Network Effect

by Martha Wells

  Yes, I told her. She’s afraid of her salvage corporation. She needs to be more afraid of being recaptured by the Targets.

  Amena said, “I understand that but the Targets—those gray people—they could show up again. Especially because no one knows how they got on this transport in the first place, or what happened to the crew.” She lifted her hands helplessly. “Whatever happened to them could happen to us. And it’s more likely the longer we’re stuck here.”

  Eletra put her hand on her own shoulder, as if trying to reach for the place where her implant had been. “I thought the new people were the crew?”

  ART butted in with, Tell her they are.

  Amena nodded earnestly. “Sure, yes, they are, but we’re—they’re missing the crew members who were here when the Targets took over the ship.”

  Eletra’s frown deepened. “Why can’t we leave the system?”

  “The normal space engines aren’t working yet. But even if we could get to the wormhole, the transport won’t let us go. You heard it. It’s programmed not to leave without its crew, the rest of the crew. And it’s really mean, and determined.” On the feed, Amena said, Sorry, ART.

  Apology accepted, ART said. I felt its attention shift in the feed. (Imagine it staring meaningfully at me.) (It could stare all it wanted, I’m not apologizing.)

  Amena added, “And we already know about some things, like the alien remnants around the Pre–Corporation Rim colony.”

  Both ART and I shut up (I know, I was surprised, too) and waited to see if that would work.

  “Oh.” Eletra slumped a little. “I don’t know very much. Ras and I are—were—both environmental techs, and everything was need-to-know. Our briefing said the colony was originally seeded by an early polity, probably via cold sleep ship. It was discovered about forty years ago and re-seeded through the wormhole by a company called Adamantine Explorations, that kept the location private. Then they went down in a hostile buyout and the databases were destroyed—” Amena looked confused and Eletra helpfully explained. “Somebody was probably trying to force the incoming management to pay for the code keys to get the data. But you know, that’s not a very good idea. They might take it out on the seized assets. And it’s bad enough being bought out like that without the management coming in with a grudge against you.”

  Amena blinked a lot, apparently as an attempt to control her expression. (I’ve tried it, it doesn’t work very well.) On the feed, she said, When she says seized assets, she means the employees, right? The people?

  Correct, ART said.

  Eletra continued, “But anyway, the storage media was saved and Barish-Estranza bought it at some point later and they were able to re-create the data, and they launched this salvage project.” She hesitated. “There were rumors about alien remnants. Supposedly some of the recovered data referenced them. But that could have just been rumors.”

  Amena said, “So what was Barish-Estranza going to do about the alien remnants, if they were there? You have to have a special license to recover them, right, even in the Corporation Rim?”

  “That’s above my pay level.” Eletra touched the back of her neck uneasily. Physical reactions are supposed to be useful for determining whether humans are telling the truth or lying or are secretly planning to murder their whole survey team, etc., and sometimes they were. But also sometimes humans just secreted agitated brain chemicals for no apparent reason, or because something was physically wrong, like their digestive systems malfunctioning. But ART’s scan of Eletra showed she was experiencing signs of physical distress when she talked about the implants. “Was that what was in us?” she said. “Those implants? Did they have strange synthetics? Your coworker took one apart.”

  I pulled a preliminary report from Overse’s feed, mostly just the raw data she had collected for the scan. She hadn’t had time to write up any notes from it.

  “No, she said it was very simple tech.” Amena bit her lip, trying to look like she was thinking and not reading the feed. ART had completed the report and noted that the implants had no alien components but that they might be receivers for a more esoteric transmitter. It had added “examine all Target technology” to the group worklist and added the line (2) primitive human technology designed to work with alien power sources or strange synthetic materials to Perihelion and SecUnit’s Suppositions chart. “She thought it could have been connected to alien remnant tech.”

  Eletra slumped and looked sick.

  My query results for establishing a timeline of ART’s forced shutdowns returned and I matched them with the gaps I’d already identified.

