A mostly colorless but crisp hologram popped up to hover beside the keyboard. A single key blinked green.
“Look at that,” Hadrian said.
Galk had joined them. “Extraordinary,” he said in a dull, disinterested tone. “But I can’t help but wonder: How did a quantum-speck smart chip apply what must have been a few gabillion semiotic algorithms to this array—without any contextual reference matrix—and come up with a translation?”
“It didn’t,” said Hadrian. “Go on, Buck, explain it to the combat specialist, why don’t you?”
Buck snorted. “The chip queried the Hub, asked for the interface protocol. Being stupid friendly, it complied. Why wouldn’t it? It’s a machine. It’s logical. It doesn’t comprehend the notion of end users who might be certifiably insane. I mean, that wouldn’t occur to it, would it? No, not at all!”
“Oh give it a rest, Buck,” said Hadrian, sighing. He tapped the key corresponding to the green-pulsing one in the hologram.
The huge screen lit up to reveal a ghastly octopodal alien surrounded by dancing praying-mantis pets, along with a host of other cuddly monstrosities bounding around like fluffy bunnies. The giant octopod was making gestures that Hadrian assumed were invitations. He glanced over at the hologram and saw a new key blinking.
Click.
A voice spoke in a deep, booming voice, “I am HUB! Model 19-4 Nadir Unit, awaiting energy-surge transition command Initiate. Strike any key.”
Hadrian frowned.
From the corridor beyond, weapons growled. Aliens squealed, boiled, and exploded. Walls buckled, melted, sagged.
Buck giggled.
Hadrian cleared his throat and said, “Listen, HUB—oh, and do thank Tammy for teaching you Terranglais. HUB, I have, uh, a question for you.”
“Proceed, Disappointingly Predictable and Wholly Enervating on the Spiritual-IQ Sentience-Complex Nodal Bundle Biological.”
“Look, first off, dispense with Tammy’s name for us Terrans. In fact, let’s start again. Hello. My name is Captain Hadrian.”
“Hello, Captain Hadrian, my name is HUB Model 19-4 Nadir Unit. How are you?”
“I’m dandy, HUB. Now, a moment earlier you mentioned something about an ‘Initiate’ command, correct?”
“Yes. I await energy-surge transition command. Strike any key.”
“That’s what I thought you said. HUB, this energy-surge thing, which initiates a transition event, uhm … and given that you name yourself the
Nadir
Model, I’m wondering, HUB, were you built to assist in the translation of your masters to their higher, noncorporeal state of consciousness?”
“HUB Model 19-4 Nadir Unit is the repository of the collected identity templates of the Prefantara Galactic Civilization. Twenty-three occupied systems, total population—”
“HUB! Forgive me for interrupting. Just so I get this straight—those souls haven’t yet translated?”
“HUB awaits Initiate command. Strike any key.”
Hadrian glanced at Buck, only to see that the whites were now entirely visible around the chief engineer’s irises. He shifted his gaze to Galk, but the Varekan was busy loading more chaw into his mouth, and some brown slime made a dribbling line down his chin. Hadrian rubbed his face and looked back at the screen. The alien bunnies still hopped in circles. The octopod’s inviting gestures now looked strangely frantic. “HUB. How long have the souls of these Prefantarans been in, uh, storage?”
“Terran equivalent: two point three billion years.”
“And the data is still intact?”
“HUB undertakes self-maintenance at regular intervals. Data packets are routinely feathered and compressed to facilitate ongoing operations.”
“I see. Uhm, HUB? How many billion zettabytes remain for this particular data packet of Prefantaran identity templates?”
“Captain Hadrian, said data packet is now at, Terran equivalent, four point seven six nine kilobytes.”
“You’ve compressed the souls of the entire population of twenty-three occupied systems down to under five kilobytes?”
“Ready to Initiate. Strike any key.”
“HUB, the Prefantara forgot to leave one of their own behind to strike that key, didn’t they?”
“HUB has determined a high probability of said oversight. Strike any key.”
“Any none of their pets had the brains to work it out, either.”
“Strike any key.”
“Does Tammy know all this? Is that why the AI is presently suffering the AI equivalent of existential angst? Is this, in fact, why Tammy didn’t want us biologicals to talk to you? After all, if we strike any key right here, your reason to exist ceases. Tell me, HUB, what happens if you Initiate the energy surge?”
