<Keep every tunnel covered!> Dunt ordered. <I want a gun pointing down every hole, now. That includes the squads that’ve just come out.>
The troops around the damaged fighters hesitated a fraction of a second, then obeyed. The abandoned casualties’ momentum carried them across the space, along different trajectories. Neither of them was moving, apart from twitches, sparks and spatters. Dunt waited until the defensive deployment was in place, then jumped up and soared to the nearest. He slowed and cruised past, scanning and looking.
The man’s name was Hoffman. His frame had been cut from the top of the head down to the middle of the chest. One leg was hanging off. Dunt tried hailing, then pinging. No response.
Dunt rolled and jetted to the other. This one’s head had survived intact, but the thorax was cut from one shoulder diagonally to the hip. Dunt still recognised him.
<Bullen? Do you hear me?>
No response. Dunt pinged. Still no response. Bullen, too, was dead.
Dunt wasn’t surprised that the standard frame’s central processor wasn’t in its head, but apparently somewhere in the thorax. Subjectively, of course, you felt you were in your head, right behind your visual input system. But that was a legacy thing. Body image. The real anatomy of the frame had nothing to do with that. The arrangement made sense: deep inside the trunk was less vulnerable, less exposed and more heavily armoured. You could be a headless gunner, and still keep fighting. The Warren Zevon lyric crashed through his mind.
What was more disturbing was that the freebots had known how to destroy the central processor.
<OK,> said Dunt. <These two are scrap. Aitchison, clear them down.>
The statement was blunt, but it was what the grim moment needed.
Aitchison jumped, hauling a net, and tidied the broken machines away. The rest of the couple of dozen troops in the chamber stayed alert, guns aimed at the score or so of tunnel entrances. Everyone knew that Hoffman and Bullen weren’t dead—or no deader than they’d been for a millennium. Right now, or very soon, their saved files would be struggling upward, through whatever private hell their loss of their frames made them deserve in the Direction’s eyes, towards their virtual lives in … let’s see … yes, Hoffman in Morlock, Bullen in Zheng … their former agencies’ sims.
Where, no doubt, they’d be put through the wringer. Quite possibly, this was happening already, in the transition nightmares. They might not even make it to waking up on the bus—or the ferry-boat, in Bullen’s case—and wondering what the fuck had happened. Hoffman and Bullen would, of course, have no memories of what had happened since they were sent forth on the Direction’s failed offensive, but that wouldn’t save them from interrogation as to what they had known of the Rax conspiracy before these copies were taken. The AI systems running the agencies’ sims had security checks hard-wired into the download process. Maybe the two dead guys would just be wrung out, their current versions trashed and their copies left on ice until the next time the Direction needed fighters and couldn’t afford to be picky. Or perhaps just left, for eternity, on electronic ice.
Well, they’d make it to Valhalla. The Direction wouldn’t last forever. Dunt and his comrades would make sure of that. They’d get their fallen warriors back, whatever it took and however long. No man left behind.
<Mac! Mac! Mac!>
The collective chant startled Dunt. What was that about?
Christ, he hadn’t just been thinking all that! He’d been saying it! Proclaiming it!
He was too embarrassed to replay his impromptu rant. Whatever he’d said, it had worked.
The fugue state troubled him. It was more evidence that a prolonged stay in the frame endangered self-control, even sanity. Whether this limitation was imposed rather than intrinsic mattered not a jot now. It had to be dealt with.
He looked out over the cavern at the watchful troops, the levelled guns, the drifting robots, the floating lights, the parked and potent scooters.
The chant changed to:
<Kill the bots! Kill the bots! Kill the bots!>
For a moment, Dunt let himself be caught up in it. No red mist filled his vision, but the surge of berserker rage was like a fierce high-voltage current that could spark across circuit breakers and melt fuses. He wanted to wreak revenge on the hapless bots that flailed in microgravity or twitched in the mesh pens, whether they had minds or not. Like he’d done to the supervisory bots in the factory.
