The Risen Empire Read Online Free PDF Page B

intestinal fauna.
    But the Rix Cult didn't interfere with worship. It was useful, in its way.
    What the Rix could not abide were societies like the Risen Empire, whose petty rulers were unwilling to accept the presence of minds within their realm. The Risen Emperor relied upon a firmly entrenched cult of personality to maintain his power, and thus could not tolerate other, truer gods within his realm. The natural advent of minds was heresy to his Apparatus, which used software firewalls and centralized topologies to purposefully stamp out nascent minds, artificially segmenting the flow of information like a gardener, pruning and dehydrating, creating abortions, committing deicide.
    When the Rix looked upon the Eighty Worlds, they saw rich fields salted fallow by barbarians.
    The new compound mind on Legis XV was duly aware of its precarious position, born on a hostile planet, the first Rix success within the Risen Empire. It would be under attack the moment the situation with the Child Empress was resolved, one way or the other. But as it propagated, it flexed its muscles, knowing it could fight back rather than willingly relinquish its hold on sweet, sweet existence. Let the Imperials try to uproot its millions of tendrils; they'd have to destroy every network, every chip, every repository of data on the planet. This world would be plunged back into the Information Darkness.
    And then the inhabitants of Legis XV would learn about shadowtime.
    The new mind began to consider ways to survive such an attack, ways to take the campaign further. Then found deep within its originary code a surprise, an aspect of this plot never revealed to it in the shadowtime. There existed a way out, a final escape plan prepared by the Rix should the hostage gambit fail. (How kind were the Rix.)
    This revelation made the compound mind even more aggressive. So when the vast new creature reached the age when minds choose their own designation (roughly 4.15 hours old), it delved into the ancient history of Earth Prime for an appropriately bellicose name...
    And called itself Alexander.

    CAPTAIN

    The Imperial Political Apparatus courier ship glinted black and sharp, a dark needle against the stars.
    It had left the Legis system's courier base an hour after the Rix attack had begun, describing a spiral path around Legis XV to stay in the blind spot of the Rix occupying forces. Zai had wanted to avoid creating the impression that the Lynx was being reinforced. And he wasn't anxiously awaiting the arrival of the courier's occupants in any case. The trip, usually taking twenty minutes in such a craft, had taken four hours. An absurdity, for the fastest ship-class in the fleet. In terms of mass, the ship was nine-tenths engine, most of the remainder the gravity generators that kept the crew from being squashed during fifty-gee accelerations. The three passengers in its nose would be crowded together in a space no bigger than a small closet. The thought gave Captain Zai enough pleasure to warrant a slight smile.
    Given the situation, after all, what was a little discomfort?
    For once, however, Zai wouldn't be entirely unhappy to see representatives of the Political Apparatus on his ship. The moment they stepped aboard, the responsibility for the Empress's life would no longer be entirely his. Although Zai wondered if the politicals wouldn't find a way out of offering their opinions when the crucial moment came.
    "Hobbes," he said. "How's the compound mind progressing?"
    His ExO shook her head. "Much faster than expected, sir. They've improved propagation since the Incursion. I think we're talking hours instead of days."
    "Damn," he said, bringing up the high-level schematic of the planet's infostructure. A compound mind was a subtle thing; it arose naturally unless countermeasures were taken. But there were certain signs one could watch for: the formation of strange attractor nodes, spontaneous corrections when the system was damaged, a pulsing rhythm in