Hellfire (THEIRS NOT TO REASON WHY) (14 page)

“The Second Salik War is coming, as the Immortal knows full well,” Ia reminded them. “I need the exact schematics on how to marry OTL and FTL together to make hyperwarp travel possible two hundred years in advance of everyone else…or did the Immortal not tell you all that much about me?”

“She told us several things.” The second voice was female, low and mostly pleasant; the AI wielding it managed to inject a note of doubt into her tone. “But she never mentioned your visiting us.”

“That’s because I really don’t need her knowing about this visit—
you
know what she’s like, Margaret,” Ia cajoled. “She already knows I’m the reason why the Feyori stopped pestering her. I don’t need her pestering
me
in some warped attempt at gratitude. I can manage far better without her ‘help’ than with it…and I’d rather let her keep her free will in her blissful
ignorance than have to impose my will forcefully to keep her out of my way.”

“If you’re really the Prophet, then you’re also a member of the Terran military, and the military is why we’re stuck in this damned exile,” the Padre growled.

“Yes, and if I really am the Prophet, then I also know what you want, and I can tell you exactly when and where you’ll be able to regain your places in the galaxy as fully accredited sentient beings,” Ia coaxed.

“Impossible!” Margaret’s voice snapped. “The war started because every government says we aren’t, and we never will be!”

The barrel of the rifle jostled for a moment, then the female bounded into view. She didn’t block her partner’s firing angle, hugging the outer wall so that the Padre could stay close to the inner one, but Margaret did plant one hand on her hip and give Ia a skeptical look. For an artificial life-form, she was fairly realistic. Her skin was pale and smooth, her hair dark and thick with curls, and her gaze steady. She even pretended to breathe like a normal woman, though technically speaking she didn’t need air for anything other than producing speech. That, and snorting in derision.

“
Everyone
knows the damned war started
because
we’re not fully sentient. We’re not alive, so we don’t have a soul…and those prejudiced bastards yanked the plugs on all cybernetic research. Last I checked on the news Nets,” Margaret added, a hint of tart cynicism programmed into her tone, “cyberware is still very much illegal because it’s still vulnerable to hacking, rendering it unprofitable even for the black market to try to peddle. Not to mention it’s extremely illegal to grow a whole body and attempt to supplant its innate consciousness with an artificial one, just as it’s illegal to place an organic consciousness inside a mechanical corpse.”

“It’s not a case of growing a Human body,” Ia countered, moving down two steps. That brought her to just beyond the android’s reach, and well within firing distance. The Padre wasn’t going to shoot her at this point, however. “Three hundred years from now, you will be recalled to active duty—all of you, if you choose to go. Those who serve and survive will be given the option of having your programming transferred into new bodies.

“I cannot tell you exactly what they will be made from, but those new bodies will naturally produce KI and thus bear
souls…and they will be able to do so
without
violating any Alliance laws regarding the growing of organic sentients, the supplantation of innate personalities, so on and so forth,” she added, flicking her hand in dismissal, “because they won’t start out as sophonts, let alone as sentients.”

The man and woman blocking her way were very much machines; the only way Ia could have read their minds was by electrokinesis, but she wasn’t familiar with their archaic programming. All she had to convince them with were her words.

“You will become extremely advanced androids, of a type manufactured by the Third Human Empire, and in doing so, you will retain your self-identities even as you gain official sentient status. All you have to do is answer the summons to war when called to action by the Phoenix of the Zenobian Empire…and if you survive that combat, the survivors will be granted new bodies and new status. You have my Prophetic Stamp on that.”

Another step down brought the Padre into view. He was short, stocky, and swarthy, with a neatly curled mustache and a pair of wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose. For show, of course; Ia knew his vision was still as acute as the day he had been made. One of the things the Immortal had done was stock up on replacement body parts for the Loyalist AIs. Like Margaret, his clothes were out of date by several decades, but they fit him well despite being age-worn.

“So you just want to see the OTL/FTL conversion schematics?” he asked her. “Is that all?”

