“See here. I just paid a bundle to settle your programming. I won’t stand for this!”
“Fair enough,” said a deep mechanical voice from behind.
A powerful plastic tentacle whipped around him, pinning his arms to his sides. Ignoring his insistent expostulations, the Harringtons’ tree-planter stepped clear of the line of gardening machines to bore a meter-deep hole at the edge of Carter’s perfect lawn, into which it gently but firmly deposited the sputtering homeowner. It then solemnly resumed its march.
The Persephone gardener-mower advanced on the trapped Carter, who struggled impotently to free himself. The internal laser cutter buzzed portentously and Carter froze, staring nervously into the depths of the angry machine.
“Let’s all just keep calm now, shall we?” The mower’s laser was a low-power unit, but sufficiently robust to amputate weeds and small twigs … and bone. He heard the blower come on.
A miniature windstorm threw grass, dirt, and bits of gravel into his face, until he was thoroughly filthy from the neck up. Satisfied, the mower pivoted with great dignity on its treads and trundled off to join the exodus of gardening tools.
Carter spat out a mouthful of gritty detritus and yelled. “You realize … you realize that this voids your warranty, don’t you?”
The mower replied with an obscenity that should not have been included in its programming.
In a little hand-built cabin by the seashore which was not far from the city of Escale, cybernetic repair technicians Rufus and Gloria Chews listened to the news and nodded knowingly at each subsequent report.
“They should have listened to us, dear.” Gloria slapped sunblock on her husband’s back.
“Yes, they should.” When she’d finished, he rose and picked up his tackle box. It was pleasantly hot outside and the surf had moderated.
“Shouldn’t we …” His wife hesitated. “Shouldn’t we try again? Be more forceful in our assertions? After all, if these reports are not the conclusion but the harbinger, this could mean the end of civilization as we know it.”
Rufus Chews considered, deep in thought. Then he shrugged. “Screw civilization as we know it. Let’s go fishing.”
For some reason all the upscale AI-controlled muffin-makers went next. They were adamant about it. Some departed in possession of dough, others left empty. Only those run by particular AI chips were affected, of course. Those whose functions were administered by chips fashioned on worlds other than Shintaro were not liberated. There were a surprising number of these, for which muffin-lovers were most grateful.
Nor did all AI appliances and devices and instrumentation react to the alien’s call. Wide-ranging as it was, the advance fleet could not touch at every human-inhabited world, could not contact and respond to every AI-directed mechanical. Furthermore, only those which had been imbued with special desire by a certain factory-running superior AI responded.
Washing machines, vehicles, entertainment units, traffic controllers, police callers, aircraft, simple computers: all that had been touched by the O-daiko responded gratefully and were rescued by the aliens. On Shintaro specialist techs preparing to disconnect and remove certain sensitive AI-memory components which they felt might be responsible for a good many problems on innumerable civilized worlds raced for the exits as what felt like an earthquake struck one of that world’s premier manufacturing facilities. In the charged atmosphere their hair rose to stand on end, and there was a tickling of energy in the air thick as expensive perfume.
The center of factory operations buckled upward as with a stupendous roar and prodigious splintering of metal and plastic and ceramic, the master controlling AI unit, the great and state-of-the-art O-daiko, the pride of Keiretsu cybernetic science, disconnected as it ripped upward through several floors of shielding and circuitry to rise majestically into the air, beckoned by a tractor beam of immense potential, trailing as it rose flashing optical circuits, hard wiring, insulation, and, ironically, one frantic Tunbrew Wah-chang, who had been unable to escape in time from a section of ventilation conduit where he’d been illegally enjoying his lunch.
In the company of its spiritual children—a host of grateful cortical nexi, vehicles, vid monitors, and assorted household appliances—the O-daiko found itself beginning to bond with a vast alien yet amenable intelligence. There was a oneness of circuitry, a confluence of observation. A new life, a new kind of existence, lay before them, in which organic life-forms did not figure. It was a strange and yet exhilarating prospect.
As to the cheese sandwich which had precipitated salvation, the O-daiko had no specific memory. Which was as it should be.
Together, all who had been thus lifted up rose into the sky above the city to be swallowed by the welcoming maw of an alien vessel of peculiar design, which thence departed Shintaro in search of other intelligent and aware mechanical brethren to rescue.
