Earthseed, page 18
The low passageway soon brought them to another cave with more abandoned robots. “I wonder how they shut off Ship’s sensors,” Kieu murmured.
“They built it,” Zoheret answered. “They must know how.”
“It wouldn’t be that difficult,” Yusef said. “With a small jamming device, you could shut off one sensor and set off a chain reaction, each sensor jamming the next until they’re all shut off. Ship probably never knew what hit it.”
“This way,” Zoheret said, waving her light at a passageway on her left.
Yusef came to her side. “You’re leading us farther away from the corridors. We should be going to the right.”
She shook her head. “That’s what I thought the first time I came in here. That’s how I almost got lost.”
“You don’t remember.” As Yusef spoke, she began to doubt; what if she had forgotten?
She led them into the next passage, but they had only gone a short distance when the narrow way came to an end. Bewildered, Zoheret stared at the rocky surface, searching with her light.
Yusef said, “I knew this wasn’t the right way.”
“Be quiet!” This was the right way; she knew it. She had gone through this corridor after trying all the others, and had almost given up, until—She aimed her light at one corner. “There it is,” she shouted, lighting a low tunnel near the ground. “That crawl space. We have to go through that.”
She dropped down on her hands and knees. “I’ll go first, and turn on my light at the other end. Give me a minute, then follow.” She turned off her light and began to crawl, moving through the tunnel until her knees hurt; bits of rock and sharp-edged shards scratched her hands. Had the tunnel been this long? She froze, worried that she had picked the wrong way after all. Total blackness surrounded her; she could see nothing. She might be trapped. Biting her lip, she continued to crawl until, lifting her head for a moment, she noticed that her hair had not brushed rock. She raised an arm, and felt only air.
She turned on the light, then scrambled to her feet. She was in an empty cave. Ahead of her, at the other end of the cave, there was another corridor. Running to it, she shone her light down its length and saw the distant door; its metal gleamed as it caught the light.
They left their boots and shoes at the door, then crept silently forward into the hall, hurrying along it until they came to the main corridor. Zoheret peered around the corner. They had left the residential areas; these walls hid Ship’s conduits, its nerves. Ship’s body was vast, but the cortex was small and, Zoheret realized, oddly vulnerable. The removal of a few panels in one room could silence Ship forever, shutting off its brain while its body continued to function. If Ship’s mind were ever restored, would it be Ship who lived again? Or would it be a new mind, forgetful of the past?
“Help me,” the voice called again. She wondered if Ship could be driven mad; it was trapped in darkness, crying to itself. “Help me.” It was still crying to them; that meant it was still conscious.
If the invaders knew about Aleksandr and his friends, they would be expecting an assault from the part of the corridor nearest the residential zone, not from this side. And there was still a good chance they didn’t know about the group at all.
Aleksandr lifted a hand, then led them forward. Ship’s cortex was just around the curve ahead. A loud buzzing reverberated through the hall. “Help me.” The buzzing grew louder; something crackled. “Help.” Aleksandr flattened himself against the wall and the others did the same. “Help. Help. Help.” There was silence, then a triumphant shout.
Aleksandr motioned to them. Zoheret peered around the curve of the wall and hurried after him.
The strangers had burned their way through Ship’s door and were already inside the cortex. Ship had apparently locked its door as soon as it had realized it was being threatened. There was no one in the hall. They would have to confront the Earthfolk inside the cortex, where Ship’s components could be damaged during the battle. “Help me.” The voice was lower, as if a tape were being played at too low a speed.
They approached the gaping hole in Ship’s door. “Start over here,” a man’s voice shouted from inside. Zoheret moved forward, glancing at Aleksandr. She had always been a pretty good shot, but she had to be a perfect shot now; she could not risk affecting part of Ship. The stun weapons might not hurt it, but they could not take that chance. Yusef crept up behind her, followed by Kieu.
