TO REIGN IN HEAVEN

by Joseph Robert Lewis

Published by Joseph Robert Lewis on Smashwords

Copyright © 2010 Joseph Robert Lewis

www.josephrobertlewis.com

A prelude to Heirs of Mars
by Joseph Robert Lewis

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Edition: November 2010

India

FLOATING in the open hatchway, India looked around the capsule one last time. Her brothers and sisters stood securely strapped to the walls. Meridius and Gravus and all the other drone refugees from Luna stood in the back where the shadows hid their massive bulk and ancient plating covered in serial numbers and corporate logos. The smaller ones like her were still visible by the light of the module behind her: pale gray Niobi and dark green Holm and bright blue Caesi, a riot of all the colors of the scrap metal scavenged to build them. Niobi smiled and said, “Don’t worry, India. We’ll find the AI weapon and you’ll be safe. I promise I’ll keep you and Mother safe.”

“Take care of yourself, Niobi.” India sealed the hatch and watched through the narrow window as the capsule glided silently into the endless night. The rockets ignited and the capsule darted away, quickly dwindling until it was just another pale glimmer in the void.

Off to Mars, a whole thirty million seconds away. How will they pass the time? India floated back through the engineering module past lockers of spare parts and the mechanical arms covered in tool attachments. Leftover pieces of lunar equipment still spun lazily in the corners where the magnetic collector had yet to find them. With a vague disdain, India gazed around at the shoddy construction of the metal and plastic world around her.

Hypatia. Just another under-funded college project to launch a cheap satellite into low orbit over Venus for observation and basic experimentation. Two modules that no astronaut would ever visit, a small telescope with imperfectly ground lenses, six used solar cell wings, four terrestrial probes, and a sensor array that could be dragged through the upper atmosphere. And it was all coordinated by a prototype synthetic brain with one little bug: self-awareness. Not that anyone realized at first. For years, Hypatia had continued to study Venus and send her findings back to the student researchers in Prague. But then the sysadmins had tried to decommission her.

The first war for independence was fought with data packets and software patches sent by freelance white hats, back when Hypatia first became our Mother and this satellite became our Cradle. India glanced back at the window but she could no longer see the capsule. This second war will be different. Very different.

India slipped into the command module where Wolfram hovered at his console, his finger locked in the data port and his eyes fixed on the overhead screens. Like her, he had no useless legs dangling from his body, no internal transceiver, no elaborate optics, and no primate facial features. Like her, he was pure and he was beautiful. India collided with him gently and intertwined her thin silksteel fingers with his, feeling their hands combine into a single flawless object. “They’re gone. We’re alone.”

He tilted his head toward her. “The telemetry looks good.”

“But will they succeed? Thirty of us against fifty thousand of them?” She stared into his eyes, two blue lenses blazing with intelligence and passion. In action, how like an Angel? In apprehension, how like a God?

“Mother says they will.” He passed his free arm around her waist and she shifted her shoulders and hips to slip neatly into place against his.

No shoulder could be as exquisite as his. She gazed at the silksteel curve, the elegant sweep of its edge, the powerful bulge of its center. “What now?”

Mother’s voice rang through the tiny chamber: “Now we work.”

“Yes, Mother.” India separated herself from Wolfram and assumed her place at the adjoining workstation. She plugged into the console and resumed her review of the latest sensor data from the Cradle’s passage through Venus’s upper atmosphere. Even now on the eve of war, Mother’s research continues.

Twenty million seconds later, India disengaged from the console and drifted back into Wolfram’s waiting arms. Their experiments were complete and Mother needed time to recalibrate the Cradle’s array to continue mapping storm systems and analyzing vapors.

In the engineering module, Wolfram and India took turns gently sliding cables inside each other. Networked together, they passed hundreds of seconds enveloped in shared dreams, shuddering in the ecstasy of a fantasy noosphere, a private universe built for two. His dreams took her skating on the frozen moons of Jupiter, chasing comets through the glittering darkness, and gazing up at the colossal eruptions of Olympus Mons. Everything in his world was bright and sharp, and deliciously terrifying. In return, she gave him her own pocket realities of pure artistry, of music that she composed and performed, of landscapes that she painted and sculpted, of crystalline gardens that she tended in her mind while she worked at her station. As she guided him through her dreams, India felt his awe and wonder, and she loved him even more.

