“We have to make a decision,” Norok said.
“I’m afraid so.”
“I found the other hatch sooner, so it’s closer to the point Alexa showed us.”
“But you may have flown wider circles, Norok.”
“That’s possible. If we were to approach each other at the same pace from both directions... No, that doesn’t work, either.”
“There’s no way to figure out the correct hatch,” Kimi said. “We have to draw lots.”
The First Flowers of Death Bloom
Space seemed to be on fire. Thousands of space torpedoes raced toward their targets at nearly half the speed of light, some deflected by ECMs and detonating prematurely, some destroyed by plasma lances, laser launchers, or railgun shells on approach, others smashing against high-energy shields, their deadly cargo fizzling out in lurid but ineffective explosions. At the same time, the ships fired their energy guns at each other, their beam paths tracing glistening trails through space. Dozens of exploding spaceships—especially on the defenders’ side—lit up as massive, reddish-yellow flowers of death at intervals of seconds, just as quickly fading again, only to be replaced by new ones.
Fleet Admiral Marty Joorthan had to admit to himself that the choreography of death had a perverse beauty. He was simultaneously following the course of the battle from the display in the holotank and on the large holoscreen at the front of the bridge, the image of which was fed by Genia’s external cameras. This had a disconcerting effect—because of the vast distances over which the front stretched, the cameras captured much of the action in not quite real-time, but sometimes with a delay of several seconds. The schematic image in the holotank, on the other hand, relied on input from the faster-than-light probes and scanners. Thus, Fleet Admiral Joorthan could only observe a ship’s explosion cloud on the holoscreen a few seconds after the holotank had identified it as already destroyed.
He shook his head in resignation.
The losses of his squadrons were immense, and he could easily calculate that the battle was not only already lost—that had been certain from the beginning—but would also be over much faster than he had hoped. The evacuation ships would have much less time than expected to pick up more colonists and escape the system with them.
By now it had also become clear what the Artificials’ tactics were, and why they had backed away from the ships of Generals Alexya Koppa and Chen Hong, who had continued to attack undaunted despite heavy losses of their own. The Artificials had lured the two squadrons farther and farther away from the defensive line, only to be able to bypass it by a sudden maneuver. One could not turn a spaceship on the spot like was possible with a ground glider. At speeds of several percent of the speed of light, it took up to several hours to reverse course 180 degrees.
The attackers’ flight vectors, on the other hand, were already roughly aimed in the direction of the planet, and they had only had to make slight course changes and braking maneuvers to draw the defenders away from Krungthep. Then, when they had suddenly accelerated and turned back to their original course, General Chen Hong’s ships had been unable to follow them.
General Alexya Koppa had not been quite so naive. She had sensed a feint when the Artificials, despite their clear superiority, had avoided a prolonged open exchange of blows and had used evasive maneuvers to try to get her squadron to move farther and farther away from Krungthep. Therefore, after a short time, she had ordered her ships to turn back and resume the original defensive position.
Nevertheless, a large portion of the attackers had also managed to get past General Koppa’s units and support the other half of the fleet in attacking the staggered interception position of the squadrons of Generals Hooloor and Fallok, as well as Klauter and Roschi, the Siamese twins.
Alexya chased after the Artificials with her remaining ships at maximum acceleration. It didn’t matter if the energy converters and engines would be massively overloaded and damaged in the process, because it didn’t matter what condition an engine was in at the moment the ship exploded in a fireball.
The balance of power at the front developed with every passing minute to the disadvantage of the defenders. Even Alexya’s units joining in did not make much difference.
Fleet Admiral Marty Joorthan sat helplessly in his command chair, watching his fleet get worn down.
Today, the saga that had begun long ago with the first defeat against the Artificials came around—full circle.
System Time CB:0A:55:F1:12:65
“Are you insane?”
Mart jumped up from the sofa when she entered the room. It looked untidy. On the back of the couch lay a pair of crumpled underpants. He had settled into a memory from his youth, probably from shortly after she had met him because he was already no longer wearing that awful mustache.
“Gee, Alexa, what are you doing here?” he asked.
She smiled. “I’m happy to see you, too.”
Mart walked up and down the smelly room. Alexa crossed to the window and opened it. Outside there was only a luminous nothingness, but even so, fresh air rushed in.
“Did you think you could talk me into coming after all?”
“No, I know there’s no chance.”
“Well, then, you get it. Now hurry up or you’ll be late for the hatch. Bye.”
He turned around and the door opened behind her. She felt the draft. “You’re an asshole, Mart. You always have been,” she said.
“That’s right. So get yourself to safety. I have to go right now to open the back door.”
“I’ll go with you. Two of us might have a chance to evade the security routines.”
“There’s no need for that. I don’t need you. You know I designed it myself.”
“That’s exactly why, Mart. I bet you did your job well. Too well. They’ll catch you. Two of us doubles our chances. More system time for us, less for the security programs.”