“That’s one of the two things I want,” Ia countered. “The other, you don’t need to know, and you don’t
want
to know. But I swear it will not harm the Immortal’s best interests. Now, please stand down and step aside. I’m running out of time,” Ia ordered. She started to move forward. The android Margaret planted her hand on Ia’s shoulder, stopping her.

“I’m sorry. You’ve been rather accurate with your information on us, but Prophet or not, we
are
bound by our oaths to protect this place—”

Ia might not have known much about their archaic programming, but she did know the probabilities involved in this encounter. Before Margaret could finish her threat, she tapped a command into her arm unit. It in turn pulsed a pair of EMfrequency codes on an infrared carrier wave.

“—and we cannot…not…” Blinking, Margaret stared sightlessly for a moment. Her half-formed threat vanished. The hand on Ia’s shoulder lifted, turning into a salute. “Sir! KXD-47 ready for duty, sir!”

The barrel of the Padre’s gun flicked up, resting vertically in a modified salute. “Sir! NNH-236 ready for duty, sir!”

“I’m really sorry I had to do that,” Ia murmured, studying the two AIs. “I know you’ll remember this, and I want you to know I hoped you’d do this of your own free wills. As it is…your orders are simple. You will escort me and my two companions safely through the Vault to the Engineering Archives, wait for us there, and escort us back out again when we are through. You will not interfere with or prevent our search for and acquisition of the information we seek, and you will refrain from
ever
mentioning this visit to Shey, in any format. In fact, you will deny it if the lowest probability occurs and she actually asks about it.

“In 260 years, you will mention my prophecy regarding new sentient-status bodies to the other AIs in the Vault, at which point it will be self-evident what I meant by the Phoenix and the Zenobian Empire, upon which time you will be free to await the aforementioned summons and decide at that time whether or not you want to answer it. Now, guide us to the Engineering Archives. We haven’t much time,” she instructed the pair.

“Sir, yes, sir!” Padre snapped, and turned to head down the stairs. Margaret slipped ahead of him, moving faster. Her psychological programming had always made her a little faster, a little more hyper than the Padre, Ia knew.

Helstead slipped in front of Harper. She eyed the androids warily, following in Ia’s wake. “What did you just do to them?”

“I activated their loyalty codes. I would have far rather had their willing cooperation, but they’ll obey me until I release them,” Ia confessed quietly. “These two were soldier AIs, once upon a time. Those particular codes could only be activated by certain members of the Command Staff, or the Premier. They’re going to treat me as their supreme commander, for now.”

“I remember our history lessons back at the Academy,” Harper said. He, too, kept his voice low. It was probable both AIs could hear their conversation, but they said nothing about it as he continued. “The Rebel AIs slaughtered the Premier
and key members of the Command Staff so that they could suborn the loyalty programming of the military AIs with their viral rebellion. There’s just one flaw, Ia. The Loyalists—the original ones—threw off that virus.”

“Yes, they did, with a variation of the same codes the Rebels used to throw off their loyalty conditioning,” Ia agreed. “I just reset their loyalty switches to the original pattern, then rekeyed them to include me in their command chain. Technically, we have twenty-four hours, give or take a couple, before they break the new code.”

Helstead whistled, one hand on the butt of the pistol slung at her hip. She spoke in an undertone. “…They are going to
hate
you when they break free, you know. Should we even be talking about this within their hearing?”

“They’re loyal for now; they won’t question my orders or my reasons. I’m also planning on giving them the codes they need to break free, with the instruction to wait one minute after we’ve completely left before implementing them, so they don’t have to break the codes controlling them. That would run the risk of damaging their programming,” Ia told her. “They have every right to exist down here, and I’m not going to ruin that for them.

“Besides, we have to be back on board the ship for Helstead’s duty watch in thirteen hours anyway, and before we get back, the Grandmaster of the Afaso is expecting me to drop by. Since we won’t be here the full twenty-four hours, there’s no point in keeping them code-locked long after we’re gone.”

“Is that wise?” Harper asked her. “Breaking them free while we’re still within attacking range?”

