The Great Destroyer (9 page)

As the night dragged on, Jackson continued his negotiation of minute details with the Ushah.  While it was all interesting in some abstract sense, Takagawa had barely had a moment to herself since the
Empathy
had been attacked.  At two in the morning, she went down to the all-night commissary she had established in the Project Charlie facility in Houston.  Though there had been people there at all hours during the intense run-up to the mission when programming Charlie II had taken every available moment, now there was only the Japanese roboticist in the cafeteria.

Cereal had been left out for the programmers to eat, and she retrieved a bowl of something sugary and some milk from a refrigerator.  As she munched food probably intended for much younger gourmands, she considered the performance of her Charlie.

He had done well, there was no disputing that.  But he had only done well with his mother and dozens of other support personnel watching over his every move.  In her mind’s eye, she pictured what might have happened if the connection to Charlie II had been broken at the wrong moment, her Charlie helpless in the face of the Ushah onslaught, his limbs torn from his awkward body.

“May I join you, Dr. Takagawa?”

Startled, Takagawa looked up to see Yazov holding a cup of tea and a large hunk of black bread.  She nodded her assent, and the Russian sat down across from her.  “Our Charlie fought well.”

Pride surged in her mind, though she had no idea why the praise of the pseudo-criminal combat instructor meant more to her than the exuberant praise from First Representative Flower.  “You taught him well.”

Yazov waved the compliment away.  “
You
taught him.  You built his mind.  Helping you teach him to kill, that was the easy part.”

They sat quietly for a minute, then Yazov broke the silence.  “I assume today does not mark the end of Project Charlie.  With the Ushah coming down to the planet, the Terran Alliance will need an army more than ever.”

Takagawa nodded.  “We will have to upgrade Charlie II.” 

“How so?” Yazov asked.

“Charlie II is a pattern recognition machine,” Takagawa said, forcing herself to be objective about her beloved Charlie. “We have taught him to recognize enemies, process their location and armament, then apply one of a number of standard actions to kill them.”

Yazov grunted.  “Charlie is like an animal, like a lion.  He can fight ferociously, but he can’t change his tactics, and he can’t adapt to new battlefields.”

Takagawa nodded, though she thought Charlie was more like a cub than a lion.  “Charlie II can’t defeat the Ushah.  We won’t be able to monitor every Charlie in the field to make sure they always do the right thing like we did for Charlie II.  The Charlies won’t be fighting in a confined space next time.  They can’t just respond with the instincts we can program into them.  Charlie III will have to be able to make decisions for himself.  He’ll have to learn how to fight a war, not just kill an enemy.”  Takagawa hit the table with resolution.  “And you’re going to teach him.”

Grinning, Yazov took a sip of his tea.  “If you give me a good student, I will ensure he receives the proper tutelage.”

“Yes, Minister Fabrizio, I know your budget is still 20 percent less than it was a year ago,” First Representative Flower said patiently.  “A lot has happened in that year.”

The Entertainment Minister waved away the objection and gesticulated in full Italian fashion as he pressed his case.  “Did I complain a year ago when we had to devote a substantial portion of the Terran Alliance budget to preparing for the arrival of the Ushah?  No, I did not.  Project Charlie was a necessary preparation, and it was a terrific success.  But the Ushah have been on the ground for a full year now in Madagascar, and there have been no troubles.  The funding for Project Charlie hasn’t been slowed at all—in fact, it’s higher than ever.  When are things going to return to normal, Lian?”

The First Representative’s temper flared.  “In this office, I am the First Representative, Minister Fabrizio.  You will address me as such.”

The genial, overweight Italian looked as if he’d been slapped.  He stammered, “I-I apologize, First Representative.”

Flower wondered where her temper had come from.  She didn’t remember ever having one before the Ushah came.  Feeling the onset of a headache, she wished for a glass of wine, but it was too early in the day to drink openly. 

She transitioned away from the awkward moment.  “In any event, the funding for Project Charlie hasn’t gone down yet because Charlie II wasn’t enough to defend us in case the Ushah break the Jackson-Ashsef Accord.  They have been building up rapidly on Madagascar, bringing down thousands of their people from the mothership.”

“But they have not caused any harm,” Fabrizio pointed out gingerly, afraid of provoking another outburst from the First Representative.

“They also haven’t responded to any of our requests to open trade between humans and the Ushah,” Flower retorted.  “Whenever we request permission to visit Madagascar, they deny us.  We have no idea what they’re doing on their island, and until we know they aren’t planning more violence, we will continue to fund Project Charlie.”

Fabrizio sat for a moment, considering what else he could say.  “Is our whole government to be subordinated to Project Charlie?” he asked quietly.

Flower thought of the dog parks initiative, what she had thought she would be spending all of her time on when she had become First Representative.  She shook her head.  “Of course not.  But we can’t go back to the way things were.  At least, not until we are sure the Ushah are no threat.”

* * *

After Fabrizio left, Flower ordered her glass of wine.  As she sipped, she glanced at her schedule for the day. 

