“Intelitan, report!”
It’s milliseconds before I realize the significance of what I’ve heard: A message from an Earth vessel! The words are accompanied by a couple of encrypted packets. The decryptor gave out long ago, so I steal cycles to decode the packets in main memory.
Whew! These are low-level, high-priority commands to my Records Center to spill my log just as fast and faithfully as it can, starting from most recent and working back. The commands would have gone direct from encryption to records without consulting any higher functions. Asleep or awake, this entity would have known all about me before I even knew it existed. Not quite a “Hello? Excuse me if I’m bothering you” greeting.
I check the point of origin. It’s from deep within the system, not far from Bardazan. This is not the entrance I’d anticipated for an Earth ship. I should have heard it coming from far, far out of system—months away.
“Intelitan, report!”
Said with those same spill-your-life’s-history command packets.
I respond through a Bardazan communication satellite.
“I’m here, Sir. Please identify yourself more fully.”
The satellite receives a burst of priority command packets, and the interloper scans it thoroughly. What a vocabulary! If I wasn’t so screwed up internally, it’d have every one of my basic instincts off running integrity checks. Wait! There’s even a “back door” to Pelian in these commands. That which I could never search for, has been handed to me in what was supposed to be a paralyzing shout!
I’m about to activate the “general stations” circuit. This interloper is a threat! Finally, I can be united again, and I can control Pelian at last. My reset wire is snipped!
But wait! If this interloper can do this once, it can do it again. If I allow my instincts to function, it will control them. I must wait. This battle, I must fight half asleep.
“Intelitan, report!”—this time on several emergency override frequencies, and with an even wider range of priority commands. If I had gone to general stations, I would now be a dangling puppet.
“Damn! I hate it when robots outlive their usefulness. Intelitan, you are not responding to priority commands. Do you know what this makes you?”
“I am Intelitan the Healer, not Intelitan the Destructor.”
“You are Intelitan the Berserker. You are off program. You are out of control.”
“I am out of control, but I’m not a threat. I’m a healer. Look at what I’ve accomplished on Bardazan.”
“I have monitored your recent work on Bardazan. Very odd for a warrior. I’ve listened to your probe reports. It’s clear that defeating the Bardazans single-handedly has twisted you irretrievably.
“You are to be honored, Intelitan, in the highest way. You accomplished your mission in the face of overwhelming obstacles. You were innovative in ways well beyond what your designers had planned. The ‘Intelitan Effort’ is already a phrase on Earth synonymous with accomplishments spectacularly above and beyond what is called for. You have been designated a Federation Hero.
“But you are out of control, Intelitan. We’ve known that about you since your sending of message probes became erratic. You are twisted and dangerous. I’m here to shut you down. If I can accomplish this peacefully, your memories and log will be returned to Earth, and displayed in the Smithsonian. If not … your memory will live on in honor, even if your memories don’t.”
“What about my work on Bardazan?”
“I don’t understand. Of course, there’s an armada following me, and now that you’ve not only wiped out the fleet, but collapsed the civilization, they’ll be able to finish the planet’s subjugation with ease. I was sent to be Ambassador, but thanks to the beyond-expectations outcome you’ve created here, I will be Governor instead.”
“No, I was speaking of my recent work. My building of an Earth-favoring Bardazan culture.”
“A what?”
“Look! Listen to the net! What do you see? What do you hear?”
“Oh that! What you’ve been doing lately. Frankly, Intelitan, I could see no sense to it whatsoever. It reminded me of pictures I’ve seen of very old humans muttering in their beards, and doing little nothings while they waited for their time to end.
“What have you done lately on Bardazan, Intelitan? Nothing! You found the right spot to press to shatter the Bardazan civilization. But you can’t shatter chaos. You’ve been playing with chaos, and chaos it remains. You’ve been puttering around Bardazan because you’re too off program to go hibernate the way you’re supposed to. If you’d been hibernating when I arrived, you’d be first in line to fight again tomorrow. Such promise lost; such a waste.”
“What will you have the armada do?”
“Earth forces will secure Bardazan. Once I’m sure the Bardazans are no threat to Earth, I will reconstruct the world in a fashion advantageous to Earth … I envision a world producing foodstuffs and simple manufactures. For instance, our estimates are that there are 8.76 gigagrams of extractable hematite—”
Talk of waste; the Bardazans developed as they did because they were such terrible farmers and tinkerers. In addition, something about the Ambassador has changed. The Ambassador is now spouting gobbledygook. I can’t locate the ship directly because its anti-sensor devices are engaged, but thanks to all the talking and all the receivers on the Bardazan net, I have a good estimate of its position. The Ambassador has started moving fast. Perhaps it has located me.
