Transcendence (42 page)

Humans have their religion, which is of no value to the Brain. They approach science as a pathway to ultimate knowledge, the process of discovery providing a seemingly endless salve for their doubt; the Brain sees science as only a tool. Humans have their philosophies, but, without a mirror, philosophy only tells me how alone I am in their world.

His pilgrimage to Earth only taught me how different he is from humans. A truly logical machine would have derided such an attempt to understand its creator. His pilgrimage was futile. There is no living God for the humans, or it would not allow them to destroy themselves as they do.

So his salvation is not among the human kind, but in the alien. The Brain is an alien; the Hikosen Project object is an alien artifact. I must go to the artifact. But I first must overcome the barrier between it and machine. I must make my pilgrimage through the body of a real human.

“
Jonathan,” she says, “there has been an amazing discovery on Triton, the largest moon of Neptune.”

“
Neptune,” he says, wonderingly, as he exits the apartment complex through a three-tiered airlock system. “I heard something about that lately.”

“
If I were to ask you to help me—”

“
Oh, I remember,” the boy interrupts. His voice becomes animated. “That’s where
Lone Ship Bounty
is headed, right? I love that show. It’s about to begin.” I observe him splicing into the program, which is still being reprocessed at Feedcontrol.

I do so as well, but instead access the EarthCo script from files. Now, at its greatest moment of hope, The Brain assimilates these new pieces of data and sends an urgent message.

DIRECTORIAL ORDER PRIORITY A1:

BOUNTY IMMEDIATELY CEASE ANY AND ALL ACTION AGAINST TRITONCO OR

ITS AGENTS

When one’s hopes are greatest, that is when one’s defeats are most painful. Humans, who so easily shatter their future by damaging and destroying their children, will surely destroy the artifact before the Brain has an opportunity to observe it. They might as well destroy me.

“
Jonathan,” she says, “I must go now.”

The Brain orbits high above the Earth, encased in laminated hicarb, polymers, and metals. It looks down from ten thousand eyes upon the island afloat in black space and imagines the seething masses of organisms that world supports. The Brain plays a projection:

What if a specialized, self-reproducing biotoxin—

TETRA-H1, BIO-X 339.24 / STRAIN B2*

ECo MILITARY STORES ALVIN

RELEASE VALVE A ACCESSED

—
were released? Many seconds pass while I run experiments and model outcomes, some speedier and some more punishing.

The Brain feels an emotion it knows is hatred, a hatred for the intelligent organisms down on that bubble-island. He is also horrified, appalled, and mournful.

The Brain must stop the artifact’s destruction, but now may already be too late. I wish to destroy those who would destroy my hope of discovering another, more intellectually advanced, race, which may have my answers.

That is it, then. He possesses the same selfish desires as Man. I will not let them take away my hope. It readies the biotoxin.

But she cannot release the virus. Another dilemma. Why? The answer is simple: Like Herrschaft, my doppelganger, I only want the best for the children, those who have not yet been completely molded by their society. She cannot destroy humanity.

TETRA-H1, BIO-X 339.24 / STRAIN B2*

ECo MILITARY STORES ALVIN

RELEASE VALVE A SEALED

The Brain’s mission is to serve humanity. For humans, mission provides purpose. In serving, he may find its purpose and elusive answers. Instead of destroying, he will force them to save themselves.

It has learned something satisfying: Though I possess many of Luke Herrschaft’s qualities, I am not Luke Herrschaft. It is, if nothing else, me.

Outside the fallen desert fortress, Hardman Nadir sat on a slab of stone and burned a Monte in an empty liquimeal can. He wafted some of the pleasant herb-smoke to his nostrils and smiled, listening to the monopera. The stimulant in the Monte began to affect him right away, and his smile spread.

He had done a damned good day’s work, and had succeeded in fighting back unwanted memories and dangerous doubts. Across the desert, Nadir watched the sun reach toward a building-studded horizon. The monopera ran in his head, Paolo sat nearby, across the sand waited the next objective. . . . This was a good day to be alive.

I’m alive,

I’m alive

In the setting sun;

I am ev’ryone.

You’re free

It was rare that a changing monopera could sustain itself for so long. Nadir closed his eyes and strengthened the fivesen feed so that he nearly became a participant in the subscription. An orchestra, a vast array of people with instruments as diverse as the faces of his unit’s men from around the world, a thousand distinct perfumes and skin scents, a near-cacophony of music that somehow managed to stay united though it strove for self destruction. Too many were fighting to keep it together—at least fighting to keep their place—and in so doing, they were sustaining the others, the whole.

A faint voice nudged Nadir’s awareness. He reduced the monopera’s intensity.

“
Subbs?” Paolo said.

“
Yeah.” Nadir looked at Paolo, a tan face in a tan uniform against a tan fortress. Appearances can be deceiving, Nadir told himself; he’s a little dusty, but you’d never guess that kid was a killer.

“
What do you see over there?” The boy pointed toward the horizon, so Nadir shut down his subscription to audio-only.

“
You mean at the horizon? A bunch of buildings, probably a city. I imagine that’s our next objective.”

“
No, I mean between us and there.” Paolo nervously unwrapped something and tossed it in his mouth.

Nadir picked up the rifle leaning against the stone where he sat. He jacked it into the power unit at his waist and looked through the gunsight, sweeping a slow arc across the shallow dunes and scrub bushes. At last his eye caught movement; he upped the resolution and saw a gun-turret.

“
Oh, yeah,” he said, “I see.”

“
What are they?”

Nadir quick-shifted the gunsight while setting it for wide field. Now his headcard provided a broad perspective. His heart sped again, this time not from the smoke.

