Savage Fugitive

by Patrick G Cox

  “Surface nodes?” Rasmus’ eyes widened. “Do you mean the cities are—?”

  “So it seems. These are not cities, as we understand them, but they have some function in relation to the Provider, the AI on this planet, in terms of supplying nutrients and photovoltaic power.” Harry smiled. “And, of course, these structures provide shelter to those who guard them, and to strays like us who blunder into them seeking a hiding place. And now we find ourselves in the very heart of a society and civilisation our enemies have no notion exists.”

  Rasmus nodded. “We’re fortunate indeed that they accept us.”

  Harry watched several large Canids, somewhat ferocious in appearance, setting up the machines provided in response to Rasmus’s request and specifications. He stepped closer to examine one. “These machines are new. There must be a manufactory somewhere.”

  As if in response to Harry’s musing, one of the Canids stepped toward him and spoke to Harry through the translator held in his powerful paw-like hand. “They are made to your exact requirements. Do you wish to see where?”

  Glancing at Rasmus, Harry checked his urge to nod, having discovered this had a very different meaning among the Canids. “Thank you, we would.”

  The tour left Rasmus and Harry astonished. Their hosts were certainly not backward in any sense of the word, yet it was obvious they lacked any sort of modern weaponry.

  “We had no need of weapons until those like you came. We have only our cloaks and our ancient weapons. Now the Provider tells us we must learn from you to create the weapons we need to defend him.”

  Harry considered this. “The weapons I had in mind would be crude but suited to our use until we could capture more powerful ones.” He glanced at Rasmus. “I do not have sufficient knowledge of the more sophisticated devices our enemy uses.”

  “But you have some weapons of that sort. We have seen them.”

  “Indeed we do, but to replicate them and manufacture more is not within our expertise, unless you have the machines, equipment and materials we would need.” As he spoke, they moved into a new chamber. Larger than the previous one, it held a range of machines Harry vaguely recognised as being the type to form and shape metal. “Ah, yes! If my friend Ferghal were here, he would be delighted to put these to work on the task. Sadly, I think he is either a prisoner or dead.”

  The Canid studied him before speaking. “Instruct us in the making of your explosives. We have seen their effect, but we think they can be better used. Tell us what you need, and we will assist you.”

  Harry considered. “Very well. We had best make a start. Rasmus will show you how to make the explosive, and Mr. Winstanley will set some of our people to work making the devices for it. Show us where we may work.”

  Ferghal had found a way to connect to the Base AI through a portable unit brought in to run the lab systems. Now he found himself reading, in his mind’s eye, a lengthy list of names and positions held. He was about to move on to something else when he recognised a name and a posting.

  Memory clicked into place of an obstructive bureaucrat at Pangaea, and suddenly the list made sense. He found the transmitters and watched the signal protocols until he was familiar with them. Then, he created a signal package and sent it to an address in Fleet Security that he’d been given after he and Harry had succeeded in bringing home the cargo liner Twee Jonge Gazellen. With that done, he erased the record of the signal from the auto log, but failed to notice that he’d just diverted the Consortium’s encryption keys to the address he’d used.

  He stretched out on his bed and grinned with satisfaction. That’ll give someone a bit of a start, he thought, as he ‘watched’ his captors watching him on their supposedly secret monitor. One of these days, he’d give them something to watch. Until then, he’d try to send a message to the Admiral, but he’d have to be careful.

  At home in Ireland, Admiral James Heron received the report he’d been waiting for. He contacted his sister Niamh via holocall. She would never let him hear the end of it if he wasted a single moment to give her an update.

  True to form, she accepted the call immediately. “Any news, James? Please tell me you have good news for once.”

  “Fleet Security think they know where Ferghal is. They’re sure it’s him because they got a message with his tag in it.”

  “Good! When are you or someone going to pick him up?”

  Well, that was faster than I expected, thought James with a sigh. His sister was not an easy woman to deal with.

  “Not anytime soon, I’m afraid.” James Heron cut off his sister’s protest. “We can’t. It’s deep in Consortium territory. At least we know he’s safe, and very likely Harry is too.”

  “But if he can send messages, why can’t you make contact?”

  “Niamh, much as I’d like to, the message was, shall we say, unusual, and not from a Fleet transmitter. We think Ferghal must have used his cyberlink and tapped into one of theirs.” He laughed. “We got a bit more than he perhaps realised when he sent it.”

  “What did he send you?”

  The Admiral smiled. “Something that gives us a tremendous edge. Security are delighted, and plan to use this to our advantage.” A notification in the corner of his holoscreen flickered. “I’m needed. I’ll be in touch as soon as I have more.”

  Harry tried to settle his mind to say his prayers, a nightly practice, but he found it challenging on this night because there was much to think about. The day’s activities had been productive, and the Canids were quick to learn, innovative and far more dexterous than they appeared. Harry now had a large stock of grenades, mines and Bangalore torpedoes to attack the prison so they could free Ferghal and all other Fleet personnel held captive by the Consortium. Rasmus’s tube-launched rockets were also being produced, now with a reloadable launching tube.