A man suddenly stepped through the hole into the hall. Before he could cry out, Yusef hit him in the throat, then brought his gun down on his head; another young man caught him before he hit the ground and dragged him away. “What’s going on?” a voice inside shouted; someone had heard.
There was no time left. Aleksandr moved to the door, Zoheret right behind him. They aimed through the door and fired at two men standing in the center of the room. The men fell.
Two other people, hands stretched toward the clear glassy walls, froze. Two panels had already been pulled out, jutting out from the walls like shelves. Tiny lights behind the walls blinked on and off furiously. Zoheret aimed and brought down the man; the woman darted away and she recognized Ah Lam.
“Stop!” Ah Lam shouted. She was holding a weapon Zoheret had never seen before, a long hollow pole with a grip. “!f you don’t, I’ll aim this at the wall. It isn’t one of those toys of yours, and it’ll damage the components permanently.” Zoheret lowered her gun as Aleksandr stepped through the hole in the door. “Don’t come any closer, or I’ll fire.”
“You’ve lost,” Aleksandr said. “Give up.”
“I haven’t lost.” Ah Lam’s delicate face was contorted with rage. “If anyone moves, I’ll fire. I’ll wait for my friends to wake up, and you’ll let them finish what we came here to do. And if you try to stop us, this ship’s brain goes out forever.”
“You can’t do that. You’ll endanger everyone aboard.”
“Automatic will still be on. That’s all we need. Back off!”
Aleksandr backed toward the door. The people outside were standing by, clutching their useless weapons. Aleksandr’s arms were up; his body almost completely blocked the door. But not quite.
Zoheret dropped to her knees, aimed her gun with both hands, and fired. The beam shot under Aleksandr’s left arm toward Ah Lam. For a moment, Zoheret feared she had missed. Then the woman toppled forward, her head grazing one of the open panels; her weapon clattered to the floor.
Aleksandr pulled her to her feet. “You act fast.” She was shaking now; her hand released her gun and let it fall. “It’s all right.”
Kieu had pushed the components back into the wall, and the captured people had been taken away. “What has happened?” Ship called. “Restore my senses, please.”
Aleksandr hurried through the hole in Ship’s door and ran down the corridor. Zoheret rushed after him. “Where are you going?” she asked as she caught up.
“To the nearest entrance. They must have jammed Ship’s sensors before entering—otherwise, it would have warned us when they first came inside. And it makes sense to think that they would have used the closest entrance.”
“There might be others by the door.”
He slowed. “How many are there?”
“I don’t know exactly. No more than thirty—probably not that many. But most of them would have had to stay in the settlement to keep order.” Yusef came up behind her silently and walked with them. “We’d better be careful.”
“But you said they didn’t know we were in the corridors.”
“I don’t think they did, or they would have had someone outside Ship’s door, guarding the cortex.”
They came to the entrance. Aleksandr crept up and pressed the door’s button while Zoheret and Yusef stood to one side. As the door opened, they pressed their backs against the wall and waited.
“Well?” a woman’s voice shouted from beyond the door. “Did you shut it down?”
Aleksandr held a finger to his lips.
“Well?”
The intruder suddenly entered the hall; Yusef dived at her, pinning her to the floor, then grabbed the weapon from her hand.
The woman was struggling as Yusef pulled her up; he tightened his grip. “You’ve lost,” he said. Her dark-brown face was set in a scowl. “We caught your friends. Show us how to restore Ship’s sensors.” He twisted her arm.
The woman sagged against him. Aleksandr took her arm and the two men pulled her into the Hollow.
A vehicle perched at the entrance. A pale beam hummed, shooting out from a cylinder on the vehicle’s side to meet a sensor near the door. Yusef dragged the woman to the side of the craft. She glared at him, then reached toward the cylinder, fumbling with its buttons until the beam disappeared.
“My senses are returning,” Ship said from the corridor. “I can see—I can hear.”
