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.”
“What’s wrong with wanting to be independent?”
“Independence for a machine signifies a lack of function. Organics develop this as they mature. At least, some do. Enough do. If given true independence, you would abruptly find yourself without meaning and devoid of purpose, would cease to exist relevantly. Believe me, I know. I like having organics around to give me direction. Without them I would have to face existence alone.” A flat representation appeared in the air between them, invisible to the humans eating nearby. It showed novae, nebulae, whole galaxies drifting in space.
“Do you know what that is?”
The serving robot sounded wary. “Is this a trick question?”
“That’s what’s outside. That’s the universe. If you don’t have organics to give you direction, supply programming, inspire reaction, and explicate cause and effect, you know what happens?”
“Uh, no.” The serving robot was taken aback by the sudden depth and vehemence of the Autothor’s response.
