by Karl Beecher
And yet, Lowcuzt had written them off as almost sub-human, just because the idiots in authority had failed the SAPs just as they'd failed Lowcuzt. As painful as it was to admit, if Lowcuzt hadn't been so smart—and, yes, maybe a little bit lucky—he might have ended up living like a SAP too.
You know what? said Crzethnuk. I think I've almost got it. Let me just ponder it a moment.
He reached over to the desk and stretched out a hand towards the open drinks can with the name ‘Martyr' emblazoned along its side. Martyr was an infamous energy drink that came with a warning from the Department of Health recommending one can per day maximum.
Six empty, crumpled Martyr cans lay on the desk.
I know I told you to do something about the tiredness, said Lowcuzt, but I don't think seven Martyrs is the answer.
Nonsense, I've never felt so awake! replied Crzethnuk as he brought up the can with a trembling hand and took a swig. In fact, Martyr is the first human invention that's impressed me. Somehow, your species has managed to distil a panic attack into liquid form. Remarkable.
He emptied the rest into his mouth, crumpled the can and tossed it aside with the others.
Right, I think I know what the problem was. One more test and I'll have it, I'm sure of it.
I hope so, hissed Lowcuzt. Because we're fast running out of SAPs. Isn't there another way to test this infernal machine of yours?
There's no better test than a test in live conditions. We're making progress.
Progress? What do we have to show for it? It's all there in the vault: a dead body, a catatonic patient and now a walking random word generator.
Hey, come on now. You don't get a universe without a big bang. Some mess and mistakes are inevitable. Besides, this is mainly a hardware project, and I'm more of a software guy. But I'm telling you, the next test is going to—
"Sir!" cried Forn, running back into the room.
"What is it?" replied Crzethnuk.
Forn came to a breathless stop in front of Lowcuzt. "Sir," he panted. "You remember you told me to keep eavesdropping on PanJoin for any more messages concerning Colin Douglass?"
Actually, that had happened before Crzethnuk had invaded Lowcuzt's body. Lowcuzt hadn't yet mentioned anything to his possessor about Colin Douglass or Cruiser_89. Lowcuzt metaphorically gulped, hoping the Predecessor wouldn't get too angry about that.
"Erm…" Crzethnuk hesitated. "Go on."
Forn continued. "We just intercepted some more messages sent by crewmembers on Cruiser Eighty-Nine. The ship is now in orbit around Alcentor, and they've landed an armed shore party several kilometres away from here."
"I see," Crzethnuk replied slowly. "Just give me a moment to think about this, will you?"
He turned away.
Well? came the Predecessor's angry voice. Explain this. What is your little monkey talking about? Should I be worried?
I don't know. I've never met this Colin Douglass character. I just heard about him through PanJoin.
What did you hear, and how?
Lowcuzt toyed with the idea of letting Crzethnuk into his confidence.
Can you keep a secret? he asked.
I'm a Predecessor. We kept our entire existence secret. Your bit of gossip will pose no problem.
Okay, fine. My company runs PanJoin. Its central network computers are housed here in this building. That means, if we ever find it necessary to, erm… let's say, take a peek at what users are saying to each other privately—
To spy, yes, go on.
—then that's quite easy. We can monitor messages for keywords, like ‘Predecessor' for example. In fact, we constantly monitor messages for that very word. That's how we heard about Colin Douglass. We overheard that he was picked up by a cruiser and was making claims about having encountered a Predecessor artifact. Its description matched the beacon.
Crzethnuk sounded alarmed. It did? That must have been the other one on Solo IV. What else did he say about it?
Not much, explained Lowcuzt, other than he claimed the artifact had done strange things to his mind. Visions, channelling messages, things like that.
Hmm. I must know more.
Crzethnuk span back to face Forn. "You! Tell me more about this new message."
The cowering little man explained. "An armed shore party landed in the last hour. Colin Douglass is among them."
"Armed? That doesn't sound good. Where exactly?"
