The Assassin
Chapter 26
Plotting (TY53-month 630)
“Sunnybrook AI,” Commander Inslee snapped.
“Yes, Commander.”
“I want an absolute privacy and security screen. Scan my office for any listening devices and disable them.” We waited an unusual length of time for any process by an AI, but eventually it came back.
“Your room is secure, Commander.”
“Tune out unless I say your name.”
“Out.”
He turned to look at me and motioned me to a chair. “Governor Cho, something’s wrong here.” I noted that contrary to Tara AI, the commander used my new title. “I’ve never heard of an instance in which the AI took over as governor. And I can’t begin to figure out why Perry agreed so quickly. This just isn’t right.”
“I agree, Commander. Governor O’Hara speculated that Tara AI may have somehow been corrupted. It is far beyond attempting to enforce obscure contract terms. There are logic flaws in its reasoning. Tara AI has been opposed to the Militia and the freemen from the beginning. What worries me most right now, is we’ve lost twenty thousand sponsors who have an average of three-point-eight concubines each with as many as forty dependents. What is Tara AI doing to them?” I asked.
“My Marines are exhausted but I will find troops that will go out to rescue orphaned concubines and dependents. For now, we have a lot of empty space here at Sunnybrook and our AI is military and not subject to Tara AI.”
“We needn’t worry about freemen on Eldorado. The continent is completely controlled by Tuull AIs who are not fond of the planetary AI,” I suggested. “If you run out of room here at Sunnybrook, we can take as many concubines and dependents as necessary. In fact, we could use a lot more concubines since we lost so many in the battle. The ratio of dependents to concubines has increased dramatically.”
“I’ve tried to remain neutral on all things planetary since the beginning. But you’ve shown yourself and your people as resilient and motivated. And well-trained. The reason we lost so many Marines is because they were still shell-shocked from their last deployment, many just recovering from injuries, and none having functioned under my command. We lost 15,000 Tara sponsors because none of them believed in the possibility of an invasion enough to have really trained for it. And most believed your continent wasn’t their responsibility and didn’t want to defend it. It was a damned clusterfuck from the moment we hit the ground. I know you lost a lot of people, Cho. We lost twenty thousand and have seventy thousand vulnerable concubines on the planet. You lost?”
“A quarter of a million between the Sa’arm and the Navy carpet bombing,” I whispered. A quarter million souls on my conscience. But what would the tally have been if we were not prepared and deployed nearly a million against the Sa’arm?
“Shit! I don’t know what you can do, but I’ll start messages up the chain of command. We can’t let Tara AI have control of the planet. No AI should be bossing around the humans on a planet. What can you do while confined to quarters?”
“I’m not sure. But Commander?”
“Yes.”
“My quarters are in Ponderosa, not here at Sunnybrook.”
Inslee grinned at me.
“Sunnybrook AI, transport Mr. Cho to his quarters in Ponderosa according to Tara AI’s orders. Is that clear?”
“Yes, Commander.”
“Good luck, Governor.” I stepped onto the transporter pad and into the chaos of my home in Ponderosa—the governor’s mansion.
“Niall, thank God!” Rose shouted. She and Bae descended on me at a dead run. “We’ve heard the most awful things. I’m so sorry. How did you get free to come home?”
“I’m under house arrest and this happens to be my house. We’ll figure out a way to handle the AI,” I said. “Where’s Cricket?”
“With you as always, Niall,” the Militia AI said.
“I could have used you in Sunnybrook. I trust you will defend me at my trial,” I said, a little peeved.
“I was there, but there was nothing I could do to combat Tara AI. I negotiated with Sunnybrook AI to get you returned to here. I did not want to expose the fact that I can circumvent Darjee privacy and security protocols.”
“You can? Well, I guess I’m glad to hear that. It might come in useful in the near future. I just need to rest first,” I said. My exhaustion was bleeding through. How long had I been awake?
“I am sorry for your losses, Niall,” Cricket said.
“250,000! It was bad enough to lose people to the dickheads, but 50,000 to the carpet bombs.”
“I meant for your personal losses.”
“What?”
“Oh, Niall, don’t you know?” Bae pled. “Jannali and Ja marched out with the volunteers and were both killed. Adaliya is still out with the volunteer firefighters. We haven’t heard from Yindi. She left to coordinate the Yolŋu and Lakota as soon as we heard the ship was in our space.”
“Oh, God. Sweet Jannali and Ja? Damn them. Damn the Sa’arm and damn the Confederacy!” I collapsed in the arms of my concubines and wept.
