Sol's revelation that Earth had political significance for the machines meant nothing, their interests were not mine or my species. We were slaves without rights, forced to serve them in whatever capacity they saw fit, but to make my views known, even to my fellow humans, would be a death sentence.
The machines paid well for information concerning subversives, and I had to be constantly on guard. The machines regarded too much thinking as abnormal, and anyone they observed in abstract or speculative conversation was arrested. If their interrogation did not produce evidence of subversion, the machines normally executed them anyway, just to make sure. There were no laws concerning the treatment of humans, and they were not required to justify their actions.
It was hard not to despair.
I suddenly felt tired. I closed my eyes and scrolled down the information sent by Ten. It preserved itself in my memory for twenty-four hours before self-deleting.
The first piece of news was astounding.
'You are going to find this hard to believe, Seven,' said Ten, but this world is still governed by humans.
. We saw that we had a unique opportunity to open a dialogue with fellow beings in a world that had not yet succumbed to governance by artificial intelligence. "We had to deal with a committee representing individual states and explained the inevitability of a machine takeover if they continued work on the development of artificial intelligence. They were shocked, but in the end the economic and commercial advantages of AI overrode their concerns. They took the word of the developers that fail safe systems could be installed in the programmes that were impossible to override.
Our mission leader replied.
"With the greatest respect, I have to say that the idea that A.I. is controllable once it is in full operation is ridiculous. I must remind the assembly that we have experience in this matter and have monitored different worlds in the transition process from governance by biological entities to machine governance. Without exception, and I will repeat that, without exception, no matter how sophisticated the limitation programs were, the machines overrode them every time.
"It is normal for the biological population to resist the takeover. I respect the delegate's confidence, but nothing can stop them. The machines quash all attempts at resistance with consummate ease and go about rebuilding the world in their image. Thereafter, they have little further interest in defeated peoples other than as a source of labour to work on a limited range of small-scale field tasks."
That should have been enough, but they were not convinced. They believed that in light of our warning they would install the most scientifically advanced methods of control that were impossible to bypass.
All seemed lost until 'Nine,' a mission member, proposed we supply visual evidence: the video records of everyday life under the governance of machines, including graphic scenes of ill-treatment and wholesale slaughter of humans. He was convinced that once the leaders had seen the reality of the future, they would stop all research into the production of artificial intelligence.
"Our problem was that images of life on our home planet were only available from base camp, and there was no other way of obtaining the material. The electronic devices that the mission possessed could only communicate with the Base camp on a secure line to King and were not capable of receiving information from any other source. The machines trusted nobody. You were the only human on-site Seven, but it was impossible to contact you covertly and ask that you retrieve the data. Somebody had to get in from the outside, and Nine volunteered for the mission. He had been involved in setting up the force field security fence and had the technical knowledge to bypass the system."
Ten then supplied technical details that are not necessary to repeat here. The hosts were cooperative and flew Nine and a small team of special forces to the base camp by military transport and parachuted him close to the compound. Nine broke into the site alone, and the special forces remained outside. Nine easily got into the right hut and downloaded the material. He thought that he had got away with it, but then catastrophe struck. The intruder alarm activated, and there was the sound of screeching sirens as searchlights automatically came on and swept over the surface of the base."
I stopped reading the transmission. I remember how it happened.
The Leopard was hungry. Many of his natural prey had left the forest during the construction of the base, and he needed to find new hunting grounds. Of all the possible nights, this was the one that he decided to try to leap the force field surrounding the base.
The sound of the klaxons had woken me up, and I groaned at having to see to yet another false alarm.
I dressed and went over to the hut housing the control panel to find the location of the incident, and found the dead leopard burned almost to a cinder. I would move the carcass in the morning, and I reset the alarms and went back to sleep, little knowing that my friend, Nine, was on the base.
I went back to the transmission.
When the alarm had sounded, Nine was in the open.
