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The Titan Game
by Niven Busch
Chapter 1
Weapons are ugly things at best and this one was as ugly as they come: a low-slung iron iguana with a slant steel face, a cannon on top, and treads instead of feet. It could scuttle forward and backward at amazing speeds and even swim, if necessary, in a gurgling, wallowing fashion. On its body it had steel and ceramic scales and in its belly a microelectronic box containing its brain. With this brain it could detect and intercept an enemy or avoid him, direct its cannon to destroy him, and control the engine which, if he became cantankerous, would enable it to flee. It needed help from no man.
Better still, it was cheap. This, above all else, recommended it for production in a world which had long been draining itself and impoverishing its peoples making expensive weapons. Never before in history had there been such a glut of weapons of all kinds: weapons lurking with eyes agleam in the black holes of outer space; weapons that could pop out of the void and kill at ten times the speed of sound; weapons as small as pinheads and as big as cathedrals; weapons that could burrow underground or hide in the genitals of icebergs; weapons that could be slung on dogs, elephants, mules, goats, dolphins, or even children; weapons with fins, with tails, with lungs; weapons by the million and the hundred million stashed in warehouses, depots, forts, catacombs, arsenals, revetments, attics, cellars, suitcases, satellites, and silos; weapons made of sulfurous gases; weapons of light, of air, of new metals, of magnetic pulses. There was, it seemed, no lack of any sort of weapon at all. It is odd then, if one stopped to think, that this weapon was ever fielded or that once it was, it could produce, aside from its military applications, such widespread effects.
Its birth was mysterious. That too is characteristic of weapons — no one person or pairing of persons is responsible for their advent. The notion for a new weapon may blow in from any direction. The Department of the Army, U.S. Material Development and Readiness Command (DARCOM), specifically encourages this practice. To do so, it has issued a pamphlet entitled Guide for Unsolicited Proposals (DARCOM Publication 70-8) "as a means by which unique and meritorious proposals can be made available. . . ."
One must always, in light of the policy, keep in mind that the birth of a weapon does not take place in a manger, but in the glare of world attention. Only the seminal procedures prior to the birth are complex and secret. Seeds in the wind.
There was, for instance, the report of a young officer assigned to what was known in 1983 as balls-to-the-walls training unit at Ilopango, San Salvador. The recruits this officer was supposed to train were between sixteen and eighteen years old and most of them were shorter than the M-16 rifles and the M-79 grenade launchers he was teaching them to use. Their GI helmets were too big for their heads and their shoes too loose for their feet. The recruits were brave and quick to learn, but their scruffy, rock-and-mesquite training camp was situated in a horizon dominated by Guazapa Volcano, a major guerrilla base.
The young officer felt badly about what he knew was soon to happen to his recruits. He tried to think of ways to protect them.
If only they'd had a paratroop battalion nearby, or a decent air force. Or some armor! From armor the officer's thoughts veered to an engine that would not only help but perhaps substitute for his doomed little guys, actually take their place. He wrote out his ideas and sent them to his father, a retired brigadier general knowledgeable about such matters, holding a position as lobbyist for a defense supplier.
That was one seed. Then there was the research analyst at the Rand Institute who sent through a paper at this time relating to Goliath, the drone tank the German High Command had tested on the eastern front late in World War II — one of those queer genius-type ideas, like the early fighter jets that Hitler's desperate staffers dredged up and never, fortunately, put into full production.
So it went. The Old Boy Officer Network is always on the qui vive to get the best material for its branch and by now, what with one thing and another, there were rumbles in the huge bowels of the Pentagon and its Specified and Unified Commands.
DARCOM knew the score. It knew a terrible fuss was being raised about protecting personnel in combat, and it knew and recognized that the best way to improve armor combat-crew survivability was not to put the crew inside the armor in the first place. DARCOM knew the navy was considered to be way ahead of the army in robotics and it knew had to rip that myth to shreds and the sooner the better.
DARCOM knew too that the Swedes had some mystic crap of their own and that the French, always ready to steal the fillings out of your teeth, were working on components for autonomous, mobile combat robots. DARCOM knew about control algorithms for multiple cooperative robots working on a task. It knew about 3-D stereo vision sensors, also about image processing, mobile platforms and power sources, and about automated computer mission planning and scheduling. DARCOM began to set up informal talks in the Pentagon for the representatives of great electronic companies, jawbone sessions as they were then called, leading to a Request for a Quotation, or, in other words, some concrete guidelines, the step that comes before the Request for a Proposal, the real nub of the matter.
A bidding session followed and the bid, the best though not quite the lowest (since DARCOM weighs seriously other factors besides price), went to Advanced Electronic Technologies (ADECT) of Santa Clara, California, a well-known firm headed by the wizard entrepreneur J. C. Streck.
The new weapon also had a name by now. It was called Self-Deploying Attack Vehicle (SEDAV). A respected steel maker bid for the cannon and body plates and a maker of turbo-diesel engines for the motor but ADECT, with its diversified capabilities, prevailed in obtaining the whole package principally because, in addition to the other elements, it surpassed all competitors in its version of the new weapon's "intelligence."
