Network Effect

by Martha Wells

  Thiago rubbed his face, trying to wake himself up. “If they fought with their own explorer, they might be more willing to talk to us. Can you tell if there’s anyone aboard?”

  I assume so. ART was dry. They are attempting comm contact.

  “Don’t answer it,” I told ART. “That’s probably how you got into this situation in the first place.”

  Ratthi waved his drink bottle in what he thought was ART’s direction. “Yes, please be careful. There was a terrible virus on a company ship and we all nearly died and SecUnit’s brain was compromised.”

  SecUnit’s brain is always compromised, ART said. And I was not breached via the comm. My comm system is filtered to prevent viral attacks and I have engaged extra protections.

  “That’s probably what you said right before it happened,” I told it. But ART insulting my intelligence was a good sign. It sounded almost normal again.

  Amena sighed and wiped crumbs off her mouth. “Hey, you two, it’s too early for fighting.”

  Arada was doing her mouth-twisted expression again. She said, “Perihelion, if you think it’s safe, can you allow contact?”

  Overse hastily swallowed her food. “Babe, is that a good idea?”

  Arada made an open-handed shrug gesture. “I don’t know how else to figure out what’s going on here, babe. If we can get a visual and they’re all gray people wearing alien remnants on their heads, then at least we’ll know they probably won’t want to help us.” She added, “And if we’re a lot more lucky than we usually are, they’ll have some idea where the explorer with Perihelion’s people is.”

  That wasn’t unreasonable. My threat assessment module didn’t like it, but if we could get intel this way it might mean we could find ART’s humans sooner.

  Thiago pressed his steepled fingers to his mouth, then said, “I agree. We know the explorer is compromised. If it attacked them, or if there’s another ship we haven’t encountered yet, we need to know.”

  Ratthi shrugged agreement. Overse didn’t look happy, but she didn’t argue. Amena was still eating, eyes wide.

  ART said, Accepting contact.

  A new display appeared above the scan results on the control deck. The static swirled artistically into an image of a human or augmented human wearing the same red and brown uniform as Eletra and Ras. With impatience, the human said, “Unidentified transport, are you receiving this?”

  ART pulled feed information from the transmission and ran it across the display. Name: Supervisor Leonide, augmented, Barish-Estranza Exploration Services ID, gender: female, femme-neutral.

  I wasn’t surprised she was a supervisor. (I had worked with a lot of human corporate supervisors and after a while they were fairly easy to identify.) Her skin was one of the mid browns that was common to a large percentage of humans but it had an artificially smooth even tone that indicated cosmetic enhancement. (My skin was less even than hers and it gets completely regenerated on a regular basis due to me being shot in the face.) Her dark hair was wrapped around the top of her head and she had small metallics and gemstones set in the rim of one exposed ear. I thought there was a 49 percent chance that she was a much more important supervisor than the feed signature indicated.

  Arada sat up and squared her shoulders. The drone snatched the empty food packet from the console beside her and retreated out of camera range. She ran her fingers through her short hair and said, “Right. When you’re ready, Perihelion.”

  Of course. ART put up another display showing Arada. It had changed the color of her jacket from Preservation Survey gray to the blue of its crew uniform, edited out the water bottle on the console beside her, and artistically adjusted the lighting. Arada planted a serious expression on her face as ART said, I’ve sent my identifier and a Corporation Rim feed indicator stating that you are Dr. Arada of the Pansystem University of Mihira and New Tideland.

  Arada said, “Supervisor Leonide, we see your transport is in distress.”

  “We are, and would appreciate any assistance.” Leonide’s expression was opaque but vaguely critical. “But this system is under claim by Barish-Estranza, so I wonder why you’re here.”

  Amena made the huffy noise indicating disbelief and/or incredulity. For the love of light, Ratthi said on the feed, disgusted. Are they really worried about that now?