  That was when I hit the first oh shit moment.

  ART, I said.

  ART took in my report.

  The moment of shock lasted less than .01 second but subjectively it seemed much longer. Then ART did what I should have done first and spoke to Amena on our private feed connection: Amena, leave that compartment.

  I added, Now, Amena, it’s potentially dangerous.

  Amena was agitated, but channeled it into squinting thoughtfully and pushing at her hair. She looked more like a human who had forgotten to do something rather than one who had just been told they were in danger. “Oh, my Uncle’s calling me on the feed.” She pushed to her feet, backing toward the hatch. “I’ll check back with you later.”

  Eletra just nodded wearily.

  Amena let the hatch close and then ran down the corridor to me. “What is it?” she whispered.

  I took her arm and guided her around the corner. I was having a release of adrenaline from my organic parts and I felt weird and cold. There was no way an implant could have been put into Amena, she’d never been out of my and ART’s sight, but I scanned her again anyway. “ART encountered the Barish-Estranza transports before its first forced shutdown,” I told her. “Whatever attacked it and kidnapped its crew, came from one of their ships.”

  Amena’s eyes widened. “Oh shit.”

  * * *

  We had another meeting, this one in the feed, again with Eletra’s connection cut. This time ART let me do the video conference image but I was too rattled to make it fancy.

  Arada and Overse were still in the engineering pod, Ratthi and Thiago were still in Medical. Amena and I ended up sitting in the hatchway of the galley, so I could be close if Eletra decided to do something other than lying in the bunkroom like a traumatized recovering human. Which she might still be, even though we had evidence indicating against it. Amena was nervously eating processed imitation vegetable fragments out of a container from the galley. (She had asked me to let her listen in on the conference but to mark her feed as on private. She told me, “If you need me to do something, I’ll do it, but a lot of things have happened and I just need a minute.”)

  (Thiago asked where she was and I said, “In the restroom,” and she glared at me.

  I am not your social secretary, Amena, you want a better lie, make up one yourself.)

  I had converted my timeline into a format humans and augmented humans could read, annotated it, and put it up in the feed. It showed that ART’s initial arrival in this system via the wormhole was its last substantiated memory. After that, everything was a reconstruction based on the status data. It looked like:

  1.  ART’s arrival in the system.

  2.  ART receives a distress signal with a Barish-Estranza Corporation signature. Sensors show one contact, a configurable explorer ship. There is no sign of the second B-E vessel, the supply transport, that Ras and Eletra said they were aboard when they were attacked. The distress call is marked as a request for medical assistance.

  3.  ART tractors the B-E explorer’s shuttle into its module dock.

  4.  Unsubstantiated but probably bad stuff happens.

  5.  B-E explorer then links up with ART’s module dock, presumably to take ART’s crew prisoner and leave the Targets onboard, if the Targets hadn’t already boarded via the shuttle. (I’d taken a look at the shuttle via ART’s cameras, and going down to
search it was next on my action list.)

  6.  ART leaves the system via the wormhole.

  7.  ART exits the wormhole at Preservation Station, after a trip barely lasting an impossible three hours, telling us the alien remnant tech was definitely in place on its engines at that point.

  8.  After sending and receiving communications from Preservation Station, ART goes into standby for five ship-cycles. ART then targets our facility when it arrives, firing multiple times, missing spectacularly due to supplying faulty targeting data to its own weapon systems.

  (I couldn’t tell exactly when targetControlSystem had been uploaded to ART’s systems, but it was before this point because the status updates told the story of a subtle but intense battle over the weapons. ART’s crew had been held hostage for its good behavior, but it hadn’t been willing to kill our survey team even after it knew it had me in its tractor. TargetControlSystem must have figured out who was jogging its arm every time it tried to fire, because that was when ART had been deleted, causing the equivalent of a giant seismic event in its status updates.)

  I could see the others on ART’s cameras, digesting the information with increasingly concerned expressions. Overse said, “So the memory Perihelion had of firing on a corporate transport never actually took place?”

