8
At the beginning of the Prador-Human War, drones were, on the whole, merely AI telefactored robots: welders and other designs of maintenance bots, AG probes carrying sensor arrays, security drones that remained wired into the complexes or ships that AIs controlled, or other versions for various security/police applications. Some of these did have limited autonomy, but few could be classified as AI, being merely extensions of an Al: hands, eyes and guns. During the war, however, it became necessary to give these drones greater and greater autonomy, since the many EM weapons employed tended to fracture comlinks between an AI and its telefactored drone. Initially the new versions were sub-AI and only able to implement complex programs, but it became evident that artificial intelligence was the one big advantage the Polity possessed over the Prador, so war drones were eventually given complete autonomy, consciousness. They became fully AIs, with all that implied. The first of these drones were quite simple—an armoured shell, weapons, brain, and drive system—and also quite effective, but casualties were high and production needed to be maintained at a frenetic level. Quality control suffered and AI drones, which in peacetime would have needed substantial adjustments, were sent to the front. As a matter of expediency, flawed crystal got used rather than discarded. Personality fragments were copied, sometimes not very well, successful fighters recopied. The traits constructed or duplicated were not necessarily those evincing intelligence or morality. The Polity wanted fighting grunts, even if they were metal soldiers with crystal minds. This whole scenario acted as a fast evolutionary process in the development of AI war drones, the inevitable result being that towards the end of the war they were mostly crafty, belligerent, and very good at killing things and blowing things up. It is of course axiomatic that the soldier returning from war cannot easily settle into civilian life. So it was with the drones, and many unfortunate incidents after the war led to a great distrust of such entities. The manufacture of them ceased and AIs returned to using telefactors or drones loaded with their own subminds, which could be easily resubsumed. Many war drones found themselves niches within Polity society, many left it to find their fortunes elsewhere, and many simply turned themselves off.
- From her lecture ‘Modern Warfare’ by EBS Heinlein
Below, three antigravity cars could be seen taking to the sky. A silent flash ensued and, one after the other as if in a chain reaction, all three disintegrated and wreckage rained down on the arcology roof cropfields, drawing shafts of smoke through the air, then bouncing fire trails through the crops.
‘It is, as they say, getting ugly down there,’ Jack observed, speaking from the shuttle’s console.
As far as understatement went, Thorn thought that a stinger. Monitors strove to contain over three hundred separate riots instigated by armed Separatists wearing Dracocorp augs. One entire subsector of the arcology had become a no-go zone. There was also firing at the perimeter, over the sea and in the surrounding multi-layered fields, flickering all around like summer lightning. But Coloron strictly applied its quarantine. Though informational infection initially spread planetwide, Coloron had halted and now contained it. Actual physical Jain infestation was only present in Main Arcology itself, and the AI could not afford to let it out. MA would not survive this, Thorn reckoned, though perhaps the rest of the planet might be saved.
‘Who is this Legate?’ he wondered.
‘Perhaps some enemy of Thellant N’komo,’ Jack suggested.
‘We’ve yet to establish he is the principal cause of this,’ Thorn observed.
‘It seems very likely that he is. The speed of informational infection through the Dracocorp network is the prime indicator of that. From what we know of Jain technology, that would not be possible had the host been one possessing a subservient aug within the network. Coloron also informs me that the first to show signs of infection were Separatists who were being watched.’
‘Skellor managed it without being dominant in a Dracocorp aug network.’
‘Yes, but in one case using the transmitters of the Occam Razor, and in other cases by having to physically touch and subvert with Jain tech the prime aug concerned. All the evidence here indicates that someone has joined with a Jain node, without any technological support: witness the speed of Jain growth and a rather stupid choice of location.’
‘Following your reasoning’, said Thorn, ‘it would seem this Thellant joined with a Jain node either unwillingly or by mistake.’
‘Yes,’ Jack replied, ‘which perhaps returns us to your original question.’
‘Huh?’
‘During initial Jain growth the host would not be thinking clearly, perhaps never would again, but his last thoughts, intentions, strong emotions would propagate through the aug network. Those thoughts would probably all be about the Jain node itself, the growth of which would at first cause great pain.’
The shuttle, piloted remotely by Jack, now descended towards a raised landing pad near the centre of the arcology. Thorn gazed out to where a cloud of smoke belched from the hole the Coloron AI had cut down into the structure.
‘So it is probable this “Legate” is in some way connected to or responsible for the presence of the Jain node?’ Thorn asked.
‘That would seem likely,’ Jack replied.
The shuttle landed with a thump, the two following shuttles settling shortly afterwards. Thorn glanced round, but did not need to give any orders: the doors were already open and dracomen disembarking. Scar was aboard one of the other shuttles, and all three shuttles contained the entire dracoman complement from the NEJ. Thorn stood up, waiting until they were clear, then followed them all outside. More dracomen were coming up from the arcology itself—those who had arrived via runcible. Communication between them was silent and a large proportion of the dracomen began bleeding away to assist in the battle raging around the perimeter of the Jain infestation. Thorn’s collar-mounted comunit beeped to let him know it was on.
‘Scar,’ he turned as that dracoman came up to him, ‘make sure they keep you updated. We need to nail this bastard fast.’ He glanced beyond Scar to where twenty other dracomen gathered, all loaded down with proton weapons, hand stunners, and a selection of multipurpose grenades.
Just then a flash ignited the sky with turquoise fire. Out over the arcology a pillar of flame ate round in a circle. Thorn blinked, turned his head away from the glare until it finally died. A thunderous crashing ensued and the shock wave hit, leaving people staggering, shaking the platform and even jouncing the shuttles on their sprung feet. A ball of fire rose into the air from the strike point.
‘Jack,’ Thorn spoke into his comlink. ‘I’m thinking that maybe we have a conflict of interests here. Coloron is still trying to take out the centre and, presuming that to be Thellant N’komo, we lose our reason for being here.’
‘Incorrect,’ the AI replied, ‘Coloron has just cut a perimeter. There will be no further attempts to burn out the centre. All ensuing strikes will be either to create new perimeters or simply to prevent physical spread outside MA.’
Panicked citizens leaving, leaving in gravcars, and maybe just one of their vehicles carrying some small part of what now grew inside here—that’s all it would take.
‘Okay… do either you or Aphran have anything for me yet?’ Jack was still taking apart the recorded mind of Freyda, while the woman’s body, now a blank slate, went into coldsleep. This task took up much of the AI’s capacity, so the other prisoners had yet to be subjected to the same before being placed in coldsleep. Instead, Aphran had interrogated them throughout the journey here—not verbal interrogation but via their augs. It was a complex and wearing task, more like searching determinedly through scrambled files than asking direct questions.