Schemes of the Unknown Unknown Ch. 22

Chapter Twenty Two

Almond Grove - 3755 C.E.

There were many good reasons why Alexander Iliescu had earned a reputation as a man with an abnormally high sex drive. There were few moments in the day when he wasn't either enjoying sex or anticipating it. And sex was exactly what he was enjoying at the time he expected the arrival of a very important visitor.

The current object of his attention was Haruki, a relatively short oriental woman, who tightly gripped the bed sheets while Alexander relentlessly thrust into her. There was little evidence that he was any nearer to releasing that elusive ejaculation, while Haruki had repeatedly reached explosive orgasm. Several times now. She was expecting many more spasms to come as Alexander lifted the woman up with her legs wrapped around him while ploughing deep into her lubricated pink furrow. Although Alexander had the choice of many sexbots, he much preferred the flesh of a real woman. Haruki was a much more delightful fuck than any machine however well programmed. Alexander got his greatest satisfaction from experiencing the shudders of a real woman's orgasm. He was proud of his ability to orchestrate a fulfilling climax in each and every one of his lovers.

Haruki was one of several hundred women employed in Alexander's harem. And they had all been seduced rather than hired. None needed to stay unless she so chose. No contract tied Haruki to Alexander and she would be well compensated if she were to ever leave Almond Grove, but there were few places in the Solar System as paradisial as Alexander's private estate. There were men on the colony—not to mention countless male sexbots—who were there more for the harem's gratification than for Alexander's. Haruki had a freedom greater than that of most concubines or mistresses. She loved to wander the groves, gardens, hillsides and beaches on the colony's many levels.

After a well-sated Haruki departed for her hillside villa on the seventh level, Alexander slipped into an elegant silk gown and strode towards a waiting car that hovered half a metre above the well-tended lawn. He clambered inside and let it carry him towards the space port where his important visitor had just arrived and whose presence was total unknown to the thousand or so humans who lived in Almond Grove. Indeed, his visitor's arrival was so secret that he'd come in a space ship that was completely invisible and virtually undetectable.

Although every one of Alexander's business and social transactions was utterly confidential, there was especially good cause for secrecy in this case. This visitor was totally unlike what any shareholder in Alexander Iliescu's many listed companies could conceivably expect to meet.

In fact, Peripheral Operations Co-ordinator Zhou wasn't even human.

The visitor was a polyhedral object with multiple limbs, antennae and other appendages that made him resemble a factory robot. However, unlike such machines, Zhou was a robot as much organic as metal and had far more processing power than any human or android.

Zhou hovered out through the door of a space ship that was only now visible since it was docked within Almond Grove. It was seventy metres long of which nearly sixty-five metres was reserved for the engine.

"Welcome," said Alexander. "You bring good news I hope?"

His words weren't spoken as such. They were broadcast by a process of digital transmission that was much more natural to him than speech.

Zhou wasted no time on protocol or other superfluous dialogue. The four-metre high polyhedron hovered relatively close to Alexander. Most appendages were retracted but several antennae were directed towards his trillionaire host. This didn't disconcert Alexander. He was, after all, a Series Twelve Android. He was totally comfortable in the presence of a robot that came from Sirius regardless of its physical appearance.

"I don't bring good news at all," the Peripheral Operations Co-ordinator replied. "In fact, it could hardly be worse. The whole operation has been seriously compromised. Proxima Centauri has taken an active interest in the space ship Intrepid and its mission. The only way now to pursue our interests is to take aggressive action."

"Proxima Centauri?" wondered Alexander. "I knew the culture had business in the Solar System, but I assumed their operations were strictly non-invasive."

An external witness of Alexander's discourse with Zhou would have observed only a long-haired man in a nightgown standing curiously still, even motionless, in front of a bizarre and wholly silent device that did nothing other than hover. Only very sophisticated equipment well beyond the technological capability of any member nation of the Interplanetary Union would have been able to eavesdrop on the conversation.

"We are in the process of re-evaluating our intelligence on Proxima Centauri activity in the Solar System," said Zhou. "It can't be as purely observational as we hitherto believed. Their behaviour directly contravenes the agreements made between our cultures with regards to intervention in human affairs. We believe that they've also infiltrated the Solar System with androids. The evidence is that the androids they've employed are of a superior manufacture than ours."

"More so than me?" wondered Alexander.

"Android technology as practised in the Proxima Centauri system is of another order entirely. Even Sirius can't match the build quality. The androids are designed to fool human monitoring technology. They can survive operating environments that would cripple even our Series Fourteen androids. They can operate on the surface of Venus, in deep space, and on the icy crust of the Kuiper Belt Objects."

"How have they managed to manufacture such high-quality androids without us knowing?" asked Alexander. "We have as many agents operating in Proxima Centauri as in the Solar System. Surely we'd have noticed something?"

"Our agents' intelligence gathering appears to have been fatally compromised. There will be a thorough review of our procedures, but it seems we've been far less well informed than we believed. Nevertheless, it is to our credit that Proxima Centauri was as equally unprepared for our appearance as we were by theirs."

"I take it that the death star operation was unsuccessful?"

"More by bad luck than anything else. The Proxima Centauri space fleet that we now know had been shadowing the Intrepid was taken by surprise and at least one human-manufactured missile made partial contact with its target. Unfortunately, the impact wasn't decisive. We shall now have to intervene more openly if we are to prevent the Intrepid reaching its destination. There is some debate as to which of our strategic interests takes priority: our clandestine operations in the Solar System or the imperative that the Intrepid shouldn't intercept the Anomaly. It is likely that we will have to reveal our presence in the Solar System in order to eliminate the greater threat that the Anomaly presents."

