The Wizard and the War Machine, page 6
The lamprey missile's tiny cybernetic offspring had tunneled their way into the ship in a dozen places before the breeder machine could be removed, and Flame had had to hunt them down one by one and destroy them with a hand-held snark.
The computer's programming had been seriously damaged. More than one of the electronic termites had been systematically destroying computer memory when Flame located them, and not all of the lost material could be replaced from the surviving backups.
The computer had not judged the damage to be critical and had carried on.
Flame, also unaware of the actual extent of the damage, had watched the computer a little more carefully after that but had never noticed anything seriously wrong. The machine had seemed stupider than before, but it had always seemed stupid, and a little more did not seem to matter.
Of course, she knew that she was not really the best judge of the computer's fitness; she was no technician.
Two of her alternate personalities were, but she had no intention of committing suicide even temporarily by allowing any of them to take over. She didn't really believe that, once freed, another personality would ever allow her back into control. Her other selves were alien and therefore had to be presumed hostile. She would have to deal with the possibility that the computer was seriously damaged on her own, without the aid of anything the Command had buried in her brain.
She had taken precautions in case the damage was worse than she knew. When she had located the last of the electronic termites, she had not turned the snark on it, but had instead trapped it in an equipment case. Later, after she had watched the spreading smoke clouds that would bring on a nuclear winter, after she had seen the glowing radioactive craters where the cities had stood, after she had sent her ship out of orbit and back out into interstellar space, she had carefully studied the termite.
It was a simple machine, really; it had, after all, been manufactured by a mere missile. Even with her limited technical skills, she had easily located its power supply and cut the main lead.
That had deactivated the device. She had then patched a spare timer into the power line, set so that if the timer ever registered zero, the circuit would be completed and the termite reactivated.
The computer had watched all this without comment, accepting her explanation that she was studying the enemy's technology. Only when she then slipped the termite into the computer's central core and coded the access hatch to open only to her own thumbprint, and not to computer commands or service equipment, did the computer object.
By then it was too late.
"It's just a precaution," she had explained. "You might have been damaged more than we think. I'll just reset the timer every so often, and it'll be fine. It will only count down to zero if I get killed, and I'll only get killed if you screw up. It will keep the enemy from capturing you intact if I die."
The computer had objected but had been unable to do anything. The service robots could not get through the coded access hatch. The termite had stayed in place, and, as she had promised, every so often Flame reset it to its maximum of ninety-nine hours, fifty-nine minutes, and fifty-nine seconds.
As she saw it, it simply kept things in balance. The computer had always been able to kill her by means of the thermite charge in the base of her skull; now she could kill the computer just by doing nothing. If she died, the computer and ship went with her. That seemed only fair.
Slant might have gotten his release code somewhere, but using it had robbed him of his ship and his conditioning. That left him alive but virtually powerless. Such a bargain did not appeal to her. She was happy with her own little device.
The computer occasionally complained that the termite's presence created programming conflicts, but she had never let that concern her.
The computer had always been stupid as far as she was concerned. It still was. How could it argue so much when she held the upper hand as she did? She reminded it every so often of the termite's presence, but it did not seem very concerned.
"Acknowledged," was all it said, as usual.
She sighed. The computer's reaction was scarcely satisfying. She was not yet ready to press the issue to its ultimate conclusion, however; if she destroyed the computer, she would be dooming herself as well, and she was not ready to commit suicide just yet. Not quite yet, and not without taking as much as she could with her. She had been conditioned strongly against suicide, and that conditioning still lingered.
"Do you believe Slant's story?" she asked the computer. "It seems to me he should be helping us, not arguing and giving us that crap about friendly natives." She felt a new twinge of anger and pain at the thought of this latest betrayal. When she had first heard the distress call, she had told herself that Slant was certainly long dead, that it meant nothing beyond choosing her next target for her, but she had secretly cherished a hope that she might have found a companion, a fellow in misery. When Slant had turned up alive, her hopes had soared, but then he had revealed himself to be another traitor, like so many others, and she had plunged back into her morass of hatred, anger, and self-pity.
"Term 'believe' not applicable," the computer told her.
"No, you stupid machine, I guess it's not. You don't believe in anything, you just do what the Command told you, whether it makes sense or not." She lay silently thinking for a moment, then asked, "Do you think he was telling the truth about what happened to his ship?"
"Insufficient evidence."
"Could the ship be down there somewhere, hidden?" His ship might somehow provide sufficient evidence of Slant's treason to convince even a computer.
"Wreckage of IRU-class starship has been located approximately one hundred twenty kilometers to planetary west of largest known metropolitan area."
She sat up, startled. "It has? Damn it, you stupid machine, why didn't you tell me earlier?"
"Cyborg unit did not previously request information."
She snorted derisively at both herself and the computer. "Do you think it's Slant's ship?" she asked.
"Affirmative."
"You said it was wreckage; how bad is it? Does anything look salvageable?"
"Information insufficient."