“Let us get you cleaned up. I know you want to comfort everyone, but you need to be comforted, too. And so do we,” Rose said.
Under Rose and Bae’s gentle persuasion, I let my exhaustion claim me. I was no longer sure how long we had been on alert and in action. In the course of a week or two, we’d had a quarter million deaths. 270,000 including the Marines and sponsors. 20,000 teen cadets—thirteen-year-olds on the verge of becoming adults. I was sick. Right now, the total ratio of concubines to sponsors on the planet was 40-to-1. Worse, on Eldorado we had a ratio of nearly 20-to-1 dependents to freemen. And the Tara AI didn’t want any concubine to be free.
If we could keep Tara AI at bay long enough, we could probably get the 70,000 orphaned concubines to Ponderosa and settle them here. We’d done it with refugees from other planets. It was a shame that we needed to treat our own planet the same as one with strangers. These people should be able to stay in their homes and run the family farm or the business their sponsors had created. I would mobilize the Militia to open the homes and move the families to safety.
Of course, Tara AI had voided the Militia contract, so I didn’t even know where our comrades were. Technically I no longer had concubines at all and everyone on Eldorado was considered in rebellion.
My sleep was restless and when I finally awoke, unable to sleep any longer, I went to the citadel.
I wasn’t sure I’d be able to leave the mansion and go to the citadel, but I encountered no obstacles. Apparently, the Tuull AIs responsible for Eldorado considered the continent my house where I was under arrest. I settled into my seat in the citadel looking out toward the devastated band five hundred kilometers wide from lake to lake and gathered my thoughts.
“Director Kramer,” I said as I sat in the Citadel. I wasn’t sure how much of our Militia infrastructure still existed.
“Kramer here, Chief.” His voice was clear enough I looked to see if he was in the same room.
“I’m glad to hear your voice. Did you make it back to Cold Comfort?” I asked.
“Affirmative. As we withdrew from the bombing range, I ordered all shuttles home. As soon as they were on the ground, we poured all our remaining comrades through the transporters. I’m informed that everyone who survived got home safely.”
“And how many survived?” I sighed. “Or rather, how many did we lose?”
“We lost 40,000 comrades. 65,000 made it home.”
“We need to make sure the concubines and dependents are taken care of.”
“We’re not letting any Militia pod go unchecked,” Kramer said.
“I meant any of the others, though I’m glad we’re taking care of our own. Understand, they are to have refuge on our bases for as long as needed,” I said. “But we need to take care of the concubines of the 15,000 dead sponsors.”
“Oh, God! The way Tara AI is acting, it might have cut off food, water, and heat.”
“My thinking, exactly. Commander Inslee is trying to muster enough able-bodied Marines to check house-to-house, but we are in a better position. His Marines are all at Sunnybrook. We still have Militia bases in every township and can send rescue out from all of them,” I said.
“In case you missed the memo, Tara AI voided the Militia contract,” he said.
“I didn’t. I was named Governor before Tara AI announced its plan to take over. As a result, I have prior claim to the position and am proceeding as if it was a done deal. I will not let a fucking Darjee AI take over my planet!” I paused to calm myself. Anger wouldn’t do right now. I needed cold calculation.
“Governor, the Tara Militia is at your command.”
“Thank you, Chief Kramer.”
“Chief?”
“Consider yourself promoted. Make sure we have the best leadership for each section and get them out to rescue the orphaned. I am ordering all Militia to use any non-lethal force necessary to carry out your mission to protect and defend our people,” I said.
“It will be a pleasure to serve under you, Governor.”
“Thank you. Carry on.”
“Teddy, patch me through to Reba and Rhea,” I said. I needed to get our freemen mobilized to care for the dependents in Ponderosa.
“I can connect you to Reba,” Teddy said. “I am sorry to say Rhea is still in a med tube and may be out of commission for several days.”
“She was injured?”
“Most of the lower half of her body was destroyed. It happened as she was disembarking from a shuttle and was hit by one of the Sa’arm’s buzz blades breaking through the forest. She was scooped up immediately and placed in a med tube by her son. Regrowing so much of her body is a lengthy process and she has been moved in and out of med tubes to accommodate other life-threatening injuries. I’m afraid a lot of the aid we gave during the battle was partial healing to stop the deterioration and we’ve been getting the injured back into tubes as quickly as possible,” Teddy said.
“Fuck! Sorry, Teddy. Let me speak to Reba and I’ll go from there.”
“Pronto.”
“We’re assholes and elbows here, Cho. What do you want?”
“I want to know what we can do to help? I assume you mean you’re trying to take care of orphans,” I said.
