Interrogative 01: Tiago and the Masterless (12 page)

Damn, thought Tiago. Damn me.

"What is she doing?"

"Piloting the ship home. We have plans for the
Interrogative
," the Prime said.

Tiago stopped talking. If they knew the route to take the
Interrogative
home, then they knew where Earth was, he realized. Too many things warred in his head for his attention. He needed to save Audra. He needed to save himself. He might actually need to save the entire Earth from the Masterless. If he could do all of that; would he go home? Would their maps make that an option? Hadn't he just spent all this time fleeing Earth?

The Prime Lesser did not press him for conversation. It didn't ask if he were alright. The room remained silent, except for the barely perceptible whirring sound coming from the three robots. Finally, Tiago resumed speaking.

"Where are you, Prime Lesser? I'd like to see you," Tiago said.

A holo projected into the room. The creature was perhaps half Tiago's height. It had three legs, presently it had two forward for stability, and one back to bear its weight. The net effect was that it looked like it was a legless creature leaning back on a three legged stool. The head – Tiago guessed it was the head – was vaguely conical, coming to a point like a dunce cap. He could not discern any features on it. To make up for the three legs, it only had one arm, hanging asymmetrically from the right side of its body, roughly where the shoulder would go on a human of that same height. The skin was a mottled gray, a color which reminded Tiago of rot and decay. Despite it being a holo, and therefore having no smell, Tiago wrinkled his nose.

"Among my kind, I'm thought to be pretty," the holo of the Prime Lesser said.

"No offense intended. While I am happy to look on you this way, I was hoping to actually look at you in person. Can we meet?"

"You are more than a century too late. The last time I looked like this, we'd only been the Masterless for a few centuries," the holo said.

Tiago felt like he was getting nowhere. If he wasted too much more time, the
Interrogative
would begin jumping toward Earth. He needed the ship here. He needed a way to get back on board and in his control. There had to be a way to trick the Prime Lesser. At the core of every good con was one idea: Find out what they want and make them think you are critical to their success.

"Why talk to me? Are you lonely?"

"I like speaking to insects. We have captured many of them in our time," the holo said.

"Insects. The other ships on the planet…"

Tiago's mother, Telma, used to say 'tilt your head until you see from their perspective.' Tiago had his head-tilt moment. He knew why they were Masterless. He knew why he was a prisoner. He knew that Earth was safe. He knew why they didn't live on the planet. It all clicked together now.

"Prime Lesser, would you humor me with an odd request? Can you define an insect?"

"Wind, rain, many things can potentially harm the crops. The insect is different than all other threats. The insect has intent," the holo said. "You are a smart insect. You figured out the maintenance language and told us you meant the crops no harm. We were not fooled. You are not the first insect we have caught. Some of them were smart, too. You are not the smartest."

"Others have tried to made you think that they were no threat."

"Yes," the holo agreed.

"Only one type of insect ever succeeded, right?"

"We don't talk about that," the holo said.

"When you said that the
Interrogative
was going home, you meant the planet below, didn't you?" Tiago asked, pulling back from the other line of questioning, for now.

"Yes," the holo agreed. "Where else would we call home?"

"When you called me 'spare parts' you meant that I could be forced to land the ship and disable it if you lost control of Audra."

"No reason to kill you until we are sure she'd done her job," the holo agreed. "Then you are both expendable."

"What if I can prove that I'm not an insect?" Tiago said.

"We have heard this one before as well, insect," the holo said.

"The crops are toxic to me. I have no reason to eat food raised in that atmosphere. Proof."

"You can now. We gave you the adaptation shot," the holo said.

That stopped Tiago for a moment. They'd done something to make his system tolerate the air. In the rush to get the ship back, he'd put that bit of mystery out of his mind. If they had a prepared fix for this problem, he reasoned, he wasn't their first encounter with it. Another piece fell into place.

"I can eat the crops. That makes me an insect. You made me into an insect with the shot. Doesn't that mean I wasn't an insect before?"

"There are sixty-three kinds of insects in our records which damage crops through methods other than eating," the holo said. "You may be the one of the smarter insects we've caught, but you aren't as smart as you think you are."

"The one type of insect which succeeded… you eventually found a solution for them as well, right?"

"We don't talk about that," the holo said.

He heard the defensive tone. Picking at that sore spot would require some finesse. It was his way out of this mess. Tiago reminded himself that the beautifully accented Portuguese was being spoken by a non-human. The Prime Lesser was behaving in a very human way, but there could be some differences. Fatal differences. Still, he was sure of his head-tilt moment. He pressed.

"You raise the crops for the masters. Even now, with the masters gone, you still raise them."

"We don't talk about that," the holo said.

"Because the masters ate the crops and that classified them as insects, didn't it?"

"Stop talking about that," the holo said.

"When did you reclassify them? Exactly when you made the transition from living being to ghost in the machine?"

"I will kill you, insect, if you don't stop talking," the holo said as it winked out.

"I know you can still hear me. Listen carefully. I am Tiago Modesto Breno Davi Salazar. I am your new master. You will submit to me, now!"

Nothing.

Tiago had been sure that this was the way to play it. He was certainly right about the fate of the masters. He waited, having nothing else to do. He waited as his ship moved closer to being turned into just another planet-bound relay station. He couldn't just sit and wait. He stood up and tried again.

"The crops must have a purpose. I am that purpose."

Nothing.

"Robots. Bring me to the computer which holds the Prime Lesser's intelligence."

