“Of course, you can’t even shoot it down if it’s coming toward you,” Johnston whispered, suddenly next to Herb’s ear.

The view changed again. Herb gave a shout. “There were people there! Humans!”

Robert shrugged and returned to his seat.

“Don’t worry about it. They weren’t sentient. That’s an important point: they never seem to have had the nerve to allow genuine humans to develop inside the Enemy Domain. Anyway, the weapon you saw is obsolete. The AI has perfected fractal branching. Look at this one.”

The view shifted again so that Herb was looking down at an enormous snowflake, framed against the black night and the piercing grey stars.

“It’s got a surface area of just under a billion klicks squared and it masses about half that of Earth. Just imagine what would happen if they grew one of these things in Earth’s orbit. Can you imagine the planet hitting that? It would be like passing through a cheese grater.”

Herb was shaking his head slowly. Unconsciously, he had been mouthing one word over and over as he watched the screen. No. No. No. The silent words became a whisper.

“No. It’s too big. We can’t fight that.”

“Oh, we haven’t seen anything yet. That was just the beginning. Sit back and relax. Now we’re going to try to appreciate the scale of the thing. Let’s get an idea of the true size of the Enemy Domain.”

The view flickered again. The camera panned across seven humps of some strange bioengineered creature, then froze. Johnston was studying Herb’s wide-eyed face with an expression of vague sympathy.

“Actually, before we do that, I’ll just fetch you another bottle of whisky. I think you’re going to need it.”

Herb didn’t know how long he sat before the viewing area.

They didn’t seem to care, that was the problem. Everything in the Enemy Domain was just building material. Planets, rocks, asteroids: everything was converted into yet more self-replicating machines. Herb saw view after view of cities and spaceships, snowflakes and chains, but most frequently of all, endless seas of VNMs all scuttling over each other, just like the sea of them below the spaceship in which he sat. It seemed to Herb as if the whole universe was now being converted into self-replicating machines, and the only thing he could think was, Will there be anywhere left for me to stand?

But that wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was that the Enemy Domain was also filled with half-grown human clones. On planet after planet it seemed that whatever controlled the Domain had set them growing and then suddenly just lost interest: a bubble of space two hundred light years across filled with billions upon billions of half-grown human beings.

All abandoned.

Eventually, the show ended. Herb said nothing. Robert gradually brought the lounge lights back up and knelt down to pick up the splintered walnut shells that lay on the carpet beneath his seat. He gathered them up, dropping them on his white handkerchief, which he carefully carried into the kitchen where he flapped out its contents into the sink. When he returned to the lounge, Herb was still sitting on the sofa staring at nothing.

“Big, isn’t it?”

“I don’t want to fight it anymore. I’d rather take my chances in the Oort cloud.” Herb’s voice was a dull monotone.

“Oh, don’t be like that. I’m sure you’ll have no worries.”

Herb laughed hollowly. “We’re doomed, aren’t we? There’s no way we can defeat that. All those spaceships, all those machines. Where did they come from?”

“Earth.”

“Why are they attacking us? Did you say Earth?”

“Of course. It doesn’t take a genius to work that out, does it? You’ve seen the technology. It doesn’t look any different from that of Earth’s, does it? Herb, you’ve even seen pictures of one of your alter egos wandering around a shopping center! How alien do you think that is? You’ve got an imagination the size of a muffin! You saw roads and cars! You even saw bloody cows! Who did you think was in charge of the Enemy Domain? Martians?”

Herb was blushing with embarrassment. “I don’t know. It’s just…I mean…How can it be from Earth? How did it get so big? Why didn’t we hear about it?”

Johnston jumped onto the coffee table and threw his hands up in despair.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Herb! Use your brain! You should have been expecting this! Everyone should have been expecting this! That’s one of the reasons why we have an Environment Agency! Come on, think!”

Herb shook his head. He felt too overwhelmed by it all to react. Johnston leaned down and spoke in a softer tone.

“The only surprise should be that it didn’t happen sooner. Good grief, Herb, we have let self-replicating machines loose upon the galaxy! Self-replicating machines! Haven’t you ever stopped to think what that implies? You’ve already seen first-hand the damage that can occur when they go wrong! Look at that planet you destroyed! All it takes is one machine with above average Artificial Intelligence to get loose, an AI with a grasp of how to build a warp drive, and there’s no telling where it will all end.”

Johnston jumped down from the table and knelt at Herb’s feet.

“I mean, come on. We’ve seen it happen on Earth! Look what happened when DIANA tried to build that space elevator back in 2171. Public outcry, mass protests. Some saboteurs even managed to get hold of a batch of mothballed stealth suits and used them to get close enough to try and blow it up. And all the while, unbeknownst to the protestors, the VNMs designed to anchor the thing to the planet were out of control. They just kept going down and down, burrowing into the Earth. They were tough to stop, too. Those things were built to be strong. If the EA hadn’t figured out a solution in time, the whole planet could have been converted to something close to adamantium from the inside out. Now, just put that problem on a galactic scale. That’s what we have to deal with.”

Johnston shook his head in despair at Herb’s stupidity.

“You still haven’t seen it, have you? And you converted a whole planet by accident! Don’t you realize how fast these things spread? Suppose you have one machine that takes a year to make a copy of itself. Not ten seconds, not ten minutes, like the ones you used on that planet below. Let’s just say a year. In two years you have two machines, in three years you have four. In a hundred years you have 1.26 times ten to the power of thirty of the things. That’s ten billion billion machines for each planet in the Milky Way.”

The numbers were making Herb feel dizzy. Johnston was almost shouting now.

“Its not even the first time something like this has happened. In the past few years I’ve helped destroy twenty would-be galactic empires.”

Herb laughed weakly and spoke in a wobbly voice. “Twenty. Well, there you are. Well done, Robert.”

Johnston calmed down. He took hold of Herb’s hands and rubbed them gently between his own. He gazed at Herb with a gentle smile.

“You’re frightened. Of course you are; who wouldn’t be? Well, trust me. We’ll beat it. Both of us.”

“Both of us. Of course,” Herb said. “And who else? How big is our army?”

Robert looked confused.

“Army? What army? There’s just you and me.”

“Just you and me,” Herb repeated.

“Of course. What good would an army be? No matter how many people we raised, we’d still be hopelessly outnumbered.”

“Of course.” Herb began to laugh. “Of course. No problem. How silly of me. You and me versus an Enemy two hundred light years in diameter!” His laugh grew more strident. “And there I was thinking that this would be difficult. Well. That’s okay, then.”

Tears began to run down his cheeks.

Johnston tilted his head slightly. “Herb, I think you’re becoming just a little bit hysterical.”

That just made Herb laugh even louder.