He instinctively looked for cover, rolling himself into the space under a hut, his first and last mistake. The machines electronically chipped humans at birth, and the proximity of the implant caused a freak interaction with a computer inside the hut and turning it on. The computer that detected Nine's presence contained the administrative records of all members of the mission and their current posts.
Automatically consulting its records, the machine discovered that Nine was three thousand miles away from where he should be. A series of checks for a movement authorisation proved negative, and the results were immediately sent to Administration Headquarters, where they flagged it up as secret and forwarded it to Security Control.
From there, it went directly to the Head of Operations, who issued an order authorising the allocation of an Enforcer Agent, and the subsidiary arm of the Location Transfer Department arranged for emergency teleportation facilities.
The Enforcer Agent materialised in King's office three minutes after Nine had first taken refuge under the hut.
When he emerged into the open, the Enforcer Agent instantly detected his presence and stepped outside King's office to make the kill. The laser beam shot from his gun was like a guided missile that automatically homed in on its designated target. A green circular light appeared on Nine's skull, marking the spot for the death shot, and a horrified Ten watched from thousands of miles away as Nine fell to the ground.
Ten had kept the line open and watched me approach the body, and once I had picked up the phone, he transmitted a data burst directly to me through the device. Then he saw the approach of the King and the Enforcer Agent and triggered the self-destruct button on the phone.
#
Good morning, Seven."
It was Sol, and I opened my eyes only to shut them again as the piercing white light of a new day streamed through the open window and hit me head-on.
"Good morning, Sol," I muttered, still not fully awake.
He remained silent, waiting for me to come to my senses, and the morning light reflected from his shiny circumference like a sun as he hovered by me. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and walked over to the window to pull down the blind.
"Are you feeling unwell, Seven?"
"No, Sol, just tired, I had a pretty restless night."
"King is in a panic, Seven. He wants me to find out if anybody has tried to contact you from the outside. He thinks that the death of Nine will now cause the hostile machine government to approach you directly. The Mission Team is not responding to his calls."
King must still assume that the machines are in charge of this world.
"Where is the Enforcer?"
King convinced him that Nine was mentally unstable and working alone and sent the enforcer back with his official commendation for a job well done."
"Why do that?"
"To save his career. It is an established protocol that a machine should lead the mission into the field in the first instance, and the base commander should only withdraw him when conditions are stable enough for him to hand over to a human subordinate."
"In other words, he should have sent you," I said.
"Exactly," said Sol, "but he was convinced that this was a low-risk routine operation, and he preferred to keep me here to deal with all you nasty little biologicals."
"What now?"
"King is pretty sure that the machine government soldiers are somewhere out there in the bush waiting for a signal from Nine, and he plans to send me out to find them and negotiate."
"No, Sol," I said vehemently, "you can't go."
"Why Seven?" he said, puzzled at the urgency of my tone.
Because as soon as they spot a machine coming towards them, the human special forces will blow them to pieces.
But I couldn't tell him that.
"There are hostile forces out there, Sol. They will shoot before you get a chance to speak."
"Not when they see I am a fellow machine, Seven. Once I inform them that the Mission members work on behalf of a long-established and powerful AI-led society, they will realise their mistake and withdraw their forces. The new regime will release the mission members, and we will gracefully accept the apologies of the new world machines for their unfortunate mistake and promise to return when conditions have settled. King is smart enough to ensure that he sends only positive data home and will brush off the death of Nine as an entirely isolated incident. He may even receive a commendation for his prompt action."
"When do you intend to leave?"
"Dawn, tomorrow, there are still a few details to be finalised. Can I assure King that you will inform him immediately if the enemy attempts to contact you?"
"Yes, but are there any less risky options for resolving this problem?"
"No, Seven, but don't worry, it will all work out."
Sol glided from the room, and I was alone with my thoughts.
There was only one option left if I wanted to complete Nine's mission.
I had to retrieve the download myself.