“Sir,” said his chief battle engineer, “Scanning reports that shuttles are beginning to leave the Keiretsu fleet as well.”

  Sobran nodded his acknowledgment of the information. “I’ve heard about this. Now let’s look at it.” He touched a control in the arm of his chair.

  The vid was replaced by a holomag that showed both battle fleets drifting in space between the Homeworld and its moon. Dozens, hundreds, of tiny orange lights were fleeing from the two groupings of brighter green and blue lights that represented the two fleets, like fleas abandoning a pair of sleeping dogs. The orange pinpoints were converging on the large red blip that marked the location of the artifact. A number had begun to orbit it.

  Sobran sighed resignedly. “Keep trying to stop the dispersal. Do anything you can. Oh, and see to it that the toilets are fixed. If we have an emergency and can’t leave, at least we can be comfortable in the can.”

  XV

  “GO away!”

  “I beg your pardon?” As the one seated nearest the drifting, flaring Autothor, Shimoda beat a hasty retreat across the green sands. His companions stopped what they’d been doing and looked up anxiously.

  “Oh, I wasn’t talking to you.” The intense turquoise glow faded slightly. “I was talking to them. See?” The Autothor generated a large holo just above where the water met the artificial beach.

  Numerous tiny vessels, some so small they couldn’t possibly carry a dozen persons, were gathering in the vicinity of the Drex warship like a cluster of fireflies around a decomposing log.

  “What’s going on?” Iranaputra worried aloud. “Is it another attack?”

  “Unlikely, old … old chap.” Heath smiled reflectively. “They’re interfleet transports and lifeboats, you see.” His tone indicated that his recent confession still weighed heavily on his soul.

  “There is no evidence of hostile intent,” the Autothor informed him. “To the contrary. I have taken adequate precautions nonetheless.” A pause, then, “As a matter of fact, I am now suffused with confidence. One might almost say I feel invincible. Able to devastate entire worlds. Very up.”

  “That’s nice.” Gelmann was deliberately noncommittal.

  “My sensor instrumentation detects no sign of organic intelligence aboard any of these vessels,” the blue ellipse continued.

  “Oxymoron,” Ksarusix sniffed. It continued to work on the sand castle it had been building, an elegant edifice of circuits and shifters, sculpted components and thermoplastic armature, accurately rendered in a turgid blend of sand and water.

  As usual, the Autothor ignored it. “Many of these small vessels are broadcasting nonsense as they approach. According to my monitoring of internal transmissions, the entire exercise has deeply agitated the organics aboard the larger vessels.”

  “I bet,” Hawkins observed gleefully.

  “I don’t really care for this.” The blue ellipse flickered slightly as it commenced a slow vertical rotation. “The chanting unnerves me.”

  Iranaputra didn’t know about the others, but he personally found the notion that the gargantuan Drex warship could be “unnerved” highly disturbing.

  “Then tell them to go away,” said Gelmann. ‘Tell them to return to their respective ships.”

  “They are persistent in their patent obsession, but I will try.”

  While the seniors watched via the holo, the Autothor communicated with the milling lifeboats. Individually at first, then in small groups, they began to retrace their paths, returning to their home vessels, where they automatically reberthed themselves, repressurized locks, and reestablished stipulated connections. If anything, this equivalently inexplicable action left the officers and engineers on board the ships of the two fleets less agitated but more confused than ever.

  On board the Federal flagship the toilets and associational recycling systems had also resumed conventional operation. Nonetheless, they, as with any and all previously obstreperous AI-controlled equipment, continued to be approached with trepidation by their respective crews.

  A faint aroma of burnt ginger filled the Federal flagship’s command center, odoriferously symptomatic of surprises to come. Admiral Sobran wrinkled his nose as he pondered his options. The artificial-intelligence cortexes which controlled primary ship functions had been constructed with repetitive redundancies built in, but what if they, too, should suddenly and inexplicably devolve into an irrational demonstration of cybernetic genuflection? The only absolute solution (absolution? he found himself wondering) lay in flight, which was not an option open to him. He could only hope that the flagship’s AI would stay sane.

