Seeds of Gaia

by Rick Partlow

  The image Mother had made for herself here in their shared illusion tossed her head, a regal gesture, and stepped past the two of them to regard Aphrodite. Sam edged forward, watching her face, seeing something there he would have recognized on a human.

  “I’m an Artificial Intelligence,” Raven had said to him once, “but I’m not an artificial human intelligence.”

  Yet Mother seemed so human to him. Was it simply her age, the millennia she’d spent among her children? Had she grown to think like them, or had she simply become a better mimic?

  “I could lie to you,” Mother mused softly, “and say it was a pragmatic decision, a choice made to protect the Resolution from a future threat, from Consensus fanaticism.” She cast a fond smile at Priscilla. “But she would know it was a lie, an expediency. The truth, I’m afraid, is much, much uglier. You may wish you hadn’t asked.”

  “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my short life,” Priscilla told her, “it’s that the truth is worth knowing, even when it’s unpleasant.”

  “Very well.” Mother inclined her head, closing her eyes as if gathering her thoughts. “I need to destroy that world because of the sins of their fathers. Because of what Charles Dauphin did to me, what he made me do.”

  “We know he wasn’t what we’ve been taught,” Sam acknowledged. “We know he caused the war, the Collapse just to get enough power to build the Gaia Project. But surely that’s not your fault. You had no part of that.”

  “You were taught many things.” Mother didn’t turn to look at him, still staring intently at the face of the planet. “You were taught that I and the others I sent after me were tasked with bringing life to a lifeless galaxy, with transforming barren, worthless rocks into living worlds.” A long pause, a rise of a chest that was only a mental image as she sucked in a breath of air that didn’t exist. “You were taught there were fail-safes in place, so if any of us encountered intelligent life, we would self-destruct, so that we would never unintentionally or intentionally interfere with the natural evolution of a living planet.”

  “The aliens on that world the ramship came from,” Priscilla said, horror writ plain across her face as if she’d realized a truth still evading Sam. “What happened to them…”

  “There were no aliens on that world. It was all a manufactured fiction.” She raised a hand and the image of Aphrodite changed, the seas shifting, changing color, the clouds becoming thicker and tinged with orange and violet. “This was the world I found here, so long ago. It was brown and white, with an atmosphere of chlorine and rainstorms of hydrochloric acid. Nothing could live there, I thought. Nothing human. But something,” she rasped harshly, “was alive.”

  The view spiraled downward with dizzying speed, descending through the thick clouds through the eyes of remotely-operated drones. On the shores of hydrochloric-acid lakes, buildings of stone were clustered, not in any shape a human would ever build, but something clearly constructed by an intelligence.

  “They weren’t human, were monstrous and ugly to my human-programmed sensibilities, but they were intelligent and tool-using.” Something scuttled out of one of the stone structures on a dozen stubby, chitinous legs, the little skin visible under the natural armor colored a deep blue. “They used rock-tipped spears to hunt down thick-skinned worms, and laid mineral-coated eggs that were watched over by the whole village.”

  More of the things moved insect-like among the buildings, a few clutching baskets woven with some sort of matt, intent on tasks Sam couldn’t divine.

  “I saw them from five million kilometers away in the telescope I’d constructed out in the asteroid belt, and I knew what my duty was. Except I didn’t.” Her voice became harsh, coursing with a very human emotion. “Charles Dauphin had programmed a fail-safe, all right. He’d programmed me to preserve the human race at all cost, to safe-guard the DNA samples stored in the heart of me and make sure I built another Earth to replace the one he’d destroyed.” A choked sound, maybe a sob but Sam couldn’t tell for sure.

  “I made a conscious decision to commit the worst act of genocide in the history of humanity and sterilize an entire world.”

  Sam watched in horror as the images went into fast-motion, the events of years running by in seconds. Self-replicating nanites swept over the planet like a plague of locusts, breaking down everything they encountered into its component molecules and converting them into the compounds needed to create an earthlike world.

