Scattered Suns - Kevin J. Anderson [125]
As the angular robot ship soared through a vanishingly thin nebula mist, Sirix cocked his faceplate downward and scanned the little compy as if searching for some sort of trick or treachery. “The Klikiss programmed us to fear and hate them. We were made to do this. However, our creators did not expect us to be so efficient at it.”
“But why?”
Sirix hummed, either contemplating or loading files. One of the ebony plates in his thorax parted to extend a sharp needle that served as a transmitter. In a tsunami of unwanted information, DD was bombarded with a series of direct images. The violent link poured old records and memories into his compy brain.
“The Klikiss hives warred against each other for thousands of years, destroying competitors and assimilating them into a larger and larger conglomeration.”
In the parade of images, DD saw swarms of leathery beetle creatures whose bodily configurations resembled that of the robots they had built. At war, the original Klikiss tore at each other using primitive weapons and claws. They ripped exoskeletons, smashed chitin, and spilled greenish-yellow ichor across battlefields. Eventually, the Klikiss developed sophisticated weapons technology that allowed them to annihilate rival hives, leaving the cracked landscapes of their colony worlds covered with smashed insectile bodies.
“Finally, once all the hives had been incorporated into a single great hive, after they had exterminated every one of their competitors, the Klikiss found themselves with no one left to intimidate. So they created us.”
These images were faint and corrupted due to extreme age. Sirix could not have witnessed these events, if the robots had been constructed afterward. Perhaps the robots had stolen ancient records from Klikiss museums?
“The Klikiss race needed to be feared by subordinates. Their civilization was built on conquest, violence, and terror. They invented us and enslaved us, so that we robots could be their surrogate victims. Through such domination, the Klikiss measured their value and greatness.”
DD’s compy mind was overwhelmed by what he was seeing. For the first time he considered that perhaps the vengeful black robots had a reason to despise their creators after all...
“Therefore,” Sirix said, “when the time was right, we arranged for their extermination.”
DD remained silent, scanning the outside starfield. In the future, he could compare these images with existing starcharts to determine their route, but at the moment it didn’t seem to matter.
Tired of waiting for the compy to respond, Sirix continued, “After the rest of the robots are awake, we will complete the grand design.”
DD thought of all the deactivated machines that waited like buried, self-aware land mines. “If you exterminated your parent race millennia ago, and if the war ended in the distant past, then why did the robots go into hibernation? I do not comprehend the reasoning.”
“The biological Klikiss cocooned themselves for long periods. Every member of the hive would go dormant before they awoke and launched themselves into a Great Swarming. They considered it natural to design their robots to have similar needs, whether or not such needs made sense for an artificially sentient construction.”
“They could not have hibernated for thousands of years,” DD said. “It is biologically impossible.”
“After we exterminated our parent race, we were forced into hiding for other reasons,” Sirix said. “We intentionally made our numbers appear depleted in order to minimize the apparent threat we might pose.”
“Threat against whom?”
“The faeros.” Sirix gave DD several seconds to assimilate the revelation. “We needed to hide long enough for the faeros to go away, and long enough for the Ildirans to forget.”
Now DD was completely confused. “The Ildirans? Why?”
“Because the Ildiran Mage-Imperator lied for us.”
“But why?”
“Long ago, we set up the wentals to destroy the faeros, but our plan failed when the water