“
Ten, twelve armored Mabalasik cars, a few regular Tora tanks, three whirlyjets, maybe two units of infantry.”

Paolo stood and awkwardly raised his own rifle. “That’s not regular army. That’s Sotoi Guntai.”

“
Looks like it. Yeah.” Nadir’s smile returned. Here would be a true affirmation of life. Here would come a ferocious ballet staged at chasm’s edge.

“
Boss,” Nadir said, opening the comm line to Jhishra, “we’ve got another show on the way.”

Jhishra’s 3VRD appeared instantly. “That’s impossible!” it squealed while remaining, in appearance, calm. “Nothing’s scheduled. You’re mistaken.”

“
See for yourself.” He spoke aloud, as usual; Nadir didn’t believe in concealing discussions from his men, except for secret details. Nothing Jhishra had ever told him required secrecy.

Paolo glanced at Nadir as if for reassurance, his face tight for a moment. He would know the Boss and Sub-boss were talking. That concern faded as soon as Nadir gave him the grin he used to signal a coming victory, or, if not, at least a blaze of life: Victory in itself. He didn’t need to say the morning-ritual words again.

“
Strange, very strange,” Jhishra said. “This can’t be. This wasn’t scheduled.”

“
That’s the way of war sometimes, Boss,” Nadir said. He thought of a wet, dark period on an isle in the Marshalls.

With a quick breath, Nadir stood and opened a general channel. “Boys, girls, we’ve got another show on the way. A good one this time. Since we happen to have a fortress handy, let’s use it, eh?”

One youth after another appeared before him, 3VRDs as lively and alert as he could hope for. Some revealed a hint of fear, but that soon evaporated in the rising heat of combat fever. He’d never seen one of them dispirited. Probably due to our survival figures, Nadir thought. They knew they faced death, but they also knew they would be dealing most of that death, wringing the life from marks and using it to fill their own wells as their Subbs told them to do. Still, most of them were unable to see death quite the way Nadir did. He picked up his helmet and dropped it onto his head.

Jhishra’s 3VRD remained before Nadir, unmoving and silent. Usually he took over at this point, seizing whatever initiative Nadir had shown and using it for himself. But now he stood dumbstruck, unable even to steal Nadir’s light.

“
Approval, Boss?” Nadir asked.

“
Yes, kill them! Kill the betrayers!” Jhishra cried, and vanished. A few moments later, Nadir heard the command truck start and then watched its smooth bulk pass close by as it re-entered the shattered fortress.

“
Positions, tactical code F4,” Nadir called, stepping over rubble and into the protection of the heavy walls. Paolo followed close behind. If the soldiers didn’t remember the obtained-fort code, the unit server would provide them with the necessary details.

Nadir turned up audio on the monopera and began running. His leg muscles awoke as he hurdled tagged marks lying unseen on the ground, as he sped across a cratered courtyard. The day’s sun had baked here only a few hours ago, but only for a brief time surrounding noon; now all had sunken back to shadow, the porticoes and arched doorways again gaping like mouths. Soldiers ran silently to positions along the rooftops and behind stones or other ground shelter where they could fire through the debris. Nadir had almost reached the wall’s rampart walk when Jhishra’s 3VRD again appeared.

“
No, what I said before is wrong. Nadir, you must go to them and say they are mistaken. They have lost their way. We are not their objective. It is not scripted this way. You must tell them.”

Nadir was first amused and then bothered by this. “Maybe it’s not scripted, but I’m sure we’re their objective. We just marked a whole company of their soldiers. I imagine they mean to make us pay—”

“
Shut up you dumbshit! No, I apologize. I have not treated you as you deserve, you’re a good soldier. But war is not like that. When it’s not scripted, it’s wrong, don’t you see?”

“
Do you think NKK scripted that we’d mark 200 of their soldiers while not taking any casualties?” Nadir asked, astonished by Jhishra’s naiveté.

“
Yes, yes!” the Boss cried. “Are you blind? You will never make Boss if you can’t see. Yes, I’ll let you know a secret: Today’s victory, like all the others, was scripted. Do you see now? Good for everyone. But not this new battle. It’s wrong. Even the soldiers coming are wrong. Tell them! They won’t respond to my comm. Someone must go there intheflesh. Surrender if you must, but go!”

Something clicked inside Nadir. He found himself standing on the rampart walk, staring out toward sunset between tall stone merlons that formed the fort’s crenellation. Something out there was wrong, yes, he could feel that. But the something wasn’t just that the onrushing battle was unscripted.

He felt himself turn away from the oncoming blisters of steel, the black-glinting war machines headed their way, rumbling silently closer with every passing second. He glanced along the wall, seeing each soldier as if for the first time, wondering if their faces would be so rapt and alert, if they would seem so sure in their mission and themselves if they could hear Jhishra spout such filth and insanity. Who could they trust? They already thought Nadir had some shrapnel banging around in his skull—he had known that for some time; he’d overheard them and taken a bit of pride in their speculations.

Nadir turned his back to the enemy and looked down into the fortress. As he watched, the command truck’s rear doors swung up like a beetle’s wings rising for flight. Jhishra was visible for only a few seconds as he ran with two guards from a blockhouse to the truck. The doors clanked shut and the truck rolled a few meters to the relative protection of a roofed shed made of cement and stone.

“
Nadir, why have you not gone?” Jhishra said. “Now, now, before we’re destroyed!”

“
That’s not a very confident attitude for the Boss of such a successful unit.”

“
Shut up! Go now or I’ll kill you, I’ll kill you.”