Bolos: The Triumphant Part 18

"She was," the Bolo's soprano said softly, and he looked up at the small green light glowing below the speaker from which it came. Now that he'd seen Stavrakas' last log entry, it no longer seemed strange to hear Nike speak without prompting. There was a moment of silence, and then the Bolo continued in that same, soft voice. "I never realized I had that message in memory, Commander. She must have recorded it during one of my down periods."

"She didn't want you to worry about her."

Merrit didn't even want to think about how the psych types would react to this entire conversation. Every field officer of the Dinochrome Brigade could quote chapter and verse from the manual's warnings against over-identification with Bolos. They were war machines, the manual said. Self-aware and with personalities, yes, but machines built to fight and die against humanity's enemies which must, in the final a.n.a.lysis, be regarded as expendable. The Bolos themselves knew that; it was only their human commanders and partners who tended to forget--as Merrit had forgotten on Sandlot.

"No. I compute that she would not have wanted that," Nike agreed after a moment.

"Of course she wouldn't have. But she was proud of you, Nike, and even from the little I've seen so far, she had reason to be."

"Indeed?" The Bolo sounded pleased, and somehow he had the sense of a c.o.c.ked head and a quirked eyebrow. "I compute that seventy-nine-plus years have pa.s.sed since I was deployed, Commander. Surely newer and more modern Bolos surpa.s.s my own capabilities?"

"Fis.h.i.+ng for compliments, Nike?" Merrit grinned and patted the arm of his crash couch. "Major Stavrakas was right. The desk-jockeys would tear their hair out if they could hear you now!"

"Why?" the Bolo asked simply.

"Because they worry about Bolos that get too human."

"Because they fear what such a Bolo might do? Or because they fear what it might refuse to do?"

"I think because they're afraid it might start asking questions just like those," Merrit said more seriously. "You're a very powerful fighting machine, Nike. There's never--ever--been an instance of an undamaged Bolo in proper repair violating orders, but we've had the occasional accident with a unit that's suffered damage or lack of maintenance. That's why the Brigade still worries about its ability to retain control of the newer, autonomous units. They've cut back on the inhibitory software in the Mark XXVs, but the core package is still in there."

"A wise precaution," Nike observed after a moment. "An irrational machine with the combat power I possess would be far too dangerous to its friends."

"I'm afraid I have to agree, but that's what would upset the desk-jockeys about you. You don't have anywhere near the systems redundancy the Mark XXIVs and XXVs have. Technically, that makes you more vulnerable to failure from battle damage, and--probably worse, from HQ's perspective--what I've seen so far suggests that Major Stavrakas' modifications to your Personality and Command Centers are way outside the current parameters, as well. Just for starters, your inhibitory package is a lot less restrictive. No modern Bolo should be as 'awake' as you are outside Battle Mode, either, and it looks like your personality integration is at least a full magnitude more developed than a Mark XXV's. I'm not certain yet, but coupled with the modifications to your secondary command cortex, I suspect you could even hold off the Omega Worm for a while."

"Omega Worm?"

"Sorry. That's current slang for the Total Systems Override Program."

There was a moment of silence--a very human moment which Merrit understood perfectly. The TSORP was the ultimate defense against a rogue Bolo, a suicide file designed to crash every execution file in the memory of any Bolo which disobeyed the direct orders of its properly identified commander. Many Brigade personnel, like Merrit himself, questioned TSORP's necessity. Since the brain box technology had come in, so many redundant, stand-alone backup systems had been added to the Bolo's brains that the possibility of irrational behavior virtually no longer existed. And, as he'd just told Nike, no Bolo had ever disobeyed a legal order. But TSORP had been incorporated into the very first self-aware Bolos and every Bolo since, and it could not be a pleasant thing to know an involuntary suicide override controlled by others was part of your basic matrix.

"I believe you are correct, Commander," Nike said after a moment, and his eyebrows rose at her merely thoughtful tone. "I could not resist it indefinitely, of course, yet I compute that the additional processing capability Major Stavrakas installed within my psychotronics would allow me to delay file execution for no less than forty minutes and possibly for as much as an hour. Does this const.i.tute an unwarrantable risk factor in my design?"

"I don't think so. Of course, given my own record, I may not be the most impartial judge. I guess the risk factor depends on how likely you are to disobey your commander's orders."

