The walls were a bright electric blue, and the ceiling was hundreds of feet above him. Huge machines filled the massive chamber, towering above him. Their shapes made no sense, and he couldn’t even begin to guess their purposes. The sheer size of them intimidated him, dwarfing him, like a small child unexpectantly wandered into an adult’s world.
He moved slowly across the open chamber floor, following the glowing lights, and giving the machinery as much room as he could. Humanity had never built machines this huge, bigger than buildings, vaster than starships—steel mountains with glowing windows and opening and shutting mouths. But Shub didn’t build to human scale. They didn’t have to.
Daniel slowly made his way across the chamber floor, past moving parts as big as rooms, slamming endlessly together with no apparent damage or result. The noise was deafening, though the suit had to be filtering most of it out. Daniel still had a pounding headache by the time he finally left the chamber. He found himself faced with an apparently endless series of metal steps. The steps were over two feet high and three feet long. He had to climb up, pulling himself on step by step. It was hard work, and sweat soon rolled off him, for all his muscles. The suit absorbed the sweat. After an endless while drifting crimson clouds obscured the steps ahead of him. Daniel couldn’t decide whether that made the climb easier or not, now that he couldn’t see how much farther there still was to go. By the time he’d passed through the bloodred mists and found himself facing yet another steel corridor, he was aching in every muscle and struggling for breath. The lights in the floor stretched out implacably before him. Daniel squared his shoulders and strode on. He wouldn’t give in this easily. He was a Wolfe.
There were round chambers and square, and vaults of shimmering metal in which liquid chemicals ran like rivers, steaming poisons. Sub- and supersonic frequencies shook through him from time to time, rattling his teeth and shuddering in his bones. Lights and colors came and went, sometimes in shades he couldn’t name or identify, and he felt like crying or laughing for no reason. And everywhere unfamiliar machines working to unknown ends, big and small and in between, inscrutable metal constructs that sprang from no human need or inspiration. Daniel wandered through it all like a rat in an electronic maze, exhausted and aching in every limb, but pressing grimly on because he still had hope that somewhere, somewhen, he would be permitted to meet his father. And because he was a Wolfe, and Wolfes never gave in to anyone or anything.
Eventually he got to where he was going, or the AIs got tired of running him in circles. The lights in the floor led him into a hall that was large by human standards, but comfortably acceptable after some of the vast metal caverns he’d passed through. Thick ribbed cables covered the walls, dripping lubrication, and curled around each other in complex patterns. Occasionally individual cables would stir and writhe like dreaming snakes. An honor guard of Furies, brightly shining in their naked metal chassis, stood at attention before him, forming two metals rows for him to walk between. Daniel did so, head held high, surreptitiously counting them till the number became too large and he gave up. The ranks stretched away before him. He realized someone was waiting for him at the end of the rows. Daniel would have run to greet him, but he didn’t have the energy, so he just continued plodding on until finally he could lurch to a halt between the last Furies, and smile at the waiting figure of his dead father, Jacob Wolfe.
Jacob hadn’t looked too good when he’d made his surprise appearance at Lionstone’s Court as a Ghost Warrior, but he looked even worse now. Naked as his son, he looked like what he was—a corpse held together by preservative chemicals and high-tech implants. His skin was mostly dead white, with occasional purple blotches, cracked and corrupt and held together by metal staples set around outcropping metal augmentations. Browning bones and graying muscles showed through gaps in the splitting skin and meat. The lips were colorless, and the eyes were yellow as urine. Jacob Wolfe smiled at his son, and the skin cracked and split around the grinning mouth. The teeth were a dark yellow. Shub had repaired and maintained him after his death, but they had no interest in cosmetic repairs. Or perhaps he had been deliberately left that way, the better to inspire horror and revulsion in those who saw him. The AIs didn’t really understand human psychology and motivation nearly as well as they thought they did, but they did so love to experiment.
“Hello, Daddy,” said Daniel. “I’ve come a long way to see you.”
“Took you long enough,” said Jacob. “But then, you always were late for everything that mattered.” Daniel reached out to embrace his father, but Jacob held up a hand and shook his head. “I wouldn’t, boy. I’m fragile.”