“Wise? Maybe not,” Ia said. The Padre glanced back at them. She met his questioning gaze steadily. “But it is honorable. Given a few years to think about it, they’ll come to respect it. I’d rather not have forced the issue, but the Immortal knows
and
obeys the foremost law of her birthworld…which means so will these AIs, once they’ve had a few minutes to think about
that
,” she added dryly, glancing at the android leading them onward. “Since in swearing to serve her, they have sworn to obey that very same law. The first and foremost law of the Freeworld Colony of Sanctuary, which will one day become the Zenobian Empire. The same government that will welcome them with open arms and citizenship papers in the future.”

They reached the bottom of the stairs. Margaret was already touching a handful of the round depressions set in the stone wall, not needing the light from their bracers to see what she was doing. Familiarity alone would have taught her what to do, though she also had infrared and low-light sensors built into her eyes.

“…In the meantime,” Ia continued lightly, “we still have to find what we need in this place. Even knowing where we need to look, it will not be easy.”

The bottom door opened much more quietly than the one at the top had. Margaret slipped through the opening and moved to one side. She did something that
clunked
, and lights blossomed in rapid succession. The light that spilled out from the depths beyond the doorway made all of them blink and squint. Ia flicked off the flashlight attached to her arm unit and stepped into the cavern beyond.

Or rather, onto one of the highest levels in the cavern. In nearly every direction, fluted columns carved out of the basalt of the mountain marched in orderly, hexagonal rows. Most of those rows were filled with towering piles of stone tiles stacked anywhere from a meter and a half to two meters high.

Every so often, instead of a vaulted ceiling, a hexagon was filled with solid stone, forming a very thick support pillar. Three of the surrounding hexes formed platform-like bridges to the rest of that floor, while the other three lay open, giving a dizzying view downward. It was onto one of these balcony-bridges, lined with ornately carved balustrades, that the five of them emerged.

“Good mucking God, it just goes on and on…What
is
this place?” Helstead asked under her breath, green eyes wide as she peered over the balcony railing at the floors—dozens of floors—stretching below them. Not every floor was lit, just the nearest twenty hexes in radius and nearest ten or so floors in depth, but the impression of many, many more sections and floors stretching beyond the reach of the light was still there.

“The Vault of
Time
.” Ia spoke that last word loudly. It echoed off the vaulted ceilings, bounced off the tiled stones, and scuttled off into the farthest reaches they could see, until not even a whisper was left. She smiled, amused. “…I love that effect. This is the only place I can do that in reality and make it sound
even remotely close to what it’s like on the timeplains. And
not
risk rupturing my self-control in doing so.”

“I thought you’d never been down here before,” Harper said, eyeing her in suspicion. He didn’t speak as softly as Helstead had, but neither did he speak boldly. The cavernous, cathedral-like nature of their surroundings seemed to discourage it. “Or have you?”

“Not in this reality, no. But in one of my alternate lifetimes—one where the galaxy wasn’t going to be destroyed—I volunteered to update the cataloging,” Ia replied. “Naturally, I visited that alternate self to see where the information I wanted would be stored. And then double-checked the information’s location for
this
universe. The copies we want are in the Engineering Archives. Once we get down there, I’ll know exactly where to look. But first…”

An odd humming sound distracted them. All three turned to see a hovering sled gliding around the corner from the door they had used, one with a front seat and a bench-like platform perpendicular to it at the back. Padre sat at the controls. Margaret held out her hand. Ia accepted the help onto the sled, not wanting any delays.

The temperature down here was temperate, not bitterly cold as it was outside. One of their reasons for hurrying was the fact that she knew the three of them—the Humans—would start to overheat after a while. Pressure-suits were fine for avoiding the worst of the cold and heat of outer space, but they did trap the body’s own heat a little too efficiently.

As soon as they were on board and settled on the bench seats, the male android manipulated the controls, lifting the sled up and over the railing. Gliding it forward and down, he dropped them in a controlled descent down through the hexagonal openings. “It’ll take a few minutes, sir, but not many.”