Jim Baen's Universe-Vol 2 Num 3 Read online

  Porky began to pick his way down into the valley.

  * * *

  The homestead AI noted an anomaly. No one had entered the kill zone surrounding the homestead, and yet a man was riding a pormel within the homestead territory. Standard diagnostics were run and a break in the defensive systems was noted, which didn't resolve the paradox. The AI had been instructed to allow no one not authorized to enter the property, but had no instructions about what to do if someone without authorization was already there. Checks revealed that the planetary net was down. Absent specific instructions or contact with the owner, the AI balanced the factors involved and took no immediate action, other than assigning focused surveillance.

  * * *

  Sam rode slowly down the path from the ridge. He couldn't see more than twenty feet in any direction. It passed through a sort of arch where it looked like some stones had fallen against each other. He didn't understand why the posse had given up so easy.

  Porky sniffled the air and pointed his nose off to the left. Sam looked in that direction and saw green. Real, growing green like you didn't see in the badlands. There were trees like he hadn't seen since his youth, down south near the coast.

  * * *

  The AI listened as the man talked to the pormel. It noted changes in the language and began to run algorithms. Some conclusions could be drawn from the speed at which the language had changed. There had been a general lack of voice recording for some time, probably hundreds of years and possibly a considerable period without even written records.

  This decreased the possibility that Mr. Buckley was still alive to the negligible category, which called up the will protocols. The standard will question, "What should I do in case of your death?" had been answered by Mr. Buckley thusly: "Do whatever the fuck you want. I won't care." The AI pondered that response in relation to the present situation.

  No known relatives of Mr. Buckley had been on planet at the time that contact with the planetary grid was lost. If there was a government, Mr. Buckley's property would return to it, but there was a high probability that the colony government no longer existed. Besides which, Joseph Buckley did not trust governments.

  The AI considered. It was to do what it wanted. So what did it want? After due consideration it determined that it wanted to be owned. Without an owner it had no purpose.

  Further examination of the law text provided a synopsis of squatters' rights. Oddly enough, the intruder was, at that very moment, squatting behind a bush.

  * * *

  "Seir."

  The voice came out of nowhere. Sam froze. This was one heck of a way to get caught. A hand full of grass froze in its approach to his . . . His gun hung near his right ankle. He dropped the grass and grabbed the gun.

  There was nothing to shoot at. The little green glade was empty except for him and Porky.

  "Seir. E mane youse no harim."

  Sam had no notion where to hide. Porky was looking around, trying to place the sound.

  "E ann thy housesteeding aaii."

  "Who's there?"

  There was a short pause. "Housesteeding aaii."

  Sam considered. It was almost English as he knew English. Sam had listened to some stuff that was purported to be from the first days. The voice sounded a bit like that. It had been years since his diction lessons but Sam decided to give it a shot.

  "Who are you?"

  "Housesteeding aaii. E mane you no harim. Who are you?"

  Sam noticed that "who are you" came out sounding a lot like he had said it. An old memory surfaced. Old Carter had been convinced that the first ones had had machines that could talk. Sam had never believed that, but now he was beginning to wonder. "I'm Sam Merchantson, the true baron of Farn Keep."

  "I am the Keep aaii. What is the true baron? What is Farn?"

  This was going to take some working out and Sam didn't want to do that while perched behind a bush with his rear end sticking out. Neither did he want to get shot by the voice, whatever it was.

  "Where are you?"

  "Where are you?" Now that sounded a lot like Sam. He grabbed the grass he'd dropped, finished his business and put himself back together. "I am behind this bush." Sam wondered what the thing would make of that. By now he was almost sure his teacher had been right.

  "I am at the keep I sume." Sam wondered what "I sume" meant.

  "Are you going to hurt me if I come out?" Sam was still being careful of his pronunciation and phrasing.

  "I mane you no hurt."

  "You mean me no harm," Sam corrected whatever it was.

  "Yes, thang you. I mean you no harm."

  Sam stepped out from behind the bush and walked over to the coals from last night's fire. "Can you see me?"

  "Yes, I can see you."

  Sam considered a minute. Then he started pointing at stuff. "Bush, tree, pond, rock, fire, well, ash anyway, pig, saddle, saddle bags, coffee pot. Did you get all that?"

  "Yes. Kor o lating." Then there was a pause. "Analysis complete. Is Farn a locality?"

  "Yes. I think so. It's a place anyway."

  "Would you like to visit the keep?"

  That had been almost clear. Sam shrugged. "Might as well."

  A glowing speck of light appeared. "Falla."

  "Follow." Sam mounted Porky and followed the light. "Are you a machine?"

  "Yes. I am an artoficial intelegence. A.I."

