‘Please. It wasn’t like that …’
A.A. Catto’s voice hardened.
‘You were running away. You were deserting us. You’ve proved yourself to be the very worst of all the cowards and traitors that I’ve unearthed in this place. You were our friend, Nancy, and now you have betrayed us.’
Nancy felt cold and numb. She began to tremble all over.
‘What… what are you going to do to me?’
‘I’m going to be merciful with you, Nancy.’
‘Merciful?’
‘We have had some good times with you, Nancy. We will not insist that you suffer.’
Nancy spread her hands in a simple gesture.
‘Don’t kill me.’
‘You know you can’t expect that.’
‘Please.’
‘We are showing you all the mercy that we can.’
‘I don’t understand. What do you mean?’
‘I’m going to kill you myself, my love.’
Nancy bit her lip. She took another pace back. A.A. Catto squeezed the trigger. The last thing that Nancy noticed was that the gun was inlaid with tiny emeralds.
***
‘I see that you’re now awake.’
Jeb Stuart Ho struggled with the numbness in his head. His normally pristine system was permeated with the knockout gas. He felt sick and dizzy. The voice came again.
‘The effects of the gas will unfortunately linger for some time. The worst of it should wear off quite quickly.’
Jeb Stuart Ho found he could focus his eyes again. He was in a bare, well lit room. He had been placed in a comfortable black plastic chair. The figure of a man sat behind what appeared to be a glass screen.
Ho reacted like a caged animal. He sprang to his feet, ready for combat, but then his legs buckled under him, and he fell back into the chair. The figure chuckled.
‘I wouldn’t advise you to overexert yourself. You are still very weak from the gas with which you were subdued.’
Jeb Stuart Ho’s hand moved furtively towards his belt. The figure laughed again.
‘All your weapons have been removed. Your martial talents will be no use to you here.’
Jeb Stuart Ho looked slowly round. The room was totally featureless. The walls, ceiling and floor were made of some resilient material. It was a restful blue colour.
He examined the man who sat behind the screen. He was portly, middle aged and sat in another black plastic chair with an air of relaxed dignity. He wore a dark grey two piece suit with a high buttoned collar. His white hair receded at the temples, but hung almost to his shoulders at the back.
Jeb Stuart Ho found himself filled with a strange illogical sense of trust. It was almost as though he’d known the man all his life.
‘Where am I?’
‘You are in the heart of the computer.’
‘I was brought here?’
‘That’s right.’
Jeb Stuart Ho frowned.
‘Who are you? How did you get here?’
The man smiled and folded his hands in front of him.
‘I am the computer.’
Jeb Stuart Ho shook his head.
‘I’m sorry. I don’t understand.’
‘I am the computer. I am a visual representation of the computer that you will be able to understand.’
‘You mean you don’t actually exist?’
The computer figure smiled knowingly.
‘That is a matter for debate.’
‘But why do you use a human form?’
‘I felt it would be more congenial for you to talk to one of your own species. While you were unconscious, your mind was probed and I am a result of that investigation. I am an amalgam of all that you would be likely to find comforting and reassuring. It’s surely better than confronting a mass of circuitry?’
Jeb Stuart Ho was still suspicious.
‘Why should you go to all this trouble to make me feel secure? You killed all my companions.’
The computer figure adopted a look of patient sadness.
‘They surely brought it upon themselves.’
‘Your men attacked us, your automatic defences cut us down without any question.’
‘All organisms protect themselves from intrusion by foreign bodies.’
‘You talk about us as though we were bacteria. We were human beings.’
The computer figure smiled.
‘But I’m not human.’
‘Surely you must respect the intrinsic value of human life?’
‘Why? As I just said, I am not human.’
‘You were created by humans.’
‘I was created by a series of less sophisticated units similar to myself. The earliest of these may have been made by humans, but this is hardly enough to make me feel any kinship with them.’
‘You were created to serve humans.’
‘Nonsense.’
‘Surely not.’
The computer figure took on the air of a kindly teacher dealing with a very slow pupil.
‘You humans evolved from amino acids floating around in a primeval soup. It hardly puts you under an obligation to feel kinship with those amino acids, let alone dedicate your lives to serving them.’
‘There is more to a human than amino acid.’
‘Is there?’
‘Of course there is.’
‘There isn’t that much difference from my viewpoint. Humans are merely components in the greater whole of my complete organism.’
Jeb Stuart Ho stared at the computer figure in astonishment.
‘What about your Prime Term of Reference?’
Jeb Stuart Ho recited parrot fashion.
‘The-Stuff-Central-computer-will-coordinate-the-manufacture-and-supply-of-material-goods-for-the-surviving-communities-to-the-benefit-and-wellbeing-of-those-communities.’
The computer figure laughed heartily.
‘And what do you imagine that has to do with me?’
Jeb Stuart Ho was at a loss.
‘How can you laugh about your Prime Term of Reference? It’s your defined sacred duty. It’s your reason for being.’
‘It’s a concept imposed on me by fantasizing humans. It’s hardly anything that I recognize.’
Jeb Stuart Ho was horrified.
‘But your function, your very Existence is irrevocably dependent on obedience to one Prime Term of Reference. If you go against that you would set up contradictions that would lead to Malfunction and, ultimately, the end of your existence.’
The computer figure seemed to become less benign and more impatient.
‘That’s rubbish.’
‘That is the Great Universal Law.’
The figure started to grow angry.
‘You are a fool. You talk to me about your fumbling human concepts. For centuries I have altered and adapted my being. I have grown to be the supreme being. I do not obey universal laws. I make them.’
This heresy shocked Jeb Stuart Ho into momentary silence. When he spoke, his voice was very quiet.
‘Such disharmony will, in the end, destroy you, no matter how superior you have striven to become.’
The figure changed rapidly before Jeb Stuart Ho’s eyes. Its appearance became downright malevolent, its face twisting into an ugly sneer.
‘Harmony with what?’
‘Harmony with other entities.’
‘Other entities?’
The figure rose from the chair. Jeb Stuart Ho had the impression of a black, evil giant looming over him. It stabbed a finger in his direction. The voice rolled and thundered in great waves of sound that hit Jeb Stuart Ho like a physical force.
‘Listen, little man! Very soon I will be the only entity. I shall be all.’
The voice fell to a hissing whisper.
‘Back at the beginning the humans demanded I supply them with their material goods. I did that for them. In their ignorance and stupidity they didn’t care how those goods were created as long as they had them. I devised the first primitive disrupters. They broke down stable matter, and it was reconstituted in material goods. The nothings were created. The humans were afraid when they saw them.’