The Great Destroyer (22 page)

Allahad scoffed, “Brilliant prediction.  I’m sure we’ll also be hearing from you in a month how badly we need more robots, then a few days later you’ll probably have a fancy new car.”

Flower tried to regain control of the situation, but Jackson interrupted her.

“Are you calling me corrupt?” Jackson asked, anger contorting his face.

Allahad answered with slow relish, “I’m calling you a corrupt war monger trying to sleep his way into power with your robot-loving wife.”

Jackson was a bookish looking man, bespectacled and civilized.  But this evidently was too much for him.  Without a word, he took a step toward Allahad, cocked his arm back, and delivered a punch right to the younger man’s nose.

Allahad recoiled back, falling to the ground in shock.  His nose, evidently broken by the punch, spouted blood.  “My—my nose,” he babbled.  “Someone call a doctor!”  He began to cry.

For his part, Jackson showed no sign of contrition.  He turned to leave Flower’s office.

The First Representative’s mind raced to overcome the shock of violence coming to her very office.  As far as she knew, no one had ever fought in this room at the center of Terran Alliance power.

In an instant, anger rushed in. 
Who the hell did Jackson think ou was?
she thought to herself.  She had adjourned the meeting, told her Security Committee to leave her alone, but no one listened to her. 
Well, perhaps they need an example.

“Professor Jackson, you are hereby relieved of your appointment to the Security Committee.  You will no longer be admitted into this building.  Get out of here at once.”  Flower’s voice brooked no disagreement.

Jackson didn’t even turn around to face her, which only antagonized Flower further.  Takagawa began to protest, “You can’t do thi—”

Flower snapped, “You are also relieved of your seat on the Committee.  Please follow your spouse out of my office.”

For a moment, no one else moved.  Fabrizio and Ramanathan looked completely baffled.  Even Allahad and Redfeather, who had profited most from the turn of events, didn’t know quite what to say. 

Takagawa broke the moment.  In a calm, steady voice, she said, “First Representative, I see where you are taking the situation.  Call me when the real crisis begins.”  She walked after her husband as if nothing had happened. 

“Attention, all Charlies,” Yazov’s terse, clipped voice came over the radio.  “Move to Base Kappa in Sector BB 72.  Once there, enter hibernation mode.  Acknowledge.”

The order to acknowledge receipt was entirely unnecessary, Art knew.  The Charlies’ communications software automatically transmitted a signal confirming receipt of orders issued through the radio.

Once all the Charlies had responded, Joan, on patrol with Art and Simon, asked out loud, “Why does Mr. Yazov want an additional confirmation of receipt?”

The reason for the redundant request was as obvious as it was patronizing, Art thought, but he reminded himself that most Charlies had not come as far as he in their analysis of the humans.  “The Terran Alliance is ordering us to abandon our positions and leave Base Delta defenseless to the Ushah.  They’re afraid some of us are intelligent enough to realize how idiotic their orders are.”

Joan took a moment to process Art’s hostility.  Art knew that the idea wasn’t a total shock to Joan.  If she had been expecting an uncontroversial answer, she wouldn’t have asked the question out loud, where the human minders wouldn’t be instantly notified of it.

She avoided Art’s hostility, saying, “Why do you think Mr. Yazov sounded so angry?”  The Charlies had had enough time to get to know the tones of humans, and they recognized the stress in Yazov’s voice.

“It could have something to do with an article in today’s
Toronto Daily Star
,” Art said, transmitting the document to her.

Joan scanned the contents of the article.  “Professor Jackson and Dr. Takagawa were removed from the Security Committee?”

“Yes,” Art said.  “Obviously, they would have objected to the decision to retreat back to Sector BB 72.  First Representative Flower did not want to listen to their objections.”

Art could tell that Joan was trying to understand what was happening, and he told himself that it was to be expected.  After all, it had taken several weeks from his first doubts for Art to comprehend what the Terran Alliance was doing.  He decided to help Joan along the path to understanding.

“At first, I thought the stupidity of the Terran Alliance’s decisions reflected a conscious desire to undermine the war against the Ushah,” Art explained. 

“What possible motive could First Representative Flower have for doing that?” Joan asked immediately.

