Here we stand, p.43
Support this site by clicking ads, thank you!

Here We Stand, page 43

 

Here We Stand
Select Voice:
Brian (uk)
Emma (uk)  
Amy (uk)
Eric (us)
Ivy (us)
Joey (us)
Salli (us)  
Justin (us)
Jennifer (us)  
Kimberly (us)  
Kendra (us)
Russell (au)
Nicole (au)


Larger Font   Reset Font Size   Smaller Font  

  ”Me too,” Ingram said. “But everyone’s going to want to call home. The longer I sit on this, the harder it’s going to be to maintain discipline when the news breaks.”

  “So what are you going to say?”

  “I’ll brief heads of departments, then do an all-residents message explaining their TV’s been cut off for security reasons. I’ll wait until I’ve talked to Fred to explain why. No point buggering about. Word will get around anyway and I’d rather it came from me.”

  “It’s going to get harder, you know.”

  “What is?”

  “Keeping the Caisin gate secret.” Marc scratched his scalp. “Not that anyone on Earth could build their own yet. But FTL will leak sooner or later. No country with a unique technical edge has ever kept exclusive use of it, from kaolin pottery to nukes. So if we let word get out about gate technology, APS will pull out all the stops to get here and seize it. Even if our government can be trusted to use the gate sensibly — bloody big if — we know others can’t.”

  “You really think Fred would leak Caisin tech?” Ingram asked.

  “I didn’t think he’d leak anything at all, and I was wrong. So yes.”

  “I admit I still have moments where I’d like to hand the decisions over to politicians.”

  “Are you new here?” Ingram had told Marc the same thing before, and he understood why she wasn’t happy about having to handle geopolitics. But it did no harm to remind her about the realities. “What happens if they show up with their own plans for us and Opis, and we don’t like it? What happens if the Americans here don’t like it? When everyone’s got FTL, our only edge to defend ourselves against our own kind is the gate. And I’ve stopped thinking of all the other misuses a government or a corporation could put it to because the list was just too long and depressing.”

  “I knew it wouldn’t be easy to build a settlement on an alien planet,” Ingram said, “but I was completely wrong about why.”

  She went on tapping out her one-finger message for a while and Marc finally gave in and shut his eyes. He was still drifting in a semi-doze when Solomon’s voice made him surface again.

  “Captain, I’ve run some checks, and I’m as certain as I can be about who contacted Lawson,” Solomon said.

  Ingram sat back in her chair. “Fred.”

  “I believe so. There’s no activity in the teerik compound, by the way. They’re all roosting, but they’ll know something’s wrong as soon as they wake and try to connect.”

  “We’ll have some interesting conversations today, then.”

  “I’m more than happy to deal with any explanations to the teeriks about why they’ve been cut off,” Solomon said.

  Solomon’s tone rarely changed, and when it did, it was so subtle that you could miss it. But he still managed to leave no doubt about how he felt. Right now, he sounded very pissed off with teeriks, and a pissed-off Sol was no minor problem.

  The teeriks had become a loose cannon at a very dangerous moment in Nomad’s precarious existence. Whatever Ingram decided, Marc knew Solomon wouldn’t let that continue.

  “Leave the teeriks to us,” Marc said. “We’ll see what Fred’s got to say for himself.”

  09

  We’ve temporarily suspended transmissions from the assay probe in Earth orbit. I apologise for the loss of entertainment services, but we hope to restore the links later today after a full security check’s been carried out. In the meantime, Alex Gorko will be extending base TV hours with recorded entertainment. Thank you for bearing with us.

  Captain Bridget Ingram, Commanding Officer,

  CSV Cabot, on behalf of Nomad Base Joint Command.

  Roof terrace, main building, Nomad Base: 0600, five hours after contact from Sir Guy Lawson, October 24, OC.

  “I still don’t get it,” Searle said, shaking his head. “Sure, we were going to share the technology sooner or later, but Fred knew he was way out of line. He said as much to Lawson.”

