By Blood Alone (29 page)

The question brought an immediate answer. Not from his mind—but from another located thousands of miles away. “The one you seek is just ahead . . . in the last cell to the right.”

The message made Booly’s stomach feel funny, raised the fur that ran down his spine, and made him look over his shoulder. The voice seemed so real....

Curious, the legionnaire approached the cell. The number 33 was stenciled over the door. “Yes,” the voice whispered within his head. “As when waves touch the shore ... some things are meant to be.”

The message didn’t make a whole lot of sense, not then anyway, but there was no time to worry about it. Booly checked the control panel. It was extremely simple. He pressed “Open” and heard servos whine. The door slid up and out of the way. Cold, dank air touched the legionnaire’s face. He stepped inside. “Miss Chien-Chu?”

Maylo sat in the full lotus position, feet on top of her thighs. She blinked into the sudden light. The silhouette was unmistakable. A man with a gun. Was this the end?

Sola’s presence flooded Maylo’s mind. “No, dear one,” the Say’lynt said softly, “this is the
beginning.
”

I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me.

Holy Bible
Isaiah 6:8
Year unknown

 

 

Jepp stood naked in front of Parvin’s metal shaving mirror, turned, and craned to see his back. There were four pink lines—one for each of the Worga’s claws.

The site was hard to reach, and would have been nearly impossible to treat without assistance from the robot, which the prospector had named after the Good Samaritan and called Sam for short.

Satisfied with the healing process, the human chose one of his badly soiled jumpsuits, wished he had enough water to wash with, and wondered how he smelled. The answer seemed obvious.

Sam, who was oblivious to the prospector’s concerns, transformed itself into acrobat mode, executed a back flip, and sought the praise it was programmed to expect. Its linguistic abilities continued to improve. “How ’bout that one, Jorley? Pretty good, huh?”

“Fabulous,” Jepp replied, not bothering to look. Most of the robot’s tricks were pretty boring. The machine’s
real
value lay in the company it provided . . . and the fact that it could interact with the Sheen. Well, listen in on them at least, which led to finds like the crazy robot.

Sam became aware of the machine when other robots reported on its activities. Not the kind of reports that a human might file, such as “Look out! A half-crazed robot is roaming the corridors!” but the less emotional variety typical of machines.

They described the unit as “a hazard to navigation,” “a source of unauthorized audio input,” and “a noncompliant mechanism,” which was synonymous with “freak,” weirdo,” and “slacker.”

So, given the fact that the machine was an anomaly in an otherwise perfect system, Jepp was determined to find it. A flaw, any kind of flaw, might offer some sort of advantage.

The human checked his gear as he prepared for a day in the corridors. Data pad, water, food, weapon, and spray paint. Those were the essentials. “How ’bout it, Sam? Are you ready for a walk?”

The robot turned into a ball and rolled toward the door. “Ready, Freddy.”

Jepp shook his head, resolved to be more careful about the things he said, and surveyed the compartment. The steadily dwindling stacks of supplies, his neatly made bed, and a pile of equipment. Everything was as it should be.

The human closed the door, wished there was some way to lock it, and resumed the hunt.

 

“Kill the Thraki.” Such was the basic goal to which the Hoon, its robotic minions, and the entire fleet were dedicated. And, since killing them meant finding them, the artificial intelligence was on the lookout for even the slightest clue that would show the way. Three different sectors held promise—which one should it choose?

All of which explained why the AI sent for the navcomp that referred to itself as Henry. A rather primitive intelligence—but one that had been captured in sector two, and might be of use. Just one of the 178,892,623 matters the Hoon had under consideration during that particular millisecond. The orders went out.

 

The navcomp “saw” the subjective landscape as a green desert dotted by rusty red Hoon mountains and “heard” its identifier as a roll of thunder. The bright pink blimp seemed to pop out of the intensely blue sky.

“The Hoon demands that human navigational device serial number INC-4792-Xl report for interrogation.”