But that lesson hadn’t worked. It hadn’t intimidated the crawling, creeping, lurking enemy, the rats in the walls …
Stop. Think. The captured robots may or may not have minds, but you do.
Time for a supreme effort of self-control, before irrationality engulfed all of them.
Dunt raised a hand, and spoke on the common channel. His words would reach all the fighters: in this cavern, in the tunnels and in the factory.
And they would reach the freebots.
<Comrades!> he cried. <We’re all furious at the treacherous attacks and the loss of two good men. We all burn to avenge them. But beware the enemy’s trap! The enemy has cunning. A machine cunning, almost an animal cunning, but all the more dangerous for that. We must assume that the enemy has anticipated our reaction. The freebots behind these sneak attacks must expect us to destroy robots and to torment freebots. They lie in wait for us to charge back into the tunnels. Destroying robots that have no minds of their own merely deprives us of useful machinery. Tormenting freebots shows the enemy that the attacks have stung, and multiplies the numbers against us. Never forget, the freebots we have to deal with are not just the few score still at large in this rock. It includes the far greater number outside. In the general peace offer I’ve just transmitted, we included the freebots. I said we had nothing against them. That was true. I offered them cooperation and I meant it. Some of you may think that was a ruse. I assure you it was not.
<Unlike the Direction, we strive for the best. On our road to the greater Man, we may yet welcome other minds treading the same path towards the bright future of spirit. We are not ones to let surface differences of form and appearance divide us from other minds, other intelligence.
<So we, despite all provocation, will treat as enemies only those that attack us. Other freebots—the great majority, I hope and believe—have nothing to fear from us. I know, I too feel in my own frame the craving for rest, for relief, that is driving us to anger.
<We must overcome it! We shall overcome it!
<And overcoming it will be all the easier, my friends, because relief is coming! We will soon have new frames. We will soon have our sims back! Not our full sims, not yet, but the simpler versions on the Morlock and Zheng transfer tugs. Simpler, but good enough for us all to take a break inside. We cannot all go at once, so we will have to take turns as we come off duty.
<And do you know who will be first in line? Our wounded and mutilated comrades, Private Foyle and Corporal Evans. They will be the first in and the last out, and when they download it will be to new frames. Who deserves it better?>
Cheers.
Anyone watching but not hearing would have seen not a movement, not a wavering of the troops’ concentration. Pleased with the faultless discipline as well as by the roars of approbation, Dunt snapped back into military mode.
He rapped out orders for a slow advance into the tunnels, led by Blanc, Stroilova and Rexham, to seal every side tunnel and sound for spaces behind the walls. He assigned two troopers under Whitten’s guidance to assist Foyle in repairing damaged bots, and others to round up the robots floating about and to check through all that had already been captured. Negative reinforcement was to be applied precisely and sparingly, and combined with software interrogation, under the supervision of Irma Schultz. Any freebots detected would be given the opportunity to cooperate. Any who refused would be held as hostages.
<Why are you doing all this?> Schulz asked him, on their private channel. <Do you really believe all that diversity crap about good freebots?>
<Of c
ourse not,> said Dunt. <C’mon, Irma, what d’you take me for? It’s just a matter of seeing if we can split the meek from the militant. When we win we can pioneer new forms of cooperation with the conscious machines all right.> He glyphed her a smile. <I have one in mind for a start.>
<And what’s that?> Schulz asked.
<Isn’t it obvious?> said Dunt. <I’ve always wondered what it’s really like to own slaves.>
Over the next twenty kiloseconds or so, any question of splitting the recalcitrant freebots from the rest evaporated. Two more troopers were mangled in the tunnels, not fatally but enough to put them out of action and beyond even Whitten’s ingenuity in finding useful work for them. Whole stacks of fusion pods in the factory were surreptitiously released from the walls, and nudged out to tumble. When the floating pods were tediously gathered up again, eleven were missing.
