Bolo Rising by Keith Laumer

Author:Keith Laumer [Laumer, Keith]
Format: epub
Published: 2010-05-13T15:55:41.419000+00:00

BOLD RISING

199 a relatively simple thought or image could be conveyed, it was a polydimensional nested

construct, a symbol of meanings embedded within meanings devised to communicate different but

related concepts on different levels. At its most basic, !.!"! could mean something on the order

of "We Exist" or, possibly, "We Are." At a higher level, however, that simple pattern of

alternating sounds added shades of meaning, even whole new concepts to the basic one of simple

existence. "We Who Shape the Cosmos" was one such concept; "We Who Exist Because We Create Order

Within the Cosmos" was another, depending on how the base "!.!.!" was transmitted, and in what

context.

Only !.!.! with five or more brains could grasp the highest-order definition of the race name,

which for them might have been expressed as something like "We Who Form Interlinking Patterns of

Communications and Control Along and Among Multidimensional Hierarchies That We May Express Order

and Unified Pattern Out of Unthinking Chaos."

It was for more efficient to express simply die clucking phonemes of the !.!.! name. The !.!.!,

above all else, were efficient, even in their use of sounds. Generally, they told their subject

races that "I.!.!" represented simply the word/concept "Master," and let it go at that, since such

sophisticated communications modes were generally far oeyond the grasp of lesser intelligences.

Much of!.!.! language was similarly nested, in fact. A curt, succinctly worded command to first-or second-level machines contained subsets of elaborations and flavorings that expanded to

something more like a conversation with third-and fourth-order intelligences, and expanded again

into encyclopedic discourse with high-end !.!.! cognizants.

The concept allowed for great efficiency in communication, but it possessed disadvantages as well.

Lower-ranking intelligences often had trouble communicating special or unusual problems or needs

in any detail to multiple-brained higher-ups.

Low-level !.!.! machines rarely showed anything like initiative, and emotion—even so much as a

sense of urgency or pride in a well-done task—was completely beyond them. They did what was

expected of them, what they'd been told to do, and nothing more.

DAV728-24389 did feel pride in his position and - in what he did, one unanticipated side effect of

his newly acquired brain and hierarchical position. For that reason, the stinging defeat suffered

some twenty-two trillion nanoseconds ago by die three !.!.! fortress-battlers still burned within

his central processor arrays, the pain as sharp and as lasting as it was unexpected. One of the

battlers had been destroyed, a second so badly damaged that it might well be useful only as

salvage. That such devastating damage to !.!.! fleet assets could be handed out by a single ground

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unit of human manufacture...

When he'd received his promotion, he'd not expected the higher emotional functions that came with

it to be so uncomfortable.

Projecting his consciousness through two deep space relays, he entered the operational download

stacks of GED9287-8726H, the Series 95 in low orbit over Celeste. The!.!.! craft was just

approaching the Chryse Peninsula, Its scanners, both active and passive, should serve to spot the

human combat machine that had dealt the 1.1.1 this humiliating defeat.

Once the Bolo's current whereabouts and activities were known, the !.!.! could formulate an

appropriate response.

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