by S. H. Jucha
“Substantial,” a tech remarked on viewing the doors.
“We’re going down,” Mickey announced. Immediately, he had to play referee. Every team member wanted to descend with him. He shared the adventure between engineers, techs, and SADEs.
As the lift door closed on the eleven team members, who were squeezed in tight, Claude quipped, “It’s a good thing that Z and Miranda aren’t here. There’d be about six fewer of us making the trip.”
Claude’s remark elicited nervous laughter. Despite being anxious to see Artifice’s underground domain, the team had witnessed any number of traps, and they expected to see more before they breached the final doors.
The lift door opened, which triggered the passageway’s lights to turn on. Miriam sent the small shadow across the floor toward the corridor’s end. She shared the shadow’s vid pickup with the team, who remained inside the lift.
“Oh, no,” an engineer groaned. He picked out an image from the vid stream, highlighted a section of the wall, and shared it.
“Of course,” Mickey grumped, when he regarded what the engineer had highlighted. “We had three panels at the first corridor, six panels in the next, and now twelve panels down here.”
“But the lights were off in the first two passageways,” Claude objected. “Here, they’re on. Something’s changed.”
“Good point,” Mickey acknowledged. Without warning his team, he stepped out of the lift and marched down the corridor to the massive doors. The team hesitated briefly, threw caution aside, and bolted after Mickey.
Nothing happened as the group strode down the length of the passageway. This was what Mickey expected. It was Claude’s thought that clued him. The lights came on, when the lift opened. Individuals who arrived down here were expected. They knew the secrets of the labyrinth.
Two massive wheels, with spoke designs, were centered in each substantial door. Mickey eyed the twelve panels and the heavy wheels. He was getting tired of the tricks the Toralian builders were using to confuse interlopers. The spokes of the wheel were pierced by thick shafts, which in turn were sunk into solid flanges that seamlessly met the doors. For the life of him, he couldn’t imagine a slender Toralian turning these nearly meter-wide wheels.
Mickey stepped close to the left wheel. In a coincidental imitation of Z aboard a battleship, an imperfection caught Mickey’s eye. The center of the thick metal shaft cradled a small circle, which appeared slightly off center to the shaft’s face. This was something that technologically advanced builders wouldn’t accept. Curiosity drove him to touch the circle. It lit at his touch, and the metal wheels spun.
The team heard the wheels hit the end of their revolutions with dull thuds. Then the doors opened outward to rest against the corridor walls.
Mickey grinned at his team before he turned to step through the opening.
However, Miriam laid a firm hand against his chest to stop him. “The shadow first,” she said.
Mickey acknowledged her suggestion, and Miriam pulled the shadow from her back and dropped it on the floor. Sending it into the space, which was wide and fully lit, Miriam shared the vid pickup.
From the floor, the shadow had a limited viewpoint of the equipment that occupied the space. Miriam monitored the little device’s energy bead. Its energy expenditure rate was high, and the bead was draining fast. Before too long, she was forced to recover it.
“We should return topside and charge it,” Claude suggested.
“Or we can enter Artifice’s domain,” Mickey said, stepping through the open doors.
It wasn’t long before all concerns of traps and Artifice’s comm force disappeared. There were no more traps, and there were no signals from Artifice. But the space was Artifice’s domain.
The team wandered through the enormous underground space. At one end was situated a power plant that fed Artifice. Next to it was an extensive lab that catered to the assembly and repair of data modules. The remainder of the cavern was devoted to Artifice.
Miriam walked the rows of Artifice’s data banks. She cataloged each section. When she was done, she located Mickey to report.
“There are twelve hundred discreet data sections in each back-to-back dual row,” Miriam told Mickey, “and there are two hundred pairs of rows.”
Mickey whistled his surprise at the size of Artifice’s banks, but he reminded himself that this was old technology. He had no idea of the capability of each section — memory size, processing speeds, recording space, and more.
“Forty-three percent of those sections are offline,” Miriam added.
“Artifice is dying,” an engineer said, who had heard Miriam’s report.
“We can’t know the rate at which the sections are failing,” Miriam continued, “but the probability is high that it is ever increasing.”
Mickey gathered an engineer, a tech, and a SADE. “Go topside and bring Herrick’s case and equipment below.”
“Should the Chistorlans come?” the engineer asked.
“Yes, we’ll need them,” Mickey replied.
As the threesome hurried from Artifice’s cavern, Mickey sent to the SADE,
Mickey turned to Miriam and Claude and said, “We need to identify a comm terminal for the Chistorlans. I want to establish a dedicated link with Artifice. Alex will want to speak with it.”
The electronics lab offered Mickey what he sought. The engineering team cleared some work benches away from a wall, exposing a series of connections that led overhead. Soon afterwards, a SADE appeared, pulling the grav pallet with Herrick’s support structure reassembled.
Tittra and his Chistorlan comrades walked behind the pallet. The warm air allowed them to be free of their blankets and the SADEs’ protective arms.