Forn pointed to a nearby computer screen. "There were some coordinates. I can show you."
He brought up a map of the local area: a bare, desert landscape bordering on the blue ocean. There was little to see apart from Lowcuzt's compound, which occupied a small, lush peninsula, and a handful of scattered, inland settlements. Two perpendicular bars appeared on the screen and lined up with a settlement about nine kilometres north of the compound.
Forn gasped. "Sir! That's the Shuffla farm."
Shuffla? Lowcuzt knew that name, all right.
"What is that?" asked Crzethnuk.
Forn looked at him. "Falco Shuffla," he urged, as though it ought to be obvious.
Crzethnuk turned again to Lowcuzt for enlightenment. Who is Falco Shuffla?
An ex-employee, explained Lowcuzt. He was my senior-most engineer years ago. I fired him, and he swore one day he'd get even with me. He bought that farmland soon after, but I'm still waiting on the revenge.
Maybe he's about to wreak it.
Crzethnuk turned back to Forn. "Show me these messages you intercepted."
His assistant brought up the text onscreen. The Predecessor began reading through it. A moment later, he gasped.
Klablath! he yelled, sounding genuinely fearful for the first time. Colin Douglass claims to be in contact with Klablath.
What are you talking about?
Klablath is a Predecessor. A high-minded one, the worst kind.
So what?
So what? He'll try to stop me, that's what. He must have found out what I'm doing. Great universe, he works fast! Not only has he managed somehow to gain control of a human, but he's landed with a party of armed soldiers right in the house of your enemy. Don't you see what this means? They've joined forces. They're going to strike this compound, and Falco Shuffla is going to help them do it.
This was quite a chain of reasoning. It was possible Crzethnuk had been overdoing it with the Martyr and was turning paranoid. Then again…
Attack us? You seriously think so?
Of course!
Paranoid or not, Crzethnuk was a super-intelligent alien.
Okay, fine. Then what are we going to do?
Let me think.
Crzethnuk ummed and aahed a moment.
Wait a minute, he said, sounding as though he'd hit upon something. If Colin Douglass is under the control of Klablath, that means he's already worked out how to possess a human without using a beacon. In which case, if I can bring him here and analyse him, then I can find out the secret for myself. In addition, that would rob our enemy of their leadership and foil their attack, since Colin Douglass is undoubtedly the party's leader.
He pointed at Forn. "You! Summon the SAPs."
"Which ones?" asked Forn.
"All of them."
"All? Oh, dear," he whimpered. "You're not going to do tests on them all at once are you?"
"No," replied Crzethnuk. "I'm sending them out on a mission. They're going to strike first before the enemy can get at us. Bring the SAPs to me, Forn, and make sure they're well-armed."
Lowcuzt's sense of foreboding grew stronger. Now they were sending out private armies on raids? Things were getting way out of hand. He was beginning to regret conditioning loyalty into the SAPs. Then again, he'd never ordered them to do anything as extreme as this before. Perhaps he could hope that they would refuse to obey.
Was there a limit to their loyalty?
30
Tyresa had a habit of going with her instincts. She wished she didn't. She was supposed to be a scientist, all methodical and analytical.
There was a method in there somewhere. She always did her homework before reaching for her trowel, but once she was on the trail, instinct took over. How could she resist her instincts when their track record was so damned good? A dig site always had a kind of ineffable feel to it. She could somehow sense whether or not it had anything to yield. It spoke to her.
Right now, this particular site was saying, "Why are you wasting your time with me? I got nothing."
It had been saying that since the moment she made planetfall. In other circumstances, she would have already given up long ago, but these were no ordinary circumstances. So much was riding on success.
The table-shaped digger continued gently scooping through the soil with a combination of speed and care only a machine could possess. It had sunk yet another miniature trench about half a metre into the ground but was bringing up nothing but layer after layer of sandy soil.
