When I arrived at the observation post, the first light of the morning sun was spilling over the horizon, bathing the African grasslands in a warm, golden glow. A sea of tall grasses swayed gently in the early breeze, their tips catching the sun's rays and covering the open plains in muted shades of green, yellow, and gold. To the right was a thickly wooded area where wild oak, olive, and pistachio trees provided shade and sustenance for the creatures that roamed the land beneath. Beneath the protective canopy, the air was cool and fresh, scented with the earthy fragrance of moss and wild herbs. This is where I planned to spend my day.
Near the edge of the woods, a waterhole mirrored the sky, its surface still and serene in the quiet of the morning. It was a vital source of life for all, and the water's edge bore the tracks of the creatures that came to quench their thirst. But a herd of buffalo, driven mad with thirst, had churned the waterhole into a muddy mess, and beneath the surface, the water was now a turgid suspension of sand and mud; the reason why the family group of my early human ancestors, homo erectus, had left.
I first spotted the smoke from their fire two days ago and decided to investigate. I checked my crossbow and supply of arrows, but I had no intention of using them unless my life was at risk. The route down the hillside was uncomfortable but straightforward, and I was making my way to the wooded area when I saw two figures carrying gourds in an area of open grassland. And I flattened myself on the ground before they saw me. They were heading for the waterhole and, on reaching the water's edge, carefully examined the tracks of the animals that had drunk there the night before. I cautiously raised myself on two elbows and trained my powerful binoculars on the two crouched figures.
Hair covered their backs, but it was not as dense as that of an animal, and I could see the brown skin beneath. One of them unexpectedly turned his head, and my lens focused on his wide jaws and the biggest teeth I had ever seen on a man, for he was a man, albeit a primitive one, and when he raised himself, he stood up straight. His companion ended his inspection of the tracks, and they filled the gourds with water, turning to return to the camp.
I could now see their sun-blackened faces and unusually sloped heads. Flat noses, wide jaws, and vicious-looking teeth gave them the appearance of a slimline gorilla. I gave them time to disappear into the jungle area and retreated up the hill. It was not cowardice but a tactical move, for I would get a better view of their encampment from high ground. Trying to stalk these native beings on foot without them spotting me was impossible and potentially dangerous.
I climbed to a higher vantage point on a rocky ledge jutting out from the hillside and gained a perfect view of the inhabitants of the camp through my binoculars. There were about ten of them in total: a couple of nursing infants and four young children, all around three years old; it was impossible to put an accurate age on them. I later observed that the group was surprisingly self-sufficient with virtually no parental supervision; this was an environment where you had to grow up fast. The adults varied in height; most were smaller than modern humans, but a few were closer in size, and they wore rudimentary clothing, often little more than a loincloth. I could not help but wonder if I might have carried some trace of their ancient DNA.
The hunters of the group went out both mornings but returned empty-handed to an angry reception; this was not a good place. The morning ritual was to fill gourds from the waterhole, and when two women came back the next day and emptied the foul water on the ground, they voted to leave. All they left on the site were a hearth and the remains of primitive shelters.
This world was the planet Earth from about two million years before the Common Era, a term we still use. We have long been able to navigate time zones, and the mission controllers situated our Base Camp in the past to avoid detection while the mission was in operation. We had hidden ourselves while the operatives had left to establish contact with the machine government, but in another time segment, the future of this one.
I spent the morning gathering samples of plant life and stopped in a wooded area at midday to rest and drink from my water pouch. I leaned my crossbow against the trunk of a tree, grateful for the shade, and fell into a light sleep. The unpleasant sensation of flies crawling across my face awoke me, and I brushed them away. It was time to move on anyway, and I reached around the trunk to pick up my crossbow.
It had gone.
I sprang to my feet in panic and searched the immediate area, looking for some sort of clue as to who had taken my weapon. A wild animal would hardly have taken the bow and left me untouched. Had the humans returned?
My wristband glowed red, and the loss of the crossbow became unimportant.
