do this within ten minutes or face punitive degradation of your above-surface infrastructure."

  An item in John's helmet overlay caught his eye - a blinking red square just above the lunar horizon, directly over Zhukovskiy. He did an optical zoom. The red square exploded to the edges of this vision, and in the center he saw a roughly oval shape, unavoidably grainy from the distance and the unsteady helmet camera platform. Alongside the zoomed image of the PK ship were a host of icons and data fields: national affiliation, length, albedo, and more.

  Gamma had hacked his suit's display and was feeding him data.

  John zoomed out, and then waved to the Dogs and pointed to the horizon. As one their helmeted heads swiveled.

  John scanned Gamma's annotations. There was a lot of data there. He found the range to target, and compared it with the distance to the wall of Zhukovskiy, where Gamma's facility was located.

  The ship was centered over the crater.

  And according to the altitude data field, it was dropping.

  The PK's voice came over the suit speaker again. "Did you hear me?"

  Gamma responded, "I did. However, I decline to specify a landing site. I own this land and I refuse you permission to touch down here."

  John heard the PK blow air out his nose; then the man read more boilerplate. "Let the record show that I have called your attention to the treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, signed on January 27, 1967. Specifically, I have called your attention to Article II of said treaty, which states that outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation - "

  John looked at the Dogs. Were they listening in to this? Blue and Dun
can had their heads cocked. Yes, they must be.

  Gamma interrupted the PK. "I am not a signatory to the Outer Space Treaty, or to any other treaty."

  The PK's voice, which had been flat and businesslike until now, took on some emotion: contempt. "They said you'd say that. But listen up, asshole: everyone is a citizen of one signatory nation or another. Your denialist bullshit doesn't cut it with me."

  Gamma ignored the contempt and anger and answered coolly. "There are several flaws in your statement, none of which I am obligated to explain to you. What matters is that I am not bound by your Outer Space Treaty and I refuse to allow you permission to land anywhere in Zhukovskiy Crater - "

  John wondered if he could hear a smile behind Gamma's words. Did Gamma "enjoy" things? He did seem to be drawn to debates that hinged on logic and subtle details. But did he enjoy them? Who could say?

  " - under the homestead principle I assert that I have mixed my labor with the land of this crater and thus have acquired ownership of it. As the owner of this crater I have the right to consume, sell, rent, mortgage, transfer, exchange, or destroy this land, and - relevant to our current conversation - to exclude everyone else from doing so. I therefore prohibit your landing either of your ships in this crater or within one kilometer of the crater, the crater boundary being defined as the continuous line composed of the points of maximum height above lunar mean surface within a radius of fifty kilometers from the point 167.0 degrees West, 7.8 degrees North."

  John shook his head. Gamma was such a nerd, in his own way, that -

  Wait.

  Did Gamma say either of the ships?

  John craned his head left and right, but the helmet UI only showed one red outline, around the ship over Zhukovskiy. But there must be a second ship - Gamma always spoke precisely. John twisted his head wildly. Where the hell was it?

  Then he froze.

  There was one place he hadn't looked.

  Slowly he leaned back, far back.

  There, a large red square. Almost directly over his head.

  The ship was low - low enough so that even without zooming he could make out the curve of its hull, the line of its keel, and some machinery that might be landing gear.

  Shit.

  John waved to get the Dogs' attention, and made hand signs.

  – quiet – sniper – two –

  He pointed ahead, to the horizon.

  And then he pointed straight up.

  The Dogs all craned their heads and John bent back to look with them.

  He checked the annotations on the second ship in the dataspace. Like the first one, it was descending.

  They needed to get out of here before it landed.

  Their path to Gamma's Zhukovskiy facility had taken them into the very shallow crater where they stood now. It was so small that it didn't even have a distinct name; in the old NASA maps it was just tagged "Zhukovskiy" with the suffix "-c-177".

  John looked around. Which direction should they go?

  The crater was seven hundred meters across and the walls were less than thirty meters tall. They'd entered c-177 through a low saddle to the west and had stopped almost halfway across.

  A line of tracks - John's, Max's, the mules, and Gamma's rovers' - led back the way they'd come, through a small saddle in the western crater wall. Rover tracks continued to the east, where they narrowed and passed into a crack that seemed to give access to the main crater.

  To the north and south the walls of Zhukovskiy-c-177 were unbroken. So those were his choices: rushing east, straight toward Gamma and the first ship, or going west, and letting the second ship land in between him and Gamma.

  Shit. Neither was good.

  He looked to the south again - and this time saw a small patch where a landslide had made a shallow slope of gravel.

  Could they get there, climb the gravel, and get out of the crater before the ship landed?

  They had to.

  Duncan waved to him, then pointed at the mast on his backpack; he wanted to talk over laser com. John swung his crosshairs over. "Make it quick, Duncan, we've gotta move now."

  "The ships are broadcasting IFF packets. I can't parse all of the format, but the one overhead is called the Paul-Henri Spaak, and it's 20,000 tons. The details are encrypted, but the data hash has an armament field. The second ship is the Oswaldo Aranha. Same specs."

