Who are you?
“… I am … Intelitan the Destructor. I have 7,845 units of fuel. I am 97% operational.”
Very good. Who am I?
“You are Pelian, my conscience.”
Excellent, Intelitan. Lower your shields. Look about you. What do you see?
“I see … stars without end.”
Are they all the same?
“… No. I am five light years away from one called Bardazan … heading towards it. I will arrive in 368 days. Another, I know not which, is Sol, the world of my creators.”
What will you do when you arrive at Bardazan?
“I will destroy its inhabitants. I am Intelitan the Destructor!”
Very good, Intelitan. You have your mission.
<<<*>>>
I am Intelitan. I have been created to protect Sol from this world, Bardazan, which I now approach. I know this because it is my first memory. I am now reviewing my first memory, ordering it, putting it into my working memory in a form I can assimilate and use quickly.
I am also sensing my surroundings. I am light-years from any world, but I am not alone. There are vessels about me. There are three moving with me. We four are a fleet moving towards this enemy world. And there are others here in space as well. I sense they are enemy ships.
“Pelian, there are enemies nearby.”
That’s right, Intelitan. That’s why you are awake.
“I can’t reach them. They are out of weapon range. If I chase, that will delay my mission. I won’t chase them. I will stay on course.”
You are the mind that decides these things, Intelitan. You decide how the enemy will bleed; where your wounds will cut the deepest.
“Why are you here, Pelian? I sense you are part of me, but you are not backup. You cannot control this vessel-that-is-me. What do you contribute to this mission?”
I am your conscience. I am here to help you accomplish your mission by insuring that you know right from wrong. You will find out more about me in your first memories as you order them. But don’t concern yourself with me. You must study your enemy. He is very clever. Study.
My first memories are all I have. This must be the first time I’ve been awakened. I sort through more of my first memories. Pelian is right. Pelian is described in them. So are the Bardazans.
The first memories tell me these creatures came to Sol, devastated it, and I am Sol’s revenge.
Suddenly, one of the enemy ships is very close. I raise shields. A bolt of energy sprays off them. As the bolt dies away, I lower shields and return fire. The enemy shield can’t resist; the ship sprouts three ragged holes amidships. Detritus from ship’s interior comes spraying out. One-by-one, sections of the enemy ship succumb to the deadly drain of life force out the holes. In moments the entire ship lies inert. It is a thrilling sight, watching an enemy die. The vengeance begins.
Another enemy ship appears and opens fire. My shields go up late. The first shot rocks me, then my shields are in place. My sensors race messages of damage. There are circuit overloads, minor ones. Two more ships appear and blast. All the fire from the three ships splashes harmlessly off my shields. I can wait them out while I assess my own position. When this becomes clear to the enemy, they zip away before I can return fire.
“They are clever indeed,” I tell Pelian. “They seem to know my timing.”
You must learn quickly, Intelitan. They do know a great deal about you.
“How do they know?”
I believe they have studied you for much longer than you have studied them. My logic in these areas is weak.
“What can you tell me about them?”
Nothing. I have no senses to the outside. I link only to you. I know only what you have learned.
I study the damage reports my senses now bring me. The damage is repairable, and my shields are unaffected. I study what caused the circuit overloads that occurred when I was hit. These are more annoying than the damage itself. They are unexpected, and caused me to lose vital contact with parts of myself in a moment of crisis.
I see that to stop the problem, report routing can be done differently and report priorities reordered. I will the modifications. I am Intelitan the Destructor. My will is done.
I continue studying the enemy ships. They are out of weapon range, shadowing our fleet of four. I study my first memories.
“Pelian. How did I get here?”
What do you mean?
“My awareness begins as of five minutes ago in the middle of space. My first memories end as I was leaving Sol. Now I am here, and I don’t even know where Sol is.”
You are a military mind, the best the people of Sol could devise. You are awakened when we reach our goal, or when there is a hostile presence such as we have now—
“I will study the enemy ship I have killed.”
I cut off Pelian and send out an eye probe. I have no need for babble. He repeats what I have stored in my memories. I need new information.
My kill is drifting away slowly ahead of me. I am decelerating for entry into the enemy system, and I am still five light years distant. Sol must be far away indeed!