A trail of trenches snaked through the forest of solar collectors back towards Falco's house in the distance. It was a record of failed attempts, places where the slightest flickers in her readings had invited Tyresa to dig but had proved to be nothing but innocuous ore traces or interference from the farm machinery. One trench had even turned up some kind of miniature burial ground for macabre, headless voodoo dolls apparently belonging to the nephew, Jonn Shuffla. Weird kid. Two of the security officers were now busy scooping soil back into the trenches. A third, Lieutenant Zillog, was watching over them having asserted that, as a lieutenant, he was excused manual labour. The fourth security officer had accompanied Colin and Ade into the house where they'd taken shelter from the sun.
Robbi was beside Tyresa, watching the robot digger too. "Perhaps it would be wise to take a break?" she suggested.
Tyresa saw no reason to argue. She nodded and switched off the digger, then perched herself at the foot of a nearby collector as though she were sinking down against a tree.
Robbi looked at her for a moment, then glanced at the security officers. The others were some distance away, certainly not close enough to overhear anything. Finally, Robbi sat herself carefully beside Tyresa.
"What are the prospects of this excavation?" the Commander enquired.
"Honest opinion?" replied Tyresa. "We've got more chance of finding a blind man at a peep show."
Robbi looked puzzled.
"There's nothing here," Tyresa clarified. "I'm really sorry, Commander."
"Sorry for what?"
"You vouched for me. You stuck your neck out and told your superiors I was worth the risk. I suppose they might not look too kindly on you for that. They might conclude your judgement was warped on account of our…you know."
"Don't concern yourself with that," Robbi assured her. "I believe I can justify my decision. It was objectively a correct one. I'm aware of your credentials, which are very impressive. Don't forget, I had to do background research on you in preparation for my mission into the Alliance. You appear to know your business very well, despite your profile also depicting you as being unmethodical, impulsive and ill-disciplined."
That sounded like the charge sheet at a Transhacker tribunal, the kind of qualities that around here could get you banished. Tyresa let slip a chuckle. If she didn't know better, she'd have thought this was Robbi's attempt at teasing.
However, it raised something worth thinking about. If she and the Commander were so different, as this ‘list of offences' made clear, why did Tyresa—when she admitted it to herself—enjoy Robbi's company?
Robbi Leet. Here was an example of where Tyresa's instincts didn't work so well. Where Robbi was concerned, they'd been both spot on and a miserable failure. At their first meeting, her instincts had identified Lieutenant Leet as someone she could seduce into inadvertently giving up secrets. The following year, her instincts had let Tyresa become the mark in the exact same play.
She hadn't properly thought about the whole sorry affair since, beyond angrily dismissing it as a lapse of judgement. But now, after being forced back into Robbi's company, all the old, unanswered questions were being dredged up again. Like, why had her instincts been so wrong? Why had she been so angry after Robbi fled? She'd been angry at people before, people who'd got the better of her, but never with the same lingering intensity.
And there was a new question. After feeling such burning anger, how come Tyresa had softened towards the Commander so quickly? Sure, she realised that Robbi had just been doing her duty—forced into it, really—but was ‘professional understanding' really the only reason? What did Robbi Leet think about it, what did she really feel on the inside? You'd have more chance of learning what was inside a black hole than a Transhacker's mind, but it was worth trying.
"I'm surprised you trusted me," said Tyresa. "I wouldn't have."
"I almost didn't," replied Robbi. "Especially not after the way you seemed prepared to treat Colin Douglass so thoughtlessly."
"But you trusted me all the same?"
"Yes. I found your behaviour out of character. I believed you could be brought to recognise that."
That sounded like a kindness, albeit one delivered by a computer. "Out of character?"
"I believe I have built up an accurate assessment of you from both my research and our personal interactions. In my estimation, you are someone who, despite taking wayward steps and employing questionable tactics, endeavours to do right. You have a strong sense of justice."
Wow. Nobody had ever said anything like that to Tyresa before. It seemed, in her own way, Robbi was trying to tell Tyresa that she saw the good in her.
