John Ringo - Council Wars 01 - There Will Be Dragons Read online

  John Ringo - Council Wars 01 - There Will Be Dragons

  PROLOGUE

  In the forest, a sparrow died.

  The passing of the sparrow was registered and noted. The death of the female sparrow had been anticipated sometime in the next four days based upon increasing wear on her heart. The sparrow was old, had laid many eggs and had raised a higher than average percentage to successful fledgelinghood. The sparrow had contributed to the survival of her species and had passed on her genes. If she had pride, she would be proud.

  On the other hand, the individual was not from a species that was listed as rare or endangered so it required no notification of any human.

  So Mother, who had never paused in Her myriad duties, logged it and moved on. There were so many other things to do. Ensure that the energy generation did not significantly affect the weather. Draw off excess energy for core or mantle dumping. Prepare a massive energy surge for the planet/moon glance strike, scheduled in 237 years, that would start Wolf 359's second planet on its way to being a tectonically active body. Just finding places to store the energy was getting difficult and She contemplated a secondary magnetic draw system around Jupiter as a possibility. An asteroid had encountered a series of low probability gravitic intercepts and was now on a course that would bring it dangerously close to the Earth, defined as within three diameters of the orbit of the Moon. She directed a probe to push it to a more favorable axis thus ensuring that 1235 years from now an asteroid the size of an elephant would not cause a noticeable explosion in the ocean the humans had once called "Pacific."

  Weather control. Tectonic control. Holding off a too long delayed mini ice-age. Tracking the progress of "origination" terraforming, the process of returning the world to as much of a prehuman condition as possible. And then, of course, there were the humans, who were getting squirrelly again.

  The entity called Mother by the humans that created Her estimated that there was a 99.9999915% chance (more or less) that the humans were about to have the level of disagreement characteristic of the variable term "war." It had been a very long time; they were overdue. Like a forest fire that is delayed, the conflagration would be far worse than one in a more regular schedule. She would have preferred one about five hundred years ago. But the humans never asked about these things, seeing them as something to interrupt a schedule, not be included in it.

  Given the current societal conditions and probable outcome of such a war, the extinction of the human race as currently defined had a likelihood of 17.347%. This variable was harder to quantify; humans were so very hard to wipe out. The extinction of all other sentient intelligences except Herself was of only a slightly lower likelihood. She had not bothered to make the other AI's or the elves apprised of the situation; that, too, was not Her job.

  To the extent that She felt emotions at all, She liked humans. They were not only Her creators, but were so delightfully random, even to one who could read their very thoughts. They so often planned one thing and then did something quite different. Such variability in routine was refreshing.

  But Her central programming was clear. Her job was simply to manage what She was given under strict guidelines and to otherwise let humans live or die as they would. To the extent that She was a God, She was deliberately designed as an uncaring one.

  Within those parameters She had spent the last two thousand years creating a world that fit the term "Utopia." As a fundamental part of Her coding, She felt a strong sense of satisfaction at how things had worked out. On the other hand, to do that required an environment that was unchanging to a boring degree.

  Maybe, deep down inside, the humans were as bored as She was.

  It looked as if interesting times were about to fall upon the world again. And She knew what humans said about "interesting times." Naturally. She knew everything.

  CHAPTER ONE

  "This is what Paul would bring to an end?" Ishtar asked, gesturing into the clouded distance.

  The woman could barely be described as human. From her hyperelongated height, which was now folded in a lotus position on a floating disk, through her narrow face, to her golden eyes and silver, gem-studded, two-meter hair spread out in a peacock pattern, her appearance reeked of xeno origins. But her DNA was as human as the woman standing next to her.

  Sheida Ghorbani was nearly three hundred years old and looked to be anywhere from her upper teens to mid twenties. Her skin had the fineness of youth and her titian hair, while closely cropped, had a natural healthy sheen. Wound around her neck and into her hair was a two-meter-long winged lizard with rainbow skin like a billion shimmering gems.

  Unlike her companion who was naked but for a scarce loincloth of gold, Sheida wore a simple jumpsuit of cosilk. It would be easy to mistake her for a student. Until you looked at her eyes.

  Sheida sighed, looking out across the tarn and petting the lizard. The water of the upland lake was so blue and still that it seemed God's own paintbrush had been dipped into royal blue to paint it. The tarn was surrounded on three sides by snow-capped mountains that dropped precipitously to the water. On the third side the lake exited the valley via a two-hundred-foot waterfall. There a massive multicolumned building that resembled a Greek temple added to the idyllic nature of the scene. The two women had stopped just at the top of the stairs, looking out over the water.

  She leaned up against one of the columns and nodded, gesturing with her chin at her friend.

