an intelligent machine he didn’t deserve? I knew that our close involvement on the return trip from Eden had somehow created a soft spot in my normally hard mind for Marvin. Was it because I had helped him survive and watched him grow and build himself, both mentally and physically? What would a psych officer say about that? I didn’t think I wanted to know.
“Open channel,” I said at last. “Marvin, this is Colonel Kyle Riggs. You are a part of Star Force, and I am your commanding officer. I want to thank you for your successful ruse played against the Macros. They were severely damaged by your action. By destroying Macro ships, you proved you are on the side of Star Force and the enemy of the Macros. They will never stop trying to destroy you now, while we will remain your loyal friends.”
I stopped to take a breath, but lifted my hand to prevent Jasmine from sending the message prematurely. “We are aware of your current circumstances. The enemy missiles chasing you probably can’t overtake you at this point if you keep running. We see that you are heading in the direction of Tyche ring. We’d prefer you stayed in the Solar System. We need your help against the Macro Fleet. Please respect our wishes in this regard. Riggs out.”
“Send it?” Major Sarin asked.
“Yeah, send it.”
“Kyle,” Sandra said, “why didn’t you order him to stop what he was doing? If he goes through that ring we don’t know what he might do.”
“Yeah,” I said. “But if I did order him to do that and he disobeyed, we’d have lost our hold over him. He’s not like a regular human soldier. He’s a free spirit, so to speak.”
Barrera shook his head.
“Would you like to add something, Lieutenant Colonel?” I asked him sharply.
“No, sir.”
I could tell he disapproved. They all did. I figured they didn’t understand Marvin the way I did. If he didn’t obey orders, they wanted to destroy him. But he wasn’t a recruit, or a normal robot. He was Marvin, and he was unique.
We planned our defenses while we waited for Marvin’s response. It took all day and hours into the night to come back. By that time, I’d reviewed our defensive posture. Fort Pierre was much stronger than it had ever been. New laser turrets had sprung up by the hundreds. We had at least a thousand guns on the island now, and most of them were on the east coast facing the dark trench known as the Tongue of the Ocean.
I’d built new defensive fortifications in the center of the island as well. If they brought in their ships again, they’d have a harder time of it now. The Macros had been building as well, I knew. I knew their rate of production was phenomenal. And the next time they came, they would have ground support from the sea.
Finally Marvin’s response came in. “Friend Riggs, I am so glad to learn of your continued survival. Upon my eventual return, I will accept the offered commission in the Star Force Fleet. Can you make me a captain, please? No matter what my rank may be, I will help Star Force defeat the Macros. I am exiting the system now to evade the enemy missiles, but I also have another purpose. Do not worry! I will not disappoint you. Marvin out.”
My staff exchanged disgusted glances which I did my best to ignore. I didn’t bother sending Marvin another message. He wouldn’t get it before he left the star system. We all watched as he flew through the Tyche ring and vanished some time later. The enemy missiles winked out as well. Our mines had destroyed them, but ignored Marvin due to his friend-or-foe signaling system.
Marvin had ignored my request to stay in the Solar System. That fact made my jaws flex and ache the more I thought about it. If he did wander back to Earth someday and came within my reach again, I wondered what I would do.
I knew that at the very least, I would clip his wings. Right now, I was leaning toward blasting him out of space.
— 29
The Macros finally marched upon Andros Island on Saturday, at about eleven in the morning. I don’t know what they had against Saturdays. I supposed they probably didn’t even know it was Saturday, nor did they understand our uniquely human concept of naming days in cycles. But even if they had understood the tradition, I was sure they wouldn’t care in the slightest. It felt wrong somehow to be killed by any enemy that didn’t even know what day it was. Whatever the case, the battle was forever afterward called the Saturday Assault, and it was destined to be one of the worst days of my life.
Saturday started off well enough. I wasn’t living in a tent anymore, and the island defenses looked stronger. The forest around the base was still a mess, however. Every third tree looked like it had been struck by lightning. But due to the miracles of Nano technology, we were able to rebuild our fortifications with startling speed. One of the keys had been my stockpiling of constructive nanites. Many of the laser turrets didn’t need to be rebuilt from scratch. The nanites, when properly applied, were like duct tape. You could fix just about anything with them. We broke out barrel after barrel, and every second turret on the beach was repairable without the delivery of a new projector unit from the factories.
We went farther than that, of course. We built new systems. A key element of my reinforced defense of Andros took shape in the form of three central forts located along the spine of the island. These were placed atop low hills that were no more than a hundred feet above sea level, but which in comparison to the rest of the island stood out as landmarks. With a little earth-moving and some nanite-alloy walls poured over the top of them, I soon had three strong-points bristling with new weaponry. The bright metal hemispheres resembled observatories with multiple telescopes poking out of their domes.
I’d realized I needed heavier guns immediately after our first engagement with the Macro fleet. No lesson had been drilled into my head more clearly that day. We had to outrange the enemy to keep them at bay. The new guns weren’t difficult to produce. The design couldn’t have been simpler. All I had to do was tell my factories to produce new ship guns at triple the normal size. The standard sensory systems and brainboxes served well enough. Then by hooking up a stack of several standard fusion generators big enough to power a ship, we were able to produce enough power to fire the weapons. We had some cooling problems at first, due to the greater size and power of the units, but some creative work-arounds took care of these details. The only real difficulty was producing mounts large enough to aim the huge guns and hold them on a precise target. In the end, I went for expediency here, too. I used standard ship’s arms, the same systems our tugs and ships used to put the weapons in place. I reasoned that if the black, cable-like arms could lift and position the projectors during construction, they could continue to do so, like a man using two hands to hold and aim a rifle. The result was less than perfect, as the aiming had some bounce and secondary retargeting was required. Not being built for such precision, the big construction arms tended to move slowly and after shifting targets, they would waver for a moment before locking into place. Still, given the time constraints, it was the best I could do.
On Saturday morning I stood at the bottom of the hill of Fort Two, the central fort and the largest of the three. Barrera stood near me, and Sandra was even closer.
“That is the weirdest-looking thing you’ve ever built, Kyle,” Sandra told me. “Except maybe for Marvin.”
“Marvin designed himself, really,” I replied.
Together we gazed up at the big projectors. The crews were testing them out, targeting and retargeting the Macro cruisers hanging over the eastern horizon. The black arms, the bright metal domes and the faintly golden projectors all functioned together smoothly enough, but they did appear bizarre to an observer.
“They look like a man with thin black arms,” Barrera said, “aiming a golden pen or something.”
I turned to Barrera with upraised eyebrows. “Such poetry!” I said. “Out of character, but well said, Lieutenant Colonel. Let’s hope they can hit what they aim at.”
“We should test fire them,” Barrera said. “The brainboxes need to learn their new tasks.”
I shook my head. “I’m not going to give the Macros a break. They seem to be on hold out there. I’m hoping they are waiting for a reinforcement fleet from the Venus ring. I hope they are going to wait out there for years. But I’m going to wait until all of these weird-looking forts are ready to fire. The moment they are, the brainboxes are going to get some on-the-job training.”