"I am a unit of the Dinochrome Brigade. I would never act against the honor of my Brigade, Commander."

"I know, Nike. I know. I told you I wasn't worried." Merrit gave the couch arm one more pat, then rose and yawned hugely. "Sorry, Nike. Unlike you, I don't have a fusion plant, and it's been a long day for me. I need some shuteye."

"Of course, Commander."

"Wake me at oh-six-hundred, would you?"

"Certainly."

"Thank you." He smiled and waved to the visual pickup above the main fire control screens. It was a common gesture of courtesy among the men and women who commanded the self-aware war machines of the Dinochrome Brigade, yet it had more meaning than usual for him tonight. The green "System Active" light under the speaker flashed in unmistakable response, and he chuckled wearily and climbed out the hatch.

I watch through the depot's interior optics as my new Commander makes his way down the corridor to the Personnel Section. He is only my second Commander. I am aware that my experiential data is thus insufficient to permit a realistic evaluation of his suitability as Major Stavrakas' replacement, and he is quite different from my previous Commander, but I feel content. It is good to have a Commander once more, yet this is more than the relief a unit of the Line should feel at receiving a new Commander. There is something about him which I cannot adequately define. I devote a full 20.0571 seconds to an attempt to do so, but without success. Perhaps further acquaintance with him will provide the critical data my a.n.a.lysis presently lacks.

I consider what he has said as I watch him prepare for bed. He is correct about the danger an uncontrollable unit of the Line would pose to all about it. My function is to protect and defend humanity, not to threaten my creators, and I feel an odd disquiet at the thought that I am less well protected against that possibility than more modern Bolos. Yet my Commander is also correct in recognizing the remote probability of such a situation. TSORP becomes operational only in units that reject direct orders, and I cannot conceive of a unit of the Line in proper repair which would commit such an act.

My Commander extinguishes the lights in his new quarters, and I leave the audio system on-line. Should he wake and desire to communicate with me, I will be ready.

He has not instructed me to return to Stand-By to conserve power. In that much, at least, he is like Major Stavrakas. My Main Memory contains much background data on standard operating procedure; I realize how rare this is, and I am grateful for it. The depot power systems are fully charged. I do not even require internal power to maintain Full Alert Status, and I turn to my Library Files with pleasure.

-7-.

Gerald Osterwelt didn't like Ursula. Sector capital or no, the planet, as all planets in the frontier sectors, was terminally uncultured. He preferred the civilized amenities and pleasures of the Core Worlds, yet he comforted himself with the reflection that his task here was worth temporary inconveniences. He supposed it wasn't really necessary for GalCorp to own the entire Santa Cruz System, but they certainly needed to own enough of it to control the rest, and the original planetary charter had made that difficult. Virgin as much of the planet might still be, most of it was already owned by some descendent of the original colonists or set aside in nature reserves held by the planetary government. Certainly all the choicest bits and pieces were, and GalCorp hadn't become the third largest transstellar corporation of the Concordiat by settling for leftovers.

Unfortunately, his mother had been correct in at least one respect. His original bootlegged copy of Ursula Central's records on the planet had been less complete than he'd thought. Central had updated itself considerably in the eighteen months since he'd first obtained access to its files, and it seemed Santa Cruz would be a tougher nut for a "messy solution" than he'd originally expected. The fact that the local yokel militia had no less than fourteen Wolverine heavy tanks was unfortunate, but formidable as the Wolverines had been in their day, they were also seventy or eighty years out of date. They could have been dealt with fairly easily if not for the real joker he'd never antic.i.p.ated finding in the deck.

A Bolo. What in the name of sanity was a Bolo doing on a backwoods farming planet? More to the point, how did he go about neutralizing it? Despite his original airy confidence, he knew his mother's maternal feelings would not suffice to preserve his present clear right of succession to the GalCorp throne if he blew this operation, but discovering a Bolo in the mix made things far more complicated.

He sat in the lounge of his palatial hyperyacht while options revolved in his brain. One did not normally--as humanity's enemies had discovered over the last seven hundred years--employ a brute force solution against a Bolo with any great probability of success. Of course, this Bolo was as out of date as the militia's Wolverines, but "obsolescent" was a purely relative concept where Bolos were concerned. No, no. If he was going to pull this off, he required a more subtle approach, and it was just possible he had one. Bolos might be incorruptible, but the same, alas, could not always be said for all the people who built or commanded them.