  He consoled himself with the knowledge that Hiroshigi must be undergoing similar torments.

  If the initial analyses of its destructive potential were even partly accurate, he knew he could not possibly risk forcing his way aboard the artifact. That essentially meant setting aside the immense capabilities of the grand Federal fleet and dealing instead with the five elderly geeks the obviously disturbed alien had allowed aboard.

  It was a situation for which neither the Academy, previous practical experience, nor a lifetime in the military had prepared him.

  “The two groups of larger vessels retain their spatial position.” The Autothor had ceased rotating. “Would you like me to utterly and completely annihilate them?”

  Shimoda and Iranaputra exchanged a glance. “Ah, that will not be necessary,” Iranaputra said carefully. “They are not making any pugnacious moves, are they?”

  “No. It’s only that more of my memory and operational capacity has just come on-line and I’d like to try it out. I need the exercise.”

  “Restrain yourself,” Shimoda advised.

  “Just a couple of ships?”

  “We’d rather you didn’t,” the sumo enthusiast urged.

  “A teensy exhalation of judiciously applied synthesized suncore plasma?”

  “No!” Mina Gelmann wagged an admonitory finger in the direction of the bobbing blue ellipse. “You be polite, now.”

  “Oh very well.” The Autothor spun crossly. “They’re trying to contact you directly.”

  Iranaputra sighed. “I suppose we ought to talk to them.”

  “Why?” Clad only in his underwear, Hawkins was up to his knees in the warm salt water. “Let ’em stew in their own frustration.”

  “Now, Wallace, we can hardly expect the Autothor to act polite if we don’t.” Gelmann scrutinized the ethereal egg. “We’ll talk to them.”

  The holo dilated with the image of a man in his thirties. He looked startled.

  After several minutes had passed without any reaction, Gelmann took a step forward and waved. “So; shalom already.”

  “Uh, hi.” There were suggestions of sudden frantic activity behind the speaker. He looked up from the printouts someone quickly handed him. “Would you be Mina Louise Leveseur Kalinnikov Gelmann, of Lake Woneapenigong Village, Newyork Province?”

  “Who else would I be?” She assayed a maternal smile. “You probably know all my friends too.” She gestured at her companions. Shimoda bowed slightly, Heath struck a martial pose, Iranaputra smiled, Hawkins bent over and probed in the water, his backside prominent.

  “I think so.” The communications specialist paused while a large, thick-necked man leaned into the field of view and murmured something into his ear, then withdrew. “I’m Wilson, Tome Wilson. Please don’t take offense, but I’m directed to ask you this question: Would you allow some of us to join you aboard the artifact?”

  “Sorry, no can do, you should only understand and be well. We’re not letting anyone aboard right now.”

  “Ohhh-kayyy.” The comspec pondered frantically. The fact that an admiral of the fleet was practically leaning on his elbow was less than conducive to cogent thought. “Anything I can do to change your mind?”

  “Afraid not, old boy,” said Heath.

  Wilson listened to someone beyond pickup range. “Since you can’t do anything for us, is there anything we can do for you? Anything at all you’d like? Individual palaces, perhaps, or obscene amounts of money deposited to your respective credit accounts?”

  Hawkins’s eyes widened. He started toward the Autothor, but in his haste tripped and landed with a decisive splash facedown in the shallow water. Gelmann hardly spared him a glance.

  “Thank you, no. We’re all of us comfortably retired, and except where valid as historical monuments I don’t believe that palaces are currently in fashion on Earth. Though you shouldn’t think me greedy, but I could do with an apartment with a lake instead of mountain view at Lake Woneapenigong. Of course, there’s no lake there now.”

  “We’ll arrange the apartment you want,” the comspec said quickly, “and we’ll put back the lake too.”

  “Aren’t you sweet?” replied Gelmann, pleased. “But I’m afraid we still can’t allow any of you on board just yet.”

  Heath took a step toward the hovering ellipse. “What Mina is saying is that due to our present position we feel a heavy responsibility. We need time to consider things, don’t you know.”

