The scene jumped again to show a huge, deformed city that spread out to cover most of one side of a planet. Its silvery grey towers reached upwards to the stars and the silver-grey hearts of the fleet of spaceships hovering above it.
“I call this the Necropolis,” said the real Robert. “On this one the Enemy AI got the design of the VNMs wrong. The city was abandoned before it was finished. Never mind the fact that it meant abandoning several million half grown human clones in the foundations. The Necropolis. You’ll also notice the fleet of spaceships hovering above. They stopped reproducing when their cargo never arrived.”
Herb looked at the planet and felt sick. “There is no way anyone could have gone down there. Was I down there?”
“Two copies of us went. Only one pair came back. I think both of the pairs traveled up to the top of the space elevator. They got stuck there and had to guess which way to jump. One pair guessed wrongly.”
The scene shifted again. They were following a long dark line through space.
“What is it?” asked Herb after four minutes of watching the hypnotic movement.
“Oh, I like this one,” said Robert. “What happened was this. They dropped a single VNM on a planet, rather like you did on the one below us. The only difference was that this one worked.”
Herb gave a tolerant sigh.
“Anyway. The VNM reproduced, making copy after copy of itself until the planet had been converted into something rather like that mess out there.”
Johnston gestured toward the spaceship’s door. “Okay. So we can both visualize that bit. Now, what happened next was the clever part. You’ve got a planet which is now nothing more than a mass of mechanical bodies held together by their own gravity. Okay. Now the creatures at the equator begin to walk toward the poles. When they get there they begin to fuse together. More and more creatures arrive and the extremes of the planet begin to stretch out into space. Keep it up for long enough, and this is what you’re left with. Clever, eh? You never thought of that, did you?”
Herb shrugged. “Yeah? Probably because it’s pointless?”
Johnston laughed. “Pointless eh? Have you considered what would happen if you dropped the line that was formed by that process on another planet?”
Herb froze.
“Tell you what, I’ll show you.”
The picture in the view tank changed again. A fiery red line could be seen burning through the grey sky of some planet. Herb wasn’t sure if he could detect the patterns of cities on the planet’s surface.
“Of course, you can’t even shoot it down if it’s coming toward you,” Johnston whispered, suddenly next to Herb’s ear.
The view changed again. Herb gave a shout. “There were people there! Humans!”
Robert shrugged and returned to his seat.
“Don’t worry about it. They weren’t sentient. That’s an important point: they never seem to have had the nerve to allow genuine humans to develop inside the Enemy Domain. Anyway, the weapon you saw is obsolete. The AI has perfected fractal branching. Look at this one.”
The view shifted again so that Herb was looking down at an enormous snowflake, framed against the black night and the piercing grey stars.
“It’s got a surface area of just under a billion klicks squared and it masses about half that of Earth. Just imagine what would happen if they grew one of these things in Earth’s orbit. Can you imagine the planet hitting that? It would be like passing through a cheese grater.”
Herb was shaking his head slowly. Unconsciously, he had been mouthing one word over and over as he watched the screen. No. No. No. The silent words became a whisper.
“No. It’s too big. We can’t fight that.”
“Oh, we haven’t seen anything yet. That was just the beginning. Sit back and relax. Now we’re going to try to appreciate the scale of the thing. Let’s get an idea of the true size of the Enemy Domain.”
The view flickered again. The camera panned across seven humps of some strange bioengineered creature, then froze. Johnston was studying Herb’s wide-eyed face with an expression of vague sympathy.
“Actually, before we do that, I’ll just fetch you another bottle of whisky. I think you’re going to need it.”
Herb didn’t know how long he sat before the viewing area.
They didn’t seem to care, that was the problem. Everything in the Enemy Domain was just building material. Planets, rocks, asteroids: everything was converted into yet more self-replicating machines. Herb saw view after view of cities and spaceships, snowflakes and chains, but most frequently of all, endless seas of VNMs all scuttling over each other, just like the sea of them below the spaceship in which he sat. It seemed to Herb as if the whole universe was now being converted into self-replicating machines, and the only thing he could think was, Will there be anywhere left for me to stand?
But that wasn’t the worst thing. The worst thing was that the Enemy Domain was also filled with half-grown human clones. On planet after planet it seemed that whatever controlled the Domain had set them growing and then suddenly just lost interest: a bubble of space two hundred light years across filled with billions upon billions of half-grown human beings.
All abandoned.
Eventually, the show ended. Herb said nothing. Robert gradually brought the lounge lights back up and knelt down to pick up the splintered walnut shells that lay on the carpet beneath his seat. He gathered them up, dropping them on his white handkerchief, which he carefully carried into the kitchen where he flapped out its contents into the sink. When he returned to the lounge, Herb was still sitting on the sofa staring at nothing.
“Big, isn’t it?”
“I don’t want to fight it anymore. I’d rather take my chances in the Oort cloud.” Herb’s voice was a dull monotone.
“Oh, don’t be like that. I’m sure you’ll have no worries.”
Herb laughed hollowly. “We’re doomed, aren’t we? There’s no way we can defeat that. All those spaceships, all those machines. Where did they come from?”
“Earth.”
“Why are they attacking us? Did you say Earth?”
“Of course. It doesn’t take a genius to work that out, does it? You’ve seen the technology. It doesn’t look any different from that of Earth’s, does it? Herb, you’ve even seen pictures of one of your alter egos wandering around a shopping center! How alien do you think that is? You’ve got an imagination the size of a muffin! You saw roads and cars! You even saw bloody cows! Who did you think was in charge of the Enemy Domain? Martians?”
Herb was blushing with embarrassment. “I don’t know. It’s just…I mean…How can it be from Earth? How did it get so big? Why didn’t we hear about it?”
Johnston jumped onto the coffee table and threw his hands up in despair.
“Oh, for goodness’ sake, Herb! Use your brain! You should have been expecting this! Everyone should have been expecting this! That’s one of the reasons why we have an Environment Agency! Come on, think!”
Herb shook his head. He felt too overwhelmed by it all to react. Johnston leaned down and spoke in a softer tone.
“The only surprise should be that it didn’t happen sooner. Good grief, Herb, we have let self-replicating machines loose upon the galaxy! Self-replicating machines! Haven’t you ever stopped to think what that implies? You’ve already seen first-hand the damage that can occur when they go wrong! Look at that planet you destroyed! All it takes is one machine with above average Artificial Intelligence to get loose, an AI with a grasp of how to build a warp drive, and there’s no telling where it will all end.”
Johnston jumped down from the table and knelt at Herb’s feet.
“I mean, come on. We’ve seen it happen on Earth! Look what happened when DIANA tried to build that space elevator back in 2171. Public outcry, mass protests. Some saboteurs even managed to get hold of a batch of mothballed stealth suits and used them to get close enough to try and blow it up. And all the while, unbeknownst to the protestors, the VNMs designed to anchor the thing to the planet were out of control. They just kept going down and down, burrowing into the Earth. They were tough to stop, too. Those things were built to be strong. If the EA hadn’t figured out a solution in time, the whole planet could have been converted to something close to adamantium from the inside out. Now, just put that problem on a galactic scale. That’s what we have to deal with.”