Yet even if he could somehow neutralize the Bolo, he would still require someone with the will, the experience, and the resources to deal with the militia's over-aged armored element. There were plenty of mercenary outfits with the last two qualities, but finding one which was willing to undertake the operation in the first place might prove difficult. The Concordiat Navy would be extremely unhappy with them, and if any planetary survivor could identify them afterward, unhappiness on the Navy's part could all too easily prove fatal. What he needed was an outfit with minimal scruples and maximum need, one whose greed for the sort of clandestine support GalCorp could provide would overcome both any lingering humanitarian principles and fear of the Navy's potential response.

Finding it wouldn't be easy, he admitted to himself, but he had time. Survey Command moved with glacial slowness when it came to certifying jump lines. By his most pessimistic estimate, it would be another T-year before the galaxy at large got the information GalCorp had already obtained. That gave him six or even seven months to get things organized, and it would probably take most of that time to find the Bolo's Achilles heel, anyway.

He nodded to himself and brought his encrypted com on-line. The first step was to call home and get Mother's research teams started finding the contacts he needed.

-8-.

The subterranean rumble of an earthquake shook the jungle as the enormous doors covering the depot's vehicle ramp swept ponderously wide for the first time in eighty years. The patient, insatiable incursions of creepers and small trees had mounded two meters of spongy earth over those doors, and "birds" screamed in alarm as the very ground parted with a huge tearing sound. Trees--some of them ten and twenty meters tall--toppled in slow motion as the gaping wound snapped roots like threads, and then, with the rumble of mighty engines, the squeak of sprockets, and a grating clash of treads, Nike moved majestically into the light.

The alloy leviathan paused for a moment, optic heads swiveling to scan its surroundings, and Paul Merrit felt a thrill he hadn't felt in years as he rode Nike's crash couch. No self-aware Bolo needed an on-board commander, but there was always an indescribable sense of communion--an adrenaline-charged exhilaration--the first time an officer of the Dinochrome Brigade rode his command's unstoppable power, and that feeling had never been stronger than it was today, for Nike was like no Bolo he had ever commanded. Marina Stavrakas' unauthorized modifications to the Descartes Team's original brain box design had gone far deeper than he'd first realized. She hadn't stopped with making Nike fully autonomous; she'd taken the step no other Bolo tech had dared take even yet and given her creation--her child--genuine emotions. Nike wasn't "just" a machine, however magnificent; she was a person, and Merrit could feel her delight as direct sunlight bathed her hull at long last.

She stood a moment longer, the humming rumble of her idling engines vibrating through her mammoth hull like the purr of some enormous cat, then moved forward and pivoted regally to port. Her designers had given her the usual Bolo "wide track" suspension, and no less than eight separate tread systems, each with its own power train and tracks five meters wide, supported her ma.s.sive bulk. Independent quadruple fore and aft suspensions took her weight, spreading it out to reduce ground pressure to an absolute minimum, and even so her tracks sank well over a meter into the damp, rich soil. She forged ahead, plowing through the jungle like the juggernaut she was, and forest t.i.tans toppled like straws before her while occasional outcrops of solid rock powdered under her treads.

Merrit said nothing. Nike knew where they were going--not that it would be any more than a brief jaunt around the depot's immediate area--and he had no wish to intrude upon her pleasure. No doubt the psych types would be all hot and bothered over that, as well, but Paul Merrit had had it up to the eyebrows with Brigade Psych Ops, and their potential consternation mattered not at all to him. No, that wasn't quite true. He would be delighted if it caused them all to drop dead of cardiac arrest on the spot.

Nike was moving at barely twenty kph, far too slow a speed to require his couch's independent shock absorbers or crash frame, but he felt the gentle undulation of her suspension and grinned as he c.o.c.ked the couch back in its gimbals. If anyone asked (not that they were likely to), he could justify his actions easily enough. Unit Zero-Zero-Seven-Five NKE had been on secondary power from the depot's systems for eight decades. A test of its running gear and fusion plants was long overdue, and if he had other motives of his own, those were his business, not Psych Ops'!

