Ganesha's Spacemage (Imperium Spacemage Book 7) by Timothy Ellis

Author:Timothy Ellis [Ellis, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: sort1
Published: 2021-04-09T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty Seven

“You had an insight?” asked Ganshura.

“Not really, but there is a tenuous link to your rogue AI.”

“How?” asked Jane.

“Do you know how long ago that AI was created?”

“No, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was over five hundred years ago. You think there’s a connection?”

“You said all the records were destroyed?” I asked Ganshura.

“Yes.”

“So something might have released a virus into the advanced species’ tech, and after wiping everything, on the last planet it was on, it could have achieved sentience, and decided to live.”

“But it had no knowledge of the jump points,” said Jane.

“So it could have completed its job of deleting everything, and then made the choice to not stop existing.”

“That’s a bit frightening. It did say it destroyed the biological beings which were on the planet at the time, after trying to co-exist with them for a while. Are you suggesting it might have wiped out an entire advanced space faring civilization?”

“It’s a theory. But if it was a true AI being used as a virus, and it decided to do more than it was programmed to do, it could have easily have sent all the ships to their doom.”

“What about beings not on ships?” asked Ganshura.

“If they had the sort of computer connections humans have, it could have killed all of them in a way where they did in fact just vanish.”

“That’s horrifying!” exclaimed Jane. “Hang on, is that why you have most of my AI’s searching for where the AI colony ships are? You think it’s a much bigger threat than we did?”

“I’m not aware of your AI’s being involved in anything. A few of mine are helping several of my team to do that. I had no idea anyone else was involved.”

“Okay. But it leaves us with some very harsh truths.”

I couldn’t stop myself from chuckling at that.

“What?”

“Truth. Can’t be escaped when I’m around now, it seems.”

“You’re serious?”

“Trying not to be. But yes. That doesn’t mean we’re actually right, and nothing we’ve said is more than theoretical speculation at best.”

“But it does raise a rather nasty problem,” said Ganshura. “Or at least, raises a nasty possibility.”

“Which is?” asked Jane.

“The AI could have been sending out colony ships for five hundred years now.”

Jane flinched. I waited for her to say why.

“Which is the oldest known technological planet in sector ten or eleven?” she asked Ganshura.

“I don’t know about the oldest, but the mice have always been the more advanced. And we know they’ve been around for the whole six hundred years in question.”

“Holmes?”

He popped up on a screen we could all see, and looked at Jane.

“You need something?”

“Shift focus on trying to find the AI colony ships. See if any of them might be heading for the Mouse homeworld in sector eight.”

“I’m not sure what we have is accurate enough for that.”

“Try anyway. I’ll see if I can get you better information.”

“On it. Any urgency?”

“With our luck, one of them is decelerating into the Mouse system right now, and no-one knows about it.”

“That’s urgent.

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