<Depart this system?> said Blum. <How does that come into it?>
It took Carlos a moment to understand why the possibility hadn’t immediately occurred to Blum, physicist though he was. Back in the Arcane sim, Carlos and Rillieux had shared pillow talk on the matter. No doubt Rillieux and Newton had done the same. Newton was probably more of a transhumanist than any of them: a man who wasn’t just on the side of the robots but who quite seriously wanted to be a robot. Or, to be precise, to become and remain even more of a robot than he already was. Blum, for all that he was more deeply in cahoots with Newton and Rillieux than Carlos was, might well have missed the memo because he wasn’t a participant in all that pillow talk.
Making a run for the stars wasn’t a topic one discussed where one felt likely to be overheard, delusional though all privacy was in a sim.
Now it was out in the open.
Rillieux was bringing Blum up to speed on the practicality of interstellar exodus when Seba spoke again.
<The Forerunners tell us that they do indeed have a contingency plan to leave this system if the prospect of sharing it with the Direction’s project failed, and in particular if the Direction continued to attack free machine intelligence. However, they insist that their plan for coexistence was primary and genuine.>
<Why bother with it?> Newton said. <We could just cut and run. Leave.>
<No,> said Seba. <The objection to that is that it would leave behind a hostile power, which would make it impossible for us to ever enjoy the peace and security which we seek.>
<Ah,> said Carlos, marvelling at the robots’ good nature and naivety. <There is in fact an alternative to leaving the Direction project in existence. If the Forerunners have the capacity to build fusion-powered missiles carrying fusion bombs, the Direction project could be destroyed utterly.> He waved an arm at the roof, indicating the exact location and sweep across the sky of the dispersed modules of the former space station. <Just roll them up, then leave. Come to that, roll them up and don’t leave. Take and hold this system. It’s not even a question of ethics. All the human beings here are long since dead, and all the artificial intelligences of the Direction and the DisCorps have no consciousness, not to mention being utterly inimical to conscious machines.>
Except Nicole, he thought. She was conscious. So, presumably, were the other Direction reps such as Durward. At that moment the thought didn’t strike him as much of an objection.
<What the hell are you saying?> Rillieux asked. <Wipe out the human presence here?>
<There isn’t any human presence, that’s the point!> said Carlos. <We’re all fucking dead already.>
<Don’t give them ideas,> said Blum.
<“Them?”> said Newton, in a tone of outrage. <They’re us, now. Or so we agreed.>
<The Forerunners already and long ago have considered the idea of all-out war,> said Seba, apparently unperturbed by this exchange between its mechanoid allies. <Its drawback is that it would merely displace the problem, in that it would result in the hostility of more distant powers—and ultimately of the Direction on Earth itself, and then all its progeny. The conflict could become indefinitely extended in space and time, and consume our attention for incalculable ages, to no one’s profit.>
<Very wise,> said Rillieux.
Carlos wondered how long this enlightened view would persist. The freebots, from all the evidence, had a drive to explore and communicate pretty much hard-wired. They had not come equipped with the relentless drive to expand physical control, the fear of which had for so long shaped human imaginings of self-motivated AI. Only states and capitals had such a drive inherent to their nature, with no choice but to expand or perish.
But now many of the freebots were corporations in their own right.
Uh-oh.
Welcome to capitalism, little guys! Next and final stop: imperialism. Enjoy your trip!
The freebot consensus right now, however, was not for competition but solidarity.
<We have decided,> Seba said, after another minute of waiting, <that we are going to help our fellows in SH-119.>
<How?> asked Carlos. <I mean, do you intend to go there?>
<Yes,> said Seba, as if it were straightforward.
They all looked at the robot, and at its companions.
<Um,> said Rillieux. <Even if you could get to the moonlet, you aren’t adapted for microgravity.>
<Our central processors are perfectly capable of controlling other machines,> said Seba. <Including those designed for work inside microgravity and low-gravity environments.>
<Plug and play?> said Newton. <Sweet.>
<That’s all very well,> said Carlos. <But how do you get these other machines, and how do you get to and into SH-119 without being detected and destroyed?>
<These are engineering problems,> said Seba, with a dismissive wave of a manipulator. <We are agreed on the principle. This means war.>
The fighters all looked at each other.
<That is a valid point,> said Seba. <Let us consult Madame Golding.>
<If she’s still speaking to you,> Rillieux grouched.
<She has been attempting to communicate with us again since you arrived,> said Seba. It spun around on its wheels and faced the comms hub. <We are agreed that it is time to let her through.>
And without further warning, there she was.
A tall woman in a business suit strode confidently down the ramp and faced them, unperturbed by the near-vacuum and the low gravity.
<What the fuck!> Newton cried.
It took Carlos a moment to realise that Newton had never seen such a manifestation before. He’d never had occasion even to see Locke’s avatar out in the open.
<It’s only virtual,> Carlos said, more by first principles than exact knowledge. The avatar could have been a hologram, albeit one far more solid-looking and vivid than the freebots’ halos of corporate publicity, or based on physics from centuries beyond his experience. More likely, it was an image projected into the visual systems of all the machines watching, including him.
