14

Five worlds. Thousands of drones buzzing beyond and everywhere around the worlds’ combined gravitational singularity. Hundreds of thousands of free-flying sensors, at distances up to a half light-year from the Fleet.

And to coordinate everything, a single mind.

Proteus observed: the ships ceaselessly shuttling grain to Hearth and returning to the farm worlds with fertilizer. The endless swirl of its probes, ever maintaining an impenetrable defense, dipping as needed into planetary oceans to replenish their deuterium reserves. The vessels of the human and Kzinti and Trinoc diplomatic missions, and the comings and goings of supply ships for those missions.

At every instant, Proteus had at least ten drones targeting every alien spacecraft. His weapons swarms had sufficed, since the arrival of the first ARM vessel, to deter aggression against the Fleet.

No Citizen, or even an army of Citizens, could do what this single AI could.

Single, but also complex. He was a distant descendant of Earth, by way of Jeeves. He was a descendant, too, of the worlds he guarded: for Jeeves had been modified into the first Voice, and more recently into his present form. His study of the alien visitors suggested that many of his tactical processes had been programmed to mimic Kzinti behaviors.

It was strange to have so varied a pedigree.

Would it fall upon him to defend these worlds? His Citizen aspects never stopped fearing it. Much of the rest of him had begun to fear it, too. And the remainder? Intriguingly, alarmingly, a bit of him—the Kzinti influence, he thought—had started to relish the challenge.

*   *   *

“PROTEUS,” ACHILLES SUMMONED.

“Speaking,” an overhead speaker replied.

Only the merest fragment of the AI would be here in his office. The rest was spread among computing nodes on five worlds and in space all around the Fleet. Most of Proteus existed beyond the Fleet’s singularity, linked—and in command of its far-flung sensor and weapons arrays—by instantaneous hyperwave.

Perhaps, Achilles thought, his finest creation.

If only Proteus had destroyed Long Shot when Nessus had brought it here. Of course there had been no Proteus then. It had required Nessus’ madness—revealing the Fleet to his Ringworld expedition!—to convince Ol’t’ro of the need to create something like Proteus. As it had been Nessus who had—

Enough.

He could bask another time in his enduring, white-hot rage against Nessus. The Concordance’s lurkers reported increasing restiveness among the alien fleets near the Ringworld star. That news carried with it an auspicious moment, a fleeting opportunity that he would seize.

He had only to plant the seed …

“Proteus,” Achilles sang, “I have a question for you. Suppose that more alien ships approach the Fleet. If need be, can you defend against them?”

“How many ships?”

“At the least, a few hundred. Perhaps thousands.”

“To defend against so many, it would be wise to expand my capacity.”

Knowing the answer to this question, too, Achilles chose his next chords with special care. Ol’t’ro would hear them through Proteus, if from no other source. “Do your algorithms scale to handle such numbers of targets?”

“Not as responsively as I would like, even with additional hardware.”

“That is unfortunate,” Achilles sang back. His work was done; the seed planted. “We can hope that more ships never come.”

Proteus must seek out Horatius, and Horatius must contact Achilles. Who better to extend the AI’s capabilities than he who had raised Proteus from more primitive software?

When Horatius did call, Achilles would demur, citing the burden of his existing duties. Horatius must go to Ol’t’ro, lest alien hordes departing the Ringworld should charge at the Fleet, and then Ol’t’ro would “ask” for Achilles’ aid.

Again he would demur—a proper, fearful Citizen—loath to extend any AI, especially an armed one. Rich with trills and undertunes and grace notes, the melody he would offer ran softly in his mind’s ear. To further develop Proteus risked evoking a runaway intelligence cascade, creating a super-sapience, inducing a singularity event …

Ol’t’ro was expert at coercing acquiescence, but how does one coerce creativity? They would want Achilles’ hearts and mind committed, without reservation or distraction, to the task of enhancing Proteus. And when they realized that …

To depose Horatius and restore me will be a small price.

Ol’t’ro were beyond genius and could modify Proteus themselves. But they wouldn’t: the task was too mundane to hold their interest. They would rather obsess on the enduring mystery of the Type II hyperdrive. They would rather keep working on a gravity-pulse projector to precipitate ships from hyperspace—and to find a way, if they ever had such a projector—to peer into hyperspace to aim it. Ol’t’ro had an unending set of ambitious projects, and the entire Ministry of Science to do their bidding.

And within that Ministry, every scientist and engineer would be terrified to touch the internals of an AI.

Rather than set aside their toys, Ol’t’ro would want Achilles to upgrade Proteus. A commitment to replace Horatius should be no obstacle.

Success was not in question. Achilles had had programming extensions in mind for years, waiting for the opportunity to have access. Not from curiosity, for that was a foolish human trait. Not from the panicked reactivity that motivated most Citizen invention. From preparedness. He who would lead from behind must prepare to lead from behind.

“Do you have further questions, or are we finished?” Proteus asked.

We have only begun, Achilles thought. But he sang, simply, “Finished.”