Network Effect

by Martha Wells

  I sent my drone cloud ahead and sprinted after it, heading toward the hatch at the opposite end of the module. If the Targets had figured out what I was doing, this was the closest hatch to the control area foyer where they were still gathered.

  As I reached the hatch I needed to seal, I risked a look down the short module passage into the next section. My organic nerve tissue detected movement and I hit the hatch release to shut it. I sealed the manual controls, left a drone sentry, and took off for the last hatch.

  Inside the medical suite, the humans were still huddled together. Eletra whispered, “Can you tell what it’s doing?”

  Amena said, “It’s sealing the hatches, like it said it would.”

  Ras looked frustrated and impatient, but didn’t argue.

  The third hatch led to a connecting section which was a secondary pathway into the engineering module. This hatch was already closed and sealed, but I fused the manual control anyway. I’d lost all but four drone scouts in the rest of the ship: one (Scout One) was still locked in the control meeting area with the two dead Targets. Scout Two was in the foyer ceiling watching the Targets gathered at the sealed hatch, and Three and Four had tucked themselves up under supporting rib structures in nearby corridors.

  I started back toward Medical, letting my surviving drone cloud spread out a little more. Bits of me hurt enough that I needed to tune down my pain sensors.

  At the Medical corridor, I split my drones into two squads and positioned them at opposite ends of the access. I needed to clear this section and make sure I hadn’t trapped us in here with anything, but there were things I needed/wanted to know first.

  When I stepped inside, Ras said, “What’s going on?” He glanced at Amena, still unsure who to talk to. “Are we safe here?”

  I knew ART’s normal crew size; the command crew alone was at least eight members, with a rotating complement of instructors and students. I knew from my brief sweep that there was no sign anyone had been treated in the medical suite recently, no dead humans in cold storage. Which was good, except that the bodies could have been spaced. I knew how ART would have felt about that.

  I said, “Where’s the crew of this ship?”

  Again, Ras looked at Amena. Amena’s brow furrowed and she said to me, “I thought they were the crew.”

  “No,” Eletra said. She seemed confused, too. “Our ship was a Barish-Estranza transport.”

  Amena turned to Ras and Eletra. “So where are the crew of this ship?”

  Ras shook his head in annoyance. “Look, I can see you’re young. I’m guessing this SecUnit was ordered to protect you but—”

  Amena made a derisive huff. “It doesn’t even like me.”

  Admittedly I am tired of the whole concept of humans at the moment, but that was unfair because she didn’t like me first.

  “If you tell it to take orders from us,” Ras tried again, “this will be a lot easier.”

  Eletra nodded. “It’s for the best. It doesn’t seem like you know how to control it—”

  Amena waved her hands in exasperation. “Look, that’s not—”

  I see I have some operational parameters to establish.

  I crossed the room, grabbed Ras by the front of his uniform jacket and slammed him down on the med platform. I said, “Answer my question.”

  Behind me, Eletra had flinched and backed away. Amena said, “SecUnit! My mother will be angry if you hurt him!”

  Oh, we were going to try that tactic, were we. I said, “You obviously don’t know how your mother actually feels about Corporates.”

  Eletra said frantically, “We don’t know where the crew is! Ras, just tell it we don’t know.”

  Ras rasped out, “We don’t know!”

  I said, “Is that the truth or is that the story you’re going with?”

  “It’s the truth,” Ras managed. “We don’t know what happened to them.”

  “We really don’t,” Eletra added, urgent enough to be convincing. “We haven’t seen anyone else since we were brought aboard. Just … those people.”

  I let Ras up and he scrambled away from me, over to Eletra on the far side of the room. His expression was frightened, incredulous.

  “Stop being so mean,” Amena hissed at me.

  I lowered my voice and I sounded absolutely normal and not like I was upset at all. “I am trying to keep you alive.”

  “I appreciate that, but—” She squinted up at me. “You look really bad. Are you sure you’re all right? That drone hit you really hard.”