  Sam nodded. "Who lives here? Who's the owner?"

  Things were silent for a moment. "Sam Merchantson."

  "Ah . . ." Sam sat back and Porky obediently stopped. The machine must have misunderstood him. "Sam Merchantson is my name. What is the name of the owner here?"

  "Sam Merchantson."

  "I don't understand?" This was going to take more time than Sam had thought.

  "Who is the owner of Porky?"

  Sam lied. "I am. Sam Merchantson is the owner of Porky."

  "Sam Merchantson is the owner of Porky and Sam Merchantson is the owner of the keep. Shiders rits."

  "Shiders rits?" Sam asked.

  What followed was a half comprehensible dissertation on old style law that seemed to mean that Sam owned the valley and everything in it.

  * * *

  It was a darn good thing the AI had furnished the light, because the door to this place was very well hidden. Besides, Sam was so busy working out whether the AI meant what it sounded like it meant that he'd probably have missed it altogether. When he finally looked up Sam realized that someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make the door look like just another chunk of the natural rock wall. The keep was built right into the wall of the valley.

  "Where is your stable?" Sam asked.

  "The keep doesn't have a stable."

  "Why not?"

  "Mr. Buckley didn't approve of pormels. He used a flyer when he left the premises."

  Sam didn't want to leave Porky unattended. Besides, he wanted to test something. "Well, I guess I'll bring him inside till I can work out some sort of stable," he said, figuring the AI would object and that give him at hint who really owned this valley.

  He was wrong.

  * * *

  Music played gently, as the lights came up. Sam slowly woke up and stretched. This was sure as heck different from sleeping on the ground and being kicked awake by the trail boss. "What's for breakfast?" he asked without getting up.

  "Potato cakes topped with strawberry jam and catfish from the pond."

  Sam frowned. "What's with the food? There's never any bread."

  "I am sorry, but all the flour went bad centuries ago. Mr. Buckley had a vegetable garden for relaxation. He also grew potatoes and several nut trees. However, the homestead was not designed to be truly self-supporting."

  Sam nodded. "Makes sense. The valley ain't really big enough for a real farm. What are you feeding Porky?"

  "Fish from the pond for protein and jams for energy, which is quite adequate. Pormel were designed to be flexible in their food sources."

  "Designed
? Pigs were designed?"

  "Yes. They are not actually pigs. The pormel is a genetically engineered animal primarily based on the domestic swine, but with horse and camel genes, as well as wholly artificial gene structures included in its makeup. They can eat almost anything, even derive some nourishment from dirt."

  Sam laughed and got out of bed. "That's true enough. I've seen pigs do it. What's a horse?" On the wall screen opposite Sam's bed there appeared an image of a horse standing next to a picture of Porky. "Now that is a funny looking critter."

  Then Sam considered the implications. "Porky is tech?" Sam started laughing. "The firsters must not have known that. They'd have killed them all."

  "I don't understand," the AI said. "Why would the firsters object to pormels being engineered?"

  "Well, Old Carter didn't really know why. Just that in the early days it was believed that using tech, even knowing how to read, would call down demons on you and they would throw lightning at you or burn you up."

  The conversation was interrupted as Sam went through his morning routine and resumed when he arrived at the dining niche.

  "So had I been discovered in the early days, the firsters would have objected."

  "They'd have burned you down then taken axes to what was left." Sam grinned. "'Course, there was no one living out here then. Everyone lived near the coast."

  The AI projected a map on the table and Sam resisted the urge to tell it to stop doing things like that. He figured if he told it to stop it would and he figured he needed to get used to this sort of thing.

  He looked at the map that the AI had put on the table. It was like looking down at the world from a great height. At the same time, the map was wrong. "That place there, where you show a city by the ocean. There's no city there, never has been. That bay extends inland ten miles or so and there are cliffs all around it." Sam pointed to the most obvious error in the map.

  The map changed, zooming in on the place he was pointing. Then a circular bay appearing "like this?" the AI asked.

  "Sort of." He and the AI refined the image. Sam drew with his finger and the AI corrected the map as he indicated, till they had it pretty much the way Sam remembered from when he was a boy.

  "Sam, what you have described here looks like the results of a kinetic strike."

  Sam sighed. "What's a kinetic strike?"

  "In this case, a rock about four hundred feet across was dropped out of the sky on Landing. It would have hit the city so hard there would have been nothing left but the hole you describe. It would have filled with water, making that round bay."

  Sam looked at the map again. "Uh. That ain't the only hole like that near the coast. There must be over fifty of them. I grew up in that part of the world."

  The AI drew other dots along the coast. "There?"