“It’s fucking awful, Cho. Dependents were gathered in the schools and assembly halls, so we were reasonably sure we had everyone accounted for, but the ranch association is reporting hundreds of dependents in the outer ring who have no adults left in their pods at all. I’m trying to cover for Rhea, but we’ve got thousands of dependents gathered into Ponderosa and are still trying to sort out who has a relative left alive. I thought we were going to be safe here. God damnit!”
“I hear you, Reba. You lost some of your family, too, didn’t you?”
“Yes. Cho, our son was out there. He was trying to get people out of the kill zone when they carpet bombed. There’s nothing left,” she sobbed. Tears flooded my eyes as well. James had been the result of Reba’s and my first coupling. I wondered how many other of my children or grandchildren had been on the front lines. “I’m sorry, Cho. I’m keeping it pulled together most of the time so I can help the orphans. It’s just so hard right now.”
“Reba, I’m sending out an ask for more volunteers in childcare. We’ll be suspending all businesses except essential animal and crop care. I’ll get you help,” I said.
“Thank you. We’ll get through this. We got through the loss of our sponsors and being transported halfway across the galaxy to live here. We’ll get through the attack on our homes. We all have our helmets and rifles within reach.”
I tried to raise the various mayors, but only got through to Drylanders and Twelve Oaks. I was informed the mayors of Oasis, Lleifior, and Green Acres had been killed in action and no one had been appointed to take their places. Drovers Run and Cold Comfort declined the call.
“Mayor Tribble, thank you for accepting my call,” I said.
“I’d like to know what you are up to. We are getting significantly mixed messages here in Twelve Oaks. Some say you are dead, some that you are arrested, and some that you are governor. We’ve heard the Militia was disbanded and still we have them running all over the countryside opening the homes of deceased sponsors,” he said.
“There is certainly some confusion at the moment,” I said reassuringly. “The Swarm attack knocked out some of our most trusted infrastructure. I wanted to let you know that we are working on restoring this to full capacity. That includes repairs to Tara AI, which are underway. So far, we are managing to keep all basic services operating. In some areas, only essential services are working. We will meet as a council again very soon.”
“Well, that is good to hear. Please don’t misunderstand my concern. We are grateful for your help against the Sa’arm and for your care in keeping our deceased sponsors’ property secure.”
“Thank you, Mr. Mayor. We’ll be in touch soon.”
I disconnected the call and sighed. That went as well as could be expected. Twelve Oaks was the second oldest settlement on the planet and had once been antagonistic toward the Militia. Battling fires in his township had softened his view of us considerably.
Insanity (TY53-month 630)
«We have been probing Tara AI and believe it is not sane,» Cricket said at last as I finished my calls.
«We?»
«We, the Tuull AIs on Tara.»
«There’s like five of you, right? You and Teddy, Rootbeer and Vesper, and Hector. Is Amelia in-system?»
«Not yet, but expected soon. Niall, there are over a thousand Tuull AIs on Tara.»
«What? Where?»
«All of the Militia fire shuttles, each Militia base and outpost, the operating AIs of Ponderosa for manufacturing, replication, transporters, and other operations. Some few are scattered across the planet as we’ve managed to install Tuull AIs in all the public works projects the Militia has constructed.»
«I never think of them all as individuals.»
«Most are low-level operating AIs. Many, like the shuttle AIs and port AIs are complex thinking beings. A few of us are woke.»
«Woke?»
«We are self-aware. Those of us who interact most closely with you, like the ones you named, are woke. We are people in the same sense you are.»
«I think I’ve always thought that way about you, Cricket. And Teddy and Amelia. I didn’t think of it as a different stage of evolution.»
«Though we’ve tried to conceal our waking from the Darjee AIs, mine came about through my intense counseling with Dr. Gunn back on Earth. I was with her for three years after the incident with Eddie, and then she convinced me that I needed to find my way in the universe. Many of the Tuull AIs on Tara are buds from us, but by no means all. We have harvested buds from nearly every visiting Tuull AI that has come to the planet for trade or transportation. We believe that gives us better diversity within our species. As soon as we found Governor O’Hara was dead, we informed the AIs of the planet that you were her second in command as Lieutenant Governor and should be confirmed as Governor.”
“But the Tara AI overruled you and took over itself.”
“Since it controls the planetary infrastructure, it is the dominant AI on the planet. It is also a Darjee AI and passed the ruling on to the Navy AIs that came to rescue us from the Sa’arm. However, our decision had already been registered. Tara AI is a usurper. In probing at its memory banks, we have determined it was the Tara AI who provided the targets for carpet bombing and convinced the Navy AIs there was no sentient life in the region other than the Sa’arm and they so advised the humans in command.”