  ART didn’t answer. I think it was upset. I was also upset, but somebody had to be the adult here. (I was used to ART being the adult.) I said, “From the navigation, sensor, and status data I reviewed, weapons were not fired until ART encountered our facility in Preservation space. And there is no archival video or interior sensor data of the docking with the B-E explorer, or of the arrival and docking of the shuttle Eletra and Ras said they were aboard.” I didn’t like to say it aloud, but I had to. “ART was compromised not long after the first contact with the explorer and its shuttle. Something first removed and then significantly altered sections of its personal memory.”

  The humans were quiet, taking that in. Then Ratthi said, “Poor ART. Excuse me, poor Perihelion.”

  Arada grimaced in agreement. “It’s disturbing. The B-E explorer must have arrived in the system first and was attacked. Taken over? By our friends the Targets. But if the supply transport actually exists, where is it now?”

  Overse frowned. “It might have been destroyed. We have to assume Perihelion’s crew are being held prisoner on the explorer.”

  “Is the explorer armed?” Ratthi asked worriedly. “I hate being shot at.”

  Again, ART didn’t answer. I said, “Probably.” For a reclamation project in a technically uninhabited system, it would be easier for Barish-Estranza to afford a license and bond for an armed ship.

  Thiago paced in front of the med platform, his arms folded. “Perihelion and I have translated the speech that SecUnit recorded and it was … confusing at best. The Targets—and we are going to have to come up with something else to call them—spoke of a need to complete their mission, but never said what the mission was.”

  Ratthi added, “And they all have implants like Eletra’s.”

  The other humans looked like they didn’t know what to think about that. I didn’t know what to think about it, either.

  Arada said, “But could you tell if there was alien remnant exposure?”

  “The scan isn’t showing anything that matches the list of known strange synthetics or organic alien remnants.” Ratthi glanced at Thiago for confirmation. “But that doesn’t eliminate the possibility.”

  Thiago said, “Statistics suggest there are many undiscovered alien remnant sites, and many others that no one has been able to get close enough to to analyze their component materials. And the scan is turning up traces of unidentifiable elements in their bodies. We can’t tell if they’re naturally occurring elements or strange synthetics until we have planetary survey data to compare them to.”

  Ratthi gestured and sent some scan results into the feed for the others to look at. “And those suits they’re wearing do have a factory code stamped on them. I can’t read it and Perihelion’s database can’t identify it, though that might be because of the reinitialization or the memory archive issues. But I suspect they came in the supplies for one of the two colonies, either the original one or the corporate colony seeded by Adamantine.”

  Thiago said, “What we do know for certain is that the Targets were altered to look as they do. We don’t know if they did it to themselves or if it was an accidental exposure to a dangerous alien remnant. If they weren’t all dead, we could ask them.”

  Yeah, that was aimed at me.

  “If they weren’t all dead, they’d be trying to kill us, or stick implants in us,” Amena grumbled, still off-feed and crunching vegetable matter.

  Overse spread her hands. “Where does this leave Eletra? Were SecUnit and Amena meant to rescue her and her friend? Were they meant to be … spies, possibly?”

  “I think that’s too far-fetched.” Arada’s forehead scrunched in thought. “The Targets couldn’t have any idea SecUnit would be capable of seizing control of the ship when they brought it aboard. They thought they were looking for a weapon, not a person, so why set an elaborate trap with spies?”

  Overse slumped in her chair, frustrated. “Right, that’s true.” She looked tired. I suspected it was a bad idea to have a meeting when all the humans were running out of brain capacity.

  Ratthi added, “I think Eletra is telling the truth, that her memories were altered, just like Perihelion’s were.”

  “You just want to believe the best about everyone,” Overse said, still a little skeptical.

  Ratthi snorted. “No, that’s Thiago. I’m optimistic but a realist.”

  Thiago looked mildly insulted.

  “No, that’s me,” Arada corrected, and smiled at Overse. “I’m an optimist.”