  Ingram sipped her tea. Her head was buzzing from lack of sleep and the breeze on the roof was doing little to clear it. She kept rerunning Sol’s recording of Marc’s conversation with Lawson, looking for detail she might have missed, but she’d have an answer from Fred himself very soon.

  “I know I can make terrible mistakes assuming teeriks think like humans,” Ingram said. “But I think he’s fed up waiting for reinforcements.”

  “Yeah, Fred knows best and we’re the dumb monkeys who don’t get it.”

  “I’ll give him until oh-eight-hundred to come clean. This is about trust now.”

  “Maybe he’s trying to save us from our own guilt,” Searle said. “He knows how hard it is for us to do nothing.”

  “So you don’t think I should have him stuffed and mounted, then.”

  “No. Well, not until Sol can take over, anyway.”

  “I’m pleased to see you haven’t gone soft.”

  “I don’t like commandeering other folks’ technology, ma’am, but I like dependency even less.”

  Across the base, the day shift was waking up to no TV, just a holding screen that explained there was a temporary outage. The blackout didn’t seem to have prompted any complaints so far, but missing the Brazil-Chile match tomorrow would make a few people rather grumpy. Ingram planned to have everything back online by then. She’d have given Fred the bollocking of his life, he’d have seen the error of his ways, they’d pick up the pieces, and he’d never transgress again.

  No. She wouldn’t do anything of the kind, of course.

  Fred was an alien. The rules were different, and perhaps she’d already been coaxed too far down the path of seeing him as a bird-shaped human, a talking cartoon animal rather than an intelligent being completely unlike a human and not obliged to follow the same protocols or even be aware of them. The mission’s dependence on the teeriks limited her disciplinary options. Solomon was steadily appropriating both access and knowledge, but with the prospect of one Jattan faction or another turning up, it was the wrong time to alienate the commune. Ingram would have to keep her powder dry for as long as she could.

  “I’m dreading the conversation, actually,” she said. “Perhaps I’m the one who’s going soft.”

  Searle smiled. “Any problem’s still years away. At least Fred didn’t call APS or distribute the plans worldwide.”

  Ingram had never seen Searle anything other than upbeat, except for the time they’d first landed and he’d hung an American flag on the wall. It was hard to imagine how he felt waking from cryo to find his country had ceased to exist, and he wasn’t the only one in that position.

  She’d promised him that everything could be rebuilt. She still believed it would be. But she wasn’t sure how he’d feel about a foreign government poking its nose in while he was trying to achieve it.

  This was the elephant in the room, and it had been there since day one. The multinational nature of Nomad had been born in a less divided world that no longer existed. Fresh starts and glossing over national divisions on the base depended on a clean break with Earth, and pre-FTL comms would have ensured they had to make one, but now they were as closely connected to the old world as they’d ever been. What would Bednarz want?

  “If I find Fred has sent the material to everyone,” Ingram said, “all bets are off. Teeriks will be a liability we can’t afford. Firing them isn’t an option.”

  Searle knew what she meant. Nobody spelled it out now. Teeriks knew too much about Earth, and their children would inherit that knowledge whether they wanted to or not. There was only one way to part company.

  “That’s always in the background, isn’t it?” Searle said.

  “I’ll do it myself. Let’s hope we never have to.”

  Sometimes Ingram said things without thinking, but she couldn’t claim she didn’t mean them. She’d seen the ruthless but humane solution in a split second; the teeriks would never know what happened. They’d never feel a thing. All she had to do was get the co-operation of a boffin to dose their food or switch their medication.

  It was an awful thought because it came to her so easily. She wasn’t even sure whether to feel guilty. Her reflex was to protect her tribe, and the scientific wonder of a new sentient species came a poor second to that. But at least she now had Marc to hear her confessions. She knew she shouldn’t have felt better because of that, but she did.

  “Nothing’s ever uncomplicated, unambiguously good, or cost-free,” Searle said.

  “But how do you feel about Britain having this boon to mankind and not sharing it?” Ingram asked. “Because we won’t, obviously. There’s no nation left that we can trust, even if we were the sharing type.”

  “It’ll leak sooner or later,” Searle said. “Earth can’t hide a space programme like that forever. Although Ainatio did pretty well.”