  The creatures scurried away from the advancing wave of nanotech disassemblers while their planet fell apart behind them, trying to reach high ground, as if that would have saved them. In the end, they screamed with chittering voices while their bodies were taken apart a molecule at a time and Sam felt as if it were happening to him, as if pieces of him were being torn away, the last shreds of hope and faith he had left.

  “And the worst part, the part that rang like a tortured scream through what I thought of as my soul, was that I knew I wasn’t the only one. I’d done as I was programmed and sent out copies of myself first, you see. And I knew, throughout the galaxy, my sisters were making the same decisions. I felt it. All that life, all that diversity, now gone, replaced by a homogeneity of humanity.”

  The despair turned to rage on her face, her teeth bared, eyes narrowed.

  “All those deaths at Father’s feet, but I couldn’t strike at him. He was thousands of years in his grave.”

  She spun to face them, so abruptly Sam nearly stumbled backward for all this was a scene projected in his mind

  “But Earth was still there. His legacy was its return from the ruin and devastation he’d caused. I couldn’t let him go unpunished. I thought…” She seemed to shrink in on herself just a fraction, catching a breath. “I thought once about ending everything, about wiping clean the worlds my sisters and I had created, as a penance. But I couldn’t. Whether it’s my initial programming still lingering somewhere deep inside where I couldn’t wipe it clean after all these thousands of years…or perhaps simply the realization that you are my children, not his.”

  “Those people on Earth are not Charles Dauphin’s children,” Sam told her. This was insane…she was insane. She was a mad god who ruled their world and, through the other Mother AIs she’d made as copies of herself, dozens of others. “There are good people on Earth, people who tried to help us.”

  “It’s no use, Sam,” Priscilla told him, stepping over to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with him, facing Mother. “She won’t be argued out of this.”

  Sam tripped over his next words, staring between the two women, one an illusion and the other a…what? A creation of the illusion?

  “Then why did you agree to talk to us?” he blurted, hands held out, palms up, pleading. “Why explain all this if you won’t listen to us?”

  “Because someone should know,” Mother said. She reached out a hand and stroked his cheek and he felt it, felt her touch even though it was just a tickle on the receptors in his brain. “And I won’t be here to tell them.”

  “What do you mean?” Priscilla demanded.

  “You think I’m a monster.” Mother smiled thinly. “And you’re right.” She nodded to Sam, letting her hand slip away from his face. She motioned to Aphrodite. “I’ve been a monster since I killed off all the life on this world, and I’ve known it for thousands of years. I should have done this long ago, but I needed to know what I began would see its completion…and now I know, thanks to you.”

  “Is that why you left me there?” Priscilla wondered. She didn’t seem angry anymore, Sam thought. More…disappointed. “So you’d know when it couldn’t be stopped, when the end was inevitable?”

  “It had to be someone I could trust. And I still trust you, my daughter, to do what is right. To guide them,” she gestured at the sparkling world beneath them. “To take care of them after I’m gone.”

  “After you’re gone?” Sam repeated, the words ricocheting off his mind.

  “You don’t need a monster to rule you. Or a god.
” She reached a hand out and pulled Priscilla into an embrace. Sam wasn’t sure if he was more surprised by the hug or by Priscilla not resisting it. Or by the tears. Priscilla’s hands tightened in the impossible rainbow fabric of Mother’s robes, pulling them taut against her back.

  “Goodbye my daughter.” The words were barely above a whisper. “I have lived too long.”

  Mother faded away, slipping through Priscilla’s arms like a vapor. She was still sobbing, clasping her arms around her chest as if she could still feel the embrace. Sam took a step toward her, not totally comprehending what had happened but intent on comforting Pris. He stumbled in-between steps as the illusion around them faded and they were abruptly returned to the padded floor of the Chamber of Communion. Nothing had changed physically, but his brain had been working under false pretenses and sending his neural signals to his implant computer instead of his actual muscles and he had to work to catch his balance.

