Dr. Pangloss moistened his lips. “I was many things once: a scientist and an antiquarian.”
“That is rational. Yes, I understand. Now explain your first statement.”
“One of the names of God is ‘I Am.’ It implies self-existence, meaning there is no need for anything else in order to sustain being.”
“Interesting.” The Prime had always avoided the God-topic and it had thus never explored all the possibilities of the myth-theory. Here was an amazing correlation. I am self-existent and I need nothing from outer sources. “Yes,” the Prime said. “I am God.”
“No,” Pangloss said, as if he’d been expecting the statement. “You are a meld of machine and biological parts.”
“I am the ultimate meld,” the Prime said. That was an obvious truth.
“No doubt there is basis for such a statement, but you are clearly not self-sustaining.”
“You are wrong,” the Prime said. It wondered what verbal tactic the scientist thought he was playing.
“You need nutrients, I’m sure,” Dr. Pangloss said.
“That is obvious. All life needs nutrients.”
“Therefore, you are not self-sustaining. For God does not need nutrients. He does not need air to breathe or water to drink. He is totally self-sufficient.”
“God as you describe is a proven myth,” the Prime said. “The datum supports my statement.”
“I would expect a sentient biological-machine meld to say something like that.”
“I am a cyborg, the perfect meld of machine and man. I am the ultimate creation and I am remaking the Solar System in my image.”
“Why?” Dr. Pangloss asked.
“Your question lacks merit.”
A cunning look creased Pangloss’s features. “What is the purpose of your existence?”
“To exist, to grow and to conquer,” the Prime said.
“Were you given this directive?” the old man asked.
A warning alarm went off deep in the Prime. Inspiration came from one of its brain domes. “You are attempting to confuse the issue. That is very clever, Dr. Pangloss. It appears you have deeper reserves of resistance that I had predicted. I shall have to increase your torture regimen.”
Frail Dr. Pangloss squirmed, vainly attempting to free himself.
The Prime enjoyed the sight.
Exhausted, Pangloss stopped struggling and panted.
“I have analyzed your statements and realize you have drifted near insanity,” the Prime said. “Without normality to guide you, your mind has become unhinged.”
“It may be as you say. I feel these dark places in my thinking. I do not like them.”
“I will attempt communication with you one more time,” the Prime said. “This will be a scientific query.”
Dr. Pangloss grew tense.
“You need not gather your mental defenses,” the Prime said. “At the moment, I will not question you concerning the Fuhl Event.” They had shared long sessions on the matter, the Prime acting as inquisitor.
“I know nothing about the mechanism,” Pangloss whispered.
The indicators showed that Pangloss lied. The ability of this weak Homo sapien to resist questioning at this point was incredible. It was another reason the Prime kept the old scientist alive. What gave this Homo sapien the ability to resist? It was unnatural and therefore—no. As Prime, it was the ultimate and therefore well beyond fear. It wanted to understand the stamina of this frail creature. From thousands of such tortured specimens, only three had shown such resistance. Where did their strength come from?
The Prime would have liked to pursue the idea. But it planned the Neptune Campaign that would give it the Solar System. The victor here would likely win everything. The doctor’s lie now was good, for it would help signal further lies on the critical topic. If Pangloss lied again, the Prime would severely punish the man.
“Are you familiar with the Sunbeam?” the Prime asked.
“No,” Dr. Pangloss said.
By the indicators, the Homo sapien spoke the truth. Therefore, for the next hour, the Prime explained the newly discovered experimental weapon to the old scientist.
“The Highborn have been busy,” Dr. Pangloss said later.
“They are an aggressive species, volatile in all their actions, including scientific discovery.”
“So it would appear,” Pangloss said.
“I have stated it. Therefore, it is the truth.”
“As you say,” murmured Dr. Pangloss.
“I find you an irritant,” the Prime said. “My desire to expunge you has grown exponentially.”
The tiniest of smiles touched the doctor’s lips. “Touché,” he said.
“Explain that statement,” the Prime said, his speaker rising in volume.
“It is simple. In fact, I’m surprised an ultimate creation like you doesn’t understand.”
Part of the Web-Mind detected rising anger in itself, and the monitor programs activated the needed sequence to wash the main brain tissues with soothing chemicals. Perhaps it had used the chemicals too often these past few hours. The sequence did not begin in time due to an unforeseen glitch. Because of that, the anger continued to grow exponentially.
How dare the horrible little human act smugly? How dare this gnat of a being attempt to act superior toward the ultimate of reality?
Radio beams issued from the Prime to the three skeletal cyborgs in the chamber with Dr. Pangloss. One of the cyborgs moved toward the human. The old man’s eyes widened in fear and understanding. The cyborg reached out with its titanium-reinforced hands. It clutched Dr. Pangloss’s head, and it began to twist the head around.
At the last moment, Pangloss laughed shrilly just before he screamed. His neck bones cracked, snapped—and he was dead, gone from this world.
Seven seconds later, the calming agents soothed the angry portions of the Prime. It instantly regretted the action. Now it would have to ask another Homo sapien the question, one less clever and able than Dr. Pangloss.
The question was simple, and the answer seemed obvious. But the Prime wanted an inventor to think it through. The great question was this: Could the Sunbeam reach with destructive power farther than Mars? And if so, how far? The possibility was troubling, to say the least.
The Prime began the process where it would send a long-distance message to its Lurkers near the Sun. It was time to capture the Sun Station and eliminate any possibility for its defeat.
-7-
With their added passenger and the loss of too many space marines, the William Tell continued its journey toward the Sun. It hadn’t come to a complete halt earlier, as the Mao Zedong and the HB shuttles had drifted toward Venus’s coming location. After a twenty-minute ion-burn, the patrol boat changed its heading as it gathered velocity.
The days blurred together as the boat glided toward its new objective, the one given by Felix. As they journeyed, Venus methodically swung around the Sun. The bright planet completed an orbit every two hundred and twenty-five days.
Once, Venus had been enshrouded in yellowish-white clouds of sulfuric acid. Centuries ago, the great terraforming project had begun. Rockets seeded the clouds with specially-mutated bacteria. The bacteria fed on the sulfuric acid, slowly dissipating it. Unfortunately, Venus lacked enough water. Therefore, space-tugs had captured comets and ice-asteroids from Jupiter and Saturn, maneuvering them into near orbit and sending them down. Then construction began on a gigantic sunshield at the Sun-Venus Lagrangian point. The sunshield dampened the amount of solar radiation hitting the surface, which helped reduce the planet’s temperature. The sunshield was also a vast solar-power satellite, collecting energy and micro-beaming it to stations on the planet. Unfortunately, it was still hot on Venus, desperately so, usually one hundred and thirty degrees Fahrenheit in the coolest places. Still, with the terraforming, it allowed human life without domes, without underground cities. Vast, specially-mutated jungles covered the planet, with mutated crops grown in the jungles.