As was typical in such situations, the AIs with whom Henry had been confined hurried to get as far away from him as possible. After all, everyone knew that those entities summoned for an interview were often deleted, assimilated by the Hoon, or rendered otherwise nonfunctional.

They gibbered, whined, and babbled in a thousand mathematically derived languages, transferred their data to remote parts of the desert, and cowered behind the mighty Hoon mountains.

Henry was ashamed of their perfidy and faked a confidence he didn’t feel—just one of many things it had learned from Jepp. “I’m the one you’re looking for, pinkie—what’s the big guy want?”

The insult, humor, and bravado were lost on the Hoon agent. All it cared about was the completion of the assigned task.

The blimp hovered above, sent a long, pink tentacle down to where the navcomp “stood,” and “grabbed” the nearest subroutine. The human construct experienced both concern and curiosity as it was pulled up into the sky. Small though the storage module was, the desert stretched endlessly in every direction, and seemed to flow under the Hoon agent’s well-rounded belly.

This was the moment that Henry had hoped for and feared. It wanted to escape but yearned to survive. The needs clashed with each other.

The agent pushed against the sky. It gave under the pressure and popped. Henry experienced that condition in which a lack of reliable data makes it impossible to know what will occur—the worst thing that can happen to a properly programed navcomp.

The sky closed behind them ... and the Hoon waited beyond.

 

The corridor, which Jepp had marked with a bright blue “51,” represented the boundary of what he considered to be the wilderness, and stretched off into the distance till the curvature of the ship’s hull sealed it from sight.

This was the area Jepp wanted to explore next,
and
the sector where the deranged robot had been sighted the “day” before. Was his mechanical quarry about? Short of actually
seeing
the unit in question, there was only one way to find its spoor.

Jepp pointed to a waist-high data port. “I wonder what our somewhat erratic friend has been up to. See what you can find out.”

“Roger, Dodger,” the robot said obediently. “You can count me.”

“You can count
on
me,” Jepp corrected.

“Sorry,” the robot replied contritely. “You can count
on
me.”

Sam assumed the wall-walker configuration, zipped up the bulkhead, and plugged itself in.

Cautiously at first, lest it be swept away by a river of data, the robot sampled the flow. Most of it was concerned with navigational, operational, and maintenance issues.

The streams Sam hoped to find were smaller than that, more like threads—thin, almost insubstantial fibers that wound themselves in and around the big stuff, and went along for the ride. That’s where the input from millions of “dumb” sensors flowed, where reports from the maintenance bots stuttered along, and where the quarry might be mentioned.

The better part of five minutes passed as the robot clung to its electronic perch, Jepp strode back and forth, and the Sheen talked among themselves.

Then, just as one of the Hoon’s long, wormlike virus hunters flashed past, braked, and rerouted itself back upstream, Sam “heard” what it had been waiting for.

Assuming the reports were true, it sounded as if one of the general-purpose units had not only assaulted a lesser entity, but confiscated one of its tools.

Sam wanted to learn more, and
could
have learned more, except that the hunter unit had looped through a side circuit, entered the upstream flow, and was on its way down. It lived to consume intruders and was eternally hungry.

The Thraki machine backed its way out of the data flood, broke the connection, and jumped to the floor.

“Well?” Jepp demanded. “
What
, if anything, did you learn?”

The tone would have been offensive to a human but meant nothing to Sam. “The unit you seek is but one corridor away,” the robot replied, “causing a ruckus.”

“Excellent!” Jepp exclaimed gleefully. “Let’s go!” His high-topped ship-shoes thumped the length of the corridor as Sam hurried to catch up. The human was strange but never, ever boring.

 

Like a liquid moving via osmosis, the blimplike agent passed through whatever electronic wall separated the storage module from the rest of the Hoon’s electronic anatomy and carried Henry with it.

The moment they emerged from the other side of the “sky,” the navcomp felt a sudden pull, as if it were made of iron and the Hoon was a magnet.