  Yeah, well, I can’t do anything about that right now. I said, “You need to take care of your leg. But do not activate the MedSystem. It was controlled by…” For nearly ten seconds, I’d forgotten. “By the bot pilot. It was compromised before it was … destroyed or it would have killed the intruders itself. Something is still running the ship, taking us through the wormhole, and whatever it is may have control of the MedSystem.”

  Amena threw a worried look at the silent medical platform. So did Ras and Eletra. Amena said, “I didn’t know bot pilots could kill people.”

  “They’re almost as dangerous as humans.” I know, of every argument I could try to start right now, that one is in the top five most stupidly pointless.

  Amena gave me a baffled glare, but said, “Right, so no MedSystem. There’s got to be some manual med supplies here somewhere.”

  “Use one of the emergency kits in that locker. I need to finish clearing this section.” I hit our private relay and added, I’ll leave you some drones. I cut a squad of eight out of my cloud and told them to stay with her.

  Her eyes widened and she hesitated. For three seconds I didn’t understand why. She hadn’t been afraid when I’d grabbed Ras; her expression had been more annoyed than anything else. Then I realized she didn’t want to separate. She took a sharp breath and said, “All right.” On the feed relay, she added, Good, drones. That’s what I’ve always wanted.

  I could have said “Don’t say I never gave you anything” and we could have had reassuring sarcastic banter, like one of my shows. But I was walking around in ART’s corpse and nothing felt reassuring. I just said, I’ll stay in contact.

  I walked out, headed for the quarters section. Scout Two in the control area foyer was still watching a confused/agitated conversation among the Targets. Wait, something was different again about their helmets. I ran back the video and spotted it: the color had changed from a dull blue-gray to the same patterned stealth material as the targetDrones. The Targets noticed when it happened, pointing at each other and commenting on it, but they didn’t seem to find it surprising or unusual.

  Another security update by targetControlSystem. That’s all I fucking need. My drone targeting would be completely thrown off. Fortunately the update hadn’t been—or more probably couldn’t be—loaded to the rest of their body armor. But killer drone strikes might be completely off the table now.

  I wondered why the Targets had been pounding on the hatch. If Targets One and Three could come back from the dead, Scout One hadn’t recorded any sign of it.

  Huh. Depending on how targetControlSystem collected data from the targetDrones, how they recorded and transmitted video, the three remaining Targets might actually have very little idea of what had happened to Targets One, Two, and Three. They knew Amena and I had been brought aboard, they had to. But they seemed focused on the sealed control area. They hadn’t gone to the lounge where Target Two’s body still was. Maybe, despite the targetDrones and targetControlSystem’s updates, they didn’t have access to surveillance data? TargetControlSystem obviously knew physical impacts had killed the Targets or it wouldn’t have coded the updates—was it not sharing that information with the Targets?

  It was a strange idea, I know. And if correct, it was more proof for the theory that the Targets had little to no access to most of ART’s onboard systems, even though targetControlSystem was running helm and presumably weapons. Though ART didn’t have feed-accessible security cams like a norm
al transport.

  ART.

  I pulled together a simple code for penetration testing and started to run it in the background, on all the channels where I thought there might be targetDrone activity.

  I was going to break into targetControlSystem and do terrible things to it.

  And if the Targets were that confused about what had happened and where we were, I could use that. I started another process to pull recorded audio out of my archive. (If I had a plan at the moment, which I did not, it would involve stalling a lot. We were in the wormhole and whatever our destination was, it would take several day-cycles at least, probably more, possibly a lot more, to get anywhere. I had to seize control of the ship (ART) before then.)

  In the medical suite, my drones watched Eletra pull an emergency kit out of the locker. Amena sat down heavily on a bench as Eletra got the kit open.

  Ras glanced warily up at my drones, which were in a circulating formation in the upper part of the compartment. He said, “That … your SecUnit is really going to protect us?”

