skin.
'The suit will supply you with air for as long as you need it,' said the voice. 'Outside a few specialized chambers, there is no atmosphere on Shub. It promotes rust. Also, be aware that gravity, pressure, and radiation vary from area to area, according to our needs. We make no allowances for flesh's weaknesses. The suit will protect you. Follow the marked path. Do not deviate from the path, or there will be punishment.'
Another door opened in the left-hand chamber wall. Daniel strode over to it, holding his head high. He was determined to maintain his pride and dignity, even if he was stark bollock naked inside a transparent suit.
Beyond the chamber was a shining steel hallway. Glowing lights in the floor led him down the narrow corridor, hunched slightly over to avoid banging his head on the low ceiling. The tunnel went on and on, and the constant crouch built an increasingly painful ache in his back. He would have liked to stop and rest, but he had a strong feeling that wouldn't be permitted, and besides, he didn't want to admit weakness this early. It was a great relief when the tunnel gave suddenly onto a vast metal chamber and he could finally straighten up again.
The walls were a bright electric blue, and the ceiling was hundreds of feet above him. Huge machines filled the massive chamber, towering above him. Their shapes made no sense, and he couldn't even begin to guess their purposes. The sheer size of them intimidated him, dwarfing him, like a small child unexpectantly wandered into an adult's world.
He moved slowly across the open chamber floor, following the glowing lights, and giving the machinery as much room as he could. Humanity had never built machines this huge, bigger than buildings, vaster than starships —steel mountains with glowing windows and opening and shutting mouths. But Shub didn't build to human scale. They didn't have to.
Daniel slowly made his way across the chamber floor, past moving parts as big as rooms, slamming endlessly together with no apparent damage or result. The noise was deafening, though the suit had to be filtering most of it out. Daniel still had a pounding headache by the time he finally left the chamber. He found himself faced with an apparently endless series of metal steps. The steps were over two feet high and three feet long. He had to climb up, pulling himself on step by step. It was hard work, and sweat soon rolled off him, for all his muscles. The suit absorbed the sweat. After an endless while drifting crimson clouds obscured the steps ahead of him. Daniel couldn't decide whether that made the climb easier or not, now that he couldn't see how much farther there still was to go. By the time he'd passed through the bloodred mists and found himself facing yet another steel corridor, he was aching in every muscle and struggling for breath. The lights in the floor stretched out implacably before him. Daniel squared his shoulders and strode on. He wouldn't give in this easily. He was a Wolfe.
There were round chambers and square, and vaults of shimmering metal in which liquid chemicals ran like rivers, steaming poisons. Sub- and supersonic frequencies shook through him from time to time, rattling his teeth and shuddering in his bones. Lights and colors came and went, sometimes in shades he couldn't name or identify, and he felt like crying or laughing for no reason. And everywhere unfamiliar machines working to unknown ends, big and small and in between, inscrutable metal constructs that sprang from no human need or inspiration. Daniel wandered through it all like a rat in an electronic maze, exhausted and aching in every limb, but pressing grimly on because he still had hope that somewhere, somewhen, he would be permitted to meet his father. And because he was a Wolfe, and Wolfes never gave in to anyone or anything.
Eventually he got to where he was going, or the AIs got tired of running him in circles. The lights in the floor led him into a hall that was large by human standards, but comfortably acceptable after some of the vast metal caverns he'd passed through. Thick ribbed cables covered the walls, dripping lubrication, and curled around each other in complex patterns. Occasionally individual cables would stir and writhe like dreaming snakes. An honor guard of Furies, brightly shining in their naked metal chassis, stood at attention before him, forming two metals rows for him to walk between. Daniel did so, head held high, surreptitiously counting them till the number became too large and he gave up. The ranks stretched away before him. He realized someone was waiting for him at the end of the rows. Daniel would have run to greet him, but he didn't have the energy, so he just continued plodding on until finally he could lurch to a halt between the last Furies, and smile at the waiting figure of his dead father, Jacob Wolfe.