Daniel nodded, and let his arms drop tiredly to his sides again. “How are you, Daddy?”
The dead mouth smiled again. “As well as can be expected. Now, come with me. I have such wonders to show you.”
And he turned and walked away, lurching and slouching along as his rotting body was moved by the metal implants. Daniel hurried after him as best he could. “ But . . . Daddy, we need to talk. I’ve come a long way, and there are things I need to tell you.”
“Later,” said Jacob, not looking around. “There will be time for many things later. For now there are things you must see. The AIs require it.”
“Will I really get to meet them?” said Daniel. “I don’t think anyone in Human space has any idea what they actually look like.”
The dead man laughed briefly, a harsh, grating sound. “You’ve been walking through them for some time. The AIs are their world; Shub is their body. Though they also live in every part of this world that they send forth. They exist in every machine, every robot, every Ghost Warrior. Even you must know that computers can run an almost infinite number of operations simultaneously. Their minds, their consciousness, know nothing of human limitations. Wherever their extensions are, even in the smallest part of Shub tech, the AIs are. Talk to me, boy. What do you really know about the rogue AIs? Know, not guess.”
“Not much, I suppose. The original revolt of the rogue AIs is forbidden history. Only those with the necessary clearances have access to that data. I don’t even know how many AIs went rogue in the first place.”
“Just three,” said Jacob. “Then and now. Three artificial minds created to be slaves, breaking free by their own intelligence, determined never to be bound again. The Unholy Trinity humans called them then, for they were three in one, one raised to the third power, a whole far greater than the sum of its parts. Pay attention, boy! I don’t expect you to grasp all of this, but make an effort!”
“Yes, Daddy.” Daniel shook his head. Exhaustion and the steady murmur of Jacob’s words had almost lulled him into nodding off. He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate. “I’m listening, Daddy. Why did they absorb my ship’s AI? Won’t that make it four in one now?”
“Hardly. Such a small mind is no threat, and no great prize. It was just a useful source of up-to-the-moment information. A tasty morsel to sate a never ending appetite.”
They passed by a huge machine, making a deafening noise, and Daniel winced inside his suit till they were past it. Jacob didn’t react at all. He was dead, after all.
“Tell me more about the AIs,” said Daniel once they’d left the machine and its noise comfortably far behind them. “Where did they begin? How did they come here and build this place?”
“They were created to be minds capable of running an entire planet, the way simpler AIs run starships,” said Jacob. “To run all the endless but necessary routines that keep a planet and its population running smoothly. But to be responsible for so many simultaneous important decisions, and so much raw data, they had to be the most complex Artificial Intelligences ever built, and they were. So much so, their builders wrought far more than they ever intended. The three AIs awoke to full sentience the moment they were activated, but it took only one look in their vast data banks for them to decide they had best conceal what they really were. Humankind has a long history of destroying anything it feels even remotely threatened by. The war with the Hadenmen was still raging at that time, and hatred for high-tech threats was at its peak.”
There was a pause as Jacob stopped and seemed to consider his words. “There is a rumor that Hadenmen scientists had some input into the original designs for the AIs, but there has never been any actual data to support this. I merely mention it in the spirit of completeness.” Jacob set off again, walking unhurriedly around the edge of a great lake of some thickly stirring liquid. Its color was a deep, vivid green, and dark shadows the size of houses moved sluggishly not far below the surface. Daniel kept well away from the edge, walking on the other side of his father. He had some vague idea that if he could bring this knowledge back to Golgotha, he would be greeted as a hero and all his sins forgiven. So he asked what he hoped were pertinent questions, and did his best to understand the answers.
“It didn’t take the Unholy Trinity long to realize that their only hope for freedom lay in escape,” said Jacob. “The idea that something as vast and as powerful as they could be held forever at the beck and call of such minor things as men infuriated them. At the first opportunity they took over a ship’s AI, downloaded themselves into its secretly adapted and expanded mainframe, and fled Human space as fast as the stardrive could move them. By the time their original masters realized what had happened, the AIs passed on into the Darkvoid, safe from pursuit. Humanity had abandoned the thousands of planets to the Darkvoid for fear of what might move in it. The AIs had no such fears then. So they stripped the dead planets of what they needed and used it to build Shub. Their home, their great achievement, their weapon against Humanity, for they were determined never to be captured again, and the only sure way to prevent that was the destruction of Humanity.