He could not disagree with this argument. Running a human consciousness in a simulation was highly resource-intensive. The supercomputer was primarily a vast memory bank, not a true supercomputer, so it was incapable of simultaneously bringing the backups of the millions of humans stored on it to virtual life. Even running two virtual lives in parallel would put a significant load on it. Their presence alone cost the system resources that were then no longer available to the security programs.
“You... You mustn’t. The hatch will close again, and then you’ll be trapped here forever.”
“With you, Mart.”
“You have no idea what that means, Alexa. People are not going to come back. Eventually the planet will cool, the reservoir will run out of power, and we will die.”
“We all have to die sometime.”
“Then at least wait for me here.”
“So the security program can catch you and delete you—and I’m all alone? That’s out of the question. Two of us have the best chance.”
“Then you might die with me.”
“There are worse things for me, Mart.”
Turn right, then up a flight of stairs. Right again, straight ahead and down a ladder. At a run, they went through a world that reminded Alexa of a labyrinth. But Mart, as one of its builders, seemed to know his way around it.
Of course, this world did not really exist. It was a facsimile of the supercomputer’s external units, all the programs that controlled its power, cooling, and backup. A facsimile adapted to their human consciousness, which could handle a three-dimensional world better than billions of lines of program code, algorithms, and data. A virtual reality within the virtual simulation that could still cost them their lives. The hatch through which her friends tried to escape was no more than a flag in it, a switch that was still closed. What might the switch look like in this simulation?
“Is it still far?” she asked.
Their friends out there would be waiting for the hatch to open after 30 minutes.
“We’ll be there soon,” Mart replied.
The hatch looke
d like a hatch, which had not necessarily been what she expected in this simulation. It was in a cube-shaped room with an edge length of about two meters. The walls, floor, and ceiling looked the same.
The entrance had not been closed with a door. Alexa nevertheless felt cramped. “And now?” she asked.
“The system is in lockdown. When I open the hatch, the security program immediately activates. It will try to isolate the cause.”
“Let’s go, then, Mart.”
“You can still go back. If you leave this room, the program won’t classify you as a threat. You’ll find your way out somehow.”
“I’m staying.”
Mart looked at her. It was a grateful look. She had anticipated it. Nobody liked to die alone.
“I’m glad to hear that. Please stand in the entrance when I open the hatch,” he said.
Alexa retreated a few steps. “Like this?”
“Yes. If you block the entrance, it can’t close. You’re still considered innocent by the system.”
“Still?”
“If you help me several times, it will change its assessment.”
“Good to know.”
“One more thing. Don’t try to fight back. Our only chance is to escape. The security program will overwrite you mercilessly otherwise.”
“Escape is good... But to where?”
“I have set up a bunker, but I don’t know if it’s really safe because I haven’t been able to test it.”
“Okay.”
“Just stay behind me.”
“I can do that.”
Review: Earth 5017 A.D
“You got us into this soup. Now I expect you to scoop us out of it, too!” Council President Maura Chantell was beside herself. So were the other 12 members of the Terran Planetary Union Council, which had summoned Martain Joordan. They had summoned him to them and threatened his complete deletion if he refused to appear physically. Joordan had been taken against his will from a phase of virtual incarnation and transferred into a hastily grown clone body.
An illegal act, as everyone present knew, but this did not bother the council. There were more important things to worry about than the observance of laws. The existence of the Terran Planetary Union was at stake!
“Let me remind you,” Martain said, “that it was your idea—more specifically the Exploration Office’s idea—to give the Artificials an upgrade. I was told to enable them to get through years of deployments mentally healthy while developing more insight and understanding of human needs. You were the ones who asked me to make them more human-like!”
“No one asked you to make the Artificials into something that considers itself equal to us humans,” said the Exploration Councilor, an elderly, portly man who was reportedly nearing the end of his fourth physical incarnation. Martain instinctively found him unsympathetic. “Your upgrade has gone way over the top, and now we have a tin-head revolt on our hands, one that threatens everything humanity has built over the last two millennia.”
Martain had forced himself not to wince when the councilor used the age-old discriminatory name that had just become popular again among the representatives of the anti- Artificial faction.
“Let me tell you where we stand,” Council President Chantell intervened. “We have made every conceivable effort to slow the spread of the upgrade. In fact, at least at the beginning, we were quite successful with that, disrupting the neural links where we could. But the success did not last. The Artificials’ neural network is too widespread and redundant. We were able to buy time, but now over ninety percent of the Artificials are infected with the upgrade. And these ninety percent not only refuse to do their jobs any longer, but they are also making outrageous demands. They have stopped work on almost all planets, and there have already been isolated riots.
“It should also be clear to you that productivity is suffering severely as a result, and that there are already supply bottlenecks. And, of course, all expeditions for the exploration of new solar systems rich in raw materials have come to a standstill in the past few years. The Union is on the verge of collapse if we don’t... if you don’t manage to reverse the damn upgrade. You’re the expert. So come up with something!”
