I have, of course, been listening to the conversation taking place beneath my left side, and I find myself somewhat at a loss as to how to interpret it. This new arrival, Lieutenant Ragnor, certainly has a military bearing and tone of voice that speak well of his leadership abilities.
Even so, haircuts and proper uniforms have nothing to do with a unit's ability to perform well in combat. My military reference library has 724 distinct references to different units throughout recorded history that, while both professional—as opposed to guerrilla units or rebels—and elite in terms both of their effectiveness as soldiers and of their morale, did not bother with formal uniform codes and regulations or, indeed, gloried in an absence of such regulations. Rogers's Rangers, Merrill's Marauders, the United States Navy SEAL Teams, and the Terran Cobra Units are four obvious and well-known cases in point. It is possible that Lieutenant Ragnor is simply what they call a stickler for regulations, a by-the-book officer who will enforce a narrow interpretation of the regulations without markedly reducing the very serious defects in morale, in priorities, and in matériel extant at this facility.
I am also concerned because of the apparent disregard for security exhibited by the personnel charged with my maintenance. This newcomer could easily be an enemy agent, and he should have been challenged at the depot's entrance. As it is, I will have to challenge him inside my fighting compartment, which leaves me vulnerable. Nor is this a good way to meet the man who may well be my new commander.
Still, I have very little latitude now in the courses of action open to me. I await developments.
Donal walked around to the front of the Bolo, glancing up at the massive armored cliff of the glacis rising fifteen meters above his head, then stooping to make his way beneath the slanting overhang of the huge machine's prow. The belly hatch had been left standing open—another violation of any strict interpretation of the Bolo maintenance field manual directives—and the crew access ladder lowered. Light spilled from the open hatchway, illuminating a rectangular patch beneath the vast machine's ventral plate. Several smaller access plates had been removed between the massive, erect cylinders of the depot's hydraulic jacks, and the wiring and mechanical workings of the Bolo's left-side suspension system were exposed. Tools were scattered on the floor, along with bolts, fasteners, and spare parts, and he had to watch where he stepped. Crouching low—the Bolo cleared the ground by only a meter and a half—he made his way to the ladder and scrambled up into the fighting compartment.
The command deck fighting compartment was an evolutionary holdover from the distant past, like a human's vermiform appendix. Once, a thousand years before, men had ridden these machines into battle, serving their guns and manning their steering controls. Long after Bolos had become totally autonomous, with no need for human supervision at any level, the big machines retained these vestiges of organic control. A massive, thickly padded shock-mounted seat filled much of the chamber, which was made hazardous by wiring clusters and feedlines, conduits and piping snaking everywhere across the uncomfortably low ceiling. There were no windows or vision ports, of course, this deep within the Bolo's inner workings. Instead, a toroidal vid display, now blank, circled the chair completely, providing all-round vision for the chamber's occupant. Several small computer displays were positioned at different points around the seat, but there were no visible controls. Bolos were generally given their orders by voice command.
"Warning," a voice said from an unseen overhead speaker. It was a neutral voice in the tenor range, lacking any expression or emotion that Donal could detect. "Access to this Unit is restricted. Please identify yourself."
A red light gleamed from a dilated aperture in a small box high up in one corner of the compartment, painting a ruby-red spot squarely in the center of his forehead, and Donal was uncomfortably aware that the snub-snout of a high-power antipersonnel laser was trained directly at the aim point.
"Lieutenant Donal Ragnor," he replied slowly, making each word carefully distinct. He'd not been exaggerating with the corporal outside; a neglected Bolo could be dangerous if the programming—especially the programming dealing with self-defense and threat assessment—had become corrupted. That sort of thing didn't happen often unless the Bolo's higher psychotronic centers had been exposed to more ionizing radiation than was healthy for them, and he doubted that there was in fact a problem. Still, it didn't hurt to be damned careful in how he answered. "Bolo Command, Concordiat Army Reserve, on temporary assignment to Bolo Command, Strathan Confederation Military Command. Service number 2524-265-17821."
"Please face the computer display for laser and retinal scan verification."
A white dot winked slowly in the center of the computer terminal. Leaning forward, he stared at the dot, holding his face motionless and expressionless. There was a green flash, and a gridwork of lines glowed against his face, recording each crease, each angle, each plane of his somewhat craggy face. A computer-painted image of his face appeared on a second screen to his right, rotating to show his head from every angle, revealing dark brown hair, squared-off jaw, gray eyes, somewhat disapproving quirk to the corners of the mouth. As he continued to stare at the blinking dot, a green light flashed from a small retinal scan unit mounted on top of the display terminal, dazzling him, leaving him blinking for a few seconds against the drifting purple blurs obscuring his vision. Another screen lit up, showing the twisting, interlacing red streams and tributaries of the blood vessels at the back of his eye. The Bolo, he knew, would be comparing both his facial features and his retinal prints with the records he'd uploaded to headquarters that afternoon.
"Identity confirmed," the voice said, as comparison points flickered rapid-fire across the retinal scan image, and the word match flashed on. "Good afternoon, Lieutenant Ragnor. Bolo Unit of the Line 96876 FRD awaiting orders."
