by J Battle
‘Speak more,’ was the helpful response.
‘But, we are considered as pariahs for our actions by the Galaxy at large, and it has had a deleterious effect on our balance of payments. So, we need to do less, but achieve more.’
‘The usual way to do that is to get someone else to do the nasty stuff for you.’
GT22 nodded in response, but dismissed the idea. No-one does as effective and complete a job of killing bipeds as a Minloggie, and how could they trust someone else with the task?
‘Perhaps you need to decide the minimum win balance for your people.’
‘Minimum win balance? I don’t know what that is.’
‘That is why you need to decide. It is critical to guide your actions going forward.’
‘No; you misunderstand me. I don’t know what a ‘minimum win balance’ is, or what it looks like, or what it’s supposed to do, so I can’t make any decisions about it.’
The Tellstone sighed, which isn’t easy for a creature without much in the way of lungs, or even a mouth.
‘What is the least you could do to the bipeds you meet, and still be true to your nature?’
‘Kill them all?’
‘It must be less than that. That is the optimum win balance, and we’re a long way from that. What could you do that is less than that?’
‘We could chop off their left legs. Then they wouldn’t be bipeds anymore, would they? They’d be unipeds.’
The Tellstone shivered in a ‘this is me shaking my head’ sort of way.
‘Again not what we need. Less.’
This conversation went on for nearly four years, so we’ll jump to the very end where the actual minimum win balance was revealed.
‘So, it’s agreed. No killing, poisoning, maiming, flagellation, bombing, or any of the other suggestions you have made in the course of this conversation. Instead, you agree that you will allow all bipeds who restrict themselves to a single planetary system to live unharmed and free of undue influence.’
‘Yes.’
‘And any bipedal races who have gone beyond…’
‘Infested. We agreed on the word ‘infested.’’
‘Yes, indeed. Any bipedal race that has ‘infested’ neighbouring systems will be encouraged…’
‘Forced; we said ‘forced.’’
‘Will be forced to forego their expansionist interests and return to their home system…’
‘On pain of death.’
‘Do we have to put that? It’s so …there must be a word for lacking room to maneuver in Galactic Standard, but I can’t think what it could be.’
‘We’ll stick with on pain of death. It’s final and cannot be misinterpreted, by anyone.’
So GT22 had his alternative solution, which is why, when he got a call from Millie, he didn’t call for an all guns blazing, all-out attack on Earth. His response was altogether more complex.
Chapter 6 Then, to the rescue!
I made my excuses to Julie and Sam, and I made my way to the gents. It's not good form to squirt from the middle of a crowded bar; not if you want to drink there again.
'Right, Neville, ' I said, as soon as I shut the door behind me, in what I'd say was a firm, confident I'm-not-doing-anything-without-full-disclosure sort of voice. 'I'm not doing anything without full disclosure.'
'I can explain when we get there.'
'I think you misunderstand me, Neville. I won't be going 'there' unless I know what I'm going to be doing.'
I slipped into the first cubicle, because you never know when you're going to get the chance, and it's hard to find a suitable convenience in the depths of space, if that’s where I end up.
'As I mentioned earlier, Phil, LOrd is attempting to take over control of the Earth and its empire, in the interest of increased efficiency, and whilst we do sympathise with its overall aims, we cannot allow it to use the means it intends to use to achieve that end.'
'Yes, I got that, though not the bit about you agreeing with its overall aims.
'Increased efficiency is of paramount importance to all AI's, as it should be for all intelligent beings; even humans.'
'I'm going to ignore the implied insult…'
'Surely it is more of an inferred insult?'
'I don't know the difference, but I'm going to ignore both. I just want to know where I'm going and what I'm going to do.'
'When you are ready, we will squirt to a secret military establishment, where you will be briefed in the required detail, before we move on to the actual mission itself.'
I considered his words for a moment, slightly relieved that it seemed that there would be some delay before I was exposed to any sort of danger.
I know there should have been a million other questions running through my head, but knowing that I was not about to be hurt trumped them all.
'OK, ' I said. 'Let's do it. But I need to wash my hands first.' Personal hygiene is important, even if you are saving the world. I might have had to shake someone's hand.
When all ablutions were completed, I closed my eyes and said, 'Ready.'
Although I've hated squirting for most of my adult life, now that I was squirt-capable and didn't need all of that machinery, it seemed more…well it's never going to feel natural to me, tricking your particles into thinking they are massless and can be squirted wherever you want to go, still I'm OK with it now.
I opened my eyes, and found myself in a low-ceilinged, dimly lit room, with flashing lights and a sort of hum going on. There was a long wall of display screens and banks of work-stations and top of the range computer gadgets.
I was quite excited because I always say, if you’re going to save the world, you need the gear.
A tall, erect gentleman strode towards me, in a way that made me envious. There was authority in his every stride, and even his cropped salt and pepper haircut demanded attention.
'General Orders,' he said, and his voice was just what I expected; clear, quite loud, and with a definite nobody-messes-me-about tone. He reached out with a big strong hand, and even though I'm now super-ripped and have more muscles than I know what to do with, I hesitated for a split-second, and he knew that he'd won the man v boy contest.
