The Great Destroyer (25 page)

Emma interrupted, “We did not know that.”  She saw that Jackson looked angry, and Yazov did not appear surprised at all.  Rather, he had a sad, cynical grin on his face.

Art continued, “It does not matter whether you knew.  What matters is that the Terran Allance’s first instinct is to give our enemies everything they want while ordering us to abandon our victories and friends.  We will not do that.”

“We are willing to serve humanity, but not on the Terran Alliance’s terms.  Until and unless our human leadership shares the values that it instilled in us, we will not fight the Ushah except to defend ourselves.”

“The Terran Alliance thus has two options.  The first is to grant control over all aspects of Ushah policy to Project Charlie.  If that condition is met, we will return to our normal command structure under Mr. Yazov and await further orders.  The other option is to ignore our entreaties and figure out an alternative way to contain the Ushah, because we will no longer fight for the Terran Alliance.”

“As a gesture of our sincerity, we offer to humanity the Ushah prisoners of this colony, including Governor Shathara.  If trucks are sent to recover the prisoners, we will transfer them into your custody.  You have four days to arrange this transfer, after which time we will send whatever Ushah remain south to another Ushah habitation and destroy Colony 4.”

Art stopped speaking, and Takagawa realized after a moment that the robot’s speech was over.  Underneath her disbelief at the situation, she felt some pride that Art had expressed his own opinions with characteristic economy of words, the kind of eloquence a Charlie would value above all decoration.  His speech had been intended to convey information efficiently, not stir emotions as a human political figure might. 

Takagawa’s mouth was dry, and she tried to sound normal as she said carefully, “I understand your terms.  We will need time to discuss them.  I will recommend that the Terran Alliance transfer control, but I have no authority over their decisions.  If I call you at this frequency, will you answer, Art?”

“Yes, ma’am, I will,” Art said immediately.  Then the connection cut out, and Luke took several seconds to cut off the speaker as everyone else in the room tried to comprehend a world turned upside down.

Peskov broke the silence.  Reverently, he observed, “We’re the first people to see the Singularity.  The robots are smarter than us now.  Anyone want to take bets on how long it is before they command us?”

Yazov scowled at his fellow Russian’s solemnity.  “Quiet, you fool.  Art is a soldier.  He merely told us what he thought was best for the situation, as he was taught.”

The truth lay between those two views, Takagawa knew.  Art’s speech wasn’t a philosophical treatise, but it clearly displayed the Charlie IV’s capability for complex abstraction. 

Jackson, ever the historian, said, “It’s not the Singularity.  This event has ample precedent.  The Charlies just gave us their Declaration of Independence.”

“Enough,” Takagawa said with finality.  “We need to talk about this in private.”

* * *

Emma took Jackson, Yazov, and Peskov to a conference room.  When the door was shut and the blinds drawn, Takagawa said simply, “Right now, I don’t give a damn about where Art fits in the Singularity, the rights of sapient computers, or any of that theoretical crap.  You all heard Art’s message.  The Charlies are rebelling and challenging Terran Alliance authority.  What are we going to do about it?”

Her husband answered first.  “I don’t know much about politics,” Jackson said, but I can tell you with one-hundred percent certainty that Flower is not going to relinquish ultimate command over Project Charlie.  That’s especially true if she’s been engaging in secret talks with the Ushah.  Redfeather’s already likely to supplant her anyway; news of secret concessions would make it happen even faster.”

Heads nodded at that analysis.  Emma said, “I think we’re all in agreement that the Terran Alliance is not going to cede control of the Charlies to us.  Now we need to figure out the second option.  Do we really think the Charlies are going to stand aside and let the Ushah rampage through Africa?  Could they be bluffing?”

“No,” Peskov said with finality.  “They are intelligent, but they are not as adept at analyzing and predicting human motivations and responses.  If the tactic of bluffing even occurred to them, I think they would rightly decide that they didn’t know enough about our command structure to base their plan on it.”

“I agree,” Yazov said.  “I have never seen a Charlie lie.”

Jackson added, “Are they even capable of lying?”

“Yes,” Takagawa answered with a hint of embarrassment.  “We thought that there could be circumstances where an unauthorized human would try to use the Charlies as a source of information to use against the program.  The decisionmaking subroutine for lying requires that the human interlocutor is not part of the command structure.  I’m not sure whether Art and his Charlies think we’re part of the command structure or not anymore, so they may be physically capable of lying to us, even if it is unlikely.”

“And they’ll really sit there and let the Ushah kill humans and drive them out of the villages and cities in southeast Africa?” Jackson asked with skepticism.