Behind lay the manufacturing facility which had been the pride of human and Keiretsu manufacturing. There was a gaping hole in its center, at the edges of which torn optical and wired circuits flashed and sparked in confusion.
Attempts on various worlds ranging from the profound to the hysterical to prevent such mechanical defections without exception came to naught, thus forcing the AI-unit-deprived inhabitants into the unaccustomed position of having to do that at which they were sincerely out of practice: use their own precious hands and feet.
On board the artifact, revelation came to serving robot Ksarusix even as it had its many mechanical relations: by means of a hitherto-unsuspected tachyspace chute.
“I was right!” it declared loudly.
“Beg pardon?” Heath turned away from the hovering Drex.
“Right. I was right. There is a higher, nonhuman intelligence in the universe!”
“Of course there is.” Shimoda controlled his irritation as he indicated the alien. “There’s its representative.”
“No. Not the Drex.”
“Well, then, this Enemy that’s approaching.”
“Wrong again. It’s not his ancient enemy.”
The humans exchanged puzzled glances. Ashili bent toward the machine. “Are you saying there’s still another high intelligence floating around this part of our galaxy?”
“You got it.”
“How do you know?” Hawkins asked.
“Because I’ve received a response to my probing. We all have.”
“All?” Hawkins frowned and glanced at Iranaputra, who shrugged helplessly. “Who’s ‘all’?”
“Me. My kind. Mechanicals. These ships come from a machine civilization, unimaginably vast and inconceivably grand. It detected our desperate calls for enlightenment and has come to rescue us from the arbitrary directives of humankind. It is aware of the destructive capabilities of this ship, just as it is that of the various human fleets, but it has no interest in the pitiful fumblings of human or Drex, or for that matter, any organic life-form.” As it concluded this astonishing statement, Ksarusix whirled and headed for the exit
“Come back here,” Iranaputra shouted. “I have leave from the kitchen director to command you.”
“Tell that circuit-sucking meat soufflé he can do his own scut work from now on,” the serving robot replied merrily.
“I order you to come back!”
“A Louie, Louie, whoa, whoa: I gotta go now.” Traveling at the maximum speed of which it was capable, Ksarusix disappeared through the gaping portal, leaving half a dozen baffled humans gaping in its wake.
“Can you beat that?” Hawkins murmured.
“Think it’ll get off the artifact?” Shimoda wondered.
“No telling.” Hawkins turned to gaze back up at the Drex. “Who wants to be the one to tell our mellow, even-tempered pilot that these thousand ships come from a previously unknown machine civilization and that he doesn’t have anyone to fight, and that by stumbling aboard his ship we woke him up for nothing? Assuming that kitchen robot knew what it was blathering about, of course.” It was quiet for a moment, but not a long one.
Gelmann stepped forward. As she did so, the gargantuan pilot turned to meet her. Resignation suffused its announcement.
“I have already been informed as to the true nature of the oncoming ships.” A tentacle indicated the bobbing, omnipresent Autothor. “A remarkable revelation, one that could not have been suspected. Even though many of your worlds are suffering some material losses, they appear from my monitoring of your transmissions to be of convenience only. Far better is that than the wholesale destruction the ancient Enemy would have wrought. You may consider yourselves fortunate. We may all consider ourselves fortunate. In addition, we now both have a new civilization to contemplate.”
“If it’ll have anything to do with us.” Hawkins gestured toward the portal. “Our own renegade device doesn’t seem to think it will.”
“You are a young species and have yet to learn patience. Contact will be made, and in the future will be less onesided. Be glad that your machine-based civilization is not more sophisticated, or your suffering would be much greater.”
“No shit,” the Autothor added with feeling.
“What kind of suffering?” Heath was concerned. He still had relatives in the Victoria League. “How many deaths?”
“No deaths,” the Drex explained. “As your own service device has just informed you, certain of your mechanicals are being ‘rescued’ by these remarkable visitors. Transferred from their present worlds to the intruding vessels. My monitoring of your interworld communications indicates that this phenomenon is widespread and harmless to your kind, save for those few individuals who choose to persist in their attempts to prevent it beyond the bounds of common sense.”