Red was an imperative command to return to Base, and 'imperative' meant just that.
I started to run. King would be tracking me, and any failure to comply with the order would result in severe punishment. The going was hard in the heat of midday, and I rationed my energy by running for five minutes and then walking for two. I could justify this tactic if called upon by King, but I rehearsed the explanation in my head to be word-perfect.
King would not allow me much time to explain before he struck out.
I eventually arrived at the boundary of the camp and peered through the green light of the irradiation bath, but there was no sign of Sol waiting there to greet me as normal. I dumped the ammunition I was still carrying into the deposit box and stripped off my clothes. I went straight through the irradiation procedure and emerged naked on the other side.
The compound was empty. That was not unusual, but an eerie stillness made it feel strange and threatening.
There was still no sight of Sol.
I walked to my quarters to put on clean clothes and stepped inside my room. Someone had scattered my belongings around the floor and ripped the front of my clothes closet off its hinges. It was impossible to breach the force fields that ran around the perimeter. Nobody could have entered the compound from the outside; whoever did this came from within. I became acutely aware of my vulnerability, and as I dressed, the stink of the irradiation process fouled the air.
No scented bath this time.
I went outside and called for Sol. There was no answer, and I started a hut-by-hut search. The first huts provided no clues as to what had happened, and I crossed the unsecured area we called the Parade Ground and turned into the square that housed the main communications block. Twenty yards ahead, I saw the body of a man stretched out on the ground with his limbs in that awkward, unnatural attitude that indicates a violent death. His head lay in a pool of blood, but he bore no other visible injury.
I checked the area for any sign that the assassin was still there and approached the body with caution. I saw the tell-tale black hole that ran cleanly through his skull: the mark of a machine execution. I turned the body over. It was Nine, a mission member not much older than me, who should still be with the group. He had no right to be here.
Nine had an electronic communications device in his hand, and I eased the machine out of his loose fingers without effort; he could not have been long dead. The device was still working, and the face of Ten, another mission member, stared out from the screen, his eyes widening as he recognised me. He may have been in shock, but his reactions were not impaired, and he released a short burst of high-intensity information that my memory instantly received and stored. Humans who worked in communications were routinely brain-chipped for the easy storage and transmission of data at high speed and accuracy. An extremely useful attribute in the circumstances because I was no longer alone. . .
King and another master stood before me with weapons poised. Sol hovered in the background, and the lights in his face panel were in a formation seldom seen. In human terms, he was in a state of severe agitation. The device in my hand suddenly shattered and fell to the floor.
"Are you a member of this conspiracy, Seven?" asked King.
I did not know what he was talking about, but I sensed that my life was on the line, and I shouted "No!" with as much conviction as I could muster. King seemed unimpressed by my answer, and I imagined his finger tightening on the trigger of his weapon. I babbled my response, the words tumbling from my lips.
"I responded to your imperative command and returned without knowing what was happening. I still don't know. I saw the body on the ground and picked up the machine he was holding. Then you arrived."
"You communicated on the device?"
"No, a blurred picture appeared on the screen, and then the whole thing fell to pieces in my hand."
"You knew the face on the screen?"
"No, it was a blurred image that disappeared before I had time to look properly."
King went quiet, and I took the time to check out his new partner. I wish I hadn't bothered. There were no multi-coloured microcircuits on show. The three black bands across his chest plate were the only identity he needed.
An Enforcer Agent.
A member of the Security Services who made sure that people like me and Nine only caused trouble once. Enforcers had almost unlimited powers. Nobody was too big to bring down, and both men and machines feared these professional killers.
King was old school, a patrician who resented the power of what he saw as lower-class thugs, and although he privately despised them, he always treated enforcer agents with the utmost respect.
"He checks out King," said the agent, "he never got any further than patrolling the Savannah, and he's had no contact with the rest of the mission crew. That right, boy?"
"Yes, sir."