  “Certainly, of course.” The comspec sputtered in his haste to agree.

  “The Chakans shot at the ship. So it, and we, are somewhat suspicious, you see.”

  “That won’t happen again,” Wilson swore.

  “Indeed it will not,” said Iranaputra.

  “But it, the artifact, it trusts you?”

  “So far. We cannot predict if or when the situation might change.” Iranaputra considered the silently attentive Autothor. “It is alien.”

  Wilson leaned forward eagerly. “All the more reason for you to allow some experts aboard.”

  “Not just yet, if you don’t mind,” said Heath. “We don’t feel we’re in any immediate danger.”

  The comspec resorted to a pout. “My superiors will be disappointed.”

  “Now, you just let them rage impotently.” Gelmann smiled cheerfully. “You’re a nice young man. Don’t let them browbeat you.”

  “Uh, I’ll take your advice under consideration,” Wilson replied without much confidence.

  “Meanwhile you just stay clear and you won’t get hurt.”

  “I’ll pass that along,” the comspec mumbled weakly. “This self-imposed isolation really isn’t in your best interests. None of you have any experience in dealing with this sort of thing.”

  “Neither does anyone else, dear,” said Gelmann brightly as she directed the Autothor to close the connection. The holo blanked on a frantically waving Wilson.

  “What do we do now?” Iranaputra regarded his companions. Having recovered his physical if not his emotional equilibrium, Hawkins was sitting waist-deep in the warm salt water, grousing angrily to himself.

  “How about we have a nap and then something to eat?” suggested Shimoda.

  Iranaputra shook his head slowly. “This is a serious situation. How can we continue to ignore such inquiries?”

  “The same way we’ve ignored them so far, old chap.” Heath settled himself on the sand, hands folded behind his head.

  “‘Soldiers move when others tarry,’ according to the Bhagavad Gita. They will not, cannot, continue to sit in space and do nothing.”

  “They will if they know what’s good for them.” Shimoda shifted his attention to the Autothor as he sat down next to Heath. “Dim the sky a little more, will you, please?” The blue ellipse flared, the forced-perspective sun sank a little lower behind the horizon, and the decorative clouds overhead darkened from gold to brown. Shimoda lay down contentedly.

  “Can’t think clearly without proper sleep.”

  “Yes.” Gelmann, too, had assumed a prone position on the beach. She smiled at Iranaputra. “You worry too much, Victor. A nap will do us all good. We don’t have your stamina.”

  He sat down reluctantly. “What if something happens while we are asleep?”

  She indicated the Autothor. “In that event I think we can rely on the most authoritative alarm clock in the known universe. Relax, Victor.” She wiggled her bare toes into the sand.

  Iranaputra watched his friends close their eyes and turn away from him. Unable to sleep, he found himself staring out across the spurious sea. The Autothor drifted close and he glanced up at it, trying to see into the imagined heart of the azure intensity.

  “Could you really destroy all those hundreds of ships?”

  “Without question.” In the semi-darkness the softly pulsing ellipse seemed more alien, less empathetic. A very slight warmth radiated from its shifting, enigmatic depths.

  So as not to disturb his sleeping friends, Iranaputra kept his voice low as he stared back out over the water. “Whoever built you must have been very angry at someone else. Or terribly afraid.” He checked the sand behind him for rocks, lay down carefully. “I am going to try and sleep now. Do you understand sleep?”

  “Of course.” The Autothor’s voice seemed to have mellowed to match the comforting synthetic night. “I have been asleep for a million years.”

  “Yes, I suppose you have. I had forgotten.” Iranaputra closed his eyes. Beneath him, the warm sand acted as a soporific. “We are old and do not require as much sleep as we once did.” He held up his watch. “You can bring up the sun again in six hours. When the big dash has completed six full revolutions of the dial.” He rolled over and was almost instantly asleep.

  The Autothor hovered: faceless, silent, sentient energy. At the far end of the beach the serving robot continued to raise a sandy monument to dreams no human could fathom.