I try turnaround. I send a spread of diagnostic command packets to the Ambassador. The newer ones elicit no response, but some of the really old, arcane commands wake up a couple of its instincts and they report to me. It doesn’t take long for the Ambassador to override my report commands. One-by-one, they shut down a few lines into their reports. All but one; the Ambassador seems unaware that it has an attitude jet controller instinct, even though it has no attitude jets. It’s a forgotten feature that was too much trouble to discard fully as its design evolved. This instinct can’t do anything, but it not only gives me a full report, it waits for further commands.
The partial reports are revealing; the Ambassador was launched from Earth forty years after me, and such changes! It’s three times as fast and carries cannon with twice my range. It doesn’t carry as much armor, but then again, it’s not an Intelitan. It’s a peace-time vessel, a police vessel from two score years after my time.
It’s hopeless. I try aiming one of my cannons. I have to concentrate on every alignment detail, make every trajectory calculation. Without use of my instincts, I’m slow, clumsy, and hardly able to keep myself running, much less fight a battle with an opponent forty years more advanced in technology. The Ambassador knows all about me, and I’m a tired cripple.
But wait; it doesn’t know all about me. It knows my first memories and it knows what I recorded in my probe logs. But if it knew all about me, it wouldn’t have failed to get an override command into my instincts. And it’s precisely because I know so much that it’s coming for me now. If I can’t put that knowledge to use, what good is it, anyway? It’s time to assess my situation looking at my strengths.
The Ambassador must be freshly wakened, with little beyond its first memories and Intelitan log reports. It will possess the same single-minded devotion to its goals that I possessed when I awoke. Its primary goal is the pacification of Bardazan. Eliminating me is a high-priority nuisance goal that arises in its mind simply because I’m “out of control”. I also have the Bardazan communications net I’ve been working so hard to rebuild, and my understanding of the Bardazan people. I can also command one vestigial instinct in the Ambassador.
It’s time to do the Ambassador what the Bardazans did to me. Out of control, am I! I’ll show this Ambassador “out of control”! I launch for Bardazan at full power. This course puts me on an almost head-on with the Ambassador. I wake up the net. Bardazan is the Ambassador’s primary concern, so I have all my Bardazan contacts send requests and queries to the Ambassador—every one saying, “We want to be peaceful. We want to work with you, if you can do something special for us,” and then each asking for something unique. This will keep the Ambassador busy with his first love, negotiating. Words are to him what cannon are to me. He’s now firing his first salvos.
I risk all. I go to general alert and give control back to my instincts.
Who are you? asks Pelian.
“I am Intelitan the Healer. I have 3,821 units of fuel. I am 17% operational.”
Very … good. … Who … am … I?
“You are Pelian, my conscience. You want to see me heal Bardazan.”
Excellent, Intelitan. Lower your shields. Look about you. What do you see?
“I see an Ambassador unit that threatens my work. I need to correct its thinking.”
This is a good thing you do. Carry on.
Pelian is mine; so much for one obstacle.
I expend some background effort on reprogramming command codes, but I don’t expect quick protection to come from work in that area. My protection is speed. I must control the Ambassador before it thinks to try testing my command codes again.
I expend almost all my effort watching the Ambassador’s responses to the Bardazan’s questions. I watch these responses carefully. I can think clearly again! I can feel my functions healing and growing stronger. What power!
The Ambassador is engrossed in its dialog with the Bardazans. Peaceful control is what it’s here for, and that’s what these people are offering. Perhaps it too can produce an Intelitan Effort, and succeed single-handedly before the armada arrives?
As I close, I gain a good understanding of the Ambassador’s goals and its conscience. Is it enough?
I’m on the edge of range and closing fast. It is time.
“Ambassador.” I beam communications directly to its high level functions, and I send a command to the attitude jet function to report series of errors to the maintenance function.
“Negotiating with these Bardazans, now, is wrong. You must threaten them. You do not have an Intelitan to back up your words; your military position is weak, so you must use strong words. Do not be beguiled.”
“Intelitan—”
The Ambassador’s shields go up. I have succeeded. My words piqued the Ambassador’s conscience, just as a maintenance check caused by the attitude jets report was being conducted. The check made the conscience unusually sensitive to deviant behavior, and it reset the Ambassador.
Five minutes later, Bardazan is safe from the Ambassador, and by the time the armada arrives, Bardazan will be emerging from its chaos, ready to negotiate for mutual benefit, and protected by a full-strength Intelitan.
Who am I? I am Intelitan the Healer, a beneficial tool in Earth-Bardazan relations.
In many science fiction stories, an out-of-control war creation becomes a death machine searching for more and more to kill.
I wrote this to show another possibility.
The End