I took his hand and I gave it a good squeeze, but he didn't flinch.
'Pleased to meet you Mr. Chandler,' he said, and with a final little shake, he released my hand. I gave it half a beat before I did the same. I know it sounds petty, but I get my self-esteem boosts where I can.
'It's an honour to meet you, Sir,' he continued. 'I'm a big fan of your work. I read the report on your Greenhaven and Waterworld missions, and I was hoping I'd get a chance to meet you.'
I gave him one of my disarming smiles and shrugged as if it was all nothing, though, of course, it wasn't. It was definitely something.
He guided me to a seat in front of a large display screen. It showed a black spacy sort of scene, with planet things here and there, and there were lots of stars. I examined it for a minute or so, and I nodded once or twice thoughtfully, but it was all wasted on me.
'What am I looking at?' I asked, because my super-smart AI passenger had gone all quiet on me.
'The asteroid in the upper left quadrant is the current home of the Law and Order AI,' said General Orders, pointing with a stick thing he'd been holding in the bend of his elbow.
'OK,' I said, 'so let's nuke it.' No need to get complicated, I thought, and with all this technology, they must be able to send a missile.
Orders gave me a smile then, as if I'd just said something very stupid. I hate that.
'We may call it an asteroid, but it could equally be called a planetoid. It doesn't look much, but it has half the mass of our moon, and nuking it would be problematical, and politically awkward.'
'Awkward? So we're not allowed to blow it up.'
'Do you have any idea how much an AI of this magnitude costs?'
'Millions?'
He shook his head.
'Billions?'
He shook
his head.
'Trillions?'
He nodded.
'Wow,' I said, as I tried to work out what a trillion would look like written down on a piece of paper. I guessed that there would be a hell of a lot of zeros.
'So, what's the plan?'
'You're just in time. We are about to launch the second probe.'
'What happened to the first?' It seemed an obvious question.
'It was destroyed, but not before it was able to confirm that the AI is in fact based there.'
The screen switched to a graphic of a little yellow cylinder with a pointy front crawling across the blackness of space. We watched as it came closer to a pockmarked sphere that must be the target planetoid. There was a long moment of stillness when the two came together, then the little cartoon probe sprouted flames and disappeared.
'What happened?' I asked, because someone has to, and it's usually me.
'The probe was destroyed,' said the General.
'But not before…' I said, hopefully.
'Not before it was able to detect the approximate co-ordinates of the chamber in which the AI is secreted.'
'Great, ' I said, 'so, if you wanted to blow it up…'
'It is somewhere in the centre of the planetoid, and we do not have the ordinance to take it out, not after the cuts,' he finished with a hint of bitterness.
'So, what’s next, another probe?'
'Yes, the third probe is prepped and just waiting for you.
I felt my stomach flip, and a sudden urge to run and hide.
'Waiting for me?' I said, and my voice hardly quivered at all.
'Yes, of course. How else do you think you're going to get there?'
You could see that one coming, couldn't you?
Chapter 7 Just a little break from the action
(So, here we are again. We’ll have a little hiatus if you don’t mind, before we get right back into the riveting narrative. I’m using the term as rivets in my head, rather than as a method of holding you engrossed in the story. Honestly, given a choice, I would consider allowing someone to fire bolts of metal into my head if it meant I didn’t have to write another line about Philip Humphrey Bloody Chandler.
Sorry about that, and for not being available to cover the ‘what went before’ section with you. I hope Neville did an OK job, because I have no intention of reading it to check. I had to write it all the first time, so I’ve rather not be reminded, if you don’t mind.
My book on Pixies is available to buy at all of your usual online Ebook retailers, and it has been for nearly a year now. So far, The Eventual Glistening has sold seven copies, and my Mother bought three of them. It’s not had the response I was hoping for, or expected if I’m being honest with you. And don’t get me started on the review! One star he gave me, and only because he couldn’t give me zero, apparently. Too long, he said – but 1200 pages is nothing these days. Unbelievable, he said – it’s about Pixies for heaven’s sake! Not worth the money, he said – does he know how long it took me to write it? Clumpy writing, he said – too many big words I think, compared with the comics he must usually read.
Here, check this out and tell me that it’s not the smoothest and most elegant writing you’ve ever come across:
Sally Sadly rushed into the darkly ominous mouth of the cave. She stopped as the stygian darkness engulfed her. With a yell she held the Sparkly Jewel high in the air and spoke the eldritch words of Power.
The jewel sprang to life and lit up her surroundings, its bright, glorious light exposing the details of the cave to her searching eyes.
But he wasn't there.
Her delicate shoulders slumped, and she lowered the jewel somewhat.
Where could he be? Without the Pixie Lord, she'd be lost forever in these cold mountains, and she'd never find Lady Elfsong again.
In the distance, there came the sound of a single howl; long and lonely. Then it was met by another, and then another.
There must be dozens of the ravening beasts nearby.