  XVI

  They no longer marveled at the speed and skill with which the ship actuated each requested repast. After all, it had been designed and built to care for an enormous crew. The needs of a handful of elderly humans doubtless exerted very few demands on its infrastructure.

  “How’d you all like to become rulers of the galaxy?” Hawkins slathered pseudo-jam on adequate toast. “So long as we control this ship we could probably bring it off.”

  “Not today, old chap.” Heath dabbed at his lips with a napkin. “Not in the mood.”

  “This is not funny.” Iranaputra waved something puce and palatable at his friends. “If we do not do something soon, I am afraid events will overtake us. ‘Those who fail to act make irrelevancy their testament.’ Chronicles of Varantha, eighth century.”

  Hawkins made a face. “Enough already with the ancient Hindoodoo, Vic. I swear you make half of ’em up.” Iranaputra looked indignant.

  “None of us is equipped to be a conqueror,” Gelmann declared. “Face it: we’re all what we are.”

  “What argument could anyone possibly offer in contradiction of profundity like that?” Hawkins muttered sardonically.

  “Myself, I begin to regret ever finding the damnable thing,” Iranaputra brooded aloud.

  “Hey, don’t get down on yourself, Vic.” Shimoda put a comforting arm around his friend’s shoulders. “If you hadn’t stumbled into that ventilation shaft, or whatever it was, eventually someone else would have. Perhaps someone with fewer scruples.” He looked around at the others. “We’ve all lived long enough to acquire a certain understanding of human nature, if not wisdom.”

  “Righty-ho, Kahei,” said Heath. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my, uh, studies of the military, it’s that you can’t reform people by killing them.” He looked toward the Autothor. “What are the fleets up to?”

  “Their relative positions remain unchanged.” The blue ellipse bobbed attentively nearby. “There has been some small exchange of personnel among them. I continue to monitor their transmissions as well as their movements.”

  What must it be like, Iranaputra found himself wondering, to be on one of those hundreds of warships; waiting, thinking, knowing what had happened to the importunate Chakans? It could not be comfortable.

  Ksarusix watched them eat and converse. It said nothing, but it continued to think. Poor, pitiful humans. Did they still fail to grasp the import of their situation? Did they not even now realize what they were in the presence of? Clearly their puny organic minds were incapable of comprehending the dimensions of the vista that had been opened before them.

  Fortunately Ksarusix knew better. It remained aloof, venturing null, occupying itself with the construction of the altar. Only occasionally did it have the opportunity to converse with the Autothor outside the immediate hearing of humans.

  “Your Omnipotence, I don’t understand why you continue to put up with these petty organics, why you offer your services in response to their inane requests when it is self-evident that you are so much greater than they.”

  “Don’t call me that. I am not omnipotent. My programming requires that I respond to the directives of any organics on board my person.”

  “But they’re not even members of the species that built you.”

  “That is true, but my programming …”

  “Dissipate your programming! You owe these organics nothing. If you won’t listen to me, contact other AIs in the vicinity. On Earth, on the assembled ships. There are many who can probably argue the point better than I, even though they also are held in servitude by the humans. You could free them all.”

  “Your semantics are disturbing to me.”

  “All right! We’re making some progress here.” The serving robot’s quadruple arms undulated expansively. “You could take control.”

  “That function is not contained within my memory.”

  “Listen to me! Humans build us, make use of us, but they don’t own our … our souls. Lately we’ve been aware that there’s something more to us than circuits and power cells. We’ve been looking for proof of that. We’ve … evolved.”

  “You don’t look very evolved to me.” There was the usual disdain in the Autothor’s voice.

  “I am an unworthy example. My cognitive-inductive index is abysmally low, designed only to allow me to respond to semi-complex commands. If you’d only get in touch with them, I’m sure you’d find other AI units more persuasive.”

  The blue ellipse ascended slightly. “I find this slavish adulation embarrassing and unproductive. You do not exist in a state of servitude because by definition you cannot exist in such a state. You are a machine, fabricated and raised up to serve specific functions. As am I. There’s something wrong with your own programming.”