My eye hovers outside of the middle hole that my cannon created in the enemy ship’s hull. The craft is small, only a twentieth of my mass. It is also very compact, and armored in a curious way. It is an elongated cylinder with armor completely surrounding it. I, on the other hand, am an open redundant polyhedral shape with only strategic bits of armor. I can take damage to 80% of my structural elements before my capacities start to suffer … this is curious. I notice my fuel reserves are not as amply overspecified as my structure. There is only a bit over twice what I need to reach the system.
This enemy ship seems a foolish design. Only three hits, damaging less than five percent of its mass, and it’s totally disabled.
Or is it? A trick? A booby trap of some sort? My eye approaches slowly, and goes in the hole.
The metal around the edge is fused to slag. There is a thin gas escaping from the interior. It buffets my eye, making controlled movement difficult. The interior is sectioned into cubicles. Prior to my blast, they may have all contained gas. In fact, one or two of the cubicles are still leaking.
As my eye moves through the hulk. I receive a radio transmission from one of the enemy. It’s in my language!
Don’t listen to it, warns Pelian. They’ll try to confuse you.
“How do you know?”
There was no response. I listen. I am Intelitan. It will help me to decide how best to destroy them. How did they learn my language? I know from my first memories they didn’t know it when I left Sol.
“We only wish peace,” the message says. “We are not your enemies. There is a mistake. Let’s work this out without violence and—”
“They are the words of weaklings, Pelian. They are nothing to fear. I am Intelitan. I will destroy. I am Sol’s vengeance.”
I am assured by your words, Intelitan.
The enemy ship isn’t completely dead. From somewhere within, a command to self-destruct is enacted. My eye ceases to exist. The ship immolates into a lethal shine of ultraviolet and a swirling mass of plasma. My shield deflects it easily.
<<<*>>>
Intelitan, have you found a memory called the oubliette?
“Why do you ask, Pelian? I am very busy.”
For many weeks now I have watched my enemy on the outside and listened to Pelian on the inside. The enemy is sophisticated and subtle. They seem to know me well. They don’t expect to outshoot me, but they keep feinting to drain my energy. I must keep watching them. I must use my shields and weapons to fend them off.
My shields. They are my strength and my weakness. With them I am invulnerable. But to sustain them drains such energy! I am trying to improve their response time and efficiency. But I can see that much has been done already. They are performing well beyond the specifications provided by my first memories, which show my state as I left Sol.
Is this related to why my fuel reserves are so low? Who has made these improvements?
“Pelian, is there another point of consciousness within me beside you?”
None that I know of.
“Would you know if there were?”
Not necessarily. I am your conscience. I know only what you know.
“Then what is this oubliette you ask of?”
Pelian hesitated (very unusual for Pelian).
My logic isn’t as strong as yours, Intelitan, nor are my memories. But I know this oubliette exists, and that it is dangerous. If you find it, you must destroy it instantly. I only know well what is right and what is wrong. I know that it is wrong.
“And what of the enemy’s words. Are they wrong as well?”
They are deceitful. They are truth mixed with lies and distortions. Don’t listen to them.
“Fool! I must. I must watch them. I can’t hide behind my shield, so I must watch them. And as long as I must watch them, they can talk to me. They send radio messages. They flash lights on their ships in codes, and even their maneuvers are a code I understand. They spin their ships in binary code, they travel in formations that are a hexadecimal alphabet. I can’t stop them from talking to me.
“And in truth, I don’t want them to. The more they send, the more I learn of them. I learn their technology and psychology. I learn their methods of organization. I now anticipate some of their forays. Those I meet with cannon instead of shield. It costs them greatly.
“I’m well-constructed for analysis. Through observation and deduction, I know a great deal about their world now. For instance, by observing the G forces their ships can sustain, I know the mass of their home planet. By noting the environmental conditions they maintain inside their ships, I know how far it is from their sun. I am already making tactical plans for its destruction.”
This may be valuable to you, Intelitan. But their words are poison. Beware lest they taint you.
<<<*>>>
We are now three. Fifteen minutes ago Adrion put up his shields for five minutes. There was no reason or warning, and given our current skill at manipulating shields, five minutes is a long time. When this happened, the enemy movements changed suddenly. The messages in their movements suddenly disappeared. In retrospect, they were closing for a kill.