Money was now distributed, and a prototype drone built and triumphantly tested. The project whizzed forward wonderfully when an accident occurred, or if not exactly an accident, then at least a setback of a type rare in the disciplined structure of weapons making. As time went on, other events not easily explained but somehow connected with the weapon or its use or its procurement surfaced it seemed almost as if the weapon itself, rather than any human agency, was at the root of the trouble — yes, as if this thing, this object, from some powers lodged within its iron soul, had produced a force that dragged a whole array of human lives along its course like the tail of some insane and unpredictable comet: ministers and heads of state, spies, soldiers and renegades, arbitrageurs, thieves, plotters and priests, women of high repute and low, and of course a lot of just plain people. Few had the slightest understanding of what was happening to them but one and all experienced certain changes caused by their abrasive rush through time and space with the result that none of them were ever quite the same again. . . .
It had been Jason Streck, by some terrible chance, who discovered what had happened to his father. It was late at night. This in itself was odd since father and son, though in each other's office all day at the plant, with countless details to discuss and, frequently, decisions to be made which were best made jointly, were seldom together after business hours. A certain coldness had settled into their relationship, not a real break, but something less than what they'd once had. Both had regretted this change; both knew and recognized the incident from which it stemmed but neither had known how to repair the damage.
That night, Jason had wanted to be with his father; he wondered in retrospect whether some kind of ESP had made him decide to drive in and call at the cottage where he'd seen the lights from the road.
Jason had been out on a date. Generally he waited until weekends, but on this night he'd felt in no mood to stay at home, so he'd hit the bars. It was a way to go, pretty much the only way available for him now after an early, failed marriage for which he was still paying alimony, and the termination, by mutual consent, of a long-term live-in.
Jason's prowls through the singles' bars had become a highly stylized procedure: first the physical prepping, the shampoo, the lotion, the useful Gucci briefcase containing razor, comb, and toothbrush, also condoms or some other contraceptive in case she wasn't on the Pill. Not a bad idea to toss in a few technical papers (making sure they weren't stamped with the company logo) so in case she peeked inside, as she would if given a chance, she could see you were a worker, a serious person — you had paused in the scruffy bistro where the two of you had met while coming from or on your way to a business appointment. Final rule: her place, never yours. Then you could split whenever you liked; also because in most situations you would not be using your right name.
So it went. You looked around. You bought a few drinks. You drew a number, holding yourself ready for surprises. For, oh, what hang-ups could come to light, what sometimes bizarre demands lurked beneath the profiles of the chic Valley femininity, blessed in some instances with Ph.D.s in computer science or electronic engineering, the most brilliant and irresistible and sometimes the freakiest. Ah, those surprises — the wild little blonde from Bendix who would seize the skin of her lovely belly in a firm grip and pull it up (the first time with the remark, "Would you like to see your free door prize?") until the tip and then more of her rather extraordinary clitoris appeared, a wet pink prong inciting a whole new order of games. He would not soon forget her . . . or the athletic Jordanian MBA who became aroused by nude swimming and would make love in the pool and only in the pool (and in the deep end at that), her elbows propped in a corner of the skim gutter with Jason clamped on to her with an ardor intensified by his desperate need to keep from drowning as she opened her submarine thighs to receive him.
And then, of course, the exceptions, the wondrous ones with some magical, honest way of touching you or rousing you, who effortlessly made you feel, from the moment their sweet breasts sprang out of the nylon bra, that they would induct you into . . . Camelot! A deathless relationship . . . only to have some curious distortion set in as time went by, certain verbal expressions or the husky sexy laugh heard too often — too familiar the deliberate way she rolls down her pantyhose to wash between her legs. You miss an appointment, or you are busy for the weekend, or she fails to be on time. Somehow you are both on the prowl again and it's all over.
On that night there had been no sex. He had seen this particular girl before and had admired but never dated her. She had been a mediumsized brown-haired girl with a rather cool, uncensoring way of taking stock of you and what was going on around you and of crinkling up her small deep-set eyes when she laughed. Jason, who'd skipped dinner, had been eating alone and this girl had come over and sat and talked and a warmth had sprung up, a feeling that could lead to a better-arranged evening. Then he had taken her home, on Sand Hill Road, and after leaving he had seen the lights on his own family's large fenced estate. He'd realized at once that they weren't in the main house but in a complex known in the Streck family as the cottage. There were several rooms in this — two bedrooms, a living room and den, and a small kitchen, the latter always kept well provided with food and drink. It had been built sometime after the main house and at first had been used mostly by Art and Norma, also assorted cousins and in-laws, when they came to visit. But after a while, J. C., wanting a place in which he could work away from the plant, had remodeled it into an office complex, paneling one bedroom for the use of staff, putting a computer in the other, and extending the living room into a glassed-in porch. He'd also ordered various electronic traps and alarms to ward off unauthorized entry and installed a chain-link, electrified fence, the same height as the great steel fence surrounding the outer grounds.
