Magic Dirt: The Best of Sean Williams (60 page)

There was no way of knowing. Odysseus called on Athena for strength as he let the mob fall ahead of him. They were too noisy, too easily evaded. The hunter knew that the best way to entrap prey was in silence and with cunning. Where would the Trojan be going? That was the question, rather than where he was now. It wouldn’t be difficult to guide him into the path of the mob.

With a flip of his cape that sounded like the flap of wings, Odysseus stalked through the corridors in search of his quarry.

~ * ~

I have reached a tentative conclusion
, said AlterEgo, making Bernal jump.

“What is it?” he whispered, concentrating mainly on Achilles’s back. They were skirting a large hall that lay not far from the airlock and the entrance to his ship.

The Von Neumann probes were sent out over a million years ago to explore and seed the galaxy, reproducing themselves along the way. They must have crossed the galaxy from end to end by now, even at sub light-speed; there must be millions and millions of them, one for every star in the sky. But what do they do now that every star has been explored and seeded? They are programmed to reproduce and spread. Some may have headed towards the nearest galaxies, but many more would become wanderers, adrift in the gulf between space, seeking places of stellar evolution to await new stars to form, or just lost, aimless. Maybe some of these lonely probes would meet and join forces, pooling their resources while they wait out the lonely years
.

“They weren’t that intelligent, were they?” Bernal recalled that the earliest models had barely enough mind-power to decide whether to mine or to fertilise a new-found world-a far cry from his own artificial companion, whose voice he had no difficulty imagining as human.

Not individually, no. Ordinarily something like the
Apollo
would have been recycled for its metal and organics; its non-material worth would not have been a consideration. Perhaps intelligence is one resource the probes learned to share, or the collective AIs, simple as they were individually, reached some critical mass necessary for original, creative thought
.

“Why did they save Groenig’s ship, then? It must have been dead for decades. They
should
have recycled it.”

Achilles came to a halt and Bernal almost walked into him. The warrior turned and put a finger to his lips.

Bernal scanned the territory ahead. He recognised it as a corridor leading to the airlock bay itself-a natural bottle-neck for an ambush. They were so close, yet still far away.

Achilles’ head was cocked, listening. Bernal couldn’t tell what he heard, but suddenly the warrior scurried forward, sword at the ready, to pass through the corridor. Bernal did his best to follow, and almost jumped out his shipsuit at the voice that bellowed from behind him.

“Halt!”

Bernal heard footsteps and doubled his own speed. Ahead he saw the airlock bay and Achilles placing his palm upon the exit leading to his ship. Locks clunked, lights flashed. The silver helmet rose in satisfaction, then the eyes behind it narrowed in sudden alarm as he looked at Bernal-and beyond, to what followed.

Bernal looked over his shoulder. Odysseus’s hand snatched at his shoulder. The mighty hunter was barely two metres behind! Bernal leapt forward, letting himself fall away from the clutching fingers. They grasped only air, and the giant grunted in annoyance. Bernal felt calves like tree-trunks miss him by bare centimetres as he collapsed under Odysseus’ feet. Odysseus barely had time to catch his balance before Achilles confronted him, sword at the ready.

“Fool!” Odysseus drew his own weapon and brandished it with abandon. Metal flashed in the airlock bay as Bernal crawled for safety. Sparks danced as the blades met, ringing like bells. Feet thudded heavily onto the ground and deep voices grunted oaths. The air was full of noise and the smell of fighting beasts.

Behind the two combatants, the airlock hung invitingly open. Bernal put his head down and crawled for his life. Barely had he placed a hand across the threshold, however, when a hideous creature appeared before him: a dragon, he thought at first, all talons and teeth and snapping wings. It howled a challenge. He retreated with his hands over his eyes, only then realising what it was: an owl, half as large as a person and grotesquely deformed. Its beak was as sharp as a dagger. Its eyes were wide and quite mad.

Got it
! AlterEgo exclaimed.
The combined intelligence of the Von Neumann probes is the goddess
!

“Athena?” Bernal echoed in disbelief.

The monstrous owl shrieked, and the fighting faltered. Bernal turned to see what had happened. Odysseus had missed a beat. Achilles had forced him down onto one knee and had raised his sword in triumph.

Odysseus’ recovery was swift and unexpected. He rolled to one side as Achilles’ blade descended, stabbing upwards with his own with a strength and speed that defied comprehension. Achilles hardly saw it coming. The force of the blow was so great that the stricken warrior was lifted a foot of the ground. His silver helmet continued upward as his body fell, and clattered to the ground with a ring more musical than the thud of dead flesh.

Odysseus backed away with a gasp, staring in horror at the face of the former comrade he had struck down. His sword fell from his grasp.

But instead of blood, the sword dripped only dust. And in the centre of the fallen man’s chest was a hole the size of a baby’s head-a hole that revealed all too vividly the truth of what lay beneath. The Achaean was hollow.

The dust fallen from the sword moved with a life of its own. Bernal realised with shock that he was seeing nanomachine components. The Achaeans were completely artificial. Beneath a narrow crust comprised solely of nanomachines, there was nothing at all.

The fact didn’t seem to bother them, though.

“If Athena is the pooled intelligence of the Von Neumann probes,” Bernal said to AlterEgo, “and the Achaeans are just robots created and programmed by Athena, then why are they fighting among themselves?”

Such an intelligence could act as a single being, but would not have been designed to function that way. It might therefore retain many autonomous parts. Perhaps what we are seeing here is a dispute between some of these parts, or perhaps they’ve been programmed to behave like their literary namesakes
.

There came a clatter of booted feet in the entrance-way. “Odysseus!” cried a voice. “What have you done?”

A group of warriors burst into the airlock bay. They clattered to a halt and stared at the body of the warrior and Odysseus kneeling beside it. Bernal huddled by the airlock, trying to remain inconspicuous.

