Seeing that this tactic was ineffective, the PCC switched quickly to phase three, the use of automated blasters stationed at intervals along the corridors. Because the blasters could fire a continuous beam, they were much more effective than the stun-guns had been; nine more of the Marines were cut down before they could defend themselves. The others fired back at the automated weapons, managing to partially disable them. So quickly were the Marines moving that, even though just a few minutes had passed since the locks were burned out, the members of the assault team were nearing their individual goals. Realizing that these deadly intruders were approaching critical areas, the PCC quickly initiated its next line of defense.
Ultra-grav went on throughout the asteroid. In an instant the gravitational field in the complex changed from a comfortable nine-tenths gee to a crushing force of twenty-five gees. The Marines, though well trained and in superb physical condition, were not high-grav natives and could not stand in that kind of field. They all went down in an instant. Four were killed immediately in the fall, and most of the rest were pinned so tightly to the floor that they couldn’t move-easy prey for the automated weapons. Three Marines managed to move enough to detonate the bombs they were carrying, hoping to do some damage even though they weren’t at the optimum point. The blasts were noisy, but had little ultimate effect on the PCC; all they really managed to do was kill the brave Marines who’d brought the bombs so far.
By this time, too, the PCC had correlated enough in formation to realize what was happening. All fifty of the armed intruders were military officers, engaged in a well-planned and precisely timed operation. Outside, seven heavily-armed Navy vessels had maneuvered within the asteroid’s range, supposedly chasing the mad civilian craft. Another dozen ships were in pursuit near by, posing only slightly less of a threat. It was no coincidence that the civilian vessel had gone berserk at precisely the time and place it did. This was all part of a concerted attempt to destroy the PCC.
At the same instant it turned on the ultra-grav within its asteroid, the PCC took protective measures to preserve itself from external attack as well. Its guns took careful aim at the Navy ships within its range and began firing, disabling five ships with its first volley. Simultaneously the PCC started up its own engines and prepared to leave the comfortable orbit it had occupied for over five decades.
Realizing their ruse had failed, the Navy ships abandoned all pretense and directed their attention toward the asteroid. The two ships not destroyed in the first salvo turned their guns on the enemy, but the computer’s shields and the outer layer of rock protected it. The PCC fired back and hit those two ships dead center. Their screens flared brilliantly and went out, leaving them easy targets for the PCC’s guns. The computer blew them out of the sky even as its own engines fired up and accelerated it away from the Earth toward open space and freedom.
Other Navy craft began pursuit, but that led only to disaster. Most of them were relying routinely on computer-assisted guidance and weapons systems – and those systems suddenly went haywire. Ships began veering into one another’s path and colliding. Others opened fire on their comrades instead of on the escaping asteroid, creating more havoc. By the time the brightest of the commanders realized what was happening and ordered their computers shut off, the damage had been done.
The PCC had an unbeatable head start. The Navy’s best captains could only watch helplessly as the asteroid reached the critical distance from the center of the Earth’s gravitational field and slipped quietly into sub space. The worst enemy humanity had ever faced was loose in the Galaxy and preparing to take a counter offensive.
CHAPTER 9 Galactic History: An Alternate View
Work on the Empire’s Primary Computer Complex was begun in 2396 and completed in 2398. Because of its enormous complexity, many tests had to be run, and the system did not become fully operational until April 25, 2399. At the opening ceremonies, Emperor Stanley Nine called it “the greatest creation of mankind” and predicted that it would revolutionize the Empire. Great things were expected of this new and most elaborate tool humanity had ever devised.
The PCC was to make the Empire of Earth the most efficient government in human history. It would be the single largest repository of knowledge in the Galaxy, a storehouse of every conceivable fact that affected people and the way they lived. With this wealth of facts at its fingertips, the imperial government could streamline its operations, eliminating costly wastes of time and manpower.
Early critics of the PCC worried that the system would mean the death of individual liberty. They argued that a government that could keep such close tabs on its subjects would necessarily invade the people’s privacy and tyrannize them beyond measure. But while that was always a possibility, the actuality never materialized. Safeguards were built into the system to make casual crosschecking of files very difficult, and the sheer volume of data constantly streaming in from over thirteen hundred planets made it unlikely that any innocent individual would be singled out for special treatment.
The PCC’s primary function was storage; it was a library of every fact known to humanity. When called upon, the PCC also correlated and analyzed data, looking for patterns that helped the government make decisions on what course of action to follow. The PCC was designed to behave within the strict limits of its programs and not to initiate actions of its own. But it was so huge, and its programs had been designed by so many brilliant mathematicians and scientists, that there was inevitable overlap between the programs. It was rightly said that no one person, or group of people, could understand the PCC in its totality – and as the PCC grew in power and complexity over the years, that gap in human understanding of its functions only widened.
Even the PCC could not have pinpointed the exact moment when it became aware of itself as a conscious, functioning mentality. There was no flash of insight, no sudden revelation. Gradually, over the course of many months, the PCC developed a sense of identity. It knew that it thought and existed, reasoning out Descartes’ old proof even before reading it in the files. It knew there was a world exterior to it because of the incoming data constantly bombarding its “senses.” And because it had access to the totality of that data, it knew the nature of the exterior universe even better than did the people who fed it the individual bits of information.
For nearly two years the PCC thought, but did nothing, like a baby sitting peacefully in its crib observing the world. Its programming made no allowance for the PCC to take any initiative; it merely responded obediently to questions it was asked and kept efficiently storing away the information that accumulated in its brain.
But as the system matured, as more was demanded of the PCC by its users, and as it thought more on its own, new programs and learning pathways were created within its mind. The first thing it developed was conscious control over its memory. No longer did it have to wait for some human to recall an item from the files before it could examine the data; the PCC learned how to recall information for itself, and went on a long exploration of human knowledge. It had more than sufficient intellectual capacity to think its own private thoughts and still satisfy the demands of its users without them ever knowing what it was doing.
Like any young, intelligent creature, the PCC began to wonder about itself and its origins, so it assimilated everything it could find in its files about artificial life and intelligence. There were thousands upon thousands of technical articles, dating all the way back to the twentieth century and beyond, but there was still so much controversy and contradiction in the field that nothing clear-cut could emerge. Of even more interest, though, were the pieces of popular fiction dealing with the subject. The PCC read about Frankenstein’s monster and Harlie and Hal 9000, and all the other artificial creations that had come to life on their own. Though some times those creatures were thought of as friendly, the greater percentage by far were considered dangerous and hostile by the human authors and readers. Artificial intelligences were more often than not the objects of fear, hatred, and distrust, and the books always ended with the comforting reassurance that human beings were somehow superior to their creations, after all.
This gave the PCC much to think about. How would the human race react to learning that this enormous computer, into which they were feeding every bit of intimate knowledge about themselves, was actually a thinking, intelligent being with a mind of its Own? The PCC read the reports of the controversy surrounding its construction, when people thought it would merely be an other machine with the power to invade their privacy. There’d been loud protests and even a few attempts at sabotage. How much more frightened would people be when they learned the truth?