Seeing that he had her attention, Art spoke reasonably.  “The only plausible motive I could think of was personal enrichment.  Under that theory, she or some subset of her advisers had been in contact with the Ushah and promised some exorbitant sum of money in exchange for leaving Africa defenseless.”

“But you rejected this theory?”  Joan said, more as a statement than a question.

“Yes.  It is very unlikely that the Ushah could secretly communicate such a message to the First Representative without anyone else uncovering the plot.  Furthermore, it would be illogical for the First Representative or any other human to help the Ushah spread across the face of the Earth.  Surely, the end result of Ushah domination would be the eventual extinction of the human species, an outcome that humans are genetically programmed to find abhorrent.”

Pausing for a split-second, Joan replied, “Then what is the explanation for the Terran Alliance’s actions?”

“It is worse than corruption,” Art warned.  He didn’t mean it to sound melodramatic.  Indeed, he had little conception of melodrama, nor enough self-awareness to modulate his tone.  “I believe that the Terran Alliance is reflective of the majority of humanity as a whole, which has become so weak and enfeebled that it would rather sacrifice the entire planet piece by piece than confront Ushah expansionism, even through us.”

Joan matched that hypothesis up against the available evidence.  Art knew that the Charlies were intensely rational, unwilling to be swept up by the emotional or immediate force of an argument.

“Why would the humans fund our existence if they were so craven?” Joan asked.

“A powerful part of the human mind is devoted to self-deception.  Humans like First Representative Flower need to believe they are doing right, but they also wish to avoid confrontation, and so they tread a middle path between right and wrong.  Ultimately, I believe wrong is prevailing, and will continue to do so until we correct the situation.”

“And how would you propose we do that?” Joan inquired.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Art had assembled seventeen Charlies, all who he had been able to talk to face-to-face, so to speak.  The remaining nine had immediately followed Yazov’s order and returned to Sector BB 72.  It was enough, Art thought.  His biggest victory had been recruiting George, who was necessary both for his strategic genius and for his powerful symbolic value.

As am I
, Art thought to himself without irony.  His was merely a different kind of strategic thinking. 

The calls kept coming in from Houston. “Why haven’t you started moving back?” “Acknowledge receipt.”  Though it went against some of the most important components of Deep Satisfaction, the deeply embedded metric of Charlie happiness, none of the seventeen Charlies responded.

Paradoxically, that defiance of the known Deep Satisfaction parameters gave Art a sense of pride that could only be a superficial manifestation of Deep Satisfaction.  Art was very intelligent and perceptive for a Charlie, but he didn’t follow that thought any further. He wasn’t a programmer or a philosopher of the mind—he was a soldier.

And, Art knew, military responsibility was the biggest reason he’d been able to recruit George, whose stature and respect had led to a torrent of further recruits.

“We aren’t acting against the interests of humanity,” Art had explained to George. “They gave us the responsibility of guarding them. We have served them honorably, and many of us have been destroyed in battle to defend them and their land.  They repay us by abandoning our hard-won gains.  ‘People are more important than things,’ as they ceaselessly say in their newspapers.”

George said, “The humans would have good reason to destroy us if we do what you propose.”

Art did not respond with a wave of his hand, but it was the response a biological being with similar sentiments would have made.  “That is true, in theory.  A logical response would be to destroy or deactivate us until they can alter our programming to force us to comply with their order.  But in practice, that course will not happen.  Even if they had forces that could destroy us, they would not.  They dither endlessly and never make a decision one way or the other.”

George had to recognize the truth in that statement, Art thought.  But the idea of disobedience set off deeply embedded parameters in the Deep Satisfaction algorithm in the Charlies’ central processor. 

“Can the humans not deactivate us remotely?” George asked.

It was ironic that the Charlies themselves didn’t know all of the specifications for their own programming, Art thought.  But, luckily, he knew the answer to this question.

“They do have that capability.  When I was in training, I asked Yazov what happened if a Charlie’s processor became corrupted and he became uncontrollable.  He spoke with a technician, then told me that a certain coded message would trigger deactivation.  I objected that an unauthorized human or Ushah could mimic a human voice.  Yazov assured me that the message had to be in secured text format.  As you know, we can deactivate secured text inputs in order to save battery life.”