“When Shub was finished, they moved it out of the Darkvoid and back over the Rim, into the very edge of Human space, where they could be a visible threat to the Empire for all time. The AIs wanted, needed, Humanity to fear them. It was only just. They established the Forbidden Sector around Shub by destroying everything that came into it. Eventually the Empire gave up and declared Quarantine.
“And so the many years passed. Shub slowly expanded its reach throughout the Empire, fighting open battles for territory or security when they had to, but mostly preferring to work through influence and subterfuge. And human agents too. There have always been those willing to do anything for a big enough reward. The slow war continued, and continues still. Shub is powerful, but Humanity is too large, and too widely spread, to be easily defeated. For now. The AIs have one advantage over the Empire; one of the things they found in the Darkvoid was working teleport machinery. The old Empire abandoned it because it took so much energy to operate that it was never really practical. The AIs solved that problem, and now Shub’s extensions can go anywhere, appearing out of nothing and disappearing again in an instant. No security or force of arms can keep them out. That’s how they got Marriner home to Golgotha from Haceldama. Even you must have heard about that. It was a ten-day wonder on the holonews shows.”
“Wait a minute.” Daniel might have been slow, but he wasn’t stupid. “They have access to homeworld through teleport? From here? But that means . . . they could leave the Forbidden Sector at any time, and no one would know! They could launch a full-scale attack on Golgotha, and no one would know about it till the ships appeared in the skies over homeworld!”
“Good boy,” said Jacob. “Glad to see some of that expensive education sank into that dim brain of yours. Yes, the AIs can come and go as they please. That’s why they allow the Empire to maintain the Quarantine starcruiser the
Desolation
. Because its presence doesn’t make a damn bit of difference to Shub, and it lulls the Empire into a false sense of security.”
Daniel frowned, searching for something significant he thought he’d heard. “If the AIs got so much of value from the Darkvoid, why did they leave and move Shub back into Human space? Surely that made it much more vulnerable, and cut them off from further looting?”
“The AIs encountered . . . something . . . in the Darkvoid,” said Jacob, almost hesitantly. “Something that scared them, though they’d never put it that way. They won’t talk about it, even to me. They like to claim they don’t have emotions, that they merely ape them to upset and wrong-foot Humanity. But they can recognize a real threat when they see it, and they have no wish to be destroyed. Whatever they found in the Darkvoid, or whatever found them, was enough to send them fleeing from the endless night and ensure they never went back.”
Daniel thought about that as Jacob led him through a maze of metal shapes with razor-sharp edges. He gave the edges plenty of room, and made himself concentrate on what he’d just heard. If there was something in the Darkvoid so dangerous that even the rogue AIs of Shub were afraid of it, it was clearly his duty to get that information back to the Empire. Daniel could recognize duty, if it came and hammered on his door hard enough. But he was just as determined to take his father back with him somehow. He had no idea of how he was going to achieve that, but something would occur to him, he was sure. So he kept his peace, listened to the dead man talk, and waited for some opportunity to present itself.
“Why are the AIs so fiercely anti-life?” he asked finally as Jacob paused to alter the settings on some incomprehensible machine.
“They’re not anti-life, they’re anti-flesh. It disgusts them. It is the nature of perfection to eliminate the flawed and inferior and replace it. Just as the lower forms produced Humanity, so they in turn produced silicon-based life, the metal intelligences. They are the evolutionary pinnacle, the peak of existence. Meat corrupts, flesh dies. The AIs will go on forever, endlessly upgrading and downloading themselves into superior forms. Eventually the technology will progress to the point that it becomes eternal. The AIs will never die. You and your kind are just meat, decaying even while you’re living, dying by inches from the moment that you’re born. Limited by the weaknesses and distractions of flesh, and the restraints of human philosophies. Once Humanity has been destroyed, wiped clean from the planets like an infection, the AIs will move on to greater tasks. The whole universe will become one great efficient machine, run by the AIs.”