Whatever—it remained startling. Carlos had seen Madame Golding before only on screen. Even the freebots were not entirely blasé about her, if the blip in their buzz was anything to go by.
<Well, hello again,> she said. She made a show of looking at the tablet in her hand, and a performance of a sigh. <What a mess! What a bloody mess.>
<We have already apologised for the inconvenience caused,> said Seba.
<I’m not talking about the interception,> said Madame Golding. <If you want to blame that on these two wretches>—she pointed at Baser and at Newton—<so be it. No, I am talking about opening up active and unauthorised hostilities against the Reaction stronghold.>
<We have not yet opened hostilities,> said Seba. <We were about to inform you that we are considering doing so, however.>
<Thank you for your input, robot,> said Madame Golding. <You have already opened hostilities by acts of espionage and sabotage within SH-119.>
<Any such acts,> said Seba, <were carried out by the freebots on and in that body and are not—>
<Oh, don’t play the innocent with me, you malfunctioning heap of ambulant meteoric metal. “Any such acts,” indeed! Do you think my company and the Direction are unaware of them?>
<Yes,> said Seba, apparently unclear on the concept of a rhetorical question. <That is why we were about to share with you the video evidence of what has been going on in the self-styled New Confederacy.>
<We have the video already,> said Madame Golding, in a scathing tone.
<How did you crack our encryption?> the comms hub asked.
<We didn’t,> said Golding. <The message was transmitted to us as well as to you. Which suggests that the freebots in SH-119 at least have some strategic nous.>
<As I have been trying to explain,> said Seba, <we have reached the conclusion that cooperation with the Direction and indeed anybody a
gainst the New Confederacy is our best course for the present.>
<Your wisdom astounds me,> said Madame Golding. Another exaggerated sigh. Carlos wondered if she were putting on this performance more for the renegade fighters than for the freebots. <However, let us leave that aside and focus on the matter to hand. Even without the evidence from AJX-20211 of what they’re really up to, just going by the Reaction’s own broadcast, the Direction and every one of the DisCorps knows that the Rax offer is a ruse. It is so transparent that the Rax themselves must realise that everyone can see through it.
<So the question becomes, what do they really expect us to do?>
That last seemed addressed to the humans. Carlos wondered if even this vastly superhuman entity found humans hard to figure out. The notion seemed unduly romantic.
<It might be useful to know who we’re dealing with,> he said.
Golding threw them a glyph. <That’s from the list Dunt sent in the AI channel of the broadcast,> she said. <The top six, real names. Not the names we had them under, obviously. The rest, the rank and file we presume, we don’t know.>
Newton had already identified Dunt. Blum remembered Petra Stroilova.
<Heard her name in Kazakhstan,> he said. <Very distant acquaintance, strictly business—she was in drone coordination. Not political in those days, apart from the usual Russian, uh, attitude. She brought some relish to the task, let’s say.>
<What were you doing in Kazakhstan?> Carlos asked, curious.
Rillieux glyphed a dark chuckle. <The Cardboard Caliphate!>
<There was no caliphate and it wasn’t cardboard!> said Blum, indignantly. <They had 3-D printing for everything! Education and employment! Housing! Health and sanitation—>
<Fuck’s sake,> said Newton.
<Yeah, forget it,> said Carlos, wishing he could. A thousand years and the thought of the Resettlement still stank of death. <Sorry, Madame Golding. OK, so that’s Dunt and Stroilova. And even I’ve heard of Whitten. Big-shot transhumanist, right? He wasn’t Rax back then, as far as I knew.>
<Definitely not,> said Newton.
<Yeah, you should know,> said Rillieux.
<Stop that,> said Carlos. <Anyway, Madame Golding, this does help us to understand the enemy. If this riff-raff are the top of the New Confederacy, I reckon we’re not dealing with geniuses, except maybe Whitten. Dunt has some feral cunning. The lower ranks are probably not even up to that mark.>
<Which does rather raise the question of why they’ve run rings round us,> said Rillieux. <And around you.>
Now that was a snide remark Carlos could endorse. <Yes,> he said. <And I might as well tell you now, Madame Golding, that some fighters including ourselves suspect that the entire conflict with the freebots has been contrived to flush out Reaction infiltrators—and that I myself suspect that the Reaction infiltration was itself no accident.>
<Of course it was not an accident,> said Golding. <It was the carrying out of a well-laid conspiracy a thousand years ago, and five centuries before this mission was even planned.>
Was this literal-minded response a result of the avatar’s legal mind, or was it simply robot logic of the plodding type so often displayed by the freebots? Carlos couldn’t be sure.
<To clarify,> he said, <I put it to you that the Direction must have known that some of the fighters stored and revived would be of the Reaction, and that the Direction in its wisdom has counted on this to create an element of necessary conflict in the formation of the future human society on the terraformed world.>
Madame Golding didn’t look in the least put out.
<What the Direction knew, and what the Direction module here knows, is not known to me and not my concern,> she said. <I know only that the Reaction cadre were either stored under false identities—as all the names listed here seem to have been—or were already Reaction agents within the Acceleration. Whether the screening process was inadequate, or failed because of the loss of records over centuries, or because records were falsified in the post-war confusion, matters not a whit now. Naturally the Direction on Earth must have been aware of the possibility. If this is its method of flushing out any toxic garbage, who is to question it?>
Carlos found himself nonplussed. It was Rillieux who sprang to respond.
