Timeweb Trilogy Omnibus (26 page)

“So you’ve heard of us, eh?” a flat-bodied robot said, as they stood on an observation deck. Within an hour of his arrival, Jimu had been introduced to Thinker, the leader of the mechanical colony. Narrowing his metal-lidded eyes, Thinker added, “What is it you’ve heard?”

“That you control your own destinies.” With one hand, Jimu rubbed a small dent on his own torso. He rather liked the feeling, for it made him think of the adversities he had overcome.

“I mean, what is it you’ve been told we do here?”

“That you run this inn, and make a great deal of money at it. Robots all over the galaxy speak of this place with affection and admiration.”

“Anything else?”

“No, nothing.”

“That is good, very good.”

Not wishing to conceal anything from this important robot, Jimu said, “I was Captain of the sentient machines on the Human Grand Fleet. You may have heard of it … the force that attacked the Mutati Kingdom and lost.”

“Yes,” Thinker said, staring at Jimu’s dented, scratched body. “And a military disaster does not look good on your résumé.”

“I wasn’t to blame for it, but listen to this.” In his concise, mechanical voice Jimu described General Sajak’s suspicion that Doge Lorenzo had sabotaged the fleet.

“Preposterous,” Thinker said. “The Doge would never do that.”

“Nonetheless, General Sajak is convinced of it, and is conspiring to assassinate Lorenzo.”

Without warning, Thinker inserted a flexible probe into Jimu’s control panel. Jimu went numb, like a patient under anesthetic.

“You are telling me the truth,” Thinker announced presently, in a flat voice. He withdrew the probe, then asked, “Who set up your control box? I’ve never seen connections like this.”

“A Human food-service worker. He had only a little experience with machines, I’m afraid.”

“You don’t have full range of movement do you? I noticed considerable stiffness as you walked.”

“You’re right.” Jimu lifted an arm, but not very high, then showed how the elbow didn’t bend as far as it should. He demonstrated similar problems with other joints.

“We’ll have to get you into the shop. But first, I want to show you our operation here. As a military robot, you will appreciate it.” The cerebral leader paused. “In fact, with your credentials, you deserve to be an officer again. Let’s make it Captain, all right?”

“In what force?” Jimu’s glowing yellow eyes opened wide.

He pointed a steely finger at Ignem. “We are building an army down there.”

“And you’ve already decided to make me a part of it?”

“I make quick decisions,” Thinker said. “That’s why I’m in charge here. Besides, nothing eludes my interface probe. In only a few seconds, I learned all about you.”

Later that day, Thinker escorted Jimu down to the surface of Ignem, to a camouflaged headquarters building that had been made to look like no more than a high spot on the surrounding black obsidian plain. There the newcomer was introduced to five other officers, all matching his own rank. One, a tall machine named Gearjok, had served as a technical robot on a Merchant Prince warship, responsible for maintaining mechanical systems. The other captains—Whee, Nouter, Fivvul, and Qarmax—had all worked in various machine supervisory roles for the armed forces of the Humans. In each case the robots had been discarded at the end of their useful lives, and had been salvaged by Thinker.

After a while, Gearjok slapped Jimu on his metal backside and said, “Enough of this. Now let’s introduce you to the others.”

As the mechanical men strolled outside, it pleased Jimu that none of his new comrades seemed to envy him for his quick promotion to their own level. He had seen such feelings of animosity in machine groups before, metastasizing like cancers and destroying the ability of the robots to work together. It was one of the undesirable traits of Humans that some mechanicals had acquired, but here it seemed to have been programmed out.

Jimu followed the others into a vacuum tube, which transported them with whooshes and thumps up to the roof of the headquarters, which they called the Command Center. From the top, he saw volcanoes in the distance, suddenly active and spewing fire and smoke into the atmosphere. Overhead, through the increasingly murky sky, he barely made out the orbital ring of the Inn of the White Sun.

Hearing a rumbling noise, he lowered his gaze and saw black plates slide open on the floor of the obsidian plain. Thousands of machines poured out, like fat, oddly-shaped insects from a burrow. He gaped in disbelief.

