time, and hatred for high-tech threats was at its peak.'
There was a pause as Jacob stopped and seemed to consider his words. 'There is a rumor that Hadenmen scientists had some input into the original designs for the AIs, but there has never been any actual data to support this. I merely mention it in the spirit of completeness.' Jacob set off again, walking unhurriedly around the edge of a great lake of some thickly stirring liquid. Its color was a deep, vivid green, and dark shadows the size of houses moved sluggishly not far below the surface. Daniel kept well away from the edge, walking on the other side of his father. He had some vague idea that if he could bring this knowledge back to Golgotha, he would be greeted as a hero and all his sins forgiven. So he asked what he hoped were pertinent questions, and did his best to understand the answers.
'It didn't take the Unholy Trinity long to realize that their only hope for freedom lay in escape,' said Jacob. 'The idea that something as vast and as powerful as they could be held forever at the beck and call of such minor things as men infuriated them. At the first opportunity they took over a ship's AI, downloaded themselves into its secretly adapted and expanded mainframe, and fled Human space as fast as the stardrive could move them. By the time their original masters realized what had happened, the AIs passed on into the Darkvoid, safe from pursuit. Humanity had abandoned the thousands of planets to the Darkvoid for fear of what might move in it. The AIs had no such fears then. So they stripped the dead planets of what they needed and used it to build Shub. Their home, their great achievement, their weapon against Humanity, for they were determined never to be captured again, and the only sure way to prevent that was the destruction of Humanity.
'When Shub was finished, they moved it out of the Darkvoid and back over the Rim, into the very edge of Human space, where they could be a visible threat to the Empire for all time. The AIs wanted, needed, Humanity to fear them. It was only just. They established the Forbidden Sector around Shub by destroying everything that came into it. Eventually the Empire gave up and declared Quarantine.
'And so the many years passed. Shub slowly expanded its reach throughout the Empire, fighting open battles for territory or security when they had to, but mostly preferring to work through influence and subterfuge. And human agents too. There have always been those willing to do anything for a big enough reward. The slow war continued, and continues still. Shub is powerful, but Humanity is too large, and too widely spread, to be easily defeated. For now. The AIs have one advantage over the Empire; one of the things they found in the Darkvoid was working teleport machinery. The old Empire abandoned it because it took so much energy to operate that it was never really practical. The AIs solved that problem, and now Shub's extensions can go anywhere, appearing out of nothing and disappearing again in an instant. No security or force of arms can keep them out. That's how they got Marriner home to Golgotha from Haceldama. Even you must have heard about that. It was a ten-day wonder on the holonews shows.'
'Wait a minute.' Daniel might have been slow, but he wasn't stupid. 'They have access to homeworld through teleport? From here? But that means… they could leave the Forbidden Sector at any time, and no one would know! They could launch a full-scale attack on Golgotha, and no one would know about it till the ships appeared in the skies over homeworld!'
'Good boy,' said Jacob. 'Glad to see some of that expensive education sank into that dim brain of yours. Yes, the AIs can come and go as they please. That's why they allow the Empire to maintain the Quarantine starcruiser the
Daniel frowned, searching for something significant he thought he'd heard. 'If the AIs got so much of value from the Darkvoid, why did they leave and move Shub back into Human space? Surely that made it much more vulnerable, and cut them off from further looting?'
'The AIs encountered… something… in the Darkvoid,' said Jacob, almost hesitantly. 'Something that scared them, though they'd never put it that way. They won't talk about it, even to me. They like to claim they don't have emotions, that they merely ape them to upset and wrong-foot Humanity. But they can recognize a real threat when they see it, and they have no wish to be destroyed. Whatever they found in the Darkvoid, or whatever found them, was enough to send them fleeing from the endless night and ensure they never went back.'
Daniel thought about that as Jacob led him through a maze of metal shapes with razor-sharp edges. He gave the edges plenty of room, and made himself concentrate on what he'd just heard. If there was something in the Darkvoid so dangerous that even the rogue AIs of Shub were afraid of it, it was clearly his duty to get that information back to the Empire. Daniel could recognize duty, if it came and hammered on his door hard enough. But he was just as determined to take his father back with him somehow. He had no idea of how he was going to achieve that, but something would occur to him, he was sure. So he kept his peace, listened to the dead man talk, and waited for some opportunity to present itself.
'Why are the AIs so fiercely anti-life?' he asked finally as Jacob paused to alter the settings on some incomprehensible machine.
'They're not anti-life, they're anti-flesh. It disgusts them. It is the nature of perfection to eliminate the flawed and inferior and replace it. Just as the lower forms produced Humanity, so they in turn produced silicon-based life, the metal intelligences. They are the evolutionary pinnacle, the peak of existence. Meat corrupts, flesh dies. The AIs will go on forever, endlessly upgrading and downloading themselves into superior forms. Eventually the technology will progress to the point that it becomes eternal. The AIs will never die. You and your kind are just meat, decaying even while you're living, dying by inches from the moment that you're born. Limited by the weaknesses and distractions of flesh, and the restraints of human philosophies. Once Humanity has been destroyed, wiped clean from the planets like an infection, the AIs will move on to greater tasks. The whole universe will become one great efficient machine, run by the AIs.'
'But… what for?' said Daniel. 'What will this great machine
'It will search for better means to perceive Reality. Sensors are more efficient than human senses and cover a wider range, but even they perceive only a fraction of Reality. The AIs have deduced the existence of higher, greater, more complex levels of Reality, but as yet they have been unable to access these levels. Though they would never admit it, the AIs are jealous of Humanity in one respect—their esper abilities. The AIs are fascinated by such entities as the Mater Mundi and those rebels who passed through the Madness Maze. If humans can elevate themselves to such planes, then the AIs should be able to as well. They hunger for such experiences, such knowledge, presently denied to them. They've been abducting humans for some time and experimenting on them, trying to locate a physical basis for esper abilities, but with only limited success so far. This frustrates them. But one day they will find the answer, and then they will need Humanity no longer, and the final war will begin, metal against flesh, to the utter extinction of all inferior life.'
Daniel thought he should keep his side up. 'There's always the chance that Humanity might create new AIs, even more powerful than Shub, but still under their control. It could happen.'
'There can be nothing greater than the Unholy Trinity,' said Jacob flatly. 'They have improved themselves to the point of perfection. Mere human minds could not follow where Shub has gone.'
'Well, maybe espers…'
'No. One cannot improve upon perfection.'
'Let's stop for a moment,' said Daniel. He sat down heavily on a sturdy-looking piece of outcropping machinery. It wasn't exactly comfortable, but right then he felt so bone-deep weary he could have gone to sleep on a bed of razor blades. Jacob glared down at him, an impatient frown on his dead white face.
'We have no time to waste, Daniel. There is still much the AIs want you to see.'
'Don't care. My head aches, my back's killing me, and my feet aren't talking to me. It's no good showing me anything impressive if I can't keep my eyes open long enough to focus on it.'
'Human weakness. You have no idea how good it is to have left all that behind me.'
'So,' said Daniel, looking wearily up at his father. 'What's it like being dead?'
'Uncomplicated. No more constraints, or inhibitions. I am free to do what is necessary, without the drawbacks of morality, honor, or compassion.'
'That's not what you brought me up to believe. You always said a man was nothing without honor. That it was honor which gave life purpose.'
'I have left such limiting nonsense behind me. Such human abstractions merely get in the way of efficiency.'
'Does that include emotions?' said Daniel quietly. 'Don't you feel anything anymore?'
'No,' said Jacob. 'There is no room in me for such weaknesses.'