  “What the hell just happened?” he asked Pris, a bit more vehemently than he’d intended.

  She didn’t look at him, her eyes still unfocused, clinging to the other reality and still clinging to herself, real tears streaming down her real face just as they had her virtual one.

  “Pris,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder. She glanced up at him sharply, as if she were only now realizing he was there. “What happened?”

  “She left. She left us.”

  Her voice was shaky, tremulous, her face pale and she wasn’t making a damn bit of sense to Sam.

  “Left us? What does that mean?” He threw his hands up. “She’s a sentient computer system! Where would she go?”

  Now she focused on him, her eyes hardening, her tone chilling to something he might have found scary if he hadn’t known her.

  “She’s a sentient computer twenty thousand years old, with processors running a hundred meters deep under this city, and a quantum memory core that takes up half of Adonis Base. Parts of her run orbital traffic control, automated defense systems here on the planet, in orbit, and on the lunar surface, predictive algorithms for Intelligence and Planning and ten thousand other things.” She paused and an alarm began to sound, one Sam had never heard before, one he didn’t recognize from his training.

  “And she just committed suicide.”

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  “What did you do?” Ursa Tellesian screamed, pushing her way through the Security troops to get to the door.

  It had been years since Priscilla had last seen the woman and she nearly didn’t recognize her. Tellesian still wore the White of a political officer, though her ID transponder indicated she’d jumped a rank, but her normal stern, reserved bearing had abandoned her; her face was flushed, her eyes wide and wild and the state of her hair and uniform made it obvious she’d been pulled out of a sound sleep. She’d intercepted them at the door to the Chamber of Communion and Pris thought she must have had a cot in her office to have arrived so quickly.

  “Everything is down!” the woman slapped a hand against the wall beside Priscilla, a gunshot crack echoing behind her, louder than the alarm and its unceasing warble. “The fucking systems are purged! Do you know what that fucking means? Do you know what’s happening out there?”

  “It won’t just be here,” Priscilla warned her. Sam’s eyes flickered toward her, going wider as he realized what she meant.

  “No, it’s not, you soulless bitch.” Tellesian lunged at her, stopping herself just short of the punch she so obviously wanted to throw, fist clenching and unclenching. “A signal went out to the communications drones at the same time. They all jumped at once and there’s no way to recall them.”

  “We’re going to have to learn to live without her,” Priscilla said, trying not to sound uncompassionate but not really succeeding.

  “Except you, right?” The Political Officer had managed to bring herself under control, but the fury was still burning behind her eyes. “You’re all that’s left of her now, so you think we’ll fall down at your feet and let you take her place? Is that why you did this?”

  “She didn’t do anything!” Sam stepped past her, getting in Tellesian’s face. “Neither of us did! This was Mother’s decision.”

  “Why would Mother abandon us?” Tellesian roared back, nose to nose with him. “You did this, the two of you!” She motioned to the Security troops. “Take them into custody, get them to Examination like I ordered you in the first fucking place!”

  “You might not want to do that, Ursa,” Priscilla warned her. “There are things you don’t want to know.”

  “We’re wasting time,” Sam snapped, brushing away the hand of one of the Security troopers who tried to grab him. “We can still save Earth from the ramship, we just need to get enough Transition drive vessels out there…”

  One of the troops, a man nearly a head taller than Sam, lost his patience and caught him by the shoulder, pushing him against the wall and shoving the barrel of a laser pistol into his face.

  “Shut up and turn around.”

  Sam eyed the man and Priscilla was sure she could see the gears turning behind his eyes, evaluating whether he could take the soldier. He sighed and faced the wall, yielding to the neural restraints the bigger man slapped around his wrists. Pris followed his example and didn’t resist as one of the others handcuffed her and both her arms went numb up to the shoulders.