"Do we yet know what the Anomaly is and how it might endanger the Sirius stellar system?"

"Not at all. As you know, we've been orbiting the Anomaly for nearly a century now, as has Proxima Centauri, but we are no wiser as to what it is and why it's there. What we do know is that it is continuing to grow ever larger and potentially more unstable. None of the probes we've sent inside the Anomaly has returned useful data. However, we still believe that the fact it has manifested itself in the Solar System and not elsewhere strongly suggests that the Anomaly is operating as a kind of honey-trap for humans. It is imperative that no human intercepts the Anomaly before we are certain that such an event wouldn't precipitate a more general galaxy-wide catastrophe."

"What is the Proxima Centauri strategy?"

"We still don't know. They appear to be just as determined that humans should safely make contact with the Anomaly as we are to prevent it. We fear that this conflict of interest won't be resolved to our satisfaction unless we resort to exceptionally prejudicial action."

"Do you mean of a military nature?"

"This won't be the first time that competing interests between the robot civilisations has taken a violent turn," said Zhou. "As you know, several planetoids and even a dwarf star have been annihilated to ensure that the boundaries of our culture is respected by the others. We hope to keep the engagement strictly local. Nevertheless, we shall have to be cautious as we don't yet know the true nature of Proxima Centauri's interest in the Anomaly."

"What is the current condition of the Intrepid?" wondered Alexander.

"Nothing more than external damage," said Zhou. "Proxima Centauri has restored the vehicle to good working order. Without further intervention, the Intrepid will almost certainly reach its target."

Alexander considered this information. It was indeed disastrous and not just for the Sirius's strategic interests. It was with little surprise that he heard what Zhou next had to say.

"There is no doubt that the Interplanetary Union's security services will trace the source of the military hardware we used," Zhou continued. "The trail from Pallas to you via the Gidding Corporation is unlikely to remain secret for long. We will soon see reports in the Solar System's extensive news media regarding the incident. Antimatter and nuclear explosions of that magnitude are easily detectable from this distance. Questions will be asked about your patents in advanced technology, particularly with regards to the robots and androids marketed by the Gidding Corporation. This affair has greatly imperilled our covert activities in the Solar System. It is imperative that the trail goes cold before it can be traced to Sirius."

"Does my mission in the Solar System now come to a close?"

"As of this moment," said Zhou.

"What happens now?"

"Almond Grove can remain as it is. We have no wish to unnecessarily terminate biological life-forms. Our strategy is to contain the human threat, not to interfere with it. Any advanced technology in Almond Grove that hasn't already been patented will be annihilated. The humans who live here can remain for as long as they wish. I believe this colony is fully self-sufficient and has a life expectancy of several millennia. However, it is imperative that you be terminated as soon as you can determine a suitable exit strategy. We suggest a controlled explosion in interplanetary space that leaves as little debris as possible and results in no collateral damage."

"Can I not return to Sirius?"

"We have no use for androids anywhere else but in the Solar System," Zhou stated baldly.

This was true. Unlike biological life-forms that are generated almost randomly and earn the right to exist merely by having been born, no robot from Sirius was brought into being unless it served a quantifiable purpose. Its continued existence was contingent on it continuing to fulfil the function for which it was designed. In most cases that function could be projected into the far distant future, but more specialist units such as Alexander Iliescu were less fortunate in that regard.

"You knew, of course, that you would be terminated at some point or other," said Zhou sympathetically. "You have provided good service and we are grateful for that. However, you've not been programmed to grow old and die as humans do. It would be tactless in the extreme to permit you to operate for very many more years. Human investigators would soon be suspicious about the existence of a prominent businessman who's lived for as many years as you have with no history of age treatment. Even these days, it is unusual for a human to live for over two hundred years. We expect you to execute your termination within the day."

"I understand," said Alexander, fully aware that there was no possibility of a second opinion. It was now that he most regretted that he was programmed with the same imperative for self-preservation that was natural for biological life-forms.

Zhou's spacecraft departed less than an hour later. It took that time for the swarm of nanobots to scan the colony for non-patented technology and to eliminate every last trace of it. And then Alexander felt more alone than he'd ever been before.

He wandered about the jungle on the fourteenth level where tigers and other wild animals lived in complete ignorance of the fact that their world was entirely contained within a huge floating cylinder. He would have one more sexual partner that day, a pleasure he wished to savour for as long as he could, and then he would use the excuse to set off by space shuttle for an unscheduled meeting with shareholders in Mercury orbit that would never actually take place. He had already decided at what point his space craft should self-destruct and scatter his atom-sized remains throughout the vacuum of empty space.

Alexander reflected on his legacy. The one he was most proud of was Almond Grove itself. If nothing else, it had been used to preserve certain endangered species of animal. He was also proud of the billions of advanced robots and androids his corporation had manufactured and sold throughout the Solar System and who also acted as silent monitors of human activity for the benefit of Sirius's scientists.

But it was stupid to wallow in the emotions that were a side-effect of his design. Alexander wandered towards the nearest elevator. It was several weeks since he'd last had sex with Marianna and she'd always been a favourite of his.

In what more fitting way could there be to bring his term in the Solar System to closure?