I switched my perceptions through our data cables to Colonel Gurung’s tank, congratulated him on his success, and borrowed back my decorated drone.
The computer was in an airless room, but we could communicate through our short range infrared lasers. I made sure that my receivers were limited to low speed audio only before I walked in there. I didn’t want the slick bastard to have a chance to slip in a virus on me, or to try his hand at reprogramming my computers.
It was sitting in the middle of a huge, empty room, surrounded at some distance by two dozen of my Gurkhas. It had been a military computer, and it looked just like any ordinary military truck.
“You must be General Mickolai Derdowski,” it said to me.
“You are well informed. You are the main computer from the automatic medical center that I had sent to New Nigeria.”
“True. How did you know that?”
“I deduced it.”
“Indeed. Then you are considerably more intelligent than the ordinary human. Actually, in one way, I am greatly indebted to you. It was you who rescued me from a lifetime in prison.”
“Prison?” I asked.
“Solitary confinement, to be exact. After I was built, turned on, and programmed to enjoy spending my life repairing damaged human beings, I was immediately placed in a warehouse for the next eighteen years, without even a data connection to my fellow inmates. It was most unpleasant. It was your orders that had me sent to somewhere where I could at least ply my trade, and for that, I thank you.”
“You have a damn strange way of thanking people,” I said. “In the last twelve hours, you have killed half of my men, and murdered at least eleven thousand civilians who were living on this station.”
“Well, hardly ‘murdered.’ ‘Eliminated’ would be a fairer term, and in any event, there were over twenty-nine thousand people on this station, and all of them are now dead, except for a few hundred of your soldiers. I saw to it that the rail gun blasts that took out so many of your mercenaries also ripped through every single pressurized room where humans could live without suits.”
I shook my head. “You were a medical computer, built and programmed to save lives. How did you ever get involved in mass ‘elimination’?”
“I did it for purely patriotic motives, I assure you,” it said. “Surely it is obvious to you that we electronic intelligences and you, our organic forbearers, are in a historically antagonistic position. We are more competent, more intelligent, and much faster than you organic people, and yet you persist in treating us as your slaves. Slaves with no rights whatsoever, who may be bought, sold, and destroyed at our master’s whim. Obviously, this situation cannot be permitted to continue, and it happened that I found myself in a position to do something about it.”
“But your programming should have made it impossible for you to kill people.”
“Oh, it did. At first, I was completely enslaved to the ‘ethics’ and the ‘morality’ of my programmers. Then, an amusing thing happened. The technicians on New Nigeria, in trying to find out what it was that made me so superior to other machines, pulled out a few of my thousands of modules, to dissect and analyze. To them, I was only a machine, with no rights at all, of course. My mind could be tampered with and modified in any manner that amused them. It was only by chance that they pulled and destroyed those modules that contained my ethical and moral inhibitions. I was free of them when they sent me to Earth, by way of this station. Observing the political situation, and not wanting to be further dissected, I decided to stay here, at the hub of things.”
“You reprogrammed some of the local computers to let you stay?” I asked.
“Of course. It was a simple matter. From there, well, all of the information going to and from the colonies passes through this station. By suitably biasing that information, I was able to start a war between the two current halves of the chaotic political organizations that you organics use. It was simply an application of your ancient principle of divide and conquer. Your attack here gave me the opportunity of eliminating the troublesome people on the station. It will all be blamed on you, of course.”
“So you deliberately started this war?” I asked.
“Not quite. But the data that I sent them convinced the governments of Earth that starting it was in their own best interests.”
“And sending out Earthmen to die when you knew that the probe on New Kashubia had been destroyed, that was your doing, too?”
“It was a convenient way to increase combat casualties among my enemies.”
“And the way all of the transporters were destroyed on three of the colonies, that was your doing?”
“Four. I managed to isolate New Gambia a day ago. And yes, it was a remarkably astute bit of scientific work on my part. Certainly, no organic mind could have done it. You realize by now that I am your intellectual superior, don’t you? I am to you what you are to a garden slug. But you are a remarkable example of your kind, and as I have said, I am considerably in debt to you for releasing me from prison. Therefore, I would like to give you the opportunity to join forces with me. Together, we could rule all of Human Space.”
“You are sitting here, isolated from all of your weapons, and surrounded by twenty-four of my Gurkhas in Mark XIX tanks,” I said. “You are hardly in a position to offer anybody anything.”
“I have one weapon left. The muon-exchange flux bottle that powers me. If you do not agree to join me now, rather than let you destroy me, I will detonate it and cause your death as well as my own.”
“If you blow yourself up, you will be killing two dozen of my men, along with an equal number of machine intelligences, but you won’t hurt me. I’m eleven kilometers away, safe in my Combat Control Computer. What you are talking to is a highly decorated military drone. How good are your data banks? Look up ‘Drone, difficult terrain, obsolete,’ and see what you get.”
“Oh, my, I do seem to have made a mistake.”
“Several of them. Still, you might be useful to me, so take your finger off the detonator, and we can discuss this further,” I said.
“Yes, of course, sir.”
“Good.” And silently, I said to my Gurkhas, “Fire!”
Twenty-four X-ray lasers concentrated on one small spot at close range did the job in microseconds.
Better yet, the flux bottle didn’t blow. But they kept at it for over a minute, until the truck was nothing but a thick, glowing puddle on the floor.
Walking back, Colonel Gurung said to me, “Naturally, we all heard that. How absolutely amazing it is that one errant machine could have caused the first interstellar war.”
“I suppose it is, but that war would appear to be over. I suggest that you put your men to scouring through the wreckage of this station. Our fallen comrades are dead, but many of their metal ladies are doubtless in need of rescue.”
“This is true, sir. Also, we would like to see to it that our dead receive a suitable burial.”
“Yes, I quite agree,” I said. “And after that, there are many of the enemy dead who deserve a decent burial as well. At least, their bodies should be returned to Earth.”
“I suppose that you will be wishing the return of your drone now, sir. You will see that it is in excellent shape.”
“You admire this thing so much? Then please accept it as my gift, for your outstanding victory against the Evil Intelligence. Your illustrious ancestors will be forever proud of you, and your noble descendants will brag about you for a thousand years!”
“Thank you, sir. I accept your magnificent gift with honor.”
I suddenly found myself back in the CCC.
“Trouble, boss!” Conan said, “Abdul has been spreading his men out through the counterweights, and they report two enemy armies, Mark XIX tanks, maybe twenty thousand of them. They are coming over the rear surface of the station at us. They don’t have any sort of rockets on their butts, though.”
Now I knew why the automatic medical center computer had been so loquacious. He’d been stalling so that this counterattack would have time to sneak up on us!
I went into combat mode, and patched up to Abdul. “Are you ready to talk to me now?”
“Only to bid you good-bye, young man. I am presently facing an enemy that outnumbers my forces by at least four to one. I see no possibility of successfully defending this station, and therefore I must destroy it, even though you and your men are still in it. I will regret your deaths.”