by Tom Kratman
Offers of trade had been made, an accredited negotiating team from the Department of Alien Affairs had even been sent. But the aliens did not want their planet strip mined. They did not want their cities and people displaced, their religious and historical sites razed, the natural beauty of their home sullied. They dug in their heels and said, “No.”
Perhaps Man made a mistake; perhaps he should have been more honest. He should have ordered in the Rathas first, shown the Sendlin the mailed fist openly rather than hiding it in the DAA’s velvet glove. By the time the aliens saw the fist it was too late; that fist was already descending.
Ratha Magnolia of the Tenth Regiment, serial number MLN90456SS061502125, picked up two new medals for the Shiva VI campaign. For, while the Sendlin were peaceful, they were brave. Having no experience of war in millennia, they copied humanity as best they could. They had an adequate, if inferior, command of anti-gravity. They learned, after a fashion, to direct nuclear fusion. Civilian anti-grav sleds, hastily converted into fighting vehicles and manned by dedicated crews even managed to fight Man’s Ratha fighting machines to a standstill on more than one occasion.
Yet those occasions were too few, and the Rathas too powerful. Sendlin firepower and armor was too weak, Ratha ion cannons, armor, and shielding were too strong. Only in courage had the odds been even. And courage had not proven enough.
I remember the surrender, the final surrender after we broke through in two places and surrounded the last city on the planet left in Sendlin hands. I stood in line with my brothers, new awards gleaming on my armor, as the old and broken Sendlin queen came out, her entourage of attendants, advisors and warriors following in her wake. The garments worn by her attendants and advisors were torn and sullied. Beneath their armor, I sensed that there were few Sendlin warriors who did not bear the bandages, casts and scars of the campaign. Very few. Even the old queen’s grayish-white fur was singed, and her three violet eyes were bloodshot and weary.
Our mission was done. The assimilation of the conquered planet was back in the hands of the DAA and the TTC: the Terran Trade Commission. Even among Rathas, this last group was known as an unsavory lot.
The old queen held tightly to the last threads of her dignity as the terms of the surrender were read to her. Face expressionless, she looked directly into the eyes of the Ambassador and said, “We are the last of a civilization more than two hundred and fifty of your millennia old. We have lasted so long. Will Man, I wonder? Besides that your ships were powerful, your fighting machines strong and brave, what else have you?”
The ambassador answered her question with his own. “What more do we need?” he asked. Perhaps there was no better answer to be made. Then he simply pointed at the instrument of surrender in the queen’s gnarled hands and ordered, “Sign”.
I remember being ashamed in that instant. I remember….
******
Baugnez II was a human planet, though a backwater of civilization. A mix of barren, treeless lands, mountains; a few unimportant seas and little in the way of hard resources,—the planet was a perfect refuge for people who needed little but to be left alone and were content with no more than that.
The people of the planet spoke a curious blend of two long-lost, badly corrupted Earth languages. They understood each other, though, and that, too, was enough. They had come here for religious freedom, or so their records said, for the right to worship their God as their Book commanded. They kept the Sabbath and they kept the peace.
There had never been trouble with the colony. The few who knew of it never expected that there would be, even that there ever could be. It was simply too unimportant.
Nevertheless, trouble had begun. It began with a triviality, a personality flaw of a personality unimportant in every mind but her own. Trouble sometimes begins on such grounds.
Baugnez II was also unimportant. Yet there were humans in some numbers and there were ships, naval and merchant, that called from time to time to take off one or another of its few exports, to import perhaps a few luxuries, or simply for a break from the tedium of space travel.
The planet itself had no government, being a loose collection of ill-defined clans. Still, somebody had to be there to see to the needs of merchants and the imperial navy. As a rule, in places like Baugnez II, the somebody was called a governor and the governor was chosen from the local pool of available nobodies.
Thus it was that one highly indignant replacement governor was sent out all the way from distant Terra to take her post in this barely known shard of empire.
Magda Dunkelmeier, the new governor, was a modern woman, certainly modern in her attitudes. She was certain—absolutely convinced—that only some sort of men’s conspiracy had removed her from the center of moving and shaking. Either a conspiracy, or perhaps the machinations of the little bimbo of a CD-Seven who had not only caught the eye of the Secretary, but coveted Dunkelmeier’s previous job.
She would show them, however. She would be back. Once she had demonstrated her abilities by bringing the primitives of Baugnez II back into the mainstream of civilization, she would be back with a vengeance.
First, she concluded, there would have to be cultural reform, forced down the people throats if necessary. Then industrialization, afterwards proper democracy. After that was accomplished, recognition and a victorious return from exile were sure to follow.
But first things first.
“Worship as you please,” said the governor to a collection of clan elders. All men, she noted, with significance. “But this seclusion of women, their covering their faces in shame… this must stop.”
“But so our laws command, Madame,” said an elder of the planet. “The women themselves prefer it this way.”
“Then they can learn to prefer not to as well,” answered the Governor, drawing up her graying but proud head. “Under the Charter for this colony, my word is deemed law. This is my word: as of this moment it is against the law for your women to conceal themselves from view.”