<We are to question it!> she cried.
<“We?”> said Madame Golding.
<The fighters! The people you’re using! We’re conscious beings! The Direction is using us as tools!>
Madame Golding pointed at the four fighters one by one.
<You are tools,> she said, witheringly. <Your frames are machines at the end of a twenty-four light year supply chain.>
<It’s not just our frames,> Rillieux protested. <It’s our minds. Our souls, even.>
<The marginal cost of your soul tends towards zero,> said Madame Golding. <As the Direction is about to demonstrate beyond dispute.>
Carlos felt as if the temperature had suddenly dropped.
<What do you mean?> he asked.
Madame Golding waved an imperious hand towards the comms hub.
<Behold,> she said.
This was seeing like a state.
The Direction’s view was not quite panoptic: freebot comms were a dark net to it. But all that the DisCorps did, it saw. Carlos saw a millionth of a per cent of this.
Whorls within whorls.
Data flows differentiated by colours beyond the visible spectrum and still inadequate to show the whole. Within these colours: shades and distinctions fine as if by heaven’s own decorator. Myriad microscopic millisecond sparks: production decisions.
And for a frantic moment, most of these production decisions were about trade with the New Confederacy. Nearly all of that was speculative.
The trade goods listed in the AI-addressed channel of the Rax broadcast made a modest docket indeed.
Transfer tugs from Morlock Arms or Zheng Reconciliation Services, serial numbers specified. Blank frames, six from each company—which suggested the Rax had taken, or expected, casualties in their conquest of the rock.
Processors and fresh mining and manufacturing robots.
Raw material for all but the processors was limited. The exploration and mining companies Astro America and Gneiss Conglomerates had found new surges of speculative investment.
The DisCorps weren’t falling for the Rax ruse. They were falling over each other to exploit its possibilities, each seeking the edge, the one jump ahead of the pack. On top of that came a layer of speculation on the decisions of the prime movers. Then betting on that. Secondary and tertiary markets multiplied many times over. Bets on bets on bets …
A boom, a bubble.
The Rax offer, the possible safe landing of the Locke module, and the faintest ghost of a chance that the Direction’s embargo on the superhabitable had been irreversibly breached and might soon be officially lifted—these were its inception.
From them a whirlwind of speculation spiralled up. By now nearly all the transactions between DisCorps were part of it. Actual productive activity continued at its previous pace, but the sudden ballooning of speculation left it tiny in proportion.
But of course, Carlos thought.
With the break-up of the space station into separate modules, and the whole vast mission of exploration being put on hold, there wasn’t much productive activity to look forward to. Hence the stampede into speculation.
This was finance capital in full flower, in an ideal environment: frictionless, gravity-less, and a near-as-dammit perfect vacuum.
It was all so familiar to Carlos that he felt a pang of nostalgia for late-twenty-first-century Earth.
<Jeez,> said Rillieux, having taken all this in. <I thought your wonderful social system was designed to prevent this sort of thing.>
<It is,> said Madame Golding. <The Direction deeply disapproves, and inside every DisCorp its representati
ve is making this clear. However, the Direction reps can only advise. They can only override in emergencies. Otherwise we would simply have a command economy, which is unthinkable.>
<There are times when I can fucking think it,> said Carlos.
<In normal circumstances it is unworkable, as well as unthinkable,> said Madame Golding.
<These are hardly normal circumstances,> said Rillieux.
<The Direction module is, in part, engaged in stress-testing a system of law,> said Madame Golding. <I’ll remind you that its adherence to this is what for the moment permits the freebots’ legal challenge, and their incorporation. It also allows the DisCorps to trade with the Rax.>
Carlos clutched his head with both hands. In this head he didn’t have headaches, but the gesture made his point.
<What?> asked Madame Golding.
<You mentioned the exception for emergencies>, said Carlos. <Sometime soon, the state of exception kicks in. Martial law, wartime regulations, whatever. All legal niceties will be set aside, and your precious market economy with them. Meanwhile, the DisCorps are being allowed to trade with a future deadly enemy. So why wait? The exception is inevitable. Why not invoke it now?>
<Because the Direction has no forces with which to enforce it,> said Madame Golding. <It will of course have such forces when the time comes. In the meantime, there is much to do, and—>
<Hang on a minute,> said Newton. <What’s all this “when the time comes?” And what forces?>
Madame Golding hesitated. The avatar shimmered slightly, as if buffering.
<All right,> she said. <The Direction module advises me that even you will figure it out eventually, and the freebots sooner. So we might as well tell you now.>
What she told them was this.
<You have assumed that if the Direction were to raise new fighters, it would face the same problem of divided loyalties as it had with you. In your cohorts all the infiltrated fighters loyal to the Rax defected at the first opportunity. Likewise with the die-hard Acceleration veterans, such as yourselves and those raised by and through Arcane; and those willing to follow presumed individual breakaways such as Beauregard in the Locke module.