Stephen Baxter - Starfall

Curle asked, "That's your consolation, is it, you dried-up old witch? Comfort for your own death—for two wasted generations inside this block of ice—"

"Oh, off with you, back to your cell. I must say when I remember the high hopes we set off with, my poor husband Huul and myself, I think we would have regarded you as a grave disappointment."

"So why did you drag me out here?"

"To tell you how you were going to die. You did kill my babies, after all. Get rid of him."

Sol system

And then, without a subjective instant of delay, Max and the others found themselves falling into a new Store. It was a web of data spun between whole worlds, with mines of memory, troves of frozen order of an unimaginable size. And there was intelligence, artificial mind everywhere: a feast for a hungry, self-aware virus. This was not like the petty Stores where they had been raised; this went on forever!

Just for a moment the Eaters all hesitated, as if bewildered by the immensity of the feast set before them.

"He promised," Max said. "Flood promised! And he has delivered, hasn't he?"

He was answered by a roar from his jostling cohorts.

"For Flood! For Alpha! For the Starfall! Let us feed!"

And the Eaters plunged into the landscape of data before them, shitting out high-entropy disorder wherever they passed, feeding, multiplying, frenzied, unstoppable.

London

The voice was booming, male, strangely accented to an Earth-bred ear.

"Take cover. The free citizens of Alpha system and the inhabited stars have no quarrel with the people of Sol system, but with your government. Flee the cities and the domed colonies. Take your children; take food, water, power and air. Find protection. Take cover. The free citizens of Alpha system—"

"Lethe, can't you shut that off?" Admiral Kale paced about the bunker under London, hastily buttoning up his uniform jacket, starburst at his chest.

Pella and the rest of Stillich's team sat in rows around a Virtual situation tank, hammering at data desks. "It's coming from outside the system," Pella said. "Probably all the way from Alpha. They might have used lasers—they have some mighty guns out there to push their lightsail ships—"

"I don't fucking care," said Kale. "Just jam it."

"That's impossible, sir," Stillich said bluntly.

"Take your children; take food, water, power and air. Find protection. Take—"

Abruptly the message cut off.

Stillich looked up. "Now what?"

"Captain," Pella said. "The situation display. Look."

The display was a rough cube, metres high, containing current and summary data on the empire's defences and the position of the Alpha invaders—the GUTship fleet was still a week away—complex, schematic, a constellation of data that changed by the second. But now whole blocks of the display were growing dark, as if shadows were falling.

Admiral Kale said, "Is this some fault? I thought you had back-ups—"

"Isolate your data desks from the central processing," Stillich said rapidly. "Do it now."

The staff hurried to comply.

Pella said, "Some of the drop-outs are at this end. But the transmitting stations are falling silent too. Port Sol—oh, wow, Mars just went. This is system-wide. Spreading at lightspeed, I think."

"Tell me what's doing this, Number One," Stillich said.

Pella's analysis was admirably fast. "Viruses," she said. "Semi-sentient. Voracious. They're just eating their way through our data stores, turning everything to mush. They seem to be targeting AI nodes particularly. It's a smart plague, and it's hitting us right across the system. They must have ridden in on the laser signal right after that warning—" Her data desk turned black. She sat back, disbelieving.

One man fell back from his station, clutching his chest. His colleagues rushed to help.

Stillich murmured, "Artificial heart. Anybody with implants of any sophistication is going to suffer."

Kale rammed a fist into his palm. "So they knock out our command and control before their ships even get here. And our people are no doubt already dying, as hospitals fail, and flitters fall out of the sky. Damn, damn."

"Captain, we're going to need to get to the surface," Pella said.

Stillich stood. "Yes. Take what you need. I hope the elevator is stupid enough not to have been infected, or it will be a long climb."

Kale growled, "Why the surface?"

"We have some systems up there that will still work. Those optical-fibre links we laid down are pretty dumb. We robustified the planet, remember? Although we didn't anticipate this."

"And what about the warning?" Kale asked. "Why issue that now? Their ships are a week out. You think that was referring to the viruses?"

Stillich frowned. "'Take cover ... Flee the cities and the domed colonies ... Take your children; take food, water, power and air'. Sounds like more than a virus to me."

"They're hitting us with something else, then. Other than the ships. Lethe. Listen, Stillich. Leave a skeleton crew down here. I want you to isolate that smart plague and fire it straight back at the rebels."

Pella said, "Maybe that's why they're sending manned ships. Proof against AI viruses. Surely they'll be shielded against their own weapons—"

"Then send them whatever else we've got too, with my best wishes."

Stillich hastily assigned some of his crew to carry this through. Then he hurried out after Pella and the Admiral.

They came up in the middle of Hyde Park. Under a clear August afternoon sky, they were military officers in gaudy uniforms, tense, sweating, armed, loaded with data desks and comms gear, emerging from a hatch in the green grass. Pella and the others immediately got to work setting up field comms stations.

Stillich looked around, trying to take stock. The bunker entrance was near the south-west corner of the Park, and through the trees he glimpsed the ruin of the Albert Memorial. The boundary of the Park wasn't clear, for parkland and oak forest covered much of London now; like most of Earth's cities it was like a garden from which buildings towered, needles so tall they penetrated a scattering of cloud. Above all that was the usual furniture of the sky, the contrails of descending spacecraft, the glittering sparks of offworld infrastructure.

But as Stillich watched one of those tremendous buildings quivered, and shattered glass sparkled from its face. Even the buildings needed smartness to stay up. And today the Park was crowded, and getting more full a" the time. People walked in carrying children, or bundles of belongings in cases, sheets and blankets. Some were trailed by serving bots, but many of these looked as if they were malfunctioning, confused.

There was a flash in the sky, like a high explosion. People ducked in unison, cowering from the sky. Moments later a distant sonic boom rumbled.

"It's that damn Alphan warning," said Admiral Kale. lilt's scared them all out of their homes. But this is a city of millions. Where are they supposed to go?"

Stillich said, "That warning was sent by planetary colonists. They live under domes, in towns of a few hundred, tops. I've seen them. The Empress was relying on their consciences to have them spare the cities. But what do they know of cities? Maybe they can imagine conditions on Mars or Titan. How can they imagine this?"

Kale said, "I wish there was something we could do for these people. Organise them. I feel helpless standing here."

"We'll have to leave that to the civilian police," Stillich said.

Now people were raising their faces to the sky. Stillich looked up.

The bright blue air was full of sparks that flared and died. And now there was another streak of light that cut across the sky, and a rippling boom of shocked air. Beyond that a broader explosion unfolded silently, like a flower.