Ruins (Pathfinder 2)

“Nor the plans of General Citizen and Hagia Sessamin,” said Olivenko. “So whose plan was he carrying out?”

“Neither of us controls the other,” said Vadesh. “But we started out with the same directives—given to us by humans. Our original programmers, and then Ram Odin. He gave us a great work to do. The expendable Ram pursued it his way in your natal wallfold, and I pursued it as best I could here in this wallfold. I made mistakes. I misunderstood the depth of the human fear of the strange and new. They could not be reasoned with.”

“Meaning you couldn’t find them all and kill them,” said Rigg.

“I killed no one,” said Vadesh.

“But you found them,” said Umbo. “And told the facemask people where they were, so they could kill them.”

“I wanted them reconciled!”

“But ‘killed’ was almost as good,” said Rigg. “They were waging a war of extermination, and you weighed in on the side of those who were only half human.”

“There are safeguards now,” said Vadesh. “I’ve worked hard. Ten thousand years I’ve been breeding facemasks until all the obnoxious traits are gone. Humans would remain fully human, in charge of themselves.”

“We are never going to put on your facemasks,” said Rigg.

“But you haven’t even seen them!”

“What we need from you,” said Rigg, “and what I order you to give us, is information about the jewels. How do they work? How can we use them to shut down the Walls?”

Vadesh looked away—a gesture Father often used, to give the illusion of thinking things over. But it was only an illusion, Rigg understood that now. The mechanical mind made its decisions very quickly, and all this business of “thinking” was part of the pretense that the expendables were similar to humans. But they were nothing like humans.

“It seems to me,” said Rigg, “that you want us to think this is all about two species—facemasks and humans. But there’s a third species involved.”

Rigg’s friends looked at him, confused.

Vadesh understood him, though. “Expendables are not a species,” he said.

“Aren’t you?”

“We are not alive. We do not reproduce.”

“No, but you replace any parts that wear out,” said Rigg. “You don’t have to reproduce if you never die.”

“We are here to support and enhance human life,” said Vadesh.

The others laughed or hooted bitterly.

“Maybe that was your original law,” said Rigg, “but you proved that enhancing human life is the opposite of what you actually have in mind.”

“The facemasks eventually did enhance human life,” said Vadesh. “That was my great insight, when I finally understood it.”

“Humans are the only fit judges of what enhances our lives,” said Olivenko.

“I see that now,” said Vadesh. “I’ve learned. Do you think I don’t understand that I failed here? All the humans preferred murder and death, do you think I regard that as success? That’s why I beg you to bring humans back here, so I can undo my terrible mistakes.”

“You have the power to bring down the Wall,” said Rigg. “You expendables put it there, didn’t you?”

“We each have the power to shut down our own protective field. But the Wall consists of two fields, pushed up against each other. I could make the Wall half as wide, but I could not bring it down.”

“Unless the other expendables agreed with you,” said Rigg. “But they didn’t, did they?”

Vadesh once again said nothing.

“Silence from you is a lie,” said Rigg.

“They would not let me import a new population,” said Vadesh.