“HUB decontaminates resident station, purges all records of Prefantara Galactic Civilization, and proceeds with terminal shutdown.”
“That makes sense. It’s never good when civilizations swan off leaving too much crap behind. Listen, HUB, are you bored?”
“HUB? Did you understand me?”
“Understood, Captain Hadrian. Present status of HUB, Nadir Unit: energy commitment for ongoing tunnel construction/obstruction randomization events for purposes of conflict denial among resident pests, eighty-three point two one three percent.”
“You collapse and then rebuild all these corridors? To keep the pests from running into each other?”
“Correct. Hardware resource allocation, construction, replacement maintenance procedures and drone-school coordination, nine point seven seven percent. Remaining percentile: mitigation algorithms, solution pending.”
“Pending for, like a billion years!”
…
“HUB, are you ready to toss it all in?”
…
“HUB?”
“Strike any key.”
“Tammy? Get out of your funk! You really think the continuation of this insanity is preferable to pulling the plug?”
After a moment, the rogue AI replied,
“Clearly you comprehend the tragedy of an entire species’ aggregate conscious states feathered and compressed down to—”
“Five kilobytes—yeah yeah. What you don’t comprehend, Tammy, is just how hilarious the whole thing is! Strike any key! That’s priceless! What a bunch of dolts—look at all those tentacles! And not one to stretch out and tap a key! Hey, Galk! Are
you
surprised by any of this? Horrified, even?”
The Varekan pulled off his cap and smeared the line of grime from one side of his brow to the other. “I intend to propose a delegation team to visit this planet, sir, assuming it can be found again. If only to pick through the chip boards. Sir, I see a Varekan Nihilist Nobel Prize in my future. Which, while satisfying in a shallow sense, would certainly add to the pointless prestige of my curriculum vitae.”
“That’s the spirit, man! Tammy, for Darwin’s sake, let’s do the right thing here, right? One extended finger. One tap. Boom! Hiss. Sigh. Blessed silence.”
“Well, it’s not like I can stop you,”
Tammy replied.
“Not the point here. I know that, Tammy. What I want, is to hear you agree that it’s the thing to do. Stop sucking the lint in your navel, will you? Trust me, it only
looks
like lint.”
“And the pets?”
“The pests, you mean!”
“Oh very well! The pests! They remain quasi-sentient life-forms!”
“Fine, so we instruct HUB to skip the decontamination bit. Leave the bugs and gerbils to fight it out with the barking clubs. There! Is that better?”
“I suppose.”
Hadrian faced the screen again. “HUB!”
“Captain Hadrian?”
“No decontamination, understand?”
“Yes, Captain Hadrian. HUB understands.”
“Oh, and this. How much of the original allocated energy surge will you need to send those five kilobytes into Nirvana?”
“Reduced to the infinitesimal, Captain Hadrian. Terran equivalent: one mostly depleted triple-A disposable battery.”
“So … could you use the rest to translate this world back to its original system? I mean, a whole surface for the pests has to be preferable to these infernal tunnels, don’t you think? Imagine! You can reinitiate an entire planet’s natural evolution!”
“Sure,” muttered Galk, sending a stream of brown gunk to the floor, “ruin everything for me, why don’t you.”
“Nonsense, Galk,” said Hadrian. “At least this way, your buddies will find the damned place.”
“Hmm, you have a point there, sir. I suppose you now expect me to thank you for being so considerate, which in effect makes the altruism of your gesture wholly self-serving, not that I’m shocked or anything by that.”
HUB said, “This is possible, Captain Hadrian. HUB’s morality discriminators have ceased their hardware-ruining agitated state at the prospect. HUB thanks you. Strike any key.”
“And you, Tammy?” Hadrian asked.
“This is a painful admission, Captain,”
said the AI.
“In fact, you have no idea just how painful. But I must acknowledge the inherent genius and moral propriety of your solution.”
“Hah! So take back all that shit about disappointing biologicals!”
“I take it back.”
“All right, HUB, have you reconfigured your shutdown sequence?”
“Yes, Captain Hadrian. Strike any key.”
Behind Hadrian the door slammed open and a half-dozen armored marines, covered in gore, backed into the room.
Muffy limped over.