  ART was in Arada’s feed supplying an answer, and Arada repeated, “We have a contract for sustainability evaluation and mapping with the Pan-Rim Licensing Agency and this system was listed as a priority. I assure you, the University is not a terraforming entity, and we have no intention of violating your claim.” Arada’s serious expression was a little too fixed, but it got more natural when she added, “I see you’ve taken damage—were you attacked by raiders?” The next hesitation wasn’t calculated at all. “We’ve been in this system only a short time, and encountered some … strange activity.”

  On a side display in the galley, ART was breaking down Leonide’s opaque expression for us with a feed-superimposed analysis. She was experiencing everything from irritation to reluctant resignation. She said, “There are raiders here. As we’ve discovered.”

  Arada pressed her lips together and looked thoughtful. I had a bad feeling she was about to call Leonide a liar—which we all knew Leonide was lying but even I knew that wouldn’t make this interaction any easier. Then Arada said on the feed, I’m going to tell her we have Eletra.

  But you just told Leonide we’re Perihelion’s crew, Overse objected. Eletra knows we’re from Preservation.

  She knows Amena is from Preservation, I sent.

  Yes, ART told me to tell Eletra you all were part of its crew, Amena confirmed.

  I was doing a rapid search of my recording of all the conversations in Eletra’s hearing since the others had come aboard, particularly when Thiago had spoken to her. None of the rest of you told her you were from Preservation. And some of you are wearing ART’s crew clothing.

  Overse looked down at the T-shirt she was wearing. Oh, you’re right.

  ART had thrown in some static to give Arada time to think. Now she said to Leonide, “I don’t think they’re ordinary raiders. We have one of your crew on board, a young person named Eletra. She was captured in a shuttle by some very divergent raiders, who also attacked our ship. She was with another crew member called Ras, but he was injured when he was captured by the raiders and died before our medical facility could help him.”

  Leonide’s expression went through some rapid calculations. “How did they get aboard your ship, then?”

  (In the feed, Amena was worried. But Eletra’s really confused, she said. She’s not going to be able to tell them much about what happened. Will they believe her? They won’t accuse her of helping the Targets or something, will they? Or do something terrible to her?

  She needs more help than we can give her, Thiago told her, and she wants to go home to her family. This may be her only chance.

  Much as Amena might want to forcibly adopt Eletra and drag her off to Preservation, Thiago was right.)

  Arada was saying, “They were brought aboard by the raiders who tried to take us prisoner. I can let you speak to Eletra if you’d like. She’s physically well, but we know they used some sort of mind-altering tech—”

  You’re talking too much, ART told her on the feed, right as I was about to say it. Overse must have thought so, too, because she made a faint noise of agreement. Arada stopped and ART added a little artistic static to give her a chance to regroup and to show her that its analysis of Leonide’s expression revealed a spike of extreme interest at the words “mind-altering tech.” Arada cleared her throat and said, “So, maybe you could be more forthcoming. We’re ready to render assistance if you need it.”

  Leonide’s hesitation was more pronounced this time, and her expression said she was conflicted. She said finally, “I’m not allowed to speak further about this on a comm channel not confidential to Barish-Estranza. I’d appreciate the return of our crew member. One of our engine compone
nts was destroyed in the attack—if you could sell us replacement components, our pay rate would be fair and generous.”

  “We don’t—” Arada was going to say “need your payment” and the humans and I all yelled No! on the feed. But ART had her on a one-second delay and stopped her before it got any worse.

  It was a natural mistake on Arada’s part. In Preservation culture, asking payment for anything considered necessary for living (food, power sources, education, the feed, etc.) was considered outrageous, but asking payment for life-saving help was right up there with cannibalism.

  Arada coughed and continued, “Of course, we’ll prepare an invoice. But…” She leaned forward. “I think we both know how bad this situation is, and how much danger our crews are in right now. If we could be honest with each other and share information, I think we can better our chances of survival.”

  Yeah, she had gone there way too quickly. The other humans had stopped breathing. Amena looked at me with an oh shit expression. Yes, I know, but there’s nothing I can do about it. Arada’s risk assessment module was as bad as mine.