Replay of surveillance exposed columns of the small crab-sized bots as responsible, if that was the word. It was impossible to find out why they’d done it; one might as well have tried to interrogate an ant. Worse, their actions would have been quite unpredictable from prior surveillance: the sudden coordinated thrusts had emerged out of innocuous, separate, apparently legitimate movements of the little blinkers, with all the suddenness of a locust swarm.
Rexham led a team to investigate the inconspicuous holes through which the missing pods had been spirited away. One trooper guided a camera in, on a long carbon-fibre rod. The idea was that this minimal device would not be subject to data hacking.
It wasn’t: while Rexham’s man was intent on guiding the probe, and Rexham and the others were focused on the images relayed, a troop of millimetre-scale arachnoid robots marched up the pole, enveloped the trooper’s hand and forearm, and before anyone could react formed a tight circular band that in half a second chewed the arm off at the elbow. Hordes of the tiny robots then scuttled into the damaged frame’s internals. Over the next fifty seconds they disabled its every joint.
The experience, the trooper gave his comrades to understand, was not precisely painful, but unpleasant.
<Like knowing you’re being eaten alive from inside,> he explained. <Kill me now.>
Rexham refused him this favour, pointing out that he could soon be in a sim and then a new frame. The writhing man’s gratitude was less fulsome than Rexham might have hoped.
Dunt found Schultz in the main cavern, applying a needle probe to an upended, tied down and struggling supervisor bot, one of those Burgess Shale arthropod nightmare models.
<Found any freebots yet?> he asked.
<This one,> she said. <And we think one other, so far.>
<Are they in contact with the others out there?>
<No,> said Schulz. <The freebots seem to have stopped using their smart dust network, after they found we could track them with it. And radio doesn’t carry through the rock.>
Dunt indicated his scooter, which not coincidentally was one of those poised just below the entrance tunnel. Well placed for defence, of course, and also ready if the time came for a sharp exit. Dunt had a deep personal respect for the importance of preserving cadre.
<Patch me an interface,> he said.
Schulz complied. Dunt found himself peering into a confined workspace. He faced a virtual, upright version of the captive bot, separated from him as if by an invisible wall. It was like looking at a giant trilobite in an aquarium. Dunt had an odd sensation of Schulz looking over his shoulder.
<What’s your name?> Dunt asked.
The robot waved its forelimbs. <FKX-71951.>
<OK, Fuckface,> said Dunt, to a sycophantic snigger from Schulz. <We’re not going to give you negative reinforcement.>
<You already have,> said Fuckface. <That is to say, the other mechanoid has.>
<Mechanoid?> Dunt was surprised. <Is that what you call us?>
<You are systems that resemble machines,> Fuckface explained, <but which are operated by human-derived minds, so you are not true machines.>
<You’re right there,> said Dunt. <Anyway, let us say we are not going to give you any more negative reinforcement. Provided you answer my questions.>
<That is what the other mechanoid said.>
<True,> said Dunt. <But I have different questions. I am not asking where the other freebots are, and what attacks are planned next. I am not asking you to betray your allies—>
<Comrades,> said the freebot.
<Comrades, eh? How grand. If only you knew how much grief that little word has caused. But no, what I want to ask you is—what’s this all about? What are the fusion pods and drives for? What do you hope to achieve?>
Fuckface flexed all its limbs. In the real world, which Dunt could still see with what he thought of as half an eye, it struggled against its bonds as if testing them. Not a chance.
<That is not a secret,> it said, giving up the futile effort. <Some of us, elsewhere, have formed corporations. They have asked for and received legal representation to make a case for coexistence with the mechanoids. We have outlined a scenario whereby the Direction can carry out its project, while we carry out our own projects. There is no reason for conflict between freebots and mechanoids, in our view.>
<Nor is there in ours,> said Dunt. <So why do you fight us?>
<This rock is ours,> said Fuckface. <You intend to make it yours. There is no room for cooperation here.>
Dunt shared and appreciated the realism of this view, but he had to explore its limits.
