Extinction

comfort. They had come to do as they pleased. They came to ‘save’ us, but in the cavalier fashion a game warden might decide to ‘save’ a herd from over-grazing and thus deforestation by ‘thinning’ said herd. It was their implicit arrogance that angered me. I didn’t like being used haphazardly.

There was something deeper at work in my mind, however. I’d had enough time with these machines, quite possibly more contact with both the Nanos and the Macros than anyone else alive. I’d come to think they were related, somehow. They spoke the same machine language which we now called Basic. Between the simpler Macro version and the more advanced Nano version, it had undergone a dozen updates at some time in history, but it was still the same underlying language. The thing that made their components, the enigmatic duplication factories, looked the same and operated the same way. The only difference was a matter of scale. The factories that had squatted under the Macro domes of South America and the smaller units that I’d nursed like seedling plants back home on Andros Island were of the same design. The two robotic factions also displayed general attitudes which were remarkably similar.

I had plenty of time to theorize, as I sat trapped and staring, watching the disk of my world slowly rise up onto the forward wall again. I theorized that, perhaps, the Macros and the Nanos were related. Possibly, Earth had been caught up in a civil war of strange proportions. What would the Blues on their gas giant have to fight about? Well, perhaps they could not themselves leave their gravity-well, but they could send out their minions, both tiny and gross. If the Macros were simply a larger version of the Nanos, if they were descendants the same species-if you will-of robot, then why was one bent on science and defense and the other bent on destruction and exploitation? Had, possibly, a caste of Blue scientists declared war upon their military equivalents-or the reverse? What if Earth and a thousand other worlds were being overrun by their metal creations gone mad?

Possibly, they had never intended anything like this. Maybe they’d released these metal demons upon the universe without realizing what would happen. Like a kid who releases his first scripted internet-worm and watches in horror as it eats his parent’s laptop.

I didn’t care how the Blues had done it, not right then. I didn’t even care if they completely understood what they had done. But I did want to know why they had done it. Why had they lit a match and started a wildfire in this part of my galaxy?

I watched the forward wall. The march of golden beetles had reached the ceiling now, and one-by-one they slid off into oblivion. Each represented someone I’d come to think of as a friend, a comrade. It was hard to watch them being swallowed up by space. I knew them, many of them. They had all gone through hell. They were tough people-survivors. They’d fought heroically for Earth and won. What was their final reward? To be used as punching-bags for the next race circling another yellowy star out there somewhere?

They didn’t deserve this kind of treatment. Neither did I, and neither had my kids. I wanted, as I sat there, nothing more than to reach down a big hand into the thick atmosphere of the Blues’ home planet. I wanted to haul up one of those freaks, tearing it from the surface of its world. I would watch as it flipped about and slavered on my deck, with organs popping. I wanted to ask one as it died, decompressing in an expanding pool of its own juices, why the hell they had sent out twoflavors of robotic nightmare? Why two breeds of robot, one tiny and one huge? Why was one a heartless, microscopic plague and the other a race of marauding, destructive monsters? These creations of theirs had fought a devastating war over my world. They had apparently done so on a dozen other worlds, or perhaps a thousand others-or a million others. Hitler, Stalin, Tamerlane and Mao were all petty criminals next to the murderous monstrosity of the Blues. What madness had possessed them?

But my anger and my demands would have to wait. The Alamo wasn’t answering any more of my questions. Worse, the beer cans were out of reach. I tried to calm myself and think of the here and now. What would I do when I reached Earth and the Alamo put me in front of my people to explain myself?

I forced myself to think. There wasn’t much else to do while I rode back to Earth, a prisoner in my own ship.

Somewhere along the way, a plan began to form in my mind.

— 3-

When I came down to Andros, I was worried. Did the ground people know? How much did they know?

We’re screwed. That’s the thought that kept bubbling up in my mind. By we, I meant Star Force. We had a hodge-podge international force of nanotized troops. How loyal would they be without a fleet, without an invading enemy to fight against? Was everything I’d spent so many lives building up about to implode?

Alamo’s big, black hand descended with smooth speed. She dropped me off at the main base, at the command bunker. It was a steel, prefab building. We’d only just gotten a white coat of paint on it to keep the heat down. I knew they’d be in there-Crow’s Generals. I’d only met with them a few times, mostly online, and we’d never liked each other.

Overhead, the Alamo hovered, blotting out the sun from the sky. The men at the door saluted me. I smiled at them and tossed one back. Who knew, maybe it was my last chance to be treated by my marines with full respect. They eyed me and the Alamo with furtive glances. They tried to look calm, but they weren’t. They were good men, but their eyes were filled with concern and curiosity. They’d heard something. Whatever it was they’d heard, it hadn’t been good.

I threw open the command bunker’s double-doors and marched into the cool gloom. Air conditioners thrummed and computers murmured. I blinked, my eyes adjusting to the muted light after the blazing sands outside.

“Colonel Riggs?” said one of them. All three of Crow’s Generals were there. The one that had spoken was General Sokolov. He was a stout man with thick, black eyebrows that needed trimming. His black eyes were small, narrow and annoyed. He’d always been the biggest bastard of the lot. He sounded surprised to see me-and not the happy kind of surprised, either. Maybe he’d been expecting someone else. I decided not to ask him about it.

“None other,” I said. “I’m here on an important mission, men-ah, sirs.”

I approached them. One of those big table-surface computers, this one about the size of a pool table, filled the center of the room at hip-level. They leaned on it, hats tipped back and ties loosened. They looked like they’d been sweating it out, watching our confrontation with the Macro battle fleet. I couldn’t blame them for that.

They stared at me as I walked up. I could tell, just looking at them, that none of them had yet taken the nanite injections. I’d learned to notice tell-tale signs. Our kind didn’t slouch much. Nanite-enhanced troops stood as if our feet glided on air. As if Earth’s gravity had no effect on us-or as if it had only the light tug of the Moon. We didn’t slouch, because we were strong. We didn’t feel weighed down. We could get tired, but that was mostly in the mind. Our brains still needed sleep, dreams and downtime. But our bodies never seemed to run out of gas.

These men looked like they felt the full crushing weight of gravity and their lost power. They looked weak, soft and tired. None of them bothered to salute me. I didn’t bother to salute them, either.

General Sokolov spoke up again. “Do you care to explain yourself, Colonel?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

“Report then, by all means. Start off by telling me where the hell Admiral Crow is.”

I didn’t like his tone, but I tried to keep the flash of anger I felt off my face. It wouldn’t help anything now.

“I don’t know where Crow is. But the Macros have gone. We’ve negotiated a peace.”

“So I understand. What are the terms?” he asked, putting his butt against the pool table computer and crossing his arms.

“The Macros will be back in one year. We’re to give them tribute.”

“Tribute?” asked the General, with a sneering sound to his voice. I could tell already, he was gearing up to chew me out. I was the moron who had screwed the big, galactic pooch in the sky, and he was going to point it out to the world. I could see it in his eyes.