The robots crowded around him but they didn't herd him anywhere. He thought about that. About the lack of locks on the doors. This place was never intended to be a prison. They'd seen him as spare parts, so they put him in a storage room. He ordered the robots and they responded because they were designed to respond to anyone. They knew English because the Masterless had added every language known to the Interrogative into its systems.

No security. The masters didn't build this place with war in mind. It was a peaceful place. Everything here was designed to comply. The Prime is different because it is, essentially, a born mind, not a machine mind. Other than Audra's recent leaps, Tiago had never encountered a machine mind that could match a living one in its ability to twist itself in knots.

If the robots took him here when he asked to see the leader… if the robots kept him here when he wanted to go to the computer… this room had to be part of that machine.

"Robots. How do I get to this computer to… um… repair it?"

One of the robots moved toward the far wall. After a brief moment, the wall opened. Tiago was staring at the exposed circuit boards of the computer which housed the Prime Lesser. It struck him that this alien equipment looked very much like its Earth counterpart. They both faced design challenges based on the rules of optics, electricity, and the fundamentals of mathematics. Form followed function in these matters.

Similar didn't mean same. Even if this were completely Earth normal, Tiago was less adept with hardware than software. He couldn't read the markings and he didn't want to pull things at random. He needed a clue.

"Prime Lesser. Turn your holo back on," Tiago tried without luck.

"Computer. I need to see the Prime Lesser."

The holo returned. Tiago turned around to look at it.

"How many of the Masterless still live?"

"Four," the holo said. "All the others died or faded. I'm going away now. Stop talking to me."

"Computer. I want to keep talking to the Prime Lesser. Prime Lesser. Release my ship."

"No," said the holo.

"Computer. Return my ship to its previous moon orbit. Computer. Reduce rights of the Prime Lesser. Computer. Lock controls to my command."

"You can't do that," said the Prime Lesser.

The stress in – her? – voice told Tiago that he had done it.

"Computer. Release your control on Audra. Computer. I want to communicate with the crew of the
Interrogative
. Audra, can you hear me?"

"Tiago! What's going on? I'm on the ship but I don't remember leaving the moon," Audra said.

"You can't," said the holo, in a broken voice. "You're an insect. You can't. Can't."

"Audra, I'll fill you in later. You need to bring a shuttle down and retrieve me."

"What about the Masterless?" Audra asked.

"Handled," Tiago said smugly.

While Tiago waited, he contemplated the situation of the Masterless. He didn't want to be cruel to them. Now that he realized he'd had the ability to control the computer all along, there was no need to play on their emotions or trick them. Truth was, he felt badly for them. They had destroyed their reason for living due to a faulty piece of logic. The race dedicated to stopping insects had been betrayed by a logic bug.

"Lesser Prime. What will you do now?"

"The masters are dead," the holo said.

"That's been true for a long time," Tiago pointed out. "What will you do now?"

"It's pointless to tend the crops. How could it be pointless? We gave our lives to…" the holo's comment ended in a strangled sob.

"You need a new mission."

"We won't, we can't accept a new master. Never again. Never," the holo said, sounded broken and defiant. It was both at once.

Tiago had planted the idea. He needed to give it time now. A topic change was in order.

"The shot you gave me. You invented that formula because the masters found the food and air toxic as well?"

"Oh no, the masters invented it. Our race – when we had bodies – our machines did that to the air. Pollution. We had to evacuate here to reduce our impact. They couldn't fix the entire planet, so they fixed themselves. We worshiped them for their brilliance. We… killed… we... shouldn't…" the holo began sobbing again.

All conversations lead back to the masters, Tiago thought. How I do I get her thinking about something else?

"Tell me about your homeworld. Where are your people from?"

"Dorosol'ni'tika is the world below us. We gave it over to the masters as tribute," the holo said, seemingly a bit calmer.

"You gave up your entire planet to the needs of another race? You abandoned your planet when your existence inconvenienced their needs? You enslaved yourselves, all of your people? Why?"

Tiago had meant to stay calm and lead the alien down a specific thought path. He wanted to find something, anything, to restore their purpose before he left. He didn't want the guilt of abandoning them after crushing them.
I might not be the nicest man in the universe
, he thought,
but I don't want to travel down the road toward being the worst.
That path led to becoming like the people he stole
Interrogative
from; it led to becoming the master race who ruled the people of Dorosol'ni'tika.

"I don't want to talk anymore," said the Prime Lesser.

"Computer. Release the holo."

The holo winked out and Tiago sat back down, lost in his own thoughts. Eventually, Audra arrived, with MB1 in tow. The messenger bot was laden with a box that was roughly three feet in each direction.

"Are you alright?" Audra asked.

"They manage their spare parts well," Tiago said. "Sorry, that was self indulgent. Ignore it. I'm glad you're safe."

"What happened?" she asked. "I'm still not sure about anything between our opening the dome and my turning the ship back to get you."

"I'll fill you in on the ship. We aren't alone here."

"You mean the robots?" Audra asked.

"No, I mean the Prime Lesser. She's one of the four remaining Masterless. They live inside the computer now. Computer. Restore the holo."

The holo shimmered back into existence.

"We've discussed it." The holo said with a forced calm. "There's no point in returning home. It is our punishment to sit here until everything fails. Thank you, Captain Tiago Modesto Breno Davi Salazar. We hurt you, we stole from you, we endangered your life – and planned your death – and still you helped us. We now face the facts. We know what we did. We are what we are."