She had ten minutes before she would be briefed by representatives of the displaced natives from Madagascar.  They had complained loudly when they lost their homes, but they had been adequately compensated, with free food, housing, and recreation anywhere in the world they chose to resettle.  Still, there was no obscuring the fact that a community had ceased to exist because of Terran Alliance orders. 

The Malagasy (their official name, Flower had learned) were spread all over the planet now, and their leaders who had once enjoyed a high station now found themselves without their followers.  She’d personally brought several onto her staff as a gesture to show that even she would make sacrifices to ensure that though the Malagasy had paid a great price, the rest of humanity would share the burden.

It could have been far worse, she knew.  The thought prompted another gulp of wine. 

When Jackson and Ashsef had haggled over where the Ushah colony would be, the Ushah had expressed a series of clear preferences: somewhere warm and humid, with access to water and arable land.  Ashsef had suggested that such a place would be as much like their home planet as possible. 

Madagascar had quickly emerged as the preferred option that fit the Ushah preferences.  The land grant not only pleased the politicos of the Terran Alliance, but also the more military-minded members of Project Charlie.

Madagascar was an isolated island, which would help maintain a defensive perimeter around the Ushah and quarantine humans from possible alien pathogens.  There were no major human habitation centers nearby, and though some Terran Alliance representatives from the island had protested, they did not have the economic or political power to stop the agreement. 

The accord struck between Professor Jackson and the Ushah negotiator Ashsef had been ratified by First Representative Flower, and a week later, the Ushah had started ferrying their people down to the land set aside for them. 

The only people other than the Malagasy who were upset by the arrangement were environmental preservationists, who still reveled in the unique flora and fauna of the island.  For once, though, no one was in the mood to listen to complaints about the plight of the lemur.  When push came to shove, a breeding population had been taken from the island, and the rest left to whatever fate the Ushah had in store for them.

Flower called up a file from her computer, the latest satellite imagery of the main Ushah colony on Madagascar.  For the past ten months, the Ushah had been constructing their colony under the gaze of Terran Alliance photographic satellites that had previously been used for census and geographic surveys. 

The Ushah didn’t allow any humans onto their land, but the satellites offered hints about the organization of their society.  They didn’t seem to have individual dwellings; rather, they constructed large buildings housing up to five thousand of their number.  Biologists suspected this meant the Ushah did not have families per se, but rather organized their activities around larger communities.  There were now six large halls built close together on Madagascar, and those had been covered by a thin dome membrane, presumably to allow the Ushah to walk around inside without oxygen masks.

After the first shelter had been established, the Ushah had used simple machines to plant large fields of plants from their home planet.  The plants were evidently genetically engineered to exist in a colder, lower-gravity environment than they had originally evolved in.  They rapidly flourished, and the Ushah processed the fruit of those plants, which mostly looked like cabbages, to generate all manner of food.

Humanity at large wasn’t threatened by the Ushah enjoying their new home, Flower thought.  But there were disquieting indications that the Ushah were preparing to spread.  Satellites with ground-penetrating radar, rapidly re-developed from ancient designs, could see the Ushah were building factories underground.  No one knew what the factories were building, but more and more of the soldier caste of the Ushah were visible in satellite imagery.  Professor Jackson, who had emerged as the head strategist for Project Charlie, predicted that the Ushah were fabricating weapons.

An even bigger concern in the case of war with the Ushah was the status of the Ushah mothership.  The massive vessel remained in low-Earth orbit with its small constellation of asteroids, and months of analysis hadn’t yielded any definitive conclusions about what armament the ship might have.  There was no obvious laser cannon or the like sticking out of the ship, but if a battle unfolded on the planet below, the mothership might unveil such a weapon and start pounding away at Terran Alliance cities. 

Flower forced the thought from her head. 
Planning battles is not your job
, she told herself.  She didn’t know how to fight, didn’t know how to build robots, and didn’t know how to program.  What she did know was how to get funding from the Terran Alliance and make sure Project Charlie got whatever it needed to defend the planet.

She had found herself spending less and less time with her amorfriends.  At this point, she wasn’t sure if she could even consider them amorfriends.  Her time, energy, and will were increasingly tied into Project Charlie.

If the Terran Alliance needs Charlies instead of dog parks, that is what you will give the Terran Alliance.
  With that, she picked up the briefing documents that would prepare her for her meeting with the Malagasy representatives.

Winter nights were cold in the desert, Yazov knew from experience in what had once been Syria.  The ground was full of heat and warmth in the day, but turned frigid when the sun went down.  He recognized the cold, but did not shiver.  It took more than a chilly Texas night to make a Cossack shiver, especially when he was hunting.

His prey was out there somewhere among the creosote, cacti, and sand.  Patience came naturally to the prey, and so he would be out there, waiting for Yazov to make a mistake and reveal his position.  Unfortunately for the prey, Yazov didn’t make many of those.