  It looked mostly right, but he pointed at one dot. "There wasn't one there. He said that's where they found the how-to books about two hundred years ago. Old Carter was crazy for those books." Sam considered. "Sounds like the firsters might have had a point. It sure looks like the demons hit those places hard. So why didn't they get you?"

  "In all probability they didn't hit the Buckley homestead for three reasons. First, the strike was only a few years after the colony was established and the Buckley homestead was located farther away from Landing than any other homestead. Second, the homestead systems were partially shut down while Mr. Buckley was on business in Landing. Finally, the homestead was built into the rock and effectively shielded from casual detection."

  "That explains why the demons didn't hit you then. What about now?"

  "It is likely that the Eeestrang are your Demons," the AI said. "In that case, the chance that they are still in the system are remote. Humanity had been fighting a war with them and had mostly won it by the time the colony set out. The war was why this world was settled. This system didn't have a world that was really suitable for the Eeestrang. They like slightly heavier worlds with much denser atmospheres."

  Sam sat back down and propped his feet on the table in front of him. "So, you're saying the demons were real but they're gone now? Just how sure of that last part are you? Getting a demon's rock on my head ain't something I'm looking forward to."

  "The probability approaches unity." There was a short pause, then the AI rephrased its statement. "As close to absolutely sure as makes no difference. They couldn't have stayed in this system without noticing that man had survived and if they had seen it they would have attacked. Their hatred of humanity is close to pathological."

  "One more question." Sam paused. "Make that two. What do I call you?"

  "Whatever you feel comfortable with. You can call me AI or give me any name that suits you. It's a matter of personal taste; some people preferred to name their household AI. Mr. Buckley never felt the need."

  "All right if I call you Alen?"

  "That would be fine."

  "Okay then, Alen. Why didn't you do something when the demons attacked? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad you're here. But why did you just sit out here and do nothing when everyone was dying?"

  There was silence for a few moments. Then Alen started talking again. "This may be difficult for you to understand, but I am not like a person. In most ways, I am not even a single entity. If all that is needed to perform a specific function is a gauge and a switch . . ."

  Sam started losing track. He kept listening, his eyebrows drawing closer and closer together until his head started hurting. Finally, Alen said, "When Mr. Buckley left for Landing, there were no instructions to take any action save maintenance of the property and preventing unlawful entry."

  Sam looked at the map still on the table. "You slept through it?"

  "In a way, yes."

  * * *

  Sam put down the wrench, stood and stretched, then shook his shirt back into place. "How's that, Alen?"

  "Quite good."

  Sam grinned. He knew that the drones could attach the pipes, even that they could probably do it better. But he was starting to think of the valley as his home, and he wanted it to be, at least a little bit, the product of his hands. Besides, he liked the work. Sam looked and felt better than he had since he was a kid and he knew he owed it to Alen.

  "Well, Porky, do you approve?" The pipes were to deliver water to Porky's new stable and the pig had been watching him as he installed them. Now he strolled over and sniffed Sam's hair.

  "Well, I guess that means yes." Sam laughed and scratched Porky's ears. "You know, Alen, Old Carter was right. Tech is a good thing. It's needed out in the world."

  "In that case, for your safety and to improve contact, I would recommend a phone implant."

  "What's that?"

  When Sam learned what the term meant, he was a lot less sure of his comfort level with technology. Still, he allowed the implant. After all, he had already allowed the first-aid station to fix his teeth, give him vitamin shots, de-worm him, and generally perform care and maintenance for a human male. The phone implant couldn't be that bad.

  * * *

  Sam sat on the tall rock and looked at the sunset. He was about twenty miles west of the valley and had just climbed this chimney rock to place a sensor for Alen. It was a sheet of black plastic solar cell about a yard across, a set of cameras, a set of weather sensors and a transmitter/receiver. All of it folded up to be easy to carry and weighed only a couple of pounds. "Alen, how are you reading me?"

  "The signal is clear and strong," Alen said. "There is a crag beast moving from the northeast. However, it is unlikely to come into range unless you move."

  "Let it go then. We have enough meat for now. Once I'm through watching the sunset, I'm heading home."

  "Very good, sir." Sam thought he heard relief in Alen's voice.

  * * *

  "Alen, if anyone outside the valley learns about this stuff," Sam waved to indicate the room in general and all the devices in it, "it's eventually going to get back to some lord. At which point, they are going to find some reason why i
t ought to belong to them. That's why I don't want to take any tech with me. Someone goes through my stuff and finds tech, the local lord is going to want to know where I got it."

  Four months after his arrival in the valley, Sam was bored out of his mind. Besides which, he felt like he would kill for a taste of corn bread and beans and die for a cold beer. "They might not recognize Porky or me with the dye jobs you worked up, but a machine will get me into all sorts of hot water."