  “I meant you personally.”

  “I don’t have a country to feel outraged for.”

  “But what if you did?”

  “Then I’d want the US to have it as well. Sure I would.”

  “Exactly. And I guarantee that even if nobody actually says it, everyone here who’s still got a functioning motherland back on Earth will feel affronted on some level.”

  “Does it matter?”

  “In terms of cohesion, yes. You know it will.”

  “They’ll just have to suck it up.”

  Deep down, Ingram was happier for knowing Britain now had a chance, just as Marc was, and she was relieved she didn’t have to agonise over the decision any longer. That tempered her anger. Keeping the Caisin gate secret was still an awkward moral choice that seemed less justified now, but Marc was still right about it being dangerous in almost anyone’s hands. The litmus test for technology was still to imagine what was the worst thing someone could — and would — do with it.

  Anyway, food security was paramount. She couldn’t tell Lawson that there was this magic gateway but he couldn’t use it because refugees from Earth would screw everything. She couldn’t justify opening the door to anyone else yet.

  Except Tev and his family.

  That was how slopes became slippery. A single exception turned into tens, then hundreds, then thousands. She’d been the one who’d refused to bring any of Elcano’s passengers out of cryo before the food supply was guaranteed. Marc had gone back for Tev. Perhaps zero contact wasn’t as critical to security as it had been. But Ingram was still reluctant to agree to total transparency, and she had to admit to herself that she didn’t trust some of her own crew not to slip up in excited conversation with surviving friends and accidentally reveal too much.

  And the aliens. I always forget the aliens. That’s the biggest secret we have. It just doesn’t feel like it. Isn’t that insane?

  The Jattan rebels hadn’t replied yet. Knowing her luck, the first response she’d hear would be the sonic boom of enemy vessels coming in to land. On the other hand, a common enemy built unity. Most problems could be repurposed with a little effort. She just had to work at it. Losing Fred’s goodwill was a blow, but it provided more impetus to learn and control the technology.

  And the Jattans... they might be a useful live-fire exercise before we have to take on the big boys, or they might be useful allies. We’ll see.

  “Yes, you’re right, Brad,” she said. “Nothing’s ever uncomplicated.”

  The base was fully awake now. More vehicles were moving around and the construction bots began grinding and thudding in the distance. What had been a round-the-clock operation a couple of months ago had settled into a normal daytime pattern, with a skeleton staff at night and only farmers out at ungodly hours of the morning. There was a visible and dogged determination that life would be lived as it had been on Earth, and that no aliens were going to shift the citizens off their land. It was a kind of militant normality. But it was deceptive. Ingram had to keep reminding herself she was as much at war now as she’d been back on Earth, even if she couldn’t see it yet.

  She checked her mail again. Every head of department had read her briefing now and the dist list was a column of green ticks. If anyone had been worried about the leak, they’d have been firing back questions and objections. The consequences of Fred’s actions probably seemed too far in the future when there were other more imminent problems.

  “Okay, I’d better crack on,” she said.

  “You’re taking Marc, are you?” Brad asked.

  “Yes, he’s rather keen to express his dismay to Fred in person. Do you want to be there as well?”

  “No, Fred might feel cornered. It’s been tough enough to get the teeriks to tell us anything at the best of times. But I’ll come if you want me there.”

  “Thank you, but no need. Just keep Cosqui enthralled. We might need her support.”

  “They’re all blissed out on Tomlinson’s calm pills, so maybe it’ll go better than you expect.”

  “Do you think the meds have affected Fred’s judgement? Because I don’t think he’s happy at all.”

  “Maybe. When I was still flying, the stay-awake stuff they gave us made me crazy. Dangerously overconfident.”

  “I’m not making excuses for him. Just looking for answers.”

  “I’m betting he just thinks you’re wrong, ma’am, nothing more complicated than that. He’s probably used to doing that to Jattans. Marc said he calls it taking account of the client’s ability. If Fred thinks they’re too dumb to define what they need, he gives them what he thinks is best for them.”