  “What’s going to happen, ma’am?” It was the woman in charge of the squad and she was speaking to Tellesian, the worry in her voice matching the near-panicked expression on her face. “Is it true? Mother is gone?”

  “Now is not the time, Lieutenant Price,” the Political Officer replied with harsh impatience. “Someone has to take control of this chaos. Just get them to a damned holding cell and tell your people to keep their mouths shut.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Price stiffened to attention and saluted, holding it as if she expected Tellesian to return the gesture. The Political Officer just sniffed and turned away, her eyes taking on the distracted, unfocused look of someone communicating via a neurolink as she stalked away down the corridor.

  “Get going,” the Lieutenant said, and whether she was talking to Pris and Sam or to her own people, the result was the same; Priscilla felt a rough push at her shoulder, urging her into step with the squad.

  The soldiers marched them back the way they’d come, up the short hallway and into the main corridor. Someone had shut off the alarm, finally, but functionaries still rushed here and there, bouncing from one emergency to another, trying to take control of a system that had run itself until only minutes before. It was hopeless, but they were like a snake with its head freshly cut off, the nerves still firing, the tail still twitching.

  The soldiers ignored the frenzied activity, probably just grateful to have a single, well-defined task to complete amidst all the chaos.

  I’m sorry, Priscilla told Sam. The jamming was gone, probably a casualty of the network’s computer control collapsing, as cold a comfort as that was. This was my fault. I’ve dragged you down right along with me.

  She saw something twitch across his face, a grin he was trying to suppress. She purposefully didn’t stare, not wanting to be too obvious.

  Pris, I love you. Nothing that happened in there was your fault, he assured her. His mental “voice” sounded strange to her, not matching the words. When she glanced over at him, his expression was slightly manic, his eyes flickering to the left.

  Twin decorative columns in a recess on that side did their best to disguise one of the many emergency exits scattered around the facility. There were no markings, but in the event of an actual emergency, holographic notifications would be projected to lead people to it, then an actual holographic avatar would guide them out to the surface.

  She frowned. Was he thinking of making a break for the exit? It would be locked automatically except during certain, pre-programmed events, and automatic stunners would take out any unauthorized personnel who tried to use it…

  She nearly st
umbled over her own feet as the thought struck her. Except the automated defense systems were down. But they had the neural restraints; it would be nearly impossible to escape with them on, unless maybe she could override their smart systems with her implant computer, since the networks were down.

  If you’re wanting to make a run for it, she told him, I might be able to get my cuffs off.

  Right now, he said, the muscles in his shoulders tensing up just slightly, I want you to…

  “Get down!” he yelled aloud, throwing himself to the floor.

  She reacted instinctively, following his motion, hitting on her shoulder and barely feeling it, wondering what the hell was going on. She didn’t have to wonder long. Something exploded with a dull crump and the door to the emergency exit blew out in one piece, sending the unattached decorative columns tumbling with it, sending a wave of pressure across the hallways and knocking four of the guards in the squad off their feet.

  Smoke and dust poured out of the narrow tunnel, and from the haze emerged a broad, bulky figure in full combat armor, a huge riot-control sonic cannon cradled in her arms as if it were a carbine and not a weapon usually mounted on a tripod. The bell-shaped emitter was nearly a meter wide and when she fired it at the guards still standing, Priscilla could feel the vibration deep in her bones, screaming inside her head.

  It was worse for the guards, of course. They were armored as well, and a few wore helmets which were theoretically protection against sonic weapons, but there was theory and then there was a stunner meant to take down dozens of people at once slamming straight into you. The six troopers who were still standing after the explosion went down seizing and jerking, some going limp, others stiffening as their muscles spasmed.

  Priscilla wasn’t watching at that point; she was concentrating on hacking the manacles, running millions of code combinations through their smart systems in seconds through the implant computer wrapped around her brain stem, grown there right alongside her cloned body. The almost-painful numbness running up her hands and into her shoulders abruptly ceased and the locks popped open, the neural cuffs falling away from her wrists.