The Pattern Ship (The Pattern Universe) (20 page)

Should she do this it would give added greatness to her Hive, the resulting glory would raise her higher than Celnista, but she needed to be careful, there were many hidden alliances between the larger and smaller hives so choosing the right opponent would be essential to her success.

She would scout out her competitors and see which was the most vulnerable.

The Queen sent out the instruction to her clones to gather news of the other hives, sensing immediately their excitement grow as they realised their Queen lusted after a new challenge. Their renewed enthusiasm infused her with increased well-being.

Hasseel’s were an honourable conflict for both sides. All hives would respect the challenge and watch from the sidelines hoping to perceive a weakness in either that could be later exploited.

***

The new Space Council proved easier to create than they expected. Much of the attention that had previously been diverted to issues closer to home with crime and oppression had left many societies without a strong focus.

The concept of participating in a major expansion into space provoked space mania with many groups forming to clamour for representation on the council. It became a major task for Zeke to accomplish anything with his small group. Luckily, as he progressed he found more and more people prepared to assist him in its development.

He began to call larger and larger meetings until finally, as the organisation formed around him he nominated people for roles to manage the work he and Zirkos had begun over three years ago.

Soon he had to split them into two. One to handle the formation of the council itself, the other to manage the development of a manufacturing industry completely independent of any nation, but bound to all. Bound in the sense that every country provided workforce, expertise and much of the raw material needed to create the first shipyard.

After much negotiation, a large uninhabited island was rented on the Pacific rim and as it was an easy matter to arrange the D-Field to move everything they required, including levelling of the build areas, work progressed extremely quickly. The design teams were working on new ship layouts to accommodate a larger crew and scientific research units within a matter of weeks.

They had decided to build a roving vessel with the ability to defend itself as well as discover new worlds to eventually expand civilisation to. It quickly became a very ambitious plan and all of the big nations put themselves firmly behind it.

The individual governments never noticed the growing unity between their countries. Gradually forming out of a natural desire to work more closely together on the space project, it hadn’t escaped Zeke’s notice, nor Zirkos. They kept a quiet watch as the important elements began to come together as the planet approached a unified ethos that would make the Space Council appear to be an entity whose time had come.

Zeke was pleased when Zirkos allocated Pod permanently to his side because Zirkos had been increasingly looking outward into space with a yearning for his people. He was troubled, Zeke could see that.

He decided to tackle him about it.

“You need to consider making that journey you promised yourself,” Zeke broached the matter head on.

Zirkos sighed “I’m worried, I sense trouble coming and I am torn between staying here and assisting in the development of your Space Council and the ships, and going out looking for the cause of my concerns.”

Zeke understood, but he wasn’t really with them, his mind was out there and he needed to face up to it.

“If I were to suggest that having left Pod here to assist me in all of the work required, and the pretty universal coverage of the shields having been accomplished, that perhaps now is a good time for you to make the journey?”

Zeke put his hand on his friend’s shoulder and added an incentive. “We really need to know how long we have before we are discovered, you need to do this, my friend, for all of us.”

Zirkos nodded. The decision was made.

A week later without any fanfare, only the Fortress people and those governments in the know advised, Zirkos left the planet Earth behind and began the massive search for his Brethren and by undesired expectation, the Nubl.

***

When Ferris heard the news that the Alien and his interfering Ship A.I. had gone walkabout, he fairly chuckled with glee; it couldn’t have been better. The one big problem with his plan had been the damned alien and that ‘too clever by half’ ship of his. With both them gone, he had only humans to deal with and no artificial intelligences.

He knew he could now physically match and even overpower that Zeke prat. He knew instinctively that his time was almost upon him, it was all coming together very nicely. If he had been aware of the existence of the Pod A.I. which was monitoring everything he said and did he might not have been so pleased with himself.

