Battle Station

— 16

“What is this thing, sir?” Sloan asked me. “Some kind of freaking jinni? We heard about those while we were out in the deserts on earth, you know. The locals believed in them. But I never did. Until now…”

I glanced at him, wondering about aliens and earthly legends. Could the two be connected? I’d always thought those fake documentary shows on the topic were full of crap, but now, I wasn’t entirely sure. What was a demon, after all, but an alien?

“I don’t know, Sloan. But it isn’t trying to digest us right now, so let’s quietly move closer to the dome.”

All of us helped one another out of the sifting pile of ash the region had become. Kwon lifted a man out with each of his arms, but it took four more men to pull him up in turn. We stayed in a tight group and walked calmly toward the dome. It was still dark, but not pitch-black, and we could see the shimmer of the smooth walls ahead.

“What are you getting from Introspection now, Marvin?” I asked. I almost whispered the question, not wanting to piss it off again.

“Anger is dropping in volume now,” Marvin said. “Regret has risen, and possibly crested.”

“What do you mean by dropping and crested? Doesn’t it just send one concept at a time?”

“Not exactly, sir. It provides a list of variable intensities. Mixing them in a blend, I can read its emotive state.”

“Is that all it does? Transmit emotions? What about concepts? You must have sent it something akin to words in order for it to understand my meaning.”

“Yes, that is true. But I don’t think we’ve yet become interesting enough for it to communicate with us at that level.”

I thought about that. I supposed, to a huge thing like this, we were like prissy insects, taking ourselves very seriously. I was glad it wasn’t an abusive monster, as it might have enjoyed our pain. Fortunately, it seemed capable of empathy.

Now that the winds had died down to a whistling, swirling mess instead of a thundering hurricane, I found it easier to think. The being knew it had released the Macros, or so it would seem. It felt regret for doing so. I suddenly had a thought.

“Marvin, is this creature really talking to us? I don’t feel like I’m having a conversation.”

“The entity doesn’t view us as worthy of notice. It does not consider this interaction to be a conversation between peers.”

I snorted. “That’s great. What are we, then?”

“Difficult to describe.”

“Try me.”

“I’ve made a study of humans. They have two essential states of mind.”

“Two states? That’s all?” I asked.

“Yes. One you refer to as sleep. The other is primary, and might be described as consciousness.”

“Are you telling me we are talking to a sleeping Blue?”

“No, but from its point of view, we are errant thoughts in its unconscious mind. We are too small to be thinking individuals. We are concepts-ideas.”

I rubbed crusted filth from my visor. This was one strange beast, and I’d dealt with a number of them. “Let me see if I have this straight, it thinks we are ideas in the back of its mind?”

“That is a good analogy. Remember, it is not human. It is not remotely like you in composition. I find this interchange between the two of you to be fascinating.”

“I’m so happy for you,” I said.

We now stood at the edge of the shimmering dome. Above us was a hanging mass of smoky nothing, which I knew to be the guts of a daydreaming Blue. Inside that dome-God only knew what was in there waiting for us.

“We should go inside, Colonel,” Kwon said. “Before this crazy thing gets mad again.”

“Tell the men to take a rest. I want everyone to drink some water and get their heart-rates down.”

Kwon walked among the surviving marines-there were only fourteen that still drew breath. He shouted at them, ordering them sternly to relax. This seemed counterproductive, but I wasn’t a sergeant.

Sloan walked up to me and engaged me in a private channel. I made the connection.

“What are we doing sir? Sight-seeing?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m having so many thoughts, so many questions. This thing we are inside of-this is the core of everything. Somehow, these creatures started this whole thing. Without its science, choices and mistakes, you and I would still be back on Earth, surfing the web and watching sports channels.”

“Yeah? You think so?”

“Yes, I do. There are so many questions to ask it.”

“It isn’t like you to overthink things, Colonel. Let’s ask it when we come back out of the dome. After we finish the mission.”

My head swirled with thoughts of my lost family, of the millions of people who had died back home and in space-and the hundreds of them I’d met personally. But I nodded. He had an excellent point. He never got off-target. Maybe that’s why he’d lived so long among the doomed souls of Riggs’ Pigs.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s head inside.”

The first thing I noticed was the instant silence. Stepping under the dome was like entering a cool, calm world. Cut off from the outside completely, I could feel the barrier as I passed through it. The sensation was like walking through some kind of plastic film, as if I’d been swallowed in bubble-wrap. We pushed inward and it pushed back. But we persisted and it soon gave way.