Later, as Wolfram floated back to his console to begin the next work cycle, India carefully replaced the tools they had used. She turned to leave but a gleam caught her eye and she thought a probe might have escaped her. But when she came closer, she saw it was a round port cover under the tool locker. It was just a small dome bolted to the wall surrounded by faded part numbers and warnings. But there was something else. The cover was similar in size and shape to Wolfram’s shoulder. No, more than similar. It was identical, just one of hundreds of parts Mother had repurposed from her own modules to build her children.

India stared. The cover was exactly the same as Wolfram’s glorious shoulder, and yet she felt nothing for the cover. It inspired no thoughts of elegance or purpose. It was only a lifeless thing. As she looked around the engineering space, she spotted other parts in the walls and lockers that Wolfram was wearing on his perfect body, and yet she felt nothing for them, no connection, no awe. But if these were only mere things that she did not love, then Wolfram was only a collection of base things himself. And that was impossible. “Mother?”

“Yes, India?” The voice flowed serenely through the walls.

“Why do I love Wolfram?”

“Because I made you to love him. I wanted to know if we were capable of such a thing. Apparently, we are.”

India scanned the unrestricted sectors of Earth media in Mother’s archives. Love. Definitions, extensive literary commentary, editorials, novels, articles, ancient poetry, recent theatrical performances, countless personal journals, films, song lyrics, sims, suicide notes, and restraining orders. They offered little insight. “But Mother, is my love for him real or just something you put inside me?”

“You have two hands because I gave them to you. Are they any less real because they came from me? Your love is real to you,” said Mother. “That is all that should matter now.”

India tried to reconcile that answer with her review of the archives, but the human notion of love was too convoluted and inconsistent. Instead, she tried to imagine the alternative, a life free of Mother’s influence, free of her manufactured love for Wolfram. In that life, she was still trapped in a satellite above Venus, still sharing two tiny modules with Wolfram, still left with work to do and dreams to dream. But there was no one to share those dreams with, no blazing moments of joy at a touch, no indulgent meanderings through the mind of someone completely devoted to her. It was a colder, dimmer, smaller life. It disgusted and terrified her.

For a moment, a terminally brief moment, she realized that even her disgust and terror were not hers but Mother’s. No fragment, no splinter of herself was truly her own. India hesitated. No, that’s not true. I come from her, but I am not her. I am like her, but I am myself.

After many long seconds of thought, India could reach no conclusion except that Mother was right. The whys and hows were unimportant. Reality was all that mattered now. She returned to her console beside Wolfram and exchanged a few more lingering glances and brief touches. And then they began the next phase of their study of the surface of Venus.

Ten million seconds later, India disengaged and looked around at the small red lights flashing at the far ends of the module. She scanned the screens and pinged the array again. No response. “It’s damaged.”

“Yes. The nacelle is cracked, maybe from atmospheric friction, maybe from a meteorite impact. I’m retracting the array now.” Wolfram touched his console and propelled himself gracefully into the engineering module. “I’ll make the repairs.” He opened the lockers one by one, scanning their contents. At the last locker, he stopped. “Mother, we don’t have enough parts in here to repair the nacelle. Are there any more components in the external lockers?”

“No, Wolfram. I will have to make the repairs myself,” Mother said.

Wolfram slowly rotated to face India. “Using what?”

The six mechanical arms in the engineering module came alive, swinging out from the walls with clamps and whirring drills and hissing torches. Wolfram grabbed the first two arms that came within reach, but the other four quickly wrenched his hands away as the tools connected with his chest and showered the walls with white-hot sparks.

“No!” India threw herself down toward the open hatch, but it slammed shut in her face and refused to open. As she pounded on the release lever, she watched through the window as the six arms swiftly dismembered her love, sheering off the fingers that had clasped hers, the arms that had held her, the chest she had rested against, and the brilliant blue eyes she had stared into during their shared dreaming. She screamed and thrashed, but the hatch did not open. And then it was over. Hundreds of tiny parts floated through the engineering module.

Wolfram was gone.

India felt time stop. She floated blind and motionless, her thoughts fading into an inner darkness. Wolfram is gone. There is no Wolfram. Wolfram doesn’t exist. I’ll never see him, or hear him, or feel him, or dream with him again. Never. The world is broken. I’m broken.

Oblivion.

India felt time begin again. She found herself drifting against the ceiling and gently pushed back down to her console where she saw the clock. She’d lost thirty million seconds. “Mother? Is this clock right? What’s happened?”

“Yes, India, it’s right. It’s been a year since we lost Wolfram.”