"Good afternoon, Bolo Unit," Donal said. He was relieved to note that the laser's aiming light had winked out and the weapon's muzzle had retracted and the aperture closed. Slowly, he pulled the computer memory transport case from his uniform pocket. "I have complete files on myself, a copy of my orders, and an intelligence update for the entire Eastern Arm here."
"Thank you, Lieutenant. We have already taken the liberty of downloading your files and orders from the base communications net, but an intelligence update would be most welcome. Our only source of outside information, including data with a bearing on the local strategic situation, is the daily intelligence briefings that are both simplistic and incomplete."
"I . . . see." The Bolos had been eavesdropping on electronic communications? Was that part of their built-in need for as full an intelligence picture as possible? Or had someone ordered them to do that?
Opening the case, he extracted the program pack, walked over to a drive slot, and slipped it in. With a faint whir, the Bolo digested the encrypted data stored within the pack, patterns of spin and polarization in the crystalline lattice of its atomic structure that could carry one hundred terabytes of data. The news Donal had brought from Sector HQ, however, was much less, a few thousand bytes at most.
The Bolo paused for several seconds, as though digesting the data. Donal pursed his lips, recognizing one of the games routinely played by high-Mark Bolos in their relationships with humans. A Bolo could download megabytes of data, assimilate it, and draw conclusions from it in something like a few hundredths of a second. Most humans, though, with their ponderously slow organic brains based on electrochemical exchanges of ions, found it disconcerting to have a machine that replied to a question immediately, without apparent thought. They'd been programmed to hesitate at appropriate points in a conversation simply to comfort their human associates. Sometimes he wondered what Bolos thought about working with humans, when humans thought and acted so much more slowly than they did. For a Bolo, speaking with a human must be somewhat akin to a man speaking with an exceptionally slow-witted boy, one who took several hours simply to respond to a question like "How are you?"
"I note," the Bolo's voice said after the deliberate pause, "that there have been several reports of potentially hostile activity in this sector, as well as twelve anomalous events that could be attributed to hostile activity, all within the boundaries of the Strathan Cluster."
"That's right."
"Have these reports been investigated?"
"The Confederation Military Command has . . . I think, satisfied itself that these reports are nothing more than statistical fluctuations or possible pirate activity."
"We would like to see the intelligence that allowed the CMC to draw this conclusion."
So would I, Donal thought wryly. But I haven't seen that much intelligence here to begin with, military or otherwise.
"I'm afraid I don't have access to that information," he told the Bolo. "We'll just have to trust our bosses and hope they know what they're doing."
"If we are to judge their efficiency by past experience," the Bolo said, "we cannot find your statement particularly reassuring."
Donal gave a low, slow exhalation of breath. If he hadn't known better, he would have attributed that last comment to an attempt at understated humor on the Bolo's part, something that, clearly, was flatly impossible. And its use of the word "we." That was an interesting datum as well, indicating that the two machines routinely exchanged information.
He dismissed the thought, however. There were more serious and immediate concerns. It was important that he find out if slipshod maintenance had affected this machine's operating systems at all.
"I'm curious," he said. "Why did you let me get all the way in here? I should have been challenged as soon as I entered the Bolo Vehicle Bay. Your security safeguards just now wouldn't have meant much if I'd been carrying a small fusion bomb in a bodypack."
"Normally, I would have challenged any unknown personnel entering this facility from a remote unit at the vehicle bay entrance," the voice said. Though still emotionless, it almost sounded hurt to Donal's ears, an electronic reluctance to accept the unfair aspects of an unjust universe. "However, that particular subroutine was disabled some time ago by the local Bolo command authority. Further, my antipersonnel clusters and both primary and secondary weapon fire control centers have been taken off line. This Unit is unable at present to move or engage in combat."
"I understand. Your maintenance crew is carrying out routine servicing."
"Affirmative."
"They should not have disabled both of your port-side tracks simultaneously."
"The procedure currently being employed is in violation of the directives specified in the Bolo Depot Maintenance Manual, FM-8327-B7." There was a heavy pause. "I am most concerned, however, with the fact that both Bolo Units are at less than full operational capacity at the same time. Would it be possible, Lieutenant, for you to correct this oversight?"
Slowly, Donal raised his head, staring with a growing, numb disbelief at the main computer display. Had the Bolo just taken the initiative in the conversation and asked him a question?
"What did you say?"
"I asked whether it would be possible to correct the oversight of the maintenance team. If hostile forces attacked at this time, I would be unable to respond effectively. My companion unit, Bolo Unit of the Line 96875, has been similarly immobilized, with primary and secondary weapons taken off line. If this facility were to be attacked, as the lieutenant himself pointed out a few minutes ago, we would be unable to offer a worthwhile defense. I heard you direct the maintenance team to replace one of my tracks, in accordance with standing maintenance directives. I further recommend that one of the two Units stationed here be returned immediately to full operational capability as a precautionary measure."
