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data screens and workstation consoles, tryingto make sense of the data streaming in from space. The White House Command Bunker was linked in with the Pentagon and theJoint Chiefs, and with major fleet assets on Mars, the moon, and in Earth orbit.

One of the cyclers. Why?

Several centuries ago, cycler spacecraft had circled the sun on paths that touched the orbits of Earth and Mars just whenthose planets were passing that touch point. Passage on these large and well-equipped space stations had taken nine months,but the system had provided a far cheaper and easier solution to travel to and from the Red Planet than by rocket, offeringpassengers the amenities of a small luxury hotel in space.

The development of gravitic drives had rendered the cyclers obsolete, of course. Why spend nine months adrift between worldswhen you could make the trip at near-c and be there in under an hour? But the cycler stations represented enormous investments in material and labor; with eachalready three hundred meters long and massing over a hundred thousand tons, they’d been expanded and converted into spacecolonies, still in solar orbit, and each home to several thousand people.

They were unarmed, unarmored, and completely inoffensive, with no military capabilities at all. Why had one of them been summarilydestroyed?

Clearly, Earth was under attack by an unknown alien force, one with no regard for the civilized niceties of war. And Martinezwanted to bring back the super-AI to fight it. But that was impossible. Impossible! His political survival depended on turning back the advancing wave of super-artificial intelligence the Humankind Firsterssaw as an existential threat. If he relied on them now, that was the end . . .

“Why the hell do we need the damned AIs?” he demanded.

“Because they are faster, more powerful, and infinitely more capable than humans, Mr. President,” Toland said. “With their speed and experience, their ability to coordinate our forces, they would be an invaluable asset against unknown attackers. Keep in mind, sir, that a super-AI like Konstantin is more intelligent, more powerful than all individual humans networked together on the planet.”

“Which is precisely why some people want to dial them back. They’re smart and fast enough that they could easily replace us.”

“Mr. President . . .” Martinez sounded exasperated. “With all due respect, but why in hell would they? They’re not competingwith us for food or rawmat or living space. They’re smart enough to know there’s no benefit in wiping us out. Besides, they’vealways worked with us! At worst . . .” He shrugged, shaking his head. “I don’t know. I suppose they might all give up on us, pack up, and leaveand go explore the galaxy. They might say bye-bye and leave us to our own devices, right?”

“That might solve a lot of problems,” Walker said.

“Not this problem, though,” Toland said. “Admiral Martinez is right. Especially in this case, where they have every reasonto work with us, not against us.”

“Why?”

“This is their planet, too, Mr. President.”

Walker wanted to deny that; Earth belonged to humans. But he was forced to accept Toland’s assessment, at least from one point of view. They were intelligent, they were self-aware,and that technically made them as “human” as any member of Homo sapiens.

Besides, these aliens coming in past the orbit of Mars might very well be bent on taking Earth away from Humankind, one wayor another.

“Okay,” Walker said. “But the last I heard, this Konstantin thing jumped into a hole and pulled it in after him. How do wefind it?”

“We open a channel to Tsiolkovsky on the moon,” Martinez said, “and we ask. Nicely.”

 

Tsiolkolvsky Super-AI Complex

Tsiolkolvsky Crater

Lunar Farside

1029 hours, EST

Civilization, Konstantin thought with something a human might have called sadness, was dying. From his electronic fortresson the far side of the moon, he continued to monitor events on the tormented planet, watching as events accelerated and worsened.

Massive protests throughout Pan-Europe had spread and grown, mutating into savage and bloody riots. Exactly what the riotingwas about was often still unclear even to Konstantin, but seemed to include both attacks against and defenses of super-AI,as well as attacks against the concept of the Singularity, against the presence of nonhumans on Earth, against space travel,against political or diplomatic entanglements with alien governments, and even against efforts to overturn centuries of globalclimate change in an effort to roll back the advancing borders of the ocean. The super-AI could detect nothing like rationalityin any of the clashes.

Wars were ravaging Indonesia and the Philippines as the Chinese Hegemony came down hard on revolutionary movements and ongroups proclaiming the coming of the Singularity. Brazil had invaded Paraguay and Argentina, seeking access to dwindling resourcesin Corrientes, while Nicaragua had invaded Costa Rica in the wake of the revolution there, and now was threatening Panama.Most of Africa had dropped off the Global Net months ago, and very little news was coming out. India—civil war.

As humans might put it, the entire world was going FUBAR.

Although Konstantin had withdrawn from much of his official involvement with human agencies and government, he’d maintained a kind of stealth presence, riding the Global Net and residing within the darker and less well-known corners of the virtual space known as the Godstream. He was particularly interested in reports of mass deaths, reports that seemed to echo stories brought back from the N’gai Cloud, memories of the chaotic time when the ur-Sh’daar had vanished, leaving behind the Refusers. Tens of thousands had mysteriously died in the days since the space elevator’s collapse, all of them while linked into the Godstream.

It was as if their minds had gone . . . elsewhere, leaving the bodies behind.

There was a distinct possibility that those people had in fact uploaded themselves into the Godstream, but if so, findingthem was proving extremely difficult—the electronic equivalent of locating one particular molecule of water among all themolecules of Earth’s oceans. A needle in a haystack, by comparison, would have been easy.

Konstantin was aware of a constant alarm in the background, as various departments and agencies within the USNA governmenttried to get him to respond. He ignored them, knowing that they were attempts by Walker and various anti-AI groups