Rise of the Federation: Live by the Code (21 page)

Still, Archer couldn’t help considering the resources that would be needed to build and power those ships, and where those resources would need to come from. He had to make one more try to offer alternatives to bankrolling Maltuvis’s dictatorship. “I think we should intensify efforts to upgrade Rigel’s shipbuilding facilities to Starfleet specs,” Archer suggested. “Aside from their technical expertise, they have access to multiple sources of dilithium and rare metals.”

“That’s true,” Osman agreed. “There’s also the Vegan debris disk and our trade deal with the Vissians.” The jovial Centaurian looked up from her data slate, her dark eyes piercing. “But I can’t order up a dilithium-rich planet on request. And Flar’s right—better we get Maltuvis’s minerals than the Kling­ons do.”

“I just don’t like the idea of throwing innocent Saurians to the wolves to benefit ourselves.”

Osman pondered. “Well, who knows? Maybe Captain Reed’s task force will crack the Ware’s programming soon and find a way to bring it under our control. Imagine having a whole armada of drone warships to take on the Klingons.”

“
If
we could make them work without enslaving sentient beings in the process. And
if
the technology could be trusted not to turn on us. I tried trusting it once, thank you.”

Shran looked at him askance. “Would you rather trust Maltuvis? There are no ideal solutions here, Jonathan. You should’ve learned that by now. When the galaxy is falling down around you, you have to prioritize whom to save. You look to your own first and let the rest take care of themselves.”

“Sauria is one world,” T’Viri said. “The equation is simple. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

Archer kept his peace, recognizing that he had no sound alternatives to offer. Still, he couldn’t help wondering:
How many times do we have to sacrifice the few before they outnumber the many?

September 28, 2165

U.S.S. Endeavour,
Silver Armada border

The Silver Armada’s border patrol ships were considerably less polished in appearance than Travis Mayweather had expected from the name. They were a ragtag assortment of older ships apparently cobbled together from mismatched pieces with little regard for aesthetics. But they were abundant and quite heavily armed, so Mayweather had no doubt of their ability to prevent any unwelcome ship from entering their territory.
Pioneer
and
Endeavour
had been confronted on their approach by four Armada ships and required to submit to a thorough inspection to ensure they were Ware-free. Mayweather and T’Pol had offered no resistance, and they had been greeted with hospitality once their lack of Ware and their agenda toward it had been established.

The species operating the Armada came from a planet they called Pegenor, a superterrestrial world with high gravity and a dense atmosphere that was mostly nitrogen and oxygen, but thickly laden with carbon dioxide and volcanic gases. They had been able to breathe the atmosphere aboard the Starfleet ships with only the occasional whiff from breathing tubes built into their uniforms, though a visit in the other direction would have required full EV suits. The Pegenoi were oversized near-humanoids with heavy, elephantine feet, scaly blue-gray skin, and stocky, apish bodies that could barely fit through
some of the tighter hatchways aboard the Starfleet ships. But they conducted their inspections diligently nonetheless, determined to keep the Ware out of their space at all costs.

According to Captain Garaver, the Pegenoi female who led this interceptor group, their species was one of multiple races in the region that had been former clients of the Ware, and the only one that had managed to maintain a space fleet following the societal collapse that had resulted from its spread and the ensuing wars to purge it from their territory. “The Ware drained so many of our resources and our great minds before we rose against it,” Garaver told Mayweather and T’Pol, “and we expended so many more in the battles that followed. Many of our neighbors had forgotten how to create or invent without the Ware, and collapsed back to the primitive when it was gone. Some were happy to revert to a more basic existence, free of machines. Others still struggle and need help, but our resources are stretched thin by the effort to guard our space. This is why we welcome trade with any who are free of Ware.”

“Societies fitting that description seem uncommon in this sector of space,” T’Pol observed.