  Leonide’s expression was complex. She said, after 8.7 fraught seconds where she might have been consulting with someone on her own feed (hopefully not a gray Target person), “Your crew is still in danger?”

  Arada said, “Because I think we met your explorer. It was the ship that attacked us, and temporarily boarded us, and our wormhole capability is now damaged.”

  Ratthi made a mmph noise. Thiago was pressing his folded hands against his mouth again.

  Leonide’s lips set in a hard line. “I see. I still can’t speak on a nonconfidential channel.”

  Arada hesitated and Ratthi whispered to me, “What—can we make the channel confidential? What does that entail?”

  I told him, “Not without a Corporation Rim solicitor certified by Barish-Estranza.”

  Ratthi groaned under his breath.

  On the feed, ART was explaining the same thing to Arada. She said to Leonide, “Would you be willing to come aboard and speak about it in person?”

  (I had a camera view of the lower part of the control deck where the drone was now sterilizing the area where Targets One and Three had died. It started working faster.)

  Leonide snorted. “Your University’s confidentiality agreement would hardly cover me.”

  Arada gave her a good “it was worth a shot” smile, like she had any clue what Leonide meant. Then Leonide said, “But I’d allow you to come aboard my transport for a conference.”

  Thiago took a sharp breath. Ratthi’s expression went extremely skeptical. Amena made a derisive noise. Overse said, “Fuck no.”

  On our private connection, ART said, Should I cut the contact?

  No, I told it, she won’t do it. We already had a way to get intel off the transport. We could send drones along with the supplies—

  Then Arada said, “I can do that. If you’ll send me the list of supplies you need, I’ll get my team working on that, and we can arrange the transfer of supplies and your crew person and the meeting at the same time.”

  What? The other humans all looked at me, appalled. I was also appalled.

  Leonide kept her expression neutral. “Agreed, though I’d like to speak to my crew member first.”

  Arada said, “Agreed. Give me a moment to arrange that.”

  ART put the contact on hold and said, Clear. And then it did one of my what-the-hell-have-the-humans-done-now sighs.

  * * *

  Obviously, there was a big human argument.

  In order to head off the inevitable “I told you so,” I said to ART, I should have told you to cut the contact.

  ART said to me, Yes, you should have.

  To the others, it said, They’ve sent the list of components. Since we’re now committed to this … course of action, I’ve ordered a drone to pull the material out of storage. And I’m producing standard crew clothing for Arada.

  By that point the argument had ended and Arada was still going to the supply transport, though all the humans had elevated heart rates indicating varying degrees of anger and exasperation.

  Thiago’s expression was grim. “If we’re going to do this, we need to get Eletra ready to speak to Leonide. Maybe before that, she can tell us something about her. Amena, will you help?”

  Amena tried not to look startled. “Huh? Oh sure, Uncle.”

  They headed down the corridor. Arada turned to Overse and said, “I know you’re upset but this will save us a lot of time.”

  Overse said through gritted teeth, “Rescuing you—or trying to recover your body—will not save us time.”

  Ratthi pressed his hands over his eyes and dragged them down his face in a way that did not look comfortable. He said, “We need a plan. What are you going to say?”

  In the corridor, Amena was saying, “I didn’t think you’d want my help. I mean, you all think I’m impulsive.”

  “No one thinks that, my daughter.” Thiago signaled through the feed to Eletra, telling her they wanted to come in. “Your parents wouldn’t have let you come on this survey if they didn’t trust your judgment.”

  From Amena’s expression that was news to her, but the door to the bunkroom was already sliding open.

  Overse was still mad, though when Ratthi asked for her help, she followed him down to the storage module to make sure the drones could shift the supply container into the bulk airlock. I could have helped, but I think Ratthi wanted to give Overse a chance to vent and calm down, and I did not want to be there for that.

  Amena had just shown Eletra a feed image of Leonide and asked if she was really who she said she was.