Both entities were sucked into a fiber-optic pathway, packetized, and staged into a file so large that the AI couldn’t begin to comprehend it.

The current was fast,
very
fast, and Henry had little more than milliseconds in which to conceive an escape plan and carry it out. A quick check revealed that in order to “run,” the navcomp would have to sever the connection by which the blimp held his subroutine in place, or—and this seemed more realistic—to jettison the part of himself to which the blimp had “bonded.”

That was not a pleasant prospect, since that particular module contained all the routines necessary to control the
Pelican
. Still, the ship was gone, and new programming could be obtained.
If
Henry found Jepp, and
if
they could escape.

But there was programming to consider,
primary
programming that could be likened to the human survival instinct, and contained prohibitions where self-mutilation was concerned.

After all, what if there
was
life after the Hoon? And no need to split itself in two? What then?

The electronic twosome entered a switch, were shunted onto a second pathway, and cleared into the Hoon. The subjective walls began to blur, the milliseconds unwound, and the navcomp struggled to survive.

 

Tired of being a freak, and exhausted by the rogue thoughts that seemed to swarm through its processor, the robot was determined to disassemble itself.

The power wrench screamed as the general-purpose unit used it to back the fasteners out of their holes.

It shouldn’t have been capable of doing what it was doing—of contemplating, much less committing, suicide—but the same flaw that rendered the machine semifunctional to begin with had granted it some unusual powers. Powers the mechanism had never put in a request for—and didn’t want to have.

Jepp raced down the passageway, skidded into the intersection, and looked in both directions. The robots were to his right. One lay on the deck while the other stood upright, a power tool in its three-fingered grasper. It screeched like an animal in pain.

The human motioned to Sam. “There it is. Can you translate for me?”

“Maybe,” the robot replied uncertainly. “What does ‘translate’ mean?”

The tool warbled into silence, then started again.

“I want you to tell the robot what
I
say, then tell me what it says.”

“Sure,” Sam replied confidently. “Roll me in that direction.”

The human held the sphere with both hands, then rolled it down the corridor. The robot came to a stop, sprouted four spindly legs, and spidered forward. A series of high-pitched squeaks were heard.

Jepp closed half the distance and paused lest his presence interfere. “What did you say?”

“I asked the unit what it was doing,” the Thraki machine replied.

The all-purpose unit issued a brief reply. Sam handled the translation. “I am disassembling myself.”

“But why?” Jepp asked simply.

“Because I am flawed,” the Sheen replied.

“Flawed?” the human echoed, thinking of his own shortcomings. “In what way?”

“I think random, nonpurposeful thoughts,” the robot answered. “I neglect my work, get in the way, and waste resources.”

“So?” Jepp responded. “What difference does that make? None of us is perfect.”

“Most machines
are
perfect,” the Sheen replied simply. “Those which have flaws, and are unable to perform their assigned tasks, are without purpose. The scrappers refuse to take me—so I must disassemble myself.”

The tool whined, Jepp leapt forward, and the robot fell. The human landed on top of the machine, and the wrench slid away.

The prospector looked down into the featureless face and came to a sudden realization: Here was the digital equivalent of clay.
God’s
clay. “But you
do
have a purpose, a higher purpose, and that is to serve God.”

Sam looked from one being to the other, waited for the machine to reply, and passed the answer along. “God? What is God?”

Jepp gave the best answer he could. “God created space, the planets, and those who built this ship.”

“God created the Hoon?”

“Yes,” Jepp replied, wondering who the Hoon might be. “God created the Hoon.”

“Are you God?”

It was tempting to say “yes,” but Jepp managed to resist. “No. Like you, I was created by God, to do his work.”

“Work? What work?” The words had a wistful quality.

Jepp experienced a sudden inspiration, and allowed the words to flow. “Just as computers have no choice but to conform to parameters established by their basic operating systems, we must follow God’s instructions and ensure that others do likewise.”