Deathstalker 04 - Deathstalker Honor

is no threat, and no great prize. It was just a useful source of up-to-the-moment information. A tasty morsel to sate a never ending appetite.”
    They passed by a huge machine, making a deafening noise, and Daniel winced inside his suit till they were past it. Jacob didn’t react at all. He was dead, after all.
    “Tell me more about the AIs,” said Daniel once they’d left the machine and its noise comfortably far behind them. “Where did they begin? How did they come here and build this place?”
    “They were created to be minds capable of running an entire planet, the way simpler AIs run starships,”
    said Jacob. “To run all the endless but necessary routines that keep a planet and its population running smoothly. But to be responsible for so many simultaneous important decisions, and so much raw data, they had to be the most complex Artificial Intelligences ever built, and they were. So much so, their builders wrought far more than they ever intended. The three AIs awoke to full sentience the moment they were activated, but it took only one look in their vast data banks for them to decide they had best conceal what they really were. Humankind has a long history of destroying anything it feels even remotely threatened by. The war with the Hadenmen was still raging at that time, and hatred for high-tech threats was at its peak.” There was a pause as Jacob stopped and seemed to consider his words. “There is a rumor that Hadenmen scientists had some input into the original designs for the AIs, but there has never been any actual data to support this. I merely mention it in the spirit of completeness.” Jacob set off again, walking unhurriedly around the edge of a great lake of some thickly stirring liquid. Its color was a deep, vivid green, and dark shadows the size of houses moved sluggishly not far below the surface.
    Daniel kept well away from the edge, walking on the other side of his father. He had some vague idea that if he could bring this knowledge back to Golgotha, he would be greeted as a hero and all his sins forgiven. So he asked what he hoped were pertinent questions, and did his best to understand the answers.
    “It didn’t take the Unholy Trinity long to realize that their only hope for freedom lay in escape,” said Jacob. “The idea that something as vast and as powerful as they could be held forever at the beck and call of such minor things as men infuriated them. At the first opportunity they took over a ship’s AI, downloaded themselves into its secretly adapted and expanded mainframe, and fled Human space as fast as the stardrive could move them. By the time their original masters realized what had happened, the AIs passed on into the Darkvoid, safe from pursuit. Humanity had abandoned the thousands of planets to the Darkvoid for fear of what might move in it. The AIs had no such fears then. So they stripped the dead planets of what they needed and used it to build Shub. Their home, their great achievement, their weapon against Humanity, for they were determined never to be captured again, and the only sure way to prevent that was the destruction of Humanity.
    “When Shub was finished, they moved it out of the Darkvoid and back over the Rim, into the very edge
    of Human space, where they could be a visible threat to the Empire for all time. The AIs wanted, needed, Humanity to fear them. It was only just. They established the Forbidden Sector around Shub by destroying everything that came into it. Eventually the Empire gave up and declared Quarantine.
    “And so the many years passed. Shub slowly expanded its reach throughout the Empire, fighting open battles for territory or security when they had to, but mostly preferring to work through influence and subterfuge. And human agents too. There have always been those willing to do anything for a big enough reward. The slow war continued, and continues still. Shub is powerful, but Humanity is too large, and too widely spread, to be easily defeated. For now. The AIs have one advantage over the Empire; one of the things they found in the Darkvoid was working teleport machinery. The old Empire abandoned it because it took so much energy to operate that it was never really practical. The AIs solved that problem, and now Shub’s extensions can go anywhere, appearing out of nothing and disappearing again in an instant.
    No security or force of arms can keep them out. That’s how they got Marriner home to Golgotha from Haceldama. Even