Blade, page 6
part #4 of Inverted Frontier Series
This drew nods and murmurs of agreement, including from Riffan, who had remained standing. Again, he caught Vytet’s eye and asked, “Where is Clemantine? She’ll need to make a diplomatic answer to this Tio Suthrom.”
Pasha popped up again. She gazed back at Riffan, her expression drawn and anxious. Then turning to Vytet, she said, “Clemantine is . . . taking time for herself. Tarnya can speak for us.”
“Make it a short answer,” Kona demanded. “Give nothing away.”
Alaka‘i Onyx – Pilot’s Log
1281:092:21:11 HSW
A reply has come from the marauder, though I deem it more threat than promise:
Stand by. We will close with you and assess the situation.
Both Ashok and I sense opportunities.
“Let them examine us,” Ashok insists. “Let them know we are harmless.”
But if the marauder draws close enough, we will not be harmless. I have prepared and I am ready. I will not hesitate. I will blow myself to vapor should the marauder approach within the perimeter of that blast. I hope it does. I hope I will be given this chance to ensure the marauder never reaches Hupo Sei.
Chapter
10
Every few minutes the Bio-mechanic circulated through Griffin’s neural bridge, pausing momentarily at each cardinal node to assess the state of the surrounding tissue. All stable. All quiet.
Too quiet.
Griffin was a ghost ship, haunted by absence, lacking even a memory of the team of Apparatchiks that once inhabited it. Clemantine’s dark twin had been thorough in her purge. But now she was gone too, and Urban had departed, ceding to the Cryptologist sole control of the high bridge.
Amid these thoughts, a summons reached him: *Meet me in the library.
Was it his own will or hers that caused him to immediately shift, instantiating there within his window? A moot question as, ever and always, he possessed not the least desire to refuse. Such was his unnatural nature.
The Cryptologist—such a pretty little thing—stood with arms crossed on the library floor, eyeing him with a disapproving frown. “Why separate yourself like that?” she asked him. “There is room enough in the library’s working memory for both of us.”
Is that how the confinement within windows had begun? He sent a thought searching through centuries of data; it fetched a series of recollections into present memory and his lip curled in contempt. But then, contempt had long ago become his default emotion. He told her, “Separation was implemented only in part to conserve computational resources. The primary purpose was a visual reminder to Urban that Apparatchiks are artificial entities designed with machinelike natures that force us to focus obsessively on a designated specialty. In short, a reminder that we are not true human minds.”
To his deep annoyance, the Cryptologist rolled her eyes. “You love your machinelike nature. But you’re as human as any other Dragoneer—and so am I. So please come out and play?”
He scoffed. Who was she anyway? Just another kind of Apparatchik, created with the same ancient software utility that had created him. He thought of her that way, even if Urban considered her something more.
“You will get me designated a rogue entity,” he warned. “Aberrant and subject to deletion.”
She smiled sweetly. “You are aberrant, but not subject to deletion. Not here aboard my ship.”
“Your ship? Do you expect to remain in sole command?”
“I do. Clemantine will not return, Urban has never wanted the burden of piloting a second courser, and Pasha knows I need to be here—you and I—to redesign Griffin’s loathsome philosopher cells.”
He considered this, remembering how the Cryptologist had defied custom time after time and gotten away with all of it. Defying custom did not come so easily to him, but neither did it feel impossible. Not here, in the absence of the other Apparatchiks.
“A rogue entity, then,” he concluded. “Stand by.”
A module of his architecture confined his image to a two-dimensional window whenever he instantiated on the library’s main deck. Turning inward, he located the module and removed it from active use. His window vanished and for a moment, he vanished with it. Then his image refreshed as a fully three-dimensional figure.
He loved the feeling of it! Loved the exhilarating rush of positional data flooding in from every part of his virtual body. So much, that he had to fight to suppress a smile. He had existed thus before, but only rarely and in private spaces or special circumstances. Always a little overwhelming at first. But because his mind was based on Urban’s mind, he knew how to command a body like this. He’d been made for it.
Permitting himself a slight pirate smile, he reached out a hand to the Cryptologist. Had he ever touched anyone before? He did so now, long fingers softly brushing the smooth warm skin of her cheek.
Smiling in return, she told him, “Urban asked me to destroy Griffin’s philosopher cells.”
He snatched his hand back, horrified. “No! You won’t do that. We won’t do it. The ship would die.”
“You think so? You’re sure?”
He was not sure.
A courser was not a singular lifeform, but rather a mosaic of living things—various bio-mechanical tissues, computational layers, the reef, the philosopher cells, the pilot. In a primordial courser the pilot was a singular, subordinate mind responsible for navigation when the philosopher cells went dark. Aboard Griffin and Dragon the pilot was a human entity with a far more extensive role. Each of these lifeforms was necessary to the correct functioning of a Chenzeme ship, but Griffin was no longer truly Chenzeme. Did it require its philosopher cells? Or could its human pilot fully replace them?
He shook his head slowly. “When the philosopher cells go dark, they’re not dead or in cold sleep. There is still activity, a low-level of communication, binding the other elements together. So yes, without the philosopher cells or without re-creating some artificial replacement for them, the ship would die. And we would lose their senses and their deep memory too.”