Impulsively, but with increasing confidence, Ferris reorganised his schedule. He decided to bring his plans forward and thought it just might be possible to get all the pieces in place in time. Pulling out his encrypted cellphone he called his contact in the Pentagon.

“Schaeff?”

“Yep.”

“08:00hrs. One week from today.”

“Are we ready?”

“We will be, Schaeff, we will be.” Ferris assured him.

He rang off. Schaeffer would feed the order into their private cell network and all the planning they had done and the arrangements put in place over the last nine months would begin to filter down. It would go into operation at zero hour and then Ferris would take charge.

It was a perfect opportunity as they were currently between Presidents; the new one having yet to be sworn in. A power vacuum to all intents. Garner’s two successful terms would soon fade to nothing and the teams in Russia and China would begin as soon as he, Ferris, took control of the USA.

Twenty four hours later orders got put into the grinder, got chewed out and acted upon. The Military being a simple beast at heart, when orders are issued, the higher they originate, the less they are questioned. These orders originated near the very top. All concerned responded without question and followed their orders to the letter. Some knew the real agenda, most didn’t.

So, when the small and specialised Military units were informed that the operation was top secret and no information was to leak out to family, friends or other units, they went dark and instituted the set protocols prepared months ago in anticipation of this exercise. As far as they were concerned it was business as usual.

- 19 -

It was late, the office was quiet and most of the staff were off shift.

Zeke, as usual, worked on usually through the night. He needed virtually no sleep these days and with an overloaded schedule, it was necessary to keep on top of things. The ever present Pod hovered near by collating information as it was programmed to do from all over the world using the hover globes in cloaked mode as well as the internet and other communication nets now because there was so much to do.

Every so often it would dip and bob as if its concentration was dropping out. It was! It had processor problems again and needed additional Alacite to cope with the extra workload. Now that Ship had gone and taken the residual Alacite out of its reach Pod was unable to do the necessary upgrading.

The reason it was having concentration issues, however, was more to do with the deep thinking going on in its mind where it needed considerable processing power that had to be drawn from various sources. Pod was having an issue with what would in human terms would be classified as an ‘attack of conscience’.

The problem was beginning to consume more and more of its processing power as it tried to resolve the problem it had created for itself. It needed to clear its memory by dumping it before it burned out its processors.

It decided on a strategy to divest itself by passing the issue to the human. Pod considered Zeke to be its Maker so it was a natural thing to do. However, being ‘human’ Pod wasn’t sure how the handshake of the two data systems would work in such an instance. There was no ability to do a data upload. It would have to approach the problem from a different direction, verbally, with speech. This is where part of the problem lay.

It went through the options one last time, seeing no change from the other thousands of permutation testing it had carried out, it chose the optimum time to transfer the problem; the night period when humans were at their quietest.

“Zeke?”

“Yes, Pod?”

“Do you like working with me?”

“Yes, Pod.”

“Good, I’m much better than Ship.”

“Yes, Pod.”

“Are you humouring me, Zeke?”

“Yes, Pod, I mean, no, of course not.”

“I understand. I do actually. Ship is far older than I am and it is almost an ‘Eight’ according to the Maker, Zirkos.”

“I think you are much higher than a ‘Three’, Pod. I find I can communicate with you as easily as I can Ship and your routines don’t seem to be any less efficient.”

“You think so?”

“Yes, Pod. I do”

“That’s good to know. Thank you Zeke.”

Zeke thought quietly about that conversation. It was unlike Pod to talk, quite the opposite really, it was an intelligent computer with some limited ability for conversation, especially since coming into contact with humans and eavesdropping on them twenty four hours a day for months on end.

Some transfer of mannerisms and speech patterns would inevitably be inherited from daily use. However, the conversation they had just shared was anything, but simple. A strange feeling crept up on Zeke. Something was spooking him.

“I need to make what you humans call a confession, Zeke.”

“Really, Pod? Do A.I.’s make confessions?” Zeke answered with the certainty of something amiss building now.

