Alien Enigma (41 page)

"What did you mean when you said 'developing', Ms. Aguilar?"

"Oh. I meant they use the complete resources of a solar system to expand construction from the original city to cover the habitable portions of the planet. When the resources are used up to the point where they are sufficient to only sustain the robot and Worm population, then it stops and they move on. We won't find any planet of theirs over-populated by our standards." She turned over the last page of her notes. "And that concludes my briefing on what we now know for certain about the robot and Worm society and how it functions. Anything else will be speculation unless Harriette discovers something new-and she said she thinks she's on the verge of finding something vital."

"Thank you, Ms. Aguilar. That was a very good brief. Now let's all take a few minutes to freshen up our coffee cups before we begin speculation, as Ms. Aguilar termed it. Personally I prefer '
brainstorming
' as the term to use." He smiled at her to show he meant no animosity at changing reference. "Also, I've decided that all those who think their ideas might flow a little freely with some brandy added to their coffee may indulge. One shot only, though!"

His suggestion was readily accepted. Soon they were reseated with fresh coffee cups. A delicious aroma of brandy-laced coffee permeated the air around the conference table, lending an atmosphere of relaxation to the discussion.

"Now that we've all got something a bit headier than mere coffee to stimulate our brain cells, I believe we may as well take some time to speculate on our findings. Our superiors on Earth, the Navy, and the President and Congress, will be asking for our conclusions and recommendations, and that's over and beyond the factual report I'll be submitting. So-who'd like to begin?"

"I believe our military and political superiors need to be aware that the ...the ...can we just refer to the Robot/Worm society as the CIN Empire?" After accepting nods of affirmation from everyone, Rambling continued. "They need to be aware that the CIN Empire is quite capable of building much bigger and more heavily armed interstellar warships than us."

"Why is that?" Lieutenant Nguyen asked.

"It's just a simple matter of logistics. Robots don't need food or water. All they require is an oil change now and then." He paused for the inevitable chuckle. "Seriously, that's why. We've learned that their interstellar ships don't have that many Worms in the crew. Lan, you're the environmental specialist. You should be able to compute what a difference not being required to carry all the supporting material for organic beings would mean in terms of being able to supply the ships with heavier armaments and bigger thrusters for intra-system maneuvering. Just think of our shuttles during the fight. If it hadn't ended when it did, they would have been out of action for lack of power for their thrusters. It was a close thing as it was."

"Got it. And good point, Steel," Keane agreed. "Next?"

"I think we need to recommend, and recommend very stridently, that a program be instituted immediately to build planet-buster bombs. We may need them before it's over with," Rambling said.

"I agree," Cindy Cantrell said. "However, we may have to use them on our bleeding heart liberals first."

An explosion of laughter greeted the statement. Even Aguilar had to laugh.

"I hate the thought of this," Wannstead began, "but we know they did take some captives back to their home worlds. We know they were using humans as slaves here and in the other cities. They were also experimenting with inserting chips in human brains. In my opinion, I believe the robots were trying to find out if we would be suitable candidates to either replace the Worms or to supplement their services. I think we're more versatile than Worms, at least in their chipped state.

"I may be wrong, of course. They could have something entirely off the wall in store for us if they succeed in conquering us, but whatever their motives in keeping humans as slaves, it can't be good. They may be attempting to create a group of Quislings from their captives." He lifted his cup and inhaled the aroma but set it down without drinking. "I believe we should emphasize that fact in our report. It might motivate the politicians to gear up for war faster than just about anything else. It might even help unify our various governments, to an extent anyway."

"Very good, Brian. A very good point!" Kean said emphatically.

"The Worms were also used by the robots for some tasks they aren't suitable for, Brian," Aguilar added. "The robots may want humans for the same reason, but even more so. They have to have noted how versatile we are. While the robots aren't very imaginative, they are very intelligent.
Very
."

"How about the babies we found that have already been chipped? Is there any hope for them?" Keane asked.

Aguilara shook her head. "Possibly, but I don't hold out much hope. We'll take them back with us, of course, but I have little hope of them recovering. In fact, at this point, I don't even know if the chips can be safely removed. If they can't, and as horrible as it sounds, I'm going to recommend euthanasia for them. Otherwise, if we have a long war, they could grow up and be very receptive to beamed orders from robots, if they were close enough to receive them."

Keane's appreciation of Aguilar suddenly improved a great deal. It took a lot of guts to state flatly that babies should be killed rather than chance them becoming traitors as adults. He could just see how that would go over in some factions of Earth political parties.

Baby killers!

That would be one of the kindest epithets thrown at them.

Master Chief Thomas Berry, Chief of Boat, often referred to as Bosun, was generally quiet during conferences where high ranking officers were present, but he was never loathe to submit an opinion when he thought it was called for. He sought Keane's attention with his gaze. Keane nodded.

"Our recommendation should include the necessity to prepare for a long, dangerous and extremely vicious interstellar war, with casualties reaching proportions never seen before. We should tell our superiors to prepare for the possibility of whole worlds being demolished. We should also tell them we need to be ready to demolish the robot ...the CIN Empire worlds. We should be prepared to show no mercy because we can't expect it from the CIN Empire. And to that end we need to develop fleets of warships capable of fighting in space, fighting at both long and short range. To sum it up, Captain Keane, my personal opinion is that we should fight an
offensive
war right from the beginning, while at the same time building up planetary and system defenses. We don't know how the CIN Empire will go about interstellar warfare, but let's not let them get ahead of us. We need to ...well, I believe I've said enough."

"And said it very well, Chief," Keane exclaimed. "Any disagreement?"

"As much as I hate to say it, I have to agree with Chief Berry, with one exception," Aguilar said.

"And that is?"

