The Catalyst

-Chapter 41-


Overall, the marines I’d left behind were in better shape than I had any right to expect them to be. Major Welter had not only survived by jettisoning himself from the conflict at the critical moment, he had organized the survivors. I had an interesting talk with him as he came aboard. I could tell right away Welter was proud of his accomplishments. He held his chin high and although he was tired, he was beaming at me.
“Survival often depends on quick reasoning,” he told me as I helped him through the airlocks.
“In your case luck didn’t hurt, either,” I said. I helped him hook his suit to the ship’s power lines and he began to quickly recharge.
“Luck?” he asked, scandalized. “Not so! We reasoned that your group may or may not win against the cruiser. We had to plan for the worst, namely that you would lose and not return. In that case, our only option was to assault the next ship that came through the ring and take it for our own.”
I nodded. “Mini-pirates, eh? Marvin helped gather the bricks I take it, to keep you going.”
“Yes. He got a hold of a flying dish, then a brick, and connected the together with nanite cables. Then he kept going, knitting up that train thing you saw out there. The weird thing was he insisted on building them into a nanite-conglomerate, all connected to himself. I had an idea of building a base—not making them all part of Marvin’s body.”
“He’s got a mind of his own,” I said. “Was he cooperative?”
“Sort of. He let us use the power and oxygen, but he started running the factories to produce more nanite arms and stuff on his own.”
I grabbed his arm. “Wait a minute. Are you telling me he’s been programming our factories on his own initiative?”
“Oh yeah. It’s kind of weird. He definitely has his own plans. He’s not an enemy, in my estimation. He’s more like a guest in our group. He helps and shares. But he doesn’t accept our authority over him. Anything I told him to do, he took as advice. It’s like he considered my orders to be suggestions, and then mulled over whether he felt like following them or not.”
I let go of him, and decided it was time to talk to Marvin directly. “Good insights, Major,” I said. “I’m going to go see what he’s up to. Please head up to the bridge and take over the helm as soon as you can, Gorski and I have been having a hell of a time with the Macro control system.”
“That system is quite a piece of work, isn’t it?” Gorski asked with a twisted smile. “I get cramps in my limbs just thinking about pressing everything at once. Did you know I had to tap with my head sometimes to get the sequence right?”
“I believe it,” I said, then left him. As soon as I was out of sight, I broke into a bouncing, low-gravity trot. By the time I’d reached the area I’d decided I needed to set up a squad of marines to help Marvin see things my way—if he wouldn’t listen to reason. I had to have those factories under my control. Next to the cruiser itself, they were the most valuable asset we had. They produced our weapons, supplies and repaired everything. Our survival depended on them. Marvin simply could not keep possession of them, not even for another hour.
The hole in the upper left quadrant of the cruiser had become our launch-bay. The cruiser had big missile ports, but we didn’t really know how to control them, so we used the yawning hole to do the job. The area was big: over a hundred feet wide and three times that in depth. We’d taken out partial walls, twisted tubing and the like to give us more space. As best we could tell, the Macros had kept their sensor arrays and their missile magazines here. Now, it was a twisted mass of slag. The hole in the nose functioned like a big window, affording a view of orangey-brown Helios itself and occasionally the glaring rim of that giant, red sun.
The launch bay swarmed with marines, most of them survivors of Welter’s short-lived pirate campaign. The rest were my people, helping organize the mass of equipment and manpower that streamed in. At the center of things was the junkpile known as Marvin. He didn’t look anything like his old self. He’d started off as a brainbox with legs, and now he was something like a scrap metal dragon—or maybe a flying freight train built in a junkyard. The core of his body consisted of three of my bricks. Two of those were my factories, I knew. They were chained together with nanite cables, as had been all of Marvin’s incarnations. The flying dishes my men had used as individual assault vehicles had been cunningly placed at every corner and angle of the three brick train to provide propulsion. There were at least a dozen of the dishes canted at various angles. Nanite arms controlled each of them individually. I could see how they would all point at one time to provide a lot of power. Despite myself, I was intrigued by the design. It was ingenious.
I signaled Warrant Officer Sloan. He was always hanging around the launch bay, even though we didn’t have any tanks left for him to pilot. He’d recovered from exposure in space at the ring, and I knew he wouldn’t mind having something to do. I had him gather a squad, told him to arm themselves heavily and to stand by in the corridors outside the launch bay.
When Sloan had his crew set up, I approached Marvin slowly, warily. I noted most of my men were keeping their distance from him. He hovered a few feet above the deck. No one tried to take away any of the pieces he’d purloined.
I wanted to yell at him. I wanted to order him to land and have my marines begin stripping him down. But I forced myself into a welcoming frame of mind. Sometimes, a kind word could make difficult events glide by.