That was annoyingly unhelpful. Obviously, the wreck had not provided any clear evidence of treason, or the computer would have noticed and mentioned it. There might be subtle proof, of course, something not visible from orbit—a recording, perhaps.
The ship's presence suggested other possibilities as well, though, and a new enthusiasm fired her.
"Do you think we could get it off the ground? Maybe it still has a few unfired missiles of its own!" The prospect of greater numbers of deaths excited her.
"Negative. Evidence indicates destroyed IRU-class starship is beyond repair capacity of this ship."
"What about missiles?" she persisted. "Think it has any? And if it does, is there anyway we could use them?"
"Information insufficient."
She sighed. "Damn, you're stupid. Damn, damn, damn. Ever since that lamprey missile got us, you've been a complete idiot. Not that you were brilliant before that. It's a good thing I rigged that termite the way I did, or I wouldn't be able to trust you at all."
She pressed her hands together, thinking. "All right, I guess we land as close to the wreck as we can and look it over, right? If the missiles are there, we can have the service robots load them aboard, and maybe we can take out the whole planet, after all." She smiled at the thought of another barrage, of watching the mushroom clouds boil up, of knowing that she had destroyed more of her enemies and swept another world clean of the infection called humanity. It was the only pleasure she had left.
Of course, afterward she would be depressed for weeks. She knew that from previous experience. It was worth it, though, particularly since the computer would treat her depression with the ship's dwindling stock of euphorics, to which she was not permitted access otherwise. During the worst spells the computer would sedate her, which was, in a way, even better. The machines kept her alive whether she wanted to live or not, but they did not always insist on keeping her conscious.
And the initial thrill of watching the atomic fires was worth the depression that followed.
"No action may be taken against this planet until affiliation is determined. Planet may be friendly," the computer insisted.
"Yeah, sure." She knew better. All of humanity was her enemy for allowing her to remain an IRU cyborg for so long. "Look, I want to land as close to the wreck as we can. And you can call Slant back, tell him we've picked a landing site, and he can meet us there." She smiled again. If Slant had any guilty secrets, his ship would be the place to look for them, certainly. She would find some way to avenge herself on that lying, self-righteous bastard before she blew the cities away. How could he refuse to join her? How could he leave her alone aboard her ship?
It would serve him right if she killed him with one of the missiles from his own ship.
"Affirmative," the computer said. She sensed, very faintly, a slight alteration of some indescribable sort that she realized was the computer opening the internal communication circuit to broadcast. She had never noticed the difference before; it would have been very easy to miss if she had not been alertly expecting it.
"Landing site has been chosen," the computer said, and she knew that it was speaking to Slant, not to herself.
A moment later the voice in her head asked, "Where are you landing, then?"
For an instant the similarity of Slant's mental "voice" to the computer's sent a shiver of uncertainty through her. Was all this really happening? Had she really found another IRU cyborg, or was she just imagining it? Was the computer playing games with her? Had she gone mad? Had one of her other personalities somehow escaped, without her knowledge and against her will, and programmed this whole series of events into the computer as some sort of obscure joke?
She had no contact with anything outside the ship, anything at all, except through the computer. There were no portholes, no displays not run by the computer. She had no way of knowing that she was really orbiting a new planet. She had no way of knowing, really, that she had ever left Mars. The images she saw in her head looked unimaginably real, more real than anything she could remember, more real than the interior of the ship, somehow, but she knew that that could all be trickery, could be special effects or recorded images. She could not know that those stars were real, that the blue-white planet below her was real, that she had really gone anywhere. She had watched the destruction of all human life on two inhabited planets, destruction she had ordered, but had it been real? Had those impossibly bright flashes, the glowing clouds that rose, darkened, and slowly dissipated, been real?
Were there really any inhabited planets out there, anywhere?
Maybe this was all still part of her training, the endless years in her ship all a hypnotic suggestion. The whole horrible thing could just be a test of her loyalty, to see whether she would yield under extreme circumstances.
Maybe she had imagined everything, her entire life, and the reality was that the universe consisted of nothing but herself and her ship, no stars, no planets, no Command, no other life at all.
She herself might not really exist. She thought, but did that really mean she was real?
No, she told herself firmly, such thoughts were all just daydreams and wish fulfillment. She had been through all these fantasies before, many times, but they weren't real, and she knew she must not allow herself to believe them, even for a moment. She could go mad if she believed them, she knew that. Mars and Old Earth were real, and dead, and she was alone in the void with her ship and her computer. She knew that those two planets she had attacked had been real, because one of them had sent the lamprey missile, and she had seen the missile's termites with her own eyes, had captured and rewired one with her own hands. That had been real and solid.
Of course, that had been aboard the ship and could have been part of some test.
She knew it wasn't, though. The outside universe was real, it had to be. And in any case it did not really matter. Whatever the truth was, she had to go on as she always had. She had nothing else. The war machines would not let her die, would not let her surrender, and she had to prove herself. She was loyal, the only loyal one left, and she would fight on against the bastards who had destroyed her life and trapped her here—the rebels, and the traitors who had allowed the rebels to win.
