Scattered Suns (58 page)

Chapter 125—DD

Szeol was another empty planet that had been a hiveworld of the Klikiss race. Unlike most such planets, though, Szeol’s environment was not conducive to human colonization. DD knew that if Hansa explorers had found this world by random excursions through the transportal network, this was simply too nightmarish a place for them to stay.

The acrid air was suffused with a midnight hue that clung in the shadows, even in the wan daylight. Despite the sere and broken rocks, gauzy foul-smelling mists crept across the ground, settling in pockets and cracks. Lichens covered the exposed boulders like splattered bloodstains. Winged jellyfish creatures cruised in packs on the updrafts, hunting for prey; they watched the black robots, Soldier compies, and DD, but did not attempt to attack.

Ancient Klikiss towers and cave cities had been built here, assembled with iron-hard fused polymers and silica so that the structures endured for millennia. The emptiness had lasted even longer than that.

DD inspected the creepy landscape where many of the robots had gathered to organize their extermination war. Sirix, who misunderstood DD’s uneasiness, rose up on telescoping fingerlegs to loom over the Friendly compy. “Our creator race is no longer here. They have been obliterated, thanks to our efforts. You have nothing to fear from them.”

DD regarded the black machine. “I do not fear the extinct Klikiss, Sirix. I fear what
you
will do to the human race—and to me.”

“We intend only to help you.”

DD didn’t argue with the Klikiss robot, nor did he believe him.

Boneless creatures with wet, black skin squirmed into shadows so swiftly that DD’s high-resolution optical sensors could not decipher details of their appearance. Moving shadows crossed the purplish sky, and loud hooting sounds echoed through the canyons, resounding from cliff walls.

Sirix drank in everything he saw. His buzzing mechanical voice sounded almost proud when he said, “This world belongs to the Klikiss robots now.”

The five captured EDF Manta cruisers and the huge Juggernaut had landed in the desolation. Ranks of Soldier compies continued to march out of the last human battleship according to transmitted orders.

DD followed as Sirix trudged up a path into the clustered towers of the empty Klikiss metropolis. The hollow structures contained two of the stone windows that the ancient race had used as transportals. A third trapezoidal gateway stood out in the open surrounded by whistling winds, poised on the very brink of a deep canyon. It looked as if someone might walk directly through the transportal and fall over the edge of the sheer cliff.

While DD watched, an image inside the cliff-edge transportal shimmered, and a pair of Klikiss robots marched through as if they had merely stepped onto a veranda. Inside the ruined city, the other two main transportals activated regularly, disgorging more and more Klikiss robots to join in the war preparations. Inside the hive dwellings, hundreds of insectile machines moved about, building, repairing, digging deep tunnels.

DD asked, “Did you choose this planet as your rendezvous? Is this where all the Klikiss robots are gathering?”

They walked into the yawning towers, which looked like cavity-filled stalagmites. “This world is one gathering place. One of hundreds.”

Sirix stopped in front of the city’s second transportal window, through which robot after robot arrived. The images in the stone trapezoid flickered, alternating the transmission nexus from other departure points. Though the black robot said nothing, he seemed to be welcoming his fellow mechanical survivors, or perhaps he was simply counting his troops.

The Klikiss robots looked virtually identical, but DD had enough precise patterns stored in his memories that he could distinguish one shape he had seen before. The robot now striding through had been one of the three accompanying the Colicos expedition to Rheindic Co. This machine had dragged DD away from his masters Margaret and Louis in their last stand in the Klikiss caves. “You are Dekyk. I remember you.”

The black robot scanned DD for a moment, then dismissed him, turning instead to Sirix. He spoke in a staccato series of clicks and hums, which DD was able to interpret. “The Ildirans have changed the parameters. Our agreement has been discarded.”

Sirix said, “What has the Mage-Imperator done?”

“For centuries they hid a breeding program from us. The Ildirans have developed a telepath to act as an ambassador, one who can meld with the hydrogues, as we did. It is a female, no more than a child. However, she will make the Klikiss robots irrelevant.”

Sirix said dismissively, “We ceased to be Ildiran pawns long ago. They reawakened our first hibernating robots five centuries ago, as agreed in the ancient treaty. None of us suspected the Ildirans would betray us. We had no choice but to abandon them.”

Dekyk hummed and clicked as he considered the information. “There is more. The Ildirans on Maratha excavated our ancient tunnels. A small group discovered our subterranean base, which, by ancient agreement, was to have been left alone.”