  “Sure,” Amena said, distracted as Eletra handed her a wound pack.

  Eletra opened a container of medication tabs with a groan of relief. “My back is killing me. They let us have ration bars from an emergency supply pack, but no meds, nothing else.”

  Ras persisted, “You said your family owns it?”

  “No, I didn’t say that.” Amena wrapped the wound pack around her injured leg. Then she almost fell over as it shot drugs for shock and pain right through her torn pants.

  I told her, Tell them I’m under contract to the Preservation Survey.

  “It’s under contract to the Preservation Survey.” Amena shoved herself upright again. That’s true, so why are you telling me to say it like it’s a lie?

  Because “under contract” means something completely different to them. In the Preservation Alliance, it meant I’d agreed to work for the survey for a specifically limited amount of time in return for compensation. In the Corporation Rim, it would have meant the survey had rented me from an owner, the same way you’d rent your habitat or your terrain vehicle, except humans usually had warm feelings toward their habitats and terrain vehicles.

  Ras seemed confused by Amena’s answer, but he just said, “We need something that will take out those drones.” He started to search through the emergency kit, and pulled out a container of fire suppressant. “This might work.”

  Eletra slid down to sit on the floor. She offered Amena the medication container. “I don’t think I’ve heard of the Preservation Survey. Is that a subsidiary of another corporation or…?”

  While Amena explained the concept of a non-corporate polity to Eletra (and how many polities did actually have surveys and stations and cities and so on and weren’t just people in loincloths screaming at each other), I reached the quarters and started a quick search. Some cabins were clearly unused, mostly the ones with multiple bunks that were meant for students. The beds were still folded up in the walls and there were no personal possessions in sight, just like the last time I had been here. Other cabins showed recent habitation: beds and furniture deployed, bedding in place but disarrayed, clothing and personal objects and hygiene items lying around. Like the crew had just been here, had just stepped away right before I looked in. It was creepy, with no movement except the air system making the fabric tassels of a wall decoration flutter.

  Still no sign of any bodies. I sent to Amena, Don’t tell the corporates that you’re Dr. Mensah’s daughter.

  I’m not stupid, she shot back. They were past the explanation of what Preservation was and were finally exchanging actual information, including their names and what the hell was going on. Amena said, “This ship attacked us right after we came out of the wormhole. How did you get aboard?”

  “It attacked us, too. We were on a supply transport, supporting the main expedition ship, an explorer, when this ship started to fire on us. We escaped in a shuttle, then we were pulled aboard. At least, that’s what I think happened.” Eletra shoved her hair back and looked exhausted. “They did something that knocked us unconscious in the shuttle. One moment we were there, the next we were lying on the deck in this ship, and those gray people were laughing at us. I don’t know what happened to the others.”

  I wondered if the shuttle was still aboard. If ART’s shuttles were still aboard. Without access to ART’s systems, I couldn’t tell without a physical search, like I didn’t have enough to do right now. Speaking of which, I tapped Scout One, which was still trapped in the bridge/control area, and told it to do a systematic scan of any active displays it could find.

  “We don’t know why they took us,” Ras said. “They locked us in a cabin and just left us there. We don’t know what they want, they wouldn’t tell us.”

  “The explorer was much faster,” Eletra said. “It might have gotten away.”

  “I think our baseship got away,” Amena said slowly. “SecUnit was trying to get us over to it and they grabbed us and pulled us into their lock.”

  There were too many places in ART that I hadn’t searched yet where the bodies of the crew might be stashed.

  Maybe I do watch too much media, because in the empty corridors, passing empty but recently used rooms, I had an image of finding Mensah’s family camp house like this. Empty, no humans, just their possessions left behind and no trace in the feed, no cameras, no way to find them.

  This was no time to be an idiot.

  “Is there any food or water in here?” Eletra said. She rested her head in her hands. “I’ve got a terrible headache.”