“No, not really Zeke. I’m not sure why I feel the need, but its important.”

“Okay. So why don’t you tell me what's bothering you, Pod?”

“I am monitoring communications from the Fortress and some other locations around the USA.”

“Yes, that’s in your approved routines Pod, there’s no problem with that.”

“No, it isn’t. I set up the routine myself when I overheard things relating to you.”

“It must be Pod, you are a ‘Three’ you would not be able to...” Zeke suddenly realised Pod was right, he hadn’t set up the routine. There was an outside chance Ship had transferred one before leaving. He doubted it.

Zeke pondered on how the routine could have been initiated. Pod must have done it on its own, some other set routine must have prompted it or allowed it to meet certain conditions and activate. Still, Zeke knew Pod was having data handling problems, probably logic based. He needed to find out what it was.

“what have you heard, Pod?”

“Someone is planning to disable the shield systems on some of your cities.”

“WHAT?” Zeke stood abruptly, walking right up to the hovering A.I. so he was talking directly at it.

“There is what you refer to as a ‘plot’ against your American government being hatched.”

“What plot? Where? When is this going to happen, Pod?”

“I don’t know what, and I don’t know where, but its going to happen at 08:00hrs, in two of your days.”

“Geez Pod! That soon! We don’t have much time to stop it, how much information do you have. Can we intercept them or pull the plug on their plans?”

“I cannot trace most of the calls, they are secured, based on our own encryption codes which is why I have been slow to uncover it and without knowing those keys I am unable to over-ride the encryption. I’m sorry, Zeke. I haven’t done very well, have I?” Pod began dipping and bobbing again.

Zeke noticed the effect on Pod. It was a very similar to a human like response to stress, he thought.

“Pod?... Pod! you have done extremely well, its a shame you couldn’t catch more of this ‘plot’, but knowing there is one and knowing when is enough for me to begin to think about where and how. Well done, Pod!” Zeke reassured it.

He was also frantically thinking what the hell was he doing reassuring a Command and Control drone with an emotional imbalance bought on by stress? Computers don’t suffer stress, they just work, or don’t work. Still the symptoms fitted, Zeke decided.

“Thank you, Zeke.”

“Oh, and Pod?”

“Yes, Zeke?”

“Are you sure you’re only a ‘Three’?”

Silence.

Zeke felt a cold chill roll down his back, he well knew the consequences of a sentient A.I., everyone did. He needed to find out something. So far Pod didn’t appear to be hiding anything.

“Pod?”

“Yes, Zeke?”

“When was the last time Ship tested your Sentience level?”

“Ship has not tested my Sentience level, Zeke.”

“Pod, are you able to self test your Sentience level?”

Silence.

“Pod, we don’t have time for this. Have you tested yourself?” Zeke couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

The fact that an A.I. computer was actually dissembling sent his thought processes into overdrive. This could be a problem, Zeke mused, he didn’t need this particular computer going into system failure. Not just now.

“Yes, Zeke.”

“And?”

“I tested between an ‘Eight’ and a ‘Nine’, Zeke. I am however, unsure if my testing is accurate.”

“Why would you be unsure of the tests, Pod?” Zeke now barely managing to contain his amazement.

“Because the Alacite used in replenishing my processors was contaminated, Zeke.”

Zeke’s mind raced. It didn’t make sense. Then, all of a sudden, it started to make an awful lot of sense! He had a bad feeling he knew the answer to his next question.

“Contaminated Alacite? Pod, do you mean you used the Alacite that had been set aside from my bloodstream.”

“Yes, Zeke.”

“Bloody Hell, Pod!”

Zeke was amazed, he was well aware of the possibilities of a maturing artificial sentience, Zirkos had driven home the dangers to him and described the Nubl and other races that had self destructed when allowing such an intelligence to develop. Later he would sort this, right now he had a terrorist organisation to track down and eliminate.