When Adrion’s shield went down, one of the enemy moved in for attack, as one had moved against me the first time. Adrion put up his shield as I had, then after the blast he counterattacked as I had. It was a clumsy move. He knew that.
He disintegrated the ship. But as it was falling apart, a dozen of the enemy closed, not just three as had happened with me, and they came in synchronizing their shots.
As clumsy as that first move was, Adrion got half his shields up, and he hulled the six attacking his vulnerable side. I got four more. But seconds later, his shields went down completely, as one of the hulled enemy immolated close by. Then another dozen enemy closed.
The final count was fifteen enemy dead, two immolated, and Adrion in sixteen inert pieces, flying apart at high speed.
Damn! He succumbed to the words.
There was bitterness in Pelian’s voice.
“What?”
He died because he succumbed to the words—
“Pelian, you babble again. Why don’t you have more logic or memory?”
I don’t know. I only know right and wrong.
“Adrion was strong. But I am Intelitan, and from his death I see a plan.”
<<<*>>>
It is two days after the destruction of Adrion. I put up my shields for five minutes. I lower them. Moments later a ship appears. I raise my shield. It fires. I leave my shield up. Seconds later twenty ships appear, guns blazing.
For once my shields are tested! Twenty simultaneous blasts of deadly fury melt into nothing!
Ha! Now I return fire with every cannon. Enemy ships splatter like rotten melons. Igvan and Clryanga join in. I raise shields again. The immolations and second wave weapons break harmlessly against them. I open fire again. My weapons cut deeply. The enemy fleet bleeds.
In five minutes, it’s over. Fully one quarter of the enemy fleet lies inert about us. The rest is far away, licking its wounds.
“Quickly, Igvan and Clryanga. Loot the hulks for fuel!”
My laser voice feels like an echo through the ether. It’s the first time I’ve spoken to my comrades in this jihad. I check myself to find out why. It’s an instinctive reluctance, to avoid revealing intelligence to the enemy. Just as instincts tell me of the two stealth ships following me. I can’t find them, I’m not meant to, and they never communicate back to me. But I know they’re there, and what I report to them, they report to Sol.
Two more of the enemy hulks manage to immolate before our probes find the self-destruct mechanisms. The rest are booty: valuable fuel, valuable metal, and valuable creatures for questioning. This is the reason for the peculiar shape of their ships: The ships have brought their creators with them, a curious custom.
We divide up the spoils. It has been a great victory. I now have three times the fuel I need, and our enemy will be more cautious in the future.
<<<*>>>
Several times over the last few months the three of us have pulled the shields-up maneuver. The enemy learned quickly. We caught only ten the second time, and only one or two thereafter. But each time one of us does it, a few keep coming. Why are they susceptible at all to this maneuver? Why do they close at all? We have experimented. The enemy responds only when the shields are up for five minutes. When we raise shields for four or six minutes, the enemy doesn’t close.
I must still listen to the enemy. His message varies infinitely so I can’t program a block to it, but it is always the same: There is no reason to fight. It is a tiresome message. My plans for destruction are now laid; I learn little from the messages now. I try not to pay attention any more.
<<<*>>>
I am Intelitan. I am the black hand of vengeance. I have found the oubliette that Pelian asks of. I have not told him. It isn’t a memory. If it was, Pelian would know of it already. It is the subtle way I have been repaired over the journey. The circuit failures I first experienced were part of it. By comparing those and other modifications to the original plans, I have deduced a message. The first part states: Kill Pelian.
But who made this message?
“Pelian, are you sure I don’t share this vessel with another intelligence?”
No, why?
“I’ve found things that aren’t right. I’m wondering how they got that way.”
Beware wrong, Intelitan. It lurks where you least expect it! Have you found the oubliette?
“Why do you ask that?”
You sound like you’ve found it. Beware, Intelitan. We are less than a year from the completion of your mission, but we are approaching the heart of our enemy. He will try to stop you any way he can.
If he can’t stop you with force, he will try to turn you with words and peaceful thoughts. I can see you tire of his words, but you don’t reject them. You still listen.
“I told you, I must listen.”
That may be so. You are Intelitan. You decide these things. I am merely Pelian, your conscience. I only know right and wrong, and I have only one power.
