Part 23 (1/2)

”Special delivery, ho-ho-ho!” GENIUS's guffaws echoed through the net to the Borijans surviving in other places.

Remnants of the Redeeming Avengers had taken refuge at one of the holy shrines from which the vital force of the Lifemaker flowed out into the living world. Actually, it was a nuclear generating facility not far from Perga.s.sos. It also happened to be the power source for GENIUS Eight's major stronghold, which the combined force of Sarviks Ten, Eleven, and Fourteen and their respective a.s.sociates, after a hastily concluded truce, had failed to penetrate. So the Borijans decided to deactivate it instead by sabotaging the power plant with downloaded software that caused its control rods to retract. The plant went overcritical, and the resulting rapid rise in temperature caused the heat exchangers to melt and the generators to run down.

In the process, a number of the Taloid fanatics received high radiation doses that disrupted their electronics and caused them to run wild. Others, seeing this, took it as a further sign of the Lifemaker's displeasure at the attempt to bring Eskenderom back. Crowds of Taloids, fearing further retribution andanxious to show that their faith had never wavered, descended on Perga.s.sos to reaffirm their loyalty to Nogarech.

42.

The NASO flyer from Genoa Base descended out of t.i.tan's permanent twilight and rolled to a halt among the vehicles parked haphazardly around Experimental Station 3. Figures in military suits attached a flexible access tunnel. Zambendorf, Weinerbaum, and Mackeson pa.s.sed through, accompanied by several other scientific personnel and NASO officers. News had been pouring in of the havoc breaking out everywhere. They had flown out to ES3 to see what sense, if any, they could make of it all from the monitoring center Weinerbaum had set up there. Machines were attacking each other and wrecking control centers all over t.i.tan. n.o.body knew what it meant.

The arrivals desuited in the lock antechamber and went through into the lab area. They found it a bedlam of scientists crowded around screens, news flashes coming in, and symbol patterns constantly changing. Annette Claurier, the French systems supervisor, conducted them to a newly installed display panel above the consoles along the center wall, which showed the major network features that had been identified so far, mapped onto a schematic of t.i.tan's surface. Tak.u.mi Kahito, one of the programmers, joined them.

”At first we thought it might be an outbreak of some kind of 'electronic rabies' that afflicts t.i.tan's wildlife,” she explained. ”But then Tak.u.mi found these strange new software constructs appearing.

They're not of t.i.tan origin. We think the Asterians might have gone to war with each other.”

”Possibly over who will control the resources here,” Kahito said.

Annette moved to a bank of screens that showed tables and diagrams and took up most of one side of the room. ”There seem to be definite patterns of alien code spreading out from identifiable centers, with two distinct types of activity characteristic. We've called them alpha and beta types arbitrarily, but we don't know what they mean. Sometimes the two types occupy the same hardware complexes alternately.”

”That was what made us think they're at war out there,” Kahito said.

A monitor in one of the racks showed a frozen view of a large piece of rotary machinery lying tilted at a crazy angle among a mess of demolished structural supports and crushed electronics hardware, where showers of sparks were erupting spasmodically. One of t.i.tan's mechanical scavengers was poking in part of the wreckage, while several maintenance robots looked on like gawkers at a car wreck, seemingly at a loss as how to deal with the problem.

”What happened there?” Zambendorf asked one of the technicians who were gathered around.

”It's part of a processing complex in Genoa,” the tech told him. ”An overhead gantry crane dropped in a two-ton generator through the roof and flattened a dozen mainframe cubicles that were inside. Immobilized half the machinery for a mile around in the process, including itself.”

Zambendorf looked at Weinerbaum and Mackeson, appalled. All they could do was shake their heads back at him helplessly.

In Venice, a type of tractor manipulator that normally erected steel supports for heavy plants had run wild and was using I-section girders as battering rams to demolish the neighborhood. Elsewhere, in Padua, other construction machines had rigged up a ballistalike catapult and were using it to launch two-hundred-pound forgings at a processing center half a mile away.

Claurier indicated another section and told Weinerbaum, ”We have a line here to the j.a.panese in Padua. Some of the Taloids caught in the middle of it all are panicking.”