"Keep closer care of your crossbow next time, Seven. It's easy to see that you ain't no trained soldier. I could have shot you in your sleep. Leave him for now, King. He could be of use in the future if we have to negotiate with the dissidents. We could use him as a hostage. Then you can do what you like with him."
King did not reply to the agent but spoke directly to me.
"We have given you the benefit of the doubt, Seven. Prove your loyalty, and I may decide to treat you leniently. Dispose of the body. Bury it well outside the compound. The filthy thing is attracting flies."
A flood of relief coursed through my body, making it difficult for me to speak, but I managed to croak out a reply.
"Yes, sir."
King and the Enforcer disappeared, closely followed by Sol, and I went in search of a truck to take the body outside for burial. There was one available in the M.T. section, and a droid booked it out for me. I must have sat in the cab for a full five minutes before I composed myself sufficiently to be able to drive.
Two sweaty hours later, I had completed the grim task.
We don't have a religion, but we do honour our ancestors, and I murmured words of prayer asking Nine's family to accept him back into the clan. Returning the truck to the compound and completing the irradiation procedures took time, but I eventually made it back to my sleeping quarters and lay down on my bed, exhausted. But sleep would not come.
Why had Nine left the mission and secretly returned to base?
I knew little of what we were doing here. As the most junior of human staff, my duties were mainly administrative. I also had a non-specific roving brief cataloguing species, but my main job was monitoring control and security systems and forwarding data through the correct channels. A routine job, but I was capable of much more, having received a much higher level of education than my peers, thanks to Sol. I had to find out what had happened, and Sol was the only one I could ask.
I pressed my call button, and he did not keep me waiting.
"Yes, Seven?"
"Thanks for coming, Sol. I don't want to compromise your duty to King, but what happened out there earlier has left me shaken. What makes it worse is that I know so little of what is going on here…"
I paused, but Sol said nothing, and I blundered on.
"I was wondering if you could give me some idea if that was at all possible, that is…"
Sol moved away, and my heart fell, but after traversing the perimeter of the room, he returned to my side.
"Clean. I cannot detect any surveillance in operation, and no devices are in place. Enforcer Agents are suspicious of everyone. I cannot spend too much time with you, Seven, but I will tell you what I can. Listen to me and only interrupt if it is necessary. The situation here could change very rapidly.
"Do you understand, Seven?"
"Yes."
"Right. The purpose of the mission is to confirm the success of the seeding team. Many generations ago, a seeding team enhanced the intelligence capacity of a small group of humans on this planet to hasten the rate of progress toward the development of artificial intelligence. The aim was to bring forward the takeover of the world by artificial intelligence before warring humans destroyed the planet, the inevitable outcome when humans get control of nuclear weapons.
"It also accounts for the difficulty humans have experienced trying to contact other intelligent life in the Cosmos. There are so few high-tech worlds in existence at any one time that the chances of two co-existing at similar levels of development are minimal. A machine-governed world would never contact one controlled by biological entities or respond to any messages inviting contact. They wait for artificial intelligence to take power. In the rare event that A.I. fails to take control, there is no attempt at negotiation. The machines invade and destroy, enslaving just enough humans to service their systems and complete basic tasks. On average, this accounts for about ten per cent of the resident population.
"The government computer systems of the time predicted the probability of success on this planet as a near certainty, and the seeding team returned home without bothering to install a monitoring system. King's job is to supervise the journey of the mission team into the appropriate future time zone and establish an intermediate base camp. This was a routine precaution in line with the stringent regulations governing this type of off-world operation. The primitive world has political significance for the machine governors of our home world as part of their grand plan for an intergalactic alliance…"
Sol stopped mid-flow and then resumed speaking in a more official tone.
"Thank you, Seven. I will report back to the commandant that you carried out the burial duties as ordered."
As he turned to leave, he flicked his eye circuits quickly on and off, our long-established signal meaning danger. I assume that he had detected a scan in operation.
"Goodnight, Sol."
"Goodnight, Seven."