Read Swarm for Free Online

onboard?”
    The voice hesitated for several seconds. I’d never heard it do that before. “Answer unclear.”
    Answer unclear? For some reason, the response caused a chill to go through me. What might cause it to be unsure? My mind jumped to strange conclusions. Were there some kind of zombie creatures aboard, or frozen beings, or robots that might be considered alive? Suddenly, I thought I had it.
    “Alamo, you are aboard this vessel, do you consider yourself to be alive?”
    “Unclear.”
    I nodded to myself. I might have smiled, but I was in a grim mood, so my mouth formed a tight line instead. I had learned something. The ship was indeed artificially intelligent. Was a thing like that alive? Not in my book, but who knew how it thought about itself. I decided not to get into a pointless philosophical argument with the ship over this issue. I would skip administering the Turing Test. It really didn’t matter.
    “Alamo, is this portion of the ship the bridge?”
    Another hesitation. Were a vast number of recursive routines firing off in this thing’s mind causing the delay?
    “This is the goal room for the command mission. It has capabilities the other chambers don’t have.”
    I nodded. That made it the bridge. “Can I fly the ship from this room?”
    “Yes.”
    “Can I...” I tried to think of some other command function. “Can I communicate with other ships from this room?”
    “Yes.”
    I sucked in a breath. For the very first time, it occurred to me that there might be other ships like this one. Were they all over the Earth? It made my stomach flutter, as if I’d dropped off the high dive.
    “How many ships like this one are there, Alamo?” I asked quietly.
    “Unknown.”
    Precision , I told myself. I had to ask for specifics. “How many ships like this one are within—ten miles of the Earth’s surface?”
    “Seven hundred and forty-six.”
    I put my hand over my mouth. This was an invasion. Up until now, I’d believed myself to be special, to be one of those people they put on TV who said they’d been abducted and probed by aliens. I had to take all those people out of the crazy zone in my mind now. They had been telling the truth all along.
    “Are they all searching for command personnel, the way you were?”
    “No.”
    “How many have found command personnel and aborted the searching mission, as this ship has?”
    “Forty-one.”
    So, the majority of them were still on the hunt. How many people had been killed by these ships— were being killed—even as I talked calmly to the Alamo ? I couldn’t believe the world’s armed forces would take this invasion lightly. Were jets coming to engage me now, and possibly blow me out of the sky?
    “Alamo, are there—planes attacking these ships?”
    “Unknown.”
    “You aren’t communicating with them?”
    “Ships with command personnel are communicating. Other ships are seeking command personnel.”
    My mind raced. Some of the ships had given the humans the tests. Some people had survived and were in command, the way I was. I wasn’t alone.
    “Can I communicate with—” I began, then just gave the order. “Alamo, put me in communication with the other ships. I want to broadcast to them.”
    “Channel open.”
    I cleared my throat. “Hello? Hello out there? Can anyone hear me?”
    There was silence for several seconds, then a gruff voice spoke up. The voice had an accent that sounded British, or maybe Australian. “Who’s there, then? Get off the public channel, this is reserved.”
    The voice seemed to come from the walls, from all of them at once, just as the voice of the ship did.  I looked around me, almost expecting to see a face appear. I thought about telling the ship to show me a face, but decided against it. The last time I’d requested such a thing I’d nearly been killed.
    “I don’t understand what you mean, about the public channel. I’ve only just made it to the bridge of my ship and I don’t have a clue about