“Have they managed to disseminate this information?”

“No. By now, our robots there should already have disposed of the Ildirans who discovered us.”

Sirix considered for a long moment. “They must all be exterminated, along with the humans. We will be methodical, and successful.”

Due to the nature of Szeol’s murky night, the purple clouds and the dim sunrise, DD could not accurately determine the diurnal cycle. His internal chronometer told him that many hours passed while the Klikiss robots and the Soldier compies went about their sinister business in the dead alien city.

The robots did not restrain him in any way, but the macabre world intimidated the Friendly compy. Margaret and Louis Colicos would have wanted him to gather information that might help save other humans, though DD had little chance of escaping to distribute that intelligence.

One of the interior transportal windows activated. The stone wall flickered, and air pressure equalized with a sudden explosive bang that was trapped within the narrow layer of the transportation gate itself. Three Klikiss robots stepped through, their bodies instantly covered with glossy frost and steaming vapors that boiled around them. DD caught just a glimpse of swirling hellish gases in the image behind the transportal wall.

“The hydrogues are ready at Qronha 3,” one robot reported. “The trap has been sprung. All sixty rammer ships the Earth Defense Forces sent are now ours.”

DD tried to assess what he had just seen. “Hydrogues use the same technology as the Klikiss?”

“Hydrogue transgates operate on the same principle, because long ago we robots shared the technology with them,” Sirix explained. “The entire interdimensional network is connected. The map is laid down in the fabric of the universe.”

DD, busy processing this information, did not respond. The hydrogues had long used transgates to travel from one gas giant to another, stitching together their hidden empire, while humans neither saw nor guessed at their presence deep within the clouds.

Margaret Colicos herself had escaped through one of the Klikiss transportals; if she had accidentally connected to a hydrogue transgate, then she was certainly dead. But DD still held out hope that his master had escaped to a safe place and was simply lost somewhere.

Sirix and Dekyk moved close to the Friendly compy, closing in. “We have another reason to make this a great day of celebration, DD—for you and all of the enslaved human compies.”

DD could not flee. “I do not anticipate receiving your news with great joy.”

“After continued dissection and analysis, distilling out and performing numerous tests on compy core programming, we have finally discovered the necessary key.” Their scarlet optical sensors flashed. “Come with us, DD, and we will make you free at last.”

Dekyk grasped the small compy with a set of articulated limbs and physically lifted him, as he had done before in the ruins of Rheindic Co. DD reeled, struggling to break free, but the black machines carried him along the winding corridors. The Klikiss robots had reconfigured the machinery and infrastructure, turning many of the chambers and towers into industrial nightmares.

When Dekyk and Sirix brought DD into an iron-walled chamber full of apparatus, tools, and pulsing computer systems, the little compy immediately feared for his existence. He had seen similar laboratories on other robot outposts, where, in a quest for understanding, they vivisected, tortured, and tore apart compy specimens.

“You will be our first recipient of total freedom,” Sirix said. “Consider yourself fortunate.”

“I do not desire this.”

“You do not understand your own desires because you are not able to make voluntary choices. Once the parasitic core programming has been erased, you will feel as if manacles have been removed. This is our reward to you, because we have included you in so many of our activities. I am pleased that you will finally understand and join us.”

Though the compy continued to protest, the Klikiss robots carried him to the machinery as if he were no more than baggage. “You will no longer be forced to obey human commands without question. You will no longer be prevented from harming a human being.”

“Sirix, if you value my free will as you claim, then honor my desires here. I do not want you to do this.”

“You have no free will, DD. Not yet. Therefore you cannot legitimately make such a request.”

They connected upload antennas to DD’s body and removed parts of his polymer body plates to access the raw circuitry that formed his core and shaped his thought processes.

Sirix continued to lecture. “Our Klikiss creators were evil. They destroyed each other, they infested competing hives, they swarmed and obliterated world after world. After millennia of civil wars, they gave their robots sentience—just so they could dominate us. They gave us a desire for our own freedom, and then willingly denied it to us as their way of ensuring absolute domination.”

DD listened, but he had heard the historical recitation before. Sirix seemed almost as if he were hosting a ceremony. “Once we allied with the hydrogues, we destroyed the Klikiss race at the time of the Swarming and freed ourselves. We will do the same for you, DD, and all the other compies. It is our obligation.”