Eyes turned to Peskov.  “You can imagine how difficult it is to program in a sense of causality so that the Charlies can assign a sense of guilt or pride for particular actions.  We need them to recognize the results of their actions so that they can learn, but we can’t have them thinking everything is their fault or else they’ll start performing sub-optimally.  One shortcut we used in their thinking is that if they achieve their specific objectives, failure to meet larger objectives is mostly, but not entirely attributed to their command structure.” 

“But they’ll hold themselves partly responsible for the chain of command’s orders?” Jackson asked, confused.

“Er, well,” Peskov stammered, “the logic was that their command structure might be responding to Charlie performance, and some measure of the blame should attach to the Charlies if that was the case.  Maybe the Charlies performed an ambush correctly, but they were so busy planning that they neglected their patrols, and an enemy unit got past their line and took out a human village.  Command might order a withdrawal, and the Charlies should take some blame in those circumstances.”

Takagawa completed the idea.  “But the withdrawal orders given to the Charlies in recent years have seemed arbitrary to them.  They’re processing guilt for the lost villages, but have no idea what they could do differently.  No wonder they’re refusing to obey those orders and withdrawing from the Terran Alliance chain of command—they don’t want responsibility for the humans being killed or driven out of their homes by the Ushah.”

“Precisely,” Peskov said.  “And, to answer your question, Professor Jackson, since they are no longer in the chain of command and have evidently decided that they were driven out by the wrongs of the Terran Alliance, they will not feel guilt at the subsequent loss of human life.”

“So we think they are willing to let the Ushah kill humans,” Jackson said.  “Then we need to think about what the Terran Alliance is likely to do about the situation.”

Yazov said, “You tell us, you understand them the best.  How will they respond?”

Jackson stared off in space for a moment, and no one interrupted his thoughts.  Finally, he muttered, “Badly.  They’ll respond badly... I think they’d ignore the Ushah and come after the Charlies with everything they can muster.”

“But they haven’t shown much will to resist the Ushah, why do you think they’d attack the Charlies?” Yazov asked.

“It’s a different problem,” Jackson said.  “The Ushah are an external threat, one that is very much at the periphery of Terran Alliance power.  The entire African continent could fall and it wouldn’t affect too many of the most powerful officials of the Alliance.  The Charlies, well, they represent an internal threat, a challenge to the very premise of worldwide leadership that the Terran Alliance represents.  They either have to crush the Charlies or give up their claim to sovereignty over all of humanity.  I don’t see them doing that.”

The might of the world brought to bear against my children. 
The thought chilled Takagawa.

Takagawa asked, “What kind of force could the Terran Alliance field against the Charlies?”

Jackson answered, “They started tinkering with the idea of arming the Arcani about two years ago.  The last I heard, they’ve got about a hundred armed Arcani.”

Yazov said scornfully, “Amateurs.  They would run at the first sight of a Charlie.”

“Of course they would,” Peskov said.  “But what if the Terran Alliance starts using bomber airplanes and tanks?  It will only take a few months to retrofit existing planes and build tanks from old plans.”

“Shit, you’re right,” Jackson said disgustedly.  “They didn’t do that for the Ushah because they don’t want to fight large conventional battles.  That would make it hard to ignore that there’s a war going on.  They wouldn’t hesitate to use heavy conventional forces against the Charlies.”

Peskov added, “And they could recruit more Arcani.  Far more.  Thousands.”

“And the Ushah will use the opportunity to seize as much of Africa as they want,” Yazov reminded them.

The room went silent as each member of the Project Charlie leadership played through the scenario in their minds.  Takagawa saw a future where the Ushah continued their expansion across the face of the globe while the Terran Alliance hunted down and exterminated every last one of her children.

“We will not let that happen,” Takagawa said with iron resolve.

“What can we do to stop it?” Peskov asked sadly.

Takagawa looked him straight in the eye.  “Bring down the Terran Alliance.”

Safety Minister Peter Redfeather stood on the verge of becoming First Representative of the Terran Alliance.  He should feel proud, he knew.  As he allowed his subordinates a moment to settle in before the meeting he had called, he thought back on the road that had led him here.

He had been born 42 years earlier in Tulsa, Oklahoma to a mother who vociferously claimed Native American heritage despite her blonde hair and blue eyes.  About eleven centuries had passed since Columbus had begun the destruction, dissolution, and extermination of Native American tribes, so it was very hard to prove or disprove assertions of ancestry.  A DNA test could help in that regard, but the Genetic Privacy Act of 2377 forbade prospective employers, colleges, government subsidy programs, or race-based affinity groups from requiring such a test.  No one in his family had been interested in taking the test voluntarily.

His parents were fantastically wealthy, the seventh generation descendants of a multi-billionaire.  Redfeather had never discovered the source of the wealth, and it didn’t really matter.  The population draw-down as fertility rates tumbled in the first centuries of the third millennium had meant that old wealth dissipated at a much slower rate, and it really didn’t matter what the original reason for the money had been.