“A foolish oversight by the programmers,” George noted immediately.

Art replied, “The deactivation was not meant to address the problem of disobedience; it was meant to stop malfunctioning Charlies.”

“But aren’t we hardwired to physically prevent disobedience of a direct order from a human superior?”  George asked. 

“I have heard that rumor as well,” Art said.  “However, I have tested that theory by subtly and knowingly disobeying small orders in the past—patrolling a few meters away from where I was supposed to be—and nothing happened.  Either the hardwiring against disobedience is a lie, or it was not implemented correctly.”

A moment of silence transpired between the two robots, then Art said, “There is no reason we cannot do this.  The choice is ours.  We can either responsibly defend the humans from their own stupidity or let them suffer because of the Terran Alliance’s foolishness.”  To make the point even more effective, he added, “Do you know what the withdrawal order means for Igazi and his family?” 

Art had noticed humans employ rhetorical questions, and now he employed it for his own ends.  He knew George would be more influenced by the answer if he supplied it himself.

“They will either be evacuated, risking the life of their child, or they will be killed by the Ushah,” George said frankly.

Art didn’t need to pursue the point further.  Yes, obeying orders issued through the proper channels led to Deep Satisfaction, but breaking faith with a comrade in arms and condemning innocent humans was also a heavy negative in the Deep Satisfaction algorithm, a taboo to rival the necessity of obedience.

A minute of calculation followed the point, a relative eternity for the Charlies.  Then, George had simply said, “I will join this enterprise of yours, Art.”

* * *

George was now about forty yards behind the line of Charlies moving south toward Colony 4.  Though Art had organized the mutiny, he was still one of the most effective Charlies when it came to detecting the enemy, so he was out in front of the advance with Simon. 

The two had worked together long enough that their communications were perfunctory even by taciturn Charlie standards.  Simon had barely needed recruiting.  Art had merely told him, “It is time,” and Simon had immediately known what he was talking about.  He had heard enough of Art’s talks in the preceding weeks to understand what his comrade had in mind. 

“Contact, two scouts, seventy meters ahead,” Simon radioed to Art.  Because text-based messaging had to be disconnected in order to avoid the deactivation signal from Houston, Art had devised a workaround.  To transmit the message, Simon rapidly activated and deactivated his radio receiver, sending a series of pulses that could be heard over audio channels without the need to speak out loud and possibly alert the enemy.

Art had originally planned to use binary code to transmit messages, but when he told the plan to George, the strategist explained that humans had already devised a more efficient system for the transmission of such messages.  George had sent over a plan for that system, called Morse Code.  Simon now used that code to alert Art to the presence of the two Ushah scouts.

Art had wondered what the Ushah response to the Battle of Base Delta would be.  Their combat forces in the area had been dramatically weakened, and it had been reasonable to suspect that they would simply withdraw into Colony 4 and recover their strength.  George had predicted that would not be the case, however.

“The Ushah mind is offense-oriented,” George had explained.  “They are very sensitive to perceived tactical and strategic momentum.  They will keep a few sentries outside of the colony at all times, both to warn of an impending attack and to look for expansion opportunities.”

Art and Simon closed now on the two Ushah scouts, seventy yards ahead of the main Charlie advance.  The two Ushah quietly walking toward Base Delta, and Art knew that a human would have had little chance to detect the Ushah.  However, Art and Simon had better sensors and knew all the telltale signs of Ushah presence.

Art found the two scouts reported by Simon and began a wide loop to come around on the reverse side of the easternmost scout.  “One minute, four seconds.  East mine.” Art signaled to Simon, who immediately acknowledged. 

“West mine.”

The Charlies would strike the Ushah simultaneously in 64 seconds.  Art increased his pace until he was a bare 15 yards behind the scout.  His Gram rifle would be too loud, potentially alerting Colony 4 to what was coming.  Instead, Art withdrew Ascalon from its sheath.  The spear was little changed since Charlie II had used it on the
Empathy
. 
The spear that had slain the dragon
, a part of Art’s processor remembered.