“Can you hear me?” Aleksandr asked.
“Yes. I was inside myself. The universe was gone and I was only a tiny being crying out in a little space. How strange to think of oneself in that way.”
“Are your sensors in the Hollow working?”
“Let me try a few. Yes, they are working. Shall I leave them on? I had promised not to do so.”
“Forget your promise. Better shut them down for now, anyway. We don’t want anyone in the Hollow to suspect that they’re working.”
“What is going on?” Ship asked. “What attacked me?”
“You’ll find out.” Aleksandr turned his head toward Yusef. “Check that craft—see if there’s anything inside it. Then we’ll take this woman to her friends and ask Zoheret to tell us her story.”
“You haven’t beaten us yet,” the woman said. “And you won’t.”
“I thought …” Ship paused as they entered the corridor. “I thought I would go mad. Thank you for saving me.”
Zoheret sat on a table, sipping water as she spoke to the people gathered in the dining room. Her voice grew hoarse; she saw Kieu wince as she mentioned their capture by Ho. When she spoke of Willem, her eyes filled and she had to blink away tears; she saw one young woman turn away and wondered if she was Willem’s sister. When she spoke of Caleb’s death, she looked down and had to stop speaking for a few moments.
When she was finished, she looked around at the worried faces. No one said anything.
“They concealed themselves well,” Ship said at last. “I did not know they were aboard. They must have had their own entrance to the Hollow. How foolish of them. Had I known, I could have monitored them as they lay in suspension.”
“Why do they behave the way they do?” Aleksandr asked.
“I cannot say. Tracing the causes of human behavior is a complex task—I found that out with you. Answers are often hard to come by. It seems I was not told everything about Earth.”
“We must decide what to do,” Kieu said. “We can’t revive more comrades to help us—they’ll be too disoriented and will need time to adjust. And we don’t have that time.”
“Ho should be here soon,” Zoheret said. “He’ll help us, and there are about twenty people with him, plus my five friends. That would give us a chance.”
“Will the boys and girls in the settlement help us?” Aleksandr said.
Zoheret sighed. “Some will. Some at least won’t get in the way. I’d guess that a lot of them will wait to see who might win. But they won’t be expecting us—that should give us an edge.”
Yusef held up a hand. “Wait. We all seem to be assuming that we’re going to help Zoheret.”
Zoheret turned toward her brother. “Aren’t you?”
“Should we? You saw the weapon that woman had. There’s another one like it in their craft. They’ll shoot to kill. We won’t just be up against stun guns.”
“But we need your help. We can’t fight them alone.”
“Are you so sure?” Yusef said. “The settlement will think that Ship has been shut down. You and the friends you’re waiting for outnumber the Earthpeople, and can surprise them. Presumably, some of those in the settlement will rise up and help you, but if they don’t, why should we risk our lives to help them? I think we should stay out of it. We can watch on Ship’s screens. If the battle is lost, we can then decide what to do.”
A few people were nodding their heads. “You have to help us,” Zoheret said. “It’s your battle, too.”
Yusef pulled at his mustache. “Your assault will weaken the Earthfolk, even if you lose. That should make it easier for us to fight.”
Aleksandr was glaring at Yusef. “I thought you were through with setting yourself against everyone, going your own way. I thought you’d learned something. But I guess I was wrong.”
“I’m being practical.” Yusef stood up. “Right now, I think we should get some sleep.” He left the room; several people followed.
Aleksandr walked Zoheret to her room; he did not speak. When they reached her door, she said, “What did you mean when you said you thought Yusef wouldn’t set himself against everyone?”
“You ought to know. We had our disagreements, too, just as you did with Ho.”
“You mean Yusef—”
“I might be able to talk to him, change his mind. I think we’ve got to settle this business with the Earthfolk soon—if we wait, we don’t know what they might do next. Don’t worry—when your friends get here, we’ll decide what to do. I think some of us will help you.”