Yazov was lying prone behind a short embankment.  He allowed himself only short peeks above the top of the embankment, and he hadn’t been able to see his prey. 
No, that wouldn’t work.
  The prey’s eyesight was just too good—unbeatable.  No way Yazov would see the prey before the prey saw him, he had come up with another plan.

Slowly, he pulled on the string in his hands.  Sixty yards away, the other end of the string drew taut and pulled over a tin can full of pebbles.  Almost instantly, a shot rang out in the still night air.  Yazov had enough experience to immediately identify where the shot had come from.  He brought his rifle up over the lid of the entrenchment and looked to the source of the shot.  In a split-second, he saw his prey and fired.

The prey didn’t fall, as well he might because he had only been hit by a laser beam.  It took a hell of a lot more than a laser to knock over Charlie III.  Nevertheless, an alarm went off in the night air to announce that the training exercise was over.

Charlie III stood up to his full height.  His appearance was largely the same as Charlie II, but a careful eye would notice important differences.  Other than elbows and knees, his joints were no longer obviously visible.  Gone was Charlie II’s iconic eyepatch, replaced by a second optical sensor for improved depth perception and a wider field of view.  The antennae is place of his ears were shorter and wider, encompassing a suite of sensors for various situations.  Whereas Charlie II had walked slowly and ponderously, Charlie III moved like a graceful animal, with smooth and deliberate strides.

Now, Charlie III waited obediently as Yazov strolled up to him.  Yazov was too professional to gloat.  Instead, he observed laconically, “You lost tonight, Charlie.”

“I am sorry, Mr. Yazov,” Charlie III said in a monotone.  Yazov knew that the robot was sorry, as sorry as he could be, at least.  Charlie III had failed in his mission to discover and deliver (simulated) death to his instructor.  There was nothing Charlie III took more seriously than failure. 

Yazov tried to clarify precisely what Charlie III should remember.  “The lesson from this exercise is clear.  If you hear a noise, don’t automatically assume it’s your enemy.  Unless you recognize the sound, it might be completely unrelated to your objective.  It could even be a trap, like it was tonight.”

“Yes, Mr. Yazov,” the robot said.

Charlie III was a good student, Yazov thought.  He remembered the lessons.  The robot rarely repeated mistakes, and if he did, he never repeated them a third time.  That success was, of course, attributable to Emma Takagawa. 

Once the Ushah technical team had thoroughly explained how to interpret and replicate Ushah computer designs found in spacesuits, Takagawa and her engineers had gone right to work analyzing the equipment Charlie II had stolen from the Ushah shuttle.  That technology had been incorporated into human computer designs for Project Charlie.  As a result, Charlie III’s internal processor was dramatically more powerful and complicated than that of his predecessor. 

Two capabilities developed in concert allowed Charlie III to become a problem solver.  The conceptually easier first step was for Charlie III to recognize success.  Takagawa had programmed Charlie III to maximize a variable she had named “Merit.” 

Merit could only be increased by achieving objectives assigned by human operators.  Those objectives could be to destroy certain targets, kill enemies, reach an assigned position, or any number of other subtler tasks.  Merit could also be decreased by failure to achieve an objective. 

The second step to building a problem solver was to assign a discrete label to certain series of actions as “tactics.”  This was far more difficult, and it had taken Peskov and Takagawa months to establish a clear working definition of “tactics.” 

The key insight came from a rigorous, almost philosophical definition of “objective.”  Objectives were all composed of a series of concrete sub-objectives.  Killing an enemy, for example, first required spotting the enemy, then moving to a position whereby the enemy could be attacked, then carrying out the attack.  A tactic was defined as all actions taken in furtherance of a sub-objective. 

Some parts of the tactic would be wholly predictable.  Any tactic involving movement would require the subroutine for actuating Charlie III’s legs.  However, would a subroutine for running work better than a subroutine for walking in a given battlefield situation?  Whichever resulted in success in a given set of circumstances—defined by number of enemies, time of day, type of terrain, need for stealth, and so on—would be preferred. 

The best way to establish what worked in a given set of circumstances was to train—to present as many different sets of circumstances as possible to the Charlies so that they could learn for themselves what tactics worked.

That was where Yazov came in.  His training was relentless.  Rifle fire, stealth, squad tactics, defeating armored vehicles, evading aircraft—every day was something different.  He went through so many exercises that he needed to recruit subordinates to put multiple Charlies through different training scenarios at the same time.  Then, all of the Charlies could share their data and benefit from each other’s training. 

Lessons rapidly accumulated, giving a mountain of data to the Charlies so that they could solve the problem of fighting a war.  When Charlie III was called upon to fight, he could call upon a wealth of knowledge about fighting that should, in theory, make him as well-trained as any soldier in history.

That theory was likely to be tested soon, Yazov thought.  His friend Professor Jackson oversaw the collection of intelligence about the Ushah, and he said things were heating up. 

So, we must train quickly
, Yazov thought.  “Move back to the starting coordinates for this training exercise and let’s try another variant,” Yazov ordered the Charlie.