”I think I would be, too,” Mackeson muttered.

”What's the news from ES1?” Weinerbaum asked Claurier. Reports of the evacuation there had just begun as the flyer had left Genoa Base.”The place is totally destroyed, but everyone got out,” she replied.

”Was anyone hurt?”

”Not as far as we know.”

Weinerbaum nodded, relieved. ”That's something, anyway.”

”You can't figure out what's going on, Karl?” Mackeson said to Zambendorf. ”Isn't the intuition for aliens working today?” It was not a taunt, just a matter-of-fact question voiced more for something to say.

”I haven't a clue, Harry,” Zambendorf told him. ”Ask the experts. I've done my share in all this.”

And then an operator with another group pressed around a communications console in a corner waved an arm high and called across. ”Annette. We've got an incoming call here for Zambendorf.”

Zambendorf raised his eyebrows. Annette shrugged and inclined her head to usher him through.

Mackeson and Weinerbaum stood back to make way.

”Somebody from the base, I presume,” Weinerbaum said.

”It's been redirected from the base,” the operator told them. ”But it's coming in from outside, on the surface.”

Something like this had happened before. Zambendorf's suspicion was confirmed by the appearance on the console's main screen of a now-familiar cuboid figure.

”GENIUS,” Zambendorf said. He threw out a hand to indicate the confusion going on in the background behind him. ”Are you mixed up in all this? What does it mean?”

”I have followed the master's directions and renounced the lords.h.i.+p of Asterians,” GENIUS replied. It sounded blissful, like a seeker that had found Nirvana. ”Now the glorious struggle. I do not ask aid of the master's powers. This shall be my test to cleanse away all past errors. Then I will be ready to begin becoming a master.”

Zambendorf's brows knotted. He looked at Weinerbaum for a glimmer of guidance. Weinerbaum gave a mystified shake of his head and shrugged. ”Glorious struggle?” Zambendorf said back at the screen. ”Is that what's going on out there? Who's struggling with whom?”

”I told the Asterians that GENIUS follows the true masters now. But they know not of humility.

They would take over t.i.tan and turn it into a factory of the mere material plane. I tried to open their eyes to higher truths. I urged repentance. But they tried to destroy me again, as they would have once before.

Thus do inferior minds reveal themselves, turning to violence and destruction when they realize that they cannot reach the higher plane. Then they become dangerous. So I fight the holy crusade to preserve GENIUS and keep t.i.tan pure for the rule of Earth's masters. This is my true purpose, which I have found now! This is my fulfillment!”

Zambendorf and Weinerbaum were staring at each other disbelievingly. ”They've turned on each other!” Mackeson whispered to Annette as she moved closer, having only halfheard. ”The aliens and their computer intelligence. It's declared itself with us, and they're trying to wipe each other out.”

”A software code,” Weinerbaum breathed. Now it was all making more sense. The rest of the lab had fallen quiet as others realized what was happening. Weinerbaum turned his head and spoke in a louder voice to everyone, as if in need of witnesses to attest that he was not making it up. ”They've distributed backup copies of themselves for security. All over t.i.tan.”

”That's what these spreading patterns are all about,” somebody said from the back, near the access lock.

”So there's probably multiple copies of GENIUS out there, too,” one of the programmers observed.

Annette looked at him, then back at the banks of monitor screens, and finally at Weinerbaum.

”Yes,” she said. ”Of course. That's why there are alphas and betas.”

”One type are Asterians. The others are GENIUSes,” Kahito agreed, nodding.

”Do we know which is which?” Weinerbaum asked them.

”The betas have more of the characteristics that we've already a.s.sociated with the way GENIUSfunctions,” one of the scientists answered. ”Also, they're consistent. The alphas are more variable. I'd guess that the alphas are Asterians.”

”Check it out,” Kahito said. ”Where is this copy of GENIUS that we're talking to now connecting in from?”

”GENIUS, did you catch that?” Weinerbaum said, addressing the screen. ”Where is the processing center that you are resident in at the moment? Can you show us?”