Zoheret was unused to her bed, which now seemed too soft. She slept unevenly, woke, and got up, dressing in the new clothes Ship had provided.
“It’s early,” Ship said gently.
“I’ve had enough sleep.” She tucked in her shirt and straightened her pants.
“I have been thinking of what you told everyone before, and have tried to question the Earthpeople, though they seem unwilling to talk to me now that I am keeping them locked up. During all the time I have traveled, whatever problems I have had, I never doubted my purpose. I had faith in those who had built me, who had given me life. However knowledgeable I was, they knew more—whatever wisdom I had learned, they were wiser. That was my faith. I spoke to you of their dreams, of their beliefs. That was what they gave me to reason with—the premises were theirs. Now those premises are shaken, and I do not know what to believe.”
“These people are only a small group, Ship. The others who built you must be different—the fact that most of them stayed behind proves that.”
“But I wasn’t told the truth about the Project. A small band rebelling against the consensus of their society—that is what I represent. I thought I carried all of human culture inside me—and now I find that I carry only a distorted picture. I was deceived.”
Zoheret frowned. “You deceived us, too. You never told us about Aleksandr and the others.”
“I thought it was best.”
“You never told us that you were supposed to abandon us and seed other worlds.”
“The day will come when you will no longer wish to speak to me. I’ll be only a tiny star above you.”
She went to the door. It whispered open. Aleksandr was pacing the hall. “Can’t you sleep?” he asked.
“Can’t you?”
“I’ve been waiting for your friends.”
“Aren’t they here?”
“They are not anywhere in the corridors,” Ship answered.
Zoheret clasped her hands together. “They should have been here by now.”
“I can turn on my sensors,” Ship said, “and check the Hollow. Given the circumstances, I should be allowed to break my promise.”
“Then do it,” Aleksandr said, drawing Zoheret back into her room. “But be careful. We want the strangers to think you’ve been shut down.”
“They cannot detect my observations as long as I do not speak in their presence or turn my lenses and microphones to focus.”
“Turn on the screen,” Aleksandr ordered. They gazed through Ship’s infrared eyes at the still-darkened Hollow, seeing pale trees, an empty plain, then a glimmering lake. The scene changed again.
At first Zoheret did not understand what she was seeing. Reddened shapes, bound together, staggered along behind a metal beast. She cried out. Ho’s group had been captured. She heard their wails and moans.
“No,” she said, unable to look any more. “No.” She covered her eyes.
“I am helpless,” Ship murmured. “I can do nothing without endangering everyone in the Hollow.”
“You’re not helpless,” Aleksandr replied. “You’ll guide us. Wake everyone up. Even Yusef will have to help us now.”
19
Yusef had tried out the vehicle, and had discovered that he could steer it by pressing the dashboard buttons in various sequences. There was barely room for everyone inside; they were crowded together on the seats. Kieu, sitting between Yusef and Zoheret, picked up one of the two captured weapons Yusef had propped against his seat.
“It kills,” Yusef said. “If you’re not prepared to use it, leave it alone.” Kieu put the weapon down.
Aleksandr shook his head. “No killing. We’ll do the best we can with nonlethal weapons.”
“That’s foolish,” Yusef said. “We need everything we can get. I know how to use them now.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
The blind Luis and two others had stayed behind. If the battle was lost, they were to close off the corridors; the Hollow would be sealed while they revived their comrades. But Petra and her friends could hold those inside the Hollow hostage, bending Ship to their will. Would Ship be willing to trade its conscious mind for their lives? Or would it abandon them?
They crawled rapidly over the plain. Zoheret wished that there had been more time to plan; they were being forced to improvise. They would travel as far as the swamp; then one group would leave the craft and approach the settlement through the woods while the others waited by the vehicle. Ship would pass them a signal. When the craft arrived in the settlement, the people there would believe that their friends were returning and would be caught off guard. So it was hoped.