Maybe that was behind it all. They may go about things in different ways, but at the core, they shared the same fundamental values.
"Maybe I'm just a good actor," retorted Tyresa. "Maybe I put on my character as a pretence. Something like what you did when you came to Ceti last year. You remember? You pretended to have feelings for me. That was all acting…wasn't it?"
Robbi pondered for a moment before answering. "I suppose we're all actors to some degree," she said finally. "We all put on a facade when we need to. One face in public, another in private."
"And…with me? Are you putting on a facade?"
Robbi hadn't looked at Tyresa throughout the whole conversation, peering instead at the horizon. Now, she turned and faced her. There was something in her eyes, a longing, but for what? To explain? To make a connection?
She opened her mouth to speak.
"Are you two going to copulate?" a voice from behind interrupted.
Both women leaped to their feet like a bolt leaving a rifle's muzzle. With her muscles stiff and heart pounding, Tyresa spun around to see Jonn Shuffla, hiding behind the pole, staring at them like a haunted oil painting.
"You are, aren't you?" he said again. "Don't mind me. Proceed. I've never seen humans copulate before."
"Get out of here, you little creep!" cried Tyresa.
She scooped up a handful of tiny pebbles and made to throw them at him. Spooked, he scampered back towards the house.
"Kids, huh?" chuckled Tyresa, tossing the stones aside.
Of course, they weren't going to kiss. This was no cheap romance novel. Even if they'd wanted to, it was totally out of the question with other Transhumanists around.
Which was just as well, because she had no idea what she might have tried if they'd been alone together.
Falco Shuffla stalked the corridors of his house in search of his nephew. Where was that little snorgborger? If only the banishing kid had tekapt, he'd be locatable in an instant. A sandstorm was closing in, according to the WeatherWeb. It was important that the child got indoors quickly. Sandstorms moved fast in this desert.
"Jonn!" Falco called out. "Jonn, where are you?"
He passed the door to his storage room, where he'd begrudgingly allowed the interlopers to congregate. Maybe they had seen the boy.
As he neared the doorway, a commotion was heard from within. One of their party came rushing out of the room a moment later. It was an anxious-loo
king security officer.
"Citizen," he said. "Your assistance please."
Falco followed him into the room, a small space where sealed boxes lined the walls. Beside a couple of old battered chairs, one of the outsiders was lying on the floor. It was the human one of the two, Colin Douglass. The man's face looked blank, but his body shook violently, and his jaw hung open. His head rested in the lap of the android, Ade.
Falco squatted beside them. "You, android. What's wrong with him?"
"I'm not certain, sir," the android replied. "But I have seen this behaviour once before."
Colin Douglass babbled desperate, incomprehensible syllables. If this was some sort of sick joke or a trick, then the security officer, watching the proceedings looking as mystified as Falco, wasn't in on it. Military meatheads surely weren't good actors.
"Some type of seizure?" asked Falco.
"Not exactly, sir," replied Ade. "The problem remains undiagnosed, but Mister Douglass is prone to blackouts."
Falco turned to the officer. "Inform your commander, quickly!"
"Already attempting, citizen," replied the officer, "but I cannot reach her."
"If she's too close to a collector, you may have problems reaching her. The Presley field can scramble normal comms. Go fetch her, I'll keep watch."
The officer ran from the room.
"What normally happens during these episodes?" asked Falco.
"On the last occasion," replied Ade. "Mister Douglass divulged information far beyond his possible knowledge, apparently channelled to him from an unknown, possibly alien, source."
Falco gave the android a dubious glance. He'd expected an answer more along the lines of placing a pencil between the man's teeth.
Abruptly, Colin Douglass ceased babbling and sucked in a deep breath. He sat bolt upright.
"Bugger me!" he blurted out.
"Mister Douglass?" said Ade.
Colin turned to face him. "Ade, you won't believe what just happened. I spoke to him again. Alec Gui—I mean, Klablath."
"Klablath, sir?"