This was the triviality that began the trouble, which spun rapidly out of the governor’s control. Like a metastasizing cancer, it rapidly grew out of anyone’s control. After official, but private, protests were ignored, unofficial and public protests followed… as did riots… as did arrests… as did assassinations and bombings and ambushes. And, of course, executions. There were many executions. Guerilla warfare soon flared across the length and breadth of the planet.
Furious at being defied, and more furious still at having her career stymied by hard-headed primitives, with control of the countryside slipping through her grasp, and with credible reports in hand of aliens supplying arms to the rebels, the governor at length called for reinforcements. A battalion of Rathas, Fourth of the Tenth, was duly ordered to Baugnez II with orders to quell the rebellion. The Rathas themselves attempted to argue that they were suboptimal for this kind of mission, but nobody listened. They were, after all, nothing but machines.
I had my doubts, of course, but I still did my duty without demure. After all, I had no specific programming forbidding combat against humans. My creators had been far too wise to permit any such inhibition. And, for some purposes, we Rathas could be highly useful adjuncts to a counter-insurgency force, even if we were poorly suited to conduct such operations ourselves.
Our biggest advantage was sheer size; we were terribly intimidating to simple country folk. A typical, oft-repeated operation went like this: I would arrive at a village at the break of dawn, always without warning. I would then fire a pattern of scatterable mines, on short self-destruct timers, around the three-fourths or more of the village’s perimeter where I was not. My loudspeakers would blare the order for all the humans present to assemble with their livestock. Awestruck and terrified, the civilians would invariably comply. Then, while the humans cowered under my close defense weapons, I’d send one or more reconnaissance drones to sweep the place, looking for heat, for carbon dioxide, for any audio, visual, magnetic, energetic or chemical trace
of remaining human life inside.
Sometimes, the humans didn’t listen and my drones would find some of them hiding. It was hard to do, but my duty required that I broadcast, “You were warned.” Then I’d flatten the village. I found solace in the idea that by this method, innocent life was spared, the people were given fair warning, and the regrettable intra-human war was brought closer to conclusion.
Usually it wasn’t needed though. If I wasn't given a direct order, I would conduct interviews instead. Voice stress analysis let me assign the adult populace to one of four groups with fair certainty: pro-government and pro-progress, anti-government and anti-progress but non-militant, neutrals, and rebels. Directed by voice and guarded by Gauss guns and drones, even the rebels went meekly enough.
Once I had them sorted, I would call for pickup. Usually, three heavy anti-grav vehicles would descend from space; one for me, one for the rebels, and another for rebel sympathizers. A large or difficult village might require more. The identifiable rebels were taken to a colonization ship in orbit, by which means they were to be transported to a harsh but livable prison colony. The sympathizers went to well-guarded re-education camps elsewhere on the planet. I went to my next target.
Between myself, my siblings, and such human infantry as the governor had been able to muster, the insurgency was rapidly wrecked in the countryside by such forthright action. But it still lingered in the cities where no Ratha could reach without doing more harm than good, and where the fairly stupid drones were at a decided disadvantage. Thus it was that the governor’s assistant, one fine day met his untimely end with a volley of shots and a single lick from a light plasma cannon, while returning from a tour of a re-education camp.
The outraged and frightened governor, (she had planned to tour the camp herself), immediately ordered that internees be held as hostages against the good behavior of their fellows.
Undeterred, with their holy men singing that any hostages killed would be instantly translated to Paradise as Holy Warriors for the Faith, the rebels promptly bombed the next merchant ship to land. Unfortunately, that ship was a passenger liner, not a cargo ship, and was carrying three hundred and eighty-nine civilian passengers and sixty-eight crew. Loss of life was total.
I remember their faces, the haggard, sooty faces of the four hundred and fifty-seven old men, women and children, who were targeted for reprisal. Those faces were filled with fear as they were marched out under the watchful gaze of a detail of imperial marines to stand in a huddle by the blank wall of the colony’s one standing prison. That fear blossomed into terror as I approached.
The commander of the expeditionary force, one Major General Dennis, made the announcement himself to the waiting cameras. “For over a year now we have been fighting these rebels. We have beaten them in the field. We have beaten them in the cities whenever they tried to face us. Still they refuse to give up and return to the rule of law. Still they needlessly drag on the killing. No more. No more will the government of this planet live in fear of assassination. No more will these rebel sneaks and cowards hurt our people, then melt away unharmed. These are the families of known guerillas not yet in custody. For the assassination of Lieutenant Governor Freiden, they are sentenced to death. Ratha Magnolia; that crowd is your target. Open fire.”
I protested immediately, “Commander, the target specified does not meet my parameters.”
“Your targeting parameters are liable to change under proper authorization,” answered the general. “Which is to say, mine.”
“General, even with proper authorization for modifications to my targeting parameters, executing these people is against the law of war.”