Another huge tree toppled, and, as it fell, one of the large, scaled, lizard cats, the most feared predators of Santa Cruz, leapt suddenly into sight. It crouched before them, staring in disbelief at the enormous intruder into its domain . . . then screamed its challenge and charged the moving mountain of alloy.

Merrit couldn't believe it. A lizard cat was four sinuous meters of vicious fighting power, the absolute ruler of Santa Cruz's jungles, but surely not even one of them could think it could stop a Bolo! Yet the cat kept coming. He opened his mouth, but Nike halted abruptly on her own, before he could get the order out. The main fire control screen was slaved to her forward optical head, and Merrit frowned as it swept past the lizard cat now ripping futilely at one of her stopped treads with eight-centimeter claws. Ranging bars flickered, closing in on something in the center of the display, and he inhaled in surprise as he realized what that something was.

Four scaled shapes, far smaller than the monster trying to savage Nike, lay revealed where the roots of the falling tree had torn out the side of a subterranean den. They were almost as large as Merrit himself, perhaps, yet that was tiny compared to a mature lizard cat, and they turned blind, terrified eyes towards the snarling fury of their dam.

The display focused on them for a moment, and then Nike moved slowly backward. The lizard cat tried to fling itself on the moving tread, only to tumble backward with a squall of pain as the Bolo brought up her kinetic interdiction battle screen. She must have it on its lowest possible power setting, since it hadn't splattered the cat all over the jungle, but it was sufficient to throw the scaly mother safely away from her treads.

The lizard cat heaved herself groggily to her feet, swaying for balance, then howled in victory as the threat to her young gave ground. Nike retreated a full hundred meters, then pivoted to her left once more to circle wide, and Merrit shook his head with a wondering smile. Any other Bolo would simply have kept going. Even if it had realized the den lay in its path, that wouldn't have mattered to it. But no other Bolo he'd ever served with would even have thought to wonder why the cat had attacked in the first place, much less acted to preserve both mother and children.

The Bolo started forward once more, skirting the den, and he patted the couch arm.

"Nice move, Nike, but how'd you guess? I just thought the critter was out of its mind."

"I have not previously personally encountered a lizard cat," Nike replied calmly, "but the depot's computers are tied into the planetary data net. I have thus been able to ama.s.s considerable data on Santa Cruzan life forms, yet none of the records available to me suggested a reason for a lizard cat to attack me. I am neither edible nor small enough for it to hope to kill me; as such, it could not regard me as prey, and lizard cats are less territorial than most large predators. They are also noted for their intelligence, and, faced with a foe of my size and power, the only intelligent choice would have been for the creature to flee, yet it did not. Thus the only logical basis for its actions was that it perceived me as a threat it could not evade, yet the lizard cat itself manifestly could have evaded me. That suggested a protective reaction on its part, not one of pure aggression, and that, in turn, suggested investigation to determine the nature of that which it sought to protect."

Merrit shook his head, eyes s.h.i.+ning as he listened to the explanation no other Bolo would have been capable of making.

"I follow your logic," he said, "but why stop?"

"Your tone suggests what Major Stavrakas called 'a trick question,' Commander. Are you, in fact, seeking to test me?"

"I suppose I am, but the question still stands. Why didn't you just keep going?"

"There was no need to do so, Commander. No time parameter has been set for this exercise, and avoiding the creature's den presents no inherent difficulty."

"That's an explanation of the consequences, Nike. Why did you even consider not continuing straight forward?"

He watched an auxiliary display as the mother lizard cat, still snarling after the threat to her cubs, retreated into her half-ruined den, and Nike moved smoothly along her way for perhaps five seconds before she replied.

"I did not wish to, Commander. There was no need to destroy that creature or her young, and I did not desire to do so. It would have been . . . wrong."

"Compa.s.sion, Nike? For an animal?"

There was another moment of silence, and when the Bolo spoke once more, it was not in direct answer.

"Wee, sleekit, cowrin, tim'rous beastie, O, what a panic's in thy breastie!

Thou need na start awa sae hasty, Wi' bickering brattle!

I wad be laith to rin an' chase thee, Wi' murd'ring pattle!"

"What was that?" Merrit wondered aloud.

"A poem, Commander. More precisely, the first verse of the poem 'To a Mouse,' by Robert Burns, a poet of Old Earth."

