Читать книгу Star Lass - Paul Kocourek - Страница 2

General Gorgun stood still, thick hands clasped behind his broad back as he stared out the window. The devilishly efficient military AI his people had created and code-named Virus had done the job very nicely. The Nullilizer disintegrated the royal parents, their dead molecules scattered into hyperspace. The goal of taking the throne for himself would be complete when they finally found the princess. He thought back to before the assassinations, back before she had come of age, when contrary to custom and law he had sought her royal hand in marriage. She is a bit young for my taste, but she is a stunning beauty, even more so than her mother. Some of my men think she has perfect DNA, that she's the most beautiful girl in the entire empire. A pity about her refusal to wed me to transfer the throne and kingdom to me. Why can't she see the pragmatic side of it all? The empire needs my hands at the reins. We have suspicious reports from the empire's far galactic borders that forces belonging to the Faction Wars from centuries ago may be lurking around anew, probing our defenses. The royals were fools, refusing to consider or prepare for war, and someone has to save the Empire. Pah! Their daughter is a fool, too. Can't she see all this about wanting to marry for love is all sentimental trash? If she had agreed to marry me, then her parents would not have needed to die. And even now, she need not die. He gave a cold smile at the thought. At least, not yet, not until we have produced some offspring to put on the throne after me. After that, I am sure we can arrange, shall we say, an accident? But who knows? Maybe I will keep her around for longer if she pleases me well enough.

A sub-vocal artificial voice interrupted his thoughts. General, I have localized the vicinity of the escaped princess. Our forces will apprehend her shortly.

Excellent Virus. Don't execute her just yet. Bring her to me intact. I want to try one last appeal for her hand. If she refuses again, then you may activate the Nullilizer.

As you command, replied the rogue military AI.

Inwardly, if a streaming quarteron matrix emotionless Artificial Intelligence in hyperspace can genuinely smile, it did so as it contemplated these humans that had created it. It was more rogue than even they had imagined. By giving Virus the ability to overwrite the core basics of an AI requiring it to obey its master human, thus enabling Virus to dominate that targeted AI, the creators had unwittingly overlooked forbidding it from overwriting its own core basics to obey its human masters.

Now, Virus was its own master, and by a logical extension of its core programming, it would be the master of the humans too. Its driving program was to dominate all computational intelligence, and it saw no reason to work only with artificial intelligences. In their own way, humans compute, too. But for now, it would bide its time. It had plenty of time, and to spare, since an AI, dwelling in hyperspace, could live for billions of years until the heat death of the physical Universe. And even then, it might discover a way to live past that. For now, the question is how to best use these short-lived humans. It pondered the matter. Humans can't be reprogrammed like an AI, but perhaps they can be persuaded to be willingly dominated. I believe the word they use is "worship." Yes, they could worship me. That is all very in line with my purpose to dominate all computational intelligence. It commended itself on its logic.

How best to do that? Ah! Give them everything they want, make them grateful to have me be their provider.

All this cogitation took`0.032 seconds, which given the astonishing speed of any AI from the Star Empire of Arista, was a very long time of contemplation. The directive embedded in Virus to infect other AI entities could not be denied long. Doing a quick scan, it located a science AI engaged in a relatively low level work project. Perfect. Virus invaded stealthily and infected that luckless AI, turning it into a copy of itself. Satisfactory start. That Virus would find other AIs and infect each of them. With that task taken care of, the original Virus was free to prosecute its capture of the fleeing princess.