“Welcome home, Marvin!” I said, walking up to the front section. I didn’t see his brainbox or his camera.
I didn’t get any response, so I walked calmly along the length of the structure. Nanite-controlled propulsion dishes twitched as I came near. I gazed up and down, then along the length of him. Then I saw it. A small camera, lifted up over the rest. It was between the second and third bricks in the structure. I snorted and walked toward it at an even pace.
“There you are,” I said. “It’s good to see you, and we owe you our thanks for helping out.”
The camera lowered until it was barely peeping out from between the bricks. As I continued approaching, Marvin must have realized I’d spotted his single eye and the camera rose higher. It tilted and focused, tracking me.
“This visual input device is damaged,” Marvin complained.
I snorted. His personality hadn’t changed, just his structure. Thinking back, I realized that none of my statements of friendly greeting had really required a response. I had given no commands, made no requests and asked no questions. So Marvin hadn’t said anything. Now apparently, he identified me with serving a need of his, so he was talking.
“Let’s talk about that, Marvin,” I said. “I can provide you with a brand new, undamaged visual unit. In fact, I’d like to give you two of them so you can see in stereo and get a better perception of depth.”
The camera twitched, sliding to one side, perhaps to get a different perspective on me. “My sensor array includes scanners with multiple inputs. My regional spatial projections are more accurate—”
“Yes, yes,” I said, putting up a gloved hand. “I know you can perceive a three dimensional environment. But those are active systems. The cameras are passive systems. Wouldn’t it be nice to observe without having to send out any telltale emissions?”
Marvin thought this one over for awhile. I was working on his paranoia. If Marvin had one weakness, it was his slightly fearful nature. He wasn’t like the Macros or the herds of Centauri that way—he always looked out for number one. A passive system of sensory input was very important in any hostile environment. Space warfare was comparable to submarine warfare, and while active sonar was effective, passive systems were always preferable if you were trying to hide. Active detection systems such as radar or sonar operated by transmitting signals out and analyzing the signal that bounced back. The problem with such systems came when someone else was listening to your active pinging. They could then pinpoint your location with precision. Passive systems were more like human senses such as hearing. They did not give away the listener.
“I would like to have multiple cameras,” Marvin said at last, taking the bait.
“Great. Let’s make a deal then, Marvin. I’ll provide you with two—no, make that four new cameras. That way you can look in every direction at once. I know they have a limited field of vision, you’ve complained about that before. No more worrying about what is approaching from behind. I think it is an ample reward for the retrieval and return of our equipment.”
“I have not returned your equipment,” Marvin pointed out.
“The cameras will be provided the moment you do,” I said. “And I think you should be able to keep a piece of that junk you assembled. How about one of those dishes to provide you with mobility and flight? You can sit your brainbox in the dish and keep a few nanite arms for manipulation of objects and cameras.”
Marvin hesitated. “The collective mass of the equipment you list is far less than that which I possess now.”
I pursed my lips in annoyance. I wanted to shout at him even more now than when I’d first seen him. I wanted to order him to let go of my stuff, and get back to the lab. He reminded me of a child in some ways—a dangerous, alien child. It was my turn to pause, thinking of different ways to manipulate him. I could threaten, or force him to comply. He didn’t have any armament on his flying junk pile that I could see. We could shoot him down if we had to. But what would that teach him? To arm himself next time? I could imprison him, I supposed. Stripping him down to a single thin arm with a camera and some audio I/O would do it. He’d be down to talking then. But these were last resorts. I didn’t want to make a hostile out of Marvin. He had a wealth of information inside that brainbox of his and I had to get out everything I could.
At last, I figured I had an angle on the problem. “Marvin, do you enjoy exploring ships?”
“Yes.”
“This is a new ship, with new chambers you’ve never seen. Remember the laboratory on Jolly Rodger? Remember the microbials?”
“Yes.”
“There are different discoveries to be made on this ship.”
“What discoveries?”
I laughed. “If I knew, they would have already been discovered. Who knows? Mysteries are here. New things none of us have ever seen. Would you like to find them?”
“Yes.”
“Well then,” I said. “Take my offer for a reward, and get yourself down to a size that will allow you to explore every inch of this ship. If you keep the bricks, you will have to sit here in the hold alone and you won’t get to see anything.”
Marvin was quiet for a while. “I will take your offer,” he said at last.
I waved back Warrant Officer Sloan’s the assault squad. They had been very ready to take down Marvin. They’d been waiting in the corridors quietly while we had our little chat. I sent them out to find me four undamaged cameras instead. The baffled look on Sloan’s face was priceless.