“The Ware infests this region,” Garaver answered solemnly. “Ever spreading on its own, manipulating its victims into spreading it as well. We must guard relentlessly against reinfection. But we do not have the resources left to take our battle wider. Your own success against the Ware is a great victory. You must share your method with us.”

“Our method is only partially effective,” T’Pol replied, remaining noncommittal. “Our goal has been to locate the Ware’s original creators in hopes of gaining insight into its fundamental nature and purpose.”

“Which is why we need to know about the other ship that
entered your space four days ago,” Mayweather added. “The man aboard that ship is also seeking the Ware’s creators, but he wants to exploit the Ware for his own gain, not stop it.”

Garaver took a thoughtful suck on her breathing tube. “Yes, we thought as much when we spoke to him, despite his claims,” the massively built captain said. “That is why we told him what he sought to know.”

Mayweather frowned. “Excuse me, there may be a translation problem. Did you mean you
didn’t
tell him what he wanted to know?”

Garaver smiled. “I mean that we told him exactly where to find his answers. The origin world of the Ware. It is here, in our space. And we will be happy to take you there.”

September 30, 2165

Ware origin world

They found Daskel Vabion alone in the single intact structure left on the planet. All around, the world was a barren, irradiated ruin, without enough oxygen to sustain life. This temple had been built by the world’s last survivors, and now that they were gone, the Pegenoi maintained it and supplied it with oxygen for the benefit of visitors.

Vabion’s Klingon escorts had left days ago, finding nothing for them here, but the Vanotli industrialist had remained, combing through the historical records and relics left behind, with the assistance of a text translation device the Pegenoi had lent him. The device contained the Ware’s translation database, the one piece of Ware code the Pegenoi suffered to exist in their space—for naturally it contained the languages of the Ware’s creators, and theirs was a story that the Pegenoi wanted the seekers of the Ware’s origins to learn. Mayweather had not
understood why until he saw the look of desolation on Vabion’s gaunt face.

“The Ware’s creators were not one race,” the Vanotli genius explained to the Starfleet landing party, readily sharing his discoveries once he recognized that misery loved company. His listeners included Mayweather, T’Pol, Tucker, and Sangupta as well as Captain Garaver and a pair of
Endeavour
security guards. “They were a corporation—an industrial giant within a trading network of four disparate races. They assembled knowledge and talent from all four civilizations, combining their areas of skill and expertise to advance their technology. They developed goods and services that could be adapted for sale on worlds with exotic environments—not only the two within their own community, but others among the worlds farther removed with whom they began to trade, including the Pegenoi.

“Their goal was to provide the finest in customer service—the most advanced technologies, the most adaptive and reliable systems, the most authentic replications of any desired goods. In order to reach new markets, the systems had to be able to scan any species’ biological and environmental needs and quickly adjust. The computers had to be sophisticated enough to translate any language in moments. They even made the technology self-repairing, so it would be more reliable than what their competitors could provide. After all, they profited from the material goods paid in return for the Ware’s products and services, and in the licensing fees paid for the use of their proprietary replication patterns. The Ware was a base investment that would repay itself over the long term; hence, it was designed for endurance rather than obsolescence.”

“So what happened?” Tucker interposed. “It demanded so much computing power that they needed to start kidnapping people to use their brains?”

Vabion smirked. “On the contrary. The Ware Corporation—­let us call them that for simplicity—devised the most advanced and powerful computers in the entire sector. Electronic brains more than capable of handling the requirements of the system, operating entirely without the assistance of living beings—­either from without or from within.”

Mayweather shook his head. “That doesn’t make sense. This is just one more of your lies.”

“To what end, Mister Mayweather? If anything, it makes tragically perfect sense. You see, the computers they built were so efficient, so adaptable, so self-sufficient that the corporation’s need for live employees diminished. They were able to save a great deal of money by laying off their workforce and relying on the Ware to manage itself. They even programmed it to market and distribute itself, to recruit new consumers in other star systems.”