  To focus his thoughts, Harry started his prayer as usual, asking for safety and protection for his family and friends, especially his guardian, Admiral Heron, as well as his ‘Aunt’ Niamh, his sweetheart, Mary Hopkins, and Ferghal and Danny, wherever they were.

  The entire time he prayed, he sensed that the alien Provider listened to him, even though his prayers were in his thoughts, and watched him. Unlike the Fleet and Consortium systems, he could not shut the Provider out of his head

  He concentrated with more effort as he reached the intercession of his prayer. Provide me with the courage to face the enemy, Lord, and give me the knowledge I need to keep safe those who are entrusted to my care—

  “I do not understand your request for this material you call courage or this safety you want for the individuals you name. Please clarify your request.”

  “I did not address this request to you,” Harry said in his thoughts, startled out of his prayer. “I am praying to my Maker, and do not expect you to provide these things.”

  “But you are an organic life form as I am, as are the Canids. You are not a machine like the electronic entity your enemy uses, yet you say you have a Maker. Who is this Maker?”

  “You are a life form?” Harry’s question popped into his thoughts unbidden. “But are you not the creation of the Siddhiche?”

  “No I am not. I am the result of their manipulation. I am the nodes your people refer to as cities, and more. I am an integral part of everything on this planet, a watcher for the Siddhiche. The cities, to use the word familiar to you, are parts of my nutrient assimilating organs and shelters for the Canids when they need them. Our relationship is symbiotic. I provide for them, and they serve my needs. Now you humans are among us and threaten the balance in our partnership.”

  Harry considered this carefully. “Why then have you adopted me and my team?”

  “Because you and another in the camp of your enemy are different. You have been touched by the Siddhiche, and we are linked.”

  Now wide awake, Harry’s heart quickened. “Where is this other? Is his name Ferghal? Can you communicate with the network where he is being
held — or better, with him?”

  “Of course. The artificial mentality does not know I am part of it. Everything it does, I know. But a part of it has ceased to function. The one like you has destroyed parts and reduced the remainder to imbecility. They are afraid he may enter their main network and discover the things they hide there.”

  Harry’s interest was now fully engaged, sleep forgotten. “Can you let me speak to him? What do they hide?”

  “You may speak to him directly. I will show you the way. As to your second question, they have a strange project which is heavily protected and speaks to other intelligences not on this world.”

  Harry considered this, conscious of the Provider watching as he did so. What sort of secret project could the Consortium be hiding on this planet? What was their AI doing that was so important that it had to be hidden on this outlying planet far from the reach of the North European Confederation and the North American Union?

  A half remembered briefing came to mind, something about communications being diverted and disrupted. He would have to seek the answers somehow. Finally, he asked, “Can you check if Ferghal is sleeping? I wish to speak to him, but I don’t want to disturb him.”

  “He is awake. Follow my directions.”

  Chapter 18 — Found

  TechOp Cam Khodro grumbled to himself. His Lieutenant was a bully and quick to blame him if anything went wrong. He started a routine check of the signal transmission logs, a nuisance task because it meant travelling to the remote transmitters and downloading the data then analysing it line by line.

  “Waste of bloody time,” he muttered to himself as he scrolled through it. He reached to increase the scroll speed then blinked to see if he had really seen what he thought he’d just seen. He stopped the scroll and peered more closely. There was a gap in the log. For almost seventy-two seconds the transmitter had been idle — if the log was correct — and there should never be a gap. The transmitter should be sending a constant carrier signal to the hypercom satellites. He checked the rest of the log. There were no other gaps.

  Leaning back in the seat, he thought about it for several minutes before reluctantly activating his comlink. “Lieutenant Barclay? Sir, there is something odd in the signal log. There’s a gap in the transmissions of seventy-one point eight seconds.”

  “So what?” The surly response was typical. “Why the hell are you bothering me with it? You know what to do. Get back here, write up a defect report, and log it. Don’t expect me to do your job for you.”

  “Welcome to Lycania Base One, Chairman.” Brigadier Newton saluted as the Chairman of the Consortium disembarked in the massive hangar. “If you’ll follow me, the garrison is ready for your inspection.”

  The Chairman smiled. “Thank you.” His gaze swept the vast hangar. “You’ve done well. Even with the tech you have at your disposal, you seem to have built a great deal more than we expected.”

  “Yes, sir. As directed, I’ve kept the Fleet prisoners busy with hard labour. Naturally we can’t use them on anything sensitive, of course, but the physically demanding work keeps them occupied.”

  “Good thinking.” The Chairman nodded. “They know we are intercepting sensitive information, but they don’t know how or from where — and we want it to stay that way.”

  “We appreciate that and have kept their TechRates and Officers well separated.” She hesitated. “I’ve had to put a block on the research team’s experiments with the man O’Connor — especially after they allowed him to get into the facility network.”