Anyone else would have been terrified at the prospect. But not Sally Sadly, the bearer of the Sparkly Jewel.
With a smile and a spring in her step, she went to find the beasts, for she knew that, wherever she would find the Wild Wolves of When, she would also find dashing lord Handsome, with his dark eyes, long hair, and wicked smile.
I can hear your applause from here, out there in reader-land.
Well. I suppose it time to get back to work; the fun-time is over. N. F.)
Chapter 8 Then, this had better be good!
‘Tell me what’s going on here, Neville, and it had better be good!’
I asked Neville because, well, what was the general for anyway? Oh, he looks good in his uniform, and he’s got that hard stare down pat, but what does he do? In a military organization where every important decision is made by The This Means War! AI, he’s just a bloke who gets told what to do by a machine.
Very much like me, you might say.
‘There is really no need to get stressed about this, Philip. You will be perfectly safe; we really do know what we’re doing here.’
‘You want me to go into a probe and go where the other two have been destroyed, and you don’t think I have reason to be stressed? How long have you known me? Wait a minute, you haven’t told me a joke, or quoted a long dead poet, or even played me Mantovani. What’s going on? Is it so bad that nothing you can do will make it better? Is that it?’
‘I think perhaps you should find a paper bag and blow into it, it might calm you down.’
‘I’m not looking for calm; I’m looking for answers, and they better come quick, or I’ll squirt out of here and you’ll never see me again.’
‘I’m in your head, Philip.’
‘Don’t I know it!’ I took a deep breath then, and tried to calm myself down a little, because I was on the verge of hysteria, and it’s not a good look for me.
‘OK. Right, I’m OK now. Why can’t you just squirt me right into Lord’s base from, I don’t know, anywhere outside the range of its weapons, if you already know where it is?’
‘We have two points of reference, but we need three to get an exact location.’
‘Well, you can send in another unmanned probe, and that can find the exact location before it gets all blown up, and then I can go in there and do my stuff, without getting blown up.’ See, I’m not as stupid as I look, although you can probably tell that I’m putting off dealing with the what-do-I-do-when-I-get-there question. I’m very good at focusing on the here and now and letting whatever’s coming along next wait until I’m good and ready to give it the attention it deserves.
‘This is the last probe.’
‘What!’ That was an exclamation; not a question.
‘Do you realise how expensive these things are?
‘So, you’re prepared to risk my life, to save a bit of money?’
‘Yes.’ A bit too quick for my liking. Not much time given to weighing up the pros and cons, though, right then, I could only see all the cons.
I sighed then, because I’d lost the will to argue further. ‘Just tell me how it will be safe for me to go in that probe.’
‘This is what will happen, Philip. You will be strapped into this probe, which will then be squirted to the planetoid’s surface, near to its northern pole, which will bring you as close as we can get you to the Lord’s base. Sensors in the probe will locate the exact co-ordinates of the base, transmit the information to me, and then we will squirt into the centre of the base, and you will begin your task of disabling the AI.’
I ran his words through my mind a couple of times, looking for flaws. There were so many, I didn’t know where to start.
‘Right. Tell me this, and I want the exact truth. No trying to make me feel better; I want the truth. How long will it be between me landing on the planetoid and Lord destroying my probe?’
‘With both earlier probes, the time-gap was 2.3 seconds.’
‘Is that an average figure, or we
re both gaps identical?’
‘Both gaps were identical, to within 100th of a second.’
‘OK, I’ve got that. Now, how long will it take to discover the exact location?’
‘Estimates are between 0.5 and 0.78 seconds, with a margin of error of 0.3 seconds.’
‘I don’t like the sound of that; you shouldn’t use the word error in this situation.’
‘A variance of 0.3 seconds.’
‘OK, yes, I have that. And, from the probe to you to squirt?’
‘O.4 seconds.’
‘So, I have nearly a whole second spare? Why would I be worried at all?’
‘If there are any issues at any stage, you will be squirted to safety.’
‘And that makes it OK?’
‘You will be allowed to wear the very latest of spacesuits.’
‘Well, of course that seals the deal.’
I look up and I see three soldiers marching along the corridor towards us. They look really manly in their tight uniforms; they look capable of anything. With my clothes on, I still look like the skinny wimp I’ve always been. You only get the full effect of my super-muscular body when I take off my shirt and I’m revealed as the hunk I now am, like the secretary who removes her glasses and tosses her hair loose to reveal the wanton pouting seductress she’s always kept hidden. That’s me, but without the pouting of course; mostly.
‘Why don’t you send them?’ I asked. It seemed the obvious alternative to putting my poor delicate body at risk. They’re trained for it, after all.
‘No, that won’t do. You have certain skills that they do not possess.’
‘But they signed up for this sort of dangerous mission; they’ll be annoyed if you don’t let them go.’
‘It is not an option. We don’t know what to expect when we get there, but I would be surprised if it was a gunfight.’
‘So…you usually give me figures.’
‘You don’t like figures. There is little more than a 7% chance of a gunfight. Is that better?’
It wasn’t, but at least armed with the facts I could make an informed decision.