Mayweather was still skeptical. “And what, it suddenly came to life and started to eat them?”

There was a quality of sadness to Vabion’s chuckle, as well as a touch of hysteria. “Again, you’re looking at it from entirely the wrong direction. The problem is not that it gained self-awareness. The problem is that, despite all its power and versatility, it remained resolutely dumb.” He paused. “But I am getting ahead of the story.

“No, the guiding intelligence remained the Ware Corporation. Which, like any corporation, sought to maximize its profits. Naturally they had competition, and naturally there were corporate spies attempting to penetrate their secrets. They designed the Ware to resist all attempts to parse its programming. They became utterly fanatical about preserving their monopoly on its technology—so that they could monopolize all technology, all industry. They sought to buy
out their competitors or drive them out of business. They used their influence to control legislators and amend the laws in their favor. They even bought up the educational institutions so that they could ensure no one but their employees had the knowledge to develop technologies that could compete with the Ware.” He shrugged. “Basically, the same things I did on Vanot. Just good business, you know.”

When he paused, Garaver spoke. “Meanwhile, the Ware’s client worlds became more dependent. We could get everything we needed made for us, so fewer of us bothered to learn the skills necessary to fend for ourselves. Some worlds were raised from basic agriculture or hunting lifestyles. They became spacefaring peoples without even understanding basic physics or engineering.”

“For decades, the corporation monopolized higher learning,” Vabion continued. “But the executives themselves had become so reliant on the amazing computers of the Ware that they grew lazy and thoughtless. In time, they began to ask: ‘Why do we spend money teaching scientists and engineers when the Ware can make all we need? Why not shut down the universities and put that money in our own pockets?’ Their experts warned that this was dangerous. The computers at the heart of the Ware were the one thing that could not be easily replicated, for they were so complex, so fragile. But the executives had grown up pampered by the Ware. They could not believe it was capable of failure. And so they closed the schools and left the fate of the Ware entirely up to the Ware.”

T’Pol raised a brow. “And the Ware was designed to be adaptive. To repair itself using the available resources.”

“Exactly!” Vabion spun toward her and gestured sharply with a bony finger. “That was its imperative. To maintain its ability to provide service. But it did not
understand
service. It
had no consciousness, no judgment, only mindless imperatives. It knew it had to go through the motions of serving its customers at all costs, but it did not know what service was
for
. It enacted its function as an end in itself, oblivious to the consequences to the people it was attempting to ‘serve.’ ”

“Now you’re contradicting yourself,” Mayweather declared. “How could it be so sophisticated but have no intelligence?”

Surprisingly, Vabion replied without the condescension Mayweather had learned to expect, appearing simply thoughtful. “Intelligence is a specialized form of processing. It is not something you gain merely by putting a billion adding machines together. The system needs to be designed in a specific way, a network analogous to a living mind.”

“He’s right, sir,” Rey Sangupta said with a hint of apology. “Consciousness is a special kind of neurological architecture. A network of complex feedback loops that make a mind aware of its own activity, able to modify and direct that activity. In a way, a conscious mind is like a simulation constructed by the brain—a simulation of
itself,
so that it can take its own activity and attention into account in its own calculations and adjust itself accordingly. It’s crazily complex. It’s something nobody’s ever been able to reproduce in a machine.”

“Not that we know of, anyway,” Tucker added, but he declined to elaborate.

“For all its enormous complexity,” Vabion went on, “the Ware lacked that perception of itself, that ability to understand its own activity. It continued to operate on pure instinct, so to speak. And so, when its central processors began to break down, when there were no longer engineers with the knowledge to replace them, it acted unthinkingly on its programmed imperative: Adapt. Correct. Repair using whatever resources were suitable. As it spread from world to world, it
had needed to learn how to adapt unusual materials and resources to fill its requirements.”

“And at some point,” T’Pol said in a hushed voice, “it calculated that sentient brains would be a suitable substitute for its original processors.”