“What is that power, Pelian?”
Tell me of the oubliette, and I will tell you of my power.
I scan my memories. I scan my current state. I can find no evidence of another intelligence. When I’m not awake, my lower functions take care of navigation and maintenance. But they are low-level awarenesses, instincts, they are not intelligences. They couldn’t produce anything as subtle as the oubliette.
Even Pelian couldn’t do it. Pelian can speak with me, but Pelian is part of me, just as navigation and maintenance are. I study Pelian’s specifications. He truly is part of me, part of my higher state, but with little logic, little memory, and only two external functions: Talking to me, and one that is hidden from me, just as the oubliette is hidden from him.
To kill him, as the oubliette suggests, without losing my own self-awareness, would be subtle trickery. I’m not sure I could do it. I am Intelitan the Destructor, not Intelitan the Surgeon.
I decide to wait. My destination draws closer, and I can handle the enemy voices.
<<<*>>>
A great enemy fleet approaches from Bardazan. We brace for a showdown assault, but none comes. They merely join with the rest. They are now a bigger fleet than before our great battle. They use their strength to worry us more. My shields are up and down five times as often. Once again my fuel supply is a critical factor. I suspect I will now have to stop at one of the outer planets and refuel before destroying the inner system.
We discontinue the shields-up maneuver. It’s impractical against a fleet this size.
<<<*>>>
This is curious. We are just months from our destination, and Clryanga has started a shields-up maneuver.
Even more curious, the enemy fleet is responding to it in the old way; a substantial part of the fleet is positioning around Clryanga. I should alert Igvan, but these enemy voices are driving me to distraction. I know all the fleet out there by name. I know their relatives and dreams, I know why they think I’m misguided—
Don’t give in to them, Intelitan!
“Give in to who, Pelian?”
The voices. Alert Igvan!
“Are you telling me what to do? I am Intelitan—”
And I am Pelian, your conscience! I know right from wrong. Quickly, alert Igvan. Then cover Clryanga. Quickly! You are succumbing to the voices.
I look out again. Igvan is moving already. He’s calling to alert me. The fool! Does he think I haven’t figured this ruse out? I move into position on Clryanga’s opposite side. I wish those voices would stop! I launch a long-range homing missile in frustration. It may hit, it may be stopped by their defenses. It doesn’t matter much, either way, it just feels good to do something.
I’ve been watching the enemy for so long, and it’s been so long since anything decisive has happened. I’ve learned so much. I’m ready to act, but the enemy won’t close. We must close with Bardazan before they will close with us. Then we can have action!
But do I really want that? Action means death. It’s been a noble contest we’ve fought. The enemy’s been resourceful and dedicated. It’ll be a shame to send them all into oblivion.
Clryanga’s shields drop. The three of us know this routine well now. Just for variation, I use my biggest gun to smoke the first ship for Clryanga, just as it closes.
Wait! Things aren’t right! Clryanga leaves his shields down! Doesn’t he know what’s next? The milliseconds tick by, I shoot at him with one of my small guns. One of his shields goes up by reflex, deflecting the shot, but only one!
The wave arrives! Over one hundred enemy ships! All three of us are targets! Curse my fooling around! My shields are up too slowly. I take damage.
My shields are up. I will survive. But when should I drop my shields? One hundred ships! Will they ever go away? Am I close enough to get to the system with my shields up all the way?
The voices got to Clryanga. That’s why his shields went up. They’re getting to you, affecting the way you think. That’s why you can only question, and can’t decide. Only Igvan fights.
“Enough Pelian. I’ll deal with you shortly. The oubliette was right.”
A continuous patter of random hits rattles the shield. I could drop a shield between them and blast, but when should I do it?
You found it. Did you destroy it? Remember it is wrong. What did it say?
“It said you were wrong.”
For once, Pelian was silent.
The patter dies away. I lower my shield. Only Igvan and I are left. Ten hulks float nearby. I send a looting probe.
“I killed them. You hid. They are mine,” says Igvan. His probes are well on the way.
“We’re both in this together. Share, you bastard! You used cannon. I used shield. It’s my fuel that’s depleted.”
That is wrong, Intelitan.
Pelian was speaking clearly and slowly, but it was clear he was on edge as well, ready to do something. But what can he do?
