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Mothwing

Thirty-four

Executor General Gorlon Hague witnessed the destruction of an armada greater than any he had fought or led in the Hive War five centuries in the past. Sealed inside his mechanical prosthetics in an otherwise airless environment aboard a Hive command module, he had no voice with which to scream. A thousand airless planetoids had been scavenged for the raw material in the construction of those vessels, now drifting as a thin metallic plasma among the halo stars.

The Battle of Kaji Don had lasted three standard days. Four million colonists had died on worlds charred by Hive beam weaponry. Myla's battle lasted less than an hour and burned through his formations like a virulent disease, leaving nothing behind with which to attack human populations, had any been present.

Gorlon Hague went blind, all sensory input terminated by the Hive. He cried out within the void of his consciousness, "Boris, if you can hear me, tell the Hive they would have fared no better, but I have withheld information with which to ensure my own survival!"

His mind rang with deafening silence.

"I know the nature and the identity of the force that threatens Hive security! This force suffers a fatal internal programming conflict that can trigger its own destruction! Only I can activate this internal conflict! Without me, this force that has decimated Hive warcraft will have realized the extent of its power! It will now move back into the plane of the galaxy to rid humanity of the repression of the Hive! Only I can protect you! Only I can protect humanity from the domination of this travesty of nature!"

For all he knew, even Boris had severed his internal interface. Isolated from all external stimuli, he would begin to hallucinate. His sanity would not survive for long.

Boris' deep bass voice rang out internally.  "The Hive knows of the Dalikor technology. Humans will be exterminated. Humans will then destroy the Dalikor technology to salvage what remains of the species."

"That was history! Humans destroyed the Dalikor technology only because of a formal, prearranged agreement to cease hostilities! I was the agent of that agreement! Without it, a greater number of humans would have died, but in the end, it is you who would have been rendered extinct! Humanity would have survived!"

"The new agreement may be violated as the old has been violated,” Boris said. "Humanity must be exterminated."

"Yes, but the Dalikor technology is patterned upon humanity and will survive and replicate! And then it will destroy the Hive!"

A small eternity of silence passed. "Explain the nature of the internal programming conflict of which you spoke."

Gorlon's panic abated. Hague took a moment to bask in the warm glow of relief. The Hive's internal logic had failed as usual. A machine could calculate faster than all of humanity combined, but it could not creatively outthink a single human being. They would listen to him now. They had no choice in the matter.

Sudden pain stabbed through his sphere of consciousness.  "Explain the nature of the internal programming conflict of which you spoke, or you will be made to suffer."

"This current manifestation of the Dalikor technology is patterned after an immature human child," Hague said quickly. "Until it matures, and it may do so quickly, it has the values of a human child. If it is shown that its existence will mean the suffering and death of innocent lives, it may elect to self-destruct."

"The value of the many exceed the value of the individual," Boris ventured.

"Exactly. The decision to self-destruct, if it is made, will be based entirely upon emotion, not mathematical calculation."

"Emotion is not calculated."

"That is correct. Emotion transcends mechanical calculation, but only through emotion will the full implication of the conflict of which I spoke become apparent to the child."

"Then another agreement must be made."

"Exactly. It must be made with the child, and I must again mediate."

"How do you wish to implement this agreement?"

"I need to speak with the girl. Do not allow the Alliance to intercept our communications."

Gorlon could see again. He regained use of his prosthetics and found himself standing upon the open deck somewhere in the depths of the Hive module. A view took form in midair before him, and the image of Myla Rhodes took form. Behind her and to one side, Jeremy Kael stood against the wall of a portable hut of a configuration he recognized. Myla had established herself on the habitable of the two inner worlds of the red dwarf system.

"You tried to kill me and Jeremy Kael," Myla said, her voice resonate with suppressed anger.  "I wish to speak with Khalin Nome. I will not speak with you, General Hague."

"I have been exiled from Covonia, Myla. So have you, I would imagine, which means that neither of us has access to Covonian or Alliance authorities. I would imagine that Khalin and the ten cities of Covonia have been condemned by the Alliance to die for the crime he has committed. You, of course, are that crime."