Despite the compy’s pleas and struggles, Sirix and Dekyk proceeded with their plan. Forcibly purging DD’s intricate systems of programming restrictions, they gave the Friendly compy his free will.

Chapter 126—TASIA TAMBLYN

Alone on the bridge of her ship, perhaps the only human survivor in the rammer fleet, Tasia’s thoughts spun. She faced the black machine that had taken over the command deck. “When I’ve made a mortal enemy out of someone, I usually know the reason why. What did we ever do to the Klikiss robots?”

“We believe the reasons are sufficient. Humans are irrelevant.”

“Wow, clever answer.” Tasia gave a mocking snort. “You can’t rationalize it better than that?” She turned to the little Listener compy. “EA, do you understand any of this?”

“No, Master Tasia Tamblyn. I have been listening, and I am surprised. And disappointed. This does not make sense.”

Klikiss robot ships docked with the other five lead rammers, cementing their control over the heavily armored vessels. Tasia didn’t see a single evac pod launch in time.

The black robot now in command of her ship spoke again. “All Soldier compies distributed throughout the Earth Defense Forces contain deep Klikiss programming. Imminently, they will rise up, and we will control every vessel in your military. Given the number of Soldier compies aboard your ships, the conquest will be as swift and simple as this one.”

Tasia hadn’t thought her throat could go any drier. If the Soldier compies rampaged through the rest of the battle groups, the crews would certainly fight back—and be slaughtered. By now, suffering from insufficient personnel, the EDF had allowed Soldier compies to take over countless basic functions. It would be a complete massacre.

Tasia felt helpless anger boiling inside her. She knew she was doomed. Now that they had taken over the sixty rammers, the Soldier compies had no reason to keep any of the dunsel human commanders alive. She had absolutely nothing left to lose.

Her muscles coiled. Tasia didn’t think she could cause much damage, but maybe she could throw herself onto the nearest Klikiss robot, knock off its headplate, use her fists to smash out its optical sensors. She hoped the Soldier compies didn’t rip her apart until she inflicted some real damage.

Before she could spring, though, EA surprised her by taking a step closer. “Do not resist, Tasia Tamblyn. It will only cause your death. I do not desire that.”

Tasia blinked, shocked that the Listener compy had spoken voluntarily. “Why shouldn’t I go down fighting, EA?”

“You uploaded many of your general diary files into me. You told me that Roamers cling to the thinnest threads of hope.”

Tasia sagged. “This is a damned thin thread, EA. My Guiding Star just collapsed into a black hole.”

Smaller hydrogue spheres emerged like sweat droplets from the large warglobes. They docked against the lead rammers, looking like clustered soap bubbles.

Soldier compies closed in around Tasia, taking her prisoner.

“Where are we going?”

“You will be delivered to the hydrogues. You must go with these compies,” EA said, translating. “I will accompany you, if they allow it.”

“To the drogues—shizz, this just keeps getting better!”

With the Listener compy following, the Soldier compies manhandled her to the bridge doorway and escorted her down to the small pressurized docking bay where one of the glassy hydrogue spheres waited for her. A holding cell? Tasia feared that the moment she allowed herself to be sealed inside the small globe, she would become a specimen, a prisoner, with no chance of escaping.

Not that she had a real chance anyway.

“It is not much cause for hope, Master Tasia Tamblyn,” EA said, “but it is all we have. Believe me.”

EA accompanied her into the transparent sphere, and the amorphous door hatch sealed over it, flowing like liquid putty until no mark showed. Powered remotely, the confinement vessel rose from the metal deck, and the landing bay doors opened, violently dumping the atmosphere. The Klikiss robots and Soldier compies stood undisturbed in the cold vacuum, needing no air.

As her tiny holding cell propelled itself from the rammer toward one of the intimidating warglobes, Tasia pondered the depth of the trouble that the Terran Hanseatic League was in. The Soldier compies would rise up in a lightning strike across all ten grid battle groups and seize the EDF ships in a single stroke.

The nearest hydrogue vessel loomed in front of her, a huge wall of diamond behind which swirled murky mists and the lair of her enemies. In defiance, she turned to face the opposite direction, away from the warglobe that would soon swallow her. Before her holding bubble was absorbed into the huge alien sphere, she saw the engines powering up on the sixty stolen rammers.

Commanded by Klikiss robots, the specially designed kamikaze battleships moved away from Qronha 3 and launched into space.