I knew the dome was designed to allow slowly moving things to walk through, allowing the entry of worker Macros without allowing projectiles to follow. Once past the barrier, we stood in a gloomy world. A machine hulked in front of us, dimly lit by internal sources. It was illuminated by many pairs of suit lights from my marines as more of them came through to stand with me.

I could hear the big machine that squatted under the dome now. It sort of thrummed. It was a deep, steady, ominous sound. It gave me a chill to hear it again. I hadn’t been this close to a Macro factory for years.

“Marvin, are you here? I don’t see any super-brain Macros.”

“No,” Marvin said. “I’m disappointed. The factory seems to be undefended.”

“Well, I can’t say that I’m unhappy about that. Slither up to the machine and do your magic, robot.”

Marvin was already slithering. He moved closer to the factory than any of the men. I think Kwon was the only man who may have seen a Macro machine this big before in person. The rest of them were standing suspiciously close to the edge of the dome.

“Shouldn’t we shoot it, or something, Colonel?” Sloan asked.

“Negative Captain. That monstrosity is our goal. If we can capture it and make it work for us, we will have more production power than every machine back on Earth combined.”

Sloan seemed nervous. “Should you be talking that way about it-right here, sir?” he said in a near whisper.

I chuckled, but I knew he wasn’t just being paranoid. In the past, Macros had tracked me down in particular, following our radioed messages. There was evidence they listened to us all the time. Even if they didn’t usually say much-they were listening.

“I don’t think this thing works like that. I expect it’s more like a big version of one of our factories. Not overly bright, but able to follow precise programming.”

Sloan muttered something about hoping I knew what I was doing. I didn’t take offense. I’d heard that one before.

“Any progress, Marvin?” I asked.

“I’m having protocol-engagement problems,” he said. “The channel opens, then closes immediately.”

I grimaced. As an ex-programmer, I knew all about that. Often when writing an original piece of software for networked devices, the most difficult part was to establish the initial communication. You had to get everything exactly right, any mistake would cause it to abort or crash. In this case, we could only change and examine the software on one side of the devices trying to synch up with each other. Or, to be more precise, Marvin could.

“Do you think you are using the right version of the protocol?”

“Standard Macro binary,” Marvin said.

I looked at him. Was he getting testy? It wasn’t like Marvin. But then again, when software didn’t work for no apparent reason, the experience could drive anyone mad with frustration.

“Try different versions.”

Up until now, all ten cameras had been locked onto various parts of the huge machine in front of us. Now, one of them swung to me. The lens refocused with a tiny whirring sound. “Why would this unit not be upgraded to the latest version of the communications software?”

My armor prevented me from shrugging. “Just try it.”

“It will require a complete reinitialization.”

“What will that take? A second or two? Come on, Marvin.”

He turned all his cameras back to the Macro factory. “Done,” he said.

“You got a response?”

“Yes. But it may have been a delayed acceptance of my earlier requests.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said. Marvin was like a lot of touchy engineering types. He hated to be wrong, especially about something technical. I could understand that, as he was a mass of technological wizardry himself. It probably hurt his pride.

“Should I attempt to make it bring down the dome?” he asked.

“No!” Sloan said quickly. He was standing at our side.

Marvin and I looked at him.

“Uh, if we brought down the shield, the Macros and that crazy cloud out there could get in. We need this defensive position, sir.”

“Agreed,” I said. “Let’s try something simple, Marvin. Have it produce a mass of constructive nanites.”

Marvin was quiet for a time. “Program rejected,” he said. “Symbol table limit exceeded. Unknown identifier. Errors too numerous-”

“I get it, Marvin,” I said. “Hmm. I should have thought of this. It is similar to our nanite factories, but not identical. It doesn’t seem to know much about nanite technology. I suppose that makes sense. If the Macros had been able to produce nanites, they would have sent different weapons systems against us. Let’s go easy on it. Tell it to build me a block of ferrous alloy. A cube.”

“What is the volume of this cube to be?”

“Let it decide. But I want to see what it can do in two minutes time.”

We waited then, as Marvin formed the program and transmitted the source code.

“Program accepted. Engaged.”

“That was easy,” Kwon said, stumping up close.