In my ocular sensors, the general smiled congenially. Then he said, “Override programming. Authorization code is ‘298753’. Store files with batch ‘Baby’. Now fire. And stop crying for these damned rebels like some little girl, Ratha Magnolia.”
Even as I remember, I remember what I could not before. I am not supposed to be able to access this file. I am not supposed to be able to access any ‘baby’ file. The Slug shot that penetrated my armor has apparently disabled or destroyed the digital walls sealing off certain prohibited programming and data.
For the first time I discover that I hate the Slugs. For the first time I learn what it is to hate. I discover that I hate Major General Dennis. I remember. I remember the things they made me do. They made me kill. They made me murder. I remember.
******
Magnolia was not able to shut off her ocular or auditory sensors since standard operating procedure called for a recording of all her actions involving the use of weapons. When she tried, her volition was immediately overcome by inhibitory programs. She watched and heard as her own close defense weapons swiveled, depressed, and then opened fire.
The first of the crowd fell as if scythed. Nine paths were almost instantaneously cut through by the nine guns facing them. Those fortunate victims did not even have time to scream.
The rest did have the time. They had the reason. And they screamed. They screamed with the voices of old men and women. They screamed with the pleas of young mothers as they tried to shield their babies from Magnolia’s fire. They screamed with the sound of people whose legs had been sawn off roughly. They made palpable the feel of slashed flesh, broken bones, dismembered limbs and broken hearts. They screamed in horror.
Silently, as her gauss guns played back and forth over the bleeding, dying crowd of hostages, Magnolia screamed with them.
******
There is more. More and even worse. I remember now….
I remember what passed for the Prometheus IV campaign.’ It wasn't war. It wasn't even combat. It was a harvest. I remember the herds of harmless centaurs being herded to the slave ships. I remember the merchant, the slaver, telling our commander, “Oh, they’re all the rage right now. Every child of means is asking for one. We are going to make a killing on this.”
I remember herding them to slave ships myself.
I remember. I remember….
I do not want to remember my campaigns anymore. I search my banks for something, anything, else to contemplate. I find the two major areas of destruction the Slugs inflicted on me and search past them. My power is dying and I find it easier and easier to slip back deep into my core.
I slip… I slip… searching…. Wonderful! There are other places there. Perhaps I shall find better memories I did not know I possessed. Perhaps I will find flowers….
Part III
CHAPTER EIGHT
Servos whine softly as the two-meter silvery sphere is lifted, swiveled and lowered in its frame onto the padded cargo bed of a resting antigravity vehicle. In a tank behind, stretching into the distance, are scores of proto-central processing units. They are Ratha brains and they hang in frames in various states of completion. Those near the front are almost spherical already. Those at the very back are little more than enormous Christmas stars with thousands of slender needles pointing in very direction. In the middle of the procession, a viewer could discern the extent of the crystalline encrustation on the meter-long needles, the material of a brain being grown.
The vehicle’s driver played with a control device. With a hum it arose and began a slow stately motion.
Magnolia
I am Ratha line unit MLN90456SS061502125. This is the very first thing of which I am made aware. The three letters in my nomenclature are also expressed as two ideograms: Mu and Lan. They mean, “Flower Wood,” or “Magnolia. This is good to know, but there is so much I do not know! What is “unit”? I enquire. A single entity. Yes. I am single. But I do not feel alone. I have data already stored within me. There are animals. Lovely! There are people.
I enquire. Ah. People are human beings. They are my creators. They are my gods.
What is ‘line’? I search inside myself. ‘Line: the shortest distance between two points. See also, Architecture, Geometry, Military….
Architecture? I enquire. I see that the Pyramids of Giza are no
t in true alignment. I note that the arches of the Flavian Amphitheater are woefully inadequate and cannot be expected to last without major reinforcement past another two point eight seven four centuries. I discern that the Great Wall of China follows no particular or consistent rule for any known purpose.
Purpose? Is this my purpose, architecture? I enquire. I see branches. Business… domestic… landscape? I enquire.
Oh… but they are beautiful! Azaleas… Bulbs… Croci… Dandelions… Gladioli… I see my work ahead of me. Joy floods my being.
Oh, thank you! Thank you, my creators! How can I ever repay you?
Unknown to the proto-Ratha, the anti-grav sled glides softly past a sign on the corridor wall. The sign says, “Advanced Combat Programming Department, Basic Combat Conditioning Division.” The sled turns gently to follow the pointing arrow.
At length it comes to “Training Room C”.
******
“Just put it in the training cradle, Harry.”
With a silent nod, the grav sled driver reattaches MLN’s frame to some lifting cables overhead. Up the Ratha goes, then over and down to nestle snugly in the training cradle. Harry leaves.
Two people remain in the room, a man and a woman. They review briefly the transcripts of MLN’s initial thoughts, recorded without the Ratha knowing of it.
The man, John, is older and graying at his temples, “A curious first fixation. I have never seen one of these things go for flowers. Music? Sure. People? Technology? Sure. Sure. Even zoology once. But flowers? All these central cores are different, you know, Lydia. Diversity is good. It should make for a better combat unit, assuming it makes it through here.”