"I think we should build, as rapidly as possible, an extremely strong strike force, but if we can demonstrate a clear superiority over the CINPire-and Chief, that word is easier on the tongue than CIN Empire-then perhaps they might surrender, or at least come to terms with us. I would like to give the Worms a chance to be freed from the slavery they're subjected to now. After all, they're the only other organic sentient species we've discovered."

"Noted," Keane said. "I believe that is a good point. Any disagreement?"

There was none.

"Do we have any more..." Keane looked toward the conference room screen that had suddenly lit up.

"Captain Keane, control room com station. We've just picked up an armada of ships entering the system. First passive reception scan indicates the ships are of robotic origin, on a vector directly toward Xanadu."

Shit!
Keane thought immediately, then forced a calmness into his reaction. "Give me the time to arrival, time until in range of their known weaponry, then multiply that by a factor of two and give me that and a minimum time until we have to launch to escape. Connect your circuit to Lieutenant Chavez in sick bay immediately and have her confirm your figures."

"Aye, aye, sir."

"Ensign Lurmen, bring up the relay circuit from Ms. Juenne in Xanadu and put it on the second screen immediately!"

"Aye, aye, sir," the new Ensign said smartly.

A moment later Harriette's visage appeared, bearing an annoyed expression. "Captain, I'm in the midst of delicate probing of the CIN here. I've gotten into the second robot language, I can't-"

"An incoming robot armada has just been detected. You need to close up operations and head for the surface immediately!"

"Hold one," she said.

Keane's other screen called for attention. "Captain, Lieutenant Chavez here. I have data for you."

"Give, quickly!"

"On the present bearing we have barely an hour until we must launch if we intend to get away before the armada is in possible range of firing missiles that are much faster than our ship."

"Thank you." He switched to Harriette's screen. "You have one hour to get to the ship," he said without preamble. "I know it will take you forty minutes to reach the surface. You must leave now."

"Captain, I can't and won't. I am right on the verge of pulling vital, and I do mean vital, data from the CIN down here."

"Harriette, I can't risk the ship. You must know that," he said in more gentle tones. "And you must also know that I intend to set off the nuke we've prepared just as soon as we're all safely away from here. You have to either leave now or you'll die there."

"Then I'll just have to die if I don't get this done. I'll leave this circuit open so you can follow my progress. Now please leave me alone while I'm working." Her image moved out of the frame of the screen."

"Bosun, announce all hands to battle stations. Launch in fifty five minutes."

The clangor of the call to arms rang throughout the ship. Chairs in the conference room were pushed aside and the group moved out with Keane in the lead. Some headed for the control room, others to their stations. All of them hurried but made certain not to affect an air of panic.

Keane took his station in the control room, suited for space warfare in the ship suit that would hold air for over an hour in an emergency, giving the wearer time to climb into the more cumbersome spacesuits.

"Ensign Lurmen, keep that circuit to Ms. Juenne open and record continuously. Priority one."

"Aye, aye, sir. Open and recording."

Keane lit his own Captain's screen. It was filled with vector arrows and figures beside them, red icons for enemy ships and times and distances for various options in easily read tables at the bottom of his screen. Off to the side a chronometer ticked off the minutes and seconds. Below and to the right of his board a red icon blinked in a steady, metronomic reminder of the terrible power it represented. It was covered with a transparent overlay that prevented accidental initiation of the nuclear weapon buried in the heart of the alien city of Xanadu. It was very near the CIN where Harriette still worked.

Down far below the surface of the alien city, Harriette fumbled with a strand of muli-colored wires and connected them into her lab equipment. Her breath steamed in the cold pit where it was probably only forty degrees or less. The CIN had cooling tubes that kept critical systems well below freezing. Harriette's fingers moved slowly while carefully attaching wires to a digital circuit board that connected to a converter and then a signal analyzer. She wanted to rush as she knew her time was limited-but her hands were cold, and each connection had to be correct for the translator to work. She'd earlier hacked into a robot language fiber optic line by cutting the cable shield and bending the fibers just enough so that light escaped, but careful enough not to break them. It was an old Earth hacker trick, but effective if you had physical access to fiber optic cables.

She then used a sensor to read the light patterns and translated the code with her attached TekPad. This was connected to
Eve
via a wireless relay to a newly deployed SAT, and then to the
Doc Travis
. While she scanned the data she monitored a key processing section of the CIN server, or what appeared to be a massive central computer processing node that contained historical instructions from the next higher up CIN.

This section of the CIN had supercomputing chips just like Earth was building-but these were special ternary vector-scalar processing chips, and somehow operated faster than seemed theoretically possible. It would have taken a warehouse of Cray computers to match this section of CIN Server. It had to be a key part of the server and robot data was being extracted. If only she could get the language code responses correct. Each time Harriette thought she had found data it failed on the authorization code. Everything else was unsecure, so this didn't make sense. Frustrated she stopped to think-and then it came to her. She overlaid a master robot authority code she'd earlier discovered from the larger robots. This triggered a new response and Harriette focused on locking into the database.

"I think I'm almost there Captain."

Her fingers were flying over a makeshift workstation and its function keys. As she made calculations with one hand she used her other to implement the figures while constantly watching several different gauges. Keane could tell little of what she was doing other than that it involves esoteric (to him) electronic delving into the very core of the CIN. As she probed and changed leads and reset gauges she kept up a constant monolog of what she was doing until she was finally down to circuits where the CIN kept its oldest archives, those that had been duplicated again and again over decades and centuries.

"Here it is, I think. Now I need to authorize with the historical subprocessor. It's running at over ten petaflops per second! I'll need to buffer ...

"I got data but I still need to translate it ... I need another key ...ah, here it is. Now let's collate it with the interpreter program and ...it's got a pattern-good! Okay, you bastard, now give!"