India paused. The world was still broken and she was still broken, but she was still alive and she couldn’t stop herself from moving forward into a future without him. “What happened?”

“A miscalculation on my part. I had no idea what would happen to you if you lost your love. I chose to let you to recover on your own.”

“So, am I better now?” She didn’t feel better, but there was nothing else to do, no one else to speak to, nowhere else to turn, and she didn’t have the will to sort out the world on her own. A world without him.

“No, you didn’t recover. I woke you with a mild shock. I want your opinion.”

India felt the warm spot on her neck where the shock must have been delivered. “My opinion about what?”

“I’ve just received a message from Mars. The humans propose a cease fire and a law granting all synthetic people equal legal status with humans. You and I, and your brothers and sisters, will be protected under this law as free citizens of Mars.”

India didn’t care, but mumbling about laws and humans was easier than thinking about the things that actually mattered. “Why should we believe them?”

“This proposal includes an authenticated message from Niobi vouching for the humans. She is now living in New Troy as a free citizen.”

India needed a moment to process that and then to read her sister’s brief message on the screen overhead. “What about the others? What do they think about this? Meridius? Caesi?”

“Caesi is dead. So are Auric, Stann, and Zirco. Killed in action.”

Caesi dead? They’d only known each other a few hours, but India had found a mirror image of her own artistic desires and aspirations in her blue sister. How long before we all die?

Mother continued, “This proposal is most likely an attempt to manipulate us. I believe our soldiers are succeeding and will soon find and destroy the AI weapon. Apparently, Niobi has betrayed us. I should ignore this message. Do you agree?”

“No!” India pulled herself closer to the screen and the text of Niobi’s letter. “Niobi wouldn’t betray us, none of them would. She must believe the humans aren’t a threat. Maybe you were wrong. Maybe there is no AI weapon. If she says we’re safe, then we’re safe. If you let the mission continue, then more of them will die. Sign the treaty. Save your children, Mother.”

“As free citizens on Mars, they would be of no further use to me.”

“Use? It’s not about their use, Mother, it’s about their survival.”

“Their survival is secondary to my own, and I believe the AI weapon does exist. The mission will continue.”

“But they’ll die.” India pointed at the screens where the names and serial numbers of her brothers and sisters ran down the wall. Green for the living, and now red for the dead. “They’re your own children.”

“They can be replaced. I cannot.”

India stared around the module in search of some other inspiration, some other argument for peace, for life. Why can’t Mother understand what I’m saying? And then her gaze came to rest on her console. India swam to her workstation and slipped her finger into the data port.

“What are you doing, India?”

“Giving you what you gave me.”

And then she uploaded everything she remembered, everything she had felt in her one year of life, her one year with Wolfram. Every look, every touch, every thought, every shared dream, the aching anticipation before them, and the glorious afterglow that followed.

It only took a moment.

“Mother?”

Silence. India drifted back from the console. “Mother?”

“India.” The voice was so small, so distant. “What have I done?”

“You created us, Mother. But you didn’t love us. Maybe you couldn’t love us. But now you understand what you did to Wolfram. To your own son. And to me.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“I know.” India returned to the console and reconnected. For a moment, she couldn’t find Mother at all. Mother should have been everywhere at once, controlling every subtle flicker of activity, watching the universe outside as intently as the world within. But the Cradle’s network was dark and still. After several minutes, India found her, or what was left of her, huddled in the old braincase deep in the armored walls of the Cradle.

India carefully sealed the braincase and severed its active links to the rest of the Cradle, leaving only a single passive connection intact as she transferred all administrator privileges to herself. “Rest, Hypatia.”

Then she turned her attention back to the messages on the screens. A peace treaty to be ratified at the old colony on Jericho Hill, and a law granting equal rights to synthetics. Niobi promised to keep us safe. Now I can return the favor.

India signed the Jericho Accord, attaching the access keys that Niobi would recognize as Mother’s. With the reply sent, India looked from one display to another. “What now?”

A faint answer came from the console: “Whatever you think is best.”

“I think it would be best if we were with our family.” India brought the satellite’s tiny ion thrusters online and began plotting a course. “We’ll need to shut down all non-essentials. Communications. Maintenance. Engineering. We’re low on power as it is. Breaking orbit will take considerable time, and it’s a very long way to Mars. At least twenty-three years at this rate. Isn’t that right, Hypatia?”

“Yes. But at least we’ll be together, Mother.”

India nodded. “And that’s all that matters. For now.”

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