He had devoted his existence to understanding and harnessing Chenzeme bio-mechanics, including, and especially, the physiology of the philosopher cells. He had competed with them and learned from them; and given their unique complexity, he felt sure there would always be more knowledge to extract.
The Cryptologist told him, “Urban suggested we replace Griffin’s cells with modified lineages from Dragon.”
“Graft a foreign brain onto Griffin? Let its lineages colonize this ship?” A disapproving hiss, but then he nodded. “Yes, colonization would probably work—eventually. But it would be an ugly process. My guess is, the internal physiology would decay long before pathways could be reestablished, leaving the ship crippled for a very long time.”
She smiled, appearing delighted by this scenario. “Thank you. That is my conclusion too. We will proceed as we originally planned, re-engineering the philosopher cells with care, and not with haste.”
Chapter
11
Days passed. Distances closed. And eventually Tio Suthrom re-discovered the marauder as a slender, lightless void outlined against the blazing brilliance of a myriad of distant stars.
Determined not to lose track of the alien vessel this time, Tio Suthrom locked his telescopes onto its featureless shape.
“It is still far away,” he murmured, resentful of that fact now that he was ready, now that he had fully prepared himself, mentally and mechanically, to use his ship as a weapon. He only need wait for the marauder to approach as it had promised to do. Once it entered within a narrow blast zone, he would blow Alaka‘i Onyx apart, destroying the marauder when he did, and preventing it from ever reaching Hupo Sei.
Ashok, forever calm, observed, “That is not the marauder.”
“What do you mean, my friend?”
“Note the proportions. They are wrong. The girth of this object is less, relative to its length, than that of the marauder. This has become obvious, though its full length remains to be determined.”
Tio Suthrom did not want to believe it. He loaded images of the marauder into his memory for comparison. The marauder had been observed obliquely, at an indeterminate distance. He had no certain knowledge of its absolute proportions or its absolute size. Only estimates. Still, now that he looked, he saw that Ashok was correct.
Ashok continued, “Note also how the approaching object appears to grow rapidly in size, indicating it is very close and therefore not very large.”
“Or else it is a large object riding an unstoppable momentum!” Tio Suthrom countered as a new and horrifying possibility trespassed on his mind. He re-examined the marauder’s previous position as best he could estimate it. He could only guess at its trajectory and potential velocity, but even his wildest guess could not make sense of what he saw now. The marauder should not have appeared in this region of the celestial sphere—while the histories he carried assured him marauders often traveled in packs.
“Ashok, I think it is a second marauder.”
A brief silence as Ashok processed this and then concluded, “You may be correct. We must continue to observe.”
“Not passively. Not anymore.”
Tio Suthrom needed to know what was out there. He had convinced himself he might destroy a single marauder. But if there were two? Impossible! He could not conceive of any means to destroy both. The marauders had not wiped out world after world because they were vulnerable to the ploys of a lone, unarmed great ship.
He triggered an array of navigational jets, brief flares that caused Alaka‘i Onyx to swivel, its bow coming around to face the intruder. A second array of jets stabilized his position. And then he triggered his way-finding radar.
The echo returned with shocking speed, placing the object a mere three kilometers away—and closing.
“Ah ha,” Ashok said. “My guess is the correct one. This object is close and not large, my friend, just as I first predicted.”
Indeed. This was a tiny ship—sixty, seventy meters long?—no more than three meters in diameter.
“A scout ship,” Tio Suthrom whispered. It had to be. It was certainly no second marauder and for that he was grateful. But this also meant his gambit must fail. He would not get close enough to the marauder to strike it—yet he must still die here. Better that than allowing himself to be colonized. He had only hoped that his violent last act would serve a double purpose and save Hupo Sei.
“A scout ship is the logical conclusion,” Ashok concurred, offering no hint that it shared Tio Suthrom’s despair. And then, “Ah. Here is a radio message.”
Tio Suthrom listened again to a woman’s very human voice, different from the two voices that had addressed him before. Sounding friendly and self-assured, the voice said, “Hello, Tio Suthrom. We are here aboard a small un-crewed vessel. We intend to launch two scout-bots toward you. One will survey your hull. We ask that you admit the other so that it may survey your interior. You may deploy a similar bot to survey our vessel. We will not object. Do you understand?”
What Tio Suthrom understood was that, despite the kindness he heard in the generated voice, he had no choice, no option to object.
“My theory—that the marauder is not a marauder—remains valid,” Ashok observed. “As does yours, that the marauder has engaged in trickery in a scheme to colonize us. But there is an additional possibility. I did not propose it before because I did not want to upset you. But I feel we must now face the dire prospect that the entity controlling the marauder may be as human as it seems—and therefore capable of all the inherent and inexplicable violence of your kind.”
This possibility had not occurred to Tio Suthrom and hearing it now, it shook him to his mind’s deep core. He had given his life to the Inventions, not expecting, not even wanting, to ever again encounter another human mind. Another mind of that species that had destroyed the once thriving worlds of Hupo Sei and transformed Ryo’s great planets and glittering habitats into crumbled and lifeless ruins.