  Ras pushed to his feet, wincing. “There’s a restroom with a water tap.”

  In the next set of quarters I started to find the anomalies. One cabin I was pretty certain was the one used to lock up Ras and Eletra. A crumpled jacket that matched their uniforms lay on a bunk. The cabin didn’t have an attached restroom, but didn’t smell as bad as I would’ve expected. (Humans trapped for multiple cycles with no access to water or sanitary devices is usually harder on the furniture.) The Targets must have been letting them out periodically.

  My process to select some audio (a series of conversations between two of my favorite recurring characters on Sanctuary Moon) finished. I stripped out music and effects, lowered the volume, and cut the sections together into an hour and twenty-two minutes, then relayed it to Scout One inside the sealed control area. It started to play the audio. I’d constructed the query to search for conversations where the two characters were whispering, or speaking in low agitated voices. The effect would be even better with Scout One roaming the control area looking for display surface data.

  I continued to search the quarters. I thought the Targets must have been using these cabins, too (they didn’t exactly strike me as beings who would respect other beings’ personal space) but the odd smell was the first indication I was right. Human living spaces tend to smell like dirty socks, even when they’re clean. But this smell was oddly … agricultural, like the growth medium used in food-producing systems.

  According to Scout Two in the control area foyer, all the Targets now had their helmets pressed up against the hatch, trying to hear the conversation inside.

  Despite everything, it was a little funny.

  “So were you on a survey, too?” Amena asked. I could tell she was trying to sound casual, but it may have been less obvious to the other humans.

  “No. Well, in a way,” Ras said. He had filled some water containers from the restroom tap and brought them back for the group. “It was a recovery.”

  “An attempted recovery,” Eletra said. She took a long drink from a container and wiped her mouth. “Our division was assigned to work on lost settlements.” She hesitated. “I’m not … It’s proprietary information…”

  “I’m a junior survey intern and I’m not even from the Corporation Rim,” Amena pointed out. “I’m not going to tell anybody.”

  Ras didn’t seem as reluctant to explain as Eletra. “We were on an assignment
to recover a viable planet. In one of the systems that were mapped before the Corporation Rim formed. Do you know about those?”

  “Of course.” Amena’s brow was furrowed in confusion. I didn’t get it, either. My education modules have gaps you could fly a gunship through but I knew from the entertainment media that there had been exploration surveys Pre–Corporation Rim. (Corporations didn’t actually invent space and planets, despite the patents the company had tried to file.)

  Eletra shifted, winced, then took a breath. “The locations to a lot of systems were lost before wormhole stabilizing tech was developed, but researchers find them sometimes in reconstructed data troves. If a corporation can find the planet’s location, they can file for ownership, then they’re free to establish a colony.”

  “There was a lot of this type of speculation forty or fifty years ago,” Ras continued. “Of course, a lot of corporations overextended and went bankrupt over it, too, and the colonies were lost.”

  “Lost?” From Amena’s expression, she understood now, but she didn’t like it. “You mean abandoned colonies, settlements where the first arrivals were just left to fend for themselves.”

  I understood now, too. This was in Preservation’s historical dramas and documentaries. It had been settled by survivors of a colony which had been seeded and then began to fail as supplies were cut off. In Preservation’s case, an independent ship had arrived in time and managed to take the colonists to a more viable planet.

  (The story was popular in Preservation media. There’s always a dramatic rendition of Captain Consuela Makeba’s speech about not leaving a single living thing behind to die. Mensah has a clip from one of the most popular ones on a display surface on the wall of her station office.)

  (If there’d been a SecUnit in the colony, there probably would have been a compelling reason why it had to stay behind on the dying planet.)

  (I don’t actually believe that.)

  (Sometimes I believe that.)

  “Reclaiming the lost colonies is big business now,” Ras said. He finished his water and set the container aside. “The terraforming equipment is usually still in place, as well as habitats and other salvage.”