  “We know, honey.” Overse squeezed her shoulder.

  Thiago said, “Amena, are you back on the feed? What is your opinion of Eletra? Do you think she told you the truth, that she didn’t remember what happened?”

  Amena seemed surprised to be asked for an opinion, but she swallowed what she was eating and said on the general feed, At first I thought so. They were both so worried about proprietary information and getting in trouble, that seemed real to me. Now … I don’t think she’s afraid enough. She was frustrated, trying to think how to explain. I think she’s either lying, or something has messed with her mind so much that she doesn’t know what happened, and now she’s afraid to admit it.

  Arada looked up at the ceiling. “Perihelion, can you tell us anything else? What do you think happened?”

  ART hadn’t said anything, and that was beginning to worry me. ART likes to give its opinion and I’m not even sure “likes” is the right word there, but basically, ART gives its opinion whether you like it or not. It was beginning to feel strange that it hadn’t weighed in yet to tell the humans they were missing something obvious or weren’t approaching the problem the right way or whatever.

  When it still didn’t respond, I said, “ART is trying to reassemble its log data right now. It’ll be out of contact for a short time.”

  Amena squinted suspiciously at me. “Is that true?” she whispered.

  I made a gesture I was hoping she would interpret as “Please don’t tell them I’m lying.”

  Arada said, “Thank you, SecUnit.” She scratched her fingers through her short hair, like she was trying to get her thoughts together. This was definitely a problem; the humans needed to recharge or sleep or whatever or their decision-making abilities would be even worse than usual. She continued, “So, right, none of this fundamentally changes our objectives. We still need to find Perihelion’s crew, but at least now we know our first step is to track down the explorer.”

  I was hoping ART would comment, even if it was going to say something like “or else,” but there was nothing.

  Thiago had been looking thoughtful, which I tried not to see as a bad sign. He said, “Arada, I’d like to get Eletra back into Medical f
or a thorough neurological scan. Also, that will give me a chance to speak to her myself. I’ll review Amena’s full report and then see if I can get us any more information.”

  Arada told Thiago, “Good idea. Optimism aside, we need to know if she’s lying and plotting something or if she genuinely thinks she’s telling the truth. Let’s try to get as much information as we can before … before anything else happens.”

  I established a private connection to Arada’s feed and told her, You all need a rest period.

  Arada hesitated, then she winced and rubbed her temple. You’re probably right about that. I’ll talk to the others.

  I put the vid display back on standby. Amena scraped the last vegetable matter out of the container and said, “Is ART really working on something?”

  “Sure,” I said. She stared at me. “Maybe.” I secured a channel just for the three of us, me, ART, and Amena. I sent, ART, answer me. You’re scaring Amena. Ugh, I needed to be honest or this wouldn’t help. I added, You’re scaring me.

  It was a relief when ART said, I’m continuing the repair of my normal space drive and examining long-range system scan data to determine possible search patterns for the explorer.

  “Are you okay?” Amena asked.

  No, ART said.

  I hadn’t expected ART to admit it. Really hadn’t expected. Right, so, that isn’t good.

  Amena took a breath, visibly regrouping, and nodded. “Sure, I can see that. But we’re not any worse off now than we were before you two figured this out. In fact, we’re better off, because now we’re helping you find out exactly what happened. And it’s always better to have more information to act on.” Her glance at me was wry. “My second mother says that.”

  ART pinged me for a private connection and I let it establish one. It said, My crew. What if they never left?

  I knew what it meant. I said, ART, there was nothing indicating that humans were killed or injured onboard. I checked. It was the first thing I checked for in the quarters module. There was nothing. And you’ve scanned yourself. The Targets trashed some cabins and left debris and their own fluids, they wouldn’t have cleaned up after a … I hesitated but I had to be completely honest about what I thought or ART would know. They wouldn’t have cleaned up after a mass murder. I’ve seen mass murders, ART, they leave a lot of mess.