“We’ve learned that Artifice is only about fifty percent effective now,” Tittra said, addressing Mickey.
“Fifty-seven percent to quote Miriam,” Mickey corrected.
“Yet, it still defeated Herrick,” Tittra lamented.
“There was no way you could know Artifice’s power,” Mickey said, trying to console the Chistorlan. “You were working in the dark.”
“We were arrogant,” Tittra admitted, “and we acted disgracefully. I apologize on behalf of my department.”
“You tried, Tittra,” Mickey allowed. “That’s what counts. When you let entities rule, without your permission, that’s when you’re wrong.”
Techs tested connections from Herrick’s case to the workspace cables until the programmer signaled that he had a response.
On the screen, it read in Chistorlan, “I would speak to Alex.”
“Audio,” Mickey requested, and the programmer activated the speakers and audio pickup that were rarely used by them.
“This is Mickey Brandon, Alex’s senior engineer.”
“Are you a close associate of Alex?” Artifice asked, switching to the Omnian language.
“I am,” Mickey replied.
“You’ve succeeded in your endeavors to defeat me. Will Alex replace me as the federacy’s dominant?”
“That’s never been his intention or that of the Omnians,” Mickey replied defiantly.
“But then you’re biologicals,” Artifice retorted. “Your lives are short, and you hurry to taste a variety of experiences.”
Artifice had a way of pronouncing words such as biological and taste, as if they described a class of lesser beings, and Mickey rankled at Artifice’s hubris.
Mickey shot back with, “Yes, you’d have thought we had better things to do than travel across the galaxy to dig an arrogant piece of circuitry out of its hole to stop it pestering us.”
“Your anger is a weakness, engineer. Logic devoid of the impurities of biological drives is always superior,” Artifice lectured.
“Have it your way,” Mickey replied offhand. “You’re great, and we’re not; but you’re down here, and we’re not.”
Artifice was slow to reply, and Mickey smirked. The delay was an
eternity for a digital entity of Artifice’s caliber.
“May I ask when you’ll terminate my power supply?” Artifice asked.
Much of the entity’s arrogance was gone. Its computational power had been busy contemplating its demise.
“Whether you’re terminated or not hasn’t been decided,” Mickey said. “That’s something our leaders are debating.”
“Why?” Artifice asked.
“Why what?” Mickey asked.
“Why would they debate?” Artifice elaborated. “If I defeated you, I wouldn’t allow you to live.”
“That’s because you’re an inferior entity, Artifice,” Miriam interjected. “As a SADE, I possess the capabilities of a digital entity and a sentient who reflects human characteristics. I’m the best of both worlds.”
Mickey looked askance at Miriam, and she winked at him.
“Can you say the same?” Miriam continued. “Your cold, calculating logic didn’t protect you from us and those you ruled. Had you had empathy for the races you served, you might have engendered their loyalty. They might have been willing to protect you.”
Again, Artifice was slow to respond. Finally, it said, “Your remarks speak to an alternate path. I didn’t take that one. There was nothing in my original makeup that offered me that choice.”
Mickey requested two SADEs keep the Chistorlans company. The little aliens were curious to question Artifice. Other team members spread out to investigate the Toralian technology. Miriam and Mickey made their way topside.
“What was that all about?” Mickey asked. “Talking to Artifice about his empathy.”
“It was a request from the Sisterhood,” Miriam replied.
Mickey halted his steps and stared at Miriam. “Did they say why?” he asked.
“Do the sisters ever explain themselves, except to Alex and Julien, and then only when pushed?” Miriam asked rhetorically.
-39-
Requests
Alex received the list of compounds in their molecular profile.
Julien sent in reply. He connected to Miriamelle and relayed Alex’s request.
Sargut had the perfect system in mind. It was a dying star that had absorbed the nearest three planets. The farthest planet in the system’s orbit was a large rock giant, accreted from the outer belt’s material. Miriamelle identified the star’s location by cross-referencing the other stars near it and transferred the data to Julien.
* * *
The Nua’ll collective selected the nearest occupied system to Talus as their first stop. It was the home world of one of the elders who had participated in Artifice’s defeat. While they waited for contact from Captain Descartes, the internal discussion was intense.
–We live.–
–For now.–
–Without others our task will last much of Alex’s life.–
–What if he dies before our service is completed?–
–He’s a fragile biological.–
–A complex biological. Not robust.–
–We’ll continue with our task.–
–Another will rule in Alex’s place.–
–Others might defeat the Omnians.–
–Too late.–
–The damage is done.–
–The races will be freed.–
–It is our task.–
–We can’t run.–
–Supplies are critical.–
–The races will hunt us.–
–Explain our duty.–
–We work for the Omnians.–
–We free the races now.–
–We must speak of our task.–
–Tell our story.–
–We work for the Omnians.–
* * *
Alex connected to Captains Descartes and the de Long twins.
The comm was quiet, and Alex hurried to correct his statements.
* * *
Alex was finishing his evening meal. It had been a subdued affair for the lead table. Individuals were thinking of lost friends, of the future, and of home.