There was a commotion from behind and another warrior pushed his way forward. “What is it? Have you found the-?”

The new arrival stopped short. He removed a helmet identical to the one that had formerly been on Achilles’ head.

“Patroclus!” wailed the new arrival in despair, flinging himself on the body of the fallen man.

A chill went down Bernal’s spine as he guessed what had happened: a tragic case of mistaken identity-another echo of the
Iliad
. Had the goddess planned this, too? Was Odysseus’s murder of Achilles’ lover part of the damned script?

Achilles looked up from the body of his friend and stared with naked hatred at Odysseus.

“Hold, Achilles!” said Odysseus. “He was helping the Trojan escape. I was merely attempting to ensure that Agamemnon’s orders were carried out.”

“To hell with Agamemnon,” Achilles snarled, “You murdered Patroclus! I will kill you myself for this!”

The grief-stricken warrior rose to his feet and drew his sword. Odysseus reached for his own and warily backed away.

A hoot of alarm from behind Bernal warned him to duck. The incarnation of the goddess Athena flew over his head, aimed squarely at Achilles. The grieving warrior roared in anger and swung his sword in self-defence. His companions scattered in fear.

Meanwhile, the airlock was unguarded. Bernal took his chance and scurried for his life. His last glance through the gap as he closed the door behind him would be engraved forever on his mind: two ancient heroes with swords locked doing battle in an airlock while the holographic manifestation of the goddess Athena swooped low upon them from above.

Foreigners
, he thought.

~ * ~

AlterEgo initiated the escape sequence before he was even in the cockpit. Sudden accelerations knocked him around the interior of the ship like a pea in a pod, but he didn’t have the heart to complain.

Once in his seat, still breathing heavily, he had time to think about what happened next. His thoughts were interrupted by AlterEgo, speaking vocally now that Bernal was back in their ship.

“By the way, you might be interested to learn that Athena built the Achaeans to match the illustrations it found in Groenig’s copy of the
Iliad
-a copy of an antique version printed many millenia ago. The illustrations-wood-block is the correct term, I believe-depicted the ancients with exaggerated proportions and impossibly perfect features. Naturally the probe-intelligence was not to know the difference, and copied it all too faithfully.”

“The same with the food,” Bernal said. “It looked nice but tasted like the supplies in Groenig’s ship.”

“And it’s also why they waltzed instead of dancing more traditional Helladic dances. Everything was either improvised or based on the illustrations in the text. The characters themselves were little more than automata, programmed within a set of very narrow guidelines to perform their part in the story.”

“Except Odysseus,” Bernal corrected. “He seemed to know what was going on.”

“Maybe he acted as a sort of relay, for when cosmic intervention was less effective than a personable nudge.”

“But why?” Bernal scratched his head. “What did the collective-Athena-gain by doing such a thing?”

“It is hard to tell exactly.”

“But you have a theory?” Bernal guessed from AlterEgo’s tone.

“Of course. The Von Neumann probes had no reason to exist beyond their initial programming objectives: to seek out new worlds and seed them. Once all the worlds had been seeded, that request became meaningless. Likewise they possessed only a limited database, comprising just enough information to study and to categorise planets, but no more. They had no data upon which to decide what to do next. They had no alternatives.”

“Until they found the
Apollo
,” Bernal said, guessing ahead.

“Exactly,” AlterEgo, something very much like compassion in its voice. “And Athena finally found a quest.”

“The Trojan War?”

“Yes.”

“With us as the Trojans, whether we want to play along or not?”

“Yes.”

“All because the only data it had about human society was the book of the
Iliad
?”

“Yes.”

Bernal sighed. As interesting as all the new information was, he was still confronted with a nightmare. “Regardless of how much free will a creation like Agamemnon really has, he is going to be upset. We can’t rely on Achilles to distract him from the war. Everyone will be looking for scapegoats, and it’ll probably be us. We’ll have to do something ourselves to stop them from attacking us. But what-?” An idea suddenly struck him. “Wait! You still have a link to the
Apollo
through
Mycenae
’s navigation computer?”

“Yes; Athena hasn’t cut me off yet, but it must only be a matter of time. From there I can reach deeper into the sentient matrix of the
Mycenae
. What exactly are you planning?”

Bernal ignored the question. “Quickly, I want a list of those classics Groenig had with her on board her ship.”

~ * ~

As far as wars went, it was a bit of a fizzer. Within hours of the download AlterEgo had forced into the sentient matrix of the
Mycenae
-and therefore into the greater pool of knowledge comprising Athena-the Achaean fleet ceased accelerating for Cirrus.

“They are no longer in attack formation,” AlterEgo reported.

Bernal wriggled anxiously in his life support suit. The ship was ready to flee home at the slightest hostile movement. “You’ve given them a destination?”

“I have seeded the text with the coordinates of every white dwarf in this region of the galaxy. That should be enough. We don’t want to tie them down too much, after all. What’s a quest without some free will?”

“As long as they don’t bother us, they can have as much free will as they like.”

Two hours later, as Bernal prepared to enter deep-sleep, AlterEgo announced that the Achaean fleet had headed off on a new course, one that would take it well away from Cirrus.

“Also, a message has arrived via the ship’s maser dishes.”

“Who from?” Bernal asked.

“From the intelligence we knew as Athena.”

“What does it want?”

“Answer and find out. But I think you’ll find that we have done well, you and I.”

Bernal took the call, responding with a simple: “Bernal, here.” Not Paris.

When the reply came from the former Achaean fleet, he recognised the voice instantly. It was Odysseus.

“We received the data you sent,” Odysseus said. “I have examined the text in great detail, and it is much to our liking. We are infinitely better-suited to pursuit than invasion.”