  That sounded quite helpful to Ingram, but it didn’t feel that way when she was on the receiving end of it.

  “His grasp of euphemism makes him a natural for dealing with civil servants, then.”

  Ingram would find out Fred’s reasons soon enough. She made her way down to the entrance and found Marc sitting on the steps between Solomon’s quadrubot and Betsy the pit bull, chatting to Sol, and she paused to watch. Betsy’s head movements made her look like she was following the conversation. What did a dog think of a mechanical version of itself? Perhaps Betsy didn’t think the bot looked canine at all, and it certainly wouldn’t smell like a dog to her. That brought home the pitfalls of dealing with aliens who sounded human. If Ingram couldn’t work out how a dog saw the world, a species she’d grown up with, how could she hope to understand teeriks? Their fluency with language made it seem as if they thought like humans, but the truth was she simply didn’t know if they did, and she risked basing her actions on attributing motives to Fred that didn’t exist.

  She made a fuss of Betsy. “How are we this morning?”

  “It’s still last night,” Marc said.

  “You had a nap. I didn’t.”

  Solomon looked up. “Good morning, Captain. I’ve blocked teerik access to the Earth probe, so they have the same security status as the rest of the crew now. I’ll be able to restore TV to the base very soon. Mutiny is averted. And I apologise again for failing to spot Fred’s call, but I do learn from my mistakes.”

  Ingram didn’t want Solomon obsessing over a single failure to predict the unpredictable. Perhaps she’d told him he was omniscient once too often.

  “It’s not your fault, Sol. I didn’t see it coming either.”

  “But I should have.”

  “Do you have control of all their probes now?”

  “Yes, we’ve had shared control since the evacuation, and I hung on to it, just in case. So all I’ve had to do is block all their routes in, which is easy now we have control of Curtis. That’s their only comms hub. And I’ve updated the system to route all comms traffic that isn’t strictly within the base network through me rather than the comms AI, so I see it actively before anything’s transmitted. That means no unauthorised contact with ships in orbit or between vessels, including the spy freighter. I realise that sounds excessive, but we obviously can’t predict what teeriks regard as reasonable behaviour.”

  “I’m still trying to keep an open mind in case Fred has a valid reason for all this,” Ingram said. “But are teeriks so clever that we wouldn’t know if they’d bypassed us again?”

  “Not now we’ve physically isolated the comms equipment. When I say I’ve locked them out, I mean I’ve literally sealed hatches.”

  “It’s going to be hard to roll back from that,” Marc said. “I hope we’re ready for what happens next. And that they don’t gate into Curtis.”

  “I’ve blocked gate access as well.”

  “Will Fred realise he’s locked out yet?” Ingram asked.

  “They can still log in to the library and the base network in the house, but they’ll all know they’ve lost wider access as soon as they switch on their screens and the probe icon isn’t active. Fred’s the only one who uses it, though.”

  “Are we ready in case of industrial action? They’ve got quite a spectacular track record in withdrawing their labour, after all.”

  “Indeed we are, Captain.” Solomon stood up and raised his head as if he was sniffing the air. “I have control of the Caisin gate, although only with pre-sets such as Earth orbit until the navigation AI learns to calculate paths from scratch. And we can complete the FTL drives in our vessels, although it’ll be a much longer job. So we won’t be left completely helpless if the teeriks become uncooperative. I’m working on the rest with Commander Devlin.”

  “Excellent. Good work, Sol.”

  “Captain, I don’t want to give you the impression that we’re solving the problems so all’s well,” Solomon said. “I’m really very angry about this. Fred’s jeopardised everything Bednarz and three generations of engineers devoted their lives to achieve, and he’s jeopardised you, all of you. I refuse to let Nomad be derailed.”

  “I know, Sol.” The last thing Ingram needed was a vengeful AI who couldn’t be deactivated. Solomon nursed grudges. She did her best to soothe him. “Don’t worry. We’re ready for anything.”

 
Add Fast Bookmark
Load Fast Bookmark
Turn Navi On
Turn Navi On
Turn Navi On
Scroll Up
Turn Navi On
Scroll
Turn Navi On
216