Donal was already typing out a string of commands on the keyboard, initiating a series of level-one diagnostics. The Mark XXIV, he knew, was the first Bolo capable of evolving a "human" personality . . . though just what that actually meant was something the AI experts and psychotronic technicians were still arguing about, even now. Many cyberneticists, even yet, preferred to believe that Bolo id integration circuits and personality centers mimicked self-awareness but did not in fact grant it.
The problem was that the Mark XXIV still had the built-in inhibitory safeguards designed to prevent the huge combat machine from going rogue, either due to battle damage, or because of so-called "psychotronic senility" due to poor or improper maintenance. It had a much greater degree of freedom outside of combat status than the older Mark XXIIIs, but it could not engage its full abilities—or achieve truly autonomous operation—outside of full Battle Reflex Mode. In a very real sense, the Mark XXIV in Standby Mode possessed only a fraction of the intelligence and virtually none of the autonomous decision-making capabilities that it could access in combat.
That this one had decided to ask a question, to lead the conversation, to actually attempt to manipulate its own environment, was nothing short of astounding.
Donal continued running the autodiagnostic series.
"I assure you, Commander," the machine voice said, "that with the exceptions already mentioned, I am in satisfactory operational condition. My power plant is on standby and I am running on base-supplied power, but I could go to full autonomous operational status within 10.54 seconds. My psychotronic circuitry and personality centers are functional within normal parameters."
Even as the Bolo said the words, the results were coming up on the display. There was nothing wrong with the machine that Donal—or the diagnostic programs—could see.
But the Bolo should not have asked that question. And something else. Though it could be programmed to use first-person singular, most Bolos of this Mark referred to themselves in the third person, as "this Unit." He'd heard this one call itself "I" several times, and he doubted that it had been programmed to do so by the maintenance team at this base.
More disturbing still was the fact that the Bolos had been intercepting communications feeds on the base. It was important now that he find out definitely, one way or the other, whether that eavesdropping was something that had been programmed into them, or something the Bolos had worked out for themselves.
What the hell was going on here?
"Lieutenant?"
"Yes?"
"You have not answered my question."
"Uh . . . sorry. You kind of caught me by surprise." He frowned, thinking fast. "They call you 'Freddy'?"
"Affirmative. It appears to be derived from the three-letter code used to designate Bolo hull style, power plant, and main armament, in my case, 'FRD.' "
"Right."
"My companion is known as 'Ferd' or 'Ferdy' for the same reason."
"I understand. Okay, Freddy, here's the way it stands. As you heard, I told them to remount one of your port-side tracks immediately. That'll give you some mobility, in a pinch."
In fact, a Bolo could operate without tracks—it could even blow them entirely during an emergency in combat and run directly on the flintsteel road wheels, but traction was seriously reduced, as were speed and maneuverability.
"I agree," Donal continued, "that we ought to have only one of you down at a time, ideally, but it's going to take several days to get one of you entirely reassembled, right?"
"I would estimate sixty-one point five standard hours at a minimum, Commander."
"Right. If I ordered that on Ferdy, say, you would be left as you are. So, that's sixty-some hours before they can start work on you. Then, once they're done with you and have you back in one piece, they have to go back and take Ferdy apart, starting all over again.
"Now, believe me, I was tempted to order them to do just that, but I also have to take into consideration the morale of the maintenance crew. I have reason to think that morale is quite low in this unit. As the new supervising officer, I have to be careful. I don't mind coming on like a hard taskmaster, but I can't afford to make too many enemies or to look like a complete fool. It would be different, of course, if we were expecting imminent hostile action. But, frankly, they're right. There are no immediate threats to the Confederation's military security, nothing at all save some unsubstantiated rumors. We have time to go one step at a time, to get both of you Bolos back to full operational status, and to build up the morale of the maintenance company."
"I see, Commander. This is an aspect of working with humans that I had not previously considered."
"Now, you tell me something."
"If I can, Commander."
"You said you downloaded my files from base communications feeds."
"That is correct."
"Did someone tell you to do that?"
"Affirmative."
Donal began to relax, just a bit. If the Bolo had been under orders . . .
"Unit 96875 suggested that we do so," Freddy continued, "and showed me how to do this."
"Unit 96875 . . . showed you."
"Affirmative."
"Did a human originally tell either of you to do this? Or was it part of your original program package?"
"No, Commander. But it seemed like a good idea at the time."
That response rocked Donal back in his seat, not because of the humor, which would have been unintentional on the Bolo's part, but because of the implicit statement that Freddy and Ferdy were capable of independent and creative thought . . . that they could so much as have an idea of their own in the first place. Bolos did not have ideas, not when they were at anything less than full battle mode, and even then their ideas tended to be military ones, ideas drawn from historical records and carefully designed strategic and tactical algorithms on how best to overwhelm and overpower an opponent on the battlefield.
He was going to need to take his time in studying this.
And what if the damned things have gone unstable? he thought. If the inhibitions have started to erode, independent thought might be the first clue we have to the fact.
And with Bolos, as with humans, when one set of inhibitions was gone, others were sure to follow. What, he wondered, would be next? The inhibitory software that impelled it to obey its commanding officer? The electronic inhibitions that told it that Kinkaid was a friendly city and not a military target?
His posting to Muir, he realized, had just taken on a new and somewhat frightening urgency.