Bolo Brigade Read Online Free Page B

coffee-maker, for that matter. Not until the psychotronic breakthrough with the Mark XX in 851 or so were self-directing and self-aware Bolos possible; the Mark XXIV, which had appeared in 1016, had been the first truly autonomous and strategically self-directing Bolo and the first to evolve personalities that, on some level, could at last be considered "human."
    "You have two XXIVs?" Donal asked.
    "Yes. Both based here on Muir. The others are scattered all over the damned cluster." He didn't sound happy about that. Indeed, Lieutenant Colonel Wood did not sound happy about much of anything.
    "An interesting brigade mix." Bolos were generally deployed in brigades of like-model machines . . . if only because a variety of Marks made for unpleasant logistical headaches.
    "Not my idea, believe me. The Mark XXIVs were brought to Muir just before the Cluster gained autonomy from the Concordiat. That would have been . . . I guess about two hundred years ago, now. Of course, the Concordiat military forces are still concerned about where their babies have gone. That's probably why they insist on sending us transfer officers like you."
    "There are still those who think self-aware Bolos are . . . a threat. Even to their owners."
    "Aren't they?"
    "It depends on who their owners are, I suppose. But Bolos are loyal."
    "Hmm. Maybe. But I'm not entirely sure they understand the concept of politics. There are still wars between various human factions, from time to time, you know. Bolos have been used against humans, so we know their loyalty isn't to the human race."
    "Their principal loyalty, Colonel, is always to their unit. And to their commander. It's the same way with most human soldiers I know."
    "Maybe." Wood shrugged, apparently indifferent. "You might have an argument with the general on that."
    "I, ah, gathered as much."
    "In any case, we're down by two Bolo TOs for the Mark XXIVs. You'll be filling both billets."
    Donal's eyebrows crawled up his forehead.
    "I know, I know," Wood said. "But, well, you'll find priorities different out here from the Concordiat. The 15th is considered a support brigade, not line. General Phalbin is strictly a conventional forces man." He spread his hands, helplessly. "Look at me. A brigade command calls for a brigadier general, usually . . . or a full colonel at least . They gave the 15th to me because it really isn't that important a command. Get used to that fact, son. You'll find things pretty boring around here, and you won't have any more trouble bossing two Bolos than you would with one."
    "I'm . . . surprised at that. Sir."
    Wood shrugged. "General Phalbin admits that Bolos might have a certain defensive value, certainly."
    "Good lord. Is that why the Mark XVIIIs were deployed on different planets, scattered throughout the cluster?"
    "That's about the size of it, son. Look here." He touched a control on his desk, and the wallvid to his right faded out, the city view of Kinkaid replaced by a knotted tangle of tightly packed points of colored light. "You've seen a map of our cluster?"
    "Yes, sir. Back at Sector, when I first got my orders."
    The Strathan Cluster was a midget as globular clusters went, with several thousand stars packed into a ragged sphere less than fifty light years across. Like others of its ilk, it orbited the galactic core; in this epoch, it chanced to be passing through the plane of the Galaxy and lay embedded deep within the nebulae and younger stars of the trailing edge of the Eastern Arm.
    The image in the wallvid was computer-generated, the close-packed, old, and metal-poor Population II stars plotted in red, the younger and more widely scattered Population Is in yellow and green. Some of the systems, the green ones, also bore identifying tags of alphanumerics. The whole rotated slowly, showing the three-dimensional relationships between the populated systems scattered about and among the beehive of thronging, cluster stars.
    "The members of the Strathan