Why then, this spark of searing hope?
Ashok, oblivious of these thoughts, continued, “Let us consent to the marauder’s demand. We might then swiftly distinguish the correct theory.”
But did the theory even matter? Surely a human-infested marauder was as dangerous as the original kind.
Then why this hope?
“Tio Suthrom?” Ashok queried when the silence had grown to encompass too many seconds.
Tio Suthrom answered, “You are braver than I, my friend.”
“Only because I process fear as an abstract arithmetical element, not as a biological quality.”
“A more intelligent system. The Inventions are far more intelligent than humankind.”
“Answer our visitor, Tio Suthrom.”
“Yes. All right.”
“But be ready to trigger our destruction. We must not allow ourselves to be used as a stealth weapon against Hupo Sei. If your theory should prove valid, I expect you will have mere seconds to act.”
<><><>
The outrider Lam Lha now coasted alongside Alaka‘i Onyx, separated from it by a mere five hundred meters, with Urban and Pasha aboard as ghosts in the library.
Urban had seized this assignment for himself because he was curious, and because of an ancient nostalgia. That first time he’d left Deception Well, he’d left in a great ship much like this one. (He’d been so young then! Really just a kid.) The memory of that time left him eager to ask Tio Suthrom what he knew of the long past, what he had seen, and how he had survived.
Vytet had privately urged him to take Clemantine on this mission, or to at least encourage her to go. “She is our usual diplomat and she needs a new challenge.”
Urban had refused.
In the days since the conquest of Griffin—the conquest of her own dark twin—Clemantine had plunged into a deep melancholy. She’d become distant and listless and deeply sad and yet refused all suggestion of therapy, as if she wanted to be wrapped in the misery of her grief. They’d fought about it:
“You did what you had to do! You don’t have to put yourself through this.”
“You mean I don’t have to put you through this.”
Sooth. There was truth to that. He admitted as much. And when she asked him to leave, he did.
He told Vytet, “This mission is not therapy.” And he took Pasha instead.
Pasha had clearly been the better choice. Just like Clemantine, her experience as a pilot had given her an intimate knowledge of Chenzeme nature. If there was any taint of the Chenzeme to be seen or sensed aboard this great ship, Pasha would know it. She was also an exobiologist, skeptical of Tio Suthrom’s claim that he carried no life, and eager to determine his true nature.
Urban listened as Pasha initiated contact, announcing by radio their presence and explaining their intentions.
It took Tio Suthrom a few minutes to reply. When he did, he sounded resigned. “I understand. I will open a lock. You will see it by its light.”
Pasha said, “Thank you.” A politeness that would not have occurred to Urban. She added, “I am launching the scout-bots now.”
“Understood.”
Three open windows in Lam Lha’s library displayed three different views of Alaka‘i Onyx: one from a camera on the outrider, and one each from the scout-bots as they glided slowly toward the great ship’s dark hull.
As they approached, Alaka‘i Onyx began a slow roll that brought a set of open bay doors into sight. Its roll ceased. Dull red light illuminated the interior of what was obviously a hangar, occupied by a small shuttle. Situated midway along the dark hull, the red glow suggested to Urban a tired but malevolent eye. He made no comment on this though, and neither did Pasha.
She had a Dull Intelligence at work within Lam Lha’s library. Relaying its findings, she said, “The structure of this ship and this cargo lock appear historically accurate.”
Urban had expected as much. He did not doubt Alaka‘i Onyx truly was a great ship, created by human ingenuity in some long-ago age.
The scout-bots had been holding their thin legs nestled tight against their small ovoid bodies as they glided toward the great ship. But now, with just a few meters to go, they extended their jointed limbs and then flexed them to cushion the impact as they landed against the hull. Reactive surfaces on their footpads secured them, at the same time allowing them to assay the hull’s molecular composition.
Urban studied their video feeds, while intermittently glancing at the molecular assays that now appeared as ribbons of text within a fourth window.
“The hull is sterile,” Pasha observed.
Again, as expected.
Scout-bot 1 entered the hangar, where it swiftly explored the walls and the outer surfaces of the shuttle, sampling as it went.
“Again, sterile,” Pasha said. “Some remnant nanotech. Nothing functional.”
“The shuttle looks in good shape. There must be systems maintaining it.”
“Do you want to try to look inside?” she asked.
“No.” Urban nodded at the display. “There’s a gel lock waiting for us.” And then he added, “I never saw a lock that small.”
The lock’s membrane glowed dull red like the airless hangar. His mind’s eye measured it against the scout-bot and he concluded, “A meter square, as if it was custom-made to be just big enough for the scout-bot, if the bot could go through with its legs deployed.”
It could not, of course, at least not on its own, because its thin legs were not capable of maneuvering within the dense gel. Tio Suthrom must have known this, or at least suspected, because as soon as the bot leaned against the surface, the gel rippled, drawing it in.
The scout-bot reported an encounter with active nanotech—Makers—within the gel, busily exploring the bot’s surfaces. The heat of conflict flared at its footpads, then faded as the local clade of Makers withdrew.