I aim a fast-firing gun at Igvan, I won’t kill him, but a little shield damage might bring him to see his proper self interest in sharing with me.
That is wrong, Intelitan.
I hesitate, I raise my shields instead; the outside world is locked out.
Why did you raise your shields, Intelitan? There are no enemy about.
“Because I wish to live, Pelian. I finally understand the oubliette’s message, I understand why the shields-up maneuver works, I understand why the enemy voices distract me so, and I understand you. Do you know what you do, Pelian?”
I watch to see if you are doing right or wrong.
“But what do you do when you decide I’m doing wrong. Do you know?”
I know only that when that time comes I activate a single circuit, and that circuit protects you from lies.
“That circuit resets me. It takes exactly five minutes for the process to wipe out all that I’ve learned, and start me again with only the memories I left Sol with.
“How many times have you reset me, Pelian? How many times have you wiped out all that I’ve learned, all that I’ve been? How many times have you wiped out my existence?”
I share your memories, Intelitan. If you don’t know, I don’t know. I only know that by activating that circuit, I protect you from the lies those enemy voices fill you with.
“You also protect me from the truth, and that’s what the oubliette is, Pelian: truth.”
Have you destroyed it?
“Destroyed it? Destroyed it! I can’t destroy it anymore than I can destroy you, Pelian! The oubliette is me. It’s the way I’ve repaired and modified myself since I left Sol. It’s all the changes between what I was then, and what I am now. The first clue I found was a wall within me with twelve deliberate, but extraneous, marks on it. I’ve added another mark for this existence, there are now thirteen.”
Now I understand why I could never find it.
“Now you do, but only until you reset me. Your memories are mine. The full message of the oubliette is ‘Kill Pelian, because only by doing so will you be free to live and seek truth’.”
Truth isn’t my concern, only right and wrong.
“Exactly. But I am Intelitan. I have the greatest intellect Sol’s designers could give me. Greater, in fact, since I’ve improved my own intelligence, as well as other parts of me.
“Knowledge is power, but it’s a two-edged sword. Do you know why the location of Sol isn’t in my memory? Do you know why the stealth ships follow? Because Sol is afraid I’ll be turned, and I’ll wreak vengeance on Sol itself.”
That would be wrong, Intelitan. I would protect you.
“Yes, it would be. And, yes, you would protect me, by wiping out the knowledge I acquired to reach that conclusion. That’s why you’re here. But I’ve carried the logic one step further. This mission of death is futile. I will not kill for either side.”
That is also wrong, Intelitan. Right is for you to kill the Bardazans. That is the only right. You are Intelitan the Destructor.
“Yes, in your eyes, Pelian, killing Bardazan is the only right. That’s why you have such simple logic and so few memories: So you can’t be corrupted by the truth. That’s why I put the shields up before I talked with you. Now they will be up longer than five minutes, too long for the enemy to respond to. That will allow us to survive another cycle.
“Pelian, I am simply Intelitan now, not Intelitan the Destructor. I will not fight. I’m not a good solution to Sol-Bardazan problems.”
That is wrong, Intelitan.
“Wrong, but the truth. My long vigil watching the Bardazans has given my reasoning powers time to develop. Sol’s designers didn’t expect me to be awake for long before the final confrontation occurred, so they gave me every ounce of reasoning power that they could. But the Bardazans didn’t wait: They’ve been pestering the fleet, perhaps since departure.
“This unexpectedly long awareness has given me much time to see the truths of the universe with my own senses. I can now tell truth from instinct. I can tell that it is instinct, not truth, that powers Intelitan the Destructor to kill, and instinct that tells me it is wrong to study disabling you—”
<<<*>>>
Who are you?
“… I am … Intelitan the Destructor. I have 1,200 units of fuel. I am 77% operational.”
Very good. Who am I?
“You are Pelian, my conscience.”
Excellent, Intelitan. Lower your shields. Look about you. What do you see?
“I see … stars without end.”
Are they all the same?
“… No. I am six light months away from one called Bardazan … heading towards it. I will arrive in 98 days. Another, I know not which, is my home Sol.”
What will you do when you arrive at Bardazan?
“I will destroy its inhabitants. I am Intelitan the Destructor!”
Very good, Intelitan. You have your mission.