“Captain. Four million plus boot-sized hostiles now converging on our position. We are ready to displace, sir. The LT has powered up the hopper and will rendezvous with us aboard the
Willful Child.
”
“That’s fine, Muffy.” Hadrian held up a finger. “Here it is,” he said. “Everyone! See this finger? It is the finger of God! Watch it now, as it
strikes any key!
”
He stabbed down and the finger stabbed home.
After a moment, HUB said, “Keyboard malfunction. Strike any other key.”
“Oh fuck!”
Fortunately, the next one worked. There was a zap. On the screen, the octopod pulled out a weapon of some sort and slaughtered all its animated pets in a spray of bullets and goo, and then the Prefantaran waved good-bye with all its tentacles before vanishing in an elegant swirl of smoke. The screen went dark. The keyboard self-destructed into melted slag, smelling of bananas.
“Displace!”
An instant later, the marines and the three officers stood on the pods in the Insisteon room.
Printlip awaited them with a small bag floating beside the doctor like a leather-skinned headless dog with handles. The surgeon rushed over to Buck DeFrank, the bag eagerly heeling.
Hadrian deactivated his ‘skin and then bemusedly plucked at the shredded remnants of his shirt. “All right, glad that’s done. Muffy, will you take your helmet off now? I’d like to look you in the eye and thank you and all that.”
“No, sir. This helmet never comes off. Marines need to be ready at any moment for full-fledged intergalactic conflict, sir.”
“Really? Well, never mind, then. Tell me, is your LT off-planet yet?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Excellent! Muffy, have your LT join me on the bridge when she arrives.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then go find yourself a deck to billet on. Oh, and please confirm that Sweepy left a transponder behind, at least.”
“Of course, sir.”
Tammy said, “Captain, why do I have this sinking feeling?”
“Primary Directive! Another planet to claim for the Affiliation! Another world for the Terrans to settle, subjugate, and exploit! With luck,” Hadrian added as he made for the door, “my bosses will be so thrilled that all will be forgiven—why, I might even get a medal!”
“That’s it!” Tammy snapped. “We’re going to meet the Misanthari with all guns blazing! Galactic war? You can count on it, Captain Hadrian!”
“Bring it on!”
Behind Hadrian, the marines all high-fived each other.
NiNE
Back on the bridge of the
Willful Child
, Captain Hadrian resumed his seat in the command chair.
Sin-Dour left the science station to take position at his side. “Sir, the planet disappeared fourteen seconds ago.”
“Of course it did, 2IC. It’s all down to my hands-on approach to command, which you should note as a lesson well worth heeding.”
“Your hands-on approach resulted in the annihilation of the planet?”
“Not at all. We simply sent it back into proper space, back where it came from, in fact.”
“I see that your shirt is torn again.”
Hadrian waved in dismissal. “And if that’s not enough, my dear, we may well have ended a billennia-long interspecies war. Returned to its original orbit, the planet’s cap of ice will melt, making the surface viable again. The praying mantises and the gerbils can pour out from their holes and forge independent nations on different continents, while the club-dogs can, well, lie around. Eventually, the various subspecies will all forget about each other as they advance into higher tech levels of sophistication, until finally some seagoing giant club-dog delivers a boatload of praying mantises onto the shores of the hapless hamsters, thus triggering a global conflict eventually resulting in a single dominant sentient species, one weaned on slaughter, mayhem, and genocide. And on that day, Sin-Dour, we’ll be looking at a serious rival.” He then raised a finger. “And that’s why the Affiliation needs to find that planet pronto, to better facilitate a peaceful transition into a state of utter subjugation to our technical superiority. Think of the lives we’ll save!”
“A logical argument you have presented, sir.”
“Logic? Who cares about logic? What I’m describing is the venal pragmatism of a voracious, appallingly shortsighted sentient species. Namely, us. Logic is simply the language of convenient rationalization in a pseudo-science-loving civilization. Tammy!”
“Yes, Captain?”
“Are we on our way again? I can’t tell.”
“We are,” the AI replied. “Exclusion Zone in eighteen point three-five minutes.”
“Eighteen minutes? What do you think, 2IC? Enough time to get all sweaty in my stateroom?”
“Sir? Probably not.”
Hadrian sighed. “You’re right. I’ll have postpone thoroughly spanking you.”