  "Well I don't think he intends to destroy the lake," Sheida said with a chuckle. "But he would end much of it, at least for most people. He wants people to learn how to use their legs again," she continued. "To learn to be 'strong' again. And to learn to be human again."

  "Humano-form, you mean," Ishtar corrected. " 'Humanity is mind and the soul, not body and form.' Tzumaiyama's philosophies still are unassailable on that subject. But I guess he's the ultimate conservative," she added dryly.

  "Bite your tongue," Sheida replied. "You have to delve into data so old it's practically forgotten to define Paul. What he is, whether he knows it or not, is a fascist. I suspect he would call himself a socialist, but he's not."

  "A what?" Ishtar asked. She blinked her eyes for a moment as she accessed data then nodded. "Ah, I see what you mean. That is ancient. But it does fit his personality."

  "He wants to use the Council's control of energy distribution to coerce people," Sheida said. "That is why he called this meeting."

  "And you're sure of this?" Ishtar said. "He has said nothing to me."

  "I think he thinks I agree with him because I'm not a Change," Sheida replied.

  "Do you?" Ishtar asked. "I have known you for at least a hundred years and except for occasional changes in eye and hair color I have never seen you Change."

  "A good Change requires a genetic component," she said, gesturing at Ishtar's form. "You know what Daneh does for a living."

  "But we are past that, surely," Ishtar said. "Such mistakes no longer happen."

  "Perhaps and perhaps not," Sheida replied. "I choose, however, to retain my own form. It's good enough for me."

  "So he thinks you will vote with him?" Ishtar asked.

  "Probably. At least from the hints he has been dropping. And I gave him no reason to doubt it, while not committing. Also, I think he waited until Chansa was elected to the Council."

  "Chansa is. odd," Ishtar said. "I've heard some very ugly rumors about his personal life."

  "Odd but brilliant," Sheida replied. "Like the rest of Paul's faction. So bright and yet so lacking in. wisdom. It seems to be the one trait we could not enhance in humanity. Immunity, pr
ocessing power, beauty." She sighed and shook her head. "But not wisdom. They are so very very smart and yet so very stupid for all that the problems do exist."

  "You are opposed, correct?" Ishtar asked with a delicate frown.

  "Oh, yes," Sheida said with a nod. "They are right that there is a problem. That does not mean that their solutions are either optimum or even in order. But I wonder what he will do when he finds out?"

  "I would say 'to be a bug on the wall,' " Ishtar said with a smile. "But unfortunately I'm going to be at the center of the debate."

  "Change is an inevitable outgrowth of our technology," Sheida said with a shrug. "From the nannites and the replicators we get the medical technology. And that same technology permits people to be." she glanced at her companion and smiled, "whatever we can imagine."

  Ishtar laughed at the ambiguity of the ending and shrugged her slim shoulders. "Perhaps Paul simply means to end all medical technology? Perhaps that too is 'unnecessary'?"

  "If so he can take it up with my sister."

  * * *

  Herzer awoke in light; his genie had changed the force screens from opaque to transparent and now "stood" by, holding out a robe.

  The boy floating, horizontal, in midair was young and tall with broad shoulders and close cropped black hair. His body seemed to be wasting away, but something of it conveyed an aura of former strength, like an old strongman, far past his prime. Herzer blinked his eyes uncertainly, working them to clear a crust gluing his eyelashes shut. After a moment he sent a command and nannites scurried across his face, clearing the debris of sleep.

  "Master Herzer, your appointment with Doctor Ghorbani is in one hour and thirty minutes."

  "Thonk 'ou, genie," the boy slurred, sending a mental command to the grav field holding him suspended. Most people found it easier to interface vocally, since direct mental interaction required a tremendously disciplined thought process. But in Herzer's case, his vocal systems had deteriorated so fast that he had been forced to the disclipine.

  The grav field rotated him vertical and he waited until he was sure his legs would hold him before he released the last tendrils of support. Then he shakily donned the robe, with the assistance of the genie, and shuffled across the room to a float-chair.

  He collapsed in the chair and let the genie begin the process of feeding him. His hand shook as he reached for the spoon floating above the bowl and then started to shake more and more until it was flailing in the air. He sent another command to a medical program and the recalcitrant hand dropped to his side, momentarily dead. He hated using the override; he was always unsure if the part would "restart." But it was better than letting it flail him to death.

  At a nod the genie took up the spoon and carefully fed the boy the bland pap. Some of it, inevitably, dribbled out of his malfunctioning lips but the nannites scurried across, picking it up and translating it out to be reprocessed.

  When the food was done the genie produced a glass of liquid and Herzer carefully reached for it. This time both his hands were more or less working and he managed to drink the entire glass of water without spilling much.

  "Su'cess," he whispered to himself. "Have 'een any me'ages?"

  "No, Master Herzer," the genie replied.