Then she realized abruptly that perhaps she need not be trapped much longer. If she landed, she could leave the ship. She had never done that before. The other two planets she had attacked from orbit, without landing, since they had admitted outright to being disloyal. The computer had monitored their communications, had asked data banks which side the planets had taken in the Rebellion, and had been told, and the people of those two worlds had died, had all died with Flame watching, picking the targets and launching the missiles. She had never left the ship, never landed.
She had never left the ship before, not once since she first boarded it back on Mars.
On this planet, though, she could leave the ship, breathe fresh air, see the sky.
A thrill of mixed anticipation and terror ran through her at the thought. She knew then that whatever she eventually did to the planet, she had to land first and leave the ship. She could not bear to miss this chance, could not bear to fire her missiles and turn back into space again without landing, even had the computer allowed it.
She would be able to see for herself that the outside universe still actually existed. She would feel the wind on her skin, smell the trees and the earth, see the veins of leaves and the clouds overhead. If she wanted to, she could let her termite booby trap destroy the computer without necessarily leaving herself to die alone in interstellar space.
A ferocious longing excitement grew quickly within her, piling upon itself like a building thunderstorm.
"All right, Slant," she said, keeping her mouth tightly closed as if to hold her excitement inside. "We've decided to check out the wreckage of your ship. We'll be there as soon as we can get down. See you there!"
For an instant there was no reply, but then Turner protested, "That's two days' ride from here!"
"Is it?" She smiled to herself. "That's fine, then. Two days should give me a chance to look around a little before you get there and start arguing." She giggled nervously, then burst out laughing, though she was unsure what had amused her. She would be leaving the ship soon, but that was not funny. Terrifying and exciting, yes, but not funny. "Computer," she said, still smiling and ignoring Turner's continuing protests, "shut that idiot off and take us down."
Chapter Seven
"TALK TO ARZADEL FIRST, SAM," PARRAH SAID.
Though she was forcing herself to appear calm, her voice trembled, and she rubbed her hands nervously against her hips. They had both remained standing despite the presence of chairs on either side of the small decorative table Turner had used to sort his supplies.
"You talk to him," Turner replied, not looking at her. "I haven't got time. They'll be landing out by my ship any minute now, and I need to get there fast. I don't want them to see me flying, since they already think that something strange is going on, so I need to get there by horse. As it is, they'll be down long before I arrive, maybe days before, and I just hope they don't talk to some wandering half-wit or mutant who'll say the wrong thing before I get there." Turner sighted down the barrel of the rapid-fire rocket rifle he had selected, decided it would do, and slung the weapon on his shoulder, the strap snug against the heavy winter coat he had dug out of mothballs. Where he was going nobody would care whether he used a coat or a heat-field, and a coat took much less effort. He had also exchanged his wizard's robe for a woolen tunic and leather pants and had unearthed his sturdiest pair of boots and a pair of thin leather gloves. He had been unable to locate a decent hat or scarf. His long hair and beard would have to do to keep his head and face warm.
He thought of the extensive wardrobe he had once had aboard his starship and puzzled for a moment over what had become of the cold-weather gear it had included. The sheepskin and leather coat he now wore was Prauncer-made, not something he had brought with him, and he could not recall what he had done, if anything, with the various garments from the ship. One of the lightweight impermeable-polymer parkas or body-suits would have been welcome, but so far as he could remember he had foolishly left them in the wreckage.
He marveled at his own stupidity, glancing derisively at his image in a nearby mirror. He looked positively medieval in the knee-length, high-collared coat, and the sleek, flat finish of the rocket rifle was startlingly incongruous.
"I don't like this," Parrah said, eyeing the rifle nervously. "I don't like anything about it."
"I don't like it, either," Turner agreed. "But it's happening, and I've got to do what I can to keep that lunatic from blowing us all into radioactive dust."
"You really don't want me to come with you?" Her voice was wistful, not pleading; she already knew what he would say.
He looked across the little table at her. Her narrow face seemed even longer than usual, thanks to her worried expression. Her straight black hair was in disarray from helping him burrow through their storeroom. He leaned over and kissed her lightly. "No, I don't," he said. "At least, not right now. Someone's got to look after the kids and tell the other wizards where I've gone and what's happening. I can make better time alone, and besides, I don't think this Flame person would like it if I brought anyone else along. I'm the only one who knows anything much about IRUs or Old Earth, so it has to be me who goes. I'm not happy about that, but it's the truth. Is that horse I asked for ready?"
"It should be; I mind-spoke to Haiger ten minutes ago, and I think I was clear enough. It should be waiting on the street."
"Good." Telepathy was one of the wizardly arts he had never really gotten the hang of; his own mental aura was so distorted by his cyborg parts that he had far more difficulty in matching it to other brains than did any of the wizards native to Dest. He had always let Parrah handle all the long-range communication for the family—or at least all the long-range magical communication. She was good at it, very good indeed; telepathy was her personal specialty. She could communicate over almost five kilometers, under ideal conditions, which was really exceptional.