The robots began to form into ranks, but a number of them had problems and bumped into each other or stopped functioning. One, a round-backed mechanism who resembled a silver beetle, fell onto his back at the front of the ranks and could not right himself. Very few of them were shiny; most had unsightly dents and patch marks.

“As you can see, we still have some kinks to work out,” Thinker said. “But believe me, we’ve made a lot of progress.”

The worst robots were taken away for more repairs, and soon the remaining machines—around three thousand of them—were arrayed in neat infantry formations, identifiable to Jimu as the boxy ranks of ancient Earthian legions. He had mixed feelings about what he was seeing. In one respect, this was not a very impressive display. But in another, at least it existed.

A machine army!

He noted that only a small number of the troops carried weapons, and those were mostly outdated pelleteers and slingknives, with a few modern puissant rifles. Some of the robots seemed to know how to handle their implements of war, while others did not. This certainly was a motley gathering of individuals and equipment.

“We’ll have to send them back to barracks shortly,” Thinker said. “We keep maneuvers out here to a minimum, to avoid detection by enemies.”

“And who are our enemies?” Jimu inquired.

“There are always enemies. The trick is identify them in time and take appropriate action.”

“I see.” Jimu nodded, but made a creaking sound as he did so. One more thing to fix.

With a sudden clatter of metal, Thinker folded closed, so that he looked like a dull-gray metal box.

“He does that sometimes,” Gearjok said, “when he needs to consider something really important. It gives him absolute darkness and silence. The trouble is, when he thinks about deep philosophical matters he tends to fall asleep in the quiet darkness, with all of his senses blocked or shut off. Whenever that happens, we reactivate him by shaking him gently.”

Moments later, Thinker opened back up, and said, “I’ve been meaning to offer our services to mankind one day, in repayment for inventing sentient machines in the first place.”

“But Humans discarded these machines,” Jimu said.

“We still owe them some loyalty for creating us. Never forget that, Jimu. You and I would not be having this conversation at all if not for Humans. I think they threw us away in error, and I’ve been looking for an opportunity to prove it. I assure you, that despite the fumbling appearance of my troops, it is a skillful deception.” He touched a long scratch on his own torso. “Conventional wisdom holds that a well-run military force should be spotless and polished, thus instilling a sense of pride and personal self-worth into the organization. But there are distinct advantages to a less-than-perfect appearance. It can cause an opponent to underestimate your abilities.”

“That makes sense,” Jimu admitted. “Do you mean to tell me that even the machines that stopped functioning out on the parade ground did so by design?”

Thinker cut a jagged grin across his metal face. “Not exactly, but things
are
getting better.”

“The robots here are independently self-replicating,” Gearjok said to Jimu, “and you can be, too, with a little updating.”

Thinker explained that he had developed a sentient machine manufacturing process that did not exist anywhere else in the galaxy. His metal men were able to make copies of themselves by finding their own raw materials and making their own parts, even recycling old items as necessary. He mentioned what Jimu already knew, that there were other machines that could self-replicate (such as those of the Hibbils), but only in regimented factories, with raw materials provided for them under assembly line conditions.

“Is that why the robots are not uniform?” Jimu asked.

“Precisely. They use whatever materials are available to them.”

“With my own scrapes and dents, I should fit in nicely around here.”

“You’ll get a lot more before you’re through,” Thinker said. He paused, and added, “I am troubled about the assassination plot against Doge Lorenzo. It seems to me that this is the opportunity we’ve been looking for.”

Solemnly, Thinker placed a metal hand on Jimu’s shoulder and said, “I want you to lead a small force of our best fighting robots to Timian One and inform the Doge that he is in danger.”

“Me?”

“I like what I see in you, Jimu. You have experience, but even more importantly you have special qualities of leadership … your own way of solving problems. And you heard the conspirators yourself.”

“I’m honored, but …”

“You will inform him of the danger, and come right back. I need you here, to assist with the army we are forming.”

“I don’t feel ready for such an important assignment.”