Inside this second fence, the first thing anybody saw as they approached the cottage was a robot tank, J. Caulfield's pet. It was there now, a compact, camouflaged little monster. It squatted peacefully in a corner of the area which Odille had sardonically christened The Romper Room, an acre field where J. Caulfield Streck, for his own amusement and the enlightenment of certain selected weekend guests, programmed it to smash up a sandbagged "fort," leap ditches, swim across a tiny lake, and whack away with its cannon — using subcalibrated rounds, so much more dramatic than laser simulations — at targets painted to resemble Soviet tanks or ground troops which sprang up unexpectedly.
It was a weird sort of pet but, in itself, a piece of history: the first model to come off the ADECT production line. It was designated in the company inventory as TY60, followed by a long string of numbers, meaningless except to the supplier and its ultimate recipient, the army.
Tonight the tank was alive. Buried in the armor, behind and to one side of the heavy foreplate, a tiny light glowed green, showing that systems were GO. All tanks are blind in front and 'see' at night by thermal detection devices, their purpose being to remain invisible, not to headlight their presence to an enemy.
Coming closer, Jason had a queer sensation. His pulse had altered and his skin chilled. He remembered this afterward and tried to account for it, so strange was the sensation. It seemed as if the robot had developed a field of force so strong that it was disarraying the electromagnetics of his own body. This feeling made him stop for several seconds.
The live armored thing crouching there in the dark seemed aware of him. Its sensors had detected his "signature" and it stirred as a living creature might at the approach of a stranger. When Jason got closer he reached out and touched the metal shell, then the cannon. Both were hot enough to make him jerk his hand away. He wondered, as he put it later, whether someone had been "fooling around with it" or whether his father had implemented the machine into the cottage surveillance arrangements, the most formidable part of which were still to be confronted: the attack dogs.
There were three: large gray-brown German shepherds. They had no names. This anonymity was deliberate, a reminder that they were not to be treated as pets, regardless of how one wished to treat the resident robot. They were killers, domesticated animals artfully and cruelly reconditioned into primal savagery. They were known as Dog One, Dog Two, and Dog Three. They were astute as well as aggressive, presumably able to distinguish friends from foes, but . . .
Jason had never been quite sure about this. He was always very careful with the dogs.
He unlocked the gate leading to the cottage and walked in with determined unconcern, then stopped and turned back, curious about Dog One, the largest. It was standing on hind legs at the edge of the fence, its forepaws pushed against the chain link and its head tilted to one side. Dog One was always the most active of the dogs but Jason could not remember it ever standing up that way. There was certainly an oddness about it, its great body stretched up and its square black muzzle held at that strange angle, motionless.
Neither of the dogs on the ground moved as Jason approached. Then he saw why they weren't able to: Dog Two had no head. Its brains, along with a considerable amount of blood, were splattered on the grass. In the beams of the strobe lights, covering portions of the yard from the eaves of the cottage, Jason could see that Dog Three, the young one, had been almost ripped to pieces by bullets, the concussions of the hits knocking out chunks of hide and muscle, embedding bone and fur in the soft lawn. The blood made irregular dark patches, like vagrant shadows, on the grass.
Surely Dog One signaled some gruesome fantasy, standing there dead in that athletic, welcoming position he had never assumed while alive. He had bled hardly at all, but he had defecated in his death throes. The smell of his feces was rank in the air. Jason touched him, exploring, as he had touched the tank, but the light contact was enough to send the body crashing to the ground.
Dog One had been killed by a single shot between the eyes. His mouth came open as he fell and his great pink tongue lolled out. He had teeth like those of the steppe wolves of Eastern Europe, his forebears. Somehow those teeth were familiar to Jason. He had seen them before, but not in Dog One. A flash arose in his mind of himself as a boy of six or seven, standing with his mother in front of a case in a museum. That had been a wonderful time, a day when they had all made a trip to San Francisco to see the sights.
"That's a wolf," his mother had said.
Jason spun around. He crouched beside the huge dead dog, staring at the cottage. The inside lights, like the robot's were on — was the dog killer there, waiting for him?
Keeping low to the ground, Jason turned back along the fence to where his tan Mercedes was parked. He opened the glove compartment and took out the Smith & Wesson .357 Magnum that the security people had given him to keep there. This was the first time that he'd had the big revolver in his hand since the day it was supplied. It was fully loaded. Jason pushed the safety latch into its OFF position. The gun was heavy and he was conscious of its weight and of his lack of training with it. Could he carry it and still use his walking stick? Better not. He could walk without the stick. He would lurch, but to hell with it. He needed one free hand. Hunched over, gun held awkwardly in front of him, he crossed the lighted gap between the car and the back door; he kicked the door. It opened and he was inside the kitchen. His mouth was dry and his lips pulled back senselessly from his teeth like the big dead dog's.
The small kitchen smelled of coffee, gas stove pilots, and some kind of cleaning stuff. He stood against the wall, groping for a light switch; he failed in this but was conscious of light under the swinging door leading to the living room. Lurching, with one foot dragging and the stupid large cold Magnum in his right hand, he had opened the door and got his first look at what had happened beyond.
