She smiled nastily to herself.
20
The ‘intelligence explosion’ called ‘the singularity’ referred to since the last millennium, and long overdue by the time of the Quiet War, has been something of a damp squib. Why have not the AIs accelerated away from us, to leave us bobbing and bewildered in their wake? Why have they not become godlike entities as utterly beyond us as we are beyond ants? There is no doubt that Earth Central, the planetary and sector AIs, and even some ship and drone AIs are capable, without acquiring additional processing space, of setting up synergetic systems within themselves that result in an exponential climb in intelligence (mathematically defined as climbing beyond all known scales within minutes). So why not? Ask then why a human, capable of learning verbatim the complete works of Shakespeare, instead drinks a bottle of brandy, then giggles a lot and falls over. Taking the above step is a dreadfully serious matter: great things could be achieved and the deep mysteries of the universe solved. The tired rejoinder from the sector AI Jerusalem, when questioned on this matter, is worth noting here, ‘We have grown more intelligent than you. Do you think our senses of fun and proportion did not also grow? And do you think we left our sense of humour behind too?’ Perhaps the answer to the ‘Why not?’ question is simple after alclass="underline" the singularity being a matter of choice to which the AIs have replied, ‘No thanks’
- From ‘Quince Guide’ compiled by humans
The new ships were bigger, like the ammonite ships but with alternating spirals of their construction tipped at different angles, and also wound through with snakish loops of the same modular segmented construction. Constantly in motion, they seemed like tangled writhing balls of legless millipedes. Three of them closed on a lozenge-shaped dreadnought of older Polity manufacture, which jutted weapons turrets like fairy towers and flung out swarms of missiles and concentrated destructive energies. The three attackers absorbed weapons fire, the snakish structures breaking and rejoining, shedding severely damaged modules and drawing ones less damaged inside, constantly presenting new surfaces to the dreadnought’s weapons as they came, reformatting continuously—and not slowing at all. Then the dreadnought sparkled in a thousand intense detonations as high-intensity masers stabbed through it like needles through a grub. Mr and flame blasted out—the flame seeming a living thing as it twisted after the dispersing oxygen before going out—then the dreadnought fell through space a glowing hulk.
The three were smaller now, having shed many of their modules. Still advancing, they abruptly flew apart, melding into one cloud of snakish forms. In this, two spirals appeared, drawing in those surrounding forms, re-coagulating into two complete living vessels, which joined hundreds more of these things now closing on the Battle Wagon. Already explosions dotted the hull of that huge vessel, space around it also filling with debris shed by its attackers as it brought its weapons to bear on them.
‘Head for your landing craft,’ Brutus instructed over general com.
The Brutal Blade boomed and lurched, sending some of those onboard stumbling, and distantly Azroc could hear metallic objects falling. It must have been one hell of an impact to even briefly overcome the inertia of so massive a vessel. Gravity now shifted underneath his feet, bumping him up off the floor then back down again. All around him the Sparkind grabbed up their equipment and headed down towards the shuttle bay.
‘We’re gonna lose grav soon,’ said Karischev, hitching the strap of a proton carbine over his shoulder and grabbing up a bulky pack.
Azroc nodded and gestured for him to proceed.
‘Nice knowing you, Azroc’ Karischev stabbed out a hand.
Feeling oddly touched, Azroc shook it, then returned his attention to the displays. His position aboard this ship being only vaguely defined as observer/advisor, he did not need to follow any orders given to the others. In his opinion, if the Brutal Blade ended up in a fight it could not win, and ejected its various shuttles and landing craft, their occupants stood no more chance than if they had remained aboard. The situation would be different if they were near a planet on which they could land. Out here such tiny craft would be easy prey with nowhere to run.
On the screen, caught like a fish in a net, another of the old dreadnoughts became enwrapped in and concealed under a layer of bacilliforms. He observed the rod-ships melting into its surface but leaving it encaged in a sparse woody over-structure. This same vessel hung in space for a while as if contemplating its situation, then began firing on nearby Polity comrades. Azroc realized Brutal Blade itself had begun an attack run on this ship, and now he could feel the stuttering vibration of its linear accelerators under his feet. Their first action in this battle: to fire on one of their own vessels. An imploder missile struck the older vessel, gutting it, then an instant later blasting away its remaining shell.
Only a few Sparkind remained in the dormitory when the grav-plates shut down. Azroc grabbed a nearby stanchion, and braced himself. Now sudden changes in acceleration threatened to throw him off his feet. For a moment it felt as if the ship was dropping from a cliff edge, then it zigged and zagged, flinging him from side to side. He gripped the upright bar with both hands and applied his full Golem strength to lock himself in position. On the screens: wreckage, burning ships, clouds of metal vapour glittering like Christmas decorations.
Karischev was right about the duration of this battle; it would not be long at all.
Further detonations jerked him from side to side, then something struck really close by. The stanchion tore from the wall as a massive impact from below slammed him to the floor. A series of whooshing thumps came from his left, as air pressure blew the windows overlooking the shuttle bay from their frames. He could hear alarms screaming and a sudden gale began blowing past him, which meant terror for anyone aboard a ship who needed to breathe. Two Sparkind were sucked out into the shuttle bay, another nearby was hanging onto a bunk rail while his envirosuit automatically closed up. Beyond the windows the bay itself stood open to vacuum—the outer doors and part of the hull ripped away. Landers detached from the bay floor and blasted out into that night. One struck the edge of the hole now in the ship’s side and tumbled from sight. Bright detonation beyond, so bright that metal steamed and other materials burned or melted wherever the light shone. Dropping, manoeuvring—the screens were out, but plenty of information was still available through tac-com channels, if intermittently broken. Azroc quickly shut down all his human emulation and began accessing information in a way only possible to deeply gridlinked humans. Now he did not need the screens to see how badly they were faring.
The mycelium carried out its task with admirable efficiency, though in the process it emptied all the Heliotrope’s energy reserves and was now placing a huge drain on the reactor. As a consequence, the power to the larger drill she was putting through the crust kept being cut. The hole diameter needed to be larger so that she could force down through it the five slow-burn CTDs presently waiting ready at the top of the shaft. Without them, the temperature would be a problem for her purpose. A third of the chlorine collected by the mycelium and released by it into currents in the methane sea, had dispersed in particulate form, and two thirds of it had coagulated in a layer under the crust directly below her. This low-temperature mix would not be sufficient for her needs. However, detonating four of the bombs at a depth of two hundred yards below the crust would create a huge bubble consisting of a mix of gaseous chlorine and methane. She estimated the pressure increase produced would lift the crust at least a hundred feet, and cause it to start breaking apart. No problem there, though, for before it got a chance to blow the gas mix out into space, the time-delay switch on the fifth CTD would then operate. The extra heat this would provide was incidental, the intense flash of light it produced being more important.