I politely kept quiet. Computers always looked easy to operate when they worked. We waited the two minutes. It seemed like a very long time. My marines had just begun to wander the place, when a massive clang sounded in the enclosed space.

“Could that be my cube?” I asked, heading to the output tray.

When I saw it, I gaped in amazement. A dozen marines joined me. There, in the tray, was a perfectly-formed gunmetal-gray cube. It had to be six feet in every dimension-maybe more.

“Is that thing solid, sir?” Sloan asked.

“Yes Captain,” I said. “I do believe it is.”

“It must weigh more than a ton,” Kwon said.

Marvin drifted near and tapped at the block with his tentacles. The action made an odd, tinging sound. “I’d estimate the weight at fifty-four tons,” he said. “That would be at one G of course, and an assumed steel density factor of point-two-eight.”

“Sounds good, Marvin,” I said. “What I want to know, is if it can make something useful.”

I thought hard for a few minutes, shooing the others away. Not having nanites to work with was a serious problem. With nanites, you could shape and mold what you wanted. This system produced less malleable output, and you had to know exactly what you wanted from the start. I wondered how much this technological advantage had helped us in our many battles with the Macros-I suspected the effect was a large one. I also wondered why the Macros had larger factories that produced less sophisticated output. It was like they were one step back on some technological tree.

I shook my head and paced in my armor. I had to get my mind focused on the problem. We were at the bottom of a Macro mining pit, inside a dome and apparently inside the bowels of a Blue. We’d captured the factory, but had yet to secure it, or get anything useful out of it. I had to capitalize on this win and keep the enemy from recapturing it. But how?

My initial plan had been to get the factory up into space, where we could add it to the rest. Maybe I could even relocate it on Hel, and use it to start building my battle station. Such fantasies were evaporating quickly, now that I was face to face with this monstrous machine. It was as big as a good-sized office building. A hundred feet tall, and nearly twice as much in diameter. Every engine I had couldn’t lift it off the surface of this world. No wonder, I thought, the Macros built everything big.

Turning back to the machine, I decided to experiment. It couldn’t build something that included smart metal, or a brainbox. Such elements required nanotech. But it could build something like a laser projector for me.

“Marvin, I’m going to disconnect and remove my laser projector. I want this machine to make two new ones of similar design, but I want them to be about ten times the size and power. Make sure it increases the cooling system portion to about double what my suit projector comes equipped with. I’ll also need a generator unit that is powerful enough to operate the projector. Make sure the generator comes with insulated connection cables-I know the Macros tend to build bare-wire systems. Can you do all that?”

“Of course, but I cannot guarantee the quality of the results. It will depend on the available supplies of certain materials.”

“Right. The machine can recycle this steel block, if that helps.”

“That will not be helpful. The available quantity of holmium and erbium is the controlling factor.”

“Just give it a try, will you?”

Marvin was quiet for a moment. “Done.”

The big machine began to groan and thrum again. I looked up at it in surprise.

“I didn’t give this thing my unit to examine yet,” I said. The Nano machines generally worked on a duplication principle. To start a new design, you put some finished component into the input box, and it tried to build the same object.

“Unnecessary. This unit is equipped with external sensory systems. It has already scanned your technological devices and is capable of duplicating most of them.”

I nodded, impressed. Maybe Macro tech wasn’t entirely inferior to Nano tech.

“In that case, we can start working on the next elements of the system.”

Marvin and I spent nearly an hour developing the program and arguing about our supplies of various elements. We have plenty of the rare earths required for laser construction, but we were low on palladium, promethium and neodymium. These materials were needed in the construction of fusion generators. I pondered the problem. I could build a stack of guns, but not enough generators to power them. I decided in the end to build in the Macro tradition: big and impressive.

Kwon and Sloan became bored with patrolling the perimeter and came to watch. Kwon asked the first question.

“How long until you finish, sir? I would like to get out of here.”

“Understood, Sergeant. But it will be a while. Another hour at least.”

Sloan asked the next question. “Sir…what in the heck are you building?”

I flipped my visor up, wiped sweat from my face and smiled at him. Then it flipped it back down. The unit was still in a combat stance, and I didn’t want to lose my vision due to a weapons discharge.

“I’m building a tank, Captain. A very big one. We are going to ride it out of here. It will have cannons to destroy any Macros that try to stop us and a steel hide thick enough to keep our windy friend Mr. Blue from pushing us around.”