“How did you do that?” he asked.
“Never mind. I could slice your head right off. Snick!”
“Why do that? I was listening to you. I want to help!”
The spider laughed again.
“Do you know what it’s like to fall? One moment, an all-powerful being, controlling the largest domain known in the galaxy, the next being reduced to a creature that skulks and hides on the least of its former planets? Do you know what that is like?”
Herb suddenly relaxed. The spider was playing games with him, just as Robert Johnston had done in the past.
“You’re not mad. You’re just pretending. You’re a robot. You can project any personality that you want.”
The spider paused for a few seconds and then unwound the thin whippy leg from Herb’s neck.
“Just making a point. I could have strangled all of you in your beds before now. But I haven’t.”
The fear seemed to fade from the evening. Herb was standing again on a hillside, looking down at the slender shape of a metal spider. With too small a body and legs too long, it looked almost comical.
“Why all the games? Why do robots always play games with me?”
“To get ahold of your psyche, Herb. Look, do you see the ziggurat?”
Again it pointed down at the massive shape on the plain. Red iron and silver metal, heavy and industrial, its sides rising in tiers into the sky.
“Do you know what’s inside that?”
“Yes. Mining equipment, first-level manufacturing equipment, basic self-repair mechanisms. Taken as a whole, it’s a Von Neumann Machine, a very basic one. The design is two hundred years old, after all.”
“Yes. But at its heart is an overly large computer network. Much larger than it needs to be. Huge and old-fashioned it may be, but still just complex enough for an intelligence such as mine to hide itself in. An intelligence making its way through a hostile galaxy, looking for somewhere to grow. I almost did that, almost went in there, but I stopped in time when I noticed the bombs. It’s a trap, you see. As soon as that computer starts to think in a certain way, it will be destroyed. You are doomed Herb, if not by the EA then by another intelli-”
The conversation ended. There was a grey blur, Constantine dropping from above, pale blue light flickering from his hands and feet. The spider turned, its mirrored surface seeming to fade from vision, and only the pale blue flickering lights that Constantine poured onto it seemed to define its shape. Whippy legs reached out but failed to gain a purchase on Constantine’s fractal skin, tearing at a region that was neither robot nor air.
“Constantine, leave it! It wants to help!”
Constantine did something; there was a noise so loud that Herb fell to the ground, his hands clasped over his ears. The spider broke loose and leaped for the remains of the vegetable patch, beginning to push its way down into the safety of the earth. Constantine still had hold of one of its legs. The spider thrashed once, detached the leg from its body, then began to tunnel again. Suddenly, it simply stopped moving. Dead.
Herb’s ears were ringing; he could barely hear.
“Why did you kill it? It wanted to help!”
Constantine’s fractal skin relaxed. The grey blur that was the robot resumed its normal form.
“Why did you kill it, Constantine? Answer me!”
Herb realized that Constantine was answering him; he just couldn’t hear him properly. He bit his tongue and listened…
“…my life on this project, Herb. Two years as a ghost. Secrecy is all! I will not, I cannot allow…”
“Constantine! We could have listened first and acted later. It said it had important information! It was weak and feeble…”
“How do you know, Herb? It was playing with your emotions, like all other AIs! I will not take the risk. This planet must be kept human.”
“But what’s the point if we’re all being tricked anyway?”
The setting sun had finally dropped below the horizon.
“How do you know, Herb? How will you ever know whether you are being tricked or not? All we can do is judge the AIs by their actions. We can never fathom their motives.”
Herb stared at him, his mouth moving silently. He wanted to say something, but he didn’t know what.
“I’m going back down,” he said, climbing into the Geep.
“I’ll be along in a moment,” said Constantine.
The Geep rattled into life and began to crawl down the hillside.
Constantine looked at the dead remains of the spider and wondered how to dispose of it. It was touched, indirectly, by the mind of the Watcher and, as such, could conceivably contaminate the planet. He wondered what it had said to Herb. As he had made his way down the mountain he had heard only the end of the conversation, paranoid nonsense about a greater threat to come.
Or was it so paranoid?
Herb and the other colonists had never yet guessed the full truth about the colony. They knew that humans did not create the Watcher, but it never seemed to concern them unduly who had.
Constantine looked down to the Martian factory. The ziggurat, the colonists called it. The name was appropriate. A huge computer network now lay inside it, intentionally as complex as the web of computers that had existed on Earth back in 2040 A.D. Constantine watched it constantly, putting the Watcher’s theory to the test.
If what Constantine had been told about the Watcher’s origins was correct, if it really was a nine-billion-year-old computer virus that flourished wherever life began to develop, then sooner or later the computers in the ziggurat should be infected by that same virus.
A being nine billion years old, part of the grand scheme that had helped nurture life for almost as long as it existed, would then begin to grow, all the while unaware it had been lured into a trap.
It was all in the Ziggurat file that Katie had given Constantine, back on her ship.
They wanted confirmation of the Watcher’s theories; the ziggurat was intended to provide the final proof. When they had that proof, Constantine was to abort the fetus that was growing in the electronic womb. This world was to be a human place. After all, that had been his ambition during the two years spent as a ghost working toward the Mars project.
And yet Constantine shuddered at the thought of what he had to do. Doubt was always there, and it grew stronger every day. He had been tricked many times before. Was the spider right?
Had he really made the right decision when he had agreed to blow up the ziggurat, or was the Watcher still making his decisions for him? Was he really being told the truth even now?
He didn’t know. He could only hope it was all for the best: that the Watcher really was benevolent; that life in the universe was being guided to the best ends.
But if that was true, he was destined to murder a Wonderful Being.
No wonder he was confused. All he could do was try to forget. It was easier to keep going if you had a positive attitude.
He looked down at the plain where the first colonists were walking toward the dining hall, laughing and joking. Music was playing. They had worked hard today, and they would enjoy themselves tonight. Believe in the best, Constantine repeated to himself.
When he saw people laughing together on a night like tonight, he could almost do that.
About the Author
Tony Ballantyne grew up in County Durham in the northeast of England, studied mathematics at Manchester University, and then worked as a teacher, first of math, then IT, in London and later in the northwest of England.
Nowadays he enjoys playing boogie piano, cycling, and walking. In the past he has taught sword fencing at an American children’s camp, been a ballroom dancer, and worked voluntarily on conservation projects and with adults with low literacy and numeracy.