“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.”