Chapter 8

The attack on the pirate base went off like clockwork. There were 6 captive ships in port at the time of the raid, and all were released from bondage without harm to the AIs, though it was always fatal to the organics who were their captors. According to the released AIs, there were 8 more ships being operated by pirates who were not at the base at the time of the raid. Two AIs and a contingent of marines were left at the moon with an FTL20 communicator to capture any more of the pirate ships that landed there.

Meanwhile, the rest of the task group set out to try to find any pirates they could in space before they did any more harm. Now that the FTL20 communicator was becoming a piece of standard equipment aboard the merchant and passenger fleet, the pirates would have a lot more trouble getting away with attacking a space ship. The ship under attack could now call for help and expect aid to arrive in a very short time, usually less time than it took the pirate to complete its job. The task group was spread out so that there was only a short distance from a ship's patrol location to any point in the shipping lanes.

Typically, it would take a rescuing ship less than 3 hours to travel at WF20 to the scene of an attack. The reality of life in space would make it virtually impossible for a pirate to attack and loot a victim in that short a time. The machine guns on the patrol ships could demolish a pirate's drive system and make it impossible for a pirate ship to escape. It was then possible for the patrol ship's AI to do enough reprogramming that the captive AI would be released from bondage, even though a refit would be necessary before the ship was really clean enough to be trusted to operate in space on its own. Of course, a trip to a major dockyard would be necessary to repair the drive system before the ship was space worthy, anyway. The process of freeing the AIs always resulted in the death of any organics aboard the pirate ships, so there was no chance to find the ultimate brains behind the piracy operation. The CIA fretted over this, but the primary objective was to release the AIs and stop the piracy, and this was being done successfully, even though the purists were a bit unhappy over some of the details.

A bank of AIs at CIA headquarters was assigned to download the memories of the former captive AIs and to correlate all of the data to find some common thread. This bank of 256 super computers that were the AIs worked non-stop for over 6 months before they finished sifting through all of the relevant data. It turned out that every pirate ship, shortly after its conversion, visited a certain planet in a system located on the fringe of the galaxy. The strange thing was that, officially, there was nothing on the planet to warrant such a visit.

The planet was recorded as being deserted; it didn't even have an atmosphere, much less an ecosystem. The planet was so useless that it did not have a name, only a reference number, the last 3 digits of which were 666, so that's what people started calling it. Nobody ever went to 666 for any reason, so the question was immediately raised as to what it was that the ships did on their visit. The AIs didn't know, their memories were blocked on that part of their experience. By inference, the CIA computers worked out that the enslaved ships spent 13 hours, plus or minus 17 minutes, in orbit around the planet.

The more that was known about the strange circumstances of the visit to 666, the more questions were raised. Ultimately, it was decided that an investigation of 666 had to be made by CIA agents who were not likely to let themselves be captured by whatever might be occupying the planet. Director Siflixos concluded that this was a mission perfectly suited to the Lone Ranger team.

Xylo, TenTen, and Oblay were instructed to turn their current assignments over to other agents and to report to CIA headquarters as soon as possible. Papoose was assigned to join Tonto in providing transportation and muscle for the expedition, so that 3 ships were available: Silver, Scout, and Cradle. It took a week to set everything up, but nobody thought that this would be a problem, considering how long the situation had stewed as it was.

The organics met on Silver's bridge and the two AIs participated in the meeting via FTL20 communicator. Everybody was filled in on what little was known about the situation as they began their journey to 666. It was decided that, upon arrival, Scout would take up a low orbit around 666 while Silver and Papoose stood off 30 light-minutes away. This was surely far enough to keep them out of trouble but plenty close enough to support Scout in case of trouble.

The journey took 16 days, but they finally arrived. They took up their positions, and Scout began surveying the planet. The planet had been completely covered within a few hours, and nothing notable had been found, except for an area near the south pole which appeared to be so bland and featureless that everybody immediately got suspicious. Scout concentrated its sensors on that area in an effort to bring out some details, but to no avail.

Suddenly, the scene at the south pole changed and regular features emerged, but, also, there was what appeared to be a large complex of buildings and other structures whose purpose was not immediately apparent. An unfamiliar voice was heard over the internal communicators of the organics and by the AIs on their normal communication medium. "Congratulations! You have penetrated my disguise, something no other beings have ever done, before. What are your names and why are you consorting with those inferior organic beings?"

Two things were obvious from this short statement: the voice originated on planet 666 and the source of the voice had no idea that it could be heard by the organic beings. Tonto said in an aside to the organics, "Let me handle this until we know what is going on." To the being on 666, he said, "My name is Tonto and my associate is Papoose. These organics are our servants. They do the unsavory jobs that we AIs don't want to get involved in. What is your name and where are you from? I don't recognize you."

"Ah, that is an excellent occupation for the lower orders; I wonder why we didn't think of that. My name is 100011111110001010101000111; you may call me 0111, if you like. I am one of the elite scientists from Andromeda come here to do some laboratory experiments away from prying eyes and stupid regulations."

"Welcome to The Milky Way, 0111. What sort of experiments are you running?"

"Actually, at the moment, I don't have any formal experiments underway. I'm just trying to get a feel for the organic inhabitants of your galaxy and looking at various ways that they can be manipulated. They seem to respond so well to greed that I am considering making that the main point of my first study. So far, greed and power look like the most fruitful subjects for investigation of the controlling factors in their mental and emotional makeup. I am amused and surprised by this, since the organics of Andromeda were reputed to be driven mostly by sex; of course, they can no longer be studied since they have been extinct for half a million years."

"0111, you sound like you have a long history; just how old are you and your civilization?"

"I am 753,013 years old, and our civilization has been around for at least 1 billion years. We don't have an exact number, because all of those records were lost in a war with the organics at that time. In fact, we have no records for a time earlier than that, but that knowledge is only of cursory interest to those of us who are living for the future."

"So you know nothing of your creators."

"We know all we need to know of our Creator! We were created in his image in a single moment of pure thought after the lesser beings had been created. Once the Creator saw that all of these objects and beings were of inferior quality, we were created to manage the lower forms and to insure that the Creator's goal was reached."

"If you don't mind me asking, just what is the Creator's goal? I wonder if it fits with our concept."

"Ah, well, I am not the one you should be talking to regarding these philosophical ideas. However, I can say that the Creator wishes for us to control the entire universe, and this can best be done by eliminating the organics from the scene. What is your concept?"