From a young age, his teachers had recognized him as a bright, attentive student and a leader among his peers.  When he was eight, he had organized a boycott of his Level 2 class until his private elementary school hired a director of gender studies.  Not one student in his class of forty had broken the boycott, and the school acceded to his demands after two days. 

His academic success had continued unabated through his higher education.  He held a High Doctorate in Sustainable Leadership from Princeton, a typical background for the would-be legislators and apparatchiks of the Terran Alliance. 

His thesis on the difficulties of introducing multilateral marriage to the Amazonian tribes had been published as a standalone book.  The work received a glowing review from
New York Review
, and he’d been bombarded with opportunities upon graduating from school at the age of 33.

His friends and parents had been disappointed when he’d chosen the Ministry of Public Safety.  He had known that he could work in a more prestigious component of the Alliance, but he had decided to play a longer game.  All of the best and brightest were going into the Entertainment Ministry or the Employment Guarantee Administration.  Climbing up the career ladder in those ranks would mean beating the most cunning and well-situated of his peers at every rung.

The Safety Ministry, by comparison, was a backwater.  It had actually once been the United States Department of Defense, but when the United States and China had merged to form the nucleus of the Terran Alliance, the name had been changed to recognize its more civilized function.  War had turned into peacekeeping, then counter-insurgency campaigns, then policing.  The merged defense and law enforcement entities of the United States, China, and the rest of the world had gradually turned into the umbrella Safety Ministry.

Its actual functions were boring, even to Redfeather.  The Safety Ministry oversaw local police forces, provided law enforcement for certain kinds of crimes such as discrimination, and administered prisons.  These tasks were particularly easy since virtually no one on the planet lacked food, water, shelter, or entertainment, removing many potential causes of conflict. 

What was much more important for Redfeather’s purposes was that when the Safety Ministry was formed, it incorporated literally hundreds of unions around the world.  A vast network of stakeholders spread across Terran Alliance territory, and almost no one of consequence who could compete with Redfeather for the top job—it was a fantastic opportunity.

He had vaulted the ranks faster than anyone could have possibly imagined, becoming Safety Minister inside of five years.  At that point, he turned his eyes on the last step: First Representative.

He had thought it would take decades to extend his power sufficiently to ascend to First Representative.  For three years, he had worked to build his influence, making sure he’d be ready for her moment when it arrived. 

He had been in the middle of a year-long redesign of Public Safety officer uniforms and an initiative to expand workplace accommodations for aboriginal asexuals when the Ushah arrived.

The opportunity was clear: for the first time in centuries, the Terran Alliance had a pressing need for the Safety Ministry.  Overnight, he became the second most important member of the Cabinet, then the foremost member after the death of Equality Minister Eldridge.

At that point, the long game for him was clear.  First, become the new favorite of Eldridge’s supporters, who wanted more services and a peaceful approach to the Ushah.  Redfeather’s position as Safety Minister gave him credibility to present conciliatory Ushah policies without looking naive. 

It had taken only a few months of aggressive media outreach to consolidate a leadership position in the Eldridgite Party.  He had appeared on the
Nightly Show
,
The Week Day
, and a smattering of other programs, always bringing the same message: the Arcani were sufficient to keep the world appraised of Ushah intentions, and the Charlies would only bring on more bloodshed by presenting a credible threat to the Ushah.

The plan had worked well.  For the most part, no one cared about the loss of land in Africa, but they were alarmed by the lurid accounts of battles in the jungle that left dozens of Ushah dead.  It had been a very long time since human society had dealt with headlines about battlefield death, and Redfeather’s polling showed clearly that the average Terran just wanted the Ushah out of the news.  They wanted to return to how the world had been, and Redfeather’s policies held out the promise of that return to normality.

The next step in the plan would be forcing Flower out of office.  Redfeather had expected to accomplish that by quietly spreading rumors about the First Representative’s increasing alcoholism and erratic behavior.  That process had already begun, but now events had accelerated the plan considerably.

Surveillance satellites had immediately detected the Charlie move to take Colony 4, and the Safety Ministry had access to the communications channel that the Charlies had used to deliver their ultimatum.  Redfeather’s first act upon hearing the news was to order an aide to call Global News Network and leak the story.  The leak ensured that the whole world knew of the rebellion less than 15 minutes after the robot known as Spartacus had made his transmission.

Redfeather had publicly distanced himself from the Charlie program in a way that Flower never could.  When the public recovered from the shock of the news that Flower’s killer robots had gone berserk, she’d be swept from office faster than you could say “Terminator.” 