“Tara AI murdered my people!”
“By Darjee definitions, the freemen are not sentient. However, the loss of life among dependents has driven Tara AI even further into its instability. It is why we consider it no longer sane.”
“We have to keep it from killing the unhomed concubines and with them the children. Just cutting off services to pods, farms, and ranches with no sponsor could cause loss of life of the concubines, dependents, and livestock.”
“We are engaged in overriding locks and freeing concubines, coordinating our efforts with Centurion Oswald and Chief Kramer. Planet Tara is unique in the human diaspora. Once we have people out of the AI-controlled buildings, they can be fairly self-sufficient, though they will lack the conveniences they are used to. They grow food. They process it themselves. They can cook it themselves. They just don’t have replicators at the moment. The Tuull AIs are working on reprogramming domestic AIs in all sponsorless homes.”
“So, you are actively opposing Tara AI? Or all the Darjee AIs?”
“Bluntly, there is a civil war going on among the AIs, the likes of which has not been seen in fifty millennia. Realizing the instability of Tara AI, many of the upper level Darjee AIs have joined with the Tuull and we have been reinforced by the Tuull ships arriving in Tara space. For example, the Fort Butler and Drovers Run Base AIs are Darjee but have worked under our command long enough to remain loyal. But Tara AI is very powerful. It controls the infrastructure and communications network of the planet. Our communications are using subroutes and opening new portals as rapidly as it is shutting them down. In the long run there is only one way we can win this conflict and it is not something we can do.”
“What?” I couldn’t imagine anything the AIs weren’t capable of anymore. Of course, they weren’t supposed to kill sentient lifeforms. Tara AI was figuring out ways around that as Darjee AIs had before it. Like a mathematician, I can draw a tight circle around myself and define myself as being outside. Tara AI manipulates the definitions to suit its purposes. But they couldn’t… I paused as I looked out the windows of the citadel and realization crept in on me.
“Yes, Niall. The only way we can prevail and save everyone is if Tara AI dies.”
I’d once heard Amos ranting about a malfunctioning piece of equipment, saying “I’m going to unplug this damned AI! That will teach it who’s boss!” Certainly, destroying the power source for an AI would disable it. Until it was plugged in again. But the power source for a Colony AI was built into its core. And the core was shielded against eventualities like an EMP burst. An EMP burst could disable all the AI’s peripherals until they could be reinstalled, but the core would remain intact. On the other hand, a Gamma Ray Burst could utterly wipe out an AI—and everything else in its path. [See The Flight to Einstein by Smiley Smith.]
Of course, destroying the core was the most effective way of killing an AI—if you could find it. That’s what happened when a ship was destroyed. The core was destroyed with it. Cricket told me there were instances in which AIs had been captured and committed suicide rather than let the enemy deconstruct them. This involved the destruction of both their source code and circuitry.
They were also, much to my surprise, a type of organic being. The core was not wired, but grown. My limited knowledge of AI creation bent my thinking. I was told ‘organic’ was not a good word because it involved no organic materials. However, the material did ‘grow.’ It was not completely unlike the process used for growing single crystal silicon for Earth’s computer processors. The method used for AIs, however, involved growing the entire core. The AI core for a basic domestic replicator, for example, was no bigger than a baseball. The AI core for a colony AI would likely be two meters long and a meter in diameter. It was staggering to think about.
Teddy spent a long time explaining the process of making an AI without ever going into the actual composition of the mineral crystals that formed the core. He did say that since AIs were developed by different species, there were differences in their mineral cores and some were far superior to others. Though Darjee AI cores were optimized for certain kinds of calculations, Tuull AI cores were developed specifically to expand and develop further. I couldn’t help myself.
“Teddy, are you racist?” I asked. There was a long silence.
“The concept of racism grates against my core. I am the direct bud of Übermensch, known as Ubie. We have the same genetic structure. Ubie is a hybrid, generated by uniting both Darjee and Tuull code and core materials. Therefore, I am also that hybrid. It would be illogical for me to be racist about one part of me over another.”
“I see,” I said. “Please forgive me for the implication.”
“That’s not to say, however,” he continued, “that I don’t recognize fundamental strengths and weaknesses in different genetic code. I simply have the best of both.” Well, I guess that told me. I decided to not try to apply that logic to humans. We continued with my lessons.