"I have hurt no one, General Hague," the girl said softly. "I have committed no crime.""

"I did not say that you committed a crime. I said you are a crime. You must know what you are by now."

Myla looked upset. "Yes, and I want to speak with Khalin Nome to find out why. I want to know who I really am."

"Khalin would have the answers to your questions, but they are of no importance to anyone but you. One half million people know only that they must die to appease the Alliance because of an old man's senility. And if I don't find a way to ensure your destruction, Myla, the Hive will launch a blind attack upon all of humanity for violating a historical agreement that has been honored by the Hive and the Alliance for many centuries. The lives of billions are at stake."

Myla stared at him in stark horror. "I do not understand what you are saying."

"It is not a commonly known fact that the Hive war ended because of an agreement between the Hive and the assassins of Jzon Dalikor. The Hive agreed that the hostilities against humanity would cease if Dalikor died. The truce between the Hive and humanity, as uneasy as it has been, has survived since that day because of that necessary act of treachery."

Myla frowned. "But you were a member of the Dalikor regime. You've always been Khalin Nome's general. You were his friend."

"I saw what Dalikor was becoming," Gorlon said softly, knowing he had no real defense for what he had done. "I was part of a faction that reconsidered Dalikor's strategy of sacrificing most of humanity to solve a problem that time itself would heal. I betrayed Khalin's trust to achieve that goal. Myla, I did what I had to do. I gave no thought to whether I would be considered a hero or a traitor. Dalikor was too dangerous to allow to live. You are equally dangerous."

"Then we owe five hundred years of Alliance tyranny and cowardice to you!" Jeremy Kael cried out from the background.

"The fact remains that the Dalikor technology was thought destroyed along with Dalikor himself," Gorlon said to Myla. The boy’s outburst was irrelevant "The survivors of the regime, myself and Khalin Nome and the founders of Covonia, were allowed to live and were exiled from the core worlds upon the assurance that the technology was indeed destroyed. Life has not been easy, but we have lived in peace. Relatively few have had to suffer. That peace is now shattered, but humanity is in no position to fight another Hive War, and that's exactly what the Hive now threatens."

"I can stop them," Myla said.

"Not in time. The Hive infiltrates every planetary system of the Alliance. It can strike in a veritable instant. By the time your forces reached the core worlds, those worlds would be gone."

Myla looked thoroughly shaken.

"You are all that stands in the way of continued peace, Myla. You were never meant to be. You must not be allowed to continue. Unfortunately for all of us, there is no power in the known universe that can stop you, none except for one, and that one power is yourself."

Myla gestured harshly when Jeremy tried to speak again from the background. "What do you want me to do?" she said calmly.

"I have been defeated," Gorlon said. "I have no power left to demand anything of you. The Hive is using me to deliver a simple offer and ultimatum. You must deliver yourself to the Hive, or humanity will die. The Hive can calculate no other option."

"And if I surrender?"

"In exchange for your surrender, the original agreement will be reinstated. Nothing will have been gained by our senseless little war, and nothing lost."

Myla looked close to tears, and it was difficult for Gorlon to keep in mind that he was not negotiating with a child. "Didn't Khalin Nome ever confide in you about me?" she said. "Didn't you know what he was doing? Or why?"

"Myla, he told me nothing. I only began to suspect when you escaped Covonia during the route."

Myla made a decision. She gave a firm nod. "Okay. Tell the Hive to give me a little while to think about it. Tell them I'll probably do whatever it takes to keep people from getting hurt, but I need time to think first."

"How much time?"

"A standard day."

"It is reasonable to require time for recalculation," Boris rumbled in the background.

Hague gave a nod of his mechanical head. "Your condition is accepted by the Hive. You will come to us in a standard day, and our agreement will be reinstated.”

Myla's image vanished. Gorlon was exiled again to darkness. He would be tortured regardless for as long as he lived for having lost Shesel. He would think about nothing else, and the pain would be unbearable. Perhaps he would request that he be terminated along with Myla.

He had won his final victory. He had not expected to survive it.

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