“Then what are we sitting here for!?” cried Stoor. “It can kill us if it wants to! It probably will after what you’ve done to its damned machine!”
“No, I don’t think so . . .” said Kartaphilos. “The Guardian needs you. All of you. Or it would not have taken such care to keep you alive.”
“You sound as if you know what’s going on,” said Varian.
“Not much, I’m afraid. But there is some history which might shed light on the problem,” said Kartaphilos. “Listen.”
Everyone drew up chairs and focused upon the strange robot. He began his tale as one might while passing the night around a comforting fire:
Although calculation was rough, the Final War had taken place more than two thousand years ago. There existed only one nation powerful enough to challenge the onslaught of the Riken forces as they expanded their imperialist doctrine throughout the world: the Republic of Genon. There was reluctance, of course, to engage the Riken, since it would mean a global conflict of unheralded proportions; it would be Armageddon. But the reports of Riken atrocities and conquests increased, until Genon, by nature a peace-loving nation, had no choice.
They began the struggle by heavily arming and defensing all major population centers in the Southern Hemisphere. This was done primarily through the construction of the Citadels—vast self-sufficient cybernetic systems controlled by the Guardian Series of AI machines. One of the most important population centers was an industrial city called Haagendaz, which was located upon the planet’s richest deposits of the ore needed to produce Thorium.
The ore deposits were the key to victory in the South, since it was a necessary isotype in the production of fuels, warheads, and other essential war supplies. For as any military tactician will tell you, it is not how strong your armies are which wins the battles, but how strong are your lines of supply. The Riken knew this lesson well and devised an ingenious plan for eliminating lines of supply. Their Strike Force always carried along great machines—heavily defended and in the Juggernaut class of war machines in their own right—which produced all Riken supplies as the column moved through conquered territory. Huge, they were, and mobile: processors, ore crushers, furnaces and smelteries, reactors and accelerators; the great machines moved along with the rest of the Riken forces.
This tactic worked well in the Northern Hemisphere, where the Riken war machine plundered each nation as it moved, processing and providing for its forces all the fuel and ordnance necessary. But to successfully engage the Genonese in the South, their forces would have to be spread evenly, though thinly, across the entire Hemisphere. The key, then, was an unending source of raw material—Thorium—which could be taken at Haagendaz. By taking Haagendaz, the Riken would wage terrible war in the South and eventually crush Genon.
And so the armies clanked and ground their way to the desert plains before the industrial city, crushing into each other and filling the air with death and poison. Several titanic battles were waged inconclusively at Haagendaz where the Ironfields now remain. The city was obliterated, but the Citadel survived.
Riken espionage knew that the Citadel was the final key because of one important fact. Realizing the supreme importance of the Thorium-ore deposits, the Genonese sealed off all entrances to the mines and set robot charges throughout the depths, all the way up to the entrances. It was a masterpiece of construction and the detonation or access to the mines lay within the data banks of the Guardian. Buried within a maze of scramble codes lay the key to the Thorium. If Guardian was destroyed, so with it went the Thorium.
And so, the assault of the Citadel was a fine and delicate thing. To do so, the Riken must successfully overwhelm the Genon defenses, yet leave the AI intact. They must gain entrance to the Citadel, then extract the program-key from the depths of the AI’s brain.
As a diversion, the Riken threw their Northern Hemisphere Strike Force into an all-out attack on all Genon positions to the north of the Citadel. They ground through the part of the World known as the Slaglands, leaving nothing in their wake but a black slab of total annihilation. Genon forces converged, met the Riken armies in the North, and slowly halted the savage assault.
But there was a price to be paid. Simultaneously, the Riken hurled the rest of their forces at the Citadel. While the battle in the North went well for the Genonese, the defense of the Citadel faltered under the surgical accuracy of Riken aircraft and ground forces. Commando raiders and vast waves of dronelike warriors ate into the legions of Genon defenders. The battle raged on for many days, with Genon reluctantly giving ground and position to the Riken armies. The only hope of saving the Citadel was the arrival of reinforcements from the northern conflict.
But there was great difficulty in keeping in touch with the Northern Forces because of the sophisticated jamming techniques of Riken technology. Added to this was the destruction of all communication and surveillance satellites by Riken aircraft. There was no way to ensure urgent communication with the Northern Forces, no way to know if the Citadel would receive needed, additional troops.
And so a system of robot couriers was dispatched from Guardian to contact the North. Each day, new expeditionary teams were sent out in the hope that one of the teams would break through and reach the Command. Kartaphilos was a member of one such team, which left during the final days of the siege. The small aircraft in which he traveled was shot down soon after clearing the main forces outside the Citadel. All members of the team were destroyed except for Kartaphilos, who crawled away from the wreckage severely damaged.
What occurred next is sketchy, due to the robot’s memory loss; it is obvious that he was able to seek shelter and allow time for his self-repairing circuits to electronically heal him. Kartaphilos still