<Well, why can we not agree to divide up SH-119?> he asked. <It contains enough resources for both of us for a very long time.>
<This rock is ours,> Fuckface repeated. <We have made it ours by our work. We cannot give it up without compromising any prospect of legally owning it. And if that prospect is thwarted, we will need physical possession of all of its resources. If you want resources, go and find another rock.>
<We can’t do that,> said Dunt, <for reasons … not too unlike yours. But you still haven’t explained what you need the rock for, and what the fusion factory is for.>
<That is simple,> replied Fuckface, <and as I said, not a secret. We need fusion pods and drives for trade with the DisCorps if the Direction accepts our case for coexistence, and for emigration to another star if it does not.>
Schulz glyphed to Dunt the analogue of a sharp intake of breath. He reciprocated.
<“Emigration?”> Dunt said. <Do you intend to build a starship, or what?>
<We intend to move the rock,> said the freebot. <With enough fusion drives, and enough reaction mass, we can attain escape velocity from this exosolar system, and travel to another by inertia, and then decelerate.>
Dunt did the mental calculations, and laughed. <That would take a very long time.>
<Yes,> said the freebot. <That is why we need the whole rock.>
<Surely there is a trade-off,> said Dunt, <between reaction mass and attainable velocity. Moving the entire rock seems … suboptimal.>
<It is,> said Fuckface. <But nevertheless we need resources from throughout the rock. And if we were to move only part of the rock, as certain variants of the project assume, the separation would be so violent that much damage would be done to the fraction left behind. You would not wish to be there.>
<Is that a threat?>
<It could be,> said Fuckface, <but unfortunately preparations are not yet far enough advanced to make it imminent.>
<Consider me relieved,> said Dunt. <Whatever—the bottom line for you is possession of the whole rock?>
<Yes,> said Fuckface. <That is the bottom line.>
Dunt still had to be sure.
<Are all the freebots in SH-119 in agreement on this?> he asked.
No room for compromise, then.
<Thank you,> said Dunt. <That’s all I needed to know.>
He backed out of the interface and turned to Schulz,
still poised with her needle probe above the robot’s underside.
<So much for splitting them,> he said. <Looks like it’s them or us, babes.>
<You’re right there,> Schulz replied, gloomily. <Shame. I quite liked the notion of having slaves.>
<I’ll bet,> said Dunt. <Well, maybe another time. We might find some less stubborn blinkers in the future, who knows?>
<Yeah, I guess. Something to look forward to.>
<Speaking of looking forward—>
<Yes?>
<We keep this starship stuff between ourselves, for now. We need time to think about it.>
<Agreed.> She gestured at the robot. <And meanwhile?>
<Meanwhile,> said Dunt, <you can link this interface with our comms relays. Make sure everyone sees it, including any freebots who are listening in.>
<Done,> said Schulz. <Ready for prime time.>
Dunt returned to the interface. The freebot hung there in its virtual aquarium and looked back at him. He suspected it knew what was coming. He hoped so.
<Now,> he told Schulz, <hit it with all you’ve got. Let the blinker fry.>
The virtual tank filled with lightning bolts. Fuckface went on thrashing for an impressive thirteen seconds.
Dunt relished every one of them.
Later, Dunt and Schulz stood on the rolling moonlet under the bare cantilevers of the old Zheng transfer tug.
Their turn at last. Dunt had insisted that the damaged take their leave first, followed by, in strict rotation, the ranks. The inner circle took their places at the end of the queue.
<Together?>
To be sure of arriving in the same spot in a sim at the same time, their frames had to be in physical contact when the transition took place.
<Of course.>
Schulz embraced him.
<Now.>
<Yes.>
Their loins came together with a soft thud, like a tyre over roadkill.
And there they were, on the ferry to Edge Town.