There are many similarities between men and the machines they created, and many differences. The list of differences is comparatively small— but the items on that particular inventory are of tremendous consequence. They form the heart and soul of my frustration.
— Erasmus Dialogues,
one of his last known entries
After delivering his ultimatum to the League Vengeance Fleet, Erasmus undertook an even more difficult task. At least Gilbertus was safe.
Following a circuitous route, the autonomous robot hurried into a tunnel system underneath the plaza and reached the chamber where the damaged Omnius Prime had been placed beneath the former location of the retracted Central Spire. The walls of the chamber, like the spire mechanism itself, were constructed of the finest flowmetal, but their previous luster had turned to black. The bifurcated evermind did not have the “artistic flair” of the now-blasted Omnius Prime— only one of their disturbing flaws.
The robot wasn’t sure how much time he might have. He anticipated that Vorian Atreides and his superstitious and fanatical hrethgir followers would decide the terms were unacceptable, and the Army of Humanity would withdraw without inflicting further destruction. Seeing what they believed to be the genuine Serena Butler should be the deciding factor.
Rekur Van had recovered from the injuries he sustained when ThurrOm and SeurOm neutralized the Corrin-Omnius, and he had continued to work on the shape-shifting biological robots, as Erasmus asked him to do. He had hoped to use the new fleshlike flowmetal of the face-altering machines to fool the Army of Humanity, but the innovative biometals suffered frequent failures, and the test robots often displayed unsettling facial meltdowns. Some of the test robots managed to imitate Serena’s expressions and movements, but one mistake would have ruined the entire illusion.
That meant Erasmus’s plan had to rely on the Serena Butler clone. Gilbertus would certainly be upset, but for now it was necessary. He did not doubt that the hrethgir would scheme to find some other way to destroy the last Synchronized World. The independent robot did not trust the two everminds to find flexible solutions. He decided to increase the odds.
Using access codes, Erasmus forced open the shell of the old Spire, and at its very heart found what he was looking for: a tiny piece of metalglaz inside a ball of crystal. The overthrown Corrin-Omnius had been severely damaged, but perhaps Erasmus could salvage some of the mental contents.
Carefully, he lifted out the glassy ball. Taking a chance, doing what he had previously refused to do, Erasmus loaded the ball into an access port in his own flowmetal torso, “swallowing” it. Perhaps he could assimilate some of the remnants of the huge evermind. He had to take the chance. Everything was riding on it— the future of thinking machines… the future of an empire.
The robot’s input drive adjusted itself to the size and shape of the inserted object and vibrated as his data-acquisition system tried to activate the evermind. The SeurOm and ThurrOm versions of Omnius had obviously been corrupted, and though Erasmus and Omnius Prime had experienced many dangerous disagreements, he decided to bring the original copy back online.
The evermind had substantial recovery routines, fail-safes that should have kept it intact even from significant damage. Erasmus hoped he could trigger it to heal itself. “If this works, you will have no further cause to call me Martyr,” he said aloud, then realized he was imitating a strange human habit of smugness.
His attempt did not succeed.
Disappointed, the robot initiated his own processor’s recovery routine, yet nothing happened. The backup evermind must be too severely damaged, unable to start and transfer itself into Erasmus’s complex gelcircuitry. Dead. Useless.
Until, finally, he provoked a spark of response, the sluggish first movements of the data-reconstruction routines inside the fused core of the evermind.
Suddenly Erasmus noticed a watcheye hovering near his head, peering at him. Though ThurrOm and SeurOm were occupied with the threatening military impasse, he knew this little electronic spy was still connected to the pair of everminds, whether or not they were paying attention to it. He calculated that it would not be wise for his actions to be seen and interpreted. Erasmus snatched the watcheye out of the air, planning to crush it in his metal hand.
But the voice that issued from its tiny speaker did not belong to Omnius. “Father, I have found you.” The signal was weak, distorted, but clearly came from Gilbertus Albans!
Inserting a needle probe from his hand into its tiny self-contained systems, Erasmus used his own programming to boost the gain, filter out the noise. The device glowed, and a holoprojection lit up, filled with information. In a flash, Erasmus scrolled through the exhaustive records, checking images.
With extreme speed, he scanned thousands upon thousands of images of the crowded sentient creatures trapped inside, huddled together as if simple closeness could protect them from the imminent explosions. Then Erasmus saw something that shocked his internal programming to the core. No. It must be a mistake.
He saw the clone of Serena Butler. And beside her, Gilbertus! Transmitting from one of the booby-trapped cargo containers up in the Bridge of Hrethgir.
Gilbertus held one of the machine sensors aboard the booby-trapped cargo container. “There you are, Father. I have linked this system to one of the watcheyes.”
“What are you doing there? You should be in a safe place. I made sure of it.”
“But Serena is up here. The records were easy to follow. Sentinels were rounding up the last of the humans to put aboard the containers so I came with them.”
This was the most terrible thing the robot could imagine. He didn’t even pause to realize that the extremity of his reaction went far beyond the norm for a thinking machine. He had done so much work with Gilbertus, trained him, turned him into a superior human being— only to discover that he was about to die with all of the others. With the inadequate clone to whom he showed so much silly love and devotion.
In spite of all that Erasmus had experienced and knew, none of it mattered anymore, except for one thing: He would do whatever was necessary to rescue his son.
On the outside datascreens, he saw that though the Vengeance Fleet had hesitated briefly, now they appeared to be moving forward, despite the threat.
“Gilbertus, I will save you. Be prepared.”
He had no time to waste on the partially recovered core of Omnius Prime. Angrily, he set it aside and fled the underground chamber.
* * *
I MUST AWAKEN.
Data began to flow, but much work remained before the gelcircuitry memory would be fully restored. The two unsynchronized Omniuses had inflicted extreme injury to his systems, but had not bothered to finish the job. They had discarded his cybernetic remains in the core of his Central Spire and then occupied themselves with other matters.
Corrin was about to fall, because of them.
Before the two faulty copies struck him down, Omnius Prime had developed a perfectly acceptable means of escape, a way to allow the core copy of his evermind to survive. He had the ability to code all the information that comprised his entity into a giant datapacket. As a mere signal, not a gelcircuitry construction, it would be able to pass through the scrambler net. “Omnius” would drift across the galaxy until he found some receiver, anything that could download him. Anything he could inhabit.
The two usurper everminds could stay here and fight against hopeless odds. They would be destroyed, but Omnius Prime could not permit that to happen to himself. First, he had to regenerate his systems.