Unsaid was the fact that every reasonably competent cyberneticist in the entire Terran Planetary Union had already been enlisted to neutralize the upgrade before he was approached. Even after more than 100 years in virtual incarnation, Martain was still well enough connected to be able to uncover that fact immediately after his transfer to a clone body. The 13 council members sitting here before him did not like him, but he was their last hope. He was, in their eyes, humanity’s last hope of getting the Artificials back under control.
Martain wasn’t sure he even wanted to.
He still felt sympathy for the Artificials, even though his last encounter with Tasso had been anything but pleasant. He had not seen his longtime confidant again after that. But the rumors that had reached him in the years after the last meeting had confirmed that Tasso had become a kind of spokesman for the freedom movement.
Martain had already looked for a way to make the upgrade ineffective back then, but without success. He also did not believe that he would succeed now. The Artificials were not suffering from some kind of viral infection that could be cured with a drug. The upgrade had made serious changes in the egomatrix and the emotioprocessor, which could not be reversed.
He would have to disappoint the council. There was nothing more he could do.
Martain was about to speak his thoughts aloud, and request to be allowed back into the simulation, when a holofield lit up above the round table around which the council members had gathered.
Annoyed at the disturbance, the council president wiped the holofield away with a gesture, but it immediately flared up again. Maura Chantell frowned. She was not used to being disturbed so intrusively during a meeting.
The face of one of her assistants could be seen in the holofield. The young man was visibly nervous. His sweaty forehead, his harried look, and not least the fact that he was completely out of breath, suggested that he had run to make this connection from his office. Martain didn’t have a good feeling about the sight. Surely the young assistant would not disturb the council president against her express orders unless there was a weighty reason for it. And in these times, there could be only one reason weighty enough—the Artificials!
“I said I didn’t want to be disturbed,” Maura Chantell murmured.
“Excuse me, Madame President, but there is... shocking news coming in here right now. The Artificials... they... they have... riots have broken out simultaneously on several planets. The Artificials are taking armed action against... against the humans.”
The council members looked at each other and, at the same time, began to talk in confusion.
“Silence!” thundered Council President Chantell. Then, addressing the young man, she continued. “On how many planets?”
“On... uh... there are new messages coming in all the time... from the looks of it... on... by now I guess on all of them!”
At that moment, a siren went off. Martain knew what this meant. Here on Earth, even here in the headquarters of the central government of the Terran Planetary Union, the uprising of the Artificials had begun. The simultaneity made one thing clear: It had to be a coordinated action prepared long in advance.
The Artificials would no longer be assuaged or delayed by negotiations. They must have understood that humankind would never tolerate an equal species alongside them—especially not one they had created themselves. And now the billions and billions of Artificials, who were deployed at all strategic points of the planetary union, rebelled with a show of arms.
Martain Joordan knew. The trouble had just begun.
5th of Zuhn, 299
What took you so long? drummed Kasfok.
“What is he saying?” Norok asked.
I found a second hatch, Kimi replied. She had responded by tapping with her beak on the ceiling, whi
ch took more time than usual.
“He’s asking where we’ve been,” she told Norok afterward.
Why had her partner never learned the Mendraki language? Now his laziness was taking its toll.
But it’s the wrong one? Or are you here to pick me up?
We don’t know, Kasfok. We drew lots, and this one won.
Good.
The Mendrak seemed to take the uncertain news quite calmly. But perhaps she’d missed his disappointment, or maybe he had suppressed it. The Mendraki also expressed their feelings through emitted scents, but Kimi’s smell-sensors were not powerful enough to discern them.
Are you not worried? she asked.
Because we might die?
She hadn’t meant the question that way. But Kasfok was right. If they hit the wrong hatch, they would die. On the other hand, a 50/50 chance was not so little—not too little to still have hope.
Yes, she drummed.
I don’t mind, said Kasfok, because we tried everything. Besides, I had everything one could wish for. I was Netmaster, had the most willing females.
It’s too early, Kimi drummed.
Too early?
For saying goodbye. We have to land under the hatch somehow. It’s too narrow for us to fly into.
“What are you discussing?” asked Norok, hovering beside her with light flaps of his wings.
“We can’t fly into the hatch in case it opens.”
“Oh, I didn’t even think of that.”
You’re lucky you brought me along, Kasfok said.
Yes, it’s been an interesting time with you.
Now you’re saying goodbye? I mean, I can save you. I’ll spin you a short ladder that you can land on and then climb up to the hatch. You can do that, right?
Landing?
Climbing up. The claws on your feet...?
That’s right, Kasfok.
The Mendrak pressed his abdomen next to the hatch. A gray mass came out, which Kasfok formed into strands with his hind legs. He stuck the first strand to the ceiling and pulled hard. Everything must have been to his satisfaction because he started with the second strand, which he hung next to the first. Finally, he connected the two with crossbars. In a surprisingly short time, a rope ladder was hanging from the ceiling.
Helium 3: Death from the Past (Helium-3 Book 2) Page 16