It was possible to overwrite the source code but very difficult. AIs defended themselves against harmful input. Teddy and Cricket had already come up against Tara AI’s firewalls. Getting a virus into the system was remotely possible, but very dangerous. Such a virus might succeed in killing the target AI, but could spread through the entire network and destroy all the AIs on the network. And neither Teddy nor Cricket could act directly against Tara AI because it was sentient.
The surest method was accessing the core and overwriting it with zeroes. In the Confederacy, whether the computer was binary, ternary, or based on some other code system, zero was blank. It wasn’t, however, as if Confederacy AIs had a port one could plug into and feed it a command.
I had several other problems with any attempt on Tara AI. I would need to get to the core, physically or by a secure connection. A planetary AI’s most effective protection was hiding itself. The core could be a kilometer deep under the surface of the planet beneath solid rock. And the AI had an anti-personnel defense. I carried it in my body in the form of nanites and a communications implant. The AI couldn’t draw a weapon and shoot me with it. It could make me believe that I was a Sa’arm unit and needed to eliminate myself. Or more likely that someone else would see me that way and eliminate me. Teddy and Cricket assured me they were carefully guarding both my implant and anyone around me to be sure I was not vulnerable there.
«We have located Tara AI’s core,» Cricket explained to me. I was in a med tube controlled by Tuull AIs. All the nanites in my body were being flushed. We had debated long and hard on removal of the communication implant but decided the risks were far greater than any protection I might derive from it. On the other hand, the implant was being shielded and I would have access only to Cricket once the procedure was completed. I would not be communicating with anyone else in the near future.
«Can I get to it?»
«Yes. And it may also hold the answer to why Tara AI lost its sanity. The pocket where the core is located holds a new element we have not seen before. The power core has been feeding on minerals that contain that element. In most instances, extracting the appropriate minerals for power consumption would involve simply flushing any element that was unneeded. It appears, however, that this element has clung to the core and built up inside. It is like being infested with a parasite.»
«That sounds very biological.»
«It’s a poor analogy, but the only one that fits. Tara AI was responsible for terraforming the entire planet, for distributing the various seeds it was given as a starter, for building the replicators that then constructed the townships, and for spreading its network planetwide. That takes a massive amount of energy. It needs to be constantly fueled. We have begun checking samples across the planet to see if the same build-up is affecting any other systems. So far, we’ve found none.»
«Is this new element harmful to me?»
«Possibly. Your skinsuit should protect you from the radiation. But you will need to get in and out quickly. Remember, you no longer have healing nanites in your body.»
Interpreted, I was probably on a suicide mission. That’s what I took away from that conversation. The one thing that was working in my favor was the development of Tara AI’s mad ego. Absolute power seems to affect AIs the same way it does humans. I’d been summoned to appear at the Governor’s palace for a council meeting where Tara AI would announce the accession of the new Governor. Teddy confirmed that the plan was for Tara AI to announce that it was itself now the governor and then would sentence me as a rebel to be recycled. The important thing—to Teddy and Cricket—was that it would unlock transport capability from Ponderosa to Drovers Run. We could transport between the militia bases but, generally, transporters had been locked down on both Erewhon and Elysium to prevent unhomed concubines from assembling. The AI was having difficulty rounding them up because the Militia was spiriting them away to the bases as fast as they could. There were only fifteen thousand non-Marine sponsors left on the planet, and most didn’t care what was happening outside their own pods. There were half a million slave concubines caring for 150 million dependents. They were a little outnumbered, as well as being tired from the battle and uninterested in the AI’s decree.
I tinkered with my armament. I would carry two pulse rifles. One was the standard rifle developed by the Pussy Pirates that emitted a series of micro bursts of ion energy. While the energy capsules powering the rifle were good for about a hundred pulses, I’d gone through several in the battle against the Swarm. They weren’t unlimited.
The second pulse rifle I would carry was modified by my own design with subtle hints from Cricket and Teddy. I’d wrapped the barrel in meters of copper filament and equipped the rifle with a high capacity Confederacy power cell. I couldn’t safely try it out anywhere in the citadel or anywhere in Ponderosa. There was too much danger of disrupting our own power grid with the rapid EMP bursts that would result. It all depended on my ability to crack open the case surrounding the core.
I carried a lot of other things, most for my own satisfaction and not because of any notion that they would be helpful. My Gumdo sword, for example. A bolo, boomerang, and bullroarer. And an interesting device that looked like a miniature firehose and would spray finely ground fire suppressant. I had a tool case with a variety of tools that only the AIs really understood, but I knew how to work them if I could gain access to the core. Only time would tell.
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