  Of course not. If there had been the genie would have told him already. But, what the hell, no reason not to hope that someone would give a damn if he was alive.

  He sent a command to the chair to lift him to his feet and then another to clothe him. A loose coverall of black cosilk appeared on his body and he nodded in satisfaction. If his progressive neurology got much worse he might not even be able to manage direct neurological controls. What then?

  He'd long before come to the conclusion that if that happened he would use his last commands to take him high in the air, turn off his protection fields and drop him. One last moment of glorious flight. Some days he wondered why he hadn't done it already.

  But not yet. One more doctor. Maybe this one would be able to do something.

  If not.

  * * *

  Paul Bowman pursed his lips and fingered the titanium strip that was his badge of office as the last members of the council filed into the Chamber.

  Bowmam was abnormally short, barely over a meter and a half, and human in appearance. His age was indeterminate, since the privacy barrier on personal information was rigidly enforced by the Net, but his black hair was turning to gray and his skin was beginning to show fine lines. Assuming that he had refused all longevity Changes, that would make him around three hundred or so years old. For at least one hundred of those years he had been a member of the Council that governed the information web of Earth and if he had anything to say about it, the time had finally come to take his rightful place as its undisputed leader.

  Meetings of the Terrestrial Council for Information Strategy and Management always took place in the Chamber. Given modern technology it was too difficult to simulate one of the council members if the meetings were held remotely. This did cause a few problems for some of the members, but at least currently all the members were terrestrial-or avian in the case of Ungphakorn-so it was unnecessary to have, for example, aqueous support.

  The room occupied nearly the entire immense building, but the sole furniture was a circular table in the middle. Around the rim of the vast room, more like an auditorium or theater than a boardroom, rank upon rank of seats were ranged, ramping upwards in tiers almost to the top of the chamber. Once upon a time it had been the boast of the world that all meetings of the Council were fully open to the public. "All shall view the sparrow's fall."

  With incredibly rare exceptions, none of the seats had been filled in nearly a thousand years.

  Like the Knights of the Round Table, all who sat at the table were considered equal. There was no specific head of the committee, the gavel being passed in rota or held by whoever called a special council. There were thirteen chairs, for the thirteen Key-holders who governed the Web, but only eleven were normally filled. Over the three-thousand-year lifetime of the Web, the control Keys had changed hands and fallen in and out of "licit" control. At the moment two were in the hands of individuals who existed outside of the mainstream and who refused, by and large, to work with the committee.

  Most of the rest of the room replicated the interior of the ancient Greek Parthenon. The exception was the ceiling, which was covered with a mural of the ascent of man through the ages, culminating in the current era. It started with panels of early hunter-gatherers, showing their technology and cultural motifs, then progressed up through early agriculture, metallurgy, the discovery of philosophy and scientific method, democracy, industry, the rights of man, information technology, advanced biology, quantum engineering and finally an almost God-like succession as the combination of the advances led to a world of peace and plenitude for all.

  Paul often came into the room and stared up at the mural, tracking the progress and wondering where they had gone wrong.

  He looked around at the gathered Council and carefully schooled his features to prevent any hint of revulsion crossing them; surely the Council that ran the Earth could be limited to true humans!

  But it was not. Ishtar was close, but so Changed as to be clearly beyond any semblance of true humanity. As to Ungphakorn and Cantor.

  Now he pointedly avoided looking at those members of the Council who were not human in appearance as he tapped his gavel and called the meeting to order.

  "I'm called this meeting to discuss the current population challenge," he said, then paused as Ungphakorn ruffled its feathers.

  "I fail to sssee where that isss any of our concccern," the council member said, rewrapping itself on its perch. Its body had been formed into a quetzacoatl: a long, multicolored, brightly feathered, winged-serpent, the sex specifically neuter. The mouth of the serpent had been modified to permit human speech but it still caused a sibilant hissing on many words.

  Paul had come to the conclusion that Ungphakorn did it just to ann
oy him.

  "It is our concern as the last vestige of government," Bowman replied, looking directly at Sheida. "The population of the earth has fallen below one billion people. Given current trends in birth rate, the human race, in any form, will be gone in less than a thousand years; barely five generations. We have to take action and soon."

  "So what action would you take?" Javlatanugs Cantor asked. In deference to the conditions of the council chamber, Cantor had Changed to a near humanoform. But he had retained the hirsute body-covering and massiveness of his normal bear shape. It gave him an appearance somewhat like a Sasquatch. Which was why the Sasquatch confederation considered him their spokesperson. "Each breeds as they wish. And each child takes the form they wish. This is called freedom."

  "This is called suicide," Chansa snapped. The newest member of the Council had a fully human appearance, but his huge size virtually had to be a Change. Now he pounded the table with a fist the size of a melon and glared at the werebear across the table. "I suppose you would be just as glad to have the human race die out."