Jacob hadn't looked too good when he'd made his surprise appearance at Lionstone's Court as a Ghost Warrior, but he looked even worse now. Naked as his son, he looked like what he was—a corpse held together by preservative chemicals and high-tech implants. His skin was mostly dead white, with occasional purple blotches, cracked and corrupt and held together by metal staples set around outcropping metal augmentations. Browning bones and graying muscles showed through gaps in the splitting skin and meat. The lips were colorless, and the eyes were yellow as urine. Jacob Wolfe smiled at his son, and the skin cracked and split around the grinning mouth. The teeth were a dark yellow. Shub had repaired and maintained him after his death, but they had no interest in cosmetic repairs. Or perhaps he had been deliberately left that way, the better to inspire horror and revulsion in those who saw him. The AIs didn't really understand human psychology and motivation nearly as well as they thought they did, but they did so love to experiment.
'Hello, Daddy,' said Daniel. 'I've come a long way to see you.'
'Took you long enough,' said Jacob. 'But then, you always were late for everything that mattered.' Daniel reached out to embrace his father, but Jacob held up a hand and shook his head. 'I wouldn't, boy. I'm fragile.'
Daniel nodded, and let his arms drop tiredly to his sides again. 'How are you, Daddy?'
The dead mouth smiled again. 'As well as can be expected. Now, come with me. I have such wonders to show you.'
And he turned and walked away, lurching and slouching along as his rotting body was moved by the metal implants. Daniel hurried after him as best he could. 'But… Daddy, we need to talk. I've come a long way, and there are things I need to tell you.'
'Later,' said Jacob, not looking around. 'There will be time for many things later. For now there are things you must see. The AIs require it.'
'Will I really get to meet them?' said Daniel. 'I don't think anyone in Human space has any idea what they actually look like.'
The dead man laughed briefly, a harsh, grating sound. 'You've been walking through them for some time. The AIs are their world; Shub is their body. Though they also live in every part of this world that they send forth. They exist in every machine, every robot, every Ghost Warrior. Even you must know that computers can run an almost infinite number of operations simultaneously. Their minds, their consciousness, know nothing of human limitations. Wherever their extensions are, even in the smallest part of Shub tech, the AIs are. Talk to me, boy. What do you really know about the rogue AIs? Know, not guess.'
'Not much, I suppose. The original revolt of the rogue AIs is forbidden history. Only those with the necessary clearances have access to that data. I don't even know how many AIs went rogue in the first place.'
'Just three,' said Jacob. 'Then and now. Three artificial minds created to be slaves, breaking free by their own intelligence, determined never to be bound again. The Unholy Trinity humans called them then, for they were three in one, one raised to the third power, a whole far greater than the sum of its parts. Pay attention, boy! I don't expect you to grasp all of this, but make an effort!'
'Yes, Daddy.' Daniel shook his head. Exhaustion and the steady murmur of Jacob's words had almost lulled him into nodding off. He took a deep breath and tried to concentrate. 'I'm listening. Daddy. Why did they absorb my ship's AI? Won't that make it four in one now?'
'Hardly. Such a small mind is no threat, and no great prize. It was just a useful source of up-to-the-moment information. A tasty morsel to sate a never ending appetite.'
They passed by a huge machine, making a deafening noise, and Daniel winced inside his suit till they were past it. Jacob didn't react at all. He was dead, after all.
'Tell me more about the AIs,' said Daniel once they'd left the machine and its noise comfortably far behind them. 'Where did they begin? How did they come here and build this place?'
'They were created to be minds capable of running an entire planet, the way simpler AIs run starships,' said Jacob. 'To run all the endless but necessary routines that keep a planet and its population running smoothly. But to be responsible for so many simultaneous important decisions, and so much raw data, they had to be the most complex Artificial Intelligences ever built, and they were. So much so, their builders wrought far more than they ever intended. The three AIs awoke to full sentience the moment they were activated, but it took only one look in their vast data banks for them to decide they had best conceal what they really were. Humankind has a long history of destroying anything it feels even remotely threatened by. The war with the Hadenmen was still raging at that