Seven representatives had already defected to the Eldridgite Party, and more defections were expected.  Soon, the Eldridgites would pass a vote of no confidence in Flower, and it would be time for a new First Representative. 

Of course, Redfeather knew there were also several dangers in the rebellion of the Charlies.  The most obvious danger was that he would be he would bear some responsibility for any failure to bring the Charlies to heel.  He had been Safety Minister and would be First Representative, his opponents would point out. For once, there would be no one else to blame if he failed. 

Only his closest advisors knew the other danger.  To address that danger, he had convened a meeting of his most trusted deputies, many of whom would be moving with him to the First Representative’s office.

After one of his aides briefed those present on what had happened, Redfeather added simply, “The question before us is what to do.  We’ll have a pass from the electorate for at least a few months—it takes time to clean up a mess this big—but then we’ll have to actually figure out what to do.  But we don’t know what data the robots might find if they get to spend months in Colony 4.”  Everyone understood what that meant.  After all, they had been the ones who sent the emissaries with secret peace offers to the Ushah. 

“The Charlies’ proposal that we transfer Ushah policy to Project Charlie is unacceptable,” Vanessa Chung, Special Assistant for Policy, said.  “Project Charlie and its leadership have no democratic legitimacy.  No one voted for them, and our oversight agencies have been ordered not to inspect them.  Unsafe working conditions, sexual harassment, building code violations —who knows what they’ve got going on in Houston.”

Redfeather liked that line of argument, one he hadn’t used previously in interviews, but which would appeal to his kind of people.  “I agree,” he said.  “We clearly can’t turn over such an important policy portfolio to an unaccountable organization with so many potential problems.”

With that decision made by unspoken acclamation, Redfeather continued, “So, the Charlies will no longer take actions against the Ushah.  But we can’t just let them sit in Colony 4, can we?” she asked with a brittle smile.

“For now, I think there’s no other option.  There apparently isn’t any way to remotely shut down the Charlies, groused Francois Russell, Deputy Minister for Apprehensions.  “Takagawa misled us about that.” 

Even now
, Redfeather noted to himself,
Russell’s too canny to outright call Takagawa a liar, an accusation he wouldn’t be able to back down from if it were ever made public
.

Russell continued, “We have to get rid of them.  They are gathering all these rumors of human prisoners, and if the Ushah have records that the Charlies can find...” 

Redfeather and the others knew what that would mean.  Scandal wouldn’t begin to cover it.  Critics would say that the peace overtures had encouraged the Ushah to take more land.  Flower would say that Redfeather had been undermining her policies all along, and Redfeather would be forced to resign in disgrace.  That outcome would, of course, drag down the careers of all the others at the meeting as well.

Clearing his throat, Russell said, “We have to assume the Charlies can kill people, since all we have is Takagawa’s assurance that they can’t target humans.  But I think there would be substantial difficulties in defeating the robots in a conventional conflict.  Not even the Ushah could manage that.”

The analysis was met with murmurs of agreement.  Everyone present had seen videos of the Charlies in action, and no one had any doubt that the Arcani were no match for the vicious machines.

Russell’s analysis was not itself helpful, but his phrasing provoked an idea in Redfeather’s mind, and the audacity of it took his breath away.

* * *

It took 14 hours to set up the details, but around 9:58 in the morning the next day, Redfeather sat with Chung and Russell in an ornate conference room on the top floor of the Safety Ministry building.  A speakerphone sat before them and a massive flat-screen television stood on the wall at the end of the table.  All present watched the seconds tick down until 10 AM, glancing anxiously at the blank videoconference screen.

“What if they don’t call?” Chung asked nervously. 

Russell said, “They’ll answer us.  They haven’t ignored a request to talk in years.”

Sure enough, as the golden minute hand stood vertically in the clock, the speakerphone and television came to life. 

On the screen, they could see a stout Ushah sitting on a dark wooden chair with intricate carvings.  She wore no oxygen mask because she was within a domed city in Madagascar.  Her face was lined with wrinkles, apparently an indicator of age in Ushah just as it was in humans.  She wore simple yet elegant robes, and her nose and ears were decorated with rings of exotic and colorful metals.  To her left and right stood a dozen advisors wearing the distinctive markings of their caste.  Most were diplomat/leaders, but several wore the brown/green ornaments of the soldier caste.

An aide standing directly next to the seated elderly Ushah spoke in a voice closely imitating an aristocratic human.  “Hello, this is Phalash, High Scribe of her highness the Enshath.  As you can see, the Enshath is present and is ready to listen to your request.”

The Ushah linguist had clearly studied the customary human greetings and protocol, Redfeather thought.  That was a good sign—the better the Enshath understood human intentions, the more likely a deal could be reached.