  At first, Eletra looked relieved. “Yes, that’s Supervisor Leonide. She’s in charge of the supply transport.” Then her expression turned slowly confused. “The supply transport.” She pressed her hands to her head. “Why am I not on the supply transport?”

  “Can you speak to Supervisor Leonide on the comm?” Thiago asked her. “Just to tell her what happened to you?”

  Eletra nodded, but said, “It’s hard enough telling you, and you all were there.” Her forehead creased again. “Weren’t you?”

  “Just tell her what you can,” Thiago said gently, and ART used the display surface in the bunkroom to open the comm contact again.

  I was worried enough to monitor the conversation, and I could feel ART’s attention in the channel. But Eletra confirmed her capture by the Targets and said that she had been rescued by the ship’s crew and their SecUnit. She gestured toward Amena. “And a young person, an intern from another survey company.” She knew Ras had been killed but she wasn’t sure how. When Leonide pushed her for details, she said, “The gray raiders, they put some kind of augment or something in us. It did something to us.” She gestured at her head. “It’s messed up my whole perception of time. I can’t remember leaving the supply transport. Or the explorer—”

  Leonide told her that was enough, and sent the connection to her cargo factor to arrange the transfer.

  Arada’s face was set in a wince, possibly in anticipation of further objections to her plan that everyone clearly hated. We were still standing in the lounge (I was going to change the name on ART’s schematic to “Argument Lounge”) and she looked tired. “Are you mad at me, too, SecUnit?”

  I said, “Yes. I’m also going with you.”

  Really, I was the only one who needed to get over there, and it would be better than sending drones that I wouldn’t be able to retrieve. But I don’t think Supervisor Leonide, who wasn’t too happy letting Arada visit, would say yes to the question “Hey can our SecUnit come over instead? It just wants to stand in your transport for, say, three minutes? No, no reason, it just enjoys looking at other people’s ships.”

  On the feed, Overse said, Yes, please. Arada, SecUnit has to go with you. She sounded normal again. I had a camera view and audio on a tertiary input of her and Ratthi standing in the foyer to ART’s bulk lock, with her waving her arms and talking angrily whi
le he nodded sympathetically and three of ART’s repaired drones hovered around them. It ended with her apologizing to Ratthi for venting at him and being angry at herself for getting angry at Arada during a crisis. I could play it back to listen in on the whole conversation but I could also punch myself in the head with a sampling drill and I was not going to do that, either.

  (If I got angry at myself for being angry I would be angry constantly and I wouldn’t have time to think about anything else.)

  (Wait, I think I am angry constantly. That might explain a lot.)

  Arada’s expression was complicated, then it settled on relief. “Okay. I wasn’t going to ask, but that’s probably a very good idea.” She took a shaky breath. “Thank you.”

  You don’t have to thank me for doing my stupid job.

  But it is nice.

  In the bunkroom, Thiago was trying to reassure Eletra. He told her, “You sound much better. I think speaking to someone you know helped.”

  I sent to Amena, Ask her if there are SecUnits on either the explorer or the transport.

  Amena did. With what seemed a reasonable amount of confidence under the circumstances, Eletra said, “Yes, there were three on the explorer.”

  “But none on the supply transport?” Amena clarified.

  Eletra nodded. “Right. The explorer carries the contact party. Everyone on the transport is support staff.”

  I told Amena, Ask her if the SecUnits were made by Barish-Estranza, or if they were contracted rentals. I didn’t think they would be company units—the last thing you wanted when you were asserting rights over an unclaimed colony was the company getting its greedy datamining hands all over it.

  Amena repeated the question, adding to me, “Rentals” is a creepy way to talk about people.

  Yes, Amena, no shit, I know that. (And I knew this was all new and horrifying to Amena but it was just same old same old for me and Eletra and her permanently indentured family. Which was why I was saying this silently to myself instead of out loud to the whole ship.)

  Eletra answered, “No, there wasn’t any contracted equipment involved in this job. They didn’t want to chance another corporation finding out what we were doing.”