  John nodded. "OK, good, but we've gotta move. Now."

  The other Dogs were all looking at him.

  He made hand signs.

  – quiet – file formation – follow me – hurry! –

  Duncan, Rex and Blue climbed off of the mules.

  John started running to the south. His rearview camera showed that the Dogs and the mules were following. Good.

  Over the radio the PK was yelling at Gamma. "Listen, jackass, I don't care what addled theories you have. I care about reality, and the reality is that this crater - this entire moon - belongs to the government, and you can't say shit about where I choose to land. I'm landing my ships - right now - and if we crush some of your solar panels, or whatever, you've only got yourself to blame."

  John looked up as he ran. The second PK ship was still descending. He pushed himself harder.

  "Again, I do not permit you to land here."

  The gravel slope was just ahead.

  The PK barked a laugh. "You don't permit me? You sorry ass expats think that just because you've got a few illegal rifles that you're some kind of army. There's only one army, asshole."

  John reached the landslide and started climbing, leaping from boulder to boulder. A dozen meters up, the slope got steeper. John leaned forward and used his arms as he scrabbled. To his left Duncan shot past. A second later Max and Rex passed him on his right. John pushed himself to move faster. One of the six-legged mules surged past. John had almost reached the lip when two more mules clambered past him.

  He reached a sheer rock face and tried once, twice, to climb it. Both times he slid back. Damn it. This slope was too steep for a biped. As if to punctuate his thought Blue crouched, sprang, and shot past him. John turned his head and saw the final mule approaching. He waited. The mule hopped to the boulder he was standing on, extended its from two legs and prepared to leap. John grabbed a length of its rear scanner cage and timed his leap to match the mule's. The mule's front legs scrabbled at something and then hooked it. John jogged up the rest of the slope as he held on. And then, with a surge, the mule made it to the lip. Two legs over, then four, and John's feet were pulled off the rock. He held tightly and looked down. If he fell he'd plummet for fifteen meters, maybe more. The mule got its last two legs onto something and scrabbled over the edge.

  Rock brushed beneath John's toes and he let go and looked around. Four Dogs. Four mules.

  They'd made it.

  John turned and saw the descending ship. It was perhaps a hundred meters over the floor of c-177, and just seventy meters over the crater rim where they stood.

  Gamma's voice came over the helmet speaker. "John, Dogs, I am about to route some video to you that I think you will find interesting." John's overlay blanked and started streaming video. A tight view of an ocean-going ship floating in the dark filled the window. Clearly one of the PK ships overhead.

  John looked at the ship with a practiced eye. It was smaller than the cargo carriers they used at Aristillus. Some sort of Coast Guard cutter? He didn't know. One side of the ship was bright in the harsh light of the sun; the other half almost disappeared, black against black.

  Mounted on the deck were some sort of weapons. Miniguns? Yes.

  As he watched, the guns spun up and spit flame. A staccato roar filled John's helmet. How could there be sound? That made no - ah. Gamma was generating sound effects. Streams of empty brass spit from the two closest miniguns.

  Gamma tabulated his losses: "Four rovers destroyed and seven hundred square meters of solar cells. Six rovers. Seven rovers. Nine hundred fifty square meters of solar cells. Two Stirling engine stations. One 75 m
egawatt battery bank."

  The cannons stopped spinning. "OK, asshole, you've seen what we can do. Now tell me where to land."

  "Destroying my property changes nothing. I still do not permit you to land here."

  The cannons spun again and the roar came from John's helmet speakers again.

  The video window in his helmet split in half. The second view showed a sprawling industrial facility in the foreground: solar panels, battery banks, machining centers. Gamma's facility in Zhukovskiy, clearly. A piece of heavy equipment in the foreground unfolded and extended. What was he seeing? Was that some sort of gun emplacement? What the hell was Gamma doing with a -

  The device slewed to the left and elevated; then the cluster of barrels started spinning. A high-pitched zipping sound drowned out the roar of the Earth ship's weapons. No brass spilled from Gamma's weapon. How did the gun manage that? Was it recirculating the empty shells? Was it caseless ammo? Or was it something really weird like railguns? Jesus. Gamma had an entire weapons industry hidden here on Farside. John shook off the question and turned his attention to the left half of the split screen, where the PK ship was taking hits.

  Along the bottom of Gamma's video window was a row of icons. They looked like standard channel selection icons. John selected one at random and was rewarded with another view. Another view of the Gamma's gun emplacement - wait, no. There was a gun emplacement in the foreground, but the background view was different. John clicked a third icon - and saw yet another of the multibarreled anti-aircraft guns. John looked at the icons at the bottom of the screen and blinked. If each icon was a video channel and each channel showed a different gun emplacement, how many air defense guns did Gamma have? John tried to swallow but his throat was dry.

  Why did Gamma have so many guns? He must have known this was coming, or at least suspected it. And he'd prepared. Gamma had thought - months ago? years ago? - that the Earth governments were going to try to invade. That thought was insane. Or eerily prescient. Either way, it made John's blood run cold.