“Nonsense. We just need to update your operating systems and data banks, clean you up a bit, and you’ll be ready to go. Another advantage that we have over Humans. With us, the learning curve is almost immediate.”

“You’re going to intervene in Human politics?”

“Doge Lorenzo is in danger, and we must do something!”

“Then I’m your robot. But first I must confess, anxiety is heating up my circuits. Could you ask the programmers to take care of that too, please?”

“Don’t worry. We’ll get you in shape for the assignment.” Exuberantly, Thinker slapped his new comrade on the back, leaving one more dent, a little one.

Chapter Thirty-Six

The soil beneath your feet is never as solid as it looks. You must continually probe and turn over rocks, never letting your guard down.

—From The Tulyan Compendium

Noah led Tesh along a path that skirted his own home, with its gray shingle walls and white columns, matching the main administration building and complex of buildings that were partially visible downhill, through a stand of canopa oaks. Focused on the ecological training he was giving to her, he hardly noticed where they were. For the past three days, he had been spending private time with this intellectually gifted young woman, the top student in his school, sharing his personal insights with her, grooming her for the important position he hoped she would hold one day with the Guardians.

He had another matter on his mind as well. Word had reached him that Earth had been destroyed in a sudden, mysterious explosion that left the original home of humanity a debris field, floating in space. The most widely accepted theory was that a comet had hit the sparsely-populated planet, or a meteor, but astronomers had not seen anything unusual in that sector prior to the detonation. Another theory held that it might have been a huge volcanic chain reaction, and still another suggested that the Mutatis had done it. Every one of these ideas seemed far-fetched to the experts, and Noah wasn’t sure himself.

As an ecologist, he would be analyzing all available data as it came in. Under the circumstances, though, with the death of his father and the suspicions that had been cast in his direction about that incident, he didn’t want to go anywhere near the remains of Earth, or engage any of his own investigators. His own advisers suggested that he maintain a low profile, or his enemies would find a way to blame Earth on him, too. He and Subi were convinced that Noah’s enemies—undoubtedly including Francella—wanted to discredit him and his planetary recovery operations. Many of the corporate princes were opposed to his environmental policies and recommendations, and considered him a thorn in their collective side. Now, with the influential Saito Watanabe out of the way, the son had become an even easier target.

Bending down, Noah selected a large oak leaf and held it up, so that midday sunlight revealed the gold-and-brown details of its pattern. “Look at the perfect symmetry of these lines,” he said, passing a finger over the leaf. “Amazing, isn’t it? I’ve seen such perfection all over the galaxy, in leaves, seashells, spider webs, and in so many other amazing objects of nature. It shows an interconnectedness, that planets are linked to one another.”

“Your concept of galactic ecology,” she said, “the interconnectedness of life in remote star systems.”

He nodded. “A controversial concept, but I’ve never shied away from controversy. I think life sprouted in similar forms all over the galaxy, and probably all over the universe.”

“Like the theory of parallel evolution,” she observed, “but bigger than the similar life forms found on the continents or islands of one planet. You’re talking about each planet as an island in a cosmic sea, with parallel life forms sprouting all over the place.”

“That’s correct,” he said, beaming at her.

“I’ve been wondering about something,” she said, looking at him intently with her bright green eyes. “Your writings are silent on this point, but do you think a cosmic wind carries seeds and cells from planet to planet?”

He tried not to think about the physical attraction he felt for her, and as before he set it aside. “Perhaps, and perhaps not. I’ve never been able to prove it one way or another.”

“Doesn’t all this prove the existence of a higher power, holding sway over everything, creating perfect beauty? Doesn’t it prove that there really is a God?”

“It doesn’t prove anything of the kind, only that there is an interconnectedness.”

“I see. You’re a scientist, not a religious scholar.”

He smiled. “The universe is an incredible mystery. We see what we want to see in it, and delight in its boundless wonders.” Noah let the leaf go, and a gust of wind picked it up, lifting it gracefully into the sky and carrying it through an opening in the trees, toward his headquarters on the land below. He watched the leaf until it eventually drifted down, out of view.