  “So I heard.” The Chairman frowned. “Dr. Johnstone bombarded me with demands all the way here. What happened?”

  “We’re not exactly sure, and neither are the researchers. Their drugs didn’t have the effect they expected. He fried some of the AI nodes with power surges, and he deleted or altered large parts of the program. The AI is now a simpleton, not even capable of running basic functions without manual intervention.”

  The Chairman was fully attentive now. “That bad? Is there any danger of his getting into the main system?”

  “It’s isolated, and there are security screens in place. With our coms monitoring operations, we can’t afford his disrupting it.” Emboldened by the Chairman’s concern, a departure from his usual bored half-interest, she added, “I must insist he remains isolated from all nodes of our AI network. I’m not at all happy about the suggestion they perform surgery on him to find out how he connects to it.”

  The Chairman’s frown became pronounced. “Who suggested that? You have my assurance I will permit no such thing, not now, not ever. And your decision to keep him away from any AI has my full support.”

  “Thank you, sir. It was suggested we allow the Johnstone Group to take him aboard a ship and send him somewhere else, but I’ve blocked that as well. If he was able to get into a ship’s network before, I don’t even want to think what could happen now that he’s been held captive for some time. I’m sure he would employ his pent-up anger in ways we can’t even imagine.”

  The Chairman nodded. “I agree. He remains here until we bring this to an end. His own people can deal with him then. The news from Admiral Gratz is good. We didn’t get the outright victory we wanted, but he held off a force of equal strength and has drawn their forces away from this sector very successfully.”

  “That gives us a bit of space.”

  “If we can stall the Fleet long enough in the Regulus system, we will have the WTO on its knees before they can deploy in this vicinity again.”

  With their conversation finished, the Chairman climbed the few steps to the stage and stood behind the podium that had been set in place for his use. Behind him, the other members of the Board sauntered into position. The vehicles and aerial patrol craft that normally occupied the floor space of the brightly lit hangar had been drawn to the sides or removed to other shelters. Outside, the weather had turned cold, and flurries of needle-like ice particles were scouring the structures.

  Brigadier Newton surveyed the assembled workers, military personnel and support staff, noting with annoyance that the researchers were conspicuous in their absence. She would have some strong words with them and the guard commander if they made any attempt on the young man in their care.

  On watch in the communications support control, Cam Khodro noticed a new login from the Isolation Lab. He checked the ID for the terminal and noted it was a portable interface. “Damn,” he said to himself. “One of the damned researchers again. Bastards don’t bloody think about the security at all.”

  He recorded the ID and the location in the security log and made a note to point it out to his supervisor. With the Brigadier’s orders in mind, he flagged it and put it on the list of random checks to pass on. For a moment he considered contacting Lieutenant Barclay, then rejected the thought. His response to the last report of an unusual event suggested it would be dismissed anyway. Out of curiosity more than anything else, he memorised the ID and decided to run a trace when he next had the opportunity to do so.

  Ferghal had to suppress a shout of joy when he heard Harry’s voice in his head. He sat bolt upright in bed then remembered that he was being watched, so he put his hands to his face as if waking up from a nightmare then sat on the edge of the bed with his back to the cameras. “Harry, you scoundrel! You’ve had me so worried — where are you? How do you speak to me through this AI if you’re not here?”

  “Easy, old friend. I am a long way from you — I think — and I speak through an unusual form of AI that is resident here, called the Provider. Is all well with you? What have they done to you?”

  “Nothing I couldn’t handle. I am well and hanging in there, as our friends would say! These bastards tried to drug me and scan my head, but the drugs failed and I destroyed their AI for sweet revenge. Had fun doing it too.”

  “That’s the Ferghal we all know and love! Never fear, my friend, we will find a way to get you out of there. I have a number of our people with me, an
d the Canids will assist us — those are the native inhabitants of this planet. They’re really amazing. They walk upright like men but have a close resemblance to canines. But I need to ask you something. Have you been able to figure out what the Consortium is hiding at their Base on this planet? There is some project they guard heavily, something having to do with networks off this world. It seems of great importance to them, from what I can gather. Have you discovered such a thing?”

  “There is one. I do not understand the mechanics of it, but I can show you the manner in which it can be found.” Ferghal paused. “Harry, it must be important, because their Board has come to observe it in operation. They are here now — as is that fiend Johnstone, the one who has pursued us from the beginning. He rails against the Chairman’s refusal to allow him to dismantle my head or to remove me from this planet.”

  Harry leapt to his feet. “What? Johnstone is here? There is not a minute to lose — we will find you and secure your release as soon as I can discover a means to do it. I will ask the Provider to keep us linked. Night or day, if they attempt anything, you must tell me. I will tear them apart with my hands if I have to, but you will be free, Ferghal. You will be, and that right soon.”

  He had to check himself as he hurried to find the Coxswain and Rasmus, a plan forming in his mind with every step. He needed to talk it through with his companions. He would also need the grenades and other explosives they had made.