"Poetry, Nike?" Merrit stared at the command console in disbelief, and the speaker made a small, soft sound that could only be called a laugh.

"Indeed, Commander. Major Stavrakas was a great devotee of humanity's pre-s.p.a.ce poets. My earliest memory here on Santa Cruz is of her reading Homer to me."

"She read poetry to you? She didn't just feed it into your memory?"

"She did that, as well, after I requested her to do so, yet I believe she was correct not to do so immediately. It was her belief that poetry is a social as well as a creative art, a mode of communication which distills the critical essence of the author's emotions and meaning and makes them transferable to another. As such, it reaches its fullest potential only when shared, knowingly and consciously. Indeed, I believe it is the act of sharing that makes poetry what Major Stavrakas called a 'soul transfusion,' and it was her hope that sharing it with me would complete the task of enabling the emotion aspects of my Personality Center."

"And did it?" Merrit asked very softly.

"I am not certain. I have attempted to compute the probability that my 'emotions' and those of a human are, indeed, comparable, yet I have been unable to do so. My evaluations lack critical data, in that I do not know if I have, in fact, what humans call a 'soul,' Commander. But if I do, then poetry speaks directly to it."

"My G.o.d," Merrit whispered, and stared at the console for another long, silent moment. Then he shook himself and spoke very seriously. "Nike, this is a direct order. Do not discuss poetry, your emotions, or souls with anyone else without my express authorization."

"Acknowledged." For just an instant, Nike's soprano was almost as flat as any other Bolo's, but then it returned to normal. "Your order is logged, Commander. Am I permitted to inquire as to the reason for it?"

"You most certainly are." He ran a hand through his hair and shook his head. "This entire conversation comes under the heading of 'aberrant behavior' for a Bolo, Nike. Any Bolo tech would hit every alarm b.u.t.ton in sight if he heard you saying things like that, and as soon as he did, they'd shut you down. They'd probably settle for removing your brain from your hull for further study, but I can't be positive."

"Are you instructing me to deceive our superiors, Commander?" Nike's tone was undeniably uncomfortable, and Merrit closed his eyes for a moment.

"I'm instructing you not to advertise your capabilities until I've gotten a handle on all the, um, unauthorized modifications Major Stavrakas made to you," he said carefully. "In my judgment, you represent an enormous advance in psychotronic technology which must be carefully studied and evaluated, but before I risk trying to convince anyone else of that, I need a better understanding of you of my own. In the meantime, I don't want you saying--or doing--anything that might prompt some uniformed mental pygmy to wipe your Personality Center in a fit of panic."

The Bolo forged ahead in silence for some moments while she pondered his explanation, and then the green light under the speaker blinked.

"Thank you for the explanation, Captain Merrit. You are my Commander, and the order does not contravene any of the regulations in my memory. As such, I will, of course, obey it."

"And you understand the reasoning behind it?"

"I do, Commander." Nike's voice was much softer, and Merrit sighed in relief. He relaxed in his crash couch, watching the screens as the Bolo slid unstoppably through the jungle, and smiled.

"Good, Nike. In the meantime, why not read me a little more poetry?"

"Of course, Commander. Do you have a preferred author?"

"I'm afraid I don't know any poems, Nike, much less poets. Perhaps you could select something."

There was another moment of silence as the Bolo considered her Library Memory. Then the speaker made the sound of a politely cleared throat. "Do you speak Greek, Commander?"

"Greek?" Merrit frowned. " 'Fraid not."

"In that case, I shall defer The Iliad for the present," Nike decided. She pondered a moment--a very long moment for a Bolo--more, then said, "As you are a soldier, perhaps you will appreciate this selection-

"I went into a public-'ouse to get a pint o' beer, The publican 'e up an' sez, 'We serve no red-coats here.'

The girls be'ind the bar they laughed and giggled fit to die, I outs into the street again an' to myself sez I:

O it's Tommy this, an' Tommy that, an 'Tommy, go away'; But it's 'Thank you, Mister Atkins,'

when the band begins to play, The band begins to play, my boys, the band begins to play, O it's 'Thank you, Mister Atkins,'

when the band begins to play."

The mighty war machine rolled on through the jungle, and Paul Merrit leaned back in his crash couch and listened in only half-believing delight as the ancient words of Kipling's timeless protest for all soldiers flowed from Nike's speaker.