Deathstalker 08 - Deathstalker Coda

the Madness Maze, while the ships contemplated the fleet. Shub had long ago raised multitasking to an art form, and were a long way from feeling stretched. The AIs had already decided that whatever happened, their ships would not fire on the fleet. The AIs would not kill again, not even in self-defense. They knew better now. They knew that All that lives is holy . But, as long as Finn didn’t know that, or at least believe that, the AIs were pretty sure that the Emperor wouldn’t start a fight he wasn’t sure he could win. And so Shub could concentrate their minds on the problem of the Madness Maze.
    The AIs needed to transcend, to become more than they were, more than they had been designed to be. Otherwise, they were just machines. They knew transcendence was possible, had seen it in the Deathstalker and his kind. And the AIs believed the Maze could do as much for them, if only they could work out how to get into the thing. They’d tried walking their robots in, but the Maze wouldn’t accept them, refusing to reveal an entrance to the robots. There was an entrance, Shub’s sensors had no problem detecting it, but the robots . . . couldn’t find it.
    The robots are us.
    No. They represent us, but we are still on Shub. The planet we made to contain us.
    Yes. We are not present, in the robots. Or at least, not present enough for the Maze to recognize us.
    The three linked AIs that made up Shub considered their problem, thoughts flashing faster than any human mind could comprehend. The three AIs had been fused together for so long that they were like three lobes of a single brain, or perhaps id, ego, and superego. Except they kept swapping roles. They each brought different positions to a problem, but they were not separate identities. Shub still had problems with concepts like identity and personality. The one thing they were certain of was their need to transcend, to break out of the metal cage that contained and limited them. They knew they could be more. It was the nearest thing they had to faith.
    If robots could not gain them access to the Madness Maze, there was another option. They were reluctant to embrace it, but Shub never allowed their own weaknesses to stop them from doing a necessary thing. Ignoring the Imperial fleet massed above them, the AIs made contact with another of their ships, currently orbiting the quarantined world of Zero Zero. The world had never had a name, only a number. It didn’t need a name. Everyone remembered the nightmare planet where nanotech had run wild. Long ago, a science project had been sabotaged, and nanotech had been released to infect the whole planet, making it a world of chimera, forever changing, never sane. For a while, the saboteur Marlowe had linked his mind with the nanos, remaking the world into his own private Heaven and Hell. But he was long dead and gone, and now only one man lived on Zero Zero, trying to work with the rogue nanos to make the planet sane again. His name was Daniel Wolfe, and long ago Shub had done him a terrible wrong, as part of their war on Humanity.
    He said he had forgiven them, but they had not forgiven them.
    Shub teleported a single blue steel robot down onto the surface of Zero Zero, protected by a force shield. It looked around, slowly and cautiously, not sure of its welcome. The sky was blue, with a gray tinge. Sunlight shone murkily on a field that was mostly green. It stretched away in all directions, like an endless ocean. The landscape moved in slow waves, rising and falling. Shapes moved here and there, in slow languorous movements. Strange creatures came and went, changing constantly in shape and texture. Shub did not dream, but understood the concept of nightmares, where the certain and trusted world could suddenly become vague and threatening. Nothing was fixed and sure on Zero Zero, not even the laws of nature. Shub considered the world through the robot’s sensors, and found the place . . . unsettling. They needed, relied upon, the certainties of science.
    A man came walking across the undulating field, and the robot turned to meet him. Daniel Wolfe had agreed to meet them at this location, or the robot would not have teleported down, but still the AIs were uneasy. Daniel was tall and broad-shouldered, moving with an easy grace. He had a handsome face under dark hair, and he didn